The official with the clipboard had let the mole stay, mostly because there was no form for sending it home.
That was how Soren ended up walking into the tournament hotel with a snoring earth-beast under one arm and a problem he could already feel forming behind him.
The semifinals ran two more days.
Vasquez Sr. had staged the late rounds at the Central arena across the city, far enough that the academy bussed the surviving classes out and put them up near the venue instead of running them back to the dorms every night.
That was the official reason.
The real reason was that a man who'd built a tournament to dissolve Class Z in public had no interest in giving them the comfort of their own beds while he did it.
The problem was the room.
Lodging got allocated by class standing, and Class Z stood where it always stood.
