"Proper student, that lass!" Leondros growled as he ran.

"You’ll not call her that," Brexton challenged as he kept pace, his robes making the run much more awkward. "She’s neither a student nor a child!"

"Aye, broke rank and threw herself across the sky, right professional!" The pair dashed by the recovering Bladewards, searching for Aja in the crowd. "She’s run off on her own with a Tongue Cutter out there, fixed to get herself killed."

"That’s only the second most concerning thing," Brexton said, drawing his graphite diamond and casting a spell.

"Behind what?"

"She reminded me of you."

With that, Brexton muttered a few arcane words and flew off his feet, soaring high above to gain a better view.

Leondros growled and shoved through the crowd.

Pushing through traders and shoppers, Aja struggled to keep eyes on the lavender coat. He’d gained ground, she needed to close distance fast or he’d slip away. As she watched him grow smaller and smaller, he skidded to a stop when the cobbles of the street began shifting, rearranging themselves beneath his feet and forming a barrier. She looked up to see Brexton hovering high above, arms extended and ending in two glowing runic circles, changing the landscape before the fleeing suspect. Aja smiled and pushed forward.

The Voyeur drew another card and flicked it directly into the shifting stones. Aja watched them suddenly transform into pillars of flame at the card’s touch, now arcing back up towards Brexton, who dashed aside as the fire licked at his robes. As the fire towers dissipated, the Voyeur darted into the smoke. Aja dove through the haze as well, but the figure had vanished.

"There!" Brexton called from above, pointing towards the rows of homes in the rolling acres of ramshackle wood, clay and slate stacked atop one another — a favela, Brexton had called it in their studies. Following Brexton’s finger, she barely spotted the Voyeur climbing up to a slate roof. Gripping her Tilik, she whipped an arm upwards. A lance of earth burst from the ground under her feet, throwing her up onto the rooftops. Barely landing on her feet, she locked onto the Voyeur and scrambled forward. Above, she saw Brexton struggling to maintain line of sight between the rows of homes, smokestacks and lines of drying clothes.

The Voyeur turned around, briefly running backwards as he flicked yet another card upwards. Brexton sliced a hand at it, an arc of light searing it in half, but not before its magic was triggered: a series of self-propelled interlocking chains coiled around him, throwing his trajectory off as he tipped downwards. With a tip of his hat, the Voyeur slipped down between two homes and out of sight. Aja dove for the gap and slid down, but her stomach dropped -- the ground was much further than she anticipated. Skidding down a rough wall, pain lanced up her leg as she landed hard on steep tile, then rolled down further before her hip, shoulder and cheek slammed onto a roof, this one an unforgiving hard clay. She tasted copper and couldn’t feel her leg for a moment, pushing herself up to a knee and catching her breath. She winced as she stood on her leg — not broken, but definitely strained to its limit. She looked across the platformed roofing — the Voyeur was gone.

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She balled her fist and struck the clay beneath her as Brexton landed. "Aja, are you alright?"

"I am fine," she gritted, pushing herself up. "What was that?"

Brexton tried to help her stand, but she moved his hand from her arm. "A Fortune Player, I suspect," he answered, "Handlers of chaos magic."

"Too right," Leondros echoed from behind. They both turned to see him a story above, leaning casually on a balcony. "One with a proper head start, and reason to flee the city. Top marks, the pair of you."

Brexton grimaced up at him. "And just where were you?!"

Leondros shrugged, "Took the stairs, mate," he said dryly, eyes on the distant rolls of the favela. "So Animist, how d’you find N’Jarosyl’s famous Hovel Valley?"

Indignation took root in Aja’s chest — she’d looked like a fool, and that’s exactly what this man intended to see her as. Her jaw locked as she grunted to her feet. She looked hard up at Leondros, but he still didn’t meet her eye line, instead he stayed locked on the horizon.

"Fret not, I know where he’ll be."

"Where?" Aja demanded.

Finally, the Arcane Marshal glanced down at them. "Best leave that to the professionals."

Aja surged forward, a lance of clay about to push her up from the rooftop to lunge at Leondros, only for the pain in her leg to shake her. The malformed clay pushed her off balance and she fell on her face. She growled through the pain, fists pushing her back up as Brexton went to help again. She glared back up to the balcony, only to see the Marshal walking away. Her face twisted in pain and humiliation as she hung her head.

"Pay him no thought," Brexton halfheartedly comforted, "Not but a bitter relic, nostalgic for days when he could simply beat what he wanted to hear out of people."

Aja blinked the dust and sweat from her eyes, refocusing her power and clearing her vision as she still looked down at the rooftop…and saw it. A small, perfectly carved wooden coin, painted stone gray and adorned with an orange paint on its face; a series of lines swirling to the center.

"This may be for the best," Brexton went on, trying to put her arm around his shoulders, "I’d rather lose a dubious lead than lose the city’s new Animist, wouldn’t you agree?"

She scoffed involuntarily, incensed at Brexton’s overbearing. She covered the scoff with a feigned stumble forward, catching herself with her left hand, right over where the coin had fallen. Tucking it away into her sleeve, she let Brexton help her to her feet.

"Steady now, I’d wager you’re past due for a rest, and perhaps an apothecary to see about that leg."

"It is nothing," she shook her head and put weight on the leg, ignoring the pain.

"That’ll be enough posturing, Animist," he insisted, "Back to the Queen’s Manor. We’ll see to the Marshal later."

She cursed internally at his condescension. Well meaning, of course, but she could not do her job if this mage kept treating her like precious cargo. It was demeaning, but worse so — it was irresponsible. She’d found a lead, a spectating eye to these events, who used a chaos magic to evade pursuit. To call this a ‘dubious lead’ as Brexton did bordered on recklessly dismissive. Pushing away from him, she willed the Nyama in her blood and tissue, to untangle the swelling growing in her right leg, reinforcing around her bruised bone and reducing the pain to near nothing, forcing the injury back to normal with great concentration. She stomped on the roof, refusing to let the the considerable pain it caused register on her face.

"I. Am not. Delicate," she punctuated, before hurling herself off the ground once more, this time with a proper movement of Nyama and a proper lance of clay propelling her off the ground.