The looted items were useful, cutting down on time spent stumbling In the dark and backtracking when her senses led them into a wall. It was the only positive she could find, from the ordeal.

Eventually, she navigated to a manhole she determined led to a somewhat secluded alley. It was as close to the slums as they were going to get. She spent an extra moment with her eyes closed and her ears perked, double-checking the lack of traffic.

“You do know I have better ears than ya.” Butch intergroup her focus, he pointed at the organ poking through his scraggly grey hair. “Cultivator and all that.”

Two stared flatly at him, She had considered that and determined she’d bet on herself. “You can go up.”

Butch shrugged, tossing a no doubt very unhappy Deadra in the sack slung over his shoulder. Then ascended the ladder with an amused grin. She waited a few seconds to confirm nothing had killed them before following.

The city’s ambient cacophony swept over her as she crested, sweeping over like the weight of a blanket she hadn’t noticed falling off. And the air, clean only in a relative sense, tasted divine.

She rose and quickly dragged the manhole back into place though not before tossing the lantern and, after a moment’s hesitance, the map into the fetid water. They carried the scent of their late owner, and though her senses were unique the abilities of cultivators were varied as they were ineffable.

There were stories of investigator able to extract visions of a murder from the spirit of their victim. While she’d never seen Butch or Daisy perform such feats, the latter had taught her to be ever cautious.

She was too close to squander everything for a dead man’s things.

The evening sun pressed down on the city. Absent the market’s cloth prospection or the slum’s gloomy confines, Two felt the swelter. People hurried to be free from the heat and few paid attention to Two or the very conspicuous Butch. Somehow the slung sack made him more presentable. People glanced at him, looked at the bag, noticed his purposeful walk, and presumed he was an exceptionally dishevelled labourer.

It was the day’s only pleasant surprise.

The main streets of The city proper were a press of two and three-story buildings interspersed with bridges and the many rivers they spanned. Everything was made from the same sedate grey stone from the mountain the city had been carved and built upon. Yet it was no less lively than the market.

Accents painted and carved denoted the architecture. So ubiquitous were the little details and splashes of colour that the street seemed to be just another part of some unseen artist’s design.

They trekked towards the slum and the clamour fell with every step. Layers of paint fading to sun bleached shades. As poorer resistants went longer before repainting. Then they reached the wall, composed of bricks each bigger than Two’s head it towered above the surrounding buildings, a monument to strength, and due to the collapsed section in front of her, neglect.

By unspoken agreement construction stopped a good few meters before the tired structure. The painted buildings shied away from the wall adorned by chips and scars. Yet even here there were spots of colour. Little hand prints and rambling paintings where children decided to play.

There was much less of that on the other side. Ram-shackle buildings of wood pressed against the stone wall, jostling and fighting for scraps of space in the good part of the slum. But there were no people, houses stood empty, and the street lay quiet while a dozen metres behind the quiet buzz of life echoed along the road.

Butch fell quiet, the weight of a place unlived infecting even him.

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Two took a deep breath, drinking in the taste of home.

There was much to be said of cities. Their people. Their building, the feel of a place. Spes Nova was a city of cities, the market was a city, the residential district another, and the slum… it used to be one.

She walked down the road and its endless procession of thin alleys. She ignored the rare eyes that peeked at them.

The slum had been dying long before Two was born. People trickled out, and gangs that had lasted generations were shattered by time and simple lack of opportunity. Two sighed as her feet led her to an old sleeping castle. If she played her cards right, she too would be gone soon.

“We’re here.”

“I can see that lass.”

There was a time when Two had wondered why there were castles and other works of wonder in the slum. They stood in such stark relief compared to the rest of it, tall monoliths of stone surrounded by constructs of crooked wood. No two were of the same make, but all shared the palpable echo of grander times that had struck her as so strange.

Now she saw it differently.

All places had their worship, their stories and their ghosts. Places of faith littered the city even here there were temples.

She walked through the bare earth and scraggly grass of the courtyard. Small bits of wood and assorted trash littered the ground, remnants from the shacks that had loitered in the space until Daisy had moved in.

It was a messy place, but even the token cleaning added weight to the sleeping structures’ majesty. She stepped through the doorless frame and into the building proper.

The evening’s waning light was utterly smothered. A cold settled on her shoulders. A presence lingered in the walls.

Two bowed her head, “Good evening elder,” her breath misted, the warm evening was mere steps behind her. The cold shifted, becoming a thing that crisped the air rather than nip and bite at her fingers and nose.

She bowed deeper then raised her head and tread lightly into the dark.

The gloom held a distinct taste, one that suffused her tongue with every breath. The castle was an old, tired thing, one that rarely stirred from its sleep. Yet even in slumber, its presence painted the air with gloom and chill as its longing filled the air.

Personal experience and a great many cautionary tales let her know better than to bother the old spirit. Especially when all it cost her was a few quiet steps.

Only an idiot would do otherwise.

A horned idiot promptly entered the ancient building, feet slapping the ground in steps that could not have been louder if he’d been born with hooves. A dreadful chill rose behind her and easily cut through Two’s heavy cloak. She hurried deeper into the building to be away from his usual nonsense, but a through held her in place.

“Butch,” her whispered hiss cut across the dark hall. “You have a passenger.” The gloom hid his expression, but his silhouette stood starkly against the doorways.

He scratched his head. “Oh.”

“And Daisy, the boss will be royally pissed. If we came all this way for our package to die of frostbite.”

“Oh,” he said in a markedly quieter tone. His following steps were more reasonable.

Two continued through the hall, letting her ears and familiarity guide her where her eyes failed. The gloom swallowed all light and could blind even the senses of cultivators. The former she had learned from a lamp that had failed to light her face let alone her path. The latter she had learned and continued lean from from Butch cursing as he bumped into a wall.

Their path took them, up a flight of stairs, much to Butch’s audible dismay and down many hallways to a plain wood door.

Two knocked gently but audibly.

After a time, it creaked open. A thin pale man dressed in a fine suit, sporting a pair of feathery antennae stood in the frame. He was visible from a soft warm light that leaked from the room and cut through the spirit’s gloom.

His eyes met hers, they were pale blue things and communicated disapproval more directly and clearly than even her sense of essence would allow. All while keeping a professional refrain.

The dislike was the norm, but what never ceased to impress Two was the skill with which he expressed. It was something she strove towards. Butch had provided ample opportunity for practice today.

“Two.” He did not spit the name, but conveyed the intent.“She is expecting you.” He then turned to Butch and levelled him an even more reproachful look. “Butch. How went the mission.”

The man smile smiled cockily, “Hey, Terry. How have you been, we got into a bit of trouble nabbing the little lady” he jostled the occupied bag. “but nothing we couldn’t handle.”

The intensity of the loathing Two tasted then was nothing but a testament Butch’s compelling character.

Terry didn’t so much as twitch. “Come, I will take you to the cell.” He sharply turned and walked down the corridor. His wings caught the air and opened with the sudden turn. They were dominated by grey but their edges were trimmed by shades of brown. They were moth wings Two ermined herself, she’d mistaken him for a butterfly once and it had added greatly to his general loathing of her.

Two cast aside the thought, and turned back to the door, as butch followed Terry into the dark.

Now to see Daisy.