1.

The bathrooms were modernly styled. Large, tiled floors and walls which had a shiny reflection. It was the first public toilet Silvah had ever seen that may be cleaner than her own toilet at home. Which she wasn’t sure was good or bad. The handbasin was a big block of granite that supported a total of three sinks. A chaotic black and white formed the paint of the stone.

Silvah turned on the faucet and splashed water over her face, the cold exorcising the tiredness creeping up on her. She rubbed her eyes and inspected herself in the mirror. She wasn’t wearing any makeup because she didn’t see the need. It left the darkened spots on her skin exposed. She sighed. She had slept away the days leading up to the auction. But it wasn’t enough. She was still exhausted. That fight with Aoki had taken a lot out of her already drained stamina tank.

She leaned on the sink. Breathed out. Through falling drops of water, she saw Asha standing beside her.

Silvah spoke without lifting her head.

‘Are you haunting me, little sister?’

Silence.

‘Why do you never say anything? How can I find you if you do not help me?’

…

Silvah threw her head back.

‘Maybe I am going crazy.’

Movement to her right saw Silvah cast her eyes at the corner of the vision. There were three doors in the toilet, discounting the exit. Two were empty. From the other, Silvah saw a tiny figure peeking from between the creak the door made with the wall. When they spotted Silvah looking, they quickly closed the door.

Silvah scratched the back of her head.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I did not mean to scare you. Just having some long days.’

No sign of life on the other side.

Silvah sighed and turned to go but the door opened before Silvah took her first step.

‘Where did the other lady go?’

The gap the door made had widened. So Silvah could see what she was dealing with. A girl who couldn’t be older than ten. She was wearing a dark blue dress which fanned out at the bottom like an umbrella. The heels on her shoes gave the tiniest amount of elevation possible, giving the child enough length reach above Silvah’s hips.

‘What other lady?’ Silvah said.

The girl pouted.

‘The one you were speaking to.’

‘I wasn’t speaking to anyone,’ Silvah said.

‘Fine! Don’t tell me. I’m not dumb.’

The girl’s little hands squeezed the door frame. She averted her face.

Silvah swallowed a chuckle. She’d been an older sister for long enough to be familiar with these antics. However. Other lady, she’d said. Silvah’s gaze narrowed.

‘Did you see someone else in the room?’ Silvah asked.

‘No.’

The girl couldn’t possibly rotate her chin any more than she already had. Her neck was twisted enough to face the wall behind her.

Silvah patted down her suit. She put it here somewhere…her hand touched the wrapped piece of chocolate she had picked up from the desk at the entrance of the auction house.

She held it in front of her as she stepped up to the girl and lowered herself to eye-level.

‘Sorry,’ Silvah said. ‘Forgive me?’

There was no faking anger at the sight of the white chocolate, and the girl all but snatched it from Silvah’s grasp. Her cheeks inflated as she chewed. Cute, Silvah thought.

‘What’s your name?’ Silvah said.

‘Rose.’

‘Rose. What a beautiful name. I’m Silvah.’

Silvah found another piece of candy in her pockets through sheer luck. Rose reached for it, but Silvah pulled it back.

‘First my question. Did you see someone else in the room just now?’

‘Yes.’

She reached for the candy again and Silvah raised it above her head. Rose tried to jump. Which did not work in the slightest.

Silvah’s heart was racing, though.

‘What did she look like?’

‘Like you but younger. Now give me it!’

This time when Rose jumped, Silvah dropped the reward for honesty and the child dug in.

Silvah looked back to the sink, where there was no more sign of Asha. She was not in her head?…it can’t be…but if it was, she didn’t even know what to begin thinking at that.

‘’Nother one?’ Rose said. Still chewing.

‘All out, I’m afraid. Did you see the other lady leave?’

Rose shook her head.

‘Me neither. Strange,’ Silvah said. ‘I keep seeing her, but she always vanishes. She’s like a magician.’

Rose giggled.

‘Maybe she went into your necklace.’

‘My necklace?’

Silvah touched the piece of jewellery, the beads dancing in the lighting of the toilet.

‘Uh huh. It gives off a funny feeling. Brother has one, too. But his is an earring.’

‘Your bother…where is he?’ Silvah said, eyeing the girl.

The girl stared at her shoes.

‘I don’t know. I lost him.’ Rose sniffed. ‘Then bad people started chasing me, so I hid in the toilet.’

It was an old story. One that made sense given the class of people who attended the auction. Yet somehow the sight of this little girl, alone and afraid, enraged Silvah more than anything had done this last week.

She offered Rose her hand.

‘I have a friend waiting outside. He’s very big and strong and will protect you from the bad guys. What do you say? Let us find your brother. Then I can ask him about his earring, too.’

The girl bobbed her head, her long, wavy hair mimicking the ocean.

‘Brother is smart! He will know where the other lady went.’

Rose took her hand.

‘Ouch!’

A cold jolt struck them both. Rose looked a little bewildered, like it was the first time she experienced a shock. Silvah laughed.

‘Beauty is static and doesn’t age,’ Silvah quoted.

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Rose was still eyeing her fingers and looking up into Silvah’s eyes with an intensity Silvah hadn’t thought possible for a child. However, she took the girl’s hand again and led Rose out. Misha was waiting outside the entrance in the same spot Silvah had left him in.

He looked them up and down once without commenting.

Rose shook her head, seeming to recover from her confusion.

‘He really is big!’ Rose said.

‘Didn’t I tell you? Misha will protect us both. Right?’

Misha caught on quick. He tipped his black-tinted glasses.

‘At your service, milady.’

Rose giggled and turned her face to hide her reddening cheeks.

‘So.’ Silvah said. ‘Where did you last see your brother?’

The third floor was less crowded than the others, but it was still big. Big enough for a small casino, a cafeteria, and other accommodations. Finding a specific person could be the work of a quarter hour if not more. But then Silvah also expected the brother to be looking for Rose, making her search easier.

At Rose’s memory, they retraced her steps towards the cafeteria. Apparently, her brother had gone downstairs to receive a guest, leaving her alone with Rose’s maid, which is when a group of ‘bad guys’ made their move. Rose had run before they grabbed her. Which, now that Silvah thought of it, didn’t make a whole lot of sense. How did a little girl outrun multiple grown men? That, and the hallway was at peace. There were a few important looking men and women here and there, dressed in extravagant suits, dresses, and jewellery. But no one was in a hurry. Hadn’t anyone seen her running? What about the maid, did they silence her?

‘Say, Rose,’ Silvah said. ‘Do you have an idea how long you spent in the toilet?’

The little girl shook her head.

No time indication. That made this more difficult. Besides the public spaces of entertainment, there were also private rooms, where small groups could play games or order from the restaurant’s menu. Silvah couldn’t imagine Rose’s guardians were having fun while she was missing, though.

‘I think it’s better to alert the auction house security.’ Misha stole the words from Silvah’s mouth.

‘No!’ Rose screamed.

Heads turned their way and the girl shrunk in on herself.

‘Brother said not to trust the auction house staff.’

Rose made herself so tiny Silvah had to bend awkwardly to keep holding her hand.

‘If that’s the case then this is doomed,’ Misha said. ‘We can’t defend against their numbers.’

‘Misha!’ Silvah said. What a thing to tell a little girl! She motioned for the man to keep quiet. ‘It’s okay, Rose. Big sister has a special power to keep the bad guys away. We’ll be fine.’

That calmed the girl down.

‘Ah, I remember!’ Rose said. Silvah perked up. ‘Brother said he was going to the fourth floor after retrieving his guest. Maybe we can look there.’

The fourth floor? Every floor in the auction event hosted by the Bai Group roughly corresponded with how important guests were. If Rose’s brother could have a meeting on the floor above the one Uncle Kenichi reserved a box in, then he was an influential man indeed. Perhaps influential enough to know—or at least know someone else—with inside knowledge on a particular murder case.

Briefly she considered circling back to her viewing box and getting Simon. Doing so would alert Miles and Damien, though. If she dragged Simon away with a little girl in tow, they would no doubt offer to help or at least ask questions. But this next part could be personal, and she didn’t want the two of them knowing what she was really here for. The less who knew, the better.

Silvah locked gazes with Misha.

‘Let’s go to the fourth floor.’

2.

The fourth floor didn’t differ much from the third if you only considered the exterior of the hallways. The interior was night and day. Whereas guards littered the floors below, this fourth floor was nearly empty. Shouldn’t it have been the other way around, higher status guests requiring more protection?

Misha’s hand veered to his hip, also finding the situation suspicious.

In the emptiness, Silvah’s heels echoed on the marble floor. The sound waves ricocheted off the uninterrupted stretch of walls—the floor had no side rooms to amuse guests unlike the lower ones. That left only the three viewing boxes. Which one would Rose’s brother be in? A slight forward pull on her hand answered her question.

Rose hurried her steps.

‘Where are you going?’ Silvah said.

The little girl broke into a small run, leading Silvah and Misha through the halls until they eventually reached what must be the entrance of one of the cubicles. But cubicle was too little a word. The viewing boxes had appeared smaller from underneath. Up close Silvah could see that they were way wider than her own. At least twice the size.

There was a single guard in front of the entrance. A cord fastened to a straw hat kept it suspended behind his neck, and the hems of his blue robe were baggy. He looked like a monk. But crazier than his own appearance was the turtle sleeping on the floor next to him. At least Silvah thought it was sleeping because no limbs protruded from the shell. There was a crack in the marble floor next to it, though.

If the man had been told to keep strangers out, he showed no sign of doing so. Rose all but walked past him and knocked on the door.

‘Oi!’ Silvah said. ‘Wait a minute—’

Opening the door was a girl in a wholly black school uniform who couldn’t be older than nineteen.

The girl bowed her head.

‘Welcome back, Princess.’

Rose hummed and dragged Silvah inside. As Silvah’s foot crossed the threshold from door entrance to room, the weight of her breathing increased fourfold. She was inhaling and exhaling lead. Her lungs packed to the brim with the heavy substance and almost collapsed. When her foot touched down, she faltered. Stumbled. And caught herself before face planting.

‘Miss—’ Silvah heard Misha begin but he never finished.

She turned. Misha’s towering body fell limp, caught by the schoolgirl with a single arm. He was a feather in her hands.

Silvah went to a knee herself as the door closed. There was too little oxygen in her system.

‘Don’t try to breathe with your nose or mouth,’ Rose said. The girl was for once standing over her. Her cheeks had those soft lines reserved only for children, and she placed a smooth finger on Silvah’s forehead. ‘Feel that? Circulate it through your body.’

Silvah could holdout no longer. She was sure if she looked in a mirror, she would be glowing red even through her dark skin tone. The edges of her vision blackened. She wasn’t long for the waking world. So, she greedily sought out the sensation of the girl’s finger. Where the girl touched Silvah’s skin was a cold that stung like sharp mint. A familiar feeling.

‘How?’ Silvah groaned.

‘Pull,’ Rose said. ‘Imagine dragging it along your veins.’

Pulling on the cold was the same as kneading the part of your skull where you had a headache, hoping it would disappear. Unlike normal, the pain actually moved and dissipated.

Imagining the manoeuvring of the cold through her blood channels was easier said than done since Silvah couldn’t exactly see them. Often times she would pull without the cold moving or lose the grip, so it entered a pathway she had already traversed. But it helped. Her lungs expanded more with every breath, and the weight which had settled on her chest lessened.

‘You’re a natural.’

The one who’d spoken wasn’t Rose. And only now did Silvah notice the others in the room besides the schoolgirl. Seated around a poker table on leather sofas was a group of three men. One, shuffling a deck of cards, at the head of the table with the other two sitting opposite each other on the left and right.

The man at the head was the one who had spoken up. For a person whose environment radiated status, he was dressed simple. He wore a pair of sleek, brown boots that went up to this ankle, blue jeans and an oversized sweater. It was as if he’d put too much gel in his hair. For all of it was pulled back tight, except for a single strand which escaped to the side of his head.

He smiled, his hands never stopping and shuffling the deck faster than Silvah could follow.

‘Welcome.’ He inclined his chin to a seat at the beginning of the table which was so undisturbed Silvah almost thought it had been left free on purpose. ‘Please. Take a seat.’

Silvah struggled on her feet and looked back. The schoolgirl had placed Misha in an empty chair in the back corner of the large room.

Cards traded places, mixing.

‘Don’t worry. He’s only asleep. A result of the concentrated energies in the room.’

Silvah leaned on the wall; her headache was making a valiant effort at returning. Rose was no longer touching her, but she could still sense the biting cold, so fighting off the oncoming darkness was easier the second time. Something Miles had said a bit ago crawled onto her tongue.

‘Concentrated energies…foul and cele energy,’ she said.

‘Ah. You’ve heard about them,’ the same man said. ‘That makes this simpler.’

He motioned to the empty chair again. It wasn’t a true invitation, Silvah knew. The seat also no longer felt like merely a seat. It was almost similar to a gate—a doorway to a different world. Rose took her hand and gently pulled her forward, making sure to go slow enough so Silvah didn’t fall. They both took the seat with Rose sitting in Silvah’s lap.

A pause. Filled with the shuffling of a deck and loud chewing.

Silvah looked to her left. Not quite men, Silvah corrected herself. They were more like young adults. The boy had an x-shaped scar on his left cheek and was lounging on a two-person couch, his feet up on the table in their middle. He was also tearing into two bananas.

There were three peels on the table already.

She judged the blond man on her right younger than the former—her own age, surely—but he had a more dignified appearance. His hands were folded into each other and on his lap, and he was more handsome than any man she had seen. Ever. The lines of his face were perfect. Nay, sculpted. Had she been told Celestra had placed Her palm on his mother’s belly during birth, Silvah would’ve believed it. The lighting of the room lent warmth to his pale skin and infused the dragon head tattoo around his eye with a golden hue. It took Silvah’s tired mind a full second to connect the inkwork with who she was most likely looking at.

Rose’s seat in her lap was blocking her from reaching for her weapon. Yet even if she had been able to reach, she wouldn’t have. The man had spoken of concentrated energies. Ones which had knocked a big guy like Misha out and almost done her in, too. Silvah could tell the men at her side were the cause. Their lax demeanour played a role in it. However, more revealing was the haze that surrounded them. It was similar to the compressed air motes and heat distortion you would see in a desert. Fighting them here would lead to her death. This she understood above anything else.

The low and humming sound of a violin played in the room from a speaker.

‘Are you familiar with poker?’ the man at the head of the table said.

‘I am,’ she said. Her tone had grown cold.

She got the feeling she would be gambling for more than mere money tonight.