I had finished the pipe and was sitting tapping softly on the table with it when I caught a flash of green to my left, down the street in the direction of the student housing.

She was tall and thin with straight dull blonde hair coming down from a dark green knit cap. Her light coat was bright green cotton and her brown leather boots clacked on the ground as she walked. She was almost staring at the ground but as she got to the front fence she looked up and her blue grey eyes, set in a soft round face with a wide flat jaw, locked with mine and she stuttered in her step. She got a look of surprise on her face that was more endearing that I was prepared for. I smiled at her without meaning to and she smiled back at me as if we already knew each other. I remember thinking that she seemed the type that Liana would be friends with, straightforward and kind, a welcome comfort in a world of complex cruelty.

She came around the low fence and floated up to me.

“Are you Alany?” she said.

“Yes Mam, and you are?”

I had stood up swiftly, removed my hat, bowed my head, and outstretched my hand palm up in one swift motion. She smiled at me and took my hand.

“I’m Ethelyn. Liana’s friend. The professor said-“

I cut her off.

“Let's find a more private seat inside.” The outside seating had been crammed together out of necessity.

“Oh, alright”

I opened the door and we went in. The ceiling was two stories tall and the inside was well lit from a double row of windows. There was a second story loft looking down at the seating area and I saw an empty table below it next to a support pillar, near a corner. Ethelyn had stopped in front of me with a confused expression that struck my heart again.

“Where?” she said.

I put a hand on her back and pointed.

“This back corner, if you don’t mind.” I said.

“Oh, no, that’s fine!” She said. I could hear the fear in her voice. I could see it in her posture. A part of me in another land woke up and growled. A scared woman was always a red flag over there. The smell of that fucking tea didn’t help the sensation.

She sat facing the back corner and I sat with my back to the wall.

“Sorry to cut you off earlier but this is sensitive. I’m sure you know by now I consider Liana to be missing.” I said, as soft as I could, given the noise.

She frowned. “Well, I know you can't find her, or whoever you work for can’t find her, but don’t you think she might have just left town or something?”

“Did she say anything to you about leaving town?”

“No, but-”

“How close were you two?”

“Fairly close. We’ve been friends since first year, we’re both in our third.”

“Would she tell you if she was going to skip town?”

“Yes, I mean I thought she would, but you never know.”

“Do you know where she would go if she did leave?”

A slim dark waiter with Gespian features stepped up to the table.

“Good afternoon, what can I get for you?”

“I’ll have a Hinse tea, and some soft biscuits.” She said

“I'll have a Coffee.” I said.

“What style?”

“What styles have you got?”

We have Sviathic, Gespian, Noveran, Rynochi,”

“I'll have Noveran.” I thought of some of the sailors back over who would have given me an earful for calling it Noveran and not Anasian. That reminded me.

“Do you have any Elka pods?”

“Yes sir.”

“I'll take a few of those.”

He nodded and left

“What are Elka pods?” Ethelyn said. She spoke to me again in a soft voice, which made it seem like a secret. I smiled.

“Tiny green seed pods. You crack them open and eat them with strong coffee. Sometimes they brew it with them too.” I glanced around. No one seemed to be paying us any attention.

“You were in the war?” She said.

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She looked down at the table and seemed to be trying to think of what else to say about that, so I started up again.

“If you had to guess, where would you say Liana is right now?” She stared at me for a bit.

“I would think she’s with some man.” She said. It was my turn to stare.

“She that kind of girl?”

“What kind of girl?”

“To run off with a guy like that.”

“Any girl is that kind of girl for the right guy, I suppose.” She looked around the room as if she was waiting for something to pass.

“Alright, did you know of any guys like that? Any that she had mentioned?”

“No, I guess I didn’t, but there might’ve been someone she didn’t tell me about.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, you for one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, whoever hired you is surely interested in her, or has some kind of an attachment, but I thought she didn’t have any family.”

“She doesn’t. This person’s more of an old paternal figure from back home.”

“Oh”. She watched me as if she was expecting me to move in a way that would tell her whether or not she should believe me. It was such an innocent stare that it took me a moment to find my words.

“So If she was to go with a man-“

“Do you think she went with one?” She said.

“You said you thought she did.”

“I thought she might, I mean, I don’t know why else she would just disappear and not tell anyone.” She bit her lip, crossed her arms and looked towards the kitchen. A waiter came out carrying a tray with a crock of soup, a chunk of bread and a steaming teapot on it. He stopped at a table and the kids sitting at it lit up like he was passing out puppies.

“Had anything changed with her recently?” I said.

“Like what?” She looked back at me.

“Any new interests, friends, lovers?”

“I told you she didn’t mention anybody.”

“That’s right, but did anything change? Anything you can think of?”

She bit her lip some more and stared at the table again.

“I don’t know.”

I could feel her about to say something, so I waited for it.

“What do you know about her?” she said finally.

“I didn’t know her. I was hired to find her. I told you that.”

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“Your employer must have told you something, to help you find her.” She raised her arched blonde eyebrows and her storm colored eyes seemed to float in the air.

“It’s best to go into this kind of thing without any bias or prepared ideas.” I said.

“He didn’t tell you anything about her?” Her lips came open in a pout and she wrinkled her soft brow. I was finding her very hard to lie to.

“He said she was kind, but not trusting. She was studying sciences. And he told me what school she was going to. That’s about it.”

She was quiet for a bit as we stared at each other. In a table near us an immigrant from Daeleah spoke in porcelain accents to northern girls with flowing curls and thighs like oak limbs covered in pastry dough. I looked at them a bit until she spoke.

“Professor Semblin didn’t think you were working for anyone.”

“No, he thought I was her boyfriend.” I said.

“Are you?” She said.

“No, but I think the professor wishes he was. Did he ask you to come here, or did you come here of your own wishes?”

She was as still as a statue and her face got red. The server came up with our drinks and we exchanged pleasantries, both of us trying to seem relaxed until he left. I noted the girl wasn’t a very good actor. I liked that.

“Why did you come to see me?” I took a sip from the small cup. The crema was thinner than the cups I had been served in the Anasian coffee huts that had crowded the docks like barnacles. She looked confused again.

“I came to help you find Liana. I’m worried about her. I haven't seen her in weeks and we haven’t gone this long without talking in two years.” She moved the earthen teacup by its handle and tapped her finger on the small plate of round biscuits.

“If you came to help me why aren’t you telling me everything you know?” I said.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“Because I’m no closer to finding her now than when we sat down, and you wouldn’t have come if you didn’t know something.” I said. I cracked one of the small pods and the floral scent cut upwards through all the other smells.

She tried her tea but it was too hot. She pressed her lips together and set the cup down.

“It’s just you’re not what I was expecting.”

I laughed. “I’m a professional snoop, did you expect plate armor and flowing hair?”

She smiled softly at me.

“I’m sorry, I just, it’s all so terrifying.” She was suddenly almost whispering and seemed about to cry.

“I meant to talk to you when the professor told me, but then I got here and you looked so different, and the professor had said you might be a thug, maybe Liana owed somebody money or something I don’t know.”

I thought about the Professor sending this frightened girl off to meet with someone he thought might be dangerous just to see if Liana had run off to a lover. I cracked another pod in my fingers.

“You are looking for her, really?” she said.

“That’s what I've been hired for.”

“By who? The professor said you wouldn’t tell him.”

“And I can't tell you either, it’s a rule of this business.”

“Why?”

“Well, If I have to go poking around places people don’t want me looking, trying to find this girl, Liana, I might make some enemies, and if they know who I’m working for they can just look him up and get rough with him.”

“I won't tell anyone.” She almost whispered.

“I trust you won't, but it’s a rule nonetheless, and it's no use telling you something you can't do anything with and will only make you a target.” I drank some more coffee and she began absently dipping one of her biscuits in her tea.

“Do you think she got messed up with anyone who might do something like that?” she said.

“I don’t know. What do you think?” I stared at her hard.

She looked down and took a breath.

“Alright, give me a moment.”

I had some more of the seeds and waited.

“Liana was talking to some people. She was being very secretive about it, but she told me a few things when she was drunk, or maybe she was scared.” She whispered as much as the volume of the room allowed.

“What kinds of people?” I said.

She looked around. The place was loud, but not loud enough for comfort. I lifted my chair and moved closer to the table quietly. I leaned over the plate of pods and cracked another one open without looking at her. I felt her lean forward.

“She said they had information. I think she said she had to buy her way in.”

I could taste the adrenaline in my mouth and Liana’s eyes floated in front of me.

“What kind of information?” I said.

“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything too specific.”

“What did she say?” I looked her right in the eye.

There was another pause and I was preparing some soothing words when she whispered.

“She was trying to find out about the Complex”

I stopped cracking open the pod. I stopped blinking, breathing or thinking for a good long moment. Then I thought a great deal all at once.

“What in the world of God would make her try and do that?” I said.

She shook her head and looked around.

“I don’t know. I thought she was joking at first, but then she asked about my cousin who got marked when we were kids, wanted me to get in contact with him, but I hadn't seen him in years.” She hugged herself with one arm and put the almost dissolved biscuit in her mouth.

A marked man would be killed on the spot if it was found out he was selling his gift. Liana would know that. I wondered what the hell she could have been doing, but then I thought this girl might be mistaken, or just plain lying.

“What did she want with them?” I said.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t even blink. It was just half a moment of silence but what it meant was unmistakable and it made me want to run out into the street and scream.

“I don’t know.” She said, but she seemed to have known I had guessed what Liana wanted with the Complex. Liana was a magi. An unregistered, undetected magi, and she wanted training from the only people who could give it to her without making her a ward of the state for two and a half decades. The kind of price she would have to pay wasn’t something I was prepared to think about, so I tried to find the silver lining.

She hadn't told me. I hadn't even suspected. She was careful. So then what had made her run?

I remembered I didn’t really believe this girl. The feeling didn’t last. The look in her eyes said it all, and no one would lie about someone they knew being a rouge magi unless they had some fetish for being interrogated by the eyes for days on end.

“Was she able to?” I said.

“She talked to some people, she told me about them, said she didn’t trust them, but they weren’t, I mean they were just people, you know?” We had leaned so close to each other that I could count her eyelashes.

I looked around and took another drink. No one was looking our way.

“Do you have any names?” I said.

“No, maybe, I don’t remember, I think one was named Jack.”

It was hard not to laugh, even at a time like this. Good god, this girl must have been raised in a gilded tower.

“Do you know where they lived, where she met them?” I said.

“No, they were-“ She leaned in so close I could have kissed her. I stopped myself from looking around. I wanted to tell her to sit up, but that might have drawn more attention so I just listened.

“They were Wrath.” She said.

I held back another laugh. Every punk kid with a desire to scare old ladies and impress young girls was Wrath. Every unsolved murder, every break down in civic order was Wrath. It was a symbol of the tarnish of the present age to those who longed for better times. There was also, unfortunately, some truth to it.

The lowest Wrath member, and I mean an actual cut member not some student pretender, was a common thug, but the highest ones were just as feared as the Syndicate. There was one glaring difference between Wrath and the Syndicate, though they did work together often, one thing that made Wrath membership alone grounds for imprisonment or execution while the Syndicate was often tolerated by the state; Wrath harbored runaway magi.

So, either Liana got caught up on a faerie hunt with some dropouts who claimed Wrath but just picked pockets, or she had met with the real deal and something had happened.

“Did you believe her?” I said.

“I believe, she believed them. She seemed scared about it.” She was dunking another biscuit and half of it fell off in the tea.

“When did she start talking to them?” I said.

“A few months ago.”

“How many months?”

“I guess, four.”

“Where did she go to meet them?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know? I need names or something to go on.” I had gotten too firm with her, but I knew somewhere in her head was what I needed to know and it was hell being so close to it just to watch it hop about.

She stared up at me like a puppy and I looked around. A few people cut their glances as I looked their way and I realized we had been leaning in across the table for a while. I wasn’t used to being bothered by the stares so I hadn’t noticed. She didn’t seem to notice either and kept leaning over and almost whispering.

“If I tell you any names they’ll know I told you.”

I leaned back in.

“How would they know that? And these aren’t the Caps, they don’t need proof to come after you if that’s what they’re going to do. Your best move is to give me everything so I can look out for them.”

She hid her face in her hands. People were really looking now. I hoped I didn’t have to follow any other leads in the area later. She uncovered her face and looked me in the eye.

“Marston. That’s the only one I know.”

“What’s he look like? Where is he?” I said.

She shook her head at the second question

“He's short, brown hair down to here,” she touched her shoulder “black eyes, looks old but he dropped out the year before we got here.”

I ran the features through my mind repeatedly to memorize them.

“He was a student here?”

“Yes. He said they accused him of attacking a girl, but he said he didn’t do it. I only saw him once.” The Daeleahn and the northern girls got up to leave and one of them laughed loudly.

“What did he do for Liana?” I said.

“I don’t know, I think she said he was a messenger. When I saw him she gave him a letter. That’s all I know.” She took a long drink from her tea.

“You don’t know anyone else? Any other names?” I said.

There was a pause, a telling pause.

“No.” she said to the table.

I left it at that. I had enough to get started on anyway, and she seemed about to cry. I put my hand on her’s and her eyes got soft. I spoke to her in the voice I would use on my little sister when she was scared her cats would be eaten by the wolves.

“I'll find her. You’ve done a lot.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. I stood up and gathered my coat around me. I laid three stars on the table to cover the two of us.

“You have my address. Come to me anytime.” I said in the same voice and she smiled at me like a dying lamp flaring up one last time. I left her like that and walked out the door. I could feel the eyes on me.

On the street, the rain had started again and caused the foot traffic to move with more urgency. I walked in the direction Ethelyn had come from and stopped at the first door I came to. It was an older building on a stone and mortar foundation built when the land was still mostly floodplain. I climbed up the thin steep front staircase to reach the door five feet off the ground.

Inside the warm gravewood scented room a few students sat reading or talking over books and papers. There were doorways to two adjacent parlors and through one I heard the metal sound of someone taking the pot off a selbelya and then the gentle gurgling of tea being poured, as well as the low murmur of conversation. Like all places near the college, the shop was a meeting area first and whatever else second.

I walked up to a small case of pamphlets and took one. It was one of those excerpts of works recently reprinted by the Imperial Librarians, this one the third part of a book on the War of Angels. I paid for it at the counter and sat down on a bench seat near the window. It was up against the wall and anyone coming from the café wouldn’t see me until they passed. I had been sitting there less than half an hour when I saw a flash of green go bouncing by. I went out the door and silently down the steps. I came on to the sidewalk a good twenty paces and about twenty people behind her.

She walked down a block and took a right. I hid behind a group of cackling students as she turned so she wouldn’t catch me in her peripherals then I turned the corner myself. I was just in time to see her go through the gate of a group of student housing. I sped up and at the gate, I saw there were four buildings around a central garden square. The red door of the building across and to the left closed as I came up. I kept walking down the street for a few more blocks until I came to a main road and hailed a cab.