“The trick is to be obvious to anyone who knows what to look for, without attracting attention from anyone else.”

Jair casually lifted a particularly nice-looking component vial from the arms of an oblivious young man carrying a few things too many to be paying proper attention, held it up to the light to assess the value of its contents, then slid it back into the pile as though he’d never touched it.

“If you weren’t here to finance everything, this is what I’d be doing for startup capital, by the way. It’s not cheap impressing the nobility enough that they’re willing to invest in a nobody, and an Astralla student uniform will only get you so far.”

Ran sat on a bench near one of the bustling lower markets. Jair paced in front of him, giving him a crash course lecture on thievery all while gesturing expansively and robbing anyone who came within arm’s reach.

“I think we’ve been here long enough, someone should come to complain soon.”

“Complain about you pretending to rob people?”

“Complain about me pushing in on their territory. I’m not registered, not giving my due cut to Meldi and Tyros.” He swiped a hairpin from a woman’s bun, then pocketed it.

Ran raised an eyebrow.

“She deserved it.”

“And this is your idea of subtle?”

“It’s the fastest way to get in contact, trust me. They wouldn’t take kindly to me barging in to any of their secret locations, and I don’t have the time to establish a line of contacts between us in the normal way. Being seen as competent, cooperative, and mildly suspicious is the best option. I need them to be curious enough to want to talk to me, but not so much of a threat that they have me murdered on sight. It’s a careful balance.”

He swiped a nice construct from another man’s belt, spun it between his fingers, but before he could return it a hand clamped down on his wrist.

"This isn't your quarter, pretty boy."

Jair smiled charmingly as he turned to face the thug. "Of course. I'll gladly pay your guest fee. Better, if you can put me in touch with Meldi and Tyros, you can have my full haul for today."

The man's scowl deepened and his grip tightened. "Why do you know those names?"

"We've done business in the future."

The man scratched his chin with his other hand. "Eh?"

"It's fine, no need to be concerned about it. Just tell them I’m looking for an informant to swap stories with. I know some things they’d be interested in, and there’s someone I’m looking for.”

This was clearly not what the thug expected. His grip on Jair's arm loosened, leaving him the potential to wrench free and run if he'd been so inclined.

Jair was not so inclined. He stood passively, smiling and waiting, though he did throw a wink in Ran’s direction.

"I'll have you turn over that purse of yours, and stop canvassing our quarter," the man finally said, fully releasing Jair's arm and holding out the hand. Jair surrendered his bag readily, which seemed to surprise the man. "Got a name?"

"Looper."

The man nodded. "I'll pass the message. No promises on results. Keep your fingers to yourself."

"Message received. I’ll be waiting."

The man disappeared into the crowd.

Jair dusted his hands together and shook out his robe. “There. Now they’ll find me in a few hours or a couple days, depending on Meldi’s mood at the moment. He’s a grump, but he’ll move when things seem important. Anything you want to do for the next couple hours?”

“I feel like I should be studying something, preparing for something, networking… but none of that would matter, so…”

“Studying matters. Anything you learn stays with you. More or less.”

“But it’s not important. There’s no deadline, no tests, no reports due.”

“Anything else you’d like to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

Jair chuckled. “One of these days I’ll get you to make a decision.”

“I make decisions all the time. You’re the one who’s suddenly become super assertive and taken over everything.” Ran shrugged. “It’s been interesting enough so far following your lead. I’ll speak up if I think of anything else I’d rather do.”

“I don’t know about you, but I could really use a nap.”

Ran stared, incredulous.

Jair lay down on the ground, closed his eyes and proceeded to prove he wasn’t bluffing.

----------------------------------------

"Good day,” Sekir said in Zakvari, “I am Sjorlain and I'll be your interpreter while we try to sort out this whole mess. According to what you've already conveyed, you are Yast Mebort?"

The elf exhaled shakily and nodded. "I was beginning to worry no one would come. I do not understand. I need my pathmaker."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Your pathmaker?" Sekir raised an eyebrow at that. It was very rare for someone this young to have an active pathmaker.

"It is by his guidance that I am here. He will know the way forward."

"You were observed to be involved in two different break-ins on the same day, and the assault of a very powerful man. I doubt your pathmaker would be able to explain away such blatant crimes."

"It is my path, I do not need to understand it."

This would be a dead end. The kid had been tricked into it, and wouldn't know anything worth obtaining. Larenok was overreacting. This wasn't an elven scheme, this was an individual manipulator who wanted his own soulsword.

Still, perhaps he could still salvage something of this.

He activated his soulspell.

Yast's mind was a jumble of uncertainty, fear, confidence, and concerns over people Sekir had no interest in. It took a moment for his perception to sync up, the difference in thought patterns a temporary static. Then he was in two places at once, two people at once, two very different perspectives echoing one another across the interrogation room.

"Who is your pathmaker?" asked Sjorlain-Sekir.

"My pathmaker," Yast-Sekir said, and his thoughts flickered through the relevant memories. His confidence didn’t waver despite the thread of doubt that re-checked his experience for any sign of duplicity. They found none, reassured that this remained the true path, and Sekir released the spell.

He had a name, and he had an image. The rest would be mere busywork.

----------------------------------------

Jair woke to a quick tap, a scurrying urchin disappearing back up the alley as he sat up.

Ran stared. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Ran waved a hand in the air in dissatisfaction. “You give them a paper in the morning, and they send you a paper in the evening. Where’s the mysterious code phrases and secret blackmail?”

Jair chuckled. “I’m already pushing my luck using their names. If I tried using any of their codes, they’d flip over from ‘curious’ into ‘suspicious’ and that would be the end of any hope of speed.” Jair grinned mischievously. “But if you want blackmail and secrets, you should love the assassination sequence.”

“No. I’m not going to help you assassinate anyone.”

“You say that now, but I haven’t told you a fraction of what’s been going on in Vaes City. Once you’re properly enlightened, well… it’ll be fun.” Jair read over the page, a slight frown growing on his face.

"What is it?"

“Hyperion got involved. I knew this was a possibility, mageblades are rare and valuable enough that an attack on the Institute could justify their involvement. Even just from a security standpoint, not taking into account the fact that Larenok’s got them at his beck and call. This complicates things.”

Hyperion would not be limited in the ways any internal school inquisition would be. Their resources would counter the advantages gained by using foreign and unknown entities as their primary agents.

Ran asked, "Does that mean we need to revert?"

"No. We still need to know exactly how they caught Yast in the first place, or they’ll just do it again next time. Clearly our plan is built on some false assumptions. Until we’ve corrected the misinformation under which we are operating, there's no point in reverting."

“Makes sense." Ran frowned, calculating. Jair waited, but Ran only shook his head quietly to himself, lost in thought.

“I think we’ve learned as much as we can from the outside. Let’s go talk to Yast."

The Hyperion Guard did not have an official station in Astralla City. However, since they were ostensibly here searching for Prince Orrin, they had been around long enough that there was a sort of quasi-office set up for them.

"I know it doesn't look like much, but this is the Hyperion office for Astralla city.”

“It looks like a storage shed.”

“I know, but I’ve been around the city enough times to be certain. This is in fact the Astralla City Hyperion branch office, despite all appearance to the contrary.”

"Isn’t walking up to it about the worst option?"

"Perhaps." Jair stopped walking and tilted his head as he considered. "You know. It might be worth it for you to go back to the school and do your investigating there like you planned. If your contacts are able to provide a different perspective on things, that might help us to get a clearer picture of what happened. There’s only so much I can learn here."

Though he did privately believe he could get everything he needed here, he didn't want to push Ran into shutting down his own ideas. Even if the suggestions he made now were less than optimal, it would be far better to encourage him into a pattern of coming up with ideas and following through on them than shutting them down and relying on Jair’s knowledge to guide him through things.

If he wanted a biddable follower without a mind of his own, he could get that anywhere. Ran was far more than just a companion and, honestly, even that in and of itself was something rare and valuable.

"You know, you are going to need to work on your official obligations at some point. I know this is chaotic, fun, and ridiculous, and you'd probably prefer to just play around in our lovely secure enclosed loop forever…"

Ran shook his head. “I think I'd enjoy it more if looping weren't so painful. As it is, I'm starting to feel anxious even considering our reverting."

"Well. We will have to do something about that, but not right now. Let’s split up, investigate our different angles, and reconvene in a few hours.”

“What if your investigations get you captured?”

“Then you’ll come visit me and we can revert from there. You are Ran Serin, after all.”

“And if you get killed?”

“Then you’ll have all the information you need to inform me of what’s going on the next time around.” Jair handed Ran the paper with Tyros’s message on it. “Memorize that, and if this happens again we'll be that much further ahead next time."

Ran accepted the paper and scanned over it reluctantly, frowning as he reached the bottom. “Alterik Invokarium? What is that? It sounds arcane, but…”

“I’ll tell you about it once it becomes relevant. Right now, just memorize it verbatim and have it ready if something goes wrong. Nothing should go wrong. Even if I’m caught and held for the maximum offenses we’ve committed, none of it is severe enough for an instant death sentence. Worst case scenario, they end up shuffling me around from prison to prison and you have to go on a scavenger hunt to find me.”

Jair couldn’t help an amused grin creeping onto his face. Honestly, that sounded like a lot of fun.

“I’ll be sure to leave as many clues as possible for you to follow.”

“That’s starting to sound like you’re planning to get captured.”

“It’s a contingency. Contingencies are important.”

“I don’t trust your tone there, mister.”

“That’s fine. As long as you trust me, you needn’t have any particular attachment to my tone.”

Jair stepped up to the Hyperion office and immediately froze. Something was wrong. Something was…

What was this feeling?

He…

His heart was racing, every instinct screaming to get out.

This wasn't normal. Hyperion were scary, yes. They could kill him on a good day, yes. But this wasn't that. That was a different kind of fear. A different kind of awareness. An alertness.

This was something else entirely. This wasn't a feeling of knowing you could be hunted down. This was an existential dread.

The sort of thing even the Hyperion couldn't evoke.

Jair’s instincts demanded he run. His curiosity drove him onward.

He stepped forward.

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