The unseasonably warm April wind blew down the street, carrying the scent of lilac trees from the planters along the roadside. As soon as the gust subsided, the smell was replaced by the exhaust fumes from the numerous cars on the parallel main street.

"Move! Make way!" Norman had been about to step onto the pedestrian crossing but instinctively jumped back, turning around to see what was happening. Three years of working on construction sites during his apprenticeship as a bricklayer had taught him to react quickly. Anyone who didn't immediately respond to someone yelling loudly as they approached had no business working with heavy construction equipment. Just in front of him on the road, where he had almost put his foot down, a blur shot past. It was only when he looked after it that he could see what it was. A teenager in leather clothes stood on some kind of wheelless skateboard, which seemed to be hovering just above the ground. With incredible speed, he dodged vehicles by quickly swerving onto the sidewalk, only to jump back onto the road when faced with a larger group of pedestrians. Curses and a cacophony of honking followed his path. Norman shook his head. This must be another one of those students from the local university. Instead of feeling annoyed, the mason's apprentice felt more envious. That skateboard was just damn cool!

A few weeks ago, he had read an article in the local newspaper explaining this ingenious illusion. Something about "blacklight," "mirrors," and "mirage effect." He hadn't quite understood it, but apparently, the hoverboards had regular wheels with special suspensions to allow for high jumps. And the light effects made it look like the boards were hovering. All quite logical.

The city administration had banned the use of these hoverboards on public roads, but the police had yet to catch any of the students. The racer disappeared with a daring turn at the next intersection. Norman quickened his pace to be there on time and to possibly see more maneuvers.

As Norman's gaze followed the skater into the side street, he saw, two cross streets away, the characteristic blue flashes of fire trucks in action. Several pedestrians were already approaching the street corner, from which Norman could now hear excited shouts, even over the traffic noise from the main street. With a quick glance at his watch, he confirmed that he still had enough time and jogged over. This was typical. As soon as he had handed in his pager and become only a passive member of the volunteer fire brigade for the duration of his studies, there was an emergency. And from the noise, his buddies had turned out in full force.

As he entered the street, he immediately recognized the cause of the commotion: a fire in a large, old-fashioned villa, one of the few old buildings in the neighborhood that had managed to survive. The three-story timber-framed building had clearly seen better days. Flames were licking from the two upper floors, which had already managed to break through the windows and now blazed brightly, fueled by the fresh air. The once meticulously kept front garden, with its carefully placed flower beds, had been carelessly trampled by the firefighters. The low white picket fence had also had to give way in many places. While two fire trucks were wedged between the parked cars on the left side of the street, firefighters were bustling about. Police officers were busy keeping onlookers from wandering into the area and disrupting the firefighting efforts. Streams of water were sprayed through several windows into the house, and foam was shooting out of two more hoses. Norman hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should turn back to avoid getting in the way like the rest of the gawkers. Then curiosity won out, and he pushed forward to see if he could spot any familiar faces. He immediately spotted the firefighter monitoring the pump pressure on the truck and not really doing anything else. His prominent hooked nose protruded unmistakably from under the firefighter's helmet: "Hey, Günther! What's going on?"

The one addressed looked over, grinned, and waved briefly before checking the gauges again and strolling over to the barricade: "Hi Norman! Regretting taking a break yet? Can't resist the sirens' call of our wailing buoys, can you?"

"Just happened to be passing by. Seems like quite a commotion for such a small fire. Is anyone still in the house?"

"Yes. On the third floor. The paranoid idiots have barred the window so well that we can't get in. The emergency release has become unusable due to the heat. There are no bars further ahead, but Hans and Ben can't get through the flames."

"They can't get through a room fire?"

"I couldn't believe it either! We're pumping spray water from three hoses and foam from another. It's as hot in there as in an industrial fire! "

"Then the roof should have come down by now."

"It should have! You could roast sausages in the neighboring rooms, but nothing. As if the heat doesn't want to come out. The unit leader is about to start biting into his helmet. Poor Achim. He'll have to explain it to the press later."

"Did they maybe have chemicals stored there? Or cooking oil? Like back when..."

"Hans couldn't see any crates or barrels from the ladder. The room is practically empty now. Nevertheless, something is still burning."

"Can I help?"

"By the time you got changed, everything would be over. Don't worry. We'll get the kid out. Whatever is burning there, it's practically producing no smoke or toxic gases. Just heat. But a lot of it. Now enjoy your day."

As Norman joined the rather small crowd there to watch, he noticed a young woman who was also standing a good distance behind the rest of the crowd. Like him, she was in her early twenties, very slim, and had simply stunning hair. Golden curls cascaded down her shoulders halfway to her hips, and small corkscrew curls framed her finely cut face. But what had caught his attention most of all was her lifeless expression. With a fixed gaze, she stared at the burning building. Perhaps she lived there and had to helplessly watch her home go up in flames? To Norman, it certainly looked like shock.

Carefully, so as not to startle her, he stepped up beside her. No reaction. As he could clearly see from her tight-fitting T-shirt worn over her skinny jeans, her breathing was calm and regular.

"Are you alright?"

No reaction. He lightly tapped her shoulder with his finger. "Is everything alright?"

She jerked around, her hair swirling like a wave of spun gold, and life came into her eyes. So far, he had assumed that her eyes would only reflect the blazing fire. But as she turned away from the flames towards him, he looked into eyes that had a color he had never seen before. An almost metallic gold hue. Surely contact lenses. In fractions of a second, fear and then anger, almost hatred, flashed across her face, but before he could even apologize, the angry gleam disappeared from her eyes again, replaced by a curious smile that beamed at him. He probably just imagined that and she was just startled. Her voice was melodic and had an accent he couldn't place: "I'm sorry?"

"Um... I just wanted to ask if you're okay. You looked so shocked. Do you live in that house?"

"No." She smiled amusedly. "But I know someone who does. And yes, I'm perfectly fine."

"Do you know what happened over there?"

"No idea. When I arrived, the building was already engulfed in flames, and the fire brigade was dismantling the fence."

"Do you know the owners?"

She shrugged. "They can easily afford the loss, don't worry. And from what I gathered, there were no injuries." She looked at her obviously expensive mechanical wristwatch. "Well, I'm afraid I have to go. At the beginning of the semester, it's best to be on time if you want to get your schedule before dinner."

"Do you also study at the local university?"

"Also? I've never seen you at the university. And you don't look like one of the students there."

"I'm starting to study architecture there this semester."

"Well, maybe we'll see each other then. My name is Jane Ma...," she coughed briefly, although the meager smoke plumes were, in Norman's opinion, much too weak for that, "...Jane. Most people there know me. See you later!"

In another golden whirlwind of curls, she turned and hurried away.

Norman grinned. The prospect of studying had just gained quite a bit of appeal. As he turned to leave, he heard excited shouts. A firefighter cautiously climbed out of the window onto the fire brigade ladder's basket. In his arms, he held a trembling young man, whom he carefully placed in the basket and strapped an oxygen mask to his face. As the ladder, at his signal, swung away from the building and downwards, he triumphantly raised his thumb. Günther chatted over his radio with the firefighter on the ladder, still on the way down, and could then report details: The fire had succumbed to the onslaught of water just a few seconds ago and had suddenly gone out. The trapped person had suffered from agonizing fear in the adjacent room but had otherwise been unharmed. However, he couldn't explain why, despite the proximity to the fire he’d neither suffered burns nor smoke inhalation. The fire investigators from the criminal police would have a field day. Norman said goodbye, then turned around and jogged back towards the main street.

*

A few streets down, Jane slowed her steps and looked around attentively. Once she was sure she wasn't being watched, she pulled out a case from her pocket and took out a cigarette. As she casually tucked it into the corner of her mouth, her eyes regained the same focused expression that had caught Norman's attention earlier. Almost inaudibly soft for anyone more than three steps away, she murmured a few words in a language that no one outside the university had ever heard. Anyone truly knowledgeable about magic knew, of course, that this wasn't necessary. A true master could cast a spell without even moving their lips. And foreign languages were only used to prevent every onlooker from immediately recognizing the spell the mage was using. Anyone loudly intoning "Fiery Death Beam" shouldn't be surprised if their targets hastily took cover. And for the completely untrained, speaking the spell in a foreign language was an additional safety measure to avoid accidentally casting a spell. Jane wrinkled her nose contemptuously. How incompetent must one be to say "Burn" in a normal conversation and accidentally cast a fire spell? Once adopted, such habits were hard to shake off. The words themselves didn't matter; the main thing was that they helped the mage to precisely imagine what they wanted to achieve. Jane briefly grimaced unconsciously as she thought about how she now, like everyone else, had years of study ahead of her to learn the art of magic. But there was nothing to be done about it. If her father caught her with just one of the spells she shouldn't even have known yet, he would immediately know where she got her abilities from. And besides, it was certainly a useful addition to her other magic. Be that as it may. She briefly focused on the first of all fire spells that a mage had to master. She had already learned this spell in the normal, boring way. It was tedious and cumbersome. But it had its advantages, of course. The spell could only generate a small amount of heat at one point, just enough to ignite easily flammable materials. But she could do that as often as she wanted. Instead of losing it from her mind after a single use, like her other spells. A heat shimmer briefly surrounded the tip of the cigarette, then it flared up as Jane inhaled. Smoking leisurely, she continued her stroll. She wasn't sure yet whether she liked or disliked the guy who had just disturbed her. At first, she thought he just wanted to hit on her, but somehow he seemed genuinely concerned about her. She always noticed immediately when a man had ulterior motives or was pretending. This one reminded her more of a scout. Or that Canadian Mountie from television whose name she could never remember. In the series, he was always extremely polite and completely exaggeratedly honest. The best thing about the series for her was always her own little guessing game. She tried to figure out at what point he could have simply solved the current problem by finally getting himself a firearm and just shoot the criminal or the other nuisance of the week. This was usually the case in the first ten minutes, so she could switch channels afterwards and look for something more exciting.

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Her path led her through some side streets to a small green strip with a few trees and park benches. Some pigeons lazily tapped across the path and occasionally pecked at breadcrumbs left by strollers. Above all, the employees of the neighboring office buildings liked to have a little snack here. After a disgusted glance at the hated "flying rats", she sat down on one of the benches and crossed her legs elegantly. When she had smoked the cigarette with relish, she pulled a small plastic bag with breadcrumbs, sealed with a dense zip closure, from her leather, white handbag, opened it, and cheerfully sprinkled the crumbs for the pigeons. Immediately, the gray birds came from all sides, tapping greedily on the ground. When the bag was empty, she carefully closed it again and put it back in her bag. After one last mischievous glance at the tightly packed birds, she walked away, whistling softly to herself. She was already three streets away when the first pigeons began to stagger in their steps and then topple over one by one. Some particularly tough specimens twitched for minutes. Then it was quiet in the square.

Back on the main street, Norman realized he still had plenty of time. So he slowed his pace again and sauntered towards the bus stop. Around him rose the three-story buildings of various department stores. Again and again, he passed cardboard stand-ups that were supposed to draw attention to special action prices and clearance sales. The stationery store in Bahnhofstraße had been in a clearance sale for the third year in a row now. Norman had always read the city paper attentively and therefore knew that the store barely managed to get enough money together each year through the "Total Clearance Sale" to survive another year. He felt sorry for the two poor saleswomen. Always this uncertainty. Unconsciously, he thought about his own choice of profession. If he had stayed a bricklayer after his apprenticeship, he would also have had to reckon with dismissal every winter. After all, his boss in the small construction company didn't believe in winter money or seasonal short-time work money and similar state support, for which one had to do more paperwork than count the hours. When Norman had to decide on a profession at the tender age of 16, he had still been too young to worry about such trivialities as job security. He would hardly have been able to manage something much more complicated back then. The pleasure of learning came to him much too late. Whenever he was present when the site manager discussed with architects on the construction site, he wished he simply understood more of the subject matter. He had procured numerous books, but without a systematic, theoretical foundation, he didn't get far. And when he made a suggestion for improvement, of course, no one took him seriously. In front of the unlit shop window of the only actually closed store, he stopped briefly to check his hairstyle in the reflecting pane. After all, he didn't want to make a bad impression on the first day at university. Once again, he considered whether he should have dyed his short blond hair dark at the last hairdresser's visit. Or maybe light blue, to distract from the prominent chin and what he thought were slightly too angular facial features. But he still couldn't bring himself to do anything so extreme. As far as his clothes were concerned, he decided as soon as possible to find someone to accompany him shopping and give him some advice. Jeans and his usual shirt in red lumberjack plaid were very comfortable, but probably not very modern. And of course, he wanted to sign up for the gym again. At 23, he was definitely still too young to develop a beer belly. And as his ex-girlfriend always said, women like washboard abs, not raccoon bellies.

As he turned his head to look at one of the more interesting posters of the "Waikiki Bikini Shop" as he passed by, he bumped into an obstacle with his hip. Startled, he turned around and looked directly into a hairy face full of yellow pointed teeth.

Someone who didn't know Mr. Lupus would surely have been scared to death, but Norman had been buying his lunch from the street vendor since he was in elementary school. The poor man couldn't help it that a genetic defect caused thick black fur to grow all over his face. You saw something like that more often on TV - apparently it wasn't that rare. He hadn't seen the predator's teeth anywhere else yet, but obviously, that happened sometimes too. Norman's face spontaneously turned into a broad, honest smile: "Hello, Mr. Lupus, your food seems to be attracting me magnetically again!"

"It seems more like you're attracted to the new window decoration. These mannequins look more lifelike every year. But you have such a greedy look. You must be hungry." He gestured expansively to his hotdog stand, which was overflowing with all kinds of sandwiches and sauce pots.

"What'll it be?" A slightly diabolical grin made the teeth appear even more threatening for strangers. He invitingly pointed to a small, brightly red sauce pot decorated with blazing yellow flames. "A currywurst special?"

Norman waved it off. "Um... Better not. Last time it took three days until I could taste anything again. Your special sauce surely violates the War Weapons Control Act."

The hairy grin approached the ears threateningly. "Well, no one has complained about that yet."

"Speaking of complaints, have you heard anything from the WKD guys, who were here last week? I heard they inspected your wares because of food safety concerns. Your roaring could still be heard at the bus stop when they criticized something."

Now Lupus' grin seemed slightly threatening even to the young man. He felt his neck hairs stand on end and almost unconsciously took a step back. Then the cunning sparkle returned to the fur-lined eyes. "No, nobody's heard from them."

"If you need advocates, I'd be happy to testify under oath that your food isn't harmful. I've been eating it for years and I'm still perfectly healthy."

His gaze fell on the clumsily stacked sandwiches. "I'll take one of the cheese rolls, please." He put a few coins on the counter "Keep the change."

As he walked on, his eyes fell on the display of the old worm-eaten newsstand he was passing by. In addition to the usual sensational stories about queens and race car drivers, he involuntarily noticed another headline: "Two employees of the Wirtschaftskontrolldienst (WKD), the department tasked with food safety inspection, still missing. Police ask for clues."

For a heartbeat, his gaze clouded, and as he continued walking, he somehow felt he had missed an important connection. But as much as he thought about it, he couldn't remember what had just struck him.

Norman shrugged unconsciously and then quickened his steps, as the bus stop was only a few hundred meters away and he could already see the bus coming.

*

None of the passengers or passersby had noticed the man in the saffron-yellow robe, who stood at the roadside distributing flowers and brochures about his obscure religion, largely in vain attempting to collect donations. Silently, his silky hood slid over his polished bald head as he pushed it back, clearing his view to glance at the bus. Once the bus door had folded shut behind the last passenger, he sprang into action. With oddly swift and precise movements, he folded his small stand, tucked it under his arm, and hurried down the street. Several crossroads later, he turned into an alley where he entered a Mercedes Sprinter with tinted windows through the rear door. The scent of incense wafted towards him, and a few small, electrically-powered prayer wheels hummed holy sutras. The two men already seated in the van, also clad in saffron robes, turned away from a large surveillance monitor to face him. The ultra-modern flat screen seemed oddly out of place amidst the collection of prayer wheels, incense burners, scroll holders, and bookshelves. Once the newcomer was sure of their full attention, he nodded briefly and spoke with solemnity, "I have found him. He is here!"

*

After the slender goth mentioned "To the University" as her destination, Norman pondered whether he should approach her. Perhaps she would interpret it as a clumsy flirtation.

"Do you also go to Nexus University?" He flinched as she surprised him mid-thought. Darkly made-up, yet still warm eyes, looked at him curiously. Typical. When women approached someone so directly, it didn't count as flirting, of course.

"I'm starting architecture studies there this semester." Then, he added eloquently, "And you?"

"I'll at least visit it. Let's see where that leads."

"That sounds quite undecided for the beginning of the semester."

"I like to be very spontaneous."

"Then I hope the university administration is just as spontaneous." He softened his remark with a mischievous smile. "Where's your luggage?"

"I'll pick it up later."

"If you need help carrying it, just let me know."

Sam smirked. "Oh yeah? Would you offer that so readily if I were fat and ugly?"

"Sure."

The answer came without hesitation and without the discord that accompanied even the most harmless lies for Sam.

"And if I were a little chubby boy?"

"Why not."

"And a whole group of pimply teenagers?" Sam's grin widened as Norman hesitated briefly.

"It depends on how many exactly. I'd have to see if I have enough time."

"Isn't so much willingness to help often taken advantage of?"

"Sometimes." He shrugged. "But it's worth it."

"That's certainly true. Okay, I'll take you up on your offer if I need help. But now, tell me a little about yourself. How did you come to choose architecture as your major?"

"Well, I actually wanted to do an apprenticeship as a carpenter or model builder, but I couldn't get an apprenticeship. In the end, I wandered onto a construction site and applied there. Without certificates or anything. The foreman let me carry tools around as a trial for a day and then recommended me to his boss. That's how I ended up with an apprenticeship as a bricklayer."

"And you didn't like it?"

"The work isn't bad. There's a lot more to it than just stacking stones. All the building regulations, waterproofing against groundwater, and so on. It's just the constant yelling from the foreman that got on my nerves over time. You can't work in the rain, and the weather doesn't care about the schedule. Plus, I always had ideas on how to build the building better. But no architect listens to a bricklayer on the construction site. You have to have studied yourself. I've set myself the goal of extracting as much practical knowledge as possible from my first semester. I probably won't have much longer."

Samanael was somewhat puzzled. "Why's that?"

"Someday they'll surely realize they made a mistake."

"Mistake?"

"Well, I only have a secondary school leaving certificate, and to be honest, not a particularly good one. I always had problems with math and equations. With a completed, appropriate apprenticeship, you're allowed to study some subjects even without a high school diploma, but you have to pass a selection test. I've been to all the universities in Tübingen, Heidelberg, and Stuttgart, and I've barely failed each time. I tried it here too, but I made even more mistakes than usual out of nervousness. I couldn't possibly have passed. As soon as they realize they made a mistake with the evaluation, they'll surely kick me out again."

"I can't imagine that. They probably have enough to do with the next candidates. Why should they double-check completed tests? Don't worry about it. Besides, it's much more likely that you were just better than you thought, right? Hey, is that the Nexus University stop up ahead?"