While Eret had been out meeting with Linua, Pickle and Solly had been busy. They had placed a phone call to Horn, the archaeologist in Shinboa, and Pickle had somehow recorded it. He’d uploaded it to the bulletin board, and had immediately been told off by Anith.

Linua scrolled past the impassioned paragraphs which Anith had left—it took multiple spins of the mousewheel—and clicked on the recording.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice, with a neutral accent and a mild tone.

“Hello,” Solly said, full of self-importance. “Is that Dr Horn de Halven?”

Linua winced. Why was Solly the one doing the talking?

“It is. Who am I speaking to?”

Once the introductions were out of the way, Solly had announced that he was writing a piece for the school newspaper. Somehow he had managed to make it seem as if it was some kind of prestigious award-winning Young Journalist of the Year broadsheet full of topical exposés and insightful human interest pieces. It wasn’t a bad cover story.

“We’re doing a project on some artefacts at the museum that came from…” there was a hasty whisper in the background, and Linua thought she heard Pickle’s voice murmuring. “…the Ekland Farm dig.”

“Yes? I haven’t been involved in anything like that since university. I’m not sure how much use I will be.”

“But you were on the dig, right?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t…”

“With Professor Reeta.” More whispering in the background. “Professor Relta.”

“Oh, yes. I do recall that.”

“And there were three other students on the dig with you.”

“Yes, there were…”

“Kala, Leofryn and Bead.”

“My goodness, yes, I haven’t heard those names in…”

“What can you tell us about them?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What were the other students like?”

“Good gracious, it was a very long time ago. What sort of thing do you want to know?”

There was another hastily whispered conference.

“Tell us about Bead. Were you good friends with him?”

“Oh … er … well. Acquaintances, I would say. I was better friends with Leofryn.”

“What did you think of Bead?”

“He seemed a nice enough chap, I suppose.”

“And what about Leofryn?”

“Well, you know, he was a very decent sort.”

More whispering.

“When did you last speak to Leofryn?”

“I’m afraid we drifted apart. I haven’t spoken to him since … my goodness … I suppose it must be just after graduation? I really don’t recall.”

“Could Leofryn have stolen one of the artefacts from the dig?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Or Bead? If you had to guess, which of them might of done it?”

“I … young man, do you have a teacher supervising you in this enterprise?”

The phone call ended shortly after that. Linua cupped her hands around her forehead and winced in mortification. Horn had sounded like the kind of mild, kind-hearted person who found it hard to say a bad word about anyone. He didn’t sound like a murderer.

When it came to the shopping expedition, Anith was openly nervous at being introduced to Grandmother. The car had deposited Linua, Grandmother and an expressionless Yi bodyguard on the pavement outside Herkow’s biggest clothing store. Anith had been waiting outside.

Grandmother, acting as if she had never phoned up Anith’s dad and told him that his daughter was a bad influence, was all graciousness, in her overbearing way. Linua wanted to cringe, but once Anith had got over her initial apprehension she gave polite responses to all Grandmother’s questions, and didn’t seem to mind being patronised.

After they had been waiting for Sayo Hui for a few minutes, Grandmother declared that she would go and wait inside where there would be air conditioning, and Anith leapt to open the door for her. That was when a large black car with tinted windows pulled up at the pavement, and disgorged Sayo Hui.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Linua blinked a little at Sayo Hui’s outfit. She was wearing black, skin-tight leggings with a jagged pattern in brilliant emerald-green up the sides, and a loose top of a black mesh-like material, the neckline of which was an explosion of black feathers. She was sporting a pair of sunglasses and had a small leather bag hooked over one arm.

She came sashaying up to Linua, who was standing next to Anith. It was Sayo Hui’s turn to do a double take as she took in Anith.

“Ohhhh,” Sayo Hui said, pulling her sunglasses down over her nose so she could see better. “So this one is Princess Pastel. Everything now clear.” She spoke Keretic, but with a noticeable Zuyu accent.

Linua instantly jumped to Anith’s defence.

“Don’t be rude.” She punctuated this with a light punch aimed at Sayo Hui’s upper arm, but Sayo Hui caught Linua’s fist in her hand, as quick as a snake.

“Little Sister getting feisty,” Sayo Hui sang, this time in Zuyu.

Anith just stood there, holding the door with her eyes wide open. Sayo Hui nodded to her regally and swept into the shop. Linua sighed.

“Come on.” She nudged Anith to go ahead of her.

Inside, Sayo Hui was introducing herself to Grandmother, having switched instantly to the deferential mode of Yi younger to elder, and while Grandmother didn’t have any love for the Yi family, she seemed receptive to Sayo Hui’s respectful manner. So at least that was okay, Linua thought.

The Yi bodyguard—this one’s name was Hei Lang—stood quietly and unobtrusively to one side. Sayo Hui seemed to regard him as so much furniture, Grandmother evidently wanted to pretend he didn’t exist, and Anith didn’t seem to know whether to follow suit, or politely include him in their conversation.

That awkwardness aside, the next couple of hours were some of the most fun that Linua had ever had in her life. Anith was initially overawed by the company in which she found herself, but after the second time Sayo Hui made a pointed comment about her taste in clothing, Anith recovered a little and made a snarky comment back. Sayo Hui threw her head back in laughter, and after that it was as if they were old friends.

In the end, the clothes Linua ended up picking weren’t like the pretty, lacy, besequinned outfits that Anith wore, or the flamboyant sort of couture that Sayo Hui favoured. Instead, she ended up with several pairs of the coveted jeans, in a variety of neutral colours; some smart black trousers that could be used for formal occasions; a white floaty summer dress; a wrap-around skirt with a bright ethnic Keretu pattern on it; and a series of tops in the cool greens, turquoises and ice blues that Sayo Hui declared suited her best. Linua had no idea how she could tell, but since both she and Anith seemed to agree on this point she didn’t argue.

Grandmother just smiled graciously at each outfit.

“I need to call Eret,” Anith said in a low voice to Linua, as they waited for the mountain of clothing to be put through the till. “He insisted he would come and pick me up.”

“Boyfriend?” Sayo Hui asked, leaning forward between them, her eyes narrowed inquisitively.

Anith rolled her eyes.

“Brother.”

“Ah okay.” Sayo Hui dropped back, immediately losing interest.

“Will that be a problem for your Grandmother?” Anith asked.

Linua shook her head.

“I think it will be okay.”

“Wait, why is a problem?” Sayo Hui asked, huddling up next to them again.

“You are so nosy!” Linua exclaimed.

“I’ll let you explain, Linua. I’ll go and call him from the payphone in the lobby now.”

Sayo Hui regarded Linua in the manner of a dragon inspecting a tasty morsel.

“Explain what?”

Linua cast a quick glance at Grandmother, who was standing at the counter beside the huge mound of clothes and talking to the cashier.

“Maybe later.”

By the time Anith came back up, the clothing was all packed into bags and paid for. Somehow, Sayo Hui ended up walking arm and arm with Grandmother, solicitously making sure she was able to manage the stairs, while Linua and Anith struggled behind with all the packages. It turned out that Sayo Hui did have an ulterior motive for this, but it wasn’t to make Anith and Linua carry everything, as Linua had darkly suspected. By the time they all got to the lobby, Grandmother had agreed that Sayo Hui, Anith and Linua could go out to dinner together, and Sayo Hui would send Linua back by car when they were finished.

After Grandmother and all the packages had been loaded into the car and sent off back to the house, they waited for Eret in the lobby. Sayo Hui managed this for approximately two minutes, before getting distracted by a stand of scarves and handbags further back in the shop, and Anith went back to the payphone to call her parents to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner, leaving Linua waiting by herself, the Yi bodyguard standing discretely off to one side.

So when Eret arrived, she felt free to run up and hug him, and it felt the most natural thing in the world when he hugged her back, and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth that made her wish they were alone, instead of standing inside the busy lobby of a clothing shop.

“Oh,” Sayo Hui said loudly from behind them. “So it is boyfriend!”

Was the purpose of every single one of Linua’s relatives to make her life as embarrassing as possible? Eret, however, seemed pleased to be recognised as such. He just gave one of his trademark little smirks, and slung his arm over Linua’s shoulder.

Sayo Hui said she knew a great restaurant a few blocks down. They walked there, with Eret and Linua walking in front, the Yi bodyguard behind Linua, and Sayo Hui and Anith coming last.

Linua had feared that the restaurant would be Shang, but it was a big modern place with mostly Keretu cuisine, which was served in tiny, exquisitely arranged portions on white china plates the size of hub cabs. It wasn’t anything like the cozy little café the Astronomy Club went to regularly, and which Linua missed already. She had only just got used to eating cheese and tomato flatbread.

They got a booth by the window, with Linua and Anith on the inside, and Sayo Hui and Eret on the outside. Sayo Hui ordered without even looking at the menu. Linua asked for chicken with potatoes, as it seemed like the closest thing to the lunch that Helged normally fed her, although when it arrived both the chicken and the potatoes had been cooked in their skins, and Linua had to scrape all the skin off herself.

It was easy to lose track of time. Eret and Sayo Hui seemed to get on famously, enough that Linua would have felt jealous, had it not been for the way his thigh nudged hers occasionally, or when he held her hand underneath the table.

Once the waiter had cleared the plates and they were getting ready to go, Anith extricated herself from the booth visit the ladies’ room, but when she came back no-one had moved. Sayo Hui was in the middle of paying for the meal, so Anith gestured towards Linua.

“Can you get my purse out of my bag? I need change for the payphone, I have to tell Mum and Dad we’re going to be even later than I said.”

Linua dived under the booth, found Anith’s bag and rooted around in it for her purse, which had fallen to the bottom. As Linua moved various object out of the way she there was something else in there, next to the purse. She pulled it out and held it in front of her.

It was the missing artefact from the museum.