When Lui re­turned at the end of her day, she seemed pleased, as did Mian, al­though he had a dif­fer­ent rea­son. Lui's time with the al­chemist had turned out well, al­though the girl didn't yet un­der­stand the many nu­anced com­plex­i­ties. Ap­par­ent­ly, the woman had for a long time re­fused to take an ap­pren­tice from the lo­cals, ex­act­ly be­cause so many of them were not spir­i­tu­al­ly sen­si­tive enough. Lui would only say that the woman "com­plained a lot" about the var­i­ous youths who had passed through her shop, and that she was pleased that Lui could iden­ti­fy plants by their auras, when they looked very sim­i­lar to the eye. Ap­par­ent­ly, this was a crit­i­cal part of com­bin­ing plants into spir­i­tu­al med­i­cines, some­thing which Sobon could claim to knowl­edge of at all, and might have doubt­ed un­der dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances.

Mian, in­stead, had stepped out of the alche­my house and al­most im­me­di­ate­ly run afoul of the city guard chas­ing a thief. Mian, on a hunch, had gone the oth­er way, and caught a group of crim­i­nals in the mid­dle of a more sub­stan­tial rob­bery while the nor­mal guards were dis­tract­ed. It was too many for Mian to tack­le sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, but he had drawn their at­ten­tion by chal­leng­ing the strongest of the group. In the end, he held that one for the guards, and al­though many of the oth­ers got away, Mian had at least been able to iden­ti­fy most of them.

That thought con­fused Sobon, un­til Mian and Lui both re­mind­ed him that she could fo­cus her qi sens­es on some­one to learn their name, with Mian adding spe­cif­ic de­tails about how the dif­fer­ent qi lev­els let some peo­ple shield them­selves from oth­ers, at least in part. Sobon had been aware of some of that--it had come up be­tween Jom and Xoi Xam--but for some rea­son, Sobon her­self nev­er man­aged the trick of it, and it had nev­er seemed all that im­por­tant.

[ Re­al­ly? ] Alas­si had seemed a lit­tle sur­prised, when Sobon strug­gled and failed to get Alas­si's own sens­es to work for her. The spir­it tried, her­self, and was able to pass a data­gram back to Sobon, which had more in­for­ma­tion than the crude stream Jom had been able to un­der­stand. [ Even with Iron Qi, I was able to read spir­its. Per­haps it's be­cause you spend all of your time us­ing that pu­ri­fied ...aether qi, or what­ev­er it is. ]

[ Just aether, ] Sobon replied, dis­tract­ed. In one way, that ex­pla­na­tion did make a bit of sense; Sobon's soul, to use an im­pre­cise term, was not ac­cus­tomed to the plan­et's qi, even if the bod­ies she had in­hab­it­ed had qi cores. Even now, Sobon in­ward­ly chafed at the idea of pass­ing com­plex, wo­ven streams of mut­li-spin aether through the deep­est reach­es of her 'self'. Even if she could gen­er­ate an ab­solute­ly pure ver­sion of the same--and Sobon wasn't sure that she could--each of the dif­fer­ent spins that were a part of qi had their own pur­pos­es and uses. Us­ing such a com­plex en­er­gy when she only need­ed a tiny part of it, to do some­thing in par­tic­u­lar, struck Sobon as egre­gious­ly waste­ful. The en­er­gy wasn't de­signed for peo­ple who un­der­stood aether, and Sobon knew it. So it felt... a lit­tle prim­i­tive, in spite of the fact that it was ac­tu­al­ly high­ly ad­vanced.

"In truth," Mian was say­ing, "some of those scamps should have been iden­ti­fied by the peo­ple near­by. I think some of them might have sym­pa­tized with them, which makes me wor­ry about the town guard. I'll do some look­ing into it in the next few days, while Lui is work­ing with Miss Fau."

Sobon nod­ded at that, then shift­ed to look at the cramped quar­ters that her now-fam­i­ly called their own, which more re­al­is­ti­cal­ly was Sobon's. She con­sid­ered for a long mo­ment be­fore speak­ing. "I don't mind help­ing, if the only rea­son they are steal­ing is need. But we can't take them in, or at least, not more than a cou­ple, and only if they're very trust­wor­thy. I in­tend that in time, this place will have many se­crets."

Mian glanced over at the hut where he knew Sobon had cre­at­ed the fake base­ment. "You are putting a lot of work into a lousy house, Alas­si. Are you sure you don't want to try to get a bet­ter one?"

Sobon just shook her head. "I don't have the time or in­cli­na­tion to be picky. With all the ...mys­ter­ies of qi, that I know, if I want this place to be a fortress or a palace, whether I have this much room or a hun­dred times as much, I could make it work." That wasn't quite cor­rect, but it might as well be. The Crestan Navy didn't like us­ing spa­tial ex­pan­sion for warp-ca­pa­ble ships, but that was the only re­stric­tion he had ever been taught. Prop­er­ly re­in­forced, ex­pand­ed space was just fine; even on Crest, some ter­res­tri­al pow­er plants and fac­to­ries kept their most volatile and dan­ger­ous process­es in spa­tial pock­ets for the sake of con­tain­ment. The Ri'lef use of pock­et di­men­sions as their de­fault mode of spa­tial ex­pan­sion sug­gest­ed that they were per­fect­ly fine with both space ma­nip­u­la­tion and tele­por­ta­tion be­ing used en masse on their plan­et, so Sobon didn't see any rea­son to hold back. Though... she did send off an­oth­er low-pri­or­i­ty note to the Ri'lef en­gi­neer, who she not­ed had not got­ten to her last query.

"I'm hon­est­ly sur­prised the City Lord was will­ing to give you this much," said Lui, look­ing around the small space, still with the small smile that had not left her face all day. "Just for tak­ing down a bunch of crim­i­nals..."

Sobon waved her off and shook her head at that. "Not be­cause of the boun­ty. Be­cause I taught him how to break through into Gold Qi." Lui just looked sur­prised at that, but Mian stiff­ened. Sobon caught the man's eyes, but he made a silent ges­ture that Sobon in­ter­pret­ed as, 'lat­er'. "He ap­par­ent­ly had been stuck for a while. I im­pressed on him the need for my... ex­per­tise to re­main se­cret, and he promised he would. I didn't specif­i­cal­ly ask for prop­er­ty, just that I had a way to keep peo­ple I care for safe. I sup­pose this was an easy way to ac­com­plish that."

Mian leaned back slight­ly at that. "Keep­ing peo­ple safe... yeah, I sup­pose so. Es­pe­cial­ly since you still need to leave." He frowned. "But... if you taught him the se­cret to reach Gold, a small house like this might be con­sid­ered a cheap gift. De­pend­ing on how se­ri­ous he was, you might make sure that he doesn't plan to of­fer you a bet­ter house lat­er on."

Sobon con­sid­ered that, her frown slip­ping too eas­i­ly into the clas­sic Alas­si frown. So far, she hadn't heard any­thing from the City Lord one way or an­oth­er--which, when she con­sid­ered the way he'd grov­eled at the inn, might well mean that he was go­ing to be ner­vous­ly await­ing some kind of word. "I will talk to him to­mor­row."

"Prob­a­bly best," Mian agreed.

Lui, con­tent to be left out of that con­ver­sa­tion, looked up at the evening sky. When Sobon no­ticed, she turned to look, watch­ing the be­gin­nings of red tint the sky, with the low­er, white clouds pro­vid­ing a nice con­trast against it. "Pret­ty sky," of­fered Sobon.

"Do you know why the sky is red at dusk?" she asked, sud­den­ly.

Mian snort­ed. "I heard some­one say it was a link to the an­ces­tral realm, or a dy­ing god's blood. Nev­er felt any sort of odd qi about it, though."

So Sobon talkd light­ly and vague­ly for a while about light and dif­frac­tion, mak­ing a quick prism out of aether, but the in­di­rect sun pro­vid­ed no con­ve­nient proof of con­cept. It wasn't hard to gen­er­ate a light source, but when she had full con­trol over every as­pect of the demon­stra­tion, there was less rea­son to be­lieve she was talk­ing about the fun­da­men­tals of the uni­verse. Still, both of the two looked suit­ably fas­ci­nat­ed.

"I've seen col­ors off of a glass be­fore," con­firmed Lui. "And the... lens­ing, through wa­ter. So I sup­pose it makes sense."

Sobon just nod­ded at that, let­ting her demon­stra­tion piece lapse. "There is al­ways more to learn in the world, even for me. But now..." she stood up. "We should rest."

The next day, Sobon de­part­ed some time af­ter Mian and Lui, af­ter lock­ing up the house. Al­though she wasn't pos­i­tive where the City Lord could be found, she re­mem­bered his aether sig­na­ture more than well enough to throw to­geth­er a track­ing script. It was no sur­prise that her feet brought her back down the Way of Sil­ver, down the main trade route, and then up a road on the oth­er side which was the Way of Di­a­mond, which led to a state­ly build­ing with a di­a­mond promi­nent­ly fea­tured above the main en­trance. In front of the city hall, as­sum­ing that's what it was, was a wide plaza with a promi­nent foun­tain, around which a few peo­ple milled.

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One of them in par­tic­u­lar, a qui­et man who was def­i­nite­ly not Djang in fea­tures or cloth­ing, sat with his eyes closed fac­ing down the Way of Di­a­mond in what looked like a med­i­ta­tion pose. It was only when Sobon passed close to him that she felt a strange twinge in the aether, and she glanced at him and frowned, at the same mo­ment that he opened his eyes, glanc­ing at her.

Sobon's ini­tial im­pres­sion of the man was that he was serene, but with in­cred­i­ble qi. Al­though his core only dis­played five gold stars, Sobon sensed more aether depth in him than she had sensed in re­cent mem­o­ry. That might not mean pow­er, specif­i­cal­ly; Sobon knew that aether was tricky, and qi was com­pli­cat­ed. Still, she con­sid­ered him qui­et­ly, but did not pause her steps, and the man let her go.

There was a line of peo­ple go­ing all the way out the door. Sobon didn't queue up, and the guards didn't ac­cost her when she sim­ply stepped past the line and into the build­ing. Once in­side, she found her­self in a mod­est­ly large re­cep­tion hall, where the sin­gle line met with a sin­gle grey-haired bu­reau­crat who, in the uni­ver­sal way of bu­reau­crats, went through all the mo­tions need­ed to ad­dress each per­son in line in a way that was not rushed, and yet still showed that he bore a great deal of stress and weight on his shoul­ders.

It was an­oth­er func­tionary stand­ing by the edge of the room who im­me­di­ate­ly no­ticed her and hur­ried over. This one was a young woman, a po­lite and un­ques­tion­ably false smile paint­ed on her face, who bowed with­out im­me­di­ate­ly say­ing any­thing.

So Sobon just said, "Please in­form Lord Shi­da that Lady Alas­si would like a word at his con­ve­nience. It is not ur­gent."

Sobon sensed the qi pulse, but the woman straight­ened out of her bow. "I be­lieve that the City Lord is busy meet­ing with Lord Xoi at the pre­sent time, but I will make sure that he is no­ti­fied. If you would like to wait in­side...?"

Sobon start­ed to sug­gest that she would wait out­side, and per­haps talk to the man by the foun­tain, but Alas­si warned her that it would be tak­en as a sign of of­fense. So Sobon sim­ply let her­self be led into a side room, where she was served a sort of qi-laced tea drink and then left alone. Alas­si could only guess how much drink­ing count­ed as 'po­lite', but Sobon found her­self gen­er­al­ly unim­pressed with the tea. It wasn't that the drink tast­ed bad; clear­ly the drink had been pre­pared very dili­gent­ly and with qual­i­ty in­gre­di­ents. How­ev­er... per­haps ex­act­ly be­cause of that, it had a coat­ing of very stale aether to it. Rigid and un­com­pro­mis­ing, it left a lin­ger­ing sen­sa­tion that Sobon could only para­phrase as 'tra­di­tion,' as though any de­vi­a­tion in fla­vor, tex­ture, or even aether com­po­si­tion might be seen as of­fen­sive.

It wasn't over­pow­er­ing in its in­ten­si­ty, and it wasn't tru­ly aw­ful in its na­ture. But the very first sip tast­ed to Sobon like Alas­si in that dusty up­stairs room, with win­dows that had not been opened in years. From that mo­ment, Sobon only drank if she sensed some­one else ap­proach­ing the room, or thought some­one else was mon­i­tor­ing.

Fi­nal­ly, the same func­tionary ap­peared at a dif­fer­ent door, bow­ing and say­ing, "The City Lord will see you."

Sobon was led through a back hall­way and up stairs. Just as they ap­proached a mas­sive door that Sobon thought was close to the back end of the build­ing, the door opened and a lean man with what Sobon pri­vate­ly con­sid­ered a ridicu­lous mous­tache stepped out. It wasn't large so much as it clear­ly took ef­fort, and all for a re­sult Sobon would nev­er have cho­sen while male; it was thin, ex­tend­ing out to each side be­fore turn­ing sharply down, the ends curl­ing back to­wards his chin line. Qi kept it clean and firm, Sobon sus­pect­ed, but she couldn't imag­ine mak­ing such a styl­is­tic choice. And his clothes...

Sobon let her eyes stay on the man's face for a mo­ment, feign­ing po­lite­ness, and then looked for­ward, try­ing not to look at the silk suit. It wasn't of­fen­sive, ex­act­ly. Some­what like Xoi Xam's ap­pear­ance when she met him at the hos­pi­tal in ...what was the Bilg home­land even called? Sobon had no idea, and wasn't sure she cared. But Xoi Xam's clothes and be­hav­ior had all been part of a sin­gle co­he­sive im­age, and this man's were as well. Only... Sobon had con­sid­ered at the time that Xoi Xam was sim­ply dis­guis­ing her­self as meek and hum­ble when she was ac­tu­al­ly quite dan­ger­ous, and this man's suit was also mak­ing him look dis­arm­ing, af­fa­ble.

Sobon thought there was a sharp­ness be­hind his eyes as he con­sid­ered her in pass­ing, but she couldn't tell what thoughts were be­hind them, or if it had any­thing to do with her at all.

The City Lord's of­fice, once she was in­side, was ex­pan­sive and with­out pur­pose. Lit­er­al­ly speak­ing, it was most­ly emp­ty space; it was need­less­ly tall, and al­though the walls were dec­o­rat­ed with book­shelves, most of the floor space was emp­ty. A small desk was placed in the cen­ter of a large set of floor to ceil­ing win­dows that looked out over rear gar­dens, with sev­er­al foun­tains each sur­round­ed by flower and herb col­lec­tions that Sobon had no in­ter­est in iden­ti­fy­ing. Sev­er­al qi lights hov­ered near the ceil­ing, though they were not sus­pend­ed by chains or any­thing sim­i­lar.

Lord Shi­da him­self spent a few mo­ments fin­ish­ing writ­ing some­thing down, then hur­ried­ly stood and bowed. "My lady Alas­si. I am very sor­ry, I have been re­miss. I had re­quest­ed a dif­fer­ent house for you, but it seems my clerks--"

"I am more than con­tent with the house I was giv­en," Sobon said, rais­ing one hand and con­tin­u­ing for­ward to the chair set near the desk.

"But..." He less­ened his bow and made ob­vi­ous looks to the side, where sev­er­al chairs were set with­out a cen­tral table, for a more re­laxed at­mos­phere. "I, ah, was in­ves­ti­gat­ing why the pa­per­work was mixed up, and that is why I did not--"

"Be at peace, Lord Shi­da," Sobon said, and took a seat across his desk. "And sit down. I hate all this for­mal non­sense."

Lord Shi­da's face twitched slight­ly at that, but he sat down. "I had in­tend­ed... ah, there was a prop­er no­ble's man­sion that was aban­doned some months ago. It was to go to auc­tion soon, but I be­lieved it would suf­fice. It seems--"

"Lord Shi­da," Sobon didn't shy away from mak­ing her tone en­tire­ly clear. "I pre­fer some­thing sub­tle. And I know ways to ex­pand the space with­in, which I have al­ready be­gun. I do not wish to change to a new place af­ter the work I have al­ready done."

At the men­tion of ex­pand­ing space, Lord Shi­da's face took on a very tense look and a very pal­lid col­or. "Spa­tial ex­pan­sion, my Lady? Are you cer­tain?"

"I am more than pro­fi­cient." Sobon con­sid­ered the look on his face. "Is this a prob­lem?"

"No! No, my Lady Alas­si. It is... a rare skill. The last time I saw a Space Ring at auc­tion, it was the most high­ly de­sired item. I was made to un­der­stand... that even among in­scrip­tion­ists, con­trol over space was a rare bit of knowl­edge in­deed."

"It is one of many things as­so­ci­at­ed with my... pa­tron." Sobon had to take a mo­ment to re­mem­ber how she had phrased it ear­li­er. It was only a mo­ment, but she was sure that Lord Shi­da no­ticed it. "I am most­ly here to­day to make sure you un­der­stand that I want to keep the house. Should it be de­ter­mined that I am killed, the own­er is my grand­daugh­ter, ...Kalai Lui." Sobon al­most stum­bled over the name. It wasn't Alas­si's own sur­name, but Tuli's. In truth, she hadn't giv­en it even a mo­ment's thought.

"Of course, Lady Alas­si. Now that I know... the pa­per­work will only take a mo­ment." Sobon no­ticed the man fir­ing off sev­er­al qi puls­es, and re­ceiv­ing a few in re­turn. She also no­ticed that, un­like the at­ten­dant from ear­li­er, it showed on his face when he had to con­cen­trate on the task. Then, per­haps that was part of why the at­ten­dant had her face in a con­stant, po­lite mask. "Of course, I have been search­ing for guards to ap­point to your res­i­dence--"

"Again, I wish it to be sub­tle," Sobon in­ter­rupt­ed, firm­ly. "I've al­ready im­proved the de­fens­es some­what. If any­thing, builders and ma­te­ri­als would be use­ful. Specif­i­cal­ly builders that can keep a se­cret."

For some rea­son, Lord Shi­da's face in that mo­ment was know­ing, sat­is­fied, al­most preda­to­ry. Sobon was en­tire­ly un­sure of what ex­act­ly that was sup­posed to mean, ex­cept that some­one was go­ing to end up un­hap­py, and she didn't think it would be her. "Of course, my Lady Alas­si."

"One last thing," Sobon said. "My Lui may be ap­pren­tic­ing with the al­chemist, Lady Fau Mide. What do you know of her?"

Lord Shi­da's face in­stant­ly be­came in­ter­est­ed, and he glanced away for a mo­ment as he thought. "Fau Mide. Her fam­i­ly came from a war zone to the north, Emer­ald Hill I be­lieve. It is... more dis­tant than our names might im­ply. They see many Starbeast invasions from the mountains to the north, there. A re­bel­lion from the war­rior sects there was put down by the Di­a­mond Lord some years ago, and war­rior ser­vice has been manda­to­ry there ever since. Lady Fau served her time will­ing­ly, but then left the Emer­ald Hill re­gion and served as a wan­der­ing al­chemist. My pre­de­ces­sor gave her hous­ing here if she would stay, and she agreed." His eyes cleared up and he met Sobon's own. "She has been fair in all deaings I am aware of, though oth­ers have tried to cheat her. None would say she is less than com­pe­tent. I am un­sure of ex­act­ly how deep her knowl­edge and skills go, but she is re­spect­ed."

Sobon smiled at that. "That is what I wished to know. Thank you." At that, she stood, and left the City Lord's of­fice, ig­nor­ing his hur­ried bows be­hind her.