Aerilia was a hit-or-miss city, at least from some peoples’ point of view. By being so unorthodox, many had found themselves in a love-hate, so-so, neither here-nor-there relationship with Geverde’s second city.

Being second had its merits. It was more accessible to the tourist type, but unlike its sister city, barely concerned itself with international matters. Even in its busiest areas, it did not lose touch with the small-town mentality. Strangers would greet each other, step out of one another’s way, and help a passerby if they were to trip over. That was undoubtedly something anyone could appreciate.

Yet it was the city itself, the physicality of it, that rubbed people the wrong way. The entire city, from shanty shack to office building, rested atop a system of titanic piers. Their mammoth supports would take on a variety of shapes. From arches to pyramids to carved totems, many were world-renown architectural landmarks themselves. Even though the locals would insist that the city's robustness was not something that had ever faltered in their lifetime, a newcomer often found it hard to believe. If that were not bad enough, Lake Aerilia’s lapping waters were notorious for inducing motion sickness in the particularly queasy. Even after several weeks on dry land, some still felt the sensation of subtle movement.

But still, it was the scenery that had forever been the city’s saving grace. To stray away from the business precinct was but a few minutes' drive or a marginally longer walk. Along the more scenic routes, one could experience the charming wooden shanty towns and windmills that gave Aerilia its endearing fame. Quaint villages of fishers, millers, and kelp farmers framed against the backdrop of rolling mountains and deep forestry.

Where Excala overwhelmed an observer with its patchwork carpet enveloping the land, Aerilia was humble. Its skyline was shorter, its buildings browner, but it never lost to number one when it came to its character.

To Recres Wesper, the scenery was not so accessible, nor was the motion-sickness inducing waters. A disability that left him lacking in sight had made him exceptionally privy to the other forms of stimuli. That and whatever movement of Aether there happened to be.

He was aware of the fishmongers, millers, and kelp farmers owing to the aggressive smell that came with their workdays. He was aware of the wooden shanty towns owing to the ambient harmony they produced with every gust of wind. He was aware of the tens of Beaks he passed on the daily, owing to their slow absorption and diffusion of Aether.

He saw a black canvas and found it fairly entertaining to fill in the blanks where he could. When he owned the entire city of Fadaak, he could see all its crevices better than anyone with eyes ever could.

Among the seeing, the no-eyed man was king.

“And he was felled in the line of duty, making the ultimate sacrifice to keep our city safe. He was an admirable man, an excellent police officer, a loving son, but most importantly, a hero. Thank you.”

Wesper found a particular interest in eulogies, particularly those for people their character he was vaguely familiar with. Such a last-ditch attempt to save one's face; to salvage the memory of someone already dead. It particularly humoured him when the subject of the speech had died with unresolved business. More often than not, it was financial issues, a lacking social life, perhaps even unresolved trauma.

Their final say would never mention any of it, even when everyone in the crowd was more than aware. People talked, and they'd be snickering behind each other’s backs the entire way through.

However, this particular funeral was not of that nature. None of the five or so attendants knew of Arthur Prekeper Morgannan’s true career, nor the true intent that drove him to death. He had been a Wizard, and the allure of an exceptionally rewarding contract had led him to Workar Tower.

He had died chasing a paycheck. Anyone suggesting otherwise was doing nothing but embalming them with words. Wesper found this unendingly interesting. The grotesque symptoms of human nature, that which was intrinsic to the Spirit condition, was something to deny. Denied but never remedied. That was where Wesper set himself apart from the rest.

He heard the small rowboat boat set sail, the body inside wreathed with flowers and grass burning in great columns of fire. The last of Arthur Prekeper Morgannan went up in smoke.

“May your soul find salvation on death’s door,” Wesper whispered. “Say you were the victim of an imperfect world, and those who guard the afterlife may let you rest in peace.”

With the funeral over, Wesper began to walk away, parting with the lone pier and turning back toward the maze-like shanty towns. He had had an awfully entertaining experience navigating it through brief flashes of sound, smell, touch and Aether. He had become so adept at it that even in such a friendly city, no one bothered to check if he was lost. Wesper took this as a compliment, assuming that no one had even considered the possibility that he might be blind.

A ringing sounded from his left. Telephone booths were not exactly a rare occurrence throughout the city. There seemed to be one every few hundred metres judging by the frequency of muffled one-sided conversations. Or, at least in the larger districts.

But out here? The fact that someone was calling a phone booth was strange in and of itself. Wesper listened, but he heard no one else in the vicinity. No, this was a call for him.

“They could go about things less conspicuously,” he mumbled, heading for the sound. Opening the booth, he found the receiver and answered.

“Hello?”

“Wesper. Long time no see.”

“What a tasteless gag.”

The voice on the other side of the phone chuckled. “I apologise. One tends to forget. How have you been?”

“Attending funerals,” Wesper said, “uninvited, of course.”

“Whatever suits your fancy,” the voice sighed. “I have a request for you, friend.”

“Your requests are always bothersome, friend.”

“Are you headed to Excala soon?”

Wesper considered for a moment his two options. Lie, and mention nothing of his latest personal inquests, or tell the truth and saddle himself with extra work. All in good cause, of course, yet work, nonetheless. However, seeing that his friend currently knew his location at all times, he decided it was best not to act overly stubborn.

“Yes. I became privy to the Wish Bearer’s name and face as of late, thanks to a fellow in S.H.I.A., rest his soul.”

“Her?” the voice asked. “What would you want with her, Wesper?”

“She could very well be useful, you know that.”

“Yes, but at what cost? It is not by coincidence she is called Geverde’s lapdog. She’d much sooner end you than listen to what you have to say.”

“Then, in that case, we’ll be left with one less enemy.”

“Caution yourself, Wesper. At least do me a favour before you run headfirst into death.”

“What would that be?”

“Some friends of mine in the Vesmos Army chain-of-command have solicited my help finding one of their lost cadets.”

“Cadet? One cadet? I don't care how strict your deserter tolerance is, that's overkill.”

“I’m aware. They refused to elaborate much further, so it’s safe to say there’s something deeper to all this. Finding them and handing them back would do well for our image, yet keeping them for ourselves would be equally as useful. I would like to leave it to your discretion.”

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“It sounds to me they solicited you,” Wesper complained.

“I’ve been awfully busy recently, and if you’ve got the time to go to a stranger’s funeral, I’d assume you’ve got time to spare. Am I wrong?”

“...unfortunately, no. I will notify you when I’m in the city, then.”

“Thank you, good friend. Consider this an I-owe-you. Until the day utopia begins.”

“Until then.”

Wesper put the receiver down, hearing the hollow clunk and cheery chime bid him farewell.

“Bastard.”

“Can you clean the bathroom?” Evalyn called while she dusted the mounds of cardboard and paper in the archive room. She heard the faint sound of an ‘okay’, followed not long after by the muffled thudding running feet.

“Don’t run!”

Right on cue, she heard the thudding falter and stumble violently, doing its best to return to balance.

“…you all right?”

“Y-yeah!” Iris replied. Evalyn chuckled, returning to her task. Iris had gotten adjusted to the office routine, always delegating herself something when they weren’t on the job. Cleaning was not exactly something she chose to do herself, yet she learnt to enjoy it as much as Evalyn did.

Particularly the vacuum. What once terrified her whenever it began to roar now seemed to excite her to no end. Perhaps it was the subtle Aether pull, but she seemed to enter a mysterious high whenever it did. Although Evalyn wasn’t complaining.

Just not the archive room. She had learnt the hard way that a vacuum cleaner was one’s enemy once entering a space littered with loose paper. That was precisely why Evalyn was dusting by hand.

She had left the windows open to keep air circulating, but letting the autumn-night chill in had not done the room’s temperature any favours. The awkward tip-toeing dance she warmed herself up with left her with a heightened level of awareness.

In what was a quiet part of the city, roaring trains and busy intersections were nothing more than a distant serenade. Relaxing when filtered through several layers of city-block soundproofing. The soft wail of a police siren caught her attention, and she walked over to the window, taking a peek outside.

Being on the apartment’s top floor, her view of the city was nothing to scoff at—especially seeing that she was paying good money for it. Yet she still had to crane her neck out of the window to see anything interesting.

Projections of blue and red ran along several building faces throughout a district to her North. A police chase, most likely.

“Thank you for your continued service,” she whispered, retracting her head back into the room. The crime dramas they played on the radio every weekend had been of particular interest as of late. Particularly the ones that depicted detectives morally ambiguous as their criminal counterparts. Even so, she had grown a small affinity for the Excala Metropolitan Police, even if it was just a phase.

Police in real life were never that cool.

She heard a knock on the front door. A brief three taps she did not recognise. Spritely, like whoever was on the other side was in a hurry. It was too energetic to be Ms Caney’s knuckles, and it could not have been clientele. Evalyn never had visitors at such a late hour. No one was that desperate to report their missing cat.

She entered hallway, silently moving up to the door on her toes, in case she still wanted to feign her absence. Duster still in hand, she peered through the peek hole.

Dark-haired male, looking about thirteen or fourteen in a slightly torn brown lounge suit. He gave the impression of a low-ranking gangster, some thug still too poor to afford a proper outfit. He knocked on the door again, and only then did Evalyn notice his hands. The skin on his fingers, right below his knuckles, was utterly raw; a red line from his index to his pinkie.

Evalyn felt a tug on her other hand.

“Who is it?” Iris whispered. Then it clicked.

As quietly as she could manage, Evalyn picked Iris up by the waist and brought her eye to the peephole. She felt the little girl go still, then nod slowly. Evalyn placed her down and pointed her to the archive room.

Another knock came from the other side as the boy with the brass knuckles grew impatient.

“What do you want?” Evalyn asked, pressing herself up against the doorway.

“Is this Excala International Private Investigations?” the boy asked.

“If you’re here to solicit, I’m afraid we’re closed for the day.”

“And I’m afraid I cannot wait until tomorrow. I’m here on urgent business.”

“No exceptions, I’m afraid. This’ll have to wait.”

“The business is urgent enough that I’m willing to break down the door if that’s what it takes.”

“I would have to call the police in that case, Sir.”

“If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, then that would not be necessary, would it Ms Mardsdon?”

Mardsdon. Mardsdon? A cover name. One she had used abroad, although she could barely recall where. The most logical place was Vesmos, considering those who were after him. Was he revolutionary? It was possible. They did not discriminate between old and young in those groups.

“What makes you say that?”

“A mysterious gun-for-hire that would only ever work alone. Leave with a single bolt action and come back successful without fail. No one ever checked how you would do it because everyone was too scared to.”

“You’re a revolutionary, then?”

“No. Not yet, but they've sent me here. I’ve got valuable information for the Kingdom of Geverde, and I’m looking for political asylum.”

Political asylum? Who did he think he was? Evalyn guessed he would not leave until he got his way. She wanted to go home, but she was not too keen on sneaking out the window only to come back to a demolished door either.

“I’m opening,” Evalyn called, undoing the latch on the door and creaking it open. The boy was patient with her, standing stock-still until Evalyn stepped aside, inviting him in.

“End of the hall,” she said, and the boy obliged, sneaking a glance at Iris, still peeking from the archive room. Their eyes locked briefly in some ritual of wordless understanding Evalyn failed to grasp. She beckoned Iris to follow, and they ushered him into the office.

“Take a seat,” Evalyn said, pointing him to the chair across her desk. He did so without complaint, even when Evalyn herself chose to stay standing.

“What’s your name?”

“Alistair Harbourman, although I’ve been referred to as ‘Alis’ in the past.”

“All right, Alis,” Evalyn said, resting against her desk. “Before you start, brass knuckles. Here,” she commanded, patting the desk.

The boy kept himself poised, refusing to shift in his seat whatsoever. He hid his nerves well, assuming he had any. He resisted for a moment but eventually conceded. He reached into his jacket and fished around for a moment. The brass knuckles he produced were not of a variety Evalyn was used to. Fashioned from brass, sure, the golden-orange sheen of the metal was almost unmistakable. But the four clear gems embedded at each peak were of a variety Evalyn had never seen before. The same design was repeated twice, making for eight in total.

She placed them on the desk next to her, pretending not to notice the subtle Aether pull they omitted. It was the weapons, not the boy himself. He was nothing but a regular human.

“Alright, begin.”

The boy lifted his head and glanced toward Iris.

“She’s with me,” Evalyn explained. “Apprentice.”

He looked back, his expression doubtful, yet he continued anyway.

“My name is Alistair Harbourman, and I’m a recent escapee from Vesmos’s Modern Warfare program. I will not divulge into detail until my appeal for asylum is granted."

"What can you tell me, then?"

"I can say that products of the program are highly educated and battle-proficient. We're taught from a young age and given those," he said, nodding towards the brass knuckles. “Flexible alternatives to the Wand system. Those crystals, or rather their cruder counterparts are used domestically as vessels for infusion. They're what’s housed in the wands themselves. Those are their refined variants.”

“And how much more effective does that make them?”

“I’m not sure,” Alis admitted, “but if my appeal is granted, I would not be averse to testing. Live combat records have proven to be conclusive, though.”

“I’m sure,” Evalyn said, standing upright. She began to pace around him. “You’ve been spotted fighting against people who I assume are connected with the Vesmos Empire. What’s that about?”

“Military Police agents, most likely. Although, they could just as well be the Empire’s Intelligence Agency. Connections to Vesmos are absolute, I can assure you that. The information I withhold and those knuckles are what make me a valuable target.”

“So,” Evalyn said, placing both hands on the back of his seat, “you’re valuable to Geverde, and you’re valuable to Vesmos. Who sent you here, then?”

“The United Liberation of the Eastern Front. After giving them the information I had, they sent me here.”

“And what was their plan?”

“To attain political asylum in Geverde before giving up the information.”

“And after that? You aren’t going to go back and fight for them?”

“…no. I am to stay.”

Evalyn noted the delayed response but decided to continue. Something, in particular, bothered her about the arrangement.

“And they didn’t ask you for Geverde’s help in exchange. No funding, no weapons?”

“No. Not that I’m aware of. They only told me to come to you.”

“So,” Evalyn said, reluctantly piecing together the information in her head. “You mean to tell me, that instead of entering talks with Geverde themselves and asking for help in exchange for information, they sent you.”

“Yes.”

“A highly sought-after target of the Vesmos Empire, of which has a great deal of bargaining power against us.”

“Yes. I don’t see your point—”

“My point is, if they wanted to ask for our help, they would have come to us themselves with that intel. Not to mention the fact that they'd put you down like an injured animal right after. You are the rabbit, and the Vesmos Empire is the wolf. They threw the live grenade toward us before it exploded, and now we’re stuck with it right before it blows.”

“What are you trying to—”

“What I’m trying to say is that your liberation army sent you here to spark a war between Vesmos and Geverde, a war they could use to take power. All it takes is for Geverde to give political asylum to a deserter with some of the most valuable information on the continent.”

“That wouldn’t start a war,” Alis tried to argue.

“Doesn’t matter. It heightens tensions all the same. These things are dominos, Alis, and you’re about to tip the first one.”

“Alis…Mr Harbourman.”

They both turned towards Iris, standing by one of the windows. She was peering out from behind a corner, concealing most of herself behind the frame.

“Were you followed?”