“Keep the change, dear,” the old woman said as she pushed a sizable stack of Geld toward Zora. It was far beyond the value of the elderly couple’s meal. “Wonderful service.”

  “Thank you so much,” Zora said, beaming. As the couple rose and shuffled out of the restaurant, Zora gathered their dirty dishes and made her way through a swinging door into the back. She winked at Cayd as she passed him working over a pot of simmering sauce. A middle aged woman, one hand on her hip, the other bringing a spoon of the sauce to her lips was starring critically at the Gavundari.

  “Not bad,” the woman said. “You’re getting better, that’s for sure.”

  “Thanks, Linda,” Cayd said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she remarked. “It’s better. Not good. Zora, can you run the sink for a moment?”

  “Sure thing,” Zora replied with a chuckle. She carried the dishes to a deep basin, half full of kitchenware still lightly steaming from stovetop heat. This was Zora’s favorite task. Linda liked how clean Zora’s red magic was able to get the dirtiest dishes. Even baked on grease and scorch marks yielded to Zora control over heat and water. The secret? A charge of quick lightning through a metal pot burned it all away.

  But Zora enjoyed it because interacting with water gave her the chance to hear his voice again. She reached over the sink and opened a valve that began a steady stream of collected rainwater flowing into the basin. While letting the basin fill, Zora turned to watch Cayd and Linda.

  They owed her their lives at this point. Linda’s restaurant had a studio tenament space on its second story that she was hard pressed to rent out. The smells and noise from the restaurant had been a major turn off for most potential renters. But as Cayd and Zora spent their nights chasing rumors about serial killers, they found the setup acceptable. The only issue is, they had used the last of their Geld buying sensible clothing.

  Zora was in one of her quaint, but flattering, pastel blouses with a light vest over it for “service industry class,” as Linda called it. Cayd was looking sharp in a button up shirt, the sleeves rolled to the elbow to prevent staining. The clothes looked just fine. Which meant they were not cheap. It was difficult looking for a place to live, but Linda came to the rescue.

  Eager to fill the space, Linda allowed them to stay in the apartment so long as they offered their labor in the restaurant from time to time. It was a wonderful distraction from Zora’s normal boredom and the constant string of disappointments that Cayd’s investigation had been shaping up to be. Particularly between the lunch and dinner rushes when it was too early to investigate and too late to sleep in. Linda had always wanted to tap the market of “old people too prone to overstimulation to eat at a normal time,” but could never hire employees for the early afternoon. So, oftentimes, the three were running the restaurant alone before the first of the dinner crowd arrived.

  Satisfied by the depth of the water in the sink, Zora pushed her sleeves up and sunk her hands into the water, warmed by her magic. Instantly, the seawater pendant she had tucked beneath her blouse began to shine. Zora closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the water spilling into the basin and smiled as it turned into words.

  “I miss you so much,” the voice of Tidus, the god of sea said softly. “I am so sorry for what happened and I will wait till the end of the world for you to come back.”

  The sound of the god’s voice brought a smile to her. Nostalgia for the life that was stolen from her seized Zora as she stood over the sink, feeling the water slosh around her fingers.

  “I miss you so much,” the pendant repeated. “I am so sorry for what happened and I will wait till the end of the world for you to come back.”

  She missed him, too. And she missed her crew, and her ship, and the feeling that she could go anywhere in the world at any time. She was comfortable enough here in this one-room apartment with a part time job. There was food to eat and a place to sleep. Something she could not always count on at sea. But was she happy?

  The pendant began to play Tidus’s message again.

  “Zora.” She heard her name and her heart skipped. Did the pendant have more to say to her? Could Tidus say more?

  “Hey, Zora,” the call came again, with a hand on Zora’s shoulder pulling her from her daydream with a start. She looked over to see Cayd, exasperated, looking at the sink.

  “I need a spatula,” he said, delicately urging her to hurry up.

  “A turner!” Linda corrected from the other end of the kitchen, hands protected by pot holders as she held a pan full of pastries.

  Cayd exhaled sharply at the correction and Zora chuckled.

  “Yeah, no problem,” she said. “Sorry, daydreaming for a second.” She reached for a small jar containing Linda’s homemade detergent and began cleaning.

  “A damned slave driver,” Cayd grumbled as he and Zora walked side-by-side on one of the market streets. They each held a small stuffed dumpling that would serve as one of the few meals they enjoyed not from Linda’s recipe books. “You hear the way she corrected me? A turner!”

  Zora laughed out loud. “She’s a cruel mistress! Hardened by leadership and the need to make those tough decisions.”

  “Are you as cruel?” Cayd asked.

  Zora’s hand whipped up to his ear, pinching the lobe. “You bet your ass.” After an instant of Cayd’s panic, she released him with a giggle. “She’s a sweetheart to me, though. Dunno what you did to her.”

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  “I do appreciate her,” Cayd conceded. “But she can be so mean.”

  “So what’s on the schedule tonight?”

  “One of the customers said I should talk to someone in the civilian guard. Going to the Church is going to hit bureaucracy and secrecy. But the lack of professionalism in the civilian teams should help get us what we’re looking for.”

  “Where are we gonna find these guys?”

  Cayd responded with a nod to a grimy looking alley up ahead. Jovial market shoppers walked past the dark, cobblestone walk without paying it any attention. This was in spite of the wrought iron sign mounted beside it with a jagged arrow pointing into the alley. Crudely painted and poorly maintained, the sign read “Swine’s Pearls – This Way for Food and Drink.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Zora said, grimacing at the name.

  “Maybe it’s a front for something lofty and respectable,” Cayd suggested, not believing it himself.

  As they trudged through the muddy, mildew-ridden alleyway, a sullen man leaning against a wall tried to greet them. However, some manner of phlegm caught wetly in his throat, sending him into a ferocious fit of hacks and coughs. Zora stopped, completely appalled.

  "I hate this," she grumbled.

  "You lived at sea. You've seen worse."

  "Not by choice," she hissed. "Just because something doesn't surprise me does not mean I like it."

  Cayd rolled his eyes and urged her toward the door next to the hacking man. It was a board of thin wooden planks with no uniformity of shape or color. The words "Swine's Pearls" were crudely branded into the planks, off center and shabby. While the man continued his fit of hacks and coughs, Cayd pushed the door in and the couple stepped into a humid, cool, and very dark tavern that smelled of spilled beer, spoiled foods, and mold. The tavern was quite full, despite its location and atmosphere. Rickety tables were surrounded by men in leather pads with swords on their laps. Their hushed conversations continued, not paying any mind to the newcomers' entry.

  Cayd could barely see Zora's frown in the flickering candlelight. "Didn't you live on a boat?" he whispered.

  "And you can be sure my crew kept that boat clean. This place is disgusting."

  "Hey you two," called a woman from the corner. She wore what looked like a dirty apron, though Cayd and Zora could not be sure, signalling her being an employee of the tavern. "Need something?"

  "Looking for the civilian guard," Cayd announced.

  The woman scoffed. "I'm talking 'bout food and drink."

  "Beer, please," Zora remarked on Cayd's behalf. "Two."

  "Coming up," she said, pursing her lips, and moving behind a run down bar.

  "Looking for the civilian guard?" one of the leather-clad men asked drunkenly.

  "Mac, hush now," groaned another.

  "Nah, nah," Mac responded. "They wanna fight? I'll give them a fight."

  "How long have you been drinking?" Zora challenged.

  "Since I was 6, beautiful," Mac answered with a wide smile.

  "We don't want to fight," Cayd replied. "Mind if I pull up a chair?"

  "Yes." The response was unanimous and off putting to Cayd, but hilarious to Zora.

  "Not my kind of building, but definitely my kind of people!" she chuckled.

  The waitress appeared with two mugs of beer, full to only three quarters. When Cayd and Zora took them, they grimaced at the feel of dust under their fingertips. Cayd looked around for somewhere near the guards to place his mug, but the guards moved their arms on their own table to communicate he would have to stand there, holding it, if he wished to talk to them.

  "Look, we just want to know about the killer," Cayd finally said.

  "What killer?" one replied.

  Zora took a gulp of beer, frowned at the flavor, and replied. "Don't play stupid. Gonna go on a limb and say you all at least know of him."

  "Not allowed to talk to it, though," Mac said, blinking groggily. "Church moratorium."

  "Well break it."

  "Not even for you." He smiled dreamily at her.

  "What will get you to talk?" Cayd asked.

  The guards took turns looking at one another and at Cayd and Zora. Finally, Mac snagged his mug and began guzzling his beer. The other guards responded in kind, as did every other guest in the tavern. Cayd noticed a sly smile on the face of the waitress as the barkeep excitedly turned to the flagons and kegs behind him.

  "Dammit," Cayd swore under his breath before turning to Zora. She was throwing her mug back as well. "Zora!" he barked. She glanced up at him around the clay mug and fired a wink while she chugged the beverage.

  The tavern became boisterous as Cayd counted out the coins to pay for a full round of drinks. It was pretty much all he had made that day at Linda's. And here he was hoping to buy a new journal or book. Instead he was feeding the hedonism of these dregs, and that included his so-called partner. He threw the coins on the bar and turned back to the grinning guards.

  "Your change, sir?" the waitress asked.

  "Whatever," Cayd grumbled, his mood sinking when he saw Zora was able to earn a seat at the table. She was laughing and shouting with the guards, and though she had only had the one mug of beer, seemed to be on their level all the same.

  "So, now that we're all," Mac looked to the ceiling to think of his words. "Socially lubricated!" The table erupted into laughter. The sudden shift from sullen to boisterous in the tavern was further dampening Cayd's mood. "What did you want to know?"

  "Anything," Cayd grumbled. "Everything. What do you know?"

  "Next to nothin'," another guard said. "One of ours found the first and second bodies. Same situation. Big ol' knife right in the throat. Left eye gouged out. Not a single bruise."

  "What would a bruise mean?" Zora asked.

  "That there was a fight," Mac answered. "Looks like the victims just took the attack. We thought they may've been drugged but the doctors all said no."

  "Was there anything unusual?" Cayd asked. "Such as," there was a long pause as Cayd searched for what would be appropriate to mention, and what was better left quiet. "Could you account for every victim?"

  "No," Mac said grimly. "One woman told me she been murdered but we never found her body." His teasing triggered laughter from around the table, further annoying Cayd. The rapport he had been trying to build was not sticking.

  "No, no," the guard who explained the deaths said, urging the table to quiet down. "There was some weird stuff. Footprints in the blood. Three or four steps away, then just gone. I think that's all we really got. After the second body, the church came in, took all our paperwork and grilled us for hours on the scene. I'm telling you all I told them. Promise."

  Cayd's eyes wandered in thought. "Can you tell me where the bodies were found?"

  Mac looked at his guards, then at Zora, and finally at Cayd. All at once they began chugging again.