Our vaults are greater than their treasures.

  -Avestan Zend

  The trip out of the Mundane Faculty remained uneventful. The same looks of curiosity, a few nods of greeting, occasional glares at Kave until they left the building.

  “Well, it’s a little unfortunate that we got the forthcoming one right away. I was hoping that would happen partway through. Give us a little break to refresh ourselves.” Komena said.

  “You expected one of them to be upfront with us?” Kave said.

  “No, but I had hoped. What I know is that there won’t be a second.” She held out a hand to wave down another cart but was soundly ignored. “So, what did you think of his offer?”

  “That offer doesn’t matter right now.” Kave said.

  “Figures. You’re almost lucky that he’s barely giving you a choice in the matter.” Komena said with a grin.

  “Well, what are you going do after this? Go back to working out of a back-alley office?”

  “Yes, ideally. First, I’ll take a long vacation. Sleep twelve hours a day. Then I’ll go back to business, starting by ripping up all the obnoxious jobs I won’t need to take to pay rent. It will be a beautiful moment.” She said.

  Her reverie was interrupted as she noticed a steel-gray blur racing towards her from the sky. Too large to be an arrow, but almost as fast. Before she could dive out of the way, the thing was too close to dodge. Then it vanished, at about five paces away. It turned to dust and rust in the wind, dropping a letter harness it had been carrying. The harness was attached to a hard scroll case and had picked up speed in the imp’s dive bomb. It hit Komena in the shin, hard enough to bruise.

  “The witch lied to us! If that imp knew where were, then all she gave us was costume jewelry!” He snarled.

  “No, there’s another explanation.” Komena said, rubbing the fresh bruise and picking up the scroll case. She’d recognized it as the standard kind shipping companies used. “I think it tracked us the normal way, not through Divination. Besides, at least we proved it works to banish the things.” Had the creature been surprised to go like that? Did it even have the capacity to be?

  It made sense. The amulet kept her from being found magically, but she found people without magic every day. Which meant there was only so much time before the culprit tried something else to find them. Another thing to worry about, to work against. At least, sneaking around the city was work she was familiar with.

  She had also recognized the company logo on the case. It was from Ervan, dated from yesterday, a day after the duel between him and Khalid. Better late than never.

  “He probably had this waiting from me at home or the office. I haven’t been to either since we began. His patience must have run out and he sent the thing looking for me.”

  The question was irrelevant. She turned back to the scroll and opened it fully.

  “Komena.’ It read. “Firstly, I need to thank you again for arbitrating yesterday’s affair. The arrangements you made are the reason I’m alive. Khalid came to his senses while I was undergoing treatment and surrendered the position to me. I can appreciate his good graces in that, though it will be easier once I can close my hand without wincing again.

  Regardless, while I should be resting, there is an issue at the company that they’ve decided to set me on. We have found that one of our warehouses was being put to improper use. Cleaning it out is well within the ability of the workers under me, but the situation itself is curious enough that I would appreciate your insight. Unlike last time, your normal fee would be paid. If this this catches your interest, it’s warehouse 35-CY in the shipping district.”

  Kave waited as she read this out for him. He did a poor job of it, mostly watching the sky like he expected a flock of imps to come down on the both of them, but he did wait until she was finished before grunting.

  “Well, obviously we can’t go. It’s another distraction.” He said. “You can go after that week of sleep if you’re that curious.”

  “I think we should. At the very least, the shipping district would be a good place to throw of any other followers we have. Unless you want to have us under illusion every time we’re in the streets?”

  The boy grunted again. He might not like the detour, and she didn’t know exactly what the limits of his powers were, but Komena could bet that keeping something intricate enough to protect them would be beyond them. She held up a hand again, flagging down a ride. It would best to stay off the streets, and to move as quickly as possible. After a few minutes filled with paranoid glances skyward and into alley’s, they were on their way.

  ***

  In a city where knowledge directly translated to power, where every scrap of book learning was valuable, the shipping district was the one area that could truly be described as working class. There may have been more people levitating crates than there would be at other ports, but the basics of moving loads to and from ships for low pay was the same. Like every other port in the world, the combination of bad wages and valuable goods meant smugglers. Off them, a whole criminal ecosystem was built. Fences, thugs to protect them and worse grouped into gangs, viciously fighting for what territory they could hold onto. Anything unusual was taken as a prelude to some conflict and crushed with gleeful malice.

  Komena walked through these streets and alleys with the confidence of a prodigal daughter. They’d been dropped off at its outskirts and were avoiding the main roads that most goods were carried. Instead, they moved through the thin alleys between warehouses. She knew them like her morning commute. Kave did not share this confidence.

  “How are you so comfortable here?” He asked, checking every shadow.

  “My parents worked here. Ran smaller shipments up and down the coasts. I spent a lot of time following him around when I was a kid. Ran around with some others when I got too old for that. Most of them still work here. Frankly, I like it better here than at the faculties.”

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  A small circle of people started shouting nearby, likely over the contents of a dice cup. The two picked up their pace, before there was a sharp eruption of an incantation and a meaty slam. The sound of gems being dragged along the ground and re-rolling dice faded behind them.

  “Whatever you say. I suppose a slit throat is cleaner than how I thought I would go.” Kave said. He stayed on alert. It had been years since he had lived on the streets, but his instincts were only dulled, not gone. Komena was confident, not stupid, so she did the same.

  Maybe it would have comforted the boy if she told him the alleys were emptier than usual. Recently, beggars were a common sight, getting what little shelter they could from the desert heat, coughing through whatever they couldn’t afford treatment for. She found it disconcerting though. She hadn’t heard of any efforts to remove them yet, so they must have moved on their own. An idea she found suspicious.

  The warehouses themselves were all uniform stone cubes. Only the front was distinct, almost entirely taken up by a large door, with a serial number smoothly carved out on the center, and smaller door intended for people on the left side. The central road though the district was wide enough for a fleet’s worth of goods, but the warehouses were still big enough that the afternoon’s shadow had covered half of it, which Komena appreciated. She came to a stop in front of one of them.

  “And here we are. 38-CY. Sense anything inside?” Komena asked.

  “Of course not. These buildings are all warded. You should know that.”

  “Good. Ervan’s curiosity isn’t some new disaster of sorcery.” She said, going over to the smaller door and testing the knob. It opened on well-greased hinges.

  The warehouse was a wide and airy space, due to a conspicuous absence of the usual cramped pillars of crates. It was quite nice, especially if you looked up and saw that someone had painted a sunset sky on the ceiling. Looking back down, one would see rows of cots and worktables, both empty. Everything was thoroughly dusted with broken glass and metal from shattered, scattered pieces of lab equipment.

  A few workers were going around the building, sweeping up and cataloging the debris to recycled. Khalid was among them, giving occasional directions until he noticed the intrusion. Komena ignored him as he came over to them, instead kneeling to look at a pile of debris.

  “Komena, Ervan was supposed to warn me if you were coming.” He said.

  “We didn’t give him a chance. His imp just found me, and it died when it did.”

  “Oh, so you’re out on another job. As much as I-, we appreciate your help you can come back if you’re too busy. I’m making sure the troops are keeping things organized for you.” She turned her focus from the debris and onto him.

  “As much as I appreciate that gesture, it’s better to see the scene myself.” She said. Khalid looked down even further down, causing her to sigh. “Besides, do you honestly think more time is going to make this less awkward? We’ve known each other for a long while, this isn’t the first of your duels I’ve seen and that’s never worked outbefore.”

  Khalid looked up an inch, still not enough to meet her gaze. Poor man was blushing.

  “Ervan said in his letter that he was doing better. That you gave up the position for him. I expected him to be here, honestly.” She said.

  “Well, we needed his marching orders, but there’s no reason for him to supervise in person. Especially with the rest he needs. I volunteered some overtime to handle it. His sister’s looking after him while he gets the paperwork sorted out. He’s always been better at that that than me. Along with keeping his temper.” He said. Komena nodded and turned back to the wreckage. Khalid passed her some leather work gloves.

  “So, to business then.” Khalid said as she put them on. “We only know about this place because someone heard all of this breaking yesterday. The whole thing was supposed to be filled with transmuted marble by a private renter, so we hadn’t opened it ourselves in years. None of the seals or locks were tampered with and the owner, a Trin Rappoport, has been unreachable.” Khalid said. Komena cursed under breath “Now, our process in this case is cut and dry. We’re to clean it out and re-purpose. But Ervan and I both think it would be good to know what happened here.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Some mage wanted a private space to research, so they rented the space under a false name. The beds mean that they were doing experiments on people. Thankfully volunteers, judging by the lack of restraints. Probably allowed to stay in exchange for being research material. But they didn’t want their equipment tampered with when they weren’t here and there’s too much wreckage to have fit on those tables. So, our mystery mage was strong enough to set a spell to keep their equipment up there.” Komena said, gesturing up to the high ceiling with a sigh.

  “Something happens to the mage. The spell fades out, giving those inside enough time to sneak out and be beaten to death in a glassy rain. Then enough comes down to attract one of the guards and here we are.” She said.

  “So, the reason we can’t contact Trin is because they’re dead?” Khalid said.

  “No, that’s a more interesting question. I’ll spare you the details, but my current case involves a Trin associating with a powerful mage. One strong enough to make floating the equipment practical. I imagine that Trin acted as a proxy for the rental, while the mage was the one who used it. Another level of anonymity. Though it is concerning that you haven’t been able to contact them at all. Did you find any notes on what they were researching?”

  Khalid shook his head. Of course not, the Dean of Evocation would have just taken them back and forth from the lab and their home. Still, there was more information here than her house.

  “Well, what have you found? Anything more like this?” She asked, pulling out a small shard of glass she had noticed in the wreckage, half covered in a flaking, purplish material. A broken microscope slide, perhaps.

  “Maybe, there’s been a lot of broken glass today, but nothing covered in this sludge. I’ll see what we find by the end though” Khalid said.

  “Let me take a look.” Kave said. She passed the shard to him, and he began muttering over it. A moment later, he grunted and gave it to Khalid.

  “It’s some kind spell substance, I can’t tell anything else.” Kave said. “It’s impenetrable. Even if I was looking at it fresh, there’s so much here I couldn’t make sense of it.”

  “What do you mean? Can’t you tell what school it is?” Komena asked.

  “It seems like it’s all of them. Necromancy, transmutation, evocation of course. Everything but summoning and illusion magic is woven into this sample.”

  “That narrows down what she wanted to do at least a little, though. Any guesses?” Komena said.

  “Not accurately. It looks it destroys somethings and heals others. Organic matter specifically. I’d need see a fresher sample to be certain.”

  “I dislike everything you’ve just described. It sounds worse than the Bloom. But, if it’s necessary, we can collect what samples of this poison we can find. Slowly. Carefully.” Khalid said.

  “I’d appreciate it.” Komena said with a nod. “If anyone shows any symptoms, even a headache, get them treatment. The best you can manage. And inform the Faculty of Agriculture.”

  “I understand. We already have medical arrangements we can use.” Khalid said. “We’ll keep you posted on what we find.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m not going to be in the office for a while. If you need to reach me, go to the farmers. Say it’s about my investigation and they should let you in.”

  Khalid offered a hand and pulled her back her feet.

  “Komena. You’re talking about this differently than every other case you’ve told me about. You’re going to safe, right? As safe as you can be?” He asked. No, it wasn’t loyal, savage tempered man asking her that. It was the little brother that had ran behind their group, legs just a little too short to keep pace; using the same tone that he had when he had asked why she couldn’t cast the spells their parents earned their living with every day. Just like then, she couldn’t get the lie out. Tell him it was fine, not drag him into an issue he just couldn’t solve.

  “She’ll be fine.” Kave said. “You’ve known her longer than I have. Has she ever gotten over her head? Has she ever stayed that way? She’s too smart to take on challenges she can’t handle.”

  There was a long moment where Khalid looked at the boy, horns on his heads and eyes burning. Khalid laughed, a chuckle fading to a sigh of relief.

  “No, she hasn’t. Sorry, I suppose just get worried about her.” He said. “She’s like a little sister to me.”

  Komena cursed. Loudly.