“The man in the shop was definitely making my skin crawl,” Kire put in, “but this is different. And—I’m not—it might be Ikegai, it might not be him.” She crossed her arms as they walked, lapsing into silence, still trying to sense any lingering auras that could have caused the alarms in her head to go off. “He studied, or stole, much of the magic he knows under my enemies back home. So they’d share some signature traits. It felt like that.” Kire gestured with a hand, frustrated even as she explained. “But you know the feeling of waking up so suddenly your nightmare bleeds into the daytime, just for a moment?” She must sound a little mad, but he already looked at her as a madwoman anyway. “So far, though, nobody seems to have recognized my face. They might not be here. Maybe it’s something else.”

Food first, then. “Or maybe I’m just hungry,” she muttered, a feeble attempt at levity. “There.” She found the place she had been looking for and went straight for it. “Do you have any soup? Two bowls, thank you kindly,” she asked after ordering three sticks of skewered fish and squid for herself while waiting for Ruli to decide what he wanted to try. The moment they got a place to sit down, which was really just some repurposed wooden crates for chairs and tables outside the establishment, Kire tore into her meal. When the bowl of soup arrived, she took a few sips almost immediately, burning her tongue a little bit. Gods, that was good. “I hope Ysaryn finds a nice place like this for her own people,” she murmured halfway through her meal. “And for the people of Ziad, too.”

When another set of patrons took up places near them, Kire listened in on their chatter. Mostly talking about the festival, what they had been looking forward to. When one of them mentioned Lord Itallo, Kire listened more closely. The festival was a celebration of love, from what she could hear, and this Lord Itallo was preparing for his wedding, which will become the main event for this year. “Some exotic beauty, I hear,” the other patron mentioned. [i]It’s always ‘some exotic beauty’,[/i] Kire thought, shaking her head a little.