“No, Bolym wouldn’t be helping them warm up to us at all,” Kire conceded. She didn’t know, though, how willing Ysaryn would be to come back here for this particular purpose. It was one thing to be helping the Ziad refugees with supply runs—a task she hadn’t particularly relished—it was quite another to ask her to be involved in tracking down the men who had taken her. “If the other elves are terrifying in the same manner as Ysaryn, perhaps more, then I agree. And I imagine we could make a better case for cooperation with them if we have more to give than just my abysmal hunches.” 

She scanned the crowd, already looking for people they could possibly get information from. Some of them, she noticed, had what looked like paper orchids. [i]For the bride,[/i] apparently. As they moved away from the busier parts of the city, Kire paid attention to the vagrants and peddlers. Those who would have an ear for gossip, and for the other outcasts of Cordon. With her usual face, Kire knew it would be hard to take on a feigned innocence, but with the disguise Ruli had made for her, it made pretending to be a clueless visitor easier. Not that she already wasn’t one by default. 

As expected of gossip, there was conflicting information, and some that were outlandish. One even suggested the Lord Itallo’s mines were manned by living corpses. But Ruli’s belief in a kernel of truth in myths also held true, or truer at least to Kire, where gossip was concerned. There were strange happenings in the outskirts of the city, and in the seaside crags, where the water often crashed against the shore so violently that people rarely visited. “There is a man with the Lord Itallo. Green eyes? Young-looking. Who is he?” she asked one vagabond after plying him with some drink. 

“Oh, him? Gavin Gemini? Or is it ‘the Gemini’? Foreigner, y’see. Strange name. Not bad-lookin’, but looks dead inside, y’know?” 
“What’s he to the Lord Itallo?” 
“His ward. Best man. Met him, oh, right around this mysterious beauty tha’s ‘bout to marry the lord. Ya gonna stick around to get a look at her? Itallo’s a lady’s man; she musta been really pretty to snag that dog, heh.” 
“Mm. I see.” [i]Ward.[/i] “He must be quite young, then, if he’s Itallo’s ward.”
“Right. Foreigner woman. Anyways, ya got any more of this?” The man grinned, shaking the wine bottle. Kire raised her brows, not really expecting him to finish the whole lot in one sitting.