“Lady Yukari! Monsieur Raito!”

  Fifi’s voice, a high-pitched, frantic cry, echoed off the damp stone walls of the canal, a sound of pure, unadulterated panic. She leaned over the railing, her face inches from a large, metallic trash can that bobbed gently in the turquoise water, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Art thou hidden in this wretched vessel?” she called into its hollow, metallic depths.

  The trash can did not answer back. There was only silence, broken by the gentle lapping of the canal water and the distant, happy chatter of the marketplace. A few passersby, their arms laden with colorful shopping bags, slowed their steps, their expressions a mixture of pity and a quiet, weary amusement. A small child, his eyes wide with a pure, innocent curiosity, pointed a chubby finger at the strange, shouting girl. His mother, however, quickly pulled his hand down, a silent, urgent warning in her eyes as she hurried him away.

  “Drats!” Fifi’s shoulders slumped, a wave of pure, theatrical despair washing over her. The panic on her face was a raw, genuine thing, her earlier bravado completely gone. “Thou art not here either!” She spun around, her newsboy cap askew, her mind a frantic, racing storm. “Where, oh where, could they have gone?”

  She was sure of it. They had been right behind her, two quiet, bewildered shadows in her grand, chaotic wake. And then, in the blink of an eye, in the space between one alley and the next, they had simply… vanished.

  Her mind, a whirlwind of possibilities, began to race. Azul Spira, she knew, was a city of layers, a labyrinth of canals and bridges and hidden passages. It was divided into three distinct levels: the lower level, this vibrant, chaotic marketplace where dreams were born and bargains were struck; the mid-level, a quieter, more serene expanse of residential villas and terraced gardens; and the upper level, the realm of grand venues, of opulent opera houses and the glittering, alabaster spires of the palace.

  This should be easy, a flicker of her old, unshakable confidence tried to assert itself. After all, she was…

  The thought was a fragile, fleeting thing, instantly swallowed by a new wave of panic. She took off, her small frame a blur of motion as she darted back into the labyrinthine network of alleyways she had just led them through. Her search was a frantic, almost comical ballet of desperation. She threw open the lids of dumpsters, their metallic clang echoing in the narrow spaces. She peered into every dark, shadowed doorway, her voice a hopeful, pleading whisper. “Monsieur Raito? Lady Yukari?”

  Nothing.

  She burst back out into the sunlit chaos of the marketplace, her search growing more desperate. She moved from one colorful stall to the next, her questions a rapid-fire staccato against the easy, unhurried rhythm of the vendors. She checked under carts laden with exotic fruits, behind stacks of freshly painted canvases, in the shadowed interiors of every open booth.

  Nothing. They were simply, impossibly, gone.

  Next, Fifi moved with a frantic energy to the street performers, her voice a sharp, urgent question that cut through their cheerful tunes and practiced routines. She interrogated the jugglers, the mimes, the singers whose melodies usually filled the plaza with a light, happy air. But none of them knew who she was talking about. They just stared back, their own faces a mixture of confusion and a quiet, wary concern for the strange, panicking girl in the newsboy cap.

  “Drats!” she shouted again, her voice a theatrical cry of pure, unadulterated frustration hurled at the clear, blue, and entirely unhelpful sky. “How hard can it be to keep a single, precious package intact? Is this a test of my immortal patience?!”

  But she didn’t give up. Her panic, now honed to a sharp, focused point, propelled her upward. She raced up the wide, sloping canal-road that led to the mid-level, her small feet a blur on the polished white stone. She moved from one elegant villa to the next, a chaotic whirlwind in a world of serene, ordered beauty. She threw open the doors to houses, to apartments, to grand, sprawling residences, her search a frantic, almost comical violation of Spican etiquette.

  “Pardon my intrusion!” she would declare, her voice a booming, unapologetic thing as she burst into a quiet sitting room. The residents could only shriek in protest as she threw open wardrobes, peeked under beds, and even checked behind ornate tapestries, her search as thorough as it was insane. Still, nothing.

  Not here, she thought, her mind racing, a new, desperate idea dawning. Okay, perchance they have returned to the big man with the yak!

  With a renewed, frantic purpose, she took off again, her destination now the upper level, the very heart of the city. The grand, alabaster form of the Sey Lanz Opera House loomed before her, a magnificent structure of soaring arches, golden accents, and a roof of billowing, sail-like canopies that seemed to catch the very wind itself. It was an ornate, breathtaking monument to art, a fitting stage for the best of the best to perform.

  She didn’t slow down. She burst through the grand, gilded doors, a small, chaotic comet in a world of quiet, focused artistry.

  “Oh, Miss Li–” the ticketmaster, a woman with a kind, patient face, called out from her booth, her voice full of a familiar, reverent recognition. But Fifi was just a blur, a gust of wind that shot past the counter without so much as a hello.

  She skidded to a halt in the vast, echoing backstage area. There, amidst a chaotic but organized flurry of activity, was Bob and his crew. They were unloading the last of the wooden crates, the rich, sweet scent of Hanyuun coconuts and Zarateph desert mangoes mingling with the smell of sawdust and oil paint. Bob, his usual booming laughter a comforting, familiar presence, was already sharing the fruits with the performers and prop builders who had gathered around, their faces a mixture of curiosity and gratitude.

  “Oh, Miss Fifi!” Bob’s voice was a warm, welcoming thing as he spotted her. “What brings you here?”

  But Fifi didn’t respond. She just stood there, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with a frantic, desperate energy, her silent, panicked presence a jarring, discordant note in the otherwise peaceful, happy scene. She stormed past the bewildered merchant, making a beeline for the main wagon.

  “Not here,” she muttered to herself, her voice a low, panicked thing as she rummaged through a pile of empty burlap sacks in the back of the cart. She then moved to Tama, who was contentedly chewing on a bundle of hay in a makeshift pen. With a surprising, almost comical strength, she pried open the massive yak’s jaw, peering into its cavernous mouth. “Not here either!”

  Her mind, now a frantic whirlwind of pure, unadulterated panic, arrived at a single, terrible conclusion. They were not on the upper level. They were not on the mid-level. And they were not with Bob. Which meant…

  “Where are they?” she cried, her voice a raw, desperate thing that cut through the cheerful backstage chatter.

  Without another word, without a single glance back at the bewildered merchant and his crew, she turned and sprinted from the opera house, her small frame a blur of motion as she raced back towards the lower level, back towards the chaotic, beautiful marketplace where her grand, disastrous tour had all begun.

  Bob and Mila were left standing amidst a crowd of confused performers, a half-eaten mango in Bob’s hand. They watched the small, frantic figure disappear, a shared, silent look of profound, weary understanding passing between them. The tour guide was here, but her two charges were not. They could only assume that whatever had just happened, whatever strange, new chaos had just been unleashed upon the peaceful city of Azul Spira, was simply business as usual.

  With a shared sigh that was half exasperation, half fond amusement, they turned back to their work.

  “They do attract trouble, don’t they?” Bob said, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face.

  With a final, desperate pant, Fifi arrived back in the narrow, shadowed alleyway where she had last seen them. The sun was a low, bleeding smear of orange and purple on the horizon, the brilliant, golden light of the day now replaced by the cool, soft glow of the city’s ornate streetlamps.

  “Non, non, non!” she cried, her voice a raw, desperate wail that echoed off the damp stone walls. “I, Fifi, tour guide extraordinaire, cannot let my first day of this grand tour end in such a calamitous failure!” Her small frame was wracked with a new wave of pure, unadulterated panic. “Where art thou?” she screamed at the empty alley, her voice cracking with a despair so profound it was almost comical.

  As if on cue, the world answered.

  BOOM!

  A sound, a deep, concussive roar that was not of this peaceful, art-filled city, ripped through the evening air. It was followed instantly by a chorus of panicked, terrified screams that rose from the direction of the main marketplace, a sound of chaos and fear that was a world away from the usual cheerful bustle.

  Fifi’s head snapped up. The despair in her eyes was gone, replaced by a sudden, sharp, and almost terrifyingly focused glint. Perhaps… a single, brilliant thought sparked in the storm of her panic. Perhaps that is where they are.

  She nodded to herself, a single, decisive motion. She had found her answer.

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  With a renewed, frantic purpose, she took off, her small feet a blur on the cobblestones as she raced towards the source of the explosion. She burst from the alleyway into a scene of pure, unadulterated chaos. A small, but well-loved restaurant, Guido’s Diner, was a wreck. Black smoke billowed from its shattered doorway, and a stream of terrified patrons were pouring out into the street, their faces a mask of pure, primal fear.

  Fifi moved with a new, sharp precision. She grabbed one of the fleeing men, a young man whose eyes were wide and wild, his body trembling. “Monsieur!” she commanded, her voice a sharp, clear note that cut through his panicked haze. “What transpired in yon establishment?”

  “The devil…” the young man stamm-ered, his voice a choked, terrified whisper. He shivered, a violent, uncontrollable tremor that seemed to shake his entire body. “The devil hath descended! It was the greatest sinner mine eyes have ever witnessed!”

  A devil. The word was a strange, discordant note in her mind. It didn’t sound like the bickering, lovestruck newlyweds she had been charged with. But in a world of chaos, any clue was a good one. No pain, no gain, she thought, her own personal mantra, a whisper of reckless bravado in the face of the unknown. Break a leg.

  With a final, determined nod, she released the trembling young man and, without a single glance back, she moved towards the smoking, shattered doorway of the establishment, her small frame a defiant silhouette against the backdrop of the rising chaos.

  With a powerful, theatrical kick that was completely unnecessary, Fifi blasted through the smoking, non-existent frame of what used to be the restaurant’s front door. “Villains! Devils! Whatever foul title thou must be called!” she declared, her voice a booming, dramatic pronouncement that was meant to strike fear into the hearts of any ne’er-do-wells. “I, Fifi, tour guide extraordinaire, hath cometh! Cease thy wicked actions and release thine–”

  Her grand, heroic entrance speech died in her throat. The words caught, sputtered, and then dissolved into a profound, baffled silence. The scene before her was not a battle. It was not a robbery. It was a tableau of such bizarre, chaotic, and utterly incomprehensible domestic drama that even her flair for the dramatic could find no purchase.

  She had found them.

  Yukari was kneeling on the floor, her face and fine, new clothes covered in a layer of black soot. She was sobbing, great, gulping, and utterly undignified sobs, her shoulders shaking as she muttered a frantic, repetitive mantra of, “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” into her hands.

  In a far corner of the ruined diner, Raito was a picture of pure, awkward misery. He was sitting on a precarious, makeshift throne constructed from overturned tables and chairs, a ridiculous paper crown perched crookedly on his head. In his hand, he held a golden-painted mop like a royal scepter, his face a mask of profound, almost painful embarrassment.

  And then, there was him. The owner. He stood in the center of the wreckage, a mountain of a man who seemed to fill the entire smoke-filled room with his sheer, furious presence. He was a Rat Sacred, tall, impossibly buff, with a pair of small, twitching ears atop his head and a long, thick tail that swished with a slow, menacing rhythm. His chef’s whites were pristine, a stark, almost insulting contrast to the chaos around him, and his magnificent, impeccably waxed moustache was a work of art. Or, it would have been, if one side of it wasn’t currently smoldering, a single, angry ember glowing at its tip. He was tapping his foot, a slow, deliberate, and terrifyingly patient rhythm on the soot-covered floor. And in his hand, he held a massive kitchen knife, its edge glinting in the dim, smoky light as he sharpened it with a series of slow, deliberate, and utterly menacing strokes. His glare, a laser beam of pure, condensed fury, was fixed solely on the sobbing, soot-covered form of Yukari.

  He was, without a doubt, Mr. Guido. Chef extraordinaire. And he was very, very angry.

  “What… what hath happen’d here?” Fifi’s voice was a raw, incredulous whisper that was swallowed by the heavy, tense silence of the ruined diner.

  Guido’s head snapped towards the doorway, his furious glare shifting from the sobbing girl on the floor to the small, bewildered figure who had just burst into his ruined establishment. “Are these two with you?” he growled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to shake the very soot from the walls.

  Fifi yelped, a small, involuntary sound of pure, startled terror. She swallowed hard, her earlier bravado completely gone. “Yea… yes,” she managed, her voice a meek, trembling thing.

  “This foul devil over here,” Guido snarled, pointing the tip of his massive, glittering kitchen knife at Yukari. “A failure. The devil of the culinary world. I cannot comprehend how a creature of such profound incompetence was ever born.” He punctuated each word with a sharp, angry flick of his knife, the steel whistling in the tense air.

  “I’m sorry…” Yukari’s voice was a muffled, choked sob from behind her hands.

  “Wait, wait, pause!” Fifi’s own theatrical instincts, momentarily stunned, finally rebooted. She held up her hands, a gesture of desperate, dramatic mediation. “Halt thy judgment, good sir! Canst thou not, in thy righteous fury, first explain what foul tragedy hath befallen this once-noble establishment?”

  Guido’s glare softened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something—surprise, perhaps even a grudging respect for the girl’s sheer audacity—in his furious eyes. He let out a long, slow sigh, a sound of pure, unadulterated frustration, and happily obliged.

  It had all started, he explained, a few hours ago. He had been in a state of pure, culinary despair. Half of his kitchen staff had called in sick, and the lunch rush, that great, merciless tide of hungry patrons, was about to descend. In his desperation, he had resorted to a move he had not used in years: he had gone to the back alley, a place where the hopeful and the desperate often gathered, and had decided to conscript the first two able-bodied people he could find. After all, how hard could it be to follow a simple order in a kitchen?

  His luck, it seemed, had been both a blessing and a curse. He had found them, two figures lurking in the shadows of the alley, their faces a mixture of surprise and a dawning, terrible realization. The couple. He hadn’t given them a choice. He had simply grabbed them, one in each of his massive hands, and dragged them into the chaotic, beautiful heart of his kitchen. He had explained the situation, and with a tone that was less a request and more a final, non-negotiable demand, had forced them to help. To his surprise, they had obliged. Reluctantly.

  But his luck, as he had so quickly learned, was a cruel, fickle thing. The boy, Raito, he was fine. A bit rough around the edges, his knife skills those of a home cook, not a trained chef. But he could follow an order. He could learn. He had potential.

  “But the woman,” Guido grumbled, his voice dropping to a low, venomous thing as he glared at Yukari, his earlier fury returning in a fresh, burning wave. “The girl.” He spat the word as if it were a piece of rotten meat. “Useless. A trainwreck.” He began to list her culinary sins, his voice a litany of pure, unadulterated horror. “Unpeeled garlic! Dropped trays! Unsalted soup! Uncleaned fish! Raw chicken and steak!” He shuddered, a violent, full-body tremor, as if reliving a great, personal trauma. “Oh… my patience,” he whispered, his voice a raw, broken thing, “it was almost at its limits.”

  His fury had been about to be unleashed, a storm of culinary rage that would have surely ended in at least one, very loud, very public firing. But then, just as his patience was about to snap, he had found it. A light in the tunnel. A messiah. A god had descended upon his humble establishment and blessed it with a cleanliness so profound it was almost divine. He turned, his gaze now a beacon of pure, fanatical adoration, and gestured dramatically towards Raito, who was still sitting awkwardly on his makeshift throne.

  Guido fell to one knee, a mountain of a man brought low by a reverence so deep it was almost comical. He moved to kiss the toe of Raito’s dirt-stained boot. “Oh, Patron Saint of Cleaning!” he cried, his voice a booming, operatic plea that echoed in the ruined diner. “Please, bless us with thy divine scrubbing skills once more!”

  Fifi just stared, her mind a complete and utter blank, the last of her theatrical composure shattered by the sheer, overwhelming absurdity of the scene.

  You see, Guido explained, his voice now a hushed, reverent whisper, while Raito’s cooking was merely at the level of a home cook, his cleaning skills… they were beyond that. They were in a realm above gods. Every time a used dish came back to the kitchen, Raito would clean it until it was spotless. The pans, the floors, the storage room… all of it, immaculate. “Magnifico!” Guido had cried, his heart soaring. The other waiters and kitchen staff, their own spirits lifted by this sudden, miraculous cleanliness, had begun to praise him, to hoist him up in the air as if he were a conquering hero. He was their blessing.

  Until the devil acted again.

  Yukari, in a moment of what could only be described as pure, unadulterated culinary chaos, had been told to move a single bag of flour from the storage room. But she had tripped. The bag had ripped open, its contents a fine, white cloud that had billowed into the hot oven. And then… BOOM! “And now,” Guido concluded, his voice a low, dangerous growl as he returned to the present, his gaze once again a laser beam of pure fury fixed on Yukari, “we are here. This… this devil… she must be banned from the kitchen forever! She is a sinner! She hath ruined my diner, my recipes, my art!”

  “I’m sorry, mister, but that is my wife,” Raito’s voice, a quiet, almost apologetic thing, cut through the chef’s tirade.

  Guido’s head snapped towards Raito, and in a jarring, almost terrifying display of emotional whiplash, his furious expression melted into a gentle, adoring smile. “Oh, pity thee, Monsieur Saint,” he said, his voice a soft, sympathetic murmur. He then turned back to Yukari, and the rage returned in an instant, a storm cloud of pure, condensed fury. The stark, absolute difference in how he treated the two of them was a thing of both horror and a strange, dark comedy.

  Fifi, who had been a silent, bewildered witness to this entire, insane story, had at some point slipped away from the main drama. She was now sitting at one of the few remaining intact diner tables, a tall, cool glass of juice she had found amidst the wreckage held loosely in her hand. She took a slow, deliberate sip, the sweet, fruity liquid a small, grounding comfort in a world that had just gone completely, utterly insane.

  How did I get here? she thought, her own flair for the dramatic completely and utterly exhausted. I am tired. For the time being, I am truly, deeply tired.

  Meanwhile, on the mid-level of the city, where the canals flowed a little quieter and the air smelled more of blooming flowers than of sizzling street food, a small, colorful flower cart was parked at the side of a cozy local café. The establishment was a quaint, two-story building, its lower level a bustling coffee house, its upper floor a simple, quiet home.

  The café door swung open with the cheerful jingle of a small brass bell.

  “Welco–” a tiny, cheerful voice began, but it was cut short by a gasp of pure, childish delight. “Mama! Mr. Emile is back!”

  A girl, no older than eight, her bright blue eyes shining with excitement, abandoned her post behind the counter where she had been diligently wiping down a clean spot. From the back of the café, a woman in her early thirties emerged, a warm, gentle smile on her face. She and her daughter were a perfect pair, both with the same warm, brunette hair and the same brilliant, sky-blue eyes.

  “Oh, welcome back, Mr. Emile,” the woman, Mary, called out, her voice a soft, welcoming melody. “How was work today?”

  “Oh, the same as usual,” the man replied, his own voice a quiet, gentle thing. He was the florist, the same one Raito had met in the plaza, his kind, unassuming presence a familiar comfort in their small cafe. He held out a single, perfect flower, a delicate, pink rose. “For you.” He turned his gentle smile to the small girl who was now bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Did you behave, Anise?” he asked, his voice full of a warm, paternal affection.

  “Yes!” she declared proudly. “I’ve been helping Mama!”

  Emile reached out and gave the young girl a fond pat on the head, his touch as gentle as his smile.

  Mary took the flower, a faint, lovely blush rising in her cheeks. “Oh, you don’t have to,” she said, her voice a little flustered. “This is your product, after all.”

  “Please, I insist, Mary,” he said, his smile unwavering.