As Diya and Rohan sluggishly made their way through the entertainment district, she lamented the fact that everyone always requested she meet them at sunrise. Late morning, just once, would be lovely.

  The sun appeared to agree, seemingly conceding the sky to the moon this daybreak. Who knew, perhaps even the sun couldn’t stand the stench of The Ribcage.

  Despite the sun’s reluctance to rise, the streets were crowded with laborers set to begin their shifts, or possibly even headed home from working graveyards. Rohan had recommended they not wear their military uniforms to better blend in, it seemed to be working well as they moved discreetly through the crowd.

  Blackblood fueled lanterns provided soft blooms of auburn light in uneven intervals along the sidewalk. Carts loaded with crates and barrels belched smoke as they rumbled up and down the street.

  Head still pounding from a night she could barely remember, Diya couldn’t help but perceive a slight beauty in the way the warmth of the lanterns contrasted with the indigo hue that blanketed the world during the pre-dawn hours.

  How dare the world be beautiful around me while I’m trying to be grumpy. She thought.

  Yawning and doing her best to rub the sleepiness from her tired eyes, Diya glanced over at Rohan and groaned. How the hell was he so chipper and awake, meanwhile she felt like a melted candle in human clothes?

  The man was puffing his pipe merrily and practically skipping down the street. As she occasionally experienced, her emotions were ebbing and flowing unpredictably. How frustrating.

  “Why are you so damn lively? You can’t have gotten much more sleep than I did.” She asked.

  Blowing a few rings of smoke into the frigid air, he shrugged. “I had fun last night. We’ve been so focused on all this dreadful syndicate business. Haven’t really had much time to enjoy ourselves lately. It felt good to relax and talk as humans, instead of soldiers.”

  “It was nice, wasn’t it?” Her stern glare softened. “I still can’t believe you won that game of cards against that refinery worker with the missing fingers. Had no idea you even played cards!”

  “That’s the thing,” Rohan smirked. “I don’t!”

  They both cracked up, Diya gave him a playful push. “You’re an absolute menace for taking his weeks paycheck and his damn pipe!”

  “Better lucky than good!” Rohan laughed, holding up the pipe and dancing around like a buffoon. “Hey, I think that girl liked you last night!”

  “Which one?” Diya laughed.

  “The thin dancer with her hair dyed green. She seemed to be smitten by you! You’ve really got to teach me some moves one of these days!”

  “I’ve not got any moves, you oaf. And she was only interested as long as I was paying for her drinks. I bet you think bartenders like you too.”

  “That’s not very nice. But they generally do like me! Say, do you think this Tamsin is really from the same coven as Zoralia?”

  “How else would she know the name?”

  Diya chewed her lip. “Yeah, I guess you and I are pretty much the only ones who know about her in Ghanesha for now.”

  “I’m just eager to hear what she has to say.” Rohan said. “I’ve gotten a weird feeling from Zoralia this whole time.”

  Diya grinned at him. “You sure this isn’t just your fear of the elderly, rearing its ugly face again?”

  “Just because I find them a touch creepy,” Rohan explained. “Doesn’t mean that I’m afraid.”

  “Of course she’s a little odd. She’s from far away land and isn’t familiar with our customs. Yet, she still helped us when we needed her.”

  Rohan sighed, watching a convoy of carts loaded with barrels drive past them towards the docks. “But don’t you find that a little suspicious? I don’t get why she would agree to help us so easily.”

  “Because I saved her life!” Diya groaned, louder and more irritated than she intended. “You’re so bloody cynical sometimes. Can’t you ever see the good in people?”

  “Seeing the best in people is all fine and dandy, unless it means you’re overlooking obvious red flags!”

  “I’m not overlooking anything. We all share a common enemy, Tessara and the syndicate. That is her motivation for helping us. I don’t see these red flags you’re so adamant about.” Diya said.

  Rohan had known her long enough to know that it was generally best to let her cool off when she was flustered. But he couldn’t help himself, so he mumbled under his breath as they walked. “Killing rats and hanging them from your chandelier wasn’t a red flag?”

  The glare Diya shot him said it all. For the next five minutes they walked in silence until they approached the refinery. The stench seemed to get more awful with each step they marched closer to the refinery. Diya and Rohan were glad to have their face coverings, but the slices of lime inside were drying out and beginning to lose their tang. The rotten odor wafting out from the processing plant was more than irksome, it was nauseating.

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  Three streets all came to a dead-end at one massive building constructed primarily from giant geometric granite cubes. Strangely, the structure was built protruding from the flesh of the great elephant. Nearly every building in the township was built in a manner that anchored it into the mountain-sized elephant, but this structure was literally built inside of the ancient creature. It was a peculiar sight, the grand fa?ade of the refinery an entrance into the very body of the beast.

  In front of the building was a bustling yard, with a perimeter of tall copper fence, where workers loaded barrels of blackblood into countless carts.

  Despite the grandeur of the architecture, and the vast number of laborers, what most demanded Diya’s attention was the unruly mob that had gathered just outside the fence. Something had them seriously worked up. They wore crude elephant masks and waved signs with devoted fervor.

  The way Diya understood it, The Star of Kudrat was the oldest and most practiced of the religions in Township Ghanesha. Its core principles were based around respecting nature and acting with the understanding that every action, whether good or bad, created a corresponding reaction or consequence.

  It was common knowledge that the Kudrat were far from the biggest fans of the rapid modernization of the township over the past quarter-century. So of course, they were against the blackblood refineries, an industry that represented the two things it despised the most: stealing the blood of the sacred elephant and utilizing it to fuel an age of industrialization.

  That’s why it was fairly obvious to Diya that this mob protesting was comprised mainly of Kudrati monks. Well, and because of the signs they waved that prominently featured the religion’s signature star emblem. The signs said lighthearted things like, “You Wouldn’t Drill Your Own Heart”, “You Worship Progress—We Mourn the Cost”, and “We Live Atop a Dying God”.

  She had to hand it to them, while a pinch melodramatic, the monks had a certain panache for coming up with hard hitting signage.

  Diya and Rohan sat on the patio at a café across the street from the refinery, and looked around for Tamsin. She was nowhere to be found.

  “Maybe our masked informant also had a late night?” Rohan asked.

  Diya looked to the horizon where the sun was just starting to poke through the clouds, painting the cold street with golden daggers of light. “Let’s give her a little time.”

  A teenage boy in an ill-fitting waistcoat, which was missing more than a few buttons, approached the table and offered the pair a watery smile. “Mornin’. You two want the strong stuff? We’ve got fresh brewed coffee or chai, and the bread’s still warm, but I won’t pretend it’s fresh.”

  “Coffee would be great, and we’ll take our chances with the bread. You don’t happen to have any honey, do you?” Diya asked.

  “Sure do. Beekeepers dropped off a fresh batch few days back.”

  “Good man.” Diya grinned. “Say, do the Kudrati protest out here often?”

  The boy scrunched his nose, thinking on the question. “Used to not. But the past three months or so it feels like they’re out here every few days.”

  Rohan raised his pointer finger. “I remember reading in the paper a few months back that the Sage of the Star recently passed away and his son, Ashan took over as new Sage of the Kudrati.”

  Diya looked at him, narrowing her tired eyes. “I applaud you on keeping up with current events, but what’s the relevance of that, Han?”

  The waiter knew the relevance and felt the need to speak up, “He’s right, Ashan seems to have the Kudrati more fiery than I’ve seen them in my lifetime. Figure it’s only a matter of time before these protests blow up into something proper violent.”

  Rohan nodded along with the boy, appreciating the assist, then winked at Diya. “See, at least someone gets me.”

  Indeed, that little quip evoked a roll of the eyes and a face palm from her.

  “Far as I’m concerned, monks like tea and bread just about the same as refinery workers. Them being out here has been great for business. Just like my ol’ man always said, you play both sides, you always come out on top.” Laughed the waiter.

  Diya shook her head and grinned at the boy. “Charismatic and with a mind for business. Don’t listen to everything your father has to say now. You keep your head on straight, and I could see you owning your very own café before you know it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be back in just a minute with your breakfast and drinks.” He nodded before disappearing into the small café.

  The pair sat watching the commotion for a while, hoping to spot Tamsin. Unlike their tea and breakfast, the mysterious member of Zoralia’s coven never appeared. On a morning like this, Diya would have taken the chai and honey over the informant, however pretty, every time. Rohan didn’t appear to feel the same—Tamsin’s failure to appear had shifted his chipper mood into a piss poor one, as evidenced by the way his blooming grin had wilted.

  Diya sipped her hot chai tea, breathing in the strong, spicy aroma, a welcome intermission from the nightmarish odor clawing its way out of the refinery.

  With the sun now judging them from between gaps in the tangle of structures, scaffolding, and pipes, the morning had the all too familiar aura of failure about it. Despite the disappointing start, Diya was determined not to write it off as a total loss.

  Sitting quietly and picking at the remains of the stale bread, the words of the refinery worker from the club echoed in her mind. If the syndicate was working with someone from the council, and it was in fact Peacock Prisha, some evidence of it might be hidden inside that refinery.

  The question was how they might be able to gain access. And so, yet again, she found herself grappling with the potential methods she might implement in order to solve this matter of corruption in her township. Thinking through them, she did her best to rank them by most likely to get them killed to least likely.

  With protests teetering on the verge of violence a regular occurrence, it was unlikely they could waltz right in and expect a tour. Security must be dialed to ten in a place as divisive as the refinery.

  The gears in her head were spinning swiftly now like clockwork.

  “I don’t like the look on your face one bit.” Rohan groaned, all too familiar with the machinations of her mischievous mind. “I’m getting the feeling we can’t just go home now, can we?”

  “And where would the fun in that be?”

  “Yes, it really is much more fun basking in the gaseous gunk of the Ribcage. This stench is so not going to wash right out of our clothes. You know that, right, Di?”

  She knew he hated when she ignored him, but sometimes it was simply the cost of doing business.

  “Got it!” Her tired eyes grew large as the late-morning sun. “This is going to be fun.”

  Rohan sucked in through his teeth. “One of these days you’re going to let me make the plans, right? Or at least have a say in scheming one up?”

  Finishing her tea in one gulp and letting out a deeply satisfied yawn, she tapped the copper cup against the table three times. “No chance.”