The next day turned out to be busy in sev-er-al ways. The eas-i-est one, for Sobon her-self, was at-tune-ment--overnight, she had fo-cused on her shoul-der blades as the first ar-eas she ful-ly at-tuned to Out-ward--that is to say, Gen-e-sis aether. She had cho-sen the shoul-der blades for half-prac-ti-cal, half-nos-tal-gic rea-sons; the Fairy Marines, as a mat-ter of pol-i-cy, gen-er-al-ly af-fixed Out-ward-spin ad-vanced telekine-sis pat-terns at the shoul-der blades, un-less they had a spe-cif-ic rea-son not to choose that spot on their bod-ies. Cy-borg Marines, as a prac-ti-cal mat-ter, of-ten linked sim-i-lar or iden-ti-cal pat-terns in the same place, so that an en-tire Mixed Ma-rine unit could train to-geth-er and work un-der the same con-di-tions.

  Alas-si's cur-rent bones wouldn't take near-ly the strain that Sobon was used to, but she was still hap-py to fi-nal-ly be able to store those pat-terns in their right-ful place. As soon as Sobon woke, well be-fore dawn, she shift-ed the aether adap-ta-tion pro-gram to her right humerus--the up-per arm bone--and set in to store the two linked pat-terns across her back. It was a te-dious, and some-times painful process... but Sobon knew this pat-tern back-wards and fore-wards.

  It was bare-ly mid-morn-ing when she fin-ished, feel-ing quite pleased. She flexed, feel-ing her aether wings link-ing to-geth-er, and picked her-self up off the floor from her med-i-tat-ing po-si-tion, land-ing so eas-i-ly and light-ly on her feet that she felt a fa-mil-iar thrill. It still felt aw-ful to be trapped in-side flesh... but now, fi-nal-ly, she could stop feel-ing lim-it-ed by her flesh.

  [ I... don't un-der-stand, ] Some-where with-in her, Alas-si's spir-it was mar-veling, ei-ther at the new lev-el of at-tune-ment, or the pat-terns Sobon had placed in them, or per-haps at the part of Sobon's own soul that had im-me-di-ate-ly and deeply linked with the pat-terns. [ This is all... this feels so... ]

  [ This is a frac-tion of what I was be-fore, ] Sobon replied, let-ting her tele-ki-net-ic sens-es slip not only through the world around her, but through her body it-self, mas-sag-ing mus-cles, nudg-ing joints, re-duc-ing pres-sure on nerves. She had no in-ter-est in us-ing the pat-tern for those sorts of things con-stant-ly, but it was nice to scratch the many metaphor-i-cal itch-es that her flesh prison had, and she felt her spir-it ease as lit-tle nui-sances were ad-dressed. [ Once you have be-come more than flesh, it's so very hard to go back. ]

  When she fin-ished stretch-ing, Sobon no-ticed that Lui had al-ready left. They'd had a nice con-ver-sa-tion the pre-vi-ous evening, but Sobon had meant to speak with her more. As it turned out, Sobon could tell that some-one else was com-ing to the house any-way--un-less she missed her guess, Lord Shi-da with a "gift" she had sensed be-ing col-lect-ed yes-ter-day.

  So, af-ter greet-ing Mian and Ki'el, both of whom were med-i-tat-ing, she opened the gates with an aether pulse just as the guests ar-rived.

  For whichev-er rea-son, Lord Shi-da led a pro-ces-sion which looked as for-mal as if he were greet-ing an em-press. Al-though the man seemed a lit-tle more com-fort-able around Sobon than he had ever been, he still went through all of the mo-tions of com-plete sub-servience, stop-ping at what Sobon thought and Alas-si con-firmed was a dis-tance de-fined by Djang high so-ci-ety's cus-toms, and then bow-ing deeply, as the two at-ten-dents and two guards did the same.

  "Lady Alas-si," he said, "I would like to pre-sent to you those scraps of Core Tis-sues that we were able to re-cov-er from the re-mains of Lord Mofu Gin. I be-lieve these should be of val-ue to you."

  Sobon just nod-ded, as the two at-ten-dants hur-ried for-ward, each with rather large box-es, both look-ing very hum-ble and com-plete-ly ter-ri-fied. Sobon was nev-er one for tra-di-tion, but for the sake of those ter-ri-fied at-ten-dants, wait-ed un-til they had set their car-go down be-fore flex-ing her new tele-ki-net-ic pat-terns to open both chests at once, study-ing what the box-es con-tained.

  The con-tents were gris-ly, show-ing lit-tle at-tach-ment to the body that they had once been a part of. Al-though Sobon had sensed that the man's hands were spe-cial, and eas-i-ly guessed that they had in-te-grat-ed the ma-te-r-i-al from Star-beast cores, she had writ-ten them off--Mofu Gin's aether had det-o-nat-ed when her can-non broke through his de-fens-es, her own de-struc-tive aether chan-nel-ing back-wards through his merid-i-ans with more force than his body could sus-tain. And since his aether chan-nels were strongest near his hands, those had tak-en no small por-tion of the ex-plo-sion, scat-ter-ing most-ly out be-yond her own com-pound and into the city.

  What re-mained were al-most like light-ly glow-ing threads of translu-cent grey, which in some places were still at-tached to mus-cle, bone, sinew, nerve, or skin, but which most-ly had been cleansed of any-thing fleshy that re-mained. Sobon tried not to re-act at the sight, or at the aether stench that the threads gave off, in-stead keep-ing an im-pressed look on her face. In truth, she knew that it must have tak-en a lot of work to col-lect them.

  "I ap-pre-ci-ate the gift deeply, Lord Shi-da." She glanced at the at-ten-dants, who had paused in fright when the box-es opened by them-selves, then bowed and rushed out of the court-yard, stop-ping at the gate only long enough to turn and bow again. She felt the itch, again, of ir-ri-ta-tion at all the sub-servience, the pow-er wor-ship, but did her best to ig-nore it. When the only ones that re-mained with-in the cout-yard were Shi-da and his two, oath-bound guards, she closed the gates again and sighed. "Re-gret-tably, it's not as use-ful as you might think."

  "Is it not?" Shi-da Ken let him-self re-lax as well, though she thought the City Lord was also ap-prais-ing her; he must have no-ticed the dif-fer-ence in how she had cre-at-ed her tele-ki-net-ic pat-tern. "I would think that Star-beast Cores, even once they have been processed, must be very rare in-deed..."

  "With time and with ef-fort, you can cleanse the ma-te-r-i-al ful-ly, re-mov-ing all taint of what it used to be," Sobon ex-plained. "I was telling my peo-ple this a cou-ple days ago. Stor-ing aether pat-terns, or even at-tune-ment, with-in a ma-te-r-i-al leaves deep scars with-in it, and few things that get as deeply 'scarred' as parts of a per-son's body. This," she ges-tured to one of the box-es, "must have been rel-a-tive-ly new, be-cause the aether hasn't ful-ly soaked in. I could cer-tain-ly use it for a script-ed weapon, but not in-te-grate it my-self. But this," she ges-tured at the oth-er one, "this is dif-fer-ent, com-plete-ly in-te-grat-ed with the spir-it of a dead man. Even with an ide-al process, would take a few months to cleanse."

  "So it is dif-fer-ent than a core straight from a Star-beast? I am led to be-lieve that those can be in-te-grat-ed al-most im-me-di-ate-ly." Lord Shi-da stepped for-ward so that he could see the con-tents of the two box-es, let-ting him-self put aside every-thing else and study them as in-tent-ly as he could.

  "It's far from my spe-cial-ty," Sobon said hav-ing stud-ied the Ri'lef notes on the sub-ject but un-will-ing to dive too deeply into that knowl-edge, "but from what I un-der-stand, they use them dif-fer-ent-ly. Beasts, even in-tel-li-gent ones, have no con-cept of pu-ri-ty, and if they in-te-grat-ed their cores the way--that way," she ges-tured at the ru-ined frag-ments of core tis-sues, "their cores would am-pli-fy their strength in ways that would not be safe, and they would tear them-selves apart. In-stead, I imag-ine they use their cores to am-pli-fy a small-er pat-tern, but with-out bond-ing so deeply."

  More cor-rect-ly, Sobon ex-pect-ed that the idea of beast cores--both less-er aether beasts and the Ri'lef Star-beasts--had been en-gi-neered by the Founders, specif-i-cal-ly so that they could be-come a re-source, but there was no point in say-ing that.

  "Fas-ci-nat-ing," Shi-da Ken said, as he looked down at the box-es again, then forced him-self to look away. "But you be-lieve at least one of these will be use-ful?"

  "I will start them both pu-ri-fy-ing," Sobon said, "I hope that by the time I... ex-pect to leave, I will be able to use one of them. As a shield core, most like-ly."

  "Not a weapon?" Shi-da Ken half turned and very ob-vi-ous-ly eyed the holes in the ground, now in-ex-pert-ly filled in with dirt from Sobon's stor-age ring.

  "A war-rior's first duty is al-ways not to die," Sobon said, para-phras-ing a string of lec-tures she'd heard in Ma-rine train-ing camps. Those lec-tures had seemed to be with-out end... right up un-til they de-cid-ed that Sobon had grad-u-at-ed. "not un-less dy-ing can com-plete their mis-sion, and even then it is dis-cour-aged. Even a blade must first not break, if it is to cut down its foe. I have over-whelmed my en-e-mies up to this point, but there is every rea-son to be-lieve that in time, I will at-tract the at-ten-tion of some-one I could not oth-er-wise sur-vive, or per-haps, a per-son I am not al-lowed to kill, for oth-er rea-sons, like pol-i-tics. A per-fect shield means much more in those cir-cum-stances than a per-fect sword."

  Shi-da Ken's eyes re-mained glued to the holes burned into the ground as he ab-sorbed that wis-dom. Af-ter a mo-ment, Sobon flexed her new pat-terns, rak-ing through the dirt un-til there was much less sign of the holes.

  "Your tech-nique is new, or more deeply in-te-grat-ed," Shi-da Ken said, as he turned. "And you have be-come stronger overnight. It is fair-ly ob-vi-ous."

  Sobon men-tal-ly checked her core, al-though she was grow-ing to feel com-plete dis-dain for its "stars" and col-orations. It now said that she was at three Ti-ta-ni-um stars, and it flick-ered at the edge of a fourth. That was only bare-ly stronger than Mofu Suno had been when she'd shat-tered his core, there at the inn.

  She could have been coy about it, but with every-one here sworn to se-cre-cy, she just smiled. "This pat-tern to ma-nip-u-late things is an old one, just fi-nal-ly back where it be-longs," she said, un-able to keep a fair bit of pride from her voice. "Be-fore I came here the first time, I had decades of ex-pe-ri-ence with it."

  Sobon pressed hard-er on the pat-tern, let-ting the full struc-ture of her Cy-borg Wings spread out be-hind her. De-spite the name, they were more than just wings, al-though those were there, and that was an easy way to vi-su-al-ize them for nor-mal tasks. Sobon's wings had three main re-gions--the wings prop-er, which stretched out like bird wings made of swords, then a pair of low-er arms with pre-ci-sion ma-nip-u-la-tors in their tips, and third, a flex-i-ble thruster that wrapped around her tor-so, let-ting her launch quick-ly in var-i-ous di-rec-tions if need-ed.

  For longer flights, she would still pre-fer to use some-thing more like her flight pack--which had tak-en es-sen-tial-ly no con-cen-tra-tion on her part to main-tain or di-rect. The pat-tern un-der-lay-ing the Wings was re-al-ly just telekine-sis, and it strained her mind to use con-stant-ly. In time, if she sur-vived--or (op-ti-misti-cal-ly) next time, if she didn't--she would in-te-grate oth-er pat-terns near-by that build on top of these to lessen the strain con-sid-er-ably, but for now, she was just hap-py to be her-self again.

  Him-self, a now-half-buried part of Sobon's soul want-ed to grump, but she ig-nored it. She was what-ev-er her cur-rent cir-cum-stances re-quired.

  Shi-da Ken kept his mouth shut for sev-er-al sec-onds, work-ing his fa-cial mus-cles in what Sobon was fair-ly sure was an at-tempt to mask his awe. "It is im-pres-sive," he said, a lit-tle stiffly. "Though per-haps... in-dis-creet."

  Sobon just laughed. "I don't usu-al-ly let it man-i-fest vis-i-bly. But it's im-por-tant to be able to, for a num-ber of rea-sons. But we should speak of more im-por-tant things." Sobon picked up the two box-es and dumped them out, then be-gan etch-ing onto the in-sides of the box, as she be-gan to lec-ture on the ba-sics of aether tiers and the com-plex struc-ture of qi. Ki'el and Mian had heard all this be-fore, but it was worth re-peat-ing it for their sake, as well.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  She con-tin-ued un-til the af-ter-noon, when she had a most-ly-un-ex-pect-ed vis-i-tor.

  Lui was busy every day, now, as she worked for Lady Fau. Al-though she found it fas-ci-nat-ing and ex-cit-ing when-ev-er Grand-ma Sobon spoke of aether and its in-tri-c-as-ies, she had no per-son-al in-ter-est in pow-er. She... would like-ly have spent her time here doubt-ing this path through life, but Lady Fau kept her con-stant-ly busy. It wasn't idle work; she had been giv-en books to mem-o-rize, full of con-se-quen-tial things about plants that Lady Fau owned or had just pur-chased, and Lady Fau seemed to nat-u-ral-ly and calm-ly trust Lui to un-der-stand which plants were what, and in what con-di-tion.

  Lui had of-ten been full of doubts, but the tasks she was giv-en were of-ten very straight-for-ward, re-quir-ing her to sim-ply see, or smell, or sense. If she hadn't been told by Granny Sobon, and Mian, and Lady Fau, just how rare her sen-si-tiv-i-ty was, she might have com-plete-ly dis-re-gard-ed the val-ue of it. That same sen-si-tiv-i-ty had cer-tain-ly been a prob-lem in the past, when her fa-ther need-ed her to ac-com-plish a task that was... un-pleas-ant. In-cor-rect, some-how. Clean-ing up af-ter cer-tain guests, or serv-ing cer-tain peo-ple, who looked at her wrong, or want-ed to touch her.

  It felt very strange in-deed to ad-mit that the tasks be-fore here were only sim-ple be-cause of that same trait, but she was get-ting used to it, a lit-tle bit each day.

  Lady Fau paced into the back room where she worked, the woman choos-ing to stoop as though she was el-der-ly, al-though she looked no more than mid-dle-age. She would, at times, adopt a stern ex-pres-sion, es-pe-cial-ly around cus-tomers, but Lui was cer-tain that she was hap-py as long as she was sur-round-ed by grow-ing things, and there were a great many herbs and plants hang-ing or hid-ing around the shop. As she stud-ied more of Lady Fau's books, she had be-come quite con-cerned by all those plants--a great many of them were placed where they would nev-er see nat-ur-al sun-light, and al-though there were wards and stones that ra-di-at-ed light gen-tly on them, she couldn't help but think of the many words she'd read here and there in the books about how this or that plant was sen-si-tive to wards and spell ef-fects.

  In any case, Lady Fau cared a great deal for the many plants in her store, and in the gar-den hid-den in the back, and she was in a good mood as long as that was all that was on her mind.

  For now, Lady Fau held up a bit of cut-off leaf stem, as though ask-ing Lui to look at or take it. Lui, trust-ing what she knew of the woman, looked close-ly first, then took it from her fin-gers and turned it around, not-ing the touch-es of Con-sump-tion Qi that lin-gered in a few black spots across the plant.

  "What do you think is wrong with this?" Lady Fau asked, her tone mea-sured. An-oth-er les-son, then.

  "Some-thing is eat-ing at it," Lui an-swered im-me-di-ate-ly, squint-ing hard at the spots to try and see if she could tell what it was.

  "Why do you say that?"

  Lui blinked and looked at the old-er woman, re-call-ing that the things that Granny had told her were... se-cret, or close enough. She couldn't ex-act-ly ex-plain what she knew, ex-cept in gen-er-al terms. "Ah. It's... how do I..." she looked away. "The feel of the qi at those points. The na-ture of that qi pulls in-wards, and it is not nat-ur-al to the plant, so some-thing must be con-sum-ing it."

  Lady Fau had an ex-cel-lent mask, Lui knew, and she knew that the woman was judg-ing her silent-ly for hav-ing knowl-edge she couldn't share, but she just nod-ded. "You are cor-rect. It is a form of dis-ease born of fun-gus. Not all of our herbs are vul-ner-a-ble to it, but those that are--" she paused, and turned her head slight-ly.

  Lui heard it too. Ar-gu-ing, from out-side.

  Lady Fau of-ten in-ter-rupt-ed when peo-ple ar-gued too close to her shop, of-ten say-ing some-thing about their voic-es and qi be-ing dirty and bad for grow-ing things. But this time, she had a cer-tain air about her when she turned out of the back room and to-wards the door. It was enough for Lui to set down the bit of plant sam-ple and close her book, to fol-low the woman.

  She was sur-prised to see one of the neigh-bor-ing shopown-ers kick-ing a street urchin around. The brat was tru-ly di-sheveled--her hair a mess, her clothes noth-ing but rags, and she scram-bled out of the way of the man as he tried sev-er-al times to land blows, of-ten just miss-ing by a hair. As she saw the urchin's hair flop around, though, Lui could al-most imag-ine that the girl's face was spread into a mad grin.

  Lui start-ed to rush to-wards the door, only re-al-iz-ing af-ter a few steps that al-though Lady Fau would al-most al-ways in-ter-fere in some-thing like this, she had stopped at the win-dow and just watched. "You don't want to help?" Lui asked, feel-ing scan-dal-ized.

  "You may, if you wish," Lady Fau said, her voice even. It was... a very odd thing for the woman to say. She knew that Lui wasn't a fight-er, or any-thing like one. And she nor-mal-ly would charge out just to stop a man like that from mak-ing a scene in front of her shop.

  But she heard words com-ing from the man that she couldn't stand, the kind of words that she was sure she would have buried, be-fore that old spell over her had bro-ken. "Gut-ter whore," the man said, "when I get my hands on you I'll break your arms and--"

  Lui found her-self al-ready rush-ing out, feel-ing her pound-ing pulse in the palms of her hands. Those hands, which were al-ways so sen-si-tive, felt swollen and bloat-ed sud-den-ly, as she dashed for-ward. The man--Lui couldn't name him, but she knew he was a men-ace--had per-haps a touch more qi than Lui her-self, but was also no war-rior, just strong due to his size and work. But... even so, he raised a foot as though to stomp on the girl, his face a mask of fury and in-dig-na-tion.

  Al-though Lui should not have been able to reach the man in time, she raised her hand as she rushed for-ward, and some-how, the man's stomp--was it a thrust-ing kick of some kind?--was pushed aside, and he stum-bled. Lui used those mo-ments to throw her-self in be-tween, over--con-scious of her hands, and the pulse pound-ing with-in them.

  "You..." the man threw one kick at Lui in the im-me-di-ate mo-ment af-ter she stepped in, per-haps not rec-og-niz-ing her. Lui raised her hands to block the blow; she cer-tain-ly felt it sting-ing at her palms, and she stum-bled back-wards and fell, but some-how the kick failed to im-press her, not the way she had ex-pect-ed it to.

  "Kan Fen." Lady Fau's voice was ice, and it echoed. Lui felt the pulse of a qi wave be-hind the name, and she turned to look at the big man, who stum-bled back-wards phys-i-cal-ly from the al-chemist. "Do you know ex-act-ly who you just struck?"

  "I--she--" Kan Fen scowled cross-ly. "Bah! Don't pre-tend--bah!" The man wiped sweat from his fore-head and backed away, even though Lady Fau was sim-ply stand-ing there, star-ing dag-gers at him. "Fau Mide, don't... you...!"

  "Do you know who she is?" Lui could sense that a great many peo-ple heard Lady Fau's words, even those who were not able to see what was hap-pen-ing. Per-haps, if Lui's fevered imag-i-na-tion were true, things were lis-ten-ing that were not even peo-ple.

  Kan Fen glanced away. "Your ap-pren-tice."

  "Next time you want to com-mit sui-cide, don't get my shop in-volved in it. Lui, Popo, step in-side."

  Lui scram-bled to her feet and checked on the urchin, but the girl was look-ing out from be-hind shag-gy bangs, an in-tense look on her face, her teeth bared in a snarl. She... Lui paused. Al-though Lui wasn't ex-act-ly great at de-tect-ing wounds, or most oth-er things, what she felt from the street urchin was more than sim-ply an un-harmed girl. She had care-ful-ly masked depths of qi, such that Lui couldn't be-gin to guess what her strength was.

  Still, she smiled at the girl. "Come on," she said, and Popo glanced at her, still scowl-ing, but turned and, some-what rude-ly, scam-pered into the al-chemist's shop.

  Lui glanced at Lady Fau and Kan Fen, but they re-mained stand-ing and fac-ing one an-oth-er, so she fol-lowed the oth-er girl. She stopped, though, as soon as she walked in the door--be-cause the girl had dived onto the counter, her head dis-ap-pear-ing down be-hind it, her torn and loose short pants fac-ing the door and af-ford-ing the poor girl no dig-ni-ty at all. Lui let out a shocked gasp, but rushed for-ward, grab-bing the girl's legs. "What are you do-ing?"

  For her trou-ble, Lui got kicked in the face. The blow stunned her and knocked her back; she fell to the ground, un-sure of ex-act-ly what had just hap-pened for a mo-ment, but she turned to find the girl was hang-ing from both hands and both legs from one of the ceil-ing planters, star-ing around at oth-er plants around the alche-my shop like a starv-ing, fer-al beast.

  "Get down from there!" Lui leaped at the child, but Popo just twist-ed around, press-ing her dirty feet against the walls to swing and jump to an-oth-er planter. Lui squeaked--she was sure that the planters shouldn't be able to hold an en-tire per-son's weight, not since they had no qi re-in-forc-ing them. She chased af-ter the ur-chi-n again, but the girl just leaped back onto the counter, and scam-pered into the back, past Lui's work space and into the stor-age room.

  Lui fol-lowed, too shocked and con-fused to even guess what she would find, but the girl was climb-ing on the many shelves like a grem-lin, her face stuck in be-tween two cab-i-nets, an odd growl com-ing from her throat. "Stop it!" Lui pant-ed even as she shout-ed at the girl. "Get down from there! You're go-ing to break some-thing!"

  Popo turned to look at her, her face peer-ing out from her bangs, her mouth frozen in an open-mouthed gri-mace of some kind. But in-stead of speak-ing, she just glanced to each side, then jumped and clutched at the door frame above Lui, catch-ing it and swing-ing, her tor-so smash-ing straight into Lui's as-ton-ished face.

  Lui stum-bled and half-fell into the wall be-hind her, slid-ing down the wall in shock as the girl scram-bled and clung to the door frame for an-oth-er mo-ment be-fore drop-ping.

  Lui heard the front door, and Lady Fau's voice. "Popo?"

  "She's here!" Lui shout-ed, un-sure of ex-act-ly what was hap-pen-ing, but feel-ing quite pow-er-less to do any-thing about it.

  "Of course she is," Lady Fau's voice sound-ed a lit-tle tired, and maybe a touch amused. "Are you hav-ing fun scar-ing my ap-pren-tice, Popo?"

  "She's fun," the grem-lin in front of Lui agreed with a smirk. "And she smells a bit like my new friend. I bet you know her, too?"

  "New friend?" From the front of the shop, Lady Fau fi-nal-ly ap-peared, and Lui was some-what sur-prised that the woman was com-plete-ly un-per-turbed. "Did you meet some-one on your way here?"

  "Heh." The grem-lin stood up straight, but raked her hands through her hair and shook them, just mess-ing her un-ruly mop of hair even more. "No, not around here, but she says she lives here. I'm glad you're keep-ing the wards main-tained this time, Mimi. I thought for sure you'd for-get the ver-min seals."

  Fau Mide just sniffed, seem-ing in-dig-nant. "Not af-ter the last time. I lost a lot of good herbs to those foul in-sects."

  Lui just looked back and forth be-tween the two of them. "L... Lady Fau, who is this?"

  "Lady," chuck-led Popo, look-ing down at Lui with a grin. "Girl, I could tell you such sto-ries about your 'Lady!' Did you know that she slept with every mem-ber of the No-ble House of Gaum--"

  "Don't say it like that," Lady Fau said, her voice full of ex-as-per-a-tion.

  "--that was of age, and above the lev-el of Ti-ta-ni-um Qi. In-clud-ing three El-ders, and the House Pa-tri-arch! And I don't think a one of them knew about the rest un-til the end of the Tour-na-ment. Tsk, tsk, Lady," she purred.

  Lui couldn't help the ex-pres-sion on her face, but Lady Fau, far from be-ing in-sult-ed or ashamed, sim-ply walked up and punched the girl's shoul-der, with more than enough qi in the blow that it would have se-ri-ous-ly hurt Lui. Popo, though, just shrugged it off with a grin, let-ting the blow knock her off-bal-ance just so that she could hop on one leg play-ful-ly be-fore set-tling down.

  "This brat," Lady Fau ges-tured at her, "is an old friend of mine, who helped me get es-tab-lished out this way. A gen-uine nui-sance, but her tal-ent with wards and qiscripts is real enough to get adopt-ed into a no-ble house. Now I just let her do what-ev-er and qui-et-ly keep a black-mail log just in case I ever need mon-ey. Popo, who was it you said you were look-ing for?"

  "An odd one. Said her name was Shi-va Alas-si, but that's clear-ly half true at best. She said to ask for Sobon." Popo shrugged as though the words meant lit-tle to her.

  Lui felt her face flush, and she saw Lady Fau turn-ing to look at her with raised eye-brows. The urchin caught the mo-tion, and end-ed up cross-ing her arms over her chest and look-ing down at Lui.

  "Uh..." Lui couldn't keep the blush off of her en-tire face, and felt her ears burn-ing, and her pulse pound-ing in-side of her skull. "She... she's my grand-moth-er."

  "Mmm." Popo squat-ted down in front of her with a grin. "I knew you smelled like her. Good. That means you'll grow up to be an odd one, too. I'll look for-ward to it." She ex-tend-ed a hand. "I'm Lai Shi Po."

  Lui ner-vous-ly took the hand, but when the girl--no, Lai Shi Po was def-i-nite-ly a woman, just short and crude--sud-den-ly pulled her to her feet, Lui be-gan to un-der-stand that she nev-er had a chance of mak-ing her do, or not do, any-thing. And the man who had been try-ing to fight her... Lui un-der-stood ex-act-ly why Lady Fau had let him try.

  Lui wasn't the type to watch some-one get beat-en, even for a good rea-son, but as Lai Shi Po slipped away and start-ed ram-bling about some-thing to Lady Fau, Lui re-al-ized that she might have felt... hap-pi-er, if she had seen the man ac-tu-al-ly put in his place.

  She shook her head to clear it, and fol-lowed Lady Fau and her guest into the main room, start-ing to lis-ten as two kept talk-ing.

  necessarily the case that when Lai Shi Po says she "slept with them" it was, in every instance, sexual. (And also, you may note that Lai Shi Po did not specify male members of the house, so.)