On the Trail

There was no question about it. Tiberius was slumming it. The Second Veil was a bar for tourists in a city that had never had many of those – especially lately. The magister sat by himself at a small table, reading the gossip rags and sipping a slightly noxious lemon spirit from a tiny glass. The light, tinted blue and full of smoke, was awful for this task.

That was alright. His thoughts kept wandering, following one useless tail or another. It wasn’t fair what had happened to House Pavus while House Tilani still enjoyed a place of prominence. They’d both endorsed a dozen votes against the status quo. Of course, no Tilani had traipsed across the countryside with an elven minion of the southern chantry.

Poor Enzo – to be reduced to more or less the same status that Tiberius had enjoyed all his life. He still wasn’t sure how to rekindle that connection or even if he should. Dimly, he was aware of a new patron entering somewhere behind him.

Then, not so dimly. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his heart hammered painfully in his chest. Despair was riled, the arched back of an angry cat. A presence not unlike Cecilia Bellefleur’s – but not quite the same and somehow lesser. He swung his legs out and looked.

A tall, colorless woman. Perhaps a genuine tourist after all? She did not have the look of a native. An agent of Cici’s? Then she would be looking for him. Tiberius stood and smiled at the stranger, motioning to the seat across from him.

”You look lost and thirsty. Why don’t you join me, friend?”