The headline which greeted Quill that morning filled him with an uneasiness and dread he couldn’t put his finger on. The embargo was lifted, trade and merchants could once again file through the city as they would. Noue would be making a pretty pile of coin off the merchants who had been desperate enough to leave to sell their wares at a discount. For breakfast he had a light meal of liver sausages and fish eggs, both over crackers. Salty and delicious. Not everyone had the taste for liver sausages, but as a native of Coldpass he’d grown up on it. The weather that day was ashy, and he resolved himself to the task of cleaning his heavy coat on the morrow. The ash meant that he couldn’t refrigerate a lunch in the snow outside the library, so he resolved himself to the expense of buying a breaded fish stew for lunch. It would be a tasty treat before he was forced to use his half day cleaning his greatcoat.

  As he was heading to work, he was intercepted in the alley by a woman… no, he’d met her at the library, her name was Decontextualized, without homeland or lineage. Brown hair, bangs and a long braid, heavy leather armor on an athletic frame. She made him more than a little uneasy, and he remembered the headache she had, wait, why did he associate her with his headache he’d gotten? But she was directly in his path, and it didn’t do to ignore a servant of Tome. Rising from peering behind a loose brick, she greeted him formally, as Quill von Barbery of Kweeleh. “I don’t have to be your enemy. Have lunch with me. I’d arrive at your customary hour.” Quill cast about his mind for conflicting appointments, and realized that he had no good excuse to decline and that in fact he would do well to conclude this encounter early enough to avoid disappointing Leather. So he acceded, and she nodded and stepped aside, vanishing from his awareness almost as soon as she did so. He shuddered. She was unsettling.

  Encounter aside, looking to see if she were the one putting papers behind the brick, he made it to the library on time. The paper, which he felt oddly reluctant to attribute to Decontextualized, said simply, “fine.” He wrote “Dangers of ash fall” and a short list of common precautions, and set about corralling his volunteers. The day went by blindingly quickly, and he reflected on the unfairness that it should be the case when days he met Noue passed so slowly.

  At an hour before the fashionable lunch period, he walked to the door of the library. Outside, unbothered by the ash it seemed, for it never landed on her, stood Decontextualized. He thought he had a more familiar term to refer to her by, but couldn’t recall. So, he asked. She, in turn, asked if she might simply call him Quill. It was traditional, after initial introductions, to refer to the other by just their common name, but she was evidently making an effort to be polite. Warming just the slightest bit to her, he answered that she could. She replied by offering Tua as a shorter option for her own name. Quill briefly felt cross that it wasn’t what he’d expected, then dismissed the irritation as irrational. When he had no idea what name he had even been expecting, what right had he to be upset that it wasn’t what he’d expected?

  She was leading them as they made light conversation, taking back alleys—why did that concern him?—and side roads to get them to a hole in the wall cafe. There was a single red dragon painted over the doorway, and once again a bristle of unease ran through Quill. Tua turned to him and smiled, and if the smile had reached her eyes he would have called it warm. “I’m nothing like Burner, Quill. If I wanted credit for killing you, you would simply be dead. While this cafe is proud of its ties to Zrit’isar, nobody is even so well-armed as you.” He glanced up and down the length of Tua and noted that there were no obvious weapons on her person. Once again, that would-be warm smile graced her face. “Excepting, of course, me. Do you mind if I order for us?” Quill felt decidedly uncomfortable with such a familiar gesture, and found himself worrying that she had similar designs on him as Burner did upon Noue.

  Tua laughed gaily, and this time it did reach her eyes. Cold, cold eyes, taking delight in tormenting prey. “My loyalties lie with Zrit’isar, Quill. You have no appeal to me. That said, we don’t have to be, mmm, intimate acquaintances to stop being enemies.” Quill picked up his menu and saw it was in Draconic. Knowing the cultural differences would make many of the ingredient names meaningless, he gestured for Tua to give their order to the waiting barista. What arrived at their table, small enough their knees nearly touched—it had delighted her that he was unnerved to think she had designs upon him—were two iced beverages made from a mixture of vanilla and coffee, and a pastry filled with mushrooms and beef. He had to admit, while it was a substantial divergence from his usual fare, it was hearty and tasty. Tua consumed her own pastry while it was still steaming hot, while Quill elected to wait for his to cool. That she had actually eaten further reassured Quill that she had benign intentions. At least, as much as… she smiled with her mouth again.

  “Yes, Quill, do tell. What do I have benign intentions for?” Quill shook his head and apologized, feeling muddled and uncertain whether he had spoken aloud, but that he wasn’t certain who she had benign intentions for. Perhaps, compared to Burner. “What ties me and Burner, Quill?” He shook his head again, trying to clear it. Hadn’t she mentioned Burner? “Why yes! I suppose I did.” She wiped nonexistent crumbs off her armor. “Do you mind if I talk while you eat? You don’t seem to have the same… taste for heat I do.” Quill nodded and said that would be fine, taking a tentative bite of his pastry. Why did all the cafes not serving Barberyan food seem to serve buns and pastries? Why was he so certain that it was advisable to be quiet and biddable? And why was there a positive frisson of energy off Tua when she said the word “heat”? She had made clear she wasn’t interested in him so he let go of it as an unimportant ponderable for some other time.

  “We have been at odds, Quill. We don’t need to be.” He very much doubted that, but he had no basis for saying so and so didn’t. He thought. “Why don’t you like me, Quill? Because I trespassed upon your domain, searching your library?” That would be a good reason. Was it the reason? It didn’t seem quite right, but he couldn’t focus; was he getting another headache? “Oh, no, Quill, you’re not getting another headache. But the pressure on your mind must be a little disorienting. Do you have a key you can call to mind?” A key? No, no key. Why was she asking about a key?

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  “Hrm. It must be linked to something else. But forgive me, my manners have deserted me. Here, take a look at this.” She slid a piece of paper across the table. Quill, his head clearing for the moment, wiped greasy fingers on his napkin and examined it. It was a formal writ issued by the lord-governor of Coldpass, authorizing the use of sorcery to interrogate… him. Quill’s blood ran cold. This was not how Burner played the game. He relied upon his own agency and ability. “As I said, I am not Burner, Quill.” He was a suspect by the testimony of Parchment’s secretary of being the one behind the bombing of Parchment’s office, and the destruction of valuable papers which had had to be laboriously copied over and delivered, to say nothing of the delay of the dragon Tome’s designs through the Earth Guild. “So. I am the agent chosen to carry out this search. But I think you would much rather have me as a friend. You could have everything you want so badly. Your Denouement would make an excellent ally, the two of you could be a team. Her skills, combined with your ravenous consumption of lore and knowledge would make a formidable pair. You think your bedfellows have given you access to knowledge, you have no notion of what was lost. You would be free to be a scholar, not some librarian head nod by a bookstore.”

  Quill looked up at the eyes of Tua. Decontextualized. Any familiarity with her would only end in pain for him. Not Tua, not… he waited for her to inquire as to the conclusion of his thought, even though he didn’t know what it was, but she smiled and tapped the paper. “That doesn’t have to be how things go, Quill. I gave you a taste, but we could be friends.” She’s allied with Burner. Burner who tried to kill him, has threatened Noue, was just generally—“Burner is a nonissue. He has grown unreliable. Erratic. That is why I’m here, to clean up his mess. But you have other friends you’re loyal to. I felt them. But you’re not so loyal as you seem, are you? You’ve considered removing one of them because, somehow, they’re an obstacle to your being with Noue, aren’t they? I’m sorry, Denouement. I shouldn’t presume.”

  Quill thought of Noue. He thought of his previous love affairs, and his certainty that, as things stood, they would always go the same way. “I think you’d find that a dragon’s greed agreed, hah, with you. We want all of your companions, it’s true, but we have tools at our disposal. If you want… a boyfriend? If you want him too, all we need is to find him and you could have both. It would be no object, and if it’s a sin before your Wholist Church, I think you’d find that Zrit’isar is a more obliging and indulgent Lord.” Quill’s thoughts were muddled, and the more he grasped at his thoughts the more they escaped him, like trying to pick up water or capture fog in a net.

  Decontextualized sighed and pulled out another piece of paper, taking back the first. “How about this, Quill. When you can think, whatever that looks like, give this letter a good read. Don’t think of calling on me, I’ll call on you, and we’ll see what you have to say. And I do recommend you finish your pastry, they’re quite good.” She rose, scooting her chair in and leaving. Quill looked at the folded paper in his hand. He thought he should tell his friends about this encounter, but felt reluctant to do so until he had read the letter. Which meant not seeing his friends, until he had read the letter. He was quite certain of that. As though anticipating an encounter with Noue, the rest of the day dragged on. He was aware of the letter, kept in his vest pocket; there was no way he was risking losing it by leaving it in his greatcoat until he knew what it contained.

  That night, in the same closet he remembered… he didn’t remember the details, but a fateful encounter with Noue, he visualized his glyph, rotating it into place in the lock in his mind. As before, he was intensely aware of the gaping blackness of the wall Glue had erected in his mind. For his own good, he had been told, but he wondered how true that was. Parchment knew he had tried to have her replaced, and if she knew then Glue knew. What if they had locked away intent? What if… the paranoia was unnatural for him, a manifestation of sorcerous meddling with his mind. Decontextualized—he would never again familiarize the name of someone so dangerous—had left hobnailed boot prints all over his mind, he was sure. Glue would know in an instant that he’d had an encounter with one of Tome’s agents. But the letter.

  By the light of a candle, sitting on the floor of his closet, he unfolded the letter. It was… not what he expected. Even with his glyph unlocked he wasn’t certain what he’d expected. It was an offer of employment. In Zrit’isar’s personal library. He would have light duties, organizing and curating the books of the dragon, but by and large he would be free to study, provided he made his essays available to the dragon. Conditional upon the offer were the names of his cellmates, as well as his extracellular contact. While the contract did not specify what her duties would be, it explicitly named Denouement as one of his coworkers, employed for the good of dragonkind. It also included that, provided he agreed and made a good-faith investment of time and effort, Burner would be relocated somewhere far from Coldpass, handed off to another dragon in need of an unsubtle tool.

  Quill thought feverishly about the letter, not realizing time was passing until his candle went out. There was no way he could hide it from Glue. And having revealed it to Glue, Glue would want to look in his mind. He heard Decontextualized’s voice in his head and startled at the unbidden—it wasn’t air sorcery, it was draconic psi—until he thought back at it and realized it was internal. It was, as Decontextualized had supposed Glue had given him, a key. He pictured the key, and a lock emerged from the bruising on his mind, hidden behind swelling until that moment. The space inside was just right for the emotions bubbling in his chest and the letter itself. He thought about it, and even as he added thoughts to the engram of the letter, the lock expanded, ready to enfold it.

  It wasn’t as though he were committing himself to anything, by locking away the letter. He just wanted time to think. He was a man in love, but he was also a man of principle. Indignance rose up in him. Glue’s sorcery was something he had consented to initially, but they had grown far-reaching and willful in their use of it upon him. He deserved some measure of privacy. Decided upon his course of action, Quill reviewed his thoughts and neatly locked away any thoughts of… a letter? He had no letter. Certainly not under a loose sock in the back room closet of his apartment. Meditation was difficult that night, to which he attributed Decontextualized’s bruising of his mind. Sleep, on the other hand, came quickly, though he was troubled by nightmares of Noue’s hand being torn from his, and Glue and Parchment burning alive held in scaly claws.