Orio was a deceptively sleepy populace. As Catherine and her companions moved through the city gates, they were hardly noticed. Presumably, the citizens were too engrossed in their own business to notice. But that didn’t last long.

“This is suspicious,” Klaten observed. If even he, in his groggy state noticed it, then it must have been true.

“Indeed,” Ilani spoke with a grimly-set jaw. “This is not right – and I fear that I may be involved.”

Marlo looked askance at her. “You do? Why?”

Smoldering anger reddened the lar’s eyes. “I have heard many reports about this city and the mistrust that brims in it.”

She suddenly cleared her face of the anger and replaced it with determination. “I must go see to something.”

With that, she departed from their company with no other explanation for her actions. Hjeld looked after her with confusion. Klaten nodded his head knowingly, and Cat looked to him.

“As you may have guessed,” the old lord began, “There are still humans who hate the lar – apparently, there are a large concentration of them here in Orio. What you may not know is that the Legion of the Galae have outposts in many human cities – to protect lar interests. I suppose she is going to meet with them and gather recent information.”

Many of the group nodded in understanding. Catherine pursed her lips; stories of human stupidity always made her angry.

“We should probably just move on,” Moeb suggested, still in the form of the mountain lordling. Klaten and Marlo, Catherine realized, didn’t recognize him as the man that had insulted Cormor’s lord on the Black Night Festival. He must have done something to them.

“I believe he is right,” Niima agreed, disguised as an old crippled lady.

“We have to stop for supplies – at the very least, wait for Ilani’s return,” Hjeld interjected.

Cat glanced briefly in his direction, and somehow felt…green.

“Indeed,” Klaten grunted. That settled that.

They stopped at a tavern within sight of Ouri Keep, house of the noble family of the city. There they took their ease, all huddled around the only available table. Only Niima and Catherine didn’t drink anything.

Sitting at the table, Cat took the opportunity to observe Lily and Cale. There was something between them that hadn’t existed three years before. Moreover, she had just noticed that they both wore the same bundle of dried herbs around their necks. She didn’t understand it, but she would feel embarrassed to ask. Cat decided to figure it out herself.

She also considered asking Niima or Hjeld, but those were almost worst.

“I like not this place,” Niima growled once again. “The air is saturated with unpleasantness.”

No one had anything to say to that. They all agreed.

Cat turned her attention from the silent Lily and Calemarr to Moeb. He seemed lost in thought, staring off past his companions. She craned her head to follow his solemn gaze, and, to some surprise, found the object of his studies was a woman. Catherine saw nothing remarkable about this woman; she seemed just like any other, but pleasant enough to look at. She didn’t understand why he would pay attention to her. She attributed it to his growing strangeness and decided to think no more on the subject. She had a feeling that everything would fall into place.

They had lazed about for half an hour before they realized that Ilani had no way to find them – and Orio was, after all, a rather large city. Cale was the one who joked that, to find her, they should just go find an uproar, because she was probably the cause. It was a joke, but no one really expected it to work.

A woman stormed in, eyes alight, screaming about something. Cat tried to make sense of her words, but they were too rapid and apparently too far removed from her Parisian French. Not that she had really expected to be able to understand Shunnois.

The company took their leave of the tavern and basically followed the screams. It seemed that there was something remarkable happening in an alley not too far away. They made haste toward the commotion, but made a point of not being too hasty.

The crowd was gathered in front of a large, gaudy-colored building, shaking their fists as if egging on someone in a fight. Cat had seen that behavior before.

Someone was bodily thrown out through the doors, landing in the street in a cloud of dust. An angry figure waltzed out behind them. Who should it be but Ilani?

She didn’t say anything, but her eyes spoke all the words needed. She kicked the grounded figure so that he rolled over several times, and the surrounding people did nothing to help him or stop the angry lar.

Klaten frowned at the sight. “Somebody stop her.”

Marlo nodded and strode up. He had to shove his way through the thick ring of spectators, but they all let him pass once he flashed the Mithann crest on his sword hilt. Ilani had seemingly been unaware of his approach and started when the Gernum lordling clapped his hand on her shoulder.

“Calm down,” he mumbled. “Don’t cause any trouble. What happened?”

She frowned deeply and looked down at her groaning victim with disgust. She rudely swept a hand through the air above him.

“This maggot – no, he is not worth even that – I hear from my sisters that he killed one of us with…” She closed her eyes and winced as if even uttering the word gave her pain. “…Iron. And then he…” she shuddered. “He desecrated her body!”

Out of passion she kicked the man again. He grunted anew.

Ilani didn’t look abnormally upset. She was controlling her emotions. Barely. Cat surmised that she was liable to blow at any moment.

To the lar, to kill one of the with iron was to destroy their souls and deny them entry to the next world. To the galae, desecrating the body of a warrior – any warrior, not just one from their own ranks - earned you a severe beating. Cat wondered as to the nature of the desecration.

Unfortunately for the man who had committed the crime, Marlo rather shared the galae’s views on the treatment of the dead. He turned a condescending eye upon him.

“Despicable,” he pronounced.

The crowd abruptly stopped shouting. Five men in crystal blue tabards, longswords slapping at their thighs, were shoving their way through the ring of people; Ouri Lighters, like policemen.

They started shouting, presumably to ask what was going on. Then they saw Ilani, and the man on the ground. The Lighter in the lead, a man with a circular silver patch on his sleeve, barked something at three of the men behind him. They drew swords. The angry galae and Mithann noble immediately reciprocated, seemingly without thought. How else could they justify an action that stupid?

Cat broke away from the others, rushing toward her two companions. “Stop!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”

The fifth man caught her as she came barreling by, and was trying to tell her something. “Let go of me!” she cried, struggling to get free. “Arretez!”

Ilani was staring down the Lighter officer, explaining to him the situation in perfect Shunnois, her blade still held in a defensive posture. Marlo, silent but ready behind her, was glancing around at the other three Lighters warily.

The officer didn’t seem to be listening to the galae; he looked bored and annoyed. He kept repeating the same thing over and over, and Ilani kept repeating her same words. It was, altogether, a situation not progressing at all.

Marlo suddenly let out a surprised cry. Ilani turned for the briefest moment to see what happened, and found her companion on the ground and herself set upon by the three Lighters. It was one of the few moments in her life when she was actually caught by surprise. She never knew such quick defeat, but would surely remember it when she woke up from the blow that knocked her senseless.

Cat watched, wide-eyed and horrified, as her friends fell. The crowd cheered. For the second time in her Alderian life, she snapped.

She emptied almost every word of her mangled, half-forgotten French vocabulary in screaming at the stunned Lighter officer. The scene was akin to the one three years prior, and once again she had to be drawn away. Cale and Moeb fairly tackled her. Hjeld came up next to smooth over the nerves in his own mangled, pidgin Shunnois.

“Come on,” Lily murmured soothingly. “We’ll get this sorted out.”

Cat was still fuming, but realized the scene she was creating and the subsequent trouble that followed her outbursts. She thought she decided that she didn’t want to burden anyone anymore, that she would finally grow up – so she did the adult thing and let herself be led away.

Klaten looked thoughtful, Catherine noticed. “What are you thinking?”

The lord shrugged. “The Lighters answer to Lord om Ouri. I believe I may still have some standing with him – perhaps enough to set free Ilani and my kin.”

At her side, Moeb added quietly, “And if that doesn’t work, I can always lend a hand.”

She wasn’t sure she’d like Moeb to use his ‘divine’ power. She also realized a vital fact.

“Lan, aren’t you at war with Shunnoir – om Ouri included?”

Cormor’s master was struck. “You know, I think you’re right,” he admitted. “This was before the most recent war. He’d probably have me killed now…”

“This begs the question of what you’re doing in enemy territory in the first place,” Niima growled. “And while we’re at it, fellow fools, why are we here?”

Lily looked taken aback. “We’re here because Cat – Hellen needs us!”

The rat shrugged, making her layers of cloth flutter. “Whatever.”

Lorraine was a legend.

Her prowess in the lixi arts was renown. She was as long-lived as a lar, feared and loved by every man in Shunnoir. She was supposedly not entirely human as well. Her title said it all; Her Great and Terrible Sorceress, Lorraine.

Her hair was long and black, her face sharp and hawklike, shimmering white shells sewn into her long satin dresses. She was a fitting figure to play the protector of the country. She was the swing vote in any political struggle, and she could not be bought.

Lorraine was a legend.

She played a hooded figure this night, not quite sure why she bothered. Only the nobles knew her by face, and she was not visiting them. She was after someone infinitely more special.

Her long, lazy stride soon brought her before a popular inn, removing her hood and fixing her safeguard – a large brass torque denoting she was married, no matter that it was now just a cover – more comfortably. She stepped inside.

The smell and heat that met her inside could only be created by a mass gathering of humans, as it invariably was. She was careful to keep her expression impassive in the face of the stares she attracted – until they alighted on the torque, at which time she was invisible once again. At times, she enjoyed anonymity.

She knew what room she wanted. She mounted the staircase with all the grace of a Queen, her hand delicately sweeping along the handrail, head held high. She blew through the hall like a salty sea breeze, hair fluttering dramatically. She ignored the many doors she did not want, and finally stopped at one situated at the end of the hall. She knocked twice.

There was a squawk of surprise and a shuffle of clothing inside. Someone stumbled across the floor and over to the door.

A surprised-looking young woman met her. “Hello, m’Lady?”

Lorraine smiled. “Hello. I believe I can be of some help to you. Hellen or Catherine, which do you prefer?"