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.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


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


    <hr>


    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.