Cinder paced back and forth between the richly colored bedpost and her balcony, not at all bothered by the frigid air that tossed the salmon curtains about in its wake. Qrow Branwen had returned after all. It was of little consequence, but then she'd also heard other troubling news. Or, more accurately, she'd heard a lack of news. That was troubling.

Despite this, her plans were fine. She was under no suspicion from the nobles and her duty to Salem was fulfilled. She had all the time in the world to worry, but she just couldn't seem to find the need to. Little problems happened; she would snuff it out quickly enough. Her great design was too well calculated to be shaken by the movements of such tiny figures.

The serving girl shuffled on her feet, trying to stay out of the way. "You shouldn't stare, girl. It annoys me." Cinder said with her back to the girl. The sound of her gasp, and the way her little heartbeat jumped, brought a bemused smile to Cinder's lips. When she turned back around, the girl was staring at her shoes. "Look at me."

She hesitantly raised her face up, and cried out alongside the crack of Cinder's hand meeting her cheek. The girl fell against the wall, holding her cheek that was now scarlet. Her eyes shone with tears as she kept them fixated on Cinder.

"Since you wanted to look at me so badly." She said sweetly. She was thinking, then, of the boy that Roman had told her about. The one all the Faunas seemed to like. Indeed, there was a useful pawn. She gave the girl a pointed look, and when she turned away from her again she knew that the servant's eyes followed Cinder's back.

An idea popped into her head. A cruel one, but effective. She was angry; she wanted to lash out. The petulant feelings of a little girl, she knew, yet she burned suddenly with the desire. She turned to her desk and sat in the chair, pulling an inkwell close as she spread a small letter paper before her. A pen of dark glass materialized in her hand.

When she was done, the pen shattering to fine dust that carried itself away on the wind, she folded the missive neatly and tucked it into an envelope that she stamped with unmarked wax.

"Take this, girl. Find out from the guards where the Tallow's Roost is, and bring it to the man who runs the place. Ask for a Ronan Ederman. You are to wait for him if he is not there and then you are to wait until he reads this letter and gives you your orders to leave."

The girl took the letter with unsteady hands, gripping it tightly in both. "Y-yes, my lady." She stammered. Her cheek sported a shocking red welt in the shape of Cinder's hand. The girl swallowed as Cinder knelt down, flinching when the woman ran a cold finger down the sore.

"Lessons often come harshly, and more often they make us wonder if they're lessons at all." She added the last bit in response to the hurt she saw in the serving girl's eyes. A little smidge of her felt something akin to guilt and regret, seeing that hurt, and as a memory tried to worm its way up out of sealed depths, she shut it away. "Go, now."

Cinder stood as the door to her rum swung shut, and smoothed her dress.

Blake shifted her weight on the bench, pulling the edge of her cloak free from a snag it had caught on the wood, pulling it against the wind that filtered down from the rooftops. A mother fought her way through a crowded walkway, pulling two young children along and shooting glares at anyone she passed.

She wished she had a good reason to be here, watching the crowd mill about market stalls, but she didn't. Yang and Adam were away, and though the book lay unopened on her lap, she found she wasn't interested in it.

If she could just hit one of them. Adam was missing, Yang still hadn't come to see her even though Blake knew she hadn't left the city. She guessed that perhaps some of her words had gotten through, even just a little bit. She couldn't think about Yang, though. Not while Adam was missing. She twitched an ear against the cold.

A little girl suddenly shot through the crowd, holding something tight to her chest. The mother pulled her children out of the road to avoid the girl's frantic running, and she muttered something too quiet for Blake to hear. The girl didn't look up at any of the people who shook their fists at her, and soon her tiny shape had disappeared into the jungle of legs around her. Blake watched, still, feeling a prickle on her spine. She was sure others saw it, too; the sharp welt on her cheek and the silver clip in her hair, the girl too young to know to hide it.

With a weary sigh, Blake stood up from the bench, wiggling her toes in her soft boots for warmth, and followed after the girl, pulling her hood up.

They wound through the streets, Blake always careful to keep her distance. The girl wasn't from the streets, she could tell. Guards hardly looked at her, but she looked at them every time she had to pass near one. Blake couldn't tell why the girl was afraid, but she was sure she was.

The silver kept catching the sunlight, glinting in her auburn hair, and Blake worried it would make the child a target. Indeed, curious eyes would follow the bright shine and turn hungry swiftly, watching from the sidelines, but none would linger too long, always aware of the city guard that stood as sentinels on the corners of every block. Faunas especially kept their heads down, near the marketplace. Whatever fire had burned in their eyes a few days ago now was doused, and only damp ashes remained.

"Girl! Surely that tablecloth does you no good against such wind! Let us take care of you…" The voice of the marketman faded along with such others as Blake followed the child into an alleyway, still with enough distance between them that when the girl checked over her shoulder, Blake was sure the girl hadn't noticed her. By the way her face was makeuped, Blake was sure she wasn't from the outer city. Certainly, if anything, she was from the higher echelons of the inner city. Her family probably had property near the castle grounds.

So what was she doing here, at the very edges of the inner city, slinking through dank alleys that smelled too much of humanity? Blake narrowed her eyes, taking careful steps, book held tightly in her single hand grip while she wished for the single short blade she knew how to use, but only briefly. The girl turned a corner in the alley, and Blake quickened her pace to wait at the edge while the girl predictably checked her shoulder.

A stray cat watched them from beneath a shattered bar stool, sitting alone at the back of a building. The girl stood outside a door, looking at the missive in her hands. Blake hung back at the edge of the alley, watching. Her concern was replaced by curiosity, now. If her young life had taught her anything, it was to watch the movements of those whose pockets were lined with money. Often, those less fortunate were swept aside to make way for such movements, and what kind of scheme might be taking place that any family might risk their young girl on the streets of Beacon?

Her eyes narrowed at the silver in her hair. Unless this was all some clever disguise? To what purpose that might serve, she hadn't the faintest clue, but she put the thought away anyways, just in case it led to something later on. She'd learned as well that things she couldn't possibly make sense of were in place for that reason.

The girl stood up to the door, and tentatively knocked. Blake stiffened. The door opened narrowly, but Blake couldn't make out any shape behind it.

"R-Ronan?" Blake's ears twitched beneath her hood as the little voice echoed off the walls of the other buildings. She bit her bottom lip as the door opened to allow the girl entry and she stepped inside.

She watched for a few minutes, to see if the girl would come back out.

When she did not, Blake gathered her thin cloak around herself and walked back the route she'd taken, feeling restless.

He fell to the ground with gargled gasps in a motionless slump, eyes glazing over. She wiped her hand on the front of her dress, the hand she'd used to grip his throat. The wind whipped ferociously at her, pulling at her hair. The guard gazed unseeingly, and for posterity, Cinder nudged his head with the tip of her foot. His head lolled to the side, unblinking, revealing the crimson that pooled in the nook between his chest and the plate overtop it.

Satisfied, she drew in the aura all around her; pulled it in from even the smallest streams, and soaked herself in it. She thought her body should glow, with how much she infused herself with. She was aware of every connection, of where every person she drew from stood. Their presence stretched for miles. Abruptly she cut off the connections, still infused, and she picked up the dead man. With hardly any effort at all, he was sailing through the air, and she watched his body disappear as it fell behind the edge of the cliff. With a sardonic grin, she turned away from the stone banister that overlooked the edge of the land where it fell away to deep sea.

As she turned the corner, the guard's partner dipped his head to her.

She widened her smile as they passed each other.