Docking the boat in Rainwall tied a knot in Fuyo's chest. Every action was as familiar as memory; Oboro should have been sitting on the deck with his feet propped up, telling everyone that they were doing so well, he'd only get in the way if he tried to help. But Shigure's grumbling about manual labor was broken up by his squabbling with Raven, and the once picturesque view of the city was marred by rubble and construction.

Somewhere in Nagarea, Oboro hunted the criminals he used to call colleagues. He could handle himself. Fuyo knotted a rope tight and forbade herself from speculating beyond that.

"Finally," said Shigure, straightening up from a post. "Ugh. I'm starving."

"You had breakfast an hour ago," Sagiri replied, "and we should visit Luserina before we do anything else."

Fuyo added, "She might even feed us," which failed to appease him. She shrugged. "Either way, Sagiri's right. Come on, everybody."

"Everybody" did not include Raven, who had managed to disappear in broad daylight somewhere between fetching the ropes and setting foot on the pier. Career criminals, even domesticated ones, were not terribly reliable.

The road to the Barows mansion bustled with activity, even this early in the morning. Carts filled with construction supplies rolled past stations of vendors and volunteers. There was nothing like an oppressive occupation to really bring a community together.

The mansion itself had been stripped of Barows-related decorations and covered with painted wooden signs directing visitors to temporary housing, the various areas of the new seat of government, and the reparations department in the basement. Fuyo followed a series of green arrows upstairs to the hallway of the executive branch.

Behind a simple desk that had probably not been part of the Barows furniture collection sat a skinny boy who couldn't have been a day older than fifteen, his freckled face framed by precarious piles of paperwork. Fuyo longed to introduce him to efficient filing. As the group approached, he perked up with the eagerness of one who much preferred conversation to classification.

"Hello!" His voice cracked on the second syllable, which didn't seem to bother him. "Welcome to Rainwall's executive branch! Do you have an appointment?"

Shigure cocked his head. "Do we need an appointment?"

"Um, of course. We're pretty busy around here." The boy opened a drawer stuffed with forms past the point of reasonable capacity. "So you have to work through the system, right? If you tell me what you're here for, I can get you to the right department."

"No need for that," said Sagiri. "We're just here to visit Luserina."

The boy stared at her as if she'd announced that the group had come to fill the city fountains with chocolate. "You'll, uh, definitely need an appointment for that. The mayor's really busy."

Fuyo nodded. "I'm sure she is, but we're old friends. Could you just let her know we're in town?"

"She's really busy," he insisted. "Seriously, Alvan would kill me if I messed up her schedule."

Luserina's voice carried from a room behind him: "Bentwick? Who's—Fuyo!" Luserina poked her head around the corner and waved exuberantly. "Shigure! Sagiri! Come in, come in. It's so good to see you all again." As she shepherded the group into her sparse and tidy office, she frowned and scanned the area behind them. "Where's Oboro?"

"He's away on personal business." Fuyo didn't need to elaborate; Luserina had handled most of the prince's domestic affairs by the end of the war, to the point of sorting through his comment box. "I hear nothing but good things about your work here, you know. I don't think anyone would be surprised if you ended up in the parliament."

"Oh! Well, that might be preferable, actually..." Luserina pursed her lips and glanced at the hall before continuing, more loudly, "But that's all beside the point. How are you? What brings you to Rainwall?"

Fuyo settled in on one of a set of mismatched chairs. "The agency is officially re-opening for business, and we thought, what better place than here?"

A smile warmed Luserina's face. "And you're more than welcome. The city needs to feel vibrant and prosperous again. Did you just arrive?"

"Straight from the docks to your office," replied Shigure. "Fuyo's a real slave-driver." Fuyo retaliated by swatting his bangs out of his face. "See?"

Luserina let out a brief, bright laugh that seemed to surprise her. "Please," she said, "let me treat you to dinner at the inn. Dinner's next on my schedule—" she tapped fat black book that lay open on her desk, papers and tags poking out of it at all angles— "and Euram's added a note that I'm not to eat it alone at my desk."

Fuyo beamed. "That would be lovely. We've got so much to catch up on."

"I can meet you in a hour. Please, make yourselves comfortable while you wait. The gardens are open to visitors."

As they rose, three precise knocks sounded against the door frame. "Miss Barows," said an equally precise voice, "may I have a word?"

The good humor flickered out of Luserina's face as she turned to the hall. "Just 'Luserina,' please," she replied, in the tone of one who had said this very many times before. "I left that name behind."

Fuyo shifted until she could see the figure in the hall, then stiffened as she recognized the utterly unremarkable face of Alvan. His gaze flicked briefly over her and her companions as if they were fresh damage to the furniture.

Returning his attention to Luserina, he smiled politely. "We are what we are born to, Miss Barows. I'm afraid that I simply can't address a member of the nobility by her given name."

She shook her head. "There is no house of Barows anymore. My brother and I will not continue it."

"Ah, then perhaps one day there will be no house of Barows, but today you stand before me." He bowed. "Please forgive me my eccentricities. Identity is not so fluid in Stormfist."

"How fortunate, then, that we aren't in Stormfist."

They watched each other for several seconds, unblinking, until Alvan said, "The council requests your presence tomorrow to discuss the water supply situation."

Luserina exhaled heavily. "Of course. Please have the last two committee reports and the surveyor's assessment on my desk as soon as..." She trailed off as Alvan handed her three labeled folders. "Thank you. Now, would you please show my friends to the gardens? I'll be dining with them tonight."

He nodded, glanced at Fuyo as if she were damage to the furniture that he was now responsible for patching up, and bowed again before turning to leave. His left hand curled over the silver top of a cane. Fuyo caught herself wondering whether the stylized frog really did conceal a blade.

"I'll see you soon," said Luserina, settling in at her desk.

Alvan led them in silence past Bentwick's desk and down a flight of stairs, deploying his cane with practiced precision. "So, Alvan," said Fuyo when it became apparent that neither of her detectives felt chatty, "how do you like working for Luserina?"

He didn't so much as glance back at her. "I like most that my job doesn't involve entertaining her guests."

It was amazing he only had the limp, really; he struck Fuyo as someone who spent a lot of time getting his nose broken.

When Nether Gate ruined and refashioned Sagiri, no one involved had expected her to repurpose her skills like this. After entering the inn, she and Shigure had automatically seated themselves to share watch duty, and now she sipped her soup while absorbing a thousand little details at once: the body language of other patrons, the soft shadows where the firelight never quite reached, the pronounced thinness of Luserina's face, the pauses in Fuyo's stories that invited interjections. As usual, Shigure ignored the last category and shifted its share of attention to his pipe.

Fuyo was still doing most of the talking. She'd started in with questions until Sagiri kicked her in the ankle firmly enough to make her notice that Luserina needed to eat, not answer. A parade of detective work anecdotes saw Luserina through two bowls of soup and most of a loaf of bread.

"So," said Sagiri once the hunger seemed sated, "when did you decide to run for mayor?"

Luserina laughed softly, without much humor. "I didn't."

Shigure lowered his pipe. "Why are you mayor?"

"Enough people voted for me regardless. My name was written on more ballots than anyone who actually campaigned." She fidgeted with her napkin as she continued, "I wanted to refuse, but after talking it over with Euram, I thought that Rainwall might need someone familiar to oversee the rebuilding. Anyone else would spend months just learning to navigate the system, and we don't have time for that."

"Makes sense," said Fuyo. "The people here must really adore you."

Luserina's cheeks reddened. "It's more complicated than that. Some of the people here realize how much administrative work I did in my father's place, but I'm afraid some of them still just want to see someone from the Barows house in charge." Her fingers plucked crumbs from a piece of bread and let them scatter over the tablecloth. "My ties to the royal family must have an effect, as well. The prince is so popular that everyone who sided with him is at an advantage."

Shigure snorted. "If that was all it took, Talgeyl would be answering to Chairperson Lyon."

With a little twitch of a smile, Luserina stopped mutilating her food and took a sip of her tea. "Well, it's complicated. I'm still not sure I'm making the right choice, but I'm doing the best I can. As soon as the city's a little more stable, I'm going to step down."

Fuyo's face heralded an unsubtle question. "Do you feel safe? Is anyone threatening you?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I'm worried about Rainwall, not myself." This time her fingers picked at her napkin. "Euram's worried about me, but Euram also thinks that any council member who disagrees with me is plotting assassination."

"I'm sure he means well," said Fuyo. "Speaking of which—" the worst part, Sagiri thought, was that she really did think she was being subtle— "what's the story with that grumpy assistant of yours?"

The napkin was granted a reprieve. "Please excuse Alvan. He has... a strong personality, but I honestly don't know how I'd keep track of everything without him. And it's good, I think, to have hired someone from Stormfist; it's past time to put that feud behind us."

"Stormfist, huh?" Fuyo leaned in closer, ignoring Sagiri's nudges to her ankle. "Must have been hard to check out his references."

Luserina shrugged, and the angle of her eyebrows suggested that the game was up. "When he first applied, I sent letters to his previous employers and received word that they had all passed away within the last few years. Alvan confessed that he exaggerated his employment history. He lost his position in Stormfist at the beginning of the war, and he spent the last two years living destitute outside the city. When he heard about my reconstruction efforts, he came to Rainwall."

"Do you believe him?" asked Fuyo.

Luserina's mouth quirked. "Not quite, but he's a very good secretary." Setting her chin in her hand, she asked mildly, "Who hired you?"

Fuyo deflated. "That's, uh, confidential. If it's true. What makes you think—"

"This is why," Sagiri said, "we do the investigating, and Fuyo manages the books." This time Fuyo kicked her in the ankle.

Luserina managed to look even more tired than she had been. "Just don't disturb anyone, please. Everything's very sensitive right now, and the last thing I need is for Alvan to find out he's being investigated."

"We're always discreet," said Fuyo, reaching across the table to pat Luserina's hand. "Don't worry."

The space behind Fuyo shivered; Sagiri had drawn a kunai before the shadows peeled away from Raven, who snatched Fuyo's leftover bread and made her yelp. "Always discreet," he said cheerfully.

Sagiri slid her weapon back into coat. Luserina's face lit with a surprised and surprisingly genuine smile, as if seeing Raven had somehow improved her day. Little wonder she was the mayor; this was a level of political pageantry that few could manage at the end of a long day.

"Someday," said Shigure around a mouthful of smoke, "you're going to get stabbed doing that." Raven ignored him in favor of exchanging pleasantries with Luserina.

Fuyo huffed and took a soothing sip of tea. "Where have you been all day, Crow?" she asked at the first polite opportunity.

"Eh, you know. Things." He dipped the end of his ill-gotten bread into Luserina's soup and bit off a chunk.

Sagiri caught Shigure's eye. He tipped his shoulder in a half-shrug and blew a smoke ring.

"Since we've finished dinner—"

"We have?" came out as "Ee aff?" with a backup chorus of crumbs.

"—we should let Luserina get back to her work," Fuyo continued, undeterred. She turned to Luserina. "Thank you so much for having dinner with us. I'm sure we'll see you around Rainwall, but feel free to stop by our boat if you want to visit or just relax somewhere quiet. We'll be on our best behavior."

"Thank you." Luserina dabbed at her lips with her napkin before standing. "Please come see me if you need anything; I'll tell Bentwick not to give you any trouble."

Raven swallowed a lump of soggy bread that by all rights should have choked him and put himself between Luserina and the door. "Hey, it's dark out. Walk you home?"

Fuyo coughed on a sip of tea. "Crow! What do you think you're doing?"

"Being a gentlemen." He squawked as Fuyo grabbed his wrist and dragged him aside for a few moments' heated whispering, which ended with his pulling a face, offering Luserina his arm, and exiting with an air of offended dignity.

Once they were well out of earshot, Fuyo said, "I told him to stake out the mansion and make sure Alvan isn't lurking around at night. And not to steal anything, no matter how unattended it looks."

Sagiri fingered the tip of a kunai through her coat. "Do you think Alvan's a threat? If he's trying to assassinate Luserina, he isn't doing a very good job of it. He manages her schedule; she'd be dead by now if he really wanted her to be."

"We can't all be Nether Gate," Fuyo replied. "No one ever said he was a good assassin."

Shigure snorted. "You're gonna make us spy on this guy just because you don't like him."

She crossed her arms. "Rudeness and murderousness aren't mutually exclusive."