...
"Stop picking at it."
Ayika gently slapped Xinfei's hand away from the bandage under his vest. He in turn scowled at her and leaned back against the wall of the alley they were lurking in. Across the quiet side-street of this moderately prosperous district in the Lower Ring there stood an octangular green door in a cracked plaster wall wrapping around a small house and what Ayika assumed was an equally small garden. Not that she could see any garden. The two halves of the door were securely shut and spotted with circles of greening bronze while the rest of the wall reached up a meter past the top of her head. To each side of their target stood other residences, both girt in stone for the first meter before transitioning to white-washed walls all the way up to the dark clay-tiled eaves which hung over small inset windows.
She and Xinfei had spent more than half the day tracking down leads across miles of the lower city to find where that so called 'garden designer' named Ma'er lived and now she was stopped by a single door. Ayika was thinking that her grand investigative strategy might have some holes.
"He has to come out sometime, right? So I guess we can just stay here all day and maybe tomorrow as well," Xinfei said, thick with sarcasm as he grumbled and gently fingered the bruises on his ribs again.
She did not bother looking back. "Shut up, you should have stayed home with your mom and healed instead of following me around half the city."
"Why? I've got the poultices you made and your Gran used so say these things are mostly cured by time. Time goes by just as fast with you as at home."
"You need rest and you know it. Xiaobao said so."
"What and let you get arrested for poking around in the lower ring? What even is your plan anyway? If the gate was wide open and we knew for certain this was that gardener's house, then what? How does this help a dead man?"
Ayika muttered indistinctly and continued to stare at that obstinate green door. There was a frustrating truth to what he said. When this day started she had followed a vague fantasy of finding some damning evidence that linked this Ma'er to the murderer and turning it all over to the guards for some measure of justice. But last night's righteous fury was giving way to exhaustion. That 'gardener' with the scars on his cheeks had brought a package, threatened the professor, and the white faced figure had stolen it back away. Probably. That was all she had, and no way to prove anything. She was so tired. She was not sure if she had slept more than a couple minutes last night. Still, she had to do something. What was it that had gotten Lizhen killed?
Why was she spending this much effort? People died all the time. Even more frequently in the City. What had Lizhen done to earn her loyalty? He tried to remember her name. A small courtesy but one that no one else at the school bothered with since she could be distinguished as 'the tribal girl'. He had been kind. Kind, brilliant, and had not made her feel like a servant's position was so far beneath him. And he had been killed in front of her while she was powerless to do anything.
Almost without noticing it her lips began to move. One hand felt at her sternum where she was still tender from sudden attack in the dark. "The black figure with a white face. It was... I, there something about it. Something beyond just a person who..." She trailed off, not knowing what she meant to say herself.
Xinfei looked at her with quiet concern. "You were freaked out. As you should have been! Hey, I saw that guy too. He ran into me as he was running out! He ran up the wall like a stage ninja on a wire in an opera but he was just a guy with acrobatics training or something. A guy who is long gone." He rubbed his hand through his rumpled spiky hair. "I regret telling you those crazy rumors about that stupid Society of the Mask stuff now if it has gotten you thinking about conspiracies and all that. There are always rumors about political schemes, no need to pay attention to this one. People get killed. Robbery or politics I don't think that teacher would want you risking yourself for him."
Whatever she had seen, Ayika could not leave it to end like that. Even if Xinfei was right, she could not listen to him. Shaking off thoughts of that horrible burning room and strange shadows, she clenched her hands into fists and strode across the street, smoothly sidestepping a passing man carrying two large baskets hanging from each end of the pole over his shoulders. She hopped over a small recessed drainage channel and squeezed into the tiny alley that bordered Ma'er's walled garden. She heard the slapping of Xinfei's sandals as he dashed up behind her.
"Seriously Ayika, what are you doing?" He said as he looked around nervously. "That Public Safety agent knows your face! If you are thinking about doing what I know you are, it is a bad idea!" He whispered as loudly as he could manage without alerting everyone on the nearby street.
Ayika continued her skulking path. Deep in the alley there was a small wicker door set in Ma'er's plastered wall that in places was flaking to reveal the underlying brick. It was an entry point to the property but as Ayika pressed her eye to a gap she saw that this portal was clearly visible from the open front of the gardener's house. She could discern someone moving around on the first floor. Sneaking in this way was not an option.
"No way you are sneaking into his place that way." Xinfei said, in an frustratingly accurate echo of her own mind.
She drew her face back from the gate and said, "I know! I just...never mind. Maybe if we could cause a distraction of some..."
"No! Just no, Ayika! I know you're tore up about that guy you worked for dying but I have already taken enough hits from the guards and you won't have any foreign princess to help you if we get nabbed again. I'm sorry but we will just have to do without some breaking and entering today."
Ayika's nails dug into the flesh of her palm but she knew Xinfei was right, and she knew that the look on his face would only be one of concern for her safety. She sighed and squeezed past Xinfei to make her way back to the road. With barely a whisper she let out a prayer.
"Please, spirits, gods. Help me do...something."
The sound of loud knocking rang out from the street and she jerked her head up. Pressing up against the wall she crept back to the entrance of the alley. A quick peek around the corner showed a curtained palanquin laid down in the middle of the thoroughfare beside four grey-vested bearer-men and before it, rapping quite heavily on that same green door, was Mizumi Miohuito of the Fire Nation.
Ayika's mouth fell open. "What the...?"
"What? What is it?" Xinfei interrupted from behind her. In the narrow space between the wall and adjacent house he could not fit past her to look.
"Shhhh!"
The foreign girl smacked the door again. Now out of the Legacy School for Young Ladies uniform she was an even more striking sight than before, clad in loose trousers under a short embroidered tunic sealed with a broad cloth belt in a color that set off the threads of copper in her straight dark hair. Yet her baring was the same, military straight, with confidant gaze that met the eye of anyone she pleased. But why on earth was she here at the house of the supposed gardener?
Ayika recognized Ma'er's nervous assistant who quickly opened the door and almost received a rap on the head from the next knock for his trouble. Instantly recovering, Mizumi drew back her hand and spoke before he could open his mouth. "Ah, yes. It is good day to you. This is the house of the garden designer Ma'er?" she announced with rapid courtesy. Ayika felt that she was intentionally playing up her accent more than was normal for her.
"I...uh..." the young man stammered in confusion.
"Excellent," Mizumi continued, her tongue rolling the words along at a rapid clip. "Go on and tell your master that I am remaking a piece of our Exclusion property as a birthday gift to my father and heard that a man named Ma'er was well regarded as a competent craftsman."
"Er...Yes, I just...but..." The assistant looked even worse for wear than the last time Ayika had seen him at the school. There were dark circles under his eyes and his nerves looked ready to fail completely before Mizumi's cheerful assault.
Mizumi heard the words she chose to hear. "Oh, you are too kind! I would be honored to wait inside." With that her hand shot out to shove the gate open. In a flash she had snaked past the befuddled assistant who was left to hurriedly shut the door and chase after her towards the main house.
Ayika grinned at this fortune and shoved her way back down the alley past Xinfei who was struggling to remain abreast with events.
"Wait," he began. "Was that that girl from the..."
"Shush, I don't know what is happening but we need to act quick." She was at the wicker side gate and drawing a thin wooden scraper from her belt's pocket. No house with servants ever had a well locked service gate during the middle of the day, and sure enough a little fiddling allowed her to catch the simple latch and flip it up. The gate creaked slightly as she inched it open and through the widening gap she could see the open front of the house. Half of this side of the bottom floor was a single parlor that melded freely with the outside garden of raked gravel and elegantly arranged stones when its full length wooden screens were open as they were today. The foreign girl had apparently already claimed residency, sitting down in a chair with her back to the open yard as the assistant fidgeted in front of her. Ayika could not see Mizumi's face from where she was but there was clearly a lot of one-sided talking going on to judge by the assistant's uncertain vacillating movement. Ayika caught the word "tea" said in an Islander accent which seemed to allow the boy's disparate components enough collusion to successfully take him out of the room on this new mission.
Mizumi was still faced away from the garden as she suddenly sprang up once the assistant left the room. She was intently peering at the room's various furnishings as if looking for something, and Ayika seized her chance.
"All right, come on." She said, grabbing Xinfei's wrist as she pulled him through the gate.
Xinfei sputtered in a panicked whisper, "What? No we..." But the gangly boy gave way to her pressure and they darted together across the open space of the garden, skirting the raked gravel field to hug the wall behind a small red-leafed tree. The whole distance was less than a street-width but by the time Ayika was safe around the corner and hidden from those out-flung door-screens her heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder the whole house was not alerted. She looked to her left were Xinfei had ended up similarly plastered against the wall and could not help but grin. He looked at her like he thought she was crazy but could not bring himself to make even a whisper. The silent glare of frantic disapproval he settled for only made her grin wider.
Here in the eve-shadowed space between the house and the outer wall Ayika found the kitchen door she had assumed would be there. Her previous stint as a hireling maid had given her a general sense for how building layouts operated, namely the necessity of a straight path from the servant's section to the alley gate. She pressed her ear against the flaking paint of the door, waving a hand against Xinfei's silent gesticulated entreaties for them to make their escape. From inside she heard the rattling of someone messing with cookery or teapots, likely the assistant preparing the tea. Ayika held up her hand in a fist signaling a wait, which only provoked new silent protestations from Xinfei to the gist of them never having arranged or discussed a hand-signal system.
But then she heard another voice drifting from out the open front parlor, deep and forceful and definitely not Mizumi.
"Good day to you, Miss. I am honored to entertain an appreciator of my humble arrangements."
Ayika recognized Ma'er's gravely rumble instantly, and heard the assistant rush to vacate the kitchen to attend to his master. A shiver ran down her back as she remembered his looming presence when he came to threaten Professor Lizhen. However all presumed occupants of the house were now accounted for so she eased the door open and crept up the steps into the kitchen itself. Xinfei reluctantly followed her into this man's home as conversation continued in the main salon.
She could hear Mizumi speaking in the other room. "Ah, Master Ma'er, how kind of you to see me. I was admiring your own exquisite work on the garden."
"A weak effort executed with paltry resources I assure you. You will take tea? There should be some being prepared...Tian? Good." At this Ayika froze but it appeared the assistant was not returning just yet. Luckily the kitchen did not open directly onto the salon and instead disgorged into a narrow hallway behind it. In the nearest door in that passageway opened into a small store room which revealed nothing criminal if Ma'er was not smuggling assorted cooking supplies.
"You are generous. Since I have intruded on your time I will be forced to accept a cup." This was followed by a gentle giggle that seemed out of character for the confident and forceful girl Ayika had met the previous day.
Ma'er replied with equally practiced formality, odd for one who lived in the Lower Ring. "It is my honor to provide. As I am quite honored that you appear to be acquainted with my work. How embarrassing it is that I must ask you to make your own introductions."
The next doorway down the hallway seemed to lead to a more private dining area, at present unused and unlit. Ayika crept forward with silent footsteps. She was already mostly inside when the corner of her eye caught a motion of shadows and Xinfei darted to hide with her just before the assistant made his way down the hallway back towards the kitchen.
There was a barely perceptible pause in the foreign girl's speech. "I suppose it is I who have been impolite. My apologies, and I am Mizumi Miohuito, daughter of Tetzamatl Miohuito. In fact it is for his love that I have come to you. My father's birthday is approaching and I am hoping to surprise him with a renovation to a small gardens of ours that has sadly fallen into neglect. I was provided your reference by an acquaintance."
"How filial are the girls of the Hundred Islands to prepare for their father's birthday so far in advance. Of course I would be honored to help." This gardener with scarred cheeks and calloused knuckles modulated his tone with disquieting subtleties. Had he implied he knew when the elder Miohuito's birthday was?
This room also proved empty of anything that hinted to why this man had been involved with professor Lizhen. Ayika was starting to think this excursion had been bad idea. She caught Xinfei's attention, who had come to that same conclusion long ago, and moved to exit from the dining room's second door. From what she could hear of the conversation in the salon, Ma'er was suspicious of Mizumi's sudden appearance and was probing for information. However so far Mizumi had managed to deftly deflect every question with smooth and evasive prattling. She was clearly practiced in deception. Even so, Ayika was impressed that Mizumi showed no reaction when the Water Tribe girl stepped out this new door and found herself staring directly into where the foreigner was sitting with a tea cup in her hand.
Ayika had just entered into plain view of the main sitting room. The gardener and his assistant were both in their seats and had their backs to her. As Ayika found herself paralyzed in total panic in Mizumi froze in the middle of sipping her tea. She gave a slight widening of the eyes, a single blink, and a hint of imperceptible effort as she wrenched her gaze to continue a gentle perusing of her surroundings as if there was nothing particularly interesting to be seen. Even a close observer would not have thought this illustrated dumbfounded flatfooted surprise.
Mizumi took a breath, hurriedly picking up the threads of her conversation. "What...I am looking for is, of course, a sort of a...small, secret spot where my father will not be reminded of the troubles of business. A garden of relaxation and contemplation." Neither Ma'er or his assistant had turned around to catch the intruder so Ayika franticly waved Xinfei forward, practically shoving him across the exposed hallway into the next room.
"Why...should we not all have a little place of peace. I am sure you agree, Master Ma'er?" Mizumi said with barely perceptible hesitance. The Fire Nation girl seemed to be covering for them so when her eyes' deliberately lazy orbit swung back by to the doorway Ayika made a stalling stretching hand signal and pointed up to indicate that they would search the second floor next. Then she darted out of the hallway to join Xinfei. If Mizumi could continue to serve as a distraction then they could search the house for clues.
"Quick," she whispered to Xinfei, her heart in her throat. "I think she is going to stall for us, though why she's here I..." Ayika shook the question out of her head. They did not have time for that. "We need to find the stairs up quick." You could not always question good luck. Searching the room they were now in took seconds. It was the sparsely furnished sort of space of indecipherable purpose that wealthy people seemed to always have so many of. Then they were out the other door towards the staircase at the back of the house. The uninterrupted flow of conversation behind them indicated that Mizumi was doing her part.
Ayika's heart was beating like a hammer as she began to creep up the stairs with the stealth of a mouse and caught herself just before she put her foot down in the middle of the first step. Fearing creaking planks she instead squeezed to the edge of the staircase and made her way up with Xinfei mimicking her motions behind. They were almost all the way to the top when one of them shifted their weight wrong and produced a wooden squeak that to Ayika's ears rang louder than a temple bell. In the silence that followed she swore she managed to stop the flow of her own blood as she listened for sign of detection.
From the salon she clearly heard Mizumi's languidly buzzing voice. "I am having trouble visualizing the concepts you are so clearly describing. Perhaps you could take me up to your study so that I might see some of your designs? I would greatly appreciate your accommodation."
What? Why would she tell them to go upstairs when...Ayika really needed people to understand basic hand signals. No time for complete silence, people were standing up down below. She and Xinfei scampered up to the second floor desperate for somewhere to hide. The first door was no good, it looked like the man's office that Mizumi was for some reason urging him towards. The next door looked more promising, opening as it did into a personal bedroom. Ayika swung the door shut as quietly and quickly as she could, one hand pulling on the nob and one pushing flat on the wood so that both controlled the motion. She froze, forehead almost to the door and eyes closed as she listened to the footsteps that would signal their inevitable capture and arrest. But they did not come. Instead she heard Ma'er and Mizumi make their way up the stairs into the office, followed by the uncertain tinkling of someone with trembling hands trying to carry a tea-set.
When she heard the muffled conversation resume in the office Ayika allowed herself to breath and begin to register her surroundings. Xinfei was standing half-crouched in the middle of the room as though afraid to touch a single thing. Well, they were already deep into this so they might as well do a thorough job of searching. Holding a finger to her lips for silence she gestured to Xinfei for him to examine this room and he in turn signed something about butterflies in the walls wanting to punch him. Perhaps discussing hand signals beforehand would have been a good idea.
Not that searching the room promised to be a daunting prospect. The furnishings were sparse and inelegant, almost barracks-like. There was rigidly tucked bed large enough for one person, with small end tables on each side. The bed was set high enough off the ground that she could clearly see there was only a single rolled matt beneath it. Against the walls there were neatly filled bookshelves, two painted scrolls, one of a tree branch and one of a mountain scene, a large dresser and a washbasin table. There was an infuriating lack not only of clues to the man's involvement in Professor Lizhen's death but of any indication that this was a man's private home instead of a room rented from an inn. Ayika was at the point of peering inside the water jug in frustrated desperation when she noticed Xinfei staring at the blank wall beside the dresser.
She slid over, tapped him on the arm and whispered in his ear. "Looking for the butterflies?"
He was confused. "What? Why would..." He shook his head as he looked again at the empty wall. "No, I, I just...shouldn't there be a window here? This is the corner of the house and I'm pretty sure I saw windows at each corner when we were down on the street."
Ayika could not remember, but the room did seem pretty large to only be intended to be lit through a single small window. She slid over to try to peer behind the dresser, wondering how she could move it without making a noise when she heard a click and an soft exclamation from Xinfei.
Part of the wall had swung out to reveal a hidden room behind it and Xinfei had disappeared inside. As she moved over Ayika whispered, "How did you do that? What's in...?"
Xinfei emerged from the narrow secret space. He was as pale as a day-old corpse, "We have to get out of here."
"But what..."
"Now, Ayika. I mean it." He grabbed her arm, harder than she expected. His eyes were wide with fear, and his teeth were clenched together. That fear was contagious, but she had to see for herself. She gently pushed his hand to extract herself and peeked into the secret room. The small window to the outside had been papered over but still a glow was admitted that allowed her to see the faces hanging on the walls. Grimacing mouthes, wild hair, pointed fangs in strange colors. They hung from their hooks between scraps of anti-Islander propaganda posters and maps of this section of the city. There were cross marks angrily dashed across several spots from the Harbor to the Middle Ring. In the dim light the empty wooden eyes looked like they met hers and the still air almost shimmered around them. In the corner there were some cloth strips spotted with dried blood and a box full of assorted vicious looking knives. But none of the masks were white with jutting tusks. None of them had been worn by the man in black.
"Ayika!" Xinfei pleaded in a quite unnecessary bid to make her think this discovery was serious. "We've got to go." He put his arm out in front of her to keep her out of the secret room. "I think this guy might be the Mask! Leader of the Society! If what they say is true, he will kill us in a heartbeat. We get out now."
As Ayika looked back into that ill-omened room she heard her own voice speaking in her head. Well, it said, you wanted to find something.
...