Chapter 1 – This is the Light of the Mind, Cold and Planetary

Jet was pulled from his thoughts when the plate was set on his table. Before he could say anything the server had already left, so he picked up his chopsticks and mixed up the plated beef chow fun. In restaurants they always swirled the noodles into a tidy pile, but his family had never served it that way and he didn't like food that looked too tidy because he associated it with flavorlessness, like the kinds of foods he had seen Xiao Dan and Long Feng eat. The plate was heavy stoneware glazed in dark blue, in similar quality to the atmosphere of the Middle Ring restaurant, dark and heavy but familiar. Paper lanterns were tied to the ceiling cross-beams and the uneven stone floor was coated in the day's dust.

Despite being in the Middle, many of the clientele were from the Lower. Upper class people avoided the hearty homecooked style featured there, which, incidentally, was what drew Jet. The chef wasn't from his home village but he must have been from the same region as he favored the same seasoning balances and techniques. Chunks of marinated beef rested in a pile of wide egg noodles garnished with bean sprouts and whole red chili peppers. The bold flavors upset the upper class citizens of the city, who preferred their meals more finely diced, but he enjoyed it. He began eating and tried to ignore the feeling of being watched.

He glanced at the dish the girl at the other table had. Tong sui. It was a sweet dessert soup made with coconut milk, longan, red dates, snow fungus, and ginkgo nuts. From the way she was toying with the dish it seemed like she was trying to stay in the restaurant as long as possible although she must have already been full from her meal. The lighting here is dim. She doesn't realize how badly scarred I am. He turned his attention back to his own food.

As the waiter walked past Jet flagged him and asked for a lantern to be brought. The man grumbled, but as Jet was a regular customer he could afford to make such requests. He averted his eyes as it was set on the table and pushed it to his right side, the side she would see, so she would realize and abandon her intentions.

He ate in silence. At the bottom of the plate he glanced over and met eyes with her. He quickly looked away. Why is she still here?

If I want her, she's willing. All I have to do is flirt a bit, the way I used to. Jet paused, then smoothed out the blue ribbon tied around his wrist.

He frowned and wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin. The waiter came over and asked if everything was okay, a note of concern in his voice. "It's fine. I just have a toothache." As he was paying the bill, they brought him a clove for the invented pain gratis. He pocketed it and left. The girl kept looking at him so he kept his gaze straight ahead and pace fast like he had urgent business to attend.

I'm doing her a favor. Ever since the recent business with abolishing the Dai Li, I'm a targeted man. Getting involved with me will just get her hurt. He walked to the train station in the evening's fading light.

His residential suite at the palace was too large for his own tastes and always felt drafty and empty. Kuei wanted him nearby for his own convenience and was coming to overly rely on him as he previously had Long Feng, and Jet understood how easy it was to abuse that kind of starry-eyed trust. In his case, however, what he wanted wasn't something the king could ever provide. As he settled into the bed, he wondered if he should have accepted the girl's interest, if that might help him get over Katara, but wasn't sure if he wanted to abandon those feelings just yet. He'd relied on them four years, even if he'd only been with her a brief time to begin with and had carried on pining in her absence. She represented a purity he'd never thought could exist after his village had burned, like a nostalgic story remembered from childhood. It had been the previous spring he'd met her again in Shu Jing and received her rejection, but she was still precious to him regardless. With Katara, their affection had never been physical to begin with, so the absence of her physical presence hadn't changed his feelings.

He'd seen enough of the stranger for an impression to linger. Green eyes. They might not be blue, but they still felt like life. He drifted to sleep thinking of the color of the forest.

What absurdly enormous doors. Jet glared past the supplicants at the double doorway behind them, open and reaching to the high ceiling enough to let in a veritable breeze, as if, by exaggerating the scale, they were inviting in a dragon or another monster to destroy them all. It seemed like bad luck to him, but was in conformity with all other dimensions of the royal palace. He stood politely with his hands clasped behind his back and tried again to listen to the legal case. The king, seated at his throne beside Jet, was enraptured by the argument between the two sides. When he had been under the thumb of Long Feng he had never been involved with the day to day activities of the citizens, and he must still have thought them a novel interest. Jet looked past the king to the left side of the dais.

Azula listened politely and even managed to hide the look of disdain he knew she felt for them. A hued gloss brought out her lips and her hair was combed to a tidy arrangement with a jade-and-silver ornament Kuei had given her. Jet still felt uneasy, but Kuei had already become used to her presence. She was being kept in order by Jet from her right and the bear at her left, silent threats, but looked unconcerned by them both. He wondered if she had ever sat to hear disputes with her father when he had been Firelord and she still a princess, but couldn't imagine the Firelord being so compassionate.

When the Avatar's party had stopped in the city to announce the reintroduction of the mythical library to the world, Azula had hidden herself away, saying she didn't want to meet with her brother fearing he would think her a traitor. Kuei had bought that, but Jet knew it to be a lie. She didn't want Zuko to know she'd earned a release from prison and was serving as an advisor to the Earth King because he was well aware of what a threat she still posed and wouldn't stand for it to continue. He'd have warned the Earth King of her ways. Jet, however, was not in such a position to make comment as he had no history with her. After she'd correctly predicted the Dai Li's attempted assassination of Princess Yue, based only on a vague letter she'd received from her brother, she had impressed the king enough to gain his notice and she'd quickly leveraged her way with false promises of reform and good intentions to gain her freedom and was again on track to win power for herself. Jet saw through her, as would Zuko have, and she was aware of whom to hide from.

When Jet had made his sole objection, Kuei had replied, "The Fire Nation used to be our enemy, but Firelord Zuko proved himself my friend. I want to give Azula a chance as well." That had been the end of the discussion. Jet shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other wishing the morning's hearings would wrap up quickly.

The woman was managing to stand for one hour periods but could do no more than that yet. Her prison term had caused muscular atrophy and she had difficulty just walking. As she regained strength, she became in his eyes more of a risk.

He had confronted her one evening when the King was away to bathe. Jet pinned her against a wall and she didn't so much as scream for help. "You have the king fooled, but not me. You're using him to crawl back into a position of power. If you can't use your husband or your brother, then you'll use your son and make yourself de facto Firelord by controlling him."

She sneered. "Well, that much is obvious. He's my son, and he'll do what I say and obey my orders."

Jet tightened his grasp on her shoulder. "There is more to parenting than giving birth.Your plan won't go the way you envision it will."

"What do you know? You don't even have any family." If it was before, when he was young and his anger burned against his soul's edges, he would have lost his temper; instead, he refrained from answering, and she didn't like that. Her disappointment to his lack of reaction was evident on her face. If Azula sought to enflame his temper, he would become a smooth gray stone, featureless and immovable, and he would be watching her.

In afternoon their duties ended for the day while the king was taken to bathe, dine, and rest. Jet changed into a less formal outfit, one which could pass without remark in the streets, and departed to the train station. It was high summer and the evenings were more pleasant than midday. Many businesses closed for hiatus around noon and extended their hours later into the night to compensate for the desire of their customers to avoid the heat. The train and streets were packed as, after the cessation of the war, the economy had improved and everyone had disposable income for life's pleasures. Previously he had taken jobs in the Middle Ring, though he lived in the Lower, in the form of sporadic gigs of manual labor until he would inevitably cross with someone on the job and start a conflict which ended that position. He knew the anger cut at him, but at that time it had been overwhelming and unrestrainable—Katara was the one who changed that. After living his life in a fog of anger, she had been the one to clear it from his eyes and calm him. He wasn't worried about meeting an ex-employer or a coworker he'd had a bout with—Jet didn't resemble his former self enough to be recognized.

What the Lower Ring residents thought of him was a heroic story, a scarred man who overthrew the Dai Li, and their interpretations had formed a mythos that couldn't have been further from the truth. Meanwhile, other socio-economic classes had a different opinion of him as being an up-jumped urchin or a vigilante aiming to destroy the wealthy class and turn the city over to chaos. Both stories were problematic for him, so he confirmed or denied neither, thinking that if nothing else they kept balance for his reputation. The real story wasn't enviable. The real story was why Katara rejected him. He toyed with the idea of embracing either mythos but could never make a decision and felt neither truly applied to him as he'd never had such grand ambitions. His only ambition—the defeat of the Fire Nation—had been given to him by the man who had usurped his place at Katara's side, and he hated the man who had dutifully answered his childhood prayers.

He deboarded at the same station and passed down the same street. People made way for him in a way no one ever had before, not even when he strode with a threat of ready violence, and the scars dragged his identity with him everywhere he went.

Jet paused outside of the restaurant. If something can change this stagnation, if anyone can lift me out of this, it will be worth buying a meal. He ducked inside and was greeted with confused enthusiasm as, while he came regularly, he never came more than once every week or two. The staff were surprised to see him two days in a row but led him to the seat. He didn't need a menu and the order was placed quickly. He scanned the restaurant, trying not to be too obvious, but the girl wasn't there and he didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. When the meal was brought it had a flower garnish for appreciation and a clove in a small dish on the side, as they'd remembered his lie from earlier and were still in the mood to be caring for their precious regular.

If only Mom could see how much meat I can afford, now. I wish my parents could have tasted this.

"You must really like that to order it two days in a row," came a woman's voice from behind him. He nearly jumped out of his seat. She walked to the side of his table and smiled to him. "Maybe I'll try it tonight." The same green eyes examined him, at that close distance, with a sparkle undulled.

He felt drunk. "You're welcome to try some of mine, then. Food tastes better when shared." He gestured to the seat across from him and watched attentively as she sat close enough that he could smell her perfume. They ordered a spare plate and divided the dish. "Of course, you'll be paying a fee for this."

"What is the fee?"

"Your name."

"Oh, you want my name already? I have a better exchange. I'll pay for this by telling you of something interesting going on tonight."

He tried for the suave grin that used to come naturally to him, hoping it looked okay under the new scar tissue. "I'll take your deal. What might that be?"

"There's a local soju brewery having a tasting tonight for a new batch. Would you be interested?"

"Maybe I would. Tell me your name and I'll agree to go with you."

She giggled. Green eyes, black hair in a relaxed style, a soft chest, and she smiled at him like no one else was there but him. As they stood outside the brewery entrance, waiting to be guided to a table, his hand was on the small of her back. The summer fabric was permissively thin. I can at least try it with her, see if she can make me feel anything. After the first round her lips were on his. Physically he certainly did, but at the end of their kiss he was thinking of Katara. Jet tried to remember where he was and repeated the girl's name in his head: Jin. Jin. Not Katara—Jin. She was already getting there, her face flushed from more than the alcohol. Her chest swelled against her shirt. I want this.

The second round was brought out for everyone who came for the tasting. With the cups of liquor poured out and arranged on the table, which they and a dozen other guests crowded around, the server gave one last flourish to the presentation. He took a lit match and passed it over each cup in a line. Flames took up, blasting his face with heat in cold blue.

A loud noise crashed against the floor. Jet's vision wavered. He was on his feet, backed a yard away from the blazing cups, as far as he could have stumbled until his back hit against the wall. The sound had been his chair toppling. Jin looked at him and tried to say something. He didn't want her to see his expression and turned to leave without a word.

He woke late with the taste of vomit still on his teeth. Kuei didn't comment when he shuffled in an hour after he should have already reported for duty. The king was seated to hear an argument between two competing business owners, one of whom claimed the other had stolen a specific color of paint from their product's style and was using it to sell knock-offs. Kuei seemed to be lost as to why anyone would buy a set of shoe-horns just because of the color of the paint but was giving it his best. Azula stood at her post on the opposite side of the king from him in flawless form with her hands clasped behind her back. She glanced at him as he entered, smirked, and returned to watching the legal case, which was growing far too heated for a petty squabble.

In a few hours they escorted the king to lunch. Azula brushed past him antagonisticially and whispered, "You stink of alcohol," with a delighted voice, then resumed her conversation with Kuei without missing a beat. "Yes, I do think Bosco will like the new recipe for the buckwheat noodles better now that they've increased the salt content." He fell into his seat and scowled at the dishes but was unable to force anything down, even as the she-devil watched him with a look of satisfaction in his suffering.

That night he wavered at the crossroads outside the soju bar with a mixture of self-contempt and guilt. Of course she wouldn't still be here. I'm an idiot.

"Hey, you!" shouted a burly voice. The bar owner stormed up to him, his sleeves rolled up and hands wet as if he'd been washing dishes. "You left that girl here to pay your tab. She came up short and I told her to go home, but you owe me five copper pieces."

Embarrassed that he was caught there, he shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins then shoved the lot at him. "Did she say anything?"

"After you left her heart-broken and stood up? No, she didn't say anything—she didn't need to. Her expression was enough. I didn't even want to take her money but it's bad policy not to when the other customers are watching. She left not long after you did. Getting a girl drunk and then leaving her to walk home alone at night, I ought to break your nose. Didn't your mother teach you any respect?" The owner finished taking what he was owed and offered the rest back with a scowl.

"Keep your damned change." Jet smacked the outstretched hand away from him then listened to the coins clatter into the paving stones followed by a slew of curses as he walked away.

He went back to the same restaurant every evening for the next month, eating the same dish of chow fun until he was sick of it and the thought turned his stomach, but she never returned.

"Are you even listening?" He snapped out of it at Azula's disapproving voice. She continued, whispering, "Really, they're holding this meeting to bring you up to speed, not me, since you skipped the last one. You throw up so much I'm inclined to ask if you're expecting." She tapped a finger to her lower belly.

He shouted, "Fuck you, mind your own business." The new officers looked to each other nervously, wondering if they should continue, and he yelled at them, "I'm listening, so hurry up."

The meeting room was claustrophobic. For how large the palace was, it was a crime for their meetings with the new investigations bureau to be held in something the size of a cramped Lower Ring apartment's dining room. Jet crossed his arms and slunk down into the chair, his eyes burning from lack of sleep. "There were seventeen missing persons reports this month," continued the officer, a nervous young man hired from the university's graduating class. "We investigated and managed to resolve five cases which were filed mistakenly in familial disputes. The rest are unsolved. We think there's a pattern forming as there has been a sharp uptake in these reports since the end of the war, although we expected the opposite."

He paused to check if Jet was listening. "Go on."

"Most of the people who have disappeared tend to be younger, in their prime. Women outnumber men two to one. Most of them have been from the refugee population and did not have any family to report them missing. Given that, we think there may be more cases than we know of, and the reports we do have came in late. The other cases are people who vanished after a night out with friends, for example, or who had been working a late shift at a job. Most occurred in the Lower Ring, but some had been in the Middle Ring at the time they disappeared."

"So, what is the pattern?" It was hard to think straight through the migraine. The only time he could sleep was after getting drunk, and that didn't make for a sustainable lifestyle.

"We think people are being trafficked." He slipped the notebook across the table for him to examine. Doubtless, Azula already had it memorized as she made no motion to take it. He grabbed it and flipped the pages roughly, squinting through the characters crammed in. I shouldn't have hired anyone formally educated. They have the damnable habit of using the complex version of a character rather than the simple and a poetic word rather than the common. His hand paused at one page and his eyes lingered at the name printed there. He read over the description of the girl.

Jin.

He swallowed hard and tried to hide his expression but knew the she-demon standing next to him had already picked up on it. "I'm taking this back with me to read later. Keep working on finding out whatever information you can." Jet threw the chair back and stormed out. Unfortunately, Azula had followed him like a turkey-boar-hound scenting blood. He told her sharply, "You're dismissed."

She technically reported to him, per Kuei's arrangement, but she never bothered to follow orders unless the king himself was in the room. "What an interesting expression you just showed. Did something on that page ring a bell?" Her smile could wilt a flower.

He spun on his heel and shouted, "I told you, you are dismissed!"

"You recognized someone on that list. I wonder, does that place you under any suspicion? What if I were to have someone check on the connection between you and the name on page nineteen of that docket?"

"You should remember your place here, ashmaker. Kuei isn't going to side with you over me. He may be interested in your wit, but he knows what a monster you really are. No one will ever forget."

Azula put a hand on her hip. "I was offering to help you."

"Why would you do that?"

"So that you'll owe me a favor." As he turned to leave, she followed up, "It was a woman, wasn't it? And she vanished a month ago after going out on a date with you."

He spun around and grabbed her collar, pulling her towards him. She was disturbingly light and offered no resistance, but staggered with a small whimper. Conflicted between hatred and pity, he released her and watched as she smoothed her outfit back down, her expression hiding a certain level of embarrassment at her diminished physical condition. She was no longer the same person he had once fought. Jet asked, "How do you know all that?"

"Your face."

"Can you find her?"

"I'm good at finding people."

"If you betray me, I'll kill you this time."

"I know." Prison hadn't been kind to her body and she was still in recovery, as unsteady on her feet as a newborn fawn. "All the more reason I want you indebted to me."

"I don't know if it means anything to you, but she's a good person. She didn't deserve this."

"I'm aware of the concept. I'm even willing to keep a secret from the king just how often you've been neglecting your duties and that you drink yourself stupid every night. So, how about it? Tell me the details," she said, and her eyes gleamed with the sharpness of a lioness. Jet tried to imagine how he could frame the events so he could retain some measure of his dignity and not reveal how terrified he really was. Her flames had left scars in more than one way.