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so much time talking about how easygoing everyone is that it gets on your nerves pretty quickly. They talk so much about how it’s only around Northport that you can find the redfin or the fatfish that you end up not wanting to taste them just to spite the populace, you know what I mean?
    It was harder to find Westman than it should have been, because there was no address in the city hall for a Westman company. They did exist, they just didn’t have an address registered. I thought that was odd, but the clerk didn’t; I guess he’d run into that sort of thing before. The owner was listed, though, and his name wasn’t Westman. It was something called Brugan Exchange. Did Brugan Exchange have an address? No. Was there an owner listed? Yeah. Northport Securities. What does Northport Securities do? I have no idea. You understand that the clerk didn’t kill himself being helpful—he just pointed to where I should look and left it up to me, and it took three imperials before he was willing to do that. So I dug through musty old papers; I’d been doing that a lot lately.
    Northport Securities didn’t have an owner listed. Nothing. Just a blank space where the Articles of Embodiment asked for the owner’s name, and an illegible scrawl for a signature. But, wonder of wonders, it did have an address—it was listed as number 31 in the Fyres Building. Ah. I see your eyes light up. We have found our connection with Fyres, you think. Sort of. I found the Fyres Building without any trouble—the clerk told me where it was, after giving me a look that indicated I must be an idiot for needing to ask. It was at the edge of Shroud Hill, which means it was almost out of town, and it was high enough so that it had a nice view. A very nice view, from the top—it was six stories high, Kiera, and reeked of money from the polished marble of the base to the glass windows on the top floor. The thought of walking into the place made me nervous, if you can believe it—it was like the first time I went to Castle Black; not as strong, maybe, but the same feeling of being in someone’s seat of power. Loiosh said, “What’s the problem, boss?” I couldn’t answer him, but the question was reassuring, in a way. There was a single wooden door in front, with no seal on it, but above the doorway “FYRES” was carved into the stonework, along with the symbol of the House of the Orca.
    Once inside, there was nothing and no one to tell me where to go. There were individual rooms, all of them marked with real doors and all of which had informative signs like “Cutter and Cutter.” I walked around the entire floor, which was laid out in a square with an open stairway at the far end. I said, “Loiosh.”
    “On my way, boss.”
    I waited by the stairs. A few well-dressed citizens, Orca, Chreotha, and a Lyorn, came down or up the stairs and glanced at me briefly, decided that they didn’t know what to make of the shabbily dressed Easterner, and went on without saying anything. One woman, an Orca, asked if I needed anything. When I said I didn’t, she went on her way. Presently Loiosh returned.
    “Well?”
    “The offices are smaller on the next floor, and they keep getting smaller as you go up, all the way until the sixth, which I couldn’t get into.”
    “Door?”
    “Yeah. Locked.”
    “Ah ha.”
    “Number thirty-one is on the fifth floor.”
    “Okay. Let’s go.”
    We went up five flights, and Loiosh led the way to a tacked-up number 31, which hung above a curtained doorway. Also above the doorway was a plain black-lettered sign that read,
    “Brownberry Insurance.” I entered without clapping.
    There was a man at the desk, a very pale Lyorn, who was going over a ledger of some sort while checking it against the contents of a small box filled with cards. He looked up, and his eyes widened just a little. He said, “May I be of service to you?”
    “Maybe,” I said. “Is your name Brownberry?”
    “No, but I do business as