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Ying felt gooseflesh race down the back of her neck and down her arms and legs, a shiver of fear and excitement both. She had expected the breakaway member to slink into some alleyway, speak a password and disappear into a safe basement, or perhaps to meet up with a few more similarly light-stepping contacts.

But to find the Person rejoining the bloodied fellow from earlier was wholly unexpected. Ying drank up the conversation with eagerness like her pages soaked the water from her paints - the intrigue! Part of her still nagged that this revolution was dangerous. People would certainly die, already had, apparently ... but just knowing that something secret was going was undeniably fascinating.

She had no particularly powerful memory, however her lettering and illumination work had been recognized by a few important City Folk in the past, and Ying had been asked to paint their portraits. The portrait work for City Folk, to her, included their script as well - it was as much a part of them, it seemed, as their faces and hands. And, though the portraiture was not her specialty, Ying still scrutinized the speech of the robed pair before her with a keen eye. To recognize either of them by their words in a crowd would be impossible, but the basics of their scripts--

Oh, she would only need to recall one of them. The conversation appeared to be leading up to the death of the one in bloodstained robes, but actually seeing the killing happen still came to Ying as an immense surprise. She knew of all kinds of death from her story - armies clashing together, good men and bad executed in various manners ... but actually seeing the deed done was not something Ying had yet experienced. She recoiled slightly, but could not tear her gaze away.

The surprise left the lady slightly numbed, and it would not strike her as strange or unsettling until later that the City Person who had done the deed had addressed her, in her hiding place, directly. Ying nodded ever so slightly as the woman in the robes spoke to her, but did not venture from the shadows until several minutes had passed after the woman's departure. She walked up to the items left behind and crouched, studying them carefully for a moment as all of it sank in.

The danger was tangibly real. But Ying could not shake her fascination. She had been given an invitation, too, it seemed, and she was not one to turn one down.

Carefully, she picked up the mask, brushing her fingers over its surface before tucking it away in her own robes. She started to reach for the knife but stopped, and instead took the robes and, using a clean corner of cloth, lifted the weapon by the handle. The robe she planned to burn right away. The knife and mask ... Ying had until the moon half-waned to decide what to do with those.

Vlad cast a look downwards and nodded sharply, completely missing the gaze and intentions of the new Book Child - he leapt from the wall and landed lithely, casually dusting his dark clothes off. "Yes," he said obliviously and curtly, "we were following the man with the orb as well." Behind him, Estra followed rather more carefully by climbing down the very convenient branches of the ancient tree. "I presume you saw the entire exchange." He placed his hands behind his back, and addressed the fellow matter-of-factly. "Seems like there's some cult activity going on, but it's not immediately clear what they're anticipating, what they intend to do...and what that cage means." Clearly the crow was not enthused by his next thought, but he was a practical one, and his mystery was still not solved. "It looks like something none of us can do alone."

"If you'd like," he paced as he continued, "come to Eyncastor's clock tower tomorrow evening -"
"I can cook dinner," Estra piped up helpfully.
"She can cook dinner." he thoughtlessly repeated, most certainly distracted. "And..."
Vlad trailed off at the sight of two figures - he soon concluded, two idiots - meandering and milling about the pond and - a stare of disbelief - did one of them just piss into the bushes? Unbelievable. Just how many damn people were in this bloody 'secret' garden?

He loudly (and not very smartly) called, voice ringing through the garden: "ALRIGHT ARE THERE ANY MORE OF YOU AROUND RIGHT NOW? YOU CAN COME TO THE EYNCASTOR CLOCK TOWER TOMORROW EVENING FOR DINNER, IF YOU'D LIKE TO DISCUSS THIS. GOODNIGHT."

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