“Come on, pick up, Luk…” I drummed my fingers on the table of the train compartment, staring at the tablet propped up against the window.

“Isn’t it, like, 4AM there?” Ella asked, shuffling through the papers on the table. “Nadi, where’d you move my sketchbook?”

“Close,” I replied as Nadrire yanked a brown leather bound book out from under a stack of maps of Betherene and went back to fiddling with the holographic map she had pulled up on her own tablet. “It’s 5AM. And I’m pretty sure he gets up to workout early today. If not, Saydafia will wake him.”

The message on the screen changed from Calling… to Connecting, and after a moment, Lukiprenz Oaliadaran’s sleepy face popped up on the screen. He was deeply tanned young man not much older than me, his white blond hair currently sticking out in the spikes of bed head as he scratched Saydafia, his albino hellhound, under the chin. Steam curled from a cup of coffee near his elbow.

“Baskesse, it’s 5AM and you know it. What the hell do you want?”

“Luk,” I purred, leaning forward slightly on my hands with a mischievous grin. “We’re coming to visit you!”

He paused mid yawn. “What?”

“You haven’t seen the news, have you?”

He shook his head, yawning again.

“The Vaalorian Empire’s Minister of Finances was murdered in Coloksha last night.”

I had his attention now. “Really? And you’re taking the case?”

“Luk, she lives two blocks from the crime scene,” Nadrire interjected, marking a location on her map.

“So, in other words, no shit,” I said. My grin then broadened. “Although, I will say that the the minister’s PA was none too pleased about a Gaerranian taking the case.”

He snorted. “I can imagine.”

“You should’ve seen her, Luk,” Ella cut in, smirking. “She was practically daring him to kick her off the case. You could see him physically struggling with whether or not he was going to fight the UPB.”

Luk snickered for a brief moment, then got serious again. “You’re still okay with taking it? Even though he’s Vaalorian?”

I shrugged. “Not really, but… I don’t have quite as much of an ethnically based reason to hate them as, like, you, and it’s going to pay really well if I get it done. I plan on getting paid well enough to make a sizable donation to Azzeikian Homeland Fund.”

That brought a full laugh out of Luk. “Wouldn’t that be a sight - using their own money against them!”

“Exactly. But…” my smile faded slightly. “There is a bit of a problem.”

“Hm?”

“I talked to the Gaerranian Travel Department this morning, you know, the ones who keep records who’s coming and going, as you must nowadays, and um…” I chewed my lip, then backtracked. “Well, first you must know that the killer is a giant. I know that much.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Above six feet tall, but that’s virtually all of them.”

“Very true.”

“From northern Betherene...And dark brown hair. Very dark. It had a weird oily coating on it, but that could very well be from lack of bathing. We all know giants aren’t always very keen on that.”

Both Ella and Luk snorted. Luk had been going to take a sip of coffee and ended up dripping a small amount on his shirt. He let out a small yelp and glared down at his chest. Saydafia nosed at his elbow and whined, looking concerned. Ella got a good laugh at Luk’s despair.

“If you two are done…” I pulled a dossier off the table and flipped it open. “Like I said, I spoke with the Gaerranian Travel Department today, and, well… as we know, most giants don’t travel past Betherenian borders. Too clannish. So there weren’t too many here, which should mean whoever the culprit is should be easy to find. But…”

Luk tipped his head to the side, sensing my hesitance. “But what?”

“Well, first of all, they helped me look through the profiles of all the Betherenians who live in the city, and there’s very few of them. There’s two of them who could’ve possibly did it, but they’ve both got very plausible alibis. One of them has been bedridden with pneumonia for the past two weeks and the other is in Errathynia visiting her in-laws.”

“Given the Gate placement at this time of year, it must’ve been hell to get there,” muttered Nadrire, pinning a location on her map. “That’s three jumps at least, four if you missed the Hydrithini Gate before it shut down.”

“Precisely my thinking, Nadi,” I agreed. “Thus, that leaves us with the travelers… and frankly, there isn’t really anything there, either. There is three who fit what we know about the killer, but… They’ve all been recorded as going into Zilikash, which is in, you know, the Hauhlea nation, for some sort of work thing… and they haven’t come back here since.”

“Hm,” Luk was scratching Saydafia under the chin. “That does sound like a problem.”

“So, I was going to go Haerthrine first, get some leads there… then come visit you.”

“I see. I’m assuming you were hoping to see Nelmaza.”

“Absolutely. She’s had peace for too long, since we haven’t been driving her crazy,” I grinned, and then it faded away. “Although… she hasn’t been answering any of my messages.”

“Well, she could just be ignoring you,” Nadrire said.

I snorted. “That’s very true.”

Around us, we heard the train start to screech to a stop.

“Well, Luk, we’re in Myendeita now… so I think we’ll have to talk later,” I informed him, beginning to gather up the papers on the table.

“All right then, say hello to Shei and Abi for me,” he replied, still scratching Saydafia under the chin. The hellhound had her eyes closed and she was leaning quite heavily on Luk’s hand.

“I will! Goodbye!” I promised before hitting the End Call button. I stood up and stretched, dossiers in hand. “Well, I suppose it’s time to go find ourselves a drunken dragon.”