We hired a porter bot to carry our things to the trolley. The ride passed in near silence, everything to be said having already been said on the hour-and-a-half long ride from Coloksha. I could feel Nadrire and Ella’s anticipation and excitement in each gesture: the way that Ella drummed the fingers of one hand on the table, the other hand curling one of her red coils around her finger; or the attention in Nadrire’s gaze in the way she studied the passerby, continually fixing the sleeves of her long silky coat, having shed her heavy anti-fog jacket. I, too, found their energy infectious, staring down the way where I knew where Shei and Abi would be.

It was only fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours before the trolley car finally rolled to a stop. Ella leaped out of the car, squealed “SHEI!” at an ear piercing decibel, and wrapped her arms around Shei, who stumbled back a step, nearly dropping their cane.

“Careful, Ella,” I warned, going to follow suit and wrapping my arms around Shei. “We don’t want to break them. Especially because it looks like their back is bugging them.”

Nadrire had also enveloped Shei in a hug. Shei did end up dropping their cane, leaning a bit on us for support. There were platonic kisses pressed to cheeks and hair ruffling and a lot of squealed “I missed you”s. We were still hugging when we heard the sound of clanking footsteps behind us.

“So I leave for two seconds and everyone’s here and they’ve all forgotten about me,” Abi grumbled, their low voice rumbling out of their chest. They were holding a cardboard box that smelled… suspiciously sweet.

Today, they were wearing their walking suit: a close-fitting suit of armor made of a gold looking metal that, at first glance, resembled an automaton’s outer body (leading most people to assume that they were a service bot of some sort for Shei). Said armor had a number of elaborate runes carved into its surface, but you had to be really close to see the tiny jewels and the ripples of magic along the grooves. The runes allowed Abi better control of the armor, since it was difficult for ghosts to have articulate control of things that had not been theirs in life (it had the added bonus of preventing people from not calling an exorcist or ghost wrangler, since most ghosts, especially the free roaming ones, were dangerous). Like the automatons they resembled, Abi wore other clothing over the armor layer. Today was a long blue coat, a matching hat, complete with a very large feather that curled behind one ear, a cream blouse with dramatic ruffles spilling down the front, at the collar and the cuffs, close fitting pants and thigh high boots (brown, to match the trim on the coat). They had chosen a long brown wig today, styled in large barrel curls, and the face of the armor’s mask - which had been sculpted to resemble Abi’s real face - had been made up in its usual dramatic fashion, with sparkly blue eyeshadow up the eyebrows. As a result, Abi looked a bit like a pirate of some sort, if said pirate was the love interest in a campy romance drama about forbidden love between rival captains.

They proved an interesting juxtaposition to Shei, who was clad in practical pants and a leather jacket. A set of goggles dangled around their neck, their cinnamon colored curls were pushed back with a red scarf tied like a headband, and their sturdy boots, like the rest of their clothing, were tinged slightly with soot. They smelled sort of like spices, but I knew that they kept a little bit of scented oil in a bottle by their front door to cover up the strong smell of machine oil and metal.

Nadrire allowed Shei to lean on her as I scooped up their cane from where it had clattered to the sidewalk. Ella, in her enthusiasm, went to hug Abi, who held the box aloft. After Shei was safely upright, Nadrire and I hugged Abi, briefly.

“Careful, I guarantee that you don’t want to spill these.”

“Oooooh! What’s in it, Abi? What’s in it?” Ella jumped for the box like an overeager puppy. She wasn’t even close to reaching it; Abi was a head and a half taller than Ella, and was even a half a head taller than Nadrire, who I personally thought to be tall. The only one coming close to them was Shei, and even then they were a few inches taller. I suppose they are related.

“You’ll see,” Abi said, guiding the group down the street. “You’ll see.”