Theo tried to remember what he’d been worried about when he was twelve. He certainly hadn’t thought about hurrying to help the world. It wasn’t anything he felt guilty about. Most kids weren’t all that selfless, and he hadn’t been cruel. He just, despite everything he knew about the world, saw himself as the most pitiable kid in the world. There was the world inside the house, and every other child existed in the world out the window, playing in the sunshine.

At twelve, he had hoped to become the guard of a merchant caravan. He dreamed of adventure and camaraderie and pissing off his parents.

“It would be stupid, to make her a spy after talking her up like this, right?” Sylvie asked. “To the general population, she’d look like a hero had turned traitor.”

“Yes, but remember how it is in places like that. If the story they print Tuesday is different from what they printed Monday, you don’t think about it too hard. Besides, this is the only article I’ve seen like this. They probably realized she didn’t make a good poster child shortly after. She’s not particularly charismatic, and I get the impression she’s been testing her boundaries for years.”

“So you believe her then,” Sylvie asked.

“I told you from the start that it’s my best guess,” Theo said, “but I know better than to just trust-”

He fell silent as a door creaked open.

Opal was in the doorway, looking nervous to come in. Theo slid the paper he’d been reading back into an envelope. Opal was still working on her alphabet, so it wasn’t as if she would start reading Vayish, but he wasn’t going to be careless with his work. The kids weren’t allowed near it.

“Bad dream?” Theo asked. She nodded, hands wrapped around the hem of her pajama shirt. “Looks like it was a pretty scary one.”

Opal nodded and Theo scooped her up, setting her in Sylvie’s lap and going to make some tea with honey.

“Lewis and Vera were yelling a whole bunch, and I kept telling them to stop, but they got really big and turned into a- a big caliga-” As she talked, Opal’s fear finally overwhelmed her composure and she started to cry.

Sylvie rubbed her back soothingly.

“That must have been really frightening, but you don’t need to worry. People don’t turn into caliga.”

“B-but last time they were fighting, Tammie said, if they didn’t stop, a caliga was going to come and eat themmmmmmm!”

Theo sighed. He was going to need to talk to Tammie about how you talked around impressionable six year olds. He took a glass baking pan out of the cabinet.

“See this?” he asked, showing it to her. She bit her lip and nodded. “It’s clear because the magic here has been purified. That means caliga can’t come here. It’s sort of like how fish have to stay in the water. Caliga have to stay where the magic is all messed up.”

“It… it just looks like normal glass,” Opal said, confused but a bit calmer.

“That’s because we’re lucky and we live in the city. I bet your teachers have told you that if you see glass that looks grey or purple, you tell a grownup right away, right? And then a priest can come and purify the area before the magic gets sick at all.”

“Then why would Tammie say that?” she asked with the hurt of a child who couldn’t imagine any of her big sisters could possibly lie to her.

“Well,” Sylvie told her, “Tammie didn’t grow up in the city, remember? Outside the city, you have to be more careful. People probably told Tammie not to yell or caliga would come when she was little.”

Tammie was still little, in Theo’s opinion, still realizing all the things she was safe from now. Still, it was frustrating, praising the priests as if they deserved it. Sylvie cast him a warning look, because Opal really didn’t need to hear Theo rant.

“So they’re not going to come eat me? What if… what if the magic gets sick while I’m asleep, and then the caliga come, and then they eat me?”

Theo prepared to explain how magical corruption would never happen that fast, that they’d see signs long before the environment was toxic enough for caliga to appear, not to mention them having to cross plenty of other untainted city to get here.

“With Detective Theo in the house?” Sylvie said with a grin, wiggling Opal’s shoulders. “Nothing gets past your big brother, right? And if something did, I’d knock it right out with a frying pan!”

Opal giggled.

“Like BAM!” she said with a clap.

There was something nice about childhood fears. He knew he shouldn’t dismiss her feelings; he knew, to Opal, they really were scary, but they disappeared so quickly. His own mind would lay awake for hours, playing with different fears. What if they got sick? What if his father decided to take back custody? What if one of Theo’s enemies went after them?

Sometimes he was amazed how many adults in the cities kept a paranoid eye out on the wastelands. If they were scared of monsters, they were looking in the wrong direction.

*

Flora did not live in the Church District. Her and her fiance, Ian, shared a flat across the river in the merchant district, not far from Theo’s own townhome.

Despite Ian being a caster, Theo hadn’t brought James today. Flora was tense, and he needed Cam’s expertise anyways. Abby had walked them over, but didn’t come to the meeting. Theo didn’t want to outnumber the couple, and Abigail seemed perfectly happy hanging in the shops on the lower floors until they were done.

“Thank you for having us, Flora,” Theo said. “We just had a few follow-up questions, and then we’ll be out of your way.”

“Of course. Thank you for visiting.”

She’d collected herself a bit from the day before, seated at a table with a tea set like any well bred lady playing host. Ian looked more uncomfortable in the role, and was constantly glancing at his wife in worry.

Theo took a seat carefully, taking a moment to soften his eyes before he turned to face Flora.

“We understand you’re in a difficult position, so I wanted to ask if there’s anything you wanted to share that, perhaps, you didn’t feel comfortable talking about around your family.”

Flora’s lip quivered, but she shook her head. She tried to hide her expression behind her teacup, but the rattle of porcelain as she lifted it only highlighted how shaken she was.

“Flora,” Theo said, as gently as possible, “we know about the farm.”

The look on her face told Theo he was right, she knew about it too, but there was no defensiveness, just sorrow and shame. Interestingly, Ian didn’t seem surprised either, he just fixed Flora with that worried expression. 

“We’re not here to accuse you of anything. As far as we can tell, you had nothing to do with what your parents were doing.”

Theo gestured for Cam to speak. The softness Theo had to affect came naturally to Cam. He looked at her like his heart was breaking, but he stayed steady.

“I looked through the records yesterday. The official harvest would only account for about two thirds of the grain your family sold as guaranteed. We have enough to convict your parents and a couple of their top associates, but we’re holding off on submitting it while we look into Caspian’s case. They’ll have time to attend the funeral, but they’ll probably be arrested. The farm will be passed to you.”

Tears were running down Flora’s cheeks again, but, when she spoke, there was no anger in her trembling voice.

“You think he was killed because of my parents?” she asked.

“I think,” Theo said, still keeping his voice soft, “Caspian was helping your parents hide how bad their finances had gotten, and he had gotten involved in something disreputable to do it. Am I right?”

It was quiet for a moment, then Flora turned to Ian. They had one of those silent conversations people who knew each other well could have. Theo wasn’t party to the details, but he could see the gist. Flora wanted to speak, but was scared, while Ian did his best to hide his own shaking hands and nodded supportively.

“You're right, but please don’t think badly of Cas. It’s my fault,” Flora said thickly. “Cas would have just turned them in right away if it wasn’t for me.”

Ian opened his mouth to protest, but Flora barreled on.

“We didn’t know until the flood. They kept us out of the business, but then… we lost everything. I wanted to tell the authorities, but… I was still in school. I would have had to drop out, and my family always planned for me to marry rather than work. Cas said he wasn’t going to let me lose my future. He’d help my family keep their name until the wedding, and then we’d report them. I’d be married, and he’d have a career, so even if our reputation was destroyed and our family had no money, we’d be fine.”

“You don’t seem shocked,” Theo told Ian.

Ian reached over to hold Flora’s hand tight.

“Flora told me almost a year ago. She was worried sick about Caspian. It was never a problem for me. I didn’t love her for her money. The only reason to keep pretending was so we could get our marriage approved by the church.”

“It wasn’t anything bad,” Flora cut in. “He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing, but he told me he wasn’t hurting anyone. I’m not sure if it was legal, but he would never hurt people or sell drugs. For a while, I was worried he was working in the camellia district. I didn’t think he could handle selling his body, but he told me it wasn’t that sort of thing either.”

“This is really helpful Flora,” Theo told her. “If we can figure out what he was doing, it’ll help us figure out what happened. Can you remember anything else about his work? Did he seem to be working more in any season? Was he making a lot of money?”

“It was… I think it was all year round? It was a lot of money, I think. Maybe ten laurels a month?”

In the corner of Theo’s vision, Cam’s eyebrows shot up. Maybe Flora didn’t understand how much money that was, but Cam sure knew. It was three times what Caspian had been making as a cartographer, and ten times what he’d have been making pulling second shifts on a farm or something. That certainly narrowed down the options.

“Any injuries? Did you see how he dressed when he was working?” 

“I don’t remember seeing any injuries. He didn’t get tanner either, but I guess he had his normal job during the day. I’m sorry. He tried to keep me from finding out what he was doing.”

“Anything you can think of helps. Changes in his mood, who he was talking to, sudden skills.”

Flora bit her lip.

“I think… there was something.”

For a moment, she seemed to lose confidence again, but she swallowed and continued.

“Cas had a lot of trouble making friends. He tried to act like he was happy with work and books, but he’s always…it’s been hard for him. He’s- he was so sensitive and odd that I thought whatever he was doing- I kept worrying it’d break something, but…” she smiled, just a bit, “he was really happy. Honestly, at first I thought he’d fallen in love, but I think he was just… I think whatever he was doing, it gave him a place to belong.”

Theo remembered Caspian's drinking buddies, boys who seemed more irritated by Caspian’s life than saddened by his death. It was comforting, imagining he’d found true friends, that his mourners wouldn’t just be Flora and a few co-workers from the cartography office.

Theo hoped it wasn’t one of those friends that had killed him.