...

It had taken Xinfei longer than he expected to find his way around the corner of the school in this dark time of night before moonrise. It should have been safe to assume that a fancy school like this would be better lit but he had no such luck. By the time he finished his blind trek and reached the garden courtyard door Ayika had indicated too he was covered in scratches from a bush he had found himself squeezing through. He was also quietly cursing his constant need to follow every direction Ayika gave. This inner courtyard was dark too. Who had extinguished all the lights he had just seen from the other side of the building? He climbed up onto the courtyard pavilion and felt his way towards the aforementioned garden door designated as their meeting place. His questing hand met space; the door was agar but strangely no light came from within.

Conscious of the fact that he was not strictly allowed to be here he chanced a whisper. "Ayika?"

This hall where Ayika had been standing when he spoke to her was dark now, and Xinfei took a few steps to stand awkwardly inside the threshold onto the fitted stones of the entryway. Why would they have snuffed out the lamps? All at once a scream tore through the building from somewhere above. He hunched down reflexively in a crouch that his brother would have told him only served to aid an adversary in knocking him down. Blind without even the light of the stars a flash of brilliance led him to shuffle through his pockets for one of his little wax paper boxes. Grinning he struck the little sulfurous stick against a bit of stone flagging. The light bloomed, and then continued blooming most distressingly as the flame behaved strangely. His fingers were almost scorched by the sudden ball of fire quickly eating through the small twig of wood. He straightened up while looking at the roaring firestick in openmouthed astonishment, so it came as a surprise when a hurtling mass out of the black crashed into him like a darkened thunderbolt.

Someone from around the corner of the hall hit him like a falling boulder, and together they went skidding across the floor, coming to a rest with a decisive "Krunk" on each side of the open doorway. It was with blurred vision that Xinfei saw the black figure flip its self upright and turn towards him, tusks gleaming and wide eyes staring out of the twisted white face like a mask. The thing quivered for a moment, limbs twitching as if trying to move in different directions at once. A sudden lunge made Xinfei jerk his arms up in front of his face, only to find himself alone in the now flickering orange room. He scrambled into the doorway in time to see a shadow reach the garden wall in three incredible strides and silently leap into the sky like a panther taking flight. He did not see any earthbending to vault someone up like that. Who was that? Then he was alone with the growing light behind him. Wait, what light?

Xinfei turned with panic to see the room's rug being consumed in hungry flames racing out from his dropped firestick, smoke rising up to blacken the ceiling. Panicking, he grabbed his pack from outside the door and raised it as a tool to beat out the flames, only to reflect on the wisdom of adding ten full packages of incendiary merchandise to the problem. Above he could hear a girl screaming for help as he frantically looked for something to use against the now alarmingly large fire. Pleading with the flame he gingerly picked up a yet unburnt edge of the carpet with the idea of smothering the object within its self. This was a very clever idea that in execution served to make the fire brighter and more compact, ensuring that no scrap of this floor covering would escape. So it was that a crowd of rushing servants skidded into the room to see Xinfei trying to tug the conflagration towards the open door by holding a single uncomfortably toasty corner of it, cursing continuously and creatively, while the fire continued to enjoy a merry and unhindered existence.

Blackened with smoke and hunched in his labor, Xinfei could only blankly meet the eyes of the assembled girls. Grinning toasted his gums, so he grimaced. "Don't mind me, I've got this under control, someone upstairs needs help!" This provoked no movement.

At that point an immense womanly figure puffed into the room, trailed by several men in scruffy porters' uniforms. Sparing a bare glance at Xinfei navigating his fiery burden over the lintel and onto the porch pavilion, she continued on, uttering a single command in his direction. "Two of you grab that one and hold him down. We go get the rest upstairs."

The two porters kindly waited until Xinfei finally managed to get the carpet safely out to the stone courtyard floor before smashing him down face-first into the same. Xinfei writhed until his nose was no longer crushed against the flags and settled down into the familiar 'you've been knicked' wait with someone sitting on his back. As he glimpsed more flickering firelight from the second floor he could only muster a feeble prayer for whatever Ayika had gotten into, and after a thought, for himself.

...

Ayika sat in the corner, repeatedly wrapping her hands in the singed edges of her dress, her fingers gripping and releasing in their own independent cycle. Most of the staff girls were still clustered in a shifting mass outside the door, taking turns to break off from their breathless chatter to steal glances into the smoke-blackened office. Every time Mrs. Jiangsu's pacing orbit took her near the entrance she swatted them back but they returned as soon as she moved away. Mrs. Jiangsu moved continuously, having never stopped from the moment she oversaw the smothering of the remaining fires, and dispatched the boys to get help about, about…

Ayika's fingernails bit into the flesh of her leg. Why couldn't she have…? Why didn't she…? Her eyes were locked on a patch of air somewhere above the floorboards in the center of the room, just to the side of where the blanked lay covering… When Jiangsu and the others had first reached the room, after completing the job Ayika had began of extinguishing the flaming piles of paper and books with heavy soaked hangings and rugs, they had beaten out the bits of her uniform that persisted in burning and then had tried to force her out of the room. One of the porter boys who had spearheaded that effort was still lying down in the next room moaning at the bruises she had inflicted across certain precise and vulnerable areas of his anatomy. It was Jiangsu who had caught Ayika's flailing arms and held her as she thrashed in silent rabid growls. It was only when the tears finally broke through that the aging matron gently shoved Ayika's now inexplicably weak frame over to a small stool in the back corner.

They were waiting for the guards. Someone had sent for the headmaster, and for someone else that Ayika did not hear. There was nothing more they could do until then.

The professor had been lying crumpled in the edge of the room under the windows where he had been flung. Discarded. Ayika could still feel the bruise on her chest from where the figure in black had struck her, felt it in the same intermittent way that the burns on her hands flared into pain from time to time and then vanished as her mind stayed numb. That man had been so strong. So fast that she could only remember a flash of a white grinning face with shadows writhing behind. If only she had…

Ayika blinked and the building was full of noise, the sounds of many people shuffling into positions that they had not decided upon yet. It was later. The other staff girls were gone from the doorway which instead was occupied by the back of someone in dressed dark green holding a pose of bored attention. Ayika just had time to realize that Mrs. Jiangsu was not in the room before the head of staff was re-entering, now accompanied by several men in varying cuts of dark green enforcement uniforms. One of them kneeled beside the carefully draped blanket and lifted the edge. Ayika looked away as he pulled it back. The others were talking.

"Zhang and the boys got them trussed up in the other rooms?"

Another guard spoke up. "Yeah, we've got 'em both. 'Corse the girly's just a student here too late so no trussing, and the other one isn't a knife man. I'd say a sneaker or a gutter-rat picked up as a lookout. 'Corse I ain't talked to him yet so I don't have a proper feel, but one look at one like him usually tells. Try and figure what's it they took." He looked around the room with a mild glare, seemingly irked that no true villains raised their hands in surrender from behind the bookcase.

He grabbed up some miraculously unburnt papers from the professor's desk. "Huh, looks like this is might be what he was writing before he bought it. Says something like 'Steps to pacify a foreign incursion in the domestic spirit'. What do you make of that?"

The other guard shrugged, "Some sort of counter-spell to drive off dark spirits?"

The leader shook his head, "Nah, that's priest stuff. This guy here was a teacher. Probably just complaining about all those Islander foreigners, not that I can blame him. And then some random thief bumbles in on him."

"This incident might be more intricate than you hope, sergeant." A new figure made his way into the room, his body hidden in dark heavy robes. A notorious sigil stood emblazoned across the chest. "It has the markings of that most dreaded quality. Our subject here had a publishing record."

The guard sergeant was looking out the window and made as if to spit before reconsidering. "Damn, this case is political? That's just great." He turned to face the new speaker, and froze, terror sweeping across his face. "Inspector! I...attention!." The other guards, who had been at attention since they first saw the inspector, endeavored to increase their posture.

"No need, officer." The Public Safety Agent waved a hand concealed in his long sleeve. He swept into the center of the room and looked down at the poor prone figure. A robe of that length ought to have spent half of the time tripping up the wearer, but under the Inspector's steady motions the folds and swaths flowed neatly with his movements like the seams were a part of his body. He made no noise, and his expression betrayed no thought, but an imagined sound like mental clockwork floated in the air. As he completed a half circuit around the floor his eyes jumped up to meet Ayika's from across the room. With a silent air of puzzled interest he regarded her, and Ayika stared back.

Without breaking his gaze the Inspector addressed the room, "She is the witness?"

"Um, yes sir." Mrs. Jiangsu bobbed nervously outside the threshold. "She had gone up to bring the professor his dinner when we heard the screaming. Like I said, when I got up here the room was going up with lamp oil and she was trying to put out. She hasn't said much yet, but fought like the dickins when we tried to take her downstairs so we just left her there. I can shift her if it pleases your honor, sir." As she continued the normally unflappable servant-master of the school was speaking faster and faster until the words all tumbled out together.

The Inspector did not bother looking at her. He spoke very slowly and methodically. "No need for honor, just Inspector will suffice." He ignored her nervous quavering.

People were frequently nervous around Public Safety Agents. Every one of them was an expert earthbender with well-honed power. The stories about what they could do were as myriad as they were unsettling. The explanation of what they were allowed to do was simpler; anything. The Agents existed under direct control of the King of Kings and operated as the enforcers of his personal will in the city. Everyone in the city loved the King, and understood how being the victim of a palace coup early in life could lead you to take precautions. Nevertheless there was a matter of nervousness regarding how frequently his personal will involved people being swallowed by the earth during the night. Many of the older citizens said that they were just the Dai Li Cultural Authority under a different name. That was the man who was standing a few feet away from Ayika, but now, in this place, she could not bring herself to be afraid. So she met his eyes and stilled her hands.

"Now girl," His voice was calm and polite, but there was little warmth. "Could you please tell us what you saw. Was there anyone in the room when you arrived?"

"Yes, I.." Here she stopped. Something strange happened when she tried to remember the white faced figure she had seen. In her memory the form shifted and twisted and brought her to doubt her own mind. But she had seen. " When I got on the second landing the lamps were behaving oddly. And when I opened the door to here the lights went out, all in an instant." She swallowed, "There was...it was dark, but there was a man, or a person, all in black. Or just black. They pushed me back into the wall, hard, and ran. I called out but they had thrown a lamp and I was trying to put out the fire and trying to help him… I mean I wasn't sure yet that he was…" Ayika cursed herself for choking here but the Inspector ignored her shame.

"Could you provide a description of this man, did you see a face?"

"No, I… I mean I only saw for a second and in the dark. It was white, with tusks and twisted eyes, like a mask but I swore it moved. And it was strong, like it was something other than human." This last was said in a trailing whisper. Was that what she had seen? Why couldn't she think straight?

The inspector turned away from Ayika for a moment, looking once again at the soot stained room. The leading guard appeared to take this as an invitation, ignoring most of Ayika's statement.

"Masks again, huh?" he said. "I mean I've been hearing about them…"

"Too many people hear too many things." The dark robed agent crisply interjected. "We will continue our interviews starting with the detained student. During that interval you will inspect the body and inform us if there are any flash burn marks in addition to the blunt trauma." he swept towards the door.

The sergeant was confused. "Burns...? You mean like from some sort of an assassin firebender? Those Islanders wouldn't dare!" Suddenly he realized he was speaking back to a powerful bender and he corrected. "Er, I mean yes I will, look I mean, sir. Or knife wounds, since those are usually what do in cases like..." He muttered, still hoping for his initial theory of a robbery gone wrong now that he was faced with the thought of a political assassination.

The departing back stopped in a weary halt. "Officer, the victim has been here for over an hour and there is not a single drop of blood on this floor room. Fatal puncture wounds tend to bleed. That document you read supports other theories. The man had previously been a vocal Fire Nation supporter and it sounds like he was in the process of revising his position tonight. Check the body." he breathed "Good. Come Mrs. Jiangsu, we will need you to confirm the student's information."

Ayika hurried out after them, not trusting herself to witness the forthcoming examinations in this room. She breathed slowly and heavily, hands clenched tight at her sides. The commotion had now left her alone in the hall. Driven by a need to do something she made her way after the departing inspector. No one appeared to remember that she existed, and she quietly slid up to the next open door unhindered.

The Inspector addressed a girl slumped in a chair set in the middle of the room. She was wearing the embroidered grey student's uniform of the school and her shoulders trembled slightly. "We will need your name, miss."

Copper tinged bangs lifted up to reveal a golden cheeked face, and the lips parted in an accented reply barely above a whisper. "Mizumi Miohuito."

Near the doorway one of the guards gave a low whistle in recognition of that name, but was cut off when he received a shove in the side as Ayika rushed past.

"You!" Ayika yelled, thrusting an accusatorial at the girl in the chair. "What are you doing here? You were spying on the professor this afternoon! What did you do? Tell me!" She had been listening in on him. She had been creeping around the school and Ayika had caught her but let her go.

The Islander girl gaped in shock at this sudden assault that was now raging with an outstretched finger of denunciation a few centimeters away from her face. Her mouth worked a few times before she managed to say, "I just needed to get something of mine from the school. That is why I was here."

Ayika continued, in her fury ignorant of the confusion among the professionals behind her. "But you never left this evening, did you? Xinfei saw someone moving in this same room I caught you in, right before the attack!"

"Who is Xinfei?" Mizumi blurted, irritation beginning to overcome shock. She was putting on a convincing display of having no idea why this girl was screaming at her. "I just.."

"Shut up! Did you let him in? Why did you do it? He...He was on you people's blasted side!" The room was growing blurry and wet at the edges, and Ayika's voice hurt. The thought that her own carelessness could have let this girl help kill... She drew her hand back to slap the seated girl but her wrist suddenly jerked back in an iron grip.

"That is quite enough."

Resisting the Inspector's stone gloved grasp was like pushing against a wall. Defeated, Aykia was led to the back of the room, where another guard kept a secure hold on her. As soon as his hand left her wrist, Ayika seemed to vanish from the Public Safety agent's mind and he turned back to the distraught Islander girl as if no interruption had intruded.

"Miss. Miohuito, did you witness anything concerning the occurrence tonight?"

Mizumi looked back and forth at all the strange persons in the room in disbelief. She pointed at Ayika. "She tried to hit me!"

"Miss." There was no patience in his voice.

She swallowed. "I was here to get something I left at school, as I said. I have not seen anything. That is, I was up here when the lamps went out and when I heard the screaming I stayed still in case it was something dangerous. Then those porters showed up and would not let me leave the room." As she spoke she became more confidant. "Now I believe I have caught you up to when you arrived so may I leave? My father will not be happy that I have been kept this long." She gave the smile of gambler laying down her highest card.

Ayika opened her mouth to express her rage but was surprised when another voice snapped in her place "You show some respect girl! How dear you speak like that on a night of death!" Ayika stared at the huge quivering frame of Mrs. Jiangsu who was red with emotion. Ayika watched in wonder as the woman's beady eyes glistened with tears, she had never seen Jiangsu show any emotion other than simple anger.

"Death? What are you…? Oh my god!" Mizumi clapped her hand over her mouth.

The leading guard stepped forward. "Sir, this is becoming a circus. Permission to take these girls downstairs into a secure room?"

The agent appeared to have lost interest again, and was now looking out the window, his hands held in front of him palm down at waist level. His breathing was slow and steady and he seemed to be concentrating on something. Finally he spoke "Do so. And collect all the papers from the office, even those damaged by fire. We will inspect them shortly." His eyes opened. "We will leave the initial questioning of our other young suspect to your men's experienced hands."

Ayika's head whipped around. Oh, no. The guards had Xinfei.

...