...

It was late and the sky was purple with the onset of night when Xiaobao managed to make his way down the steep path of irregular stone and worn wooden planks set into the sloped bank border of the Bed. There had been some talk among the dockworkers of expanding the newly established neighborhood watch-guard to include sections of the Bed as well, but the eventual consensus was that any ring-dweller who found his way down those slimy slopes would end up face down in the mud without his purse, shoes, and perhaps a bit of his throat before he got twenty paces. The residents of the Bed were their own protection.

Xiaobao was tired from being in the unusual position of being asked for his opinion every few moments over the last several hours. He hoped that by tomorrow Jun Doe or one of the other older men would take control of this new neighborhood protection initiative so he could stop worrying about accidentally saying the wrong thing. His thoughts were fuzzed by weariness and also by the few cups of rough rice wine that someone had generously forced on him. Once things had gotten rolling the fear and anger that had motivated the dockworker men rather quickly gave way to an almost party-like atmosphere. These were men who did not like being idle. With Gaoli's business frozen and their employment in jeopardy any organized activity was a source of comfort. Especially if there was the potential for cracking the heads of some ignorant anti-reformer ring-dwellers who might come near trying to start trouble.

As Xiaobao approached the family's tiny apartment squashed in this damp winding alley he saw someone sitting out on the narrow ledge haphazardly nailed in front of the door to serve as a miniature porch. His brother's long gangly limbs trailed out into the path like a house-frame ready to be raised. It looked like he might have been out there for a long time.

Xiaobao called out as he approached, "Hey, Xinfei! I missed you at the ship. But it was all the same, the green-hats are still holding things sealed with stamp ink. Since this afternoon I've been getting the guys organized to..." He shook his head as he thought of the aging longshoremen starting to talk of patrol routes and codewords like they were fresh recruits in the army. "Well, it's not so much a Watch as a..." Again he trailed off. "It has been a strange day."

Xinfei glanced over a his brother before looking back up at the little strip of sky visible between the close press of haphazardly assembled roofs. Through one gap he could see a massive stone bridge arching over these buildings as it connected two proper sections of the Harbor Town. "Yeah, it's been a strange day for me too."

"Yeah? Where were you, watching Ayika behind the laundry counter all day? And just what did she have to say about that?"

His brother shook his head, "Nothing. I never spoke with her. She got called over the Exclusion by the... by Mizumi and then she sent Lili Gaoli back out to the town so I could escort her to the Middle Ring. I spent the day riding back and forth from the Middle Ring on the tram line. I... I think she gave me a job."

Xiaobao was the first to admit that he was perhaps a little more easily flummoxed by rapid information than his brother but he felt that anyone would have been thrown by those revelations. What had his brother gotten into now? His mouth worked open and closed a few times before his speech found its footing. "Gaoli's daughter? From the Middle Ring last night? Yeah, she would need to get back home from the Exclusion today but why did she call on you? Wouldn't her dad send a whole bunch of professional guys to watch over her? And wait, what job?"

"Yeah, he did send a bunch of guys. It was really awkward when she made me ride in the carriage with her. They did not like a street-rat being so near their precious lady." Here Xinfei's scowl softened into a hint of a smile and he started to show renewed energy. "In truth I think that Lili girl had a great time messing with them. She's a lot less formal than I would have thought and more invested in this whole mystery of masks and foreigners. And she's willing to provide bankroll for my ideas! Not the investigation ideas I mean the products but I had thoughts about the Masks too. Those University Boys have to have gone to ground somewhere since last night but she is going to send out feelers in the Middle Ring and let me know if she gets a location. She being Lili. All while Ayika has basically disappeared to us. She walked right by me without asking me to come and sent me Lili instead." Xinfei's mood traced an undulating path during that speech as he jumped from contemplation to excitement to brooding.

Xiaobao quietly sighed. Xinfei might have phrased his complaint about Ayika's behavior as being directed at 'us' but the true abandonment that stung was that of 'him' by 'her'. Xiaobao had seen the way his brother had come to look at Ayika in the past few years but he had also seen how those longing looks had never been reciprocated or perhaps even perceived. Of course, Xiaobao also thought that Xinfei had even greater obstacles in the way of his desires than a childhood friend thinking of him like a brother. Not that he was in a position to mention those suspicions.

Xiaobao rubbed his brow as he organized his thoughts. "So...Lili gave you money?"

Xinfei reacted with instinctive outrage at the insinuation of charity before getting himself under better control. "Gave? No! She...! She is financing merchandise that I can sell as part of a scheme to subvert her mother and the royal mail system. It is a guaranteed return on investment for her." But he could turn this conversation against his brother just as quickly. "So you're commander of a neighborhood watch now? The big boss? I heard quite a few things on my way back down. Very interesting things."

"No! I..." Xiaobao began to dispute the accusation before he stopped. "Things have been crazy haven't they?"

"Yeah, they have." Xinfei leaned back against the outer wall of the apartment and looked up at the darkening purple sky. Then he grinned guiltily. "Oh, and you have GOT to see what that Anyakya has got Ayika wearing. The uniform, it's... it's something."

Xiaobao sighed. One thing at a time. They had dawdled out here on the street for too long. Who knew how long Xinfei had been avoiding going inside? Xiaobao turned to open the apartment door. "Hi, mom."

Xinfei stayed outside. There was less reality there. Here he could just look up at the first star beginning to peak out over cracked mismatched tiles.

...

Lili sat in the courtyard garden of the Gaoli mansion. She was twisted back on her sleek couch to look at the swaying willow tree beyond the stone-bound ornamental pool. The water's edges were jagged with a rough assemblage of rocks in black and grey that supposedly held meaning in the whorls and rough peaks across their irregular surface. A high and distant cloud passed near the noontime sun and temporarily lent the ground and water a shifting dappled texture. As she held out one arm propped against the couch-back a single finger bushed sunlight before a wisp high above cast it into a similar shadow as she had been in under this garden pavilion roof. The breeze that twisted the ten thousand tiny green leaves of the willow tree carried on over the compound wall and out over neighborhoods of the Middle Ring until it could vault over the ring wall and soar off into the sky of blue and white.

This house had been large until she was forbidden to leave. Lili was a great reader of romances. However, though she delighted in the heroic imagery and intricate interplay of prophecy and fate with the power of emotion and determination she had always held a vaguely articulated distaste for the traditional female lead. This character was always a woman who was beautiful and intelligent but frail and aimless, who languished in sorrow as she contemplated her dreams under willow trees in the garden. Lili had only been confined for three days since the riot but already the boredom was painful. Somehow the lack of other options poisoned even activities she typically enjoyed. She supposed daydreams might be worthy of sorrow when they were all you had.

Another woman up from spoke across the small garden pavilion room. "Ah, I believe I have one! The theme was plum blossoms, correct? Though I fear I might have gotten a bit over-general with other types of tree blossoms. Well, that will be for you others to judge."

Lili turned back around to the interior of the open walled structure where the three other girls were sitting in various lacquered chairs near small writing surfaces. Jing had been the last to speak and the other two already held the slips of paper on which they had brushed down the characters of their poetry compositions. They were waiting for her. Lili looked down at her own paper where she had marked barely five words before resigning to her disinterest. But still she was the host of this get-together that her mother had arranged so she clapped her hands together in an imitation of enthusiasm.

"Excellent," she said. "Now, since I believe we agreed Huamei was the winner last round I think she should read her poem first. Alright?" This was greeted with nodded agreement and Huamei began to recite her poetry composition about snowflakes melting on the first bud to open that spring, far to early to survive the coming night's cold. The other girl did have some talent but in the end it was all so meaningless. All these poems would be discarded and forgotten by tomorrow and would never be spoken outside these walls. Out in the streets there were people chanting out calls for revolution.

Something of her dissatisfaction must have appeared on her face because when she looked back Huamei was frowning at her. "Perhaps Lili will go next. I am very excited to hear what she wrote." This was said with a gentle smile which only made the other girls' eyebrows arch further at the aggression it signaled.

Lili had not finished her composition. But she had some thoughts and decided to try letting the words find her mouth as she began to speak. The scattered characters on her paper guided her structure. Her lips parted.

"The vine grows around the tree so tightly that neither can be told apart. The season has been dry and both are fading as a single bud prepares to open. The approaching spark is the only light to see which plant is flowering."

There were some indifferent noises of appreciation. Jing tapped the arm of her chair with a hand fan, a perpetually closed accessory now that autumn had entered the air. "Perhaps the metaphor is rather excessive. The subject is vague enough that the mind is busy attempting to decipher the allusion instead of hearing the words. And as a little suggestion, Lili, 'the approaching spark'? This is the third composition today in which you have used imagery from the night of the mob from the Lower Ring. The audience might have a declining reception." Her tone indicated she felt confidant in assessing the mood of this audience.

Huamei could not resist adding a final comment. "And at no time did you specify that the tree was a plum tree. That does not fit the theme. Sorry."

Lili only replied with a shrug and a thank you for the criticism. She had tried to talk to these girls who had nominally been her friends for years about the political mess that was simmering in the city but they were not interested. They had been horrified by the beatings her neighbors the Gangs had received, though of course they were convinced that their attackers in the mob had to have been earthbenders as well. Huamei did allow the possibility that the father and son could have been overwhelmed by men with knives, but the general consensus was that any earthbender of their class could only be taken down by another bender. There was no mention of the Initiated. No one had heard anything about masks. And they did not care. They only said that thinking about such events was saddening and in any case it was all over now. The King's men would take care of everything.

The three of these girls had been chosen as friends for Lili by their family connections to her father. As long as Lili had concentrated her energy on fashion and scheming against other groups of merchant's daughters they had been fine companions. Now Lili thought of Mizumi and Ayika. Those two had not told her she was imagining things when she wondered out-loud, in fact they had been much further afield from normal than her!

She hoped Mizumi wrote back soon. Xinfei had delivered Lili's letter and had returned with a reply once already. Unfortunately, she had not been able to say much more than ten words to him when he arrived before one of her mother's servants had started coming too close to the tradesmen's door. Xinfei had been more excited talking about the products he had bought as part of the cover for Lili's communications than interested in actually saying anything about Mizumi's demeanor. Fortunately the Fire Nation girl's letter itself had been more expansive. As Lili had expected Mizumi had expressed skepticism about her suspicion towards Trade Representative Tailang. The Islander girl would give her countryman the benefit of her doubt. Apparently, Mizumi and Ayika had learned something about sub-minister Erliao at the waterbending fortuneteller's. However, the Islander's language had been uncharacteristically indirect in referring to what precisely had happened there. She was also preemptively defensive about Ayika's trust in this woman.

Not that Lili could say Mizumi had incorrectly guessed her reaction. Ayika was now apparently speaking about spirits. Now, Lili had gotten the impression that Ayika was an honest woman but...

Lili tilted her head slightly. Huamei had said something while she had been absently staring out into space. What was it that had caught her attention?

"Well, it's really not that surprising. You know what Seng is like under the best of circumstances."

Jing shook her head in vague disapproval as she made note that Lili's wandering mind had rejoined the conversation. "If it has just been her we wouldn't be mentioning it. But the headmaster is losing control of that school. Lili is lucky to have been out for the last week. You saw Liqiu and Huiling go at it yesterday. And from what I hear the younger girls are much worse. That teacher's death, um, Lizhen, has shaken everything up. And that fat housekeeper lady Mrs Jiangsu has been heard demanding that Headmaster Gang contact some ghost exorciser. Ha! I guess she is not too stupid if she saw the chance to blame her staff discipline problems on ghosts and shift the blame from herself."

Jiayi tittered nervously. It seemed not everyone was as secure as Jing in criticizing the suppositions of the lower classes. They had all heard the same stories when they were children. The corners of Lili's mouth twitched up. After last night she could certainly respect that hesitance. Lili had seen the Masks.

Jiayi then tried to redirect conversation to some less spooky issue. "Staff problems? I knew they had fired that one tribal girl, but I had just assumed Gang ran out of patience for that particular charity case. It wasn't very seemly after all." Her tone made clear what exactly about Ayika had been unseemly.

Lili's smile fell. She no longer commiserated. Jiayi was generally a sweet girl and was probably just following Jing's lead but little things Lili had never really noticed before were starting to grate on her nerves. She was beginning to pay more attention to the words people chose.

Huamei fielded Jiayi's question. "Seng said the staff have been quarreling as much as the students. And most of them have got to live in the Lower Ring, right? A few could easily have been up here...the other night." That appeared to be the agreed upon way to refer to the riot on the Fifth Hill. It was charmingly insufficient. It did not mention masked people ripping up iron street-lamps and punching barehanded through stone. It did not mention what had nearly happened to Lili's family.

"So did Gang listen to the matron?"

The other three girls looked up in surprise at Lili's interjection. Lili continued, "Mrs Jiangsu. Did Headmaster Gang listen to her and call in a priest or ghost specialist?" She tried to make her voice pleasant and only vaguely inquisitive but she suspected she did not entirely succeed.

Huamei tried to share a smile with her, perhaps misinterpreting the tone. "Don't worry, things have not fallen apart that far while you've been gone. This is still the Middle Ring after all. The priests did their spirit rituals when the professor died. All this talk of ghosts and curses and spirits is nonsense. People are just making excuses for their bad behavior."

Maybe they were. Lili thought back to the mist-filled street between Erliao and the waterbender. She thought about the tramcar with Representative Tailang and about the stares of people on the harbor town streets. She remembered the Masks. Something strange was happening in the city. There was magic out there but she could not tell what was insidious influence and what was just stupid people being stupid. Why was it all so tangled?

She twisted on her couch to look back out over the garden pool. She hoped Xinfei returned soon with the response from Mizumi. The biggest city in the world was feeling far too large these days.

...