...

The front doors of the school opened with a slow and dramatic sweep but the man who entered was not the expected priest. His dark red robes rose to stiff flaring shoulders of folded cloth in a style that proclaimed him a foreigner of the islands. The similarly dressed assistants who filed in behind him indicated he was important, and his angular calculating face from his pointed beard to his eager glinting eyes below the black topknot declared him to be someone set on seizing control of the night's events. Ayika recognized him. She had seen him marching right ahead of the Islander sage in the ambassador's funeral procession. The guard standing watch outside the room that held Mizumi's father stepped forward to block the path of this entrant and said, "Sir, I am going to have to ask you to halt and wait for..."

"Tailang," the bearded man said smoothly, with barely a hint of an Islander accent.

"What?"

The newcomer smiled and spoke again, "Trade Representative Amantza Tailang of the Fire Lord's mission to the Earth King of Ba Sing Se. And I believe there are people inside that room who would be very eager to hear that name. I advise you inform them."

The guard tried to counter the piercing smile of the Representative with his own glare but he shortly shrank back in his green uniform. This confrontation was above his pay. He quickly turned and slid opened the door.

"Inspector Yang? There is a man here who..."

"Thank you very much," Tailang said as he reached past and seized hold of the door before swiftly entering. "I am an old acquaintance of Public Safety Inspector Yang and would be dishonored if I could not present myself personally." Ayika wiggled free of Headmaster Gang and darted closer to where she might be able to make a break back to Xinfei's side. This Tailang man appeared set on seizing control of every room he entered and in the disruption he caused she might be able to sneak her friend away.

Mr. Miohuito was seated in a chair on the opposite side of the room looking frustrated and harassed but he leaped to his feet when he saw the new entrant. "Tailang! Chen Lizhen has been killed, and I am being…"

"Oh dearest spirits, has the good professor been killed?" Tailang said, interrupting further speech from his associate. "That is terrible news for all! Inspector, is there any suggestion to who could have done such a thing?" This man was smooth but Ayika would not use the word sincere to describe him. Politician was a better word. Wether he was truly distraught or not every word schemed for advantage.

Whatever the Islander official might claim, the Inspector did not look at him like he was a friend. In fact the usually expressionless agent looked like he wished to open up the earth and have it swallow that man whole. But this was a rare circumstance for a Public Safety agent when he was not permitted to do so. Instead, he respectfully bowed his head. "Our investigation is newly begun and there are many avenues open at this juncture."

Tailang shook his head in expressive distress. "Tragic, just tragic. I had spoken to the man several times, as has the honorable Miohuito, and I can not imagine anyone wishing to harm him. Next to the late Ambassador there was no more eloquent proponent of trade and cultural exchange. However," and here Tailang appeared to pause in thought. "Ever since his dismissal from the University he had been receiving, entirely unwarranted, criticism from those who associate with the conservative faction over his support for international rapprochement. You do not suppose that could be relevant? I heard that even today your men had to clear a body of agitators who were protesting for the expulsion of extra-nationals outside this very school? I fear that in recent months the agitator groups have gotten very bold." He was very familiar with this kind of conversational ritual.

Inspector Yang's eyes narrowed but his voice remained smooth and calm, "We are of course looking into all possible scenarios, Trade Representative."

Mr. Miohuito drew close to his countryman and said, "Tailang, this matter…" He stopped and looked out the open door to where Mizumi and Ayika had taken up position side by side in the hall outside. "Mizumi, I need you to wait out there. We can...When I am done in here I will take you home."

Mrs. Jiangsu, seizing the initiative vacated by a headmaster paralyzed from too many conflicting powers to appease gently guided the two girls to a side corridor. There they almost bodily ran into a procession of acolytes following the city priest who had finally arrived through the front gate. The priest's robe was sewn with metal disks and across his shoulders he bore a sash of giant badger fur. Behind him, the neophytes were dressed in simple brown robes patched with yellow and green insignia. Ayika saw them being directed up the stairs to the site of their task by one of the school porters and looked up at Jiangsu. If she could not get to Xinfei then she at least could bare witness here. She cast through her mind to form an articulation for the wordless need she knew to be there. The steel in the head-maid's face softened as she saw Ayika's pleading expression so she said, "Well, all right. Just keep out of the way."

Silently, Ayika made her way up the stairs, following the scent of incense impregnated robes. She was half-way to the second floor when she noticed the sound of a second set of feet on the steps behind her. At the landing she saw that Mizumi had followed. Why, Ayika did not know. She barely knew why she herself was here. Together and without a word they made their way to that dreadful room where the priest had now begun his chanting. The assistant priests drew forth materials; incense, chalk for symbols, and oil for purification of the door lintel. Ayika and Mizumi stood back in the hallway, in a spot where they could still see into the office without being in the way.

Ayika watched the priest, his robe dimly glinting with the shifting of its metal disks, perform the rights to pacify a ghost of untimely death. Such a ghost, shorn of life and soul by another's hand, must receive the ministrations or would turn violent with the terrible power of its passing. The few days before a proper funeral could be arranged could be dangerous. As she watched the blue smoke of the incense began to swirl around as the priest bowed to the eight cardinal directions. The room began to waver as the misty forms of the holy smog swayed through the air with their own vaporous motions.

Ayika shook herself slightly as Mizumi spoke softly at her shoulder. "Did you know him for a long time?"

Ayika gathered her thoughts. This gave her a chance to look away as the priest began to minister to Lizhen's... as he began to lift the blanket. "Only for a year. Since he started working here." The covering had been replaced and she could look again. This priest must have been exceptionally experienced. Ayika had seen death purification rights preformed before, but there was something different now. Before tonight she had never felt so clearly the power that the patterns invoked. Of course she had never been in the room when someone died before. Somewhere behind her heart she felt something receding. But there was a catch to that fading which confused the comforting rhythm Ayika was feeling. The sensation of jerking back from a stove, and then building pressure. No, what was she thinking? She shook her head. Ayika was so emotionally exhausted, her own internal voice was confused.

Mizumi was looking at her with concern so Ayika said. "Thank you for sticking up for Xinfei."

"Who...I mean, it is ok. No one deserves to be beat in that manner just because the officials are angry. He was your friend." To Mizumi that sounded to be a simple calculation. One that Ayika would not have thought anyone else of her class, foreign or domestic, might have made.

After much chanting of prayers, the burning sticks were snuffed and the acolytes gently gathered to bear their sad burden. Ayika stepped to the side and turned away from looking at them as they lifted the special stretcher. After a moment Mizumi turned with her. The procession passed, Ayika stepped forward through the consecrated portal. The priest was gone. There was one acolyte left, quietly sweeping up after the ceremony. Ayka looked around at the burnt and blackened corner where the lamp had smashed, and the desk swept free of its papers, and the table with its circle of candles around the unevenly wrapped…

There was nothing there. Ayika shut her eyes and cast her memory back, to earlier in the day. Remembering what the professor's room had looked like the last time she had seen it whole. Remembering the strange circle of candles, around a package package on the table, delivered by… Ayika opened her eyes. "The gardener!"

"What?" Mizumi said in surprise and confusion at this sudden exclamation.

"Ma'er! He was here making threats about the professor. He said that Lizhen would face trouble if he continued to publish his opinions and he had his assistant leave that mysterious package!" Ayika felt like her mind was suddenly a runaway cart rolling downhill. She could barely bring herself to speak. Her thoughts were spinning off faster than she could form words. "Quick Mizumi, did you, when we were in that room where they were storing the paper's from this office, see a package wrapped in crumpled brown thick paper? About yay big?" She held her hands apart to form a shape a bit bigger then a large plate.

"I..."

Ayika grasped her by the shoulders and looked pleadingly into the other girl's eyes. "Please, I need you to think."

Mizumi blinked at Ayika's face suddenly being so close to her own. "Um, no. No I don't think there was anything like that in there. But..."

Ayika spun around as the draining despair that permeated her flesh gave way to a sick species of furious exhilaration. "I knew it! They said they put everything they found in here into that room. I knew the guards were on the wrong track. It might not have been his politics! The killer must have tried to steal whatever was in that package. Professor Lizhen was so agitated after that meeting. Whatever that Ma'er the gardener had given him. You!" Ayika pointed at the formerly sweeping acolyte, who was blinking in astonishment at the sudden burst of activity from these two girls. "Yes, you in the priesty get-up. Did you see anyone take anything out of the room, anything bigger than a teapot?"

The young man looked around as if she could be addressing anyone else. "Er, no?"

"Thank you very much. Now get out."

"Wha…"

"I said get!"

Oblivious to the scurrying young man trying to vacate the room Ayika began to pace, exulting in the frantic energy that had come to bury the leaden weariness and sorrow of this night. Mizumi looked concerned, "Um...Ay'yeka?"

Ayika waved her hand. Her mind was whirring; seizing at any chance to regain agency from an evening which had left her with so little. One night and years before. Mispronouncing her name would not bother her now. "Close enough. But the stupid Public Safety benders are too busy trying to pin everything on your father or some other Islander that they will not follow any lead about the gardener. In fact Ma'er might be one of the government agents! They so conveniently hand over something immensely valuable to draw in the assassin and then their best critic is silenced!"

Mizumi brought her eyebrows together in skepticism. "I am not sure that makes..." She stopped as she realized something "Wait, you believe my father is innocent?"

"Of course he is. Like you said, they were just trying to pin it on a foreigner."

"But you were screaming at me that I was part of a plot to…!"

Ayika brushed through the indignation. "No, Ma'er the so-called garden designer must have something to do with tonight. He must know about the black man with the white face. I have to do something."

Mizumi sighed in frustration. "Such as perhaps tell any of the responsible authorities about what you know?"

"What? You just agreed that they're useless. I have no proof. Can you imagine a wharf rat accusing a working citizen?"

"I know, I am trying to help. I am just trying to figure out what level of lunacy you are currently operating on! Also, what was that about a rat?"

Ayika's brain was turning in thought and she barely heard what the other woman was saying. Mizumi opened her mouth to speak again. "What if we could..."

Ayika absently interrupted. "I should go down. I need to check on Xinfei. He needs my help." With that she darted off to the staircase. A moment later she heard Mizumi follow her.

However, downstairs things seemed to have been wrapped up. The Inspector was glowering, and the Fire Nation representative was smoothly leading the elder Miohuito towards the front door. "I am so glad that I could help with your investigation," Representative Tailang said. "It is a shame that the conservatives have gone so far, especially when an innocent servant boy pays for ill-directed suspicions. I trust he will be released as the Miohuito girl and the kind headmaster suggested."

Not waiting for any confirmation, he continued. "Sub-Minister Erliao will be devastated to hear he has unintentionally incited a murder with his espousal of the anti-trade position. I will also meet with the Security Minister tomorrow to lend him all the resources of the trade mission so that your investigation might proceed as smoothly as possible. I will also make a direct appeal to the King on your behalf." Ayika did not understand what all of that would mean but it did not sound like this Tailang was doing anything he did not look forward to doing.

"We appreciate your cooperation." The still-faced inspector bowed. The tone of his voice never varied yet all the same Ayika could hear the anger behind his words.

Headmaster Gang bowed repeatedly to any and all those who were preparing to depart, babbling an ignored stream of abasements. At the sight of the two girls descending the stairs he gasped in relief and quickly half herded and half shoved Mizumi towards her father with a flurry of apologies. When Miohuito merely raised a confused eyebrow at him the headmaster looked down at Ayika who he had mistakenly grabbed instead and performed a quick swap. Mizumi took her father's hand but looked back at at Ayika and said, "Father! You have to listen, the Inspector should know..." The rest was muffled by a hand across her mouth.

"Not now dear!" her father hissed, glaring at the Inspector who watched impassively. "We will be home soon enough. Hai tzao."

Caught in the exiting procession Mizumi quickly looked back at Ayika. As their eyes met the Islander girl mouthed something, but Ayika could not tell what it was. And then she was gone. Ayika saw in the confusion her own chance to escape. When no guards were watching she slowly made her way over to Xinfei's hunched form. She touched his hand and motioned for silence. Seeing that no one was guarding him per se, she decided to take the Representative's word as a release order.

The two managed to get through the front door without incident. Outside the school gate was a flurry of activity as the foreign built carriages of the Representative and Mizumi's father tried to depart past the bearers of the priest's palanquin. Adding to the confusion in the street, residents of the surrounding blocks had come out despite the night to witness the commotion. The guards were hard pressed to maintain the illusion of control while separating crowds of residents who could be struck with impunity mingling with priests and foreigners who could not be. Xinfei's legs were shaking from his mistreatment so Ayika put his arm around her shoulders to help them hurry away. She made their way through the crowd with an eye towards the school's front gate, praying the dark robed figure of the Inspector would not appear. At the edge of the light spilling from the gates the crowd thinned and Ayika breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped onto empty paving bricks.

A voice hissed nearby in the shadowed streets. "And so the story goes. Plucked from fire to burn ever brighter. Peace turned to weapon, and in so many hands. A resplendent way to make your entrance to the world, I must say."

Ayika jerked up, causing Xinfei to groan. There was a tall figure standing apart from the crowd, black in the dark beyond the pool of lamplight. Ayika could barely make out his silhouette or who he was talking to but she kept a eye on that piece of deeper shadow as she encouraged Xinfei to speed up as much as he could. It was not the Public Safety agent and that was all she needed to know. She did not have the strength to deal with any more people musing in complex terms about things she did not understand. Whatever this neighborhood voyeur was speaking of, he could deal with it on his own or find someone in the rubbernecking crowd to share it with. Turning the next street-corner she finally relaxed, thanking the sliver of moonlight that lit their way.

A tickle of air against her ear. "A new player before the ten thousand eyes, and for such stakes! Death and fire and the widening door. The bound grows and becomes the binding. The family friends welcome you."

The voice whispered, pressing at her shoulder but when she spun around there was nothing there on the dark and empty street. No one was near her. She and Xinfei were alone in the dark. Whoever he was, the speaker had managed to disappear.

"Arrrgh, Ayika!" Xinfei groaned from the ground where she had flung him in her haste to find the vanished voice. Giving up her search, Ayika once again shouldered her battered friend and together they made their way towards the River Gate guiding their way by Gaoli's new gas lamps illuminating the bulging stone of the Fifth Hill in the distance. Ayika frequently looked around but saw nothing on these vacant streets despite the unshakable feeling of multitudes of watching eyes. Nothing but shadows, dark and leering.

It was miles back to the Bed, through two wall gates, past guards who looked at them with suspicion and distrust. Even when they managed to hitch a ride for a while on night-soil cart on its way out to the farms, by the time they entered the port town Ayika was exhausted and rattled. She could barely communicate to Xiaobao what had happened to his brother, and left both of them hurriedly with the promise of talking tomorrow. Her own family was a greater obstacle. Her mother alternately hugged her close in relief and started throwing fierce diatribes at her foolishness for staying out so late. Her father just sat in the corner looking more worried than she could bare to see. When she tried to explain her story it seemed they did not understand, only hearing that she had effectively been fired from her job. It was all she could do to convince them to eventually snuff out the lights and end the interrogation.

Collapsing in the corner which at night served as home for her sleeping pallet Ayika felt exhausted, but the instant she closed her eyes she found sleep the most distant thing. Lying still in the bed she once shared with her grandmother and now shared with a brother who seemingly grew extra writhing limbs while unconscious, Ayika stared at the ceiling. She still felt the press of imagined eyes, of murderers, of Public Safety agents, even of the household totems in their crude little shrine in the corner of the apartment.

Grandmother had carved those; the fox who watches over hunters, the whale who watches over sailors, the seal who holds sway over ice-flows, and the green spirit under the waves who held the secret of healing. She had never prayed to them. At leat not that Ayika had seen. Rather, she had mostly given them frequent sharp looks such as one might give a toddler prone to getting in trouble. Ayika had rarely been interested when Grandmother started to grumble about spirits. Now she wished she had listened. Who watched over dancing lantern flames and funny little professors? What power protected the monsters of Public Safety? Who watched over school-house maids?

Well, she did not need someone watching over her. She would not let the professor's death be another thing that just 'happened' in the city's unpredictable vastness. She would find out who was responsible. Ayika closed her eyes and tried to sleep but once again she saw Lizhen's gentle look when she last spoke to him. She saw Xinfei groaning on his pallet, his brother's confused concern. And Mizumi's eyes, turned gold in the light of the priest's candle flame.

...

(Author's Note: Wow, that was a long day. At least the structure for the rest of the story is clear now, even if there are more surprises in store. I hope you like my attempt to flesh out this little corner of the Avatar world. Please continue to tune in and as always if you have any questions or suggestions I reply to all reviews.)