Brimton was prettier than Zoey expected.
Not prettier than Luminaurora, which had the advantage of being the first magji city she'd ever seen and therefore had a permanent spot in her brain as the standard for magji cities. And not prettier than Dhara, which had its own dark charm buried underneath all the corruption and conflict. Brimton was a different kind of pretty. Things looked nice here.
The streets were wide and lined with trees that glowed faintly with mahna, their leaves giving off a soft golden light that mixed with the afternoon sun. The buildings were tall and modern but not too much so. Glass and stone and clean lines, with shops and cafes on the ground floors and apartments or offices above. There were parks between the blocks, actual green spaces with benches and fountains and magji creatures tending to the gardens. Zoey spotted a pair of Viperians sunbathing on a flat rock near one of the fountains, their serpentia coiled lazily around their shoulders.
The non-human population was more visible here than in Luminaurora. Maybe because the city was designed with wider walkways to accommodate different body types, or maybe the political climate was slightly less shitty. Zoey could see a group of the furry giants she'd first encountered in Luminaurora sitting outside a restaurant with chairs that were clearly built for their size. A few of the glowing light-people floated near a street vendor, their colors shifting between soft blues and greens as they browsed.
None of them paid Zoey or Tiffany any attention. Two young women walking through the city without masks or boxing gloves or greatswords were just two young magjistars walking through a city.
"This place is so much nicer than Dhara," Tiffany said, her eyes bouncing between everything like a tourist on their first overseas trip. "Dhara was cool but like, dirty cool. This is pretty and nice. Super duper cool."
"It is nice." Zoey had her hands in her hoodie pockets.
She was watching the Peacekeepers.
There had been a noticeable increase in uniformed bodies since they'd started walking through the magji district an hour ago. At first it was just here and there. A pair posted at an intersection. A group of three walking somewhere down a side street. Then it became more obvious. Full squads moving through the main avenues. Peacekeepers stationed at the entrances to major buildings. A barrier checkpoint being set up near what looked like a government building.
'We're wanted bitches!' Inner Zoey observed.
'That flying guy got to them fast.'
'It's a damn good thing we disguised ourselves.'
Zoey looked at the direction the squads were heading. Most of them were moving toward the hospital district, which made sense. The crime scene was there. Victims were there. The hospitalized Peacekeepers from their earlier fight were there. Evidence, witnesses, all of it concentrated in one area. But a few squads were moving in other directions. Toward the Council Hall. Toward what looked like residential areas on the east side. Covering ground.
"Hey, Zoey." Tiffany tugged on her sleeve. "I'm hungry."
"We just ate two hours ago."
"That was a snack. I need real food. Look, there's a place right there." Tiffany pointed at a restaurant across the street with outdoor seating and a menu displayed in the window. The sign above the door read Ember & Vine in warm orange lettering.
Zoey glanced at it. Outdoor seating meant visibility, which meant they could watch the street while eating.
"Fine."
Tiffany practically skipped across the street. Zoey followed at a normal person's pace.
The food was good. Better than good. The menu was a mix of magji world dishes and normal world food adapted for magji tastes. Zoey ordered something called a Flamebird Wrap that turned out to be spiced poultry in a flatbread with a sauce that tingled with mahna on her tongue. Tiffany ordered three separate entrees and a dessert and showed no signs of slowing down.
"How do you eat that much?" Zoey watched Tiffany demolish a plate of noodles that would have fed two people.
"Fast metabolism. Assassin training burns a lot of calories." Tiffany spoke between bites with zero shame. "Also I'm a growing girl."
"You're older than me."
"I'm forever 18." Tiffany smiled with noodles hanging from her mouth.
Zoey laughed and went back to watching the street. Another squad of Peacekeepers passed by. Five of them, moving urgently. Their eyes swept the crowds but didn't linger on anyone specific. They weren't looking for faces. They were looking for masks.
"They're heading toward the hospital," Zoey murmured.
"Mmhm." Tiffany had switched to her second entree. "They've been heading that way since we sat down. But look at those two." She tilted her head toward a pair of Peacekeepers posted at the corner of the next block. Unlike the squads moving quickly, these two were stationary. Watching. "Those are sentries."
Zoey looked. Tiffany was right. The two Peacekeepers weren't going anywhere. They were positioned at the intersection. They could watch three directions and they didn't look like they were moving anytime soon.
"There's another pair two blocks back the way we came," Tiffany added casually, dipping something fried into a sauce. "And I saw one on the rooftop of that building with the blue awning when we crossed the bridge earlier."
"You noticed all that while shopping for food?"
"I notice everything while doing everything. It's an assassin thing." Tiffany wasn't really bragging either.
'Oh damn, we're getting shown up by Tiffany.' Inner Zoey admitted.
'Well, she was an actual assassin for who knows how long. We never really had to learn stuff like that.'
'I guess that's true. We hunted daemons, not people. Well, at first…'
Zoey chewed her wrap and thought. The Peacekeeper presence told a clear story. That guy made it to the Council. He told them what he knew. The Council mobilized. Now the city was on alert, Peacekeepers were sweeping streets and holding perimeters, and Reid was probably tucked away somewhere behind layers of security waiting for the problem to be solved for him.
"He's not going to come out on his own," Zoey said.
"Nope." Tiffany agreed, now on dessert. Some kind of pastry that leaked golden cream when she bit into it. "If I was protecting a target in a city this size, I'd put him in the Council Hall itself or a Peacekeeper station with a super heavy protection. Somewhere with barriers, surveillance, and enough bodies around him that getting close would mean fighting through dozens of magjistars."
"Can you find him?"
Tiffany thought about it while chewing.
"Not quickly. If they're smart, they've moved him at least once since he arrived. Standard protection protocol for Peacekeepers is to rotate the safehouse every few hours for the first day. After that, they settle on a primary location and fortify it." Tiffany licked cream off her fingers. "I'd need to watch their patrol patterns for at least a day. See which routes get heavier coverage, which buildings have powerful barriers. But it'll take some time."
"Then we need a shortcut."
"Like what?"
Zoey watched another squad pass. Six Peacekeepers, one of them with a higher-grade insignia on his chest. Probably a squad leader. He was talking into a cellphone while walking, his free hand gesturing at his team to spread out.
"We grab some Peacekeepers off the street. Ask them where Reid is. If the first one doesn't know, we grab another one. Keep going until someone talks." Zoey shrugged.
Tiffany burst out laughing, spitting food out of her mouth at the suggestion.
"What?" Zoey asked, a little embarrassed and upset she was being laughed at by Tiffany.
"Nothing. It's just." Tiffany put the pastry down and clasped her hands together in front of her mouth, covering the lower half of her face. Her eyes were practically sparkling. "That's the most adorable plan I've ever heard."
"Adorable?"
"You want to just... snatch Peacekeepers off the street. Like picking flowers. One by one. Until one of them knows something." Tiffany's voice was strained from holding back whatever sound was trying to escape her. "That's so cute. That's the cutest answer in the world and I want to kiss you so badly right now."
"Don't."
"I won't! I won't. I'm just saying I want to." Tiffany took a deep breath and composed herself. The sparkle didn't fully leave her eyes but she managed to put her serious face back on. Mostly.
"The plan could work," Tiffany admitted, shaking her head. "Peacekeepers are just regular magjistars in uniforms. Most of them wouldn't hold up to either of us in a fight, and if we grabbed one who was isolated from their squad, we could get information before anyone realized they were missing."
"But?" Zoey could hear the but coming.
"But it's loud. Every Peacekeeper we grab is another incident that gets reported. Another team deployed. The more noise we make, the tighter the net gets around us, and the deeper they bury Reid. If they think we're actively hunting for him by interrogating their people, they might move him out of the city entirely. Then we've lost him."
Zoey frowned.
"So what's the better option?"
Tiffany picked her pastry back up and took a bite. She chewed slowly, her eyes drifting up and to the right in the way they did when she was thinking. A considering expression on a face smeared with golden cream.
"We don't go to Reid," Tiffany said. "We make Reid come to us."
"How?"
"I'm still figuring that part out." Tiffany admitted with a sheepish grin. "But the principle is sound! If we can't find him without alerting the whole city, then we need to create a situation where hiding isn't an option for him anymore. Something that forces him out into the open."
Zoey looked back at Tiffany, who was finishing her pastry with the contentment of someone who had just eaten half the menu and was at peace with the universe.
"Alright. We figure out how to draw him out. But we do it tomorrow. I want to see more of this city first."
Tiffany's face lit up like Zoey had just proposed.
"Is this still part of the mission or are we actually sightseeing now?"
"Both."
"That counts as a date."
"It doesn't."
"It absolutely does. Two people, alone in a foreign city, eating food together, walking around looking at things? That's a date, Zoey."
"We're wanted criminals looking across a city for a target."
"A criminal date. Even more romantic!" Tiffany left enough money on the table to cover their meal twice over and bounced out of her seat. "Let's go! I saw a bridge earlier that looked really pretty and I want to take a picture with you on it."
Zoey sighed. She got up and followed Tiffany down the street, her hands back in her hoodie pockets, her eyes still watching Peacekeepers.
Tonight, she'd let Tiffany have her tour.
It was the least she could do for the girl who followed her across the country without being asked.