As we put distance between us and the nest, my senses returned to something close to normalcy. From when I got on Penny and ran to the hill to now, everything felt hazy. One problem with these altered states of mind was that they were really difficult to recognize. It takes a whole new level of mindfulness that I just didn't have. I was not proud of how I handled things but at least I avoided too much bloodshed. I only got shot by four arrows and penny trampled the hunters. Nobody but Dime's mate and clutch died. Now that the wilful bird calmed down, I wasn't overwhelmed by the torrent of emotions. I don't think I'll let my guard down that much again. I didn't recognize the bond's influence and mistook those feelings with a premonition.

We reached the gates and I allowed myself to relax. The bird on my backpack was quiet but not asleep. He was just weak from the wound. He was out of danger and would slowly recover from his arrow wounds. Just like I did from mine.

I can't believe I was shot four times. One in the leg, on each shoulder and on my ribcage. I think I fractured one rib but the arrows didn't pierce too deep. Only half of what they should. I was so high on adrenaline that I didn't even register the pain. At least I could hold myself back. Even though people died because of me, they were given plenty of opportunities to back off and live. I was still a murder virgin. Eww. Terrible term.

I hadn't directly killed anyone yet. And I really hoped it would stay that way.

Another thing I didn't notice until my mind cleared was the fact I had big holes in my clothes. The tunic was gone because when I used Decompose to push the wood away, what I really did was to move the carbon away. Guess what was also made of carbon? My clothes. Even the synthetic ones. Maybe if I pushed only cellulose I would only damage the natural fibers but that was not the case. I couldn't manipulate cellulose yet as I had no familiarity with the compound and I didn't even try.

Without saying a word, we went inside. I got off Penny, took the saddlebag with Dime's dead mate and waited for Brandon to send off his own horse. Kanu-Kasu took its reins and rode around the house to the stables. Penny just went ahead, strutting on her own horse queen world.

Dime made a weak chirp in the backpack. Brandon was looking at me but avoiding staring at the holes in my clothes. They were closing but it would take a few hours to fully repair.

"You have a living sky-lord on your back. I can't believe it," He said.

I frowned for an instant and shrugged. "Yeah. It seems I tamed it. I have no idea how. Last time I met them, this dude tried to peck my eye off."

I remembered Dime diving and pecking my eye. I felt no pain whatsoever, just the tactile sensation of something lightly touching my eye. The memory made the bird feel dismayed. Dime cooed in the backpack and I felt resignation from him. Was that the moment I bonded with him? If I recall, Penny bonded after I rescued her. Why would Dime bond when he failed to tear my eyes off? That was just a theory.

"And he missed," Brendan asked more like a statement since he could see both of my eyes were perfectly healthy. "Sky-lords don't miss. Did you dodge?"

I shook my head and held the saddlebags against my stomach. "No. He did peck my eye. But my eyes are indestructible. Nothing can hurt them."

"I can see that. You are really amazing, Sandra."

I felt my legs almost give. Did I get a sincere compliment from Brandon? It seemed so.

"Thank you," I purred. "You are also quite amazing. Anyway, do you want to come inside? I think we have some tea... or tangerine juice."

"Yes, let's. The sun is scorching. Lead on."

Hey, I found him out in the wilds, can I keep him? Yes? No? Please? Oh, whom am I speaking of? Don't be silly.

Brandon took the saddlebags from me and we entered the house. The children rushed to meet him and started to bombard him with all kinds of questions. Rimush and his two closest brothers, Pidda and Muranu, stood back and did not join the other children, maybe because they thought it was... childish? I can see Rimush at that age where he can't behave like a child anymore, like 'I can't wait to be king' and then going to the elephant graveyard. Because if there's one thing older children hate, it is to look childish.

Little they know they act childish by doing that.

It is also an interesting case study. We need more data points on how Brandon acts around children, yes? In the name of science. And he's getting full marks as he raises brave Kyia up for a spin. The girl's squeals are contagious. I lean against a wall and watch. Then professional spoilsport Arwia comes around.

"You are drooling, Sandra," She purrs next to me.

"Am not," I reply and turn away just to make sure. Was not. "Just hungry. Is there something to eat?"

"I heard guard captains are very good this time of the year," She whispers.

Oh, wait. Who are you, exactly? Theresa, did you reincarnate in this world too? I glare at Arwia and she pretends it is none of her business before slipping outside into the kitchen. I glance around and find Brandon's eyes on me.

DAMN!

I almost used Decompose to dig a hole underneath me and disappear.

"Belle-Sunu!" I exit stage left and follow Arwia into the kitchen. "We have a guest that's hungry, please get us something to eat!"

And of course, the two teenage girls were gossiping in the kitchen. I stop underneath the awning and both of them are looking at me with smug smirks.

"Good afternoon, Sandra," Belle smirks. "Where do you want lunch to be served?"

My head is spinning. These two are out for blood but I won't give in and play their game. At least she didn't ask whom I want to eat.

"Don't we have a dining table? What's the point here? And why are you staring at me like that? Stop it!"

They giggle and Arwia points at me. "Isn't she cute when she's red like that?" She whispers to Belle.

I turn on my heels and do a strategic retreat. Two on one is unfair. I rush past the living room where Brandon is currently telling the kids stories about his guard captain adventures, ignore the trio of sulking preteens pretending to act cool, and reach my bedroom. I toss the backpack I'm holding on the bed and summon my carry on.

*SCREECH*

The backpack protests. The backpack is angry at being mishandled. Inconsiderate backpack!

A brown raptorial head pops out and Dime screeches again. Oh. Poor thing. I go take him out and he pecks me. Not strongly enough to break the skin but it hurts. I hold the big bird in my hands. Dime must weight eight or nine kilograms. That's a big bird, almost as big as the Brazilian Harpy. The green feathers on his neck glisten under the sunlight, iridescent. It is so beautiful. That's a majestic creature worthy of the name sky-lord.

Dime senses my thoughts and croaks. If birds could have smug faces, I would be looking at one right there. And he seems full of life.

"How's your wound, big bird?"

I put him on my lap to avoid having those talons ruining my bedsheets. I check the patch, it is firmly attached to his skin. I can see some tiny down growing around it already. Dime follows my eyes and pecks the patch in an attempt to remove it.

"No! You let that on. You'll reopen your wounds. Can you stay here for a while? I'm hungry and I'm going downstairs to eat something. I'll bring you food and water later. Just behave and don't remove the curative patch. Dime?"

Our eyes meet and I feel the bird is in agreement. Dime opens his wings, wider than the bed and flies to perch on the dresser. He found a good purchase with his talons and settles down there. Even though his wingspan might be over two meters, he had no problem flying in the bedroom.

I check the backpack, Decompose the bloody parts and store it for the auto-restoration. The next thing to go was my damaged clothes. I Decompose the parts that had blood on them and store. Now, what should I wear? I check my available clothes and my eyes dart to the cheongsam. I imagine myself going downstairs dressed to kill... And imaginary Brandon gives me a deadpan look, asking me why I was dressed like that. I felt stupid.

I need more clothes. Both formal and casual.

I settle for a rough linen dress I bought on the market on top of some casual clothes. Before I go out I check how the bird is and scratch the eagle's crown, Dime chirps in joy and I leave him to return to the living room.

I reached in time to see the kids asking about the saddlebag slung over Brandon's shoulder.

"What is in your saddlebag, captain Brandon?" Anaya asked.

"Here? This belongs to Sandra," He heard me by the stairs and turned to face me. "And there she is. Here!"

I took the saddlebags and twelve pairs of curious eyes followed the object.

Belili jumps and takes a peek inside the bag. Then she screams. "A sky-lord!"

"It's going to eat us!" -- "Run away!"

With pure terror stamped on their faces, the children screamed and scattered, each one trying to find a hiding place. Some go upstairs, some out through the front door, and most to the kitchen.

"No, wait, it is not going to hurt you!" I try to calm them in vain.

I looked at the bloody bird inside the bag. The hunters didn't clean it. Rigor Mortis had already settled in so the bird was stiff. The shouts attracted Belle-Sunu and Arwia from the kitchen. They zeroed in the bag on my hand.

"Sandra!" Belle called for my attention. "Did you hunt a sky-lord? Weren't you... training?"

"No! I mean, it wasn't me!" I desperately tried to defend myself. "It is dead. In the bag. The bird. Won't eat anyone."

"Why are you scaring the children with a dead bird!" A scolding Arwia came behind Belle.

I glanced at Brandon and he suddenly found an interesting crack in the bricks near the roof. I almost stomped his foot. I could swear he was one tickle away from bursting into laughter.

"Say something!" I shouted at him.

"What do you want me to say," He croaked. "that you have another, live, bird in your room?"

*SCREECH*

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Three children that went upstairs, two girls and one small boy rushed back, stumbling and running to hide behind Arwia and Belle. I couldn't even see who they were, just the tiny forms rushing past. Dime screeches again and flies into the living room, showing a keen ability to fly in confined spaces. Then he banks and flies to land on my arm. That was holding the bag. The talons dug into my skin and I dropped it.

Rimush shouted from the front door, "IT'S ALIVE!"

Almost everyone ran outside, screaming for their dear lives. Brandon stood next to me, one hand on the hilt of his sword and another covering his brow and protecting his eyes from being pecked.

I could feel Dime's irritation. He wanted to peck some eyes to punish these noisy little morsels. I placed a hand on the back of his neck and stared at the big eagle.

"You are not pecking any eyes from people, do you understand me, mister Dime?" He did. Dime turned his head sideways to stare at me with one eye and he submitted to my will. "Now you stay very quiet there and don't move. What if you opened your wounds again? You could have internal bleeding! Why couldn't you just stay quiet?"

The bird sensed intruders. Noisy little intruders. At least those were the feelings I grasped through our bond.

"Look, I'm putting a hood over your head so the children can stay at ease, at least until they get used to you, okay? These noisy little humans are now our clutch. We have to protect them, do you understand? Nod your head if you do."

He nodded. I summoned a sock and placed it over the bird's head. The cotton was porous and he would be able to breathe just fine. Brandon relaxed.

"I can't believe my eyes. I mean, you are quite someone, aren't you, miss Rinaldi? You really tamed a sky-lord."

I caressed the bird's feathers. The down where I ripped the feathers was bigger. The curative patch was actually detaching from the skin, pushed by the regrowing feathers. How fast could he regenerate? I showed the small feathers to Brandon.

"Is it normal for these birds to recover this fast?"

Brandon shrugged. "I really don't know. They are magical and can control winds. Maybe they heal faster, but for a bird that was almost dying a couple hours ago, that's really fast. Sky-lords are feared and they can swoop down to capture lambs in their talons and then fly away carrying them. Some mothers use them to scare children."

Meaning I basically brought home the avian version of the boogeyman. One dead, one alive. Would it hurt if someone told me that before I crossed the gate? Or maybe they did. I was pretty out of myself this whole morning.

I try to sense Dime's wellbeing through the bond. He seems okay, I can't say if he is in pain or not but if I had to guess, I'd say not. I check the patch up close. It is barely attached to the skin in some places but the feathers would keep pushing it up. I don't think it is even making a seal over the wound anymore. I gently feel over the curative and Dime does not complain. I press with a bit more strength and he does nothing. It didn't hurt. I peel the curative carefully, avoiding to pluck any feathers. Some of them are almost entirely stuck and come off. I see the place where the arrow hit, it is tender and has a faint scar, but the wound is healed.

I think the bond allows them to benefit from my boons. That was why Penny, that was considered a lazy horse is so full of energy. She might have some wound or condition that was healed by our bond. 'Returns the body to a pristine state,' it said. Same thing with Dime. I can tell that this eagle is smarter and more wilful than Penny. His anger and hatred really rubbed on me. But now that I know what it is and witnessed the power of the bond, I can rub my own feelings on him.

'So no eating humans. We will protect these human children. They are our flock.' I sent it to him through our link.

"Chirp!" He pipes in agreement.

"Sandra?" Brandon calls me. I turn my head to face him. "Were you talking to the bird just now? You've been making faces and staring at it for some time already."

"Yes. I was telling him to protect the children," I reply. I can see in the corner of my sight that some tiny heads were spying on us. "If only there was a brave child that could come here and prove that this sky-lord is not scary..."

I was impressed that Hapiya was the one to approach. He ignored the pleas of his siblings and came next to me.

"Can I touch him?"

"Yes, you can. Use a firm hand," I lowered my arm. "Put your hand over the wings and rub down. Not too strong but firm."

He pets the eagle while I make sure Dime will remain quiet. The clumsy boy smiles and pets Dime again.

"He's not scary!"

Brandon chuckles. "Sandra tamed him. She's the only person that tamed a sky-lord that I know. You there, don't be afraid. Come and pet the sky-lord."

I smile and nod at my wingman. He picked up that I want the children to lose their fear.

"You know early today when I woke up afraid something wanted to hurt the children?" I ask out loud. I see Belle coming through the door, curious. Arwia also comes, five heads partially hidden behind her skirt. "It was Dime's feelings. A bunch of bad hunters was threatening his mate and their eggs. Unfortunately, I arrived too late for the mate and the clutch. I was barely able to save him. But now Dime has found another clutch to protect. He'll watch over us and protect this house and the children that live here from threats coming from the sky. Isn't it right, Dime?"

*SCREEECH*

Dime cries a raptorial call that made the children flinch.

"See? He's eager to hunt." Truthfully, he was. Once the concept of hunt flowed to him, Dime lowered his head and scratched the sock. "Outside. Let's go."

We go to the back courtyard through the kitchen door. Curiosity won over their fear and now the children are watching with sparkling eyes but still hidden behind the girls. I remove the sock and hold my arm up, sending Dime the image of a rat to hunt. The eagle spreads its wings and jumps off my arm. The children squeal and hide. Dime flies in a circle around the house and dives into some bushes outside the wall, causing several birds that were perching on trees around to fly the heck away from the apex predator of the skies. He rises right after with something struggling held in his talons.

After another lap around, Dime lands on the balcony and bites the head of the rat off. Blood spurts all around.

"I'm not cleaning that!" Belle-Sunu immediately protests.

"Neither will I," Arwia adds.

Maybe for a villa this big, I'm seriously understaffed.

"Shush you two. I'll clean up," I tell them. With Decompose, of course. Just remove the carbon from the blood. Easy peasy.

Everyone stopped watching as Dime went for the rat's entrails.

"Well, I'm relieved," Brandon broke the silence. "But I am hungry. Is there anything to eat? Besides rat, I mean."

I kick his shin. "I hate you! How can you joke like that!" He doesn't even flinch.

"I'm sorry, sir," Arwia goes back to her barmaid routine, "But we don't serve rat here. We do have some grilled pork with vegetables and wine though."

That's new. Since when we have... "Wine?" I ask out loud.

"You inherited Hama-Tula's wine cellar too, silly. And there are no more poisoned bottles."

"Poison--" The captain started to talk but I cut him off by pushing him indoors.

"Come, esteemed guest," I tell him with a fake haughty tone like the bad actress I am. "Let's go sit on the cushions and let the maid serve us. Arwia, Belle-Sunu, food, and wine for me and the captain."

"Yes, mistress!" The two smirking girls reply as one, their minds obviously full of dirty thoughts betrayed by the glimmer in their eyes.

If only. If only.

We sit down and I have him talk to me about the town. Of fun stories of his adventures patrolling town. He told a funny one about some drunks that were fighting and breaking everything around them because they kept missing their blows and damaging things. When he entered the fray, the drunks kept dodging him until he fell on his face. We ate the pork with vegetables and tasted some of Hama-Tula's vintage.

I should probably stop mentioning him. May Tarhun have his soul.

So, where was I? Yes, having a delightful lunch with the guard captain, drinking vintage wine from my wine cellar. Lovely. I giggled at every single bad joke he told me, even though I understood half of them. I just wanted to hear his voice.

"I'm amazed you too so many children under your care. They aren't your own," Brandon broached another subject.

He said it as if it was an afterthought, but the last phrase, 'they aren't your own' came with the meaning that I should only care about the children I birthed from my own womb. As if I should leave them to their own fate. I doubt Banunu and Rubati would be able to get away with nine children trailing behind them. The three girls I took from the slave trader? I hope I can make a difference, heal their spirits. The slaves that went out en masse didn't even think of taking the three with them. Brandon's words were very callous and they hurt me.

"Sorry? Why not?" I ask him, trying to keep my annoyance in the hold. Even though I now know those feelings were not mine, I spent the whole morning worried about the safety of 'children'. The feelings were real even though they were alien. "I have the means, the children needed shelter and someone to care for them. I am not swimming in gold but I have enough to last me for some time."

"I can understand raising the girls but not the boys. And even if you have plenty of gold, each shekel you spend on them is a shekel you didn't save for your heirs or a shekel you didn't spend on yourself," He replied. "I mean, if you have that much gold, you could be draped in silks."

I froze as I forced my brain do disregard whatever he meant when he said he could understand raising the girls. I seriously tried to understand his point of view and push my budding irritation back inside. It failed. Did he just tell me my clothes were... nevermind. I needed time to digest what he said.

Remembering the bolts I looted from the caravan, I grumbled, "I have plenty of silk," I only addressed his least-important point because if I acted on the more important one's things would sour fast. "Maybe if the captain recommends a tailor, I can go and get some fancy clothes for myself."

His reply sounded like he couldn't get a clue regarding how disturbed I felt by his comments. Not a clue.

"Oh, I have a good one. Madam Cloe. She usually only takes commissions from the high society, like Abil-Kisu's or Ensi Es-Kina's wives. But she might accept work from you."

I was about to burst and give him a piece of my mind when a wild Ananu appeared at the front door.

"milady Sandra, master smith Aran is here with a special delivery for you."

Probably the rock crusher. I stood up and invited the captain.

"I asked master Aran to make a contraption for me. Do you want to see it?"

He beamed. "Of course. What does it kill?"

I seriously couldn't tell if he was joking or being serious. "It kills rocks", I smiled and went there to greet the blacksmith.

Even though Ananu came to warn us he was here, the wagon from the smithy was already reaching the backyard. Aran was guiding the donkey and two apprentices were taking parts of the rock crusher to assemble.

"Ah, lady Rinaldi, captain Brandon! Your order is complete, milady. My apprentices will assemble it now. Where do you want it?"

I point at a spot near the back wall of the villa. "There. The gravel we are going to kill is there."

"Kill?" Aran asked.

I point at Brandon with my thumb, "He asked what my contraption kills. I told him it kills rocks."

The craftsman clapped his hands as he chuckled. "That it does! That it does!"

They assembled the crusher and I placed a pail underneath the chute. "Now, if someone strong pulls this lever up and down, the crusher will murder all the big bad rocks," I said staring at Brandon's muscular chest.

"I guess that's me!" The captain answered with high spirits.

We fed the rocks and Brandon put himself to move the lever. The teeth slowly but surely crushed the rocks into fine gravel and some dust. I check the size of the particles but large rocks couldn't fall through the gap.

"Good. Keep up the good work, captain. We are going to need a lot of gravel."

Since we now could work on our construction, I had LIpit-Ea and Atta-Li mix the slacked lime from the barrels with sand to make mortar and cover all the walls in the master bedroom. Before we shut the secret room forever, I opened it and dumped more lead over the radioactive material, doubling the thickness on the sides facing rooms and the bottom. Then I encased the whole thing in more aluminum. The light metal had a low Z value but it would still have an effect on slowing down the gamma radiation. After that, I moved the aluminum blocking the door in its place and carved the surface using the Dremel to make a rough texture with raised and lowered spots where the mortar could adhere to.

Decompose makes surfaces too smooth. So smooth the metal adheres to one another.

I told the two guards to start spreading the mortar over the walls and after cleaning up Dime's mess with the rats on the balcony, I went check on the third project. Soap. The tallow was almost entirely clean of impurities. Several cycles of boiling and cooling already done in the past days.

And to make soap, I needed lye. I had some metallic sodium left and that would be enough for today but I needed to prepare a way to make more soap later. Dissolving the sodium in water was troublesome as the reaction was too violent. I took a beaker from my lab and placed a small piece of sodium inside. Then, with an eyedropper, I added some drops of saltwater, one by one. This way some sodium hydroxide would already be present and facilitate the reaction. Using pure water would be dangerous. Once I had a saturated lye solution with some hydrochloric acid mixed in, I started to add a weak salt solution slowly, using a glass rod. The extremely caustic solution reached a boiling point and I stopped. I couldn't have droplets spilling over or causing the hydrogen that was escaping burn.

I drained the solution into a flask with pure water. It still warmed up the water but didn't spill, explode or anything else.

It would be easier if I could Decompose two substances at once. I could push the sodium to one side and the chlorine to another, splitting a salt solution into an acidic one and a basic one. It didn't felt like it was impossible but not within my reach right now.

I repeated the procedure several times, filling my steel bucket with the lye solution. We heated up the tallow to soften it and added olive oil. I stirred it vigorously. I didn't have any measuring tool but I would sacrifice a few PH strips and check if they could be restored like the radiation tag. The first strip went to test the PH of the lye. Twelve-something. Pretty concentrated considering there's some chorine in there. I ripped the tip and watched as the discarded piece disappeared. Would the strip regrow? I stored it alone and vowed to check tomorrow.

The problem with the soap they make was that one, it had ashes, two, it wasn't fully saponified, three, it had a lot of potash, four, the fat wasn't thoroughly clean, five, they didn't put any additives. Points one, two, three, and four would be addressed by making sure the materials used were the purest possible.

I reached for the purified tallow and Decomposed the sugars. Not the fatty acids, just starch. It became water and carbon that I gathered into a black graphite pellet and tossed out. I tried to move the proteins away but they were too complex. Well, at least it is as clean as I can. I next set myself up to be burned. Chemically burned, if I failed my stunt. I approached the lye solution and expelled the chlorine gas. I was millimeters from the lye, pulling the chlorine away. Some of it escaped as I felt its particular resonance pattern float up in the air. I stopped and held my breath for a few more seconds. Then I tried to place my hands on the sides of the hot flask and push the chlorine up.

My theory that Decompose was actually Chemical-kinesis with a constraint on compound complexity was probably right. I could manipulate matter on an atomic level if the complexity remained the same or lower. I could extract water from dry plant matter but not create sugar out of water and carbon dioxide. I could either move atoms or speed up natural processes. I could compost plant matter or turn wood into peat. The second part would be very important in my soap-making endeavor.

I started to mix the lye into the mixed oils and stir. I never made soap before but I knew the process. Keep the fat at about water boiling temperature, add the lye, stir well. It should thicken as the soap and glycerin formed. From the reference book I read, the PH should be around nine to ten. more than that I should add more oil, less than that I needed more lye. That meant more measurement strips used. After I finished adding all the lye I needed - I had to go make more - I let Kali-Maru take over stirring the pot with orders to call me if it got too thick.

I went to the lab, formerly slave pens, to check on what Sere-Naha and Tullius were doing. Several pieces of bamboo cut in half along the length were resting on trestles, bound by strips of bamboo fiber. The diaphragm separating the nodes was kept mostly intact. We would pour the soap in the bamboo halves to make half-circle soap bars.

"Is everything alright here? The soap is almost coming," I told them.

They nodded. We chatted for a while then I heard Kali-Maru calling me and went back. The soap was now a thick sludge. I took one of the plastic bags and sifted through the clay flasks with essential oils. I settled for none after thinking. I needed to check the raw power of the soap. Adding oils was just one more variable in the equation. So I called Shamash and Lah-Ueri to carry the cauldron to the lab. We poured the soap on the bamboo halves with a ladle and that was it. That cauldron was now the exclusive soap cauldron. Tomorrow morning before leaving for training I'd try to use Decompose to accelerate the saponification on a single stem cavity of the bamboo molds.

I'd made soap and didn't have to get weird kiss scars or kill Meat Loaf. That's a win in my book.

I congratulated them on a job well done and then rewarded them with more work. I gave Kali-Maru and Sere-Naha the bags with the food cartons, glass bottles and plastic bottles to clean. The job they did with the shoes and underwear was good. I was still ashamed of dealing with the condoms though. I had half the mind to just burn them but that was a very good source of rubber. And I had no idea how to obtain rubber. So no, the condoms would not be just destroyed and no, I wasn't ready to address that.

The day was almost over. Brandon gave up on breaking rocks while we were pouring soap and he was telling the kids tall tales of his exploits. The boys were listening, wondering, and dreaming about having their own manly adventures, the girls were listening and wondering about having adventures with a manly dreaming of their own. Even Arwia and Belle were eating the captain with their eyes. I felt jealous but his comment during lunch actually made me rethink some things. And there was no way one of them would make a move on him. Right? Right?

Dime flew overhead with another large rat struggling for its life. The balcony was about to become bloody bloody again. An extra bloody for bloody emphasis. At least the rodent infestation would no longer be a problem. It wasn't before, I hadn't seen any rats before today but besides Dime's morsels, I doubted I'd see any. If I were a rat I'd be packing for New York right now. To either start a new life or call in help from the Society. But please take it easy on me, I am not in the business of bullying little girls.

I rushed indoors to avoid any blood sprays and even had time to wink at Brandon as he craned his neck to watch me prance through the inner courtyard. I was feeling really good at seeing so many things wrapping up around the house. I quickly reached the master bedroom and the smell of drying cement hit my nose.

It felt like a new home.

"How are things here?" I asked the two guards tasked with plastering the walls,

"Everything seems fine. The wall feels a bit rough though," Lipit-Ea answered.

"Well, it is not smooth, but there's a trick to it," I replied. "Get a brush, and sprinkle some water on the plaster, then smooth it with the straight side of the trowel. It doesn't matter if you don't get it smoothy smooth because we are going to put spackling over the plaster later. Did it adhere to the metal?"

"What is in there that needs a sheet of metal to hide?" Atta-Li asked.

I sighed. As the saying went, two people can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. "Honestly? Death. There's a rock inside that gives a death aura. It should be one of the former owner's prized treasures because it is quite beautiful, but it would kill a person in two days if you were locked next to it. I sealed its evil for now and I hope you two don't tell about it to anyone. I won't punish or threaten you though."

They stared at me with disbelief. I summoned my handbag and let they take a good look at all the molten gold I was keeping inside. "Look inside. I don't need a secret room to hide my treasures, I can carry them with me. Besides, what is in there is more powerful than the Death Snow."

My last point was the winner. They took a few steps away from the secret room. "It is perfectly safe the way it is now. I'll be sleeping here after all."

Dusk was almost upon us. I gave up on smoothing the plaster and gave the order to serve dinner. I spent part of the night working on the god-satellite photos, fixing a few discrepancies on the display and following the roads to connect towns. I hadn't found Es-Kina yet, but it was a matter of time.