It would not come as a surprise, Sena having been proven right.

This time, Esta arrived in the morning. It so happened that by the time she entered the Crown, I was already there — not intentionally, just as much as I was trying to delay the conversation I needed to have with Vorn concerning our encounter on the canal bench. But since I had decided to put it off, it was inevitable that I would end up here.

Her glance over the room went the same way it did the previous day — methodical and deliberate, her eyes moving from one face to another. When she reached me, she stopped for only a fraction of a second. Just enough time to register the familiarity of the face she was seeing again, due to her photographic memory.

I did not avert my gaze.

She approached me.

"I saw you yesterday," she stated matter-of-factly. Not an accusation. Just information provided as part of establishing whether she was dealing with someone useful or not.

"I’m here every other night, mostly," I replied. "Kai."

She looked at me again, sizing up her audience before speaking. "Esta."

The UI pinged right away at the sound of her voice, the relationship percentage moving up from zero to four, the first contact made, and the wiki at eighty-seven percent complete.

"You’re looking for someone," I stated.

"Does it show that much?"

"You scanned every single face when you came through the door last night, and you’ve done it the previous night as well."

She pulled out the chair next to mine and sat down despite the lack of an invitation, which made me think of something else about her. Not rude — just a person who took charge and didn’t second guess herself before acting. She placed both hands on the table in front of her — clean hands — a definite contrast with Sable’s. "It’s my brother. He should be in Ashveil."

"Why ’should’? Did he not go there?"

"His mother claims he is. His mother received a letter from him saying that eight weeks ago."

"But?"

I cross-referenced the timeline with what I knew. Vorn had already been in Ashveil doing flags for more than eight weeks by the time that had started — that whole thing about taking Daren down was already established by the time I got there. Those letters ending four weeks prior seemed to coincide with that post-trigger phase, which was about right — someone figuring out what he wants out of life isn’t exactly likely to be penning frequent dispatches to his mother or whoever.

"What’s his name?" I asked, establishing rather than not knowing.

"Vorn."

Sena entered the room, placed the cup in front of Esta without being invited, and exited. Esta regarded the cup, then me, recalibrating.

"Does she do that for everyone?" Esta asked.

"No."

Esta picked up her cup. Took a sip. Made a decision. "You know him."

Not a question. She’d picked up on Sena’s reading of me, noted my lack of reaction to the name, and deduced accordingly within about four seconds. Straightforward and observation-based, much like the wiki was designed to create. The wiki understood what it was saying.

"I know him," I said. "Not well. He and I have spoken."

"Where is he?"

"I’m unaware of his current whereabouts." Completely accurate, as far as the UI was concerned. Self-determining equaled self-determining. "He’s in the city. And as far as I know, he’s fine."

Her eyes fixed on mine with all the intent and intensity of a calibration test being run, trying to determine how much faith to place in my words. And what basis I was going on.

"But something happened."

I weighed how best to respond to that query. The truth was more complex than flags and corruption and stopping points and a conversation on a canal bench that had stopped him in his tracks.

"He had an experience," I told her. "And it resulted in him recognizing there were certain changes that needed to be made. And he’s figuring out what those are."

Esta fell silent for a moment. She hadn’t analyzed; she had already done that. She was trying to decide if my response was enough.

"That’s not nothing," she stated.

"No," I agreed. "That’s not nothing."

The wiki reached ninety-one percent completion.

ESTA — UPDATED ENTRY

Personality profile: CONFIRMED

— Direct; does not seek validation for decisions once made and implemented.

— Observational, with quick assessment of situation and calibration even with minimal data.

— Protective stance towards Vorn; knows he is edgy but still protects him.

— Practical; doesn’t act on emotions but carries worry as a responsibility.

— Travel skills confirmed; found his way around new city, created proper methodology and assessed contact within four minutes of real conversation.

Corruption meter: 2/100 — first encounter accounted for

Relationship / Kai: 11

Note: Movement of corruption meter accounted for through proximity and genuine engagement — no mechanics involved

Two.

I noted it just like everything else — documented, filed and forgotten. The number two represented the acknowledgment of the system that there actually had been a conversation. This was not a warning sign, not an opportunity to approach, but merely something for the system to record.

Nevertheless I noticed it all the same.

"He’s not available at the moment," I said, "but I will send him a message saying you were looking for him."

Esta looked at me questioningly. "Why would you do that?"

Absolutely. I decided the best approach would be honesty, meaning that the aftermath of Vorn was complex and evolving, and his sister’s appearance added a variable whose parameters I wasn’t sure of just yet; preempting things seemed like the smarter course of action.

But there was always the second option: Esta made her way wherever necessary to reach Ashveil due to her brother no longer writing to her and exceeding whatever her personal threshold of worry was, and that warranted a proper response regardless of everything else.

"Because you’ve come this far," I explained. "He needs to know you’re here."

She considered that. Another calibration process of some kind, weighing her options once more. "You aren’t who I expected to see when coming to this inn in the middle of the night," she stated eventually.

"And who did you expect?"

"Somebody trying to sell me stuff."

"It’s early in the morning."

Her lips twitched. More of a hint of an expression than anything else, one that appeared without forethought because she wasn’t sure if it would have been appropriate, if it was worth smiling at.

My relationship meter was now on seventeen.

My corruption meter remained stuck at two.

I sipped on my cup while she sipped on hers. Outside, the market was coming alive, vendors and their carts preparing to sell their goods, turning the gears of the city machine.

"How’s he holding up?" she inquired. She hadn’t started with this question, which had been merely a matter of logistics — where is he. But this was what lay beneath it.

I thought about Vorn at Sera’s stall, shrinking in on himself. Vorn leaving the market right after answering her. About Vorn existing in a state of self-determination the game had yet to figure out, let alone I, which put me above most of the people I’ve met in Ashveil.

"He’ll be okay. He’ll figure things out, eventually."

Esta nodded. Just one small gesture, the kind that came when somebody had been provided with information they could act on and file accordingly.

She drained her cup and stood up. "I’ll be waiting for you at the Wren’s Rest. Two streets north from here." There was something direct about her, like she’d given the same sort of location detail that you might pass someone a tool with. Here, useful. If the information makes it to him.

"Will do," I said.

She glanced back at me once more, that look that meant she was making some kind of calculation. Come to some kind of conclusion. Then she left.

The UI cycled through its readouts as she walked away.

ESTA — STATUS

Relationship / Kai: 19

Corruption meter: 3/100 — rising via organic interactions

Mood: Functional / Resolving

Wiki status: 91% — GENERATING

Note: True contact made — honest approach proven effective / no mechanics engaged / corruption meter rising via organic interactions only

Three.

As I sat there with my empty cup, I realized that there was one more conversation I would be having at the bench by the canal, one that I had been putting off until Esta came along and changed everything. He had to understand that his sister was in the city, and that was both the important part and the practical part all wrapped up in one.

Sena took the cup from me.

"Great inn, Wren’s Rest," she said.

I wasn’t even curious enough to wonder where she learned that from Esta.

I walked out of the Crown and sought out Vorn.