Jin'en waited in the training ground until Porsette finished standing for those three minutes, then returned the two wooden sticks to the basket of odds and ends. As he headed toward the stairs, Broken Rainbow was waiting for him against the wall at the corridor corner.
She had probably been standing there a while, her bare feet on the wooden floor, winding a braided cord around her fingers.
"Didn't you go back for a nap?"
"Couldn't sleep." Broken Rainbow wound the cord back around her wrist and fell into step beside him. "Mother wants you in her study."
Jin'en glanced toward the end of the corridor. The door to Inanna's study was half-open, warm light spilling out.
Porsette followed a few paces behind, her cloak's hood down and her braid hanging over her chest.
She walked slowly, still wearing those loose ankle socks, their soles coated in iron-sand dust.
"Go back to your room first," Jin'en told Porsette.
Porsette paused, her golden eyes moving between him and Broken Rainbow. She nodded, then turned toward the third floor.
Broken Rainbow watched her disappear around the stairwell corner, then looked back, the corner of her mouth lifting.
"Why'd you send her away?"
"Mother asked for me."
"What are you afraid she'll hear?" Broken Rainbow tilted her head as she walked beside him toward the study.
The study door stood ajar. Jin'en knocked twice on the frame, and Inanna's voice came from inside.
"Come in."
Broken Rainbow didn't follow him in. She leaned against the opposite corridor wall, both hands in her cargo pants pockets, and tilted her head as she watched Jin'en push the door open and enter.
Inanna sat in an armchair, her long silver-white hair loosely tied back. A folded sheet of paper and a bulging, unsealed kraft-paper envelope lay on the low table before her.
"You learned about one limitation of Porsette's teleportation last night." Inanna went straight to the point. "She can only teleport to places she's 'seen.' She can't teleport somewhere she hasn't been."
Jin'en stood across the low table without sitting down.
"Right now, she can only teleport within the mansion, the auction house, Victor's building, and a few points on the way to the Victor Building. That's far too few." Inanna tapped the armrest once. "If she's going to go on missions independently in the future, the more destinations she has in her head, the better."
Jin'en said, "You want me to take her out."
"Yes." Inanna picked up the kraft-paper envelope from the low table and held it out. "Take her around for a few days, anywhere within Hethereau City. No restrictions on your route.
Have her memorize coordinates. The way she memorizes them is by 'seeing' them.
Once she's seen a location, her ability automatically records it-you take her there, she looks, and the coordinates are stored."
Jin'en took the envelope and weighed it in his hand.
It was fairly heavy. There was probably Fons inside.
"How much?"
"Look for yourself."
Jin'en opened the flap and glanced inside. A stack of banknotes, not large denominations, but plenty of them.
"Bring back whatever you don't spend." Inanna leaned back in her chair. "No need to account for what you do spend."
Jin'en folded the envelope and tucked it into his trench coat's inner pocket, beside the fishing rod.
"Anything else?"
"Yes." Inanna's fingers paused on the armrest. "While you're out today, have a look around for anything unusual."
"What kind of unusual?"
"Hard to say." Inanna pulled a sheet of paper from the low table's drawer. A few handwritten lines covered it. "Near Halfwidth Street in the Bridge District, people have reported 'spatial anomalies' three times over the last few days.
There hasn't been much talk, but they keep occurring-the Administration Bureau sent someone to look once, but they found nothing. Go take a look and see if it's related to spatial abilities."
Jin'en took the paper and glanced at it.
The listed times clustered between six and eight in the evening, with all the locations on Halfwidth Street or in the nearby alleys.
"What if I find something?"
"We'll discuss it then." Inanna waved a hand, signaling that he could leave.
As Jin'en reached the door, Inanna's voice came from behind him.
"Jin'en."
He paused.
"Porsette is eight." Inanna's tone remained level. "You can take her out, but keep an eye on her. Being able to escape doesn't mean she can do it well."
Jin'en left the study without turning around.
Broken Rainbow was still leaning against the opposite wall, rubbing her toes back and forth over the floor.
"What did Mother give you?"
"Fons." Jin'en headed toward his room, and Broken Rainbow followed.
"She wants you to take Little Red Riding Hood out?"
Jin'en turned his head to look at her.
"How did you know?"
"When you were helping her practice standing in the training ground yesterday, I was thinking you'd have to take her out if you wanted to help her build up teleportation coordinates." Broken Rainbow followed half a step behind his right side, her footsteps light. "Mother wouldn't have missed that."
The two reached Jin'en's room.
Jin'en pushed the door open and went in. Broken Rainbow followed, sat straight down on the edge of the bed, and untied the braided cord from her wrist to wind it around her fingers.
Jin'en left her alone, pulled a trench coat from the wardrobe and changed into it, tucked the envelope into its inner pocket, and checked the fishing rod.
"I can't come with you today." Broken Rainbow looped the cord three times, then unwound it.
"But when you get back," Broken Rainbow put the cord in her pocket, rose from the bed, and walked up to Jin'en, looking up at him, "you have to promise me something."
Jin'en looked down at her.
Broken Rainbow's expression was different from her usual grinning look. Though the corners of her mouth were raised, the light in her green eyes was quiet.
"What?"
"Tell me whether you promise first."
"How will I know if I can do it unless you tell me?"
Broken Rainbow tilted her head and thought for two seconds.
"You can." Her tone was certain. "It won't be hard for you. But I want you to promise me."
Jin'en looked at her for a few seconds.
"All right."
Broken Rainbow's smile widened a little, revealing her pointed canine teeth.
"You said it. As long as you can do it."
She turned to leave, then glanced back at him when she reached the door.
"Little Red Riding Hood's waiting for you in the training ground," she said. "She didn't go back to her room. She went straight down again."
When Jin'en reached the training ground, Porsette was crouching beside the chain circle, the two short wooden sticks resting across her knees. She propped her chin on one hand, her golden eyes fixed on something on the ground.
The hem of her cloak trailed on the floor, coated in iron sand.
"Get up."
Porsette looked up at him, then stood and brushed the dust off her knees.
"Where are we going?"
"Hethereau." Jin'en was already heading toward the stairs. "You're coming out with me to store coordinates."
Porsette hurried two steps to catch up and looked up at him.
"Mother said so?"
"Mm."
"Just the two of us?"
"Mm."
Porsette fell silent for a beat, then quickened her pace to walk beside him, her braid swaying twice with her steps.
They left the mansion through the concealed door in the side corridor.
Jin'en fetched a car from the garage, an old black sedan with a thin layer of dust on its body. He didn't know who had parked it there.
He opened the driver's door and got in. Porsette climbed in from the other side, fastened her seat belt, and gathered her cloak's hem beside her legs.
Jin'en started the engine and turned onto the gravel road down the mountain.
"Bridge District first," he said.
Porsette turned to look at him.
"Why the Bridge District?"
"There's somewhere I need to check on the way." Jin'en didn't elaborate, his gaze on the road ahead.
The drive from halfway up the mountain into the city took about twenty minutes.
It was a weekend morning, with few cars on the road. Hethereau's sky was gray, the sun absent and the clouds hanging low.
The streetscape changed noticeably as they drove from Miguel District into the Bridge District.
Tall buildings gave way to low ones, glass curtain walls to peeling exteriors. Neon signs hung crookedly from roadside walls, half their tubes no longer working.
The Bridge District looked even more rundown by day than at night, like someone without makeup.
Jin'en parked at the entrance to the alley on Halfwidth Street and cut the engine.
"Get out."
Porsette opened her door and followed him out.
Halfwidth Street wasn't particularly crowded in the morning. The morning market had just dispersed, leaving vegetable leaves, trampled cardboard boxes, and several puddles of unidentifiable grime on the ground.
The pancake stall at the alley entrance was packing up. Grease still covered the griddle, and the owner crouched beside it, scrubbing a pot.
Jin'en walked a few steps into the alley and stopped before an abandoned apartment building.
It was that one.
The second-floor window was broken and patched with newspaper, which was even more tattered than last time.
The iron door at the stairwell had rusted down to half a panel, swaying on its hinges.
Porsette stood beside him, looking up at the building.
"What is this place?"
Jin'en didn't answer.
His Spatial Perception spread through his consciousness and swept over the building-the spatial structure was essentially normal, with no distortions or traces of lingering rifts.
He glanced down at the paper Inanna had given him. The reported "spatial anomalies" were located roughly between the middle and the far end of the alley.
"Wait here," Jin'en told Porsette.
"Where are you going?"
"The end of the alley."
Porsette asked nothing more. She settled against the wall at the alley entrance, both hands in her pockets.
Jin'en walked farther in.
The alley on Halfwidth Street was narrow, the buildings crowded together on either side, almost touching above the third floor.
The sky overhead was squeezed into a thin line, gray clouds showing through the gap.
He paused when he reached the end of the alley.
His Spatial Perception spread again, more carefully this time-the spatial structure of the ground, the seams in the walls, the gaps between the floors overhead. Nothing unusual.
But a faint gray mark lay on the ground by the wall, as though something had been dragged across it, leaving a curved scrape that extended from the middle of the alley to the corner.
Jin'en crouched to examine it. The scrape was fresh; the brick dust along its edges hadn't yet scattered in the wind.
He stood, memorized the coordinates of the scrape, and headed back.
When he returned to the alley entrance, Porsette was still leaning against the wall, the animal ears on her cloak's hood drooping, her golden eyes turned toward his approach.
"Find anything?"
"No," Jin'en said. "But I noted something. I'll look again next time."
He glanced at Porsette.
"This building. Have you memorized it?"
Porsette turned to glance at the abandoned apartment building, her golden eyes pale in the gray light.
"Yes."
Jin'en turned toward the alley entrance. Porsette followed him, speaking after a few steps.
"You've been here before."
"Mm."
"When?"
"When I was very little." Jin'en opened the driver's door. "I lived here for a few days."
Porsette got in from the other side, fastened her seat belt, then turned to look at him.
"Alone?"
Jin'en started the car and turned the wheel, pulling onto the main road.
The car headed east along the Bridge District's main street.
Jin'en stopped at several locations and had Porsette get out and walk around-the entrance to the Bridge District library, a corner of the secondhand market, and the front of a closed general store.
Each time Porsette got out and walked around, she did nothing but stand there and look. Once she was done, she got back in.
"What does storing coordinates feel like?" Jin'en asked her in the car.
"Like there's another photo in my head." Sitting in the passenger seat, Porsette touched her temple. "Every one stays fixed. Any place I've seen, I can 'return' to the location in that photo."
"Is there a time in the photo?"
Porsette thought for a moment.
"No. Just a location."
Jin'en made a note of that.
Porsette's coordinates recorded only spatial locations, not time.
When she teleported somewhere, she couldn't see its current state. She would only know after arriving.
"Next time you're scouting a location," Jin'en said, "don't just remember where it is. Remember 'when' that location is empty, too."
Porsette nodded and looked out the window without speaking.
The car passed along the Bridge District's main street and turned toward Miguel District.
Jin'en stopped the car at several spots in Miguel District-the plaza beneath Uptown Tower, the shore of Water Caltrop Lake, and the entrance to the Notik Bridge shopping district.
Each time, Porsette got out, walked around, and came back once she had finished looking. She didn't say much, but Jin'en noticed that whenever she arrived somewhere new, the first thing she did after getting out was scan her surroundings, then pick an angle and stand there looking for a few seconds, as though confirming something.
"What are you looking at?" Jin'en asked.
"Retreat routes." Porsette opened the car door and got back in. "If I run into trouble after teleporting here, I need to know which way to run."
Jin'en said nothing and started the car.
They drove a little farther, passing the turn toward Unheard-of Bay.
Jin'en hadn't planned to stop, but Porsette turned her head to look at the road sign outside the window, lingering on it a moment longer.
"Never been there," she said.
Jin'en found a parking space at the entrance to Unheard-of Bay and stopped the car.
They both got out and walked a short way along the seaside promenade.
The air at Unheard-of Bay was considerably cleaner than in Miguel District. The sea breeze swept in from the east, making Porsette's braid sway.
Jin'en stood beside the promenade railing, looking out at the sea. Porsette stood two steps away beside him, also looking at the sea.
Neither of them spoke.