Posted 04 March 2022

ELEVEN

 The lighting in the Zaha' Café was very purple. It gave Sae the strange sensation that she was dreaming. This might've had to do with the rosy hue of her lenses, turning all into a sleepy violet.

The backs of the café seats were strung with multi-coloured lights. The drae in nearby tables chatted over low music. The open door let in the sound of pedestrians and the soft flap of street torches. Aydin was ordering something at the decorated counter. It was an unusual setting.

"The results haven't changed from yesterday," Kenneth continued, shoving handful after handful of sweets into his mouth. He was also analysing the images projecting from his teleframe. They were displayed on the surface of their table, covering every inch of the round space as if it had been designed that way. Sae drained her cup of fogberry juice as she inspected their search results. Most of it was written in Al Lugha Shamsi, the local language, so Kenneth kept telling the canvas to translate. "M, T and S are the initials of a school in El Siraaj. And then the second most referenced thing is a fast-food menu."

"Neither are very helpful," Sae commented, watching the constant, multi-coloured images of a building with a flagged roof, and an assortment of food labelled 'The Big TMS'. "But these cannot be the only options," she said. "I—"

"Hi!" The images were distorted when a backpack of black reptilian scales dropped onto the table, rattling both Sae's drink and Kenneth's jar of sweets. Panting, Topaz Blackburn tucked in her vibrant marmalade wings and plopped herself onto the chair across from theirs. "So, so, so sorry I'm late."

The door of the Teller bore a small carving of a face. A simple outline without eyes or a nose. The building was on a quiet street, so lonesome that the roadside torches were not lit. There were no screens or posters here, and so the only light twinkled from the drifting mist that swept the street. The Teller’s den was squished among dozens of dark wood buildings, their roofs glittering with a black goo and slime. The alleys here were clouded with mist, and the only reason Sae knew they were occupied were due to the sounds transmitting through the clouds: some low moans, some ragged breathing, sometimes faint weeping.

“Hm, I’ve never really been to this part of town before,” admitted Topaz, as she looked around the slanted street.

“You’re not missing out on much,” Aydin said, and then knocked on the Teller’s door.

Mustafa squinted at the ink smudge on his page, trying to remember what the word had been beneath. The page was part of a chapter on new trends among dark magic wielders in Nurwadi, so it was unlikely the smudged word had been ‘peanut butter’. Unfortunately, Mustafa thought it resembled nothing else. But why in the world would he have written about peanut butter in a sentence describing the increase in sacrificial practices on the streets? He asked himself this and came up with no answer—

“If it’s not bright yellow by the time you’re done then you’re doing it wrong—that’s the fact of the matter!” Hadid was almost yelling into his teleframe, sitting at his desk on the other side of the room. If sitting was the word. He was lounging all too casually, his bare feet perched atop his desk as he leaned back in his new transparent swivel chair. “I can’t tell you any different because I’m a drae of simple truth, my friend.”

Mustafa circled the smudge with his pen and tried to continue reading, hoping it would come back to him at some point during his notes.

“No, there’s a slight difference between the two if only you look and listen closely—”

“Hadid, must you yell?” Mustafa demanded. 

If his colleague heard him, he didn't let it show.