The urgent flow of magic inside Raz is making him grow cold against her chest.

<I know. I know.>

Westcrown is so unlike the Potemkin village that the Third Directorate put together for training agents. The buildings are different, the people, the graffiti- the papers ground into the mud. The lantern bobs lazily beside her, casting flickering shadows across worn facades and darkened alleys, and groups of men who suddenly find urgent business elsewhere- and she finds herself grateful for its presence.

When the inn looms ahead, a weathered building of stone and timber that has clearly seen better days, her hand instinctively moves to her purse, fingers brushing against the cool surface of her papers. The documents bear all the right seals- she's the Duly Elected Delegate of Acisazi and the Dismal Nitch- but beneath the layers of carefully crafted falsehoods lies a truth known only to her and her superiors in the Algothullu Dictat. 

A newly painted sign squeaks in the night breeze. She straightens her posture, and steels her nerves. The place had been called something else under the previous regime, but she can't remember what.