"No. But I know these four. And yes."

"We need to find them and give them to the imperial police, for a first offense they'll only be fined and made to take a class. Then I need the list. And it's possible the kids will be sold, what do you want to do about that?"

"Are they going to be charged just with what their kids did, or something else specifically for failing to control them-"

"It could still go either way. They aren't coming forward to claim them, though, so I think it'll be the second thing, they'll be charged with freeing children too young to follow the law."

"I don't think they even realize it's happened yet. It's only been a few hours. And it's customary to let your kids do their own thing during the middle of the day."

"Then maybe what you want is to get them to show up and explain that and take responsibility for everything. That'll at least make it less likely the kids get sold."

"If they get sold we'll have someone outbid everyone else. A few of us decided to go around to all the major cities and buy up orphans when they come up for auction and it looks like they'll die without us, this is the same. Convincing the parents that they've actually done something wrong will be - ugh. I know I assured you about the people we were bringing in, but Mr. Griffings is going to be intolerable about this..."

"Why will Mr. Griffings be intolerable?"

"I think he will in fact decide that his kid deserves a good scare for getting himself into trouble and not come forward for a while, while simultaneously complaining that nobody was keeping an eye on him. The man is a hypocrite. I'm trying to think of a way to make him face up to it - though ideally without getting him charged with freeing a minor." She rubs her temples.

"It would probably be a bad idea for me to go try to talk sense into him myself. If he doesn't come forward that'll be bad but mostly for him and his kid."

"Yes, and that's what I'll threaten- Oh, I see how to fix this. I can probably have or at least threaten to have his sister claim young Xander Griffings, he'll hate that and do it himself to preempt it."

"Good, I'm glad you've got something that might work. That seems pretty urgent, but I don't want to send you away and then have you have to come running back here..."

"They're not going to sell or execute the kids the very same day, are they? Surely sometimes it takes a few days to find a negligent owner? -I'm wondering if just pretend nobody knows them, let the auction proceed, buy the kids, and then the parents get off scot free - but that seems antagonistic and rather cruel to them, perhaps not."

"They might start trying to find the kids' biological relatives if no one will claim them. Might be able to. It's... not illegal to be this uncooperative but I really don't think you have the goodwill to burn with the imperial government right now."

"Nobody's going to want to let imperial police into their places, or let them examine them." Sigh. "Well. We were supposed to know what we were signing up for, but this is - depressing."

"If they've been in public without any illusions they can be examined. I don't exactly understand how it works but there's a special part of your inheritance that you can only get from your mother, they can compare that and find mothers or grandmothers or siblings... I don't want to make them do it that way but they can."

"The all-seeing eye of the Law." Sigh. "And trying to secede would be a disaster, of course. I should probably go drag everyone to the imperial office."

"Please. That will help a lot."

She heads back to do that. It'll take a little bit of blackmail and a lot of fast-talking.

(The police officers who tried to find the one kid's dad will still be stuck outside his apartment building unless they try to break in or go somewhere else. People are staying inside to avoid them, staring from windows suspiciously.)

They look around the building for any visible backdoors and pause to have someone try to pastwatch some of the construction.

There's a door into a sort of courtyard area they could maybe fly into?

What are they looking for in the building's construction?

They send for backup to come keep an eye on the courtyard, at least.

They're looking for the construction of any exterior doors that aren't visible anymore. Or any sign of a tunnel out. If it comes down to arresting someone inside they're going to watch all the exits they can.

There's a couple of temporary doors that were bricked over. The windows are mostly glass-paned and could be opened. There are tunnels - sewer tunnels! A big maintenance conduit holding steam pipes and electrical wires and so on! Apparently they designed them pretty big, for some reason. Definitely big enough to walk through. Both structures are entirely scryable, though, so hopefully there's no need to go down there unless someone tries to escape through them.

A woman gets tired of waiting for the police officers to leave and 'sneaks out' through the courtyard, into another building, and out that building's front door.

"Excuse me, do you know where we can find Joseph Lawrence?" one of them asks her. In English, they've had a couple people learning English for the past few months.

"Look I just want to go get food and you people are lurking outside my building all day, can I go get food or am I going to get arrested for not answering?"