"At what?"

"Just... I'm happy right now, and it's - hard to say that, well, this might not last, maybe I'm doing something stupid that'll make me unhappy later. You're good at doing that and saying 'just because this is fun doesn't mean it's not stupid.' Then you can look out for me, and I can drag you into fun stuff anyways."

"Thanks. I think."

She laughs, then pauses. "Oh, hey, that guy looks butcher-y."

There is, indeed, a tall, pale, lanky man with short, messy hair and a thick white apron - clean - walking to the truck.

"He does. And he's even going to our suspicious truck."

"Following the truck might be hard on foot, though..." She sounds like she's pouting.

"Oh, listen to you, Miss I-Don't-Get-Tired."

She laughs. "I can only run so fast, though! And sneaking's slower."

"Well, noticing the lock on his back door is broken and the door will swing open might slow him down a bit."

She snickers. "What do we wanna do now we've got him in our sights, then?"

"I want to check the house he came from. We should split up, maybe."

"I can try following the van, since I won't get tired."

"If you get in trouble, just blow something up."

She laughs. "Will do!"

El sets off to investigate the house the butcher man came from. Casual-like.

It's a house. Lights on inside. Someone moving around, sounds like. Wood scraping on wood.

Un-curtained windows, perhaps?

Not on the ground floor from the front, but the upper two floors have curtains pulled back, and she might be able to circle around to the back through that alley over there.

Seems worth a try. She heads that way.

Alleyway: is narrow and kind of gross.

The back yard is small, fenced in, with a narrow alley between the backyards of each set of row houses, but she can peer through a gap in the boards to see back windows with their curtains drawn. There's no one visible from here.

Is there a gate or is the fence climbable?

There's a gate, which will probably be easier than the fence.

Gate it is. And the latch will of course prove manipulable.

It does, even without alchemy.

Backyard: small, tiled, weeds scraggling up through the grout, a neighbor's tree's roots cracking a line of tiles. The back door looks unlocked.

Is it actually unlocked?