"Everyone stop. Help is coming. Stay here - no, come out to the street. Police gather here! Doctors gather here!" In the distance, the tengu's other bodies shout too. "Police gather darkward of me, at the tanner's shop! Doctors gather darkward of me, at the tanner's shop!"

The body here reaches a wing to Nico. "The door is this way."

The street is already filling with concerned bystanders. At the tengu's direction, they clear a space by the door. Catfolk get boosts up to put flames along the top of the walls of the shop and the houses across the street. Buckets of water collect in a line on the side of the street. An equartier jogs up thunderously with an armful of frogolds; a furry red-brown person with a huge fluffy tail runs behind.

"Boil that water!"

    "There's some kind of acid on the floor, we need to clean them now."

Frogolds gulp and splash.

    "She needs blood."

"That's why we're here."

        "Hold still, Tomas! You're badly hurt."

"Is the water boiling yet?"

    "How did they both get lime burns like this?"

        "Not our problem, just keep washing."

"The Magistrate will be here in a minute, clear out if you're not currently doing something helpful."

    "I didn't realize there were so many doctors in town. Why just frogolds though? Where are the rest?..."

Nico is being touched by too many people. And still hurting a lot, and can't see. It makes it hard to think.

Tomas attacked them and wanted to steal Nico, just like he thought would happen. He let his guard down!!! Lin is hurt because of him.

He's not dying and Lin isn't dying. He's going to be fine. Eventually. He's completely out of magic right now but he'll have Green to work with tomorrow.

-No, he's not completely out of magic. A new piece of Red just appeared, probably because fighting someone bigger than you is a very Red thing to do. That makes him REALLY ANGRY and he doesn't know why.

Anyway, he's going to try to stand up and not be touched now, telling people to stay away. And also cry.

"Hold still, we're trying to help."

    "It's fine, the bandages can wait a few minutes."

  "Keep clear, everyone!"

         "We're taking Lin someplace warmer."

   "The Magistrate will want to talk to her."

         "She isn't awake yet anyway; the Magistrate can call for her later."

The crowd thins.

"Hey kid." Siki keeps his distance. "Well this sucks. Do you want to come home?" Where Nico will be able to use all his magic. "Calsa and Merta will be back soon." Because he sent a cursor scurrying out beyond the walls to the lair they're using for purposes. "I expect Lin will be back soon; the frogold doctors just wanted to arrange the most comfortable environment for her, which probably needs more water than is in the house."

"-Siki! Siki I can't see. And, and Tomas held my hand for a bit and he's a human and- And also I was so scared and did a lot of magic and, um, I know it's a secret but I d- Didn't remember. And, um."

He's felt terrible and like nothing will ever be okay again before. Like the time he tried to walk all the way from Gale Rocks to Titan Crossing, and got turned away because he wasn't strong enough, or educated enough, or magic enough, to do anything useful. Like the time his dad told him very patiently how he'd be a proper man and toughen up, like it or not. Or should he go get a green mage to turn him into a girl if he wanted to learn prissy temple things.

"I knew it wasn't safe! Stupid! So stupid! I knew something was funny, and I didn't run away. And I got Lin hurt!"

Crying again. 

"Hey, it's okay, I'm right here." It always works when Calsa says things like that. "It was the middle of a fight, which all lasted less than a minute, right? I think it's very unlikely that he bred from you." Unlikely, not impossible; are a few known cases where someone thought to be a human man got pregnant via human magic. "I think everyone is confused about what happened. It's okay. It's okay. Things always seem obvious afterward. If there's really something you should have noticed, we'll talk about it and learn what to do better, but not now, okay? There's only two things that matter now, healing and telling the Magistrate exactly what happened. You don't need to worry about anything else. Lin was very brave" presumably "but that was her choice, not yours."

Siki hasn't deliberately touched someone in years... probably shouldn't try to hug him with all the burns. Can he hold Nico's hand? "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay... Let's go home, and get those clothes off, and put on some clean bandages, okay?"

And now here's Calsa, warm and soft and familiar.

He can hold Nico's hand after Nico is pretty sure it's actually Siki touching him. Same with Calsa. He walks slowly.

"Everything is gonna be okay. I can fix it, just like Merta. I don't know how yet but I know you can fix eyes. I just need to learn about them. And I can fix Lin too..."

Meikalani is reading a letter from her 'brother' Abilanedi when the news comes. He accepts her offer to found a new town deeper into the drydark, with extensive support from her. That does not necessarily mean that he has abandoned his play to take the old water district of Kef from her, but it's a lot less likely now.

He'll be arriving in the next cycle. Perfect timing to hear all the fresh gossip about Nico.

The tanner is clearly an innocent bystander. She tells him that she'll need to keep him in custody for a cycle or so, for complicated political reasons, and that she will compensate him generously for it: 50 for per cycle to start, more if she needs something else from him.

He's not talking.

How about if she's really persuasive?

"Ow, fuck you, stupid elph! I know you can't actually tell if I'm lying or not. You can make me talk, but you can't make me be useful."

Yes she can. What did he do to Nico? Did he know what Nico was planning? Why did he try to frame the tanner? Where was he taking Nico? How did he learn that the Lei Empire wanted that? What was Lin doing the whole time? Why didn't he attack in Nico's house? What's with all the frogolds, no not Lin, the other frogolds? How did he get Loud Pavel to take the fall? Why today? What's his girlfriend doing with the rocks? Why didn't he use limewater instead of acetic acid, since that's readily available and more dangerous and he was already using lime? Did he think he was committing disiniuria? Why did Lin attack him instead of attacking Nico? Did Nico commit disiniuria? How much did Merta pay him? How did he open the safe with the kitsune fur?

...by the time he's too tired to go on, the Magistrate has a pretty good understanding of what happened. He will stay in custody too.

Lin wakes up enough to confirm, and passes out again, floating in a warm steamy side-pond of the outgoing aqueduct.

And now it's time to talk to Nico.

If only there was some way to get a human woman a minute with him, ideally one he's not interacted with yet... but he really shouldn't be moved until he's healed up more, and by then he'll be more alert, and, she learns via Siki via the tengu, will have fixed his eyes. Sigh. It's not worth the risk, either that he will flee, or that the populace of Kef will find out about her breeding a child and revolt.

She walks back to the iron part of town. The crime scene is already much cleaner than it was five hours ago; she'll have to track down how that happened and give appropriate rewards.

"Approaching. Is this a good time to question Nico?"

Calsa startles at the Magistrate's voice. "Probably...hey kiddo, the Magistrate is here. Can you talk to her? I'll be with you the whole time."

"Don't wanna."

Gentle hug with fur and whiskers and definitely not a human touching him.

"Um, Magistrate, ..."

"I heard. Nico, is there someone else you would delegate to make a decision for you?"

"No! If you're deciding things about me I'll talk!"

"Okay." She glances at Calsa and steps into the house. "I'll keep this quick. Tomas Tevit is condemned for disiniuria against you.

The tradition is that he should die by kaleid magic. I don't know if the magic you have demonstrated publicly is capable of killing. A whisshopper can kill, and a whisshopper is what people have been comparing you to, but I don't know if your illusions resemble reality enough to disorient someone who is trying to resist.

Tomorrow, I will know better whether I wish you to continue keeping your other capabilities secret.

Giving those considerations, and the facts that you are the only available kaleid, you are injured, and you are a child, it would be perfectly reasonable to choose someone close to you to carry out the execution. Also, although Tomas did not use disiniuria against Lin, that is not widely known, and execution by frogold magic would be considered perfectly appropriate.

What are your thoughts?"

He's quiet and still for a long while. With occasional sniffles.

"I thought Kef was safe! But it's not!"

That's just complaining that won't help. He thinks some more.

"Because he's bigger than me? Not because he poisoned me with burny powder? Disinuria is stupid."

And the Magistrate is asking him to kill somebody. Not just a rabbit or a deer, a dumb animal who gets trapped half-alive in a snare, but a person. He's mad and wants to hit things but that's a person.

"I don't want to hurt anybody. He was trying to steal me but... People dying is so bad. If this happened in Gale Rocks I don't know what would happen. Maybe they'd exile him. But d-dad also said that if... If you're going to be responsible for killing something, you need to look it in the eye. I killed the animals he hunted sometimes. And I don't want to make Lin do it either."

She's a child too. Maybe. Unless she's a spy.

"Lin already got hurt because I was stupid and thought Tomas was being weird but didn't- Run away or something- And I was so stupid. I'm gonna fix it."

He tried to burn magic to heal them both, earlier. He's lucky it's really hard to do it without really wanting to. It's permanent and it would never come back. But he can fix his eyes. Probably. He hopes. He was already really stupid to burn magic to leave Gale Rocks. He misses it, even if dad is horrible and an idiot. Gale Rocks made sense. Mostly.

"I could fix my eyes and Lin's eyes with burning magic. I can always do that when I really really have to. I don't want to but I can. I guess disinuria is like burning magic to hurt people. You can't do that ever ever ever ever. Only to help people or for yourself. Or you'll get tortured and all your friends and family will be in trouble too. 'Cause if people do that, everything would be bad, so it can't happen ever. The Ejer hated that law. They used to burn magic a lot. So I guess he has to die 'cause you can't let people get away with it even once."

He shivers.

"You can burn someone with way too much light. I could do it that way. Maybe. Or other ways if I'm not a secret."

Being secret was supposed to keep him safe. He should have been MORE SECRET. He should never have showed anyone magic at all, not even the translating. It's way too late for that now though.

"I'm really mad this happened. I hate Kef now. And I still think disinuria is kind of stupid. But I also don't want Lin to have to. So I don't know. Also I want to talk to you more when I'm not crying and mad. About being a secret and keeping secrets and running away and and and Kef and wars and bandits and humans and... Stuff."

Sniff. He takes a deep breath.

"Doing Green magic when you don't know what you're doing is not safe. But I don't care and I'm gonna try to fix my eyes no matter what. It will be easier if I have a doctor explain everything about eyes to me and people who have good eyes let me use 'sensory' magic on them. But I'm gonna do it anyway if nobody helps even though it's more dangerous."

"I agree that the disiniuria laws are complex, arbitrary, and not perfectly serving their purpose. If you had been the human you resemble, less able to defend yourself than a kaleid, that would not have been disiniuria. However, changing the law will be a slow process. I will send letters about this excellent case-study Tomas Tevit has provided, and we will see what happens.

I will not change the law in Kef unaccompanied by a movement throughout Sota, and ideally the whole Allheart Alliance. Starting tomorrow, Kef will no longer be an isolated frontier town for mining, but a trading stop on the way into the drydark. A place for equartiers to rest, for harpies to deliver supplies in bulk, for merchants to collect gems and precious metals and steel crafts, for individuals of all species to mingle. Visitors must be assured that this town is safe, and that I am a reliable Magistrate who has few quirks, but not a tyrant breaking with ancient precedent on a whim. I must choose my priorities, and I care more about protecting my people and their ability to prosper under my experiment in encouraging individuals to trade, than I do about a law that has only been invoked twice in the entire history of my town.

I will return tomorrow, with more information, and we can talk about all those subjects. Thank you for the information."

She's relieved that he turned down the option of using frogold magic. That would have made a bad third impression for her frogolds, so she would have tried to pay him to choose differently, and she's soon to be tight on money. (In a manner of speaking. She does not own any money-of-Kef. She can legally spend any amount she likes, which creates the money then; her ability to do business with other towns depends on her money keeping a stable value as measured in copper.)

The first task is to hire the mine's next three shifts of werewolves to extend the equartier path several miles darkward. She reduces the land-rent for the houses it passes over, and, to a lesser extent, the houses within hearing of the hoof-beats.

She announces that the frogold doctors are here to stay. Entrances to an aquatic district will be constructed soon. She hopes that the people of Kef will grow strong and healthy by adding fish to their diet. (This is all true. She just doesn't mention that the frogolds have already been there for a year.)