Was this a different city? What happened to the promises of 'enduring peace', Rinvar thought. Aurelburg's station had more uniformed men on watch than usual; what used to be two men on each side of the waiting platforms increased to six. There was nothing to be alarmed about, but the city administration knew better; rifles replaced the batons the constables wore on their waists. Whispers from passengers about "escaped criminals" or an upcoming rebellion–some within earshot of the railway guards–were open secrets that were answered with shaking heads and hushed voices.

  Yet the Gray Fox was holding on to his secrets, Rinvar thought. This city, and the Empire's citizenry as a whole, was not ready to know the truth. What was there to tell when even they couldn't be sure if this was all his doing?

  The Bureau was aware of the attack at Altrecht, and that site of battle at the Old Wood's sole connection to that incident was those bullets found in the scene. No monsters or unfamiliar animals were found prowling the streets, as far as Glansheim's enforcers were concerned. The picture of a badly-made fur cape with a horned hood was the closest thing the town gave as a 'monster sighting'. There was nothing in the law that told citizens what to wear. The train station and its surrounding shops were relatively calm, though Captain Melvich assumed that the Empire's central command had cautioned the domain holders to tighten security, at least in public places. Not far from where the officer stood was a newsstand with headlines that read:

  "The Kaiser with the Parliament on New Security Laws"

  "Banking Conference at Frankland"

  The usual fare, Rinvar thought. He thought he was done with browsing the headlines until these other topics emerged from the lower-shelf publications:

  "Antikwald Fire Remains A Question: Who and Why?"

  "Next After Altrecht: Will There Be More Syndicate Clashes?"

  No doubt that the public was slowly catching on to the news. Aurelburg, and probably the other large cities, remain untouched by these incidents up to this day, but people would start questioning until when. Street patrolmen were more easily found than before; a police vehicle was parked at the corner, beside a sandwich stall outside the trains.

  The last time there was a sizeable force dispatched out in the open was during the peace treaty renewal with the Yellow Empire–a time in which Rinvar de Melvich was serving as an Imperial Army cadet. Four years of training, under his father's insistence and supervision, was supposed to bring him to the Imperial Army's officer corps. Yet here he was, almost in his sixth year as an officer, but of a branch of the Imperial Intelligence Services. While the placement he chose was not something Lord Erik De Melvich wanted for his son, Rinvar managed to be true to his word in his own way.

  The exit could be barely seen with wave after wave of people coming in and going out of the waiting platforms, but the scent of roasting pork served as Rinvar's signal out of the train station. He knew that the food stands outside the station led to Aurelburg's Military Quarter: that meant he was a ride short of his place of work. Rinvar caught a slow-moving tram on the way to the place; the gray-slabbed facade of Aurelburg's police headquarters was a few strides away from him. He rang the bell, and the machine slowed down as it entered the corner. It was a better time than any to hop out of the tram; it would not be stopping in the middle of a curve, anyway. Captain de Melvich saw jets of white water rise from the fountain behind the gates. The fountains were on. This was an odd addition, probably an attempt to make the building look friendlier to citizens. To him, perhaps the jets of water shooting up and falling were a twisted way of a "welcome back".

  Behind the fountain were the office's main doors. Two riflemen stood on the left and right sides of it, paying the officer a salute before opening the door for him. The same staircase was a little brighter than how he remembered it; the sun was playing tricks on his memory, or maybe the detail was there, only that he was too sleepy to recognize it by the time he first arrived at the city. It was surprising that obvious details from before made themselves known; maybe getting beaten up and needing a rib brace gave him a renewed clarity. Farin's office was on the upper floor, but it wouldn't be a tough climb because the steps were wider and less steep compared to even their actual offices at Blaurosen.

  He entered the room to see Farin's outline against an open balcony window. Much of her face was hidden beneath a golden shadow; a wide lock of hair caught the sun and subdued the light landing on her head. Smoke coming out of a hot coffee mug formed a pale screen before her.

  "Just in time, with ten minutes to spare. How are you, Captain Rinvar?"

  "A lot better than before, and you, Director?"

  "The cough is almost gone, unless I force it. Whatever the sword fighter had in that canister wasn't going down without a fight."

  "It was that bad...?"

  "Of course, I forgot who I'm talking to: the veteran who never had a gas bomb thrown his way." Farin stood up; she straightened up and handed the captain a thicker folder than before. "And... we're conducting searches on the Antikwald. I don't mind going there myself for some forest air, but the trees are becoming too big for their own good the deeper we get."

  "It's good that the bureaucrats have yet to consider turning all that to timber." Rinvar took a pencil and played with it between his fingers. "Anything we missed out on Altrecht? What about those from the gathering?"

  "Altrecht? I'm not expecting to hear anything from them anymore. They're too hung up on the whole 'angel business'." Farin shrugged her shoulders. "Some interesting developments from the families. The metal on those machines was specially processed. Something to do with fusing magical energy while hardening, but I'm not good at those things. It took me half an hour to understand that they were talking about its being tempered by something they called 'energy-enhanced forging'."

  "Could they copy it, at least?"

  "The Imperial Science Academy had twenty attempts at doing it–none of them matched the quality of those found on the hulks."

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "That's quite reassuring..."

  "Everyone at that convention was more baffled at what kind of bullet was used to melt through them first. They couldn't even begin to understand that something is capable of defeating this kind of armor, like paper. Did you see anyone in Altrecht using that kind of weapon against these machines?"

  "Those I've seen couldn't even leave a dent on the constructs–and any man who tried to deal with these machines face-to-face was surely dead."

  "And I was thinking we could get a gun from the weapons confiscated by the Altrecht Town Guard for testing."

  "Knowing the Glansheims, they would rather keep those guns if they knew any of them could defeat those machine soldiers." Rinvar was spinning his pen while reading through some of the papers on his desk. "It's nothing an order from the Emperor couldn't dissuade. That also means we will have to sift through at least sixty or seventy of whatever they've collected."

  "I highly doubt any of those would yield any clues. Yellow Empire surplus, at least if I'm basing it on the photographs." Farin swept a loose lock of her hair aside and continued reading through other files. "If only you would sit with the War Council and explain to them why we can't get anywhere with this yet..."

  Farin Arinas stood up and paced around the board. Pictures of various scenes from the Gray Fox's Schweiglands fortress to the Antikwald incident were posted; each of them belonged to a category of dates, though Rinvar was not so interested in re-reading the data he had given in the first place.

  More than a month passed, and not a single lead was provided to the Investigations Bureau. He was not called "the Gray Fox" for nothing.

  Altrecht yielded as much information as it could, as far as Rinvar was concerned. Representatives from Fortune's Smile Trading Company were invited, and their ledgers were seized. The only crime they had anything to do with was arming the Factory Workers' Union and most of the smaller gangs. They were cooperative enough to tell that the Gray Fox's men had proposed a deal with them. The last seen of those people was them driving away using Fortune's Smile trucks: their destination remained unknown.

  "I admit that this job is up to the point of driving me nuts, Captain." Farin let out a sigh before taking her eyes off the board. She returned to her seat and stared at the three other folders on her desk.

  "Those trucks are registered, I assume?"

  "They should..." Farin said. "We could ask the nearby towns if any trucks passed by – that is, if we could make them remember registration plates and any other details."

  "The Gray Fox knows his way around, and it's too much for us to handle right now." Farin's eyes were on the photographs taken from the syndicate's Schweiglands fortress. "He does have a very powerful bargaining chip in his hands. I would assume that Lord Cecil is still alive, somewhere. There was nothing else found in the place where he disappeared aside from the family weapons, but I guess that the Gray Fox didn't have the time to pick them up."

  "We have parts of Alberta's Territorial Army searching the southern reaches. It's not that hard to find an ironclad hulking man."

  Rinvar scanned more photographs from their current information pile. None of the pictures captured parts of his experience. Yes, that was right. None of the photographers took any shots of anything above street level.

  "Farin, I think I'll get us somewhere in this case."

  "Got an idea? I'm all ears."

  "I've been thinking that there was something I've seen on both the Altrecht and Aurelburg Archives attacks. We would be able to get a good lead on the Gray Fox, or at least be a step closer to it."

  "Your point?"

  "Anyway, I saw some flying objects that were above those involved in the attacks. Some beam came out of them. Whatever light that was made them disappear the moment it hit them."

  "And how big are these flying things?"

  "Something around the size of manhole covers, from how they looked back then."

  "No photographs?" Farin looked at the picture compilation, only to find nothing that was aimed at the sky. "A very strange contraption, but it is hard to believe that those attackers have access to this technology, you are saying. Are those 'flying plates' the attackers' means of transport?"

  "Looks like it. I wouldn't be surprised if that magician whom you've fought at the Archives was present during the incident at Altrecht."

  "These flying machines that you're talking about, while being small, can actually transport people by shooting beams of light at them?"

  "I'm not too sure how they work, but one thing is for sure: they don't disappear with whoever they light up."

  "In other words, they return to the site that launched them."

  "Exactly." Rinvar said, "If we could watch out for these flying objects, it would give us a way to at least one of the Gray Fox's cells. I'll need at least four teams with telescopes to spot the floating disks from the sky."

  "And how are we supposed to make these flying contraptions known to us, Captain?"

  "I'd say... we wait for the next time the Gray Fox's men strike down another syndicate. Those who were defeated at Altrecht were trying to outdo him in arms dealing, if I recall it correctly. He would surely send his forces using those machines; it's not like he'd want to have an armed group parading in the streets."

  "If that's the case, I leave everything to your better judgment. I'll get you the spotters when needed. Arms dealers... there's the Southeastern Isles's Kabunyan Group, and the Teraccione Family of Western Delitia. We've been keeping an eye on them, though they're laying low since the Altrecht incident." Farin walked to a file cabinet and opened it, sifting through another set of folders. She found four of the needed files and set them on Rinvar's table. "You'll have a lot of reading to do then."

  "Anything for a lead at this point?" Rinvar set the papers aside. "So how's your new friend, 'Sister Mia'?"

  "I asked the reception desk for the visitor records. I couldn't believe my eyes at first."

  "I take it as... You found something?"

  "Someone, in this case." Farin sat opposite the captain. "The logs had 'Euphemia von Schild' as its visitors, at the same time I went. I knew that House Schild sends their own finders, but what would Lord Cecil's daughter be doing in the archives?"

  "The books she read?"

  "That old bestiary from the Church was one of them, but there were others." Farin focused on the ceiling in an attempt to recall. "There was 'Magical Energy Transfer', 'Golems of Ysh'rallah', and..."

  Farin pulled out a small piece of paper before continuing, "This is interesting: 'A Theory on Pocket Dimensions'."

  "Those sound like Sister Mia, who is likely Euphemia of Schild, has quite the developed interest in... not so sisterly things."

  "Do you think she knows something about those monsters?"

  "Can't say, for now at least, but we might have to keep an eye on her."

  Rinvar took Farin's list; his eyes switched between looking at the scenes from the recent incident in the Old Wood and back to the small list of works. While these works had something to do with magical arts, perhaps it was time to pay Elena, as well as Old Demian, a long-needed visit after all.