It took Zebra a week to notice Katters was missing.

Well, no. He noticed immediately, or near enough. It was odd, that she didn’t come home that first night, that her bed remained empty clear through to the following morning. Odd that she skipped work the next day, and the day after, and the day after. Odd that she didn’t take her turns in the basement.

But it didn’t sink in that she was gone gone, not until a week had passed.

It took another week for him to decide to do anything about it.

The animals had noticed before he did. Spike followed him everywhere, those weeks, keeping at his heels and tripping him up like a one-dog obstacle course. Deferring to Zebra’s apathy, despite his clear, tail-tucked and head-lowered worry.

Brutus, meanwhile, deferred to nothing. He wandered a loop through the house, taking the search into his own claws. Stopping only to stare Zebra down, like he was judging him for his inaction. The dinosaur had never warmed to Zebra, and without his actual owner around, it wasn’t long before he decided to leave, too.

Brutus could take care of himself, Zebra knew. He was not sure he could say the same of Katters.

So, a week later, when he had gotten tired of running the shops alone, and then bored of letting them stay closed, he decided to start with searching the house. Maybe Katters was stuck in a cupboard and too dull to call for help. Maybe she’d trapped herself behind the fridge and starved to death.

Spike joined him, his tail wagging a slow, nervous — but hopeful — arc. He flopped onto his side whenever Zebra stopped for more than a minute, looking up at him with big, wet eyes. Sighing just often enough to get across how depressed he was. He was very depressed.

Zebra wandered from room to room in an aimless way, one eye on his email app and the other glancing over the contents of their closet and cabinets. They did not live in a large house, and he soon ran out of places to look — except for the chute, but checking that was hard and he didn’t feel like it.

Having confirmed that Katters was, indeed, gone, Zebra sat on the couch and thought over what he should do with that information. Continuing to follow the status quo without her was not an appealing notion. It was a lot of work for two people, let alone one, and it wasn’t work Zebra was particularly keen on in the first place. He only stayed here because ‘here’ was where Katters was, and if Katters wasn’t, well.

He could leave. That did have appeal. Pack up the few things he cared about and move out of the country, or across the globe. Start over somewhere else. Somewhere new.

That sounded nice. Like something to aspire to. But it also sounded very final, so Zebra shuffled it off to the back of his mind and thought about things to do in the meantime. Like find Katters.

Spike rested his head on Zebra’s thigh and whined.

That didn’t appeal any more than holding down the fort without her, to be honest. That would probably be a lot of work, and there was a good chance there wouldn’t be any reward for him at the end. There were a lot of scenarios he could think of which ended with ‘Katters is gone for good’, such as ‘Katters is dead’, or ‘Katters wanted to leave and won’t come back’, or ‘Katters is grievously injured and no longer useful to me’. There were also a number of scenarios which ended with ‘Zebra is dead’ or ‘Zebra is grievously injured’, and he especially didn’t like the sound of those. Still, getting Katters back and resuming their status quo of murder, trauma, and more murder — that was a pretty reward indeed. Zebra decided it was worth shooting for, at least for now.

So. Look for Katters and, when the going got tough, high-tail it out of town. It wasn’t even a skeleton, yet, more of a mission statement than a plan. But it was something to build on.

He stood, pushing Spike back, and headed for the bedroom. The best-case scenario was that Katters had left of her own volition. If that were the case, she may have told someone about her plans, and if she told anyone about her plans, that anyone would be Sor.

Zebra grabbed his coat from the closet and summoned a rideshare from his phone. He had a sorceress to meet.

Sor’s shop was closed, and locked, and there wasn’t a bell. Zebra did knock, but that only made the glass door rattle in a way that he knew would not carry well through the rest of the building — though, even a wooden door would have trouble announcing visitors to the fifth floor, or the sub-basement Zebra knew was lurking beneath the building.

He stalked around the front, not sure what he was looking for. Katters, maybe, passed out on Sor’s lawn like a drunken idiot. It had been a while since she’d last gone on a bender, perhaps she was due.

If Katters had dragged him out here because she’d been drinking more than she could handle, again, he was going to kill her.

“What are you doing here?”

Zebra stopped poking at Sor’s shrubbery and turned to see Gabe hovering by the shop’s entrance, his silver hair tied back into a pony-tail, his polo shirt tucked into his slacks.

Gabe didn’t seem to like Zebra. Possibly because Alis had told him about how Zebra had tried, repeatedly, to kill him when he was temporarily undead.

In Zebra’s defence, he had no compelling evidence, at the time, that Gabe’s condition was temporary.

“I’m looking for Sor,” Zebra told him.

“In the bushes?”

“I was looking for Katters in the bushes. But I’m here to see Sor.”

“Why?”

“I need to ask her something.”

Gabe frowned. “Well, come in, then,” he said, after a moment’s thought. He stood back while Zebra passed through the door, then closed it after them.

“You’re lucky you didn’t set anything off out there,” Gabe told him. “Hold on, I’ll get her.”

Zebra was not concerned with Sor’s home security. There was a time he would have been, but ever since he and Sor had switched bodies, her magic had an unusual reaction to him, and whether or not it would have any effect at all was a flip of the coin. Even when it came up unfavourably, the extent of the damage was always just this side of truly harmful — more of an annoyance than anything else, which was also an annoyance to the sorceress herself.

“Zebra,” Sor said from halfway down the stairs. She didn’t look happy to see him, but he wasn’t happy to see her, either. “Why are you here?”

Gabe waited behind her, at the top of the stairs, leaning casually over the railing.

“Have you seen Katters, lately?” Zebra asked.

“Not lately, no.” She descended the rest of the stairs, her counterfeit ears cocking with confusion. “Why?”

“I haven’t, either.”

“She hasn’t been at home?”

“That was the first place I looked.”

Sor bit her lip. Her teeth were like a disconcerting cross between her true species and her costume — human in shape and configuration, mostly, but just a bit too sharp, too big. Though, Zebra was not in any position to judge her for this.

He judged her for the green, scale-like patterns decorating her skin, instead. That had to be offencive. Some manner of appropriation.

“She hasn’t said anything to you?” he asked.

Sor shook her head, but looked deep in thought, her ears twitching down. “She didn’t say anything to me, no.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“Know? No. But maybe,” she trailed off.

“Where?”

Her ears twitched again, tilting up at the ends, and she glared at him over her glasses. “How do I know she didn’t leave to get away from you?”

“How do I know she didn’t leave to get away from you?”

“Why would she be trying to get away from me? What did I do?”

Zebra shrugged. “I don’t know. But she didn’t tell you where she went.”

Sor turned away from him, heading back upstairs.

“Hey,” he said. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to try to find her.”

“In your bedroom?”

Sor didn’t respond, and Zebra started climbing the stairs after her until Gabe placed himself in his way. “I’m not done talking to you,” Zebra called past him.

She didn’t respond to that, either, and Gabe made himself an effective wall. So, he went back down the stairs and let himself out.

Maybe this was for the best. If Sor knew where Katters could be, and she could find her, then he didn’t actually need to do anything. He could just go home and relax until all the work was done, which was what he really wanted to do from the start.

But a small, annoying part of his brain kept reminding him that Sor was largely incompetent, and insane to boot. She wasn’t going to find Katters — if she did, he’d eat Spike — and it would be stupid of him to trust the job to her.

And Zebra couldn’t abide being stupid.

There was a cafe across the street from the bookstore. Zebra took up a table inside, and waited to see what Sor would do.

Even if she wouldn’t help him, and even if he couldn’t rely on her to solve his problems for him, she was still his best lead. Now that she knew Katters was missing, her next step would also be his next step.

She appeared fifteen minutes later in a scarf and a wool coat, holding her phone to her ear. She started walking down the street, and Zebra ran out of the cafe to tail her.

She was having an excessively animated conversation with whomever was on the other line, but Zebra was too far away to catch what she was saying, and he didn’t want to risk closing that distance.

Was Sor talking to Katters? Zebra’d tried calling her before, but she wouldn’t answer. Maybe she really was avoiding him, though he couldn’t fathom why.

But then, Sor might not be talking to her at all — maybe she and Katters had a mutual friend, although Zebra was pretty sure Katters had no friends to speak of. She never went anywhere, which was why it was so odd when she vanished. Where would she have been meeting people, let alone making friends with them?

Sor stopped abruptly and looked up and down the street — Zebra dove for cover behind some shrubs. It was quick thinking and he managed to do it with the same poise and grace with which he does everything.

She was still distracted by her phone and hadn’t seen him, waving her arm around like an amateur thespian doing Hamlet. He was just reconsidering trying to get closer and listen in, when she hung up and shoved the phone into her pocket. But she stayed where she was — under a bus stop.

That was a problem. There was no way Zebra was getting on that bus without her noticing. Luckily, buses weren’t the only way to get around Snowtown.

Zebra’s rideshare showed up just as the bus did. A small, blue car, driven by a familiar and similarly small man. Kendrick Reese, who had given Zebra rides before, and who stopped by the shops from time to time.

“You’ve got, uh, something in your hair, B,” Kendrick said as Zebra got into the back seat.

He called Zebra ‘B’ because Zebra had put his legal name into the rideshare app, and Kendrick fancied himself hip. Zebra didn’t like this very much, but Kendrick had decided that “Zebra” was not a real name and refused to use it.

Zebra pulled a twig out of his hair and pointed it at the windshield. “Follow that bus.”

Kendrick didn’t look eager to comply, but pulled away from the curb and behind the bus. “What for?”

“My friend is on it. I want to see where she goes.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?”

“She won’t tell me. It’s a long story.”

Kendrick pursed his lips and let the bus pull further away from them, though he did keep driving. “I’m not comfortable with this, B.”

Zebra leaned into the gap between the front seats, balancing himself with a hand on each of them. “My partner is missing,” he explained, a little exasperated, “and I think my friend knows where they are, but she won’t tell me.”

“Why not?”

Because she’s a nutcase and hates me for no good reason, Zebra thought. “She’s a little funny,” he said, instead, making brief and meaningful eye contact through the rear-view mirror. “She’s a magic-user.”

It was likely Kendrick had the same opinion of magic-users as most reasonable people, but even if he was sympathetic, it was undeniable that users had a reputation for irrational behaviour.

But he didn’t seem convinced. “If your partner’s missing,” he asked, “why don’t you just call the police and file a report?”

Zebra sat back. He’d lost him. Had never had him.

If Kendrick was the sort of person to suggest calling the cops in Snowtown, he was too far gone to convince him of anything rational or sane. Maybe Kendrick was a user himself — it was a possibility Zebra’d never considered before, but he was either funny or hopelessly naive.

Probably the latter. He was an impeccable driver, too safety-conscious to be a user.

“I did,” Zebra lied, watching the bus continue to gain ground from them. “They’re investigating, but in the meantime, I’m more comfortable looking on my own than staying at home and waiting.”

The bus’ blinker turned on and it started to slow.

“That makes sense, but why can’t they talk to your friend?”

Jesus, and now he was advocating turning a magic-user in to police custody. What planet did Kendrick live on? Not that Zebra would mind doing that to Sor — he would have to find an excuse for it at some point, maybe as a treat for his birthday.

If Katters was dead, maybe he could find a way to frame Sor for it.

The bus stopped, and Kendrick idled behind it. Sor got off, looked up and down the street before deciding on a direction, and started walking away from Kendrick’s car.

“This is fine,” Zebra said, opening his door and ignoring Kendrick’s protests about car safety. He got out and — completely lost track of Sor.

He was sure she had been there, but there weren’t any other people on the street aside from him, and there weren’t any doors nearby she could have slipped into. A brick wall stretched away from him in both directions, spotted with dark windows and unmarred by either door or alley.

Was it some kind of decoy? Had Sor known she was being followed?

Well, whatever it was, that was his only lead gone. He considered giving up and going home, but if he called for a rideshare now, he might get Kendrick again, and he wasn’t in the mood for another encounter with him just yet. He might even give Kendrick a one-star rating, prevent him from accepting any of Zebra’s requests ever again. And, as a bonus, that would damage his current five-star rating, which would be a small portion of the punishment Kendrick deserved for annoying him.

It was something to think about, anyway. At the very least, Kendrick wasn’t getting a tip for this particular ride.

In the meantime, Zebra was rapidly reconsidering how much he cared that Katters had gone missing. Abandoning ship was looking more and more appealing. He could even convince himself that that was what Katters had done, and there would be no hard feelings on either side.

Except, no. He couldn’t actually convince himself of that. He knew her too well.

So, why didn’t he know where she was? Where she could be? He was pretty sure she never did anything but stay at home — surf the internet, read a book, spend as much time in the basement as possible. It was unfathomable that he’d pegged her wrong, that he was mistaken about her character.

Ah — she did do the grocery shopping. About half of it. And it had been her turn the week she’d vanished. Maybe someone at the shop had seen something.

The Gold Market was a small store, with a single register near the front and a butcher hidden behind a window in the back. Most of the shelves were stocked with foreign goods, but their countries of origin varied by a wide margin.

Zebra tried calling Katters while he waited for the queue to clear up, and it went to her voice-mail after five rings.

He hung up and carried a bottle of water and a bag of crackers back to the cashier: a tall, round woman.

“‘Afternoon,” she chirped, and scanned his goods.

“‘Evening. Doesn’t Gail usually work the register?”

The woman grinned. “Gail’s my daughter,” she said. “She’s at school, now. She only works here on the weekend.”

“Your daughter? That can’t be.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’ve got to be the same age,” Zebra said, and it was barely a lie. Gail was in her twenties, and this woman didn’t look nearly old enough to be a mother.

The woman laughed. “Nice try,” she said. “I’m old enough to be your mom, too. That’s four dollars for the snacks, kiddo.”

Zebra pulled out his wallet. “I was hoping to chat with her. My friend’s gone missing and I wondered if she’d seen her.”

“Your friend a regular, too?”

Zebra nodded and handed over his card. “We alternate the shopping,” he said, “but we both do it on weekends.”

“I’m in the back then, sorry to say. Unless she buys a lot of specialty meats, I wouldn’t remember her.”

She doesn’t have to buy those, Zebra thought. “She’s a little unique,” he said. “She’s a ket, with brown scales and blue ears. Usually wearing a green vest. Maybe you’ve seen her, anyway?”

But the cashier was shaking her head. “Sorry.”

The person in line behind Zebra tapped his shoulder. “’Scuse,” she said. She was just as rotund as the cashier, but much shorter, and her brown hair was cropped close to her scalp. “You said a ket with blue ears?”

“Yes. You’ve seen her?”

“Comes by my kiosk every other weekend — just outside, here.”

“Have you seen her lately?”

“Not in three weeks. Is she okay?”

“I don’t know,” Zebra said. “She usually comes regularly? You see her every other week?”

She nodded vigorously. “Every other week, for cigarettes and a newspaper.”

“Then she didn’t make it as far as the store,” Zebra said to himself.

“Have you checked the bars?”

Zebra jerked out of his thoughts and back to the woman. “The bars?”

“Yes, the bars. She talks about them — the 42, the Hammer & Shark, and the OA6, I think they are. Sounds like she’s a regular.”

“The bars,” Zebra said again. “Thank you,” he added, took his things, and left.

Of course, bars. Zebra should have thought of it himself — if Katters was prone to coming home drunk, she must be coming home from somewhere. But it was still weird to think of her out of the house at all, let alone off having fun, surrounded by other people. She was not a social animal.

She was an occasionally drunk animal, though.

The Hammer & Shark was nearby. The 42, Zebra knew, was closer to Downtown, and the OA6 was back in Ripton.

How on Earth, he wondered, do you become a regular at three different bars?

It was still too early for barhopping, but the Hammer & Shark was open, if abandoned. So, Zebra went inside. A peeling and faded mural greeted him, a tranquil beach scene painted over the far wall. The rest of the bar was done up in unassuming wood and torn pleather seats. Nothing too expensive to replace, nothing too precious to lose.

A woman in a rumpled pantsuit sat at the bar, being served by the stout, bald bartender. A man, large in both a tall and muscular sense, and covered in aquatically-themed tattoos, was sitting at a table.

Zebra decided to try the bartender.

“‘Afternoon,” the bartender said as he approached. “Getcha?”

“Vodka.” Zebra wasn’t actually in the mood for a drink, but he was sure the bartender would be more willing to part with information if Zebra were a customer. The bartender obliged, setting a glass in front of him and splashing liquor over some ice.

Zebra drank it and tried not to wheeze. He tapped the bar and the bartender poured him another.

“Do you ever get a ket in here,” he asked, “with light brown scales and blue ears?”

“Why you asking?”

“I’m looking for her.”

The bartender set the bottle on the counter and eyed Zebra over. Zebra did not look trustworthy, he knew, but he did look like he had trustworthy friends — paper ones, that fit in his pocket.

He drank again. It sat poorly with the crackers already in his stomach and he stifled a burp. The bartender refilled his glass, staring levelly at him from under a stern brow. But Zebra got the impression that that was just what his face was like.

“S’pose we do,” he said, leaning back. “Get a few lizards in here. Think your friend mighta been one of ‘em.”

“Lately?”

The bartender didn’t say anything. Zebra steeled himself and drank again, and covered the glass with an unsteady hand before the bartender could refill it. He pulled out his wallet and set a couple of bills on the bar.

“Keep the change,” he said.

“That’s a nice tip.”

“What was that you were telling me? About lizards.”

“‘Ey, Shark,” the bartender called past him, to the man at the table. “Friend here’s askin’ about a lizard, brown scales and blue ears.”

“Black hair?” Shark called back.

“That’s right,” Zebra said. He got up from the bar and joined Shark at his table.

“They were in here a couple of days ago,” Shark told him. “Or, yesterday, I suppose. It was real late.”

Yesterday. That was very recent. She may still be alive, after all.

A warm buzz washed through him — vodka, or relief. It was hard to say.

“In here with some other lizards,” Shark continued. He had a young, boyish face that worked with the fish and waves crashing over his arms to give him a guileless surfer-ité, which was not realised in his speech. “Celebrating something, maybe. They were real rowdy, but your friend there, with the blue ears, they were the worst.”

“She usually is.”

“She?” Shark asked. “Never can tell with them. But, yeah, had to kick them all out. Nothin’ too serious, mind you, but they’d had more’n enough at that point and it was time for them to go.”

“I don’t suppose you have any idea where they went,” Zebra said, more than asked. It was a long shot, and Shark shook his head.

“I don’t, but a cab took a couple of ‘em somewhere. Don’t know if your friend was with ‘em, but you might get somewhere with the dispatcher.”

Zebra considered. “Thanks,” he said, steadying himself against the table as he got to his feet.

“Sure,” Shark said. “Don’t you go hurting them, alright? They were good customers, just excited about something.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Zebra lied. “I’m just worried about her,” he continued to lie.

Shark nodded to himself, satisfied, and Zebra left.

A familiar face ran into him as he left the bar: Harry Wilhelm, on his way in.

“Mr. Rollins!” he said, too happy to see Zebra. His grin cut across his narrow face like an open wound, and the fangs his enthusiasm put on display combined with his red eyes and pointed ears to betray vampiric heritage. His carrot-like hair, kept short and neat under his fedora, betrayed something else in his blood. No proper vampire was ever a ginger.

He’d gotten a head start at home, or another bar, by the smell of him.

“What are you doing all the way out here in the city?” he asked.

“Looking for someone.”

“Ms. Jones?” his expression shifted to one of concern. “Is she alright?”

“She’s missing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Zebra waved him off. “Don’t be. It’ll be fine.”

“Can I help at all?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then I don’t know how you could help,” Zebra said, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

“Well—” Harry started, but Zebra cut him off with a raised finger. Harry watched him dial, pulling a flask out of his own pocket. He drank from it, and returned it to his long, canvas coat as Zebra realised that he didn’t know which cab company he should be calling.

“Do you know what cabs run around here?” Zebra asked him, lowering his phone.

Harry smirked. “Mr. Rollins,” he said. “I am an investigative journalist. Of course I know what cabs operate in this part of Snowtown South.” His smirk split into a grin. “But even better, I know which cab company has a deal with the proprietor of Hammer & Shark.”

“And that company is?”

Harry deflated a little, but his smile remained. “CanaryCab. If Mitch called a ride for Ms. Jones, he called CanaryCab.”

Zebra resumed his call. The operator connected him, and it wasn’t long before he was on the line with a CanaryCab dispatcher.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried to convince her that he needed to know, the dispatcher would not tell him anything about their clients’ destinations. He hung up, deeply annoyed.

Harry put a hand on his shoulder and he glared at the halfbreed.

“Sorry that didn’t pan out,” Harry said. He looked it, almost dripping with sympathy, the freak. “But we can still find her — she’ll be alright.”

Zebra sneered before catching himself and schooling his face into something calmer. Still more angry than anything else, but composed. Harry was right to feel too important to be written off. Zebra had no idea where to turn, next, and if Harry had ideas, then Zebra needed to keep him around.

He took a breath. “How?”

“You told the dispatcher she was here with other kets yesterday morning?” Harry asked, and Zebra nodded. “There’s not a big ket population in this area. If we ask around, we’ll either find her group, or someone who knows where her group is.”

That sounded plausible. It was certainly better than anything Zebra had, which at the moment mostly involved murder. “How do we find them?”

Harry considered. “We’d probably be best off finding a tag,” he said, finally removing his hand from Zebra’s shoulder. “If we can find a ket gang’s territory, we can maybe convince them to help us out. Though, if I’m honest, that’s a bit of a long shot. Still, worth trying.”

“A ket gang?” Zebra asked, incredulous.

Harry nodded. “We could also just wander around until we stumble onto a ket somewhere, but like I said, they’re not the most populous demographic in this part of the city. We’ll find about seven of them for every hundred people we run into. Either way, we want to start heading north, though.”

He started walking, and Zebra followed his lead. Harry was tall, and long-legged, and Zebra struggled to match his pace.

“They’re more common north of here?” Zebra asked him.

“The closer you get to Shelton, the more common they’ll be, yeah,” Harry said, his expression serious. “Shelton has the highest ket population in Snowtown — just above ten percent. That’s mostly where they end up when they immigrate, because they don’t come with very many resources, or valuables. You know how it is.”

Zebra didn’t, really.

“We won’t have to go all the way to Shelton to find something, though,” Harry said, his tone a little brighter. “They aren’t common here, but Snowtown South has the second highest ket population, and a lot of the gangs that live in Shelton keep territory down here. We’ll trip over something.”

Zebra was not actually interested in a rundown of Snowtown’s population statistics, so he wasn’t really listening to Harry’s spiel. He let him talk, but mulled over the notion that Katters may have joined a ket gang, and the implications of that. It didn’t sound like her — certainly, running away from home with no word to him or Sor or anyone, to join a gang, that was a far-fetched idea indeed. Maybe fifteen years ago, when she was a teenager. But not now.

It didn’t sound any more plausible than anything else she’d supposedly done lately, at least.

A cloud of smoke wafted into his face, and he coughed. Harry’d lit a cigarette while he was talking, and apparently was not being conscientious about it.

“Sorry,” he said, switching the cigarette to his other hand.

It was possible Katters had been abducted by the gang for some reason, but then why would she be celebrating with them in the bar? Someone was making an incorrect assumption, and Zebra worried that it was him.

“Here,” Harry said, stopping suddenly. “Ket sign.”

There was something sprayed onto the wall next to them, an angular symbol in a vibrant orange-red. It looked to Zebra like a capital T with an extra stem, and a backwards L nestled in next to it.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

Harry shrugged. “It means this is some gang’s territory,” he said. “I don’t speak it, or read it, for that matter.”

“So, we found their territory. How do we find them?”

“They’ll find us. They’ll find us faster if we make a nuisance of ourselves. Do we want to make a nuisance of ourselves?”

Zebra considered. “How do they deal with nuisances?”

“Depends on the gang.”

Zebra considered further. “No,” he decided. “We want them friendly. If we annoy them, they might not help us.”

“Then we wait.” Harry leaned against the wall, tilting his hat back so the brim wouldn’t fold against it. “This tag is pretty recent, so they’re sure to come through here sooner or later.”

Zebra peered at the tag. It looked a little old to him, scuffed away around the edges. “How can you tell?”

“Because it’s still here. Ket tags don’t stay up long, they get washed away or painted over well before the gang responsible for it can decide to abandon the area.”

That didn’t sound definite, but Zebra was prepared to concede the point. He joined Harry by the wall, sitting down with his back against it. He checked his phone, both for the time and for any new updates to Katters’ social media profiles. Evening was setting in, and there was nothing new.

Harry pulled his flask back out and spun the top loose. “Remind me why we’re here,” he said, before taking a drink.”

“Waiting for ketal,” Zebra told him.

“To?”

“They might know where Katters is, which is information that I would very much like to have, myself.”

“Ah,” Harry said, taking one more drink and putting the flask away. “Right. Must be tired.”

Or drunk, Zebra thought. He tried calling Katters. It rang twice, then went to voice-mail, and Zebra pulled the phone away to stare at the screen in disbelief. Someone had dismissed his call.

“Look alive,” Harry said, nudging Zebra with his foot. Another cloud of smoke followed his voice, and Zebra stifled another cough.

Two ketal were walking down the street toward them, talking to each other with words that Zebra couldn’t understand. Their conversation trailed off as they got closer, and they regarded Harry and Zebra — who were staring at them, in turn — with suspicion.

They were both taller than Zebra, but shorter than Harry, and wearing unremarkable street-clothes.

“Hi,” Harry said, smiling and removing his hat. Zebra stood up.

“Haseir,” one of the ketal said. They were wearing a scarf in the same orange as their ears and the tag on the wall.

The other was in a thick, leather coat with fleece lining the collar and cuffs. A knit cap, also orange, was pulled down over their ears.

They were both wearing sandals, unusual in the cool weather, but the unclipped, sickle-like toe-claws the footwear left exposed suggested a different intent behind the gesture than climate-related comfort.

“Seir tii vhen secat seir?” the one in the hat said, too fast for Zebra to catch. Not that he could have understood it if he did.

“Uh,” Harry said. “Ee—” he stumbled. “Iul. Rhaten.”

The ketal gave him a blank look and his smile widened in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he said.

“Why are you here, seiket?” the ket in the scarf asked him, their accent still tinging the words. They had green scales, a shade lighter than the forest-green hoodie they also wore.

“We’re looking for my friend,” Zebra cut in. “A ket. She’s been missing for two weeks.”

“Two weeks? Maybe your friend doesn’t want to be found, seiket.”

“That could be, or she could be in trouble.”

The ket nodded. “Also this could be, seiket.”

“Who is she?” the other ket asked. This one had blue scales, but the colour was in patches that Zebra was sure would be rude to comment on.

“She has light brown scales,” he said, putting more thought into the description than he had for his fellow humans. “Black hair, usually in a pony-tail. Sky-blue ears, and a scar on her nose. A few of them, actually. She’s about so tall.” He held his hand level about five inches above his own head. “We think she was at the Hammer & Shark yesterday morning with some other ketal, celebrating something.”

“Pony-tail, seiket?” the green ket asked.

“Tied back.” Zebra pulled his own hair back to demonstrate. “With a red ribbon.”

“Tii iulikia huthal a? Irusal sa ket,” the blue ket said to their friend. Their tone sounded incredulous.

“Vasuliuk ete a.” Green’s ears flicked down, and their mouth pulled back to show more teeth than usual. But they were looking down, into the middle distance, not at Zebra or Harry. “Hir ete kaki talikur niinne a? Irasal ket.”

Blue shook their head. “Vasuliuvaren kuu et luenal. Vasuliurien et ket.”

“Tii sta susaal tekaki Marhsen Sevial talikur niinne a?” Green jerked their head to gesture behind them. “Sulmasal etal sa ket.”

“Tii iulileta se ete livien etal ta enal a ket?”

“Lin vasulmarhsenia etal ket.” Green shrugged. “Have,” they continued, to Zebra and Harry. “There’s a tribe, it has reason to celebrate. Maybe they have your friend, or they know where she is, seiket.”

“Where are they?” Zebra asked.

Green turned back to Blue. “Tii nekimaki se anvheir etal a ket?”

“T-t-t-t,” Blue clicked thoughtfully. “Varileraki kuu. Tii ulmatse ete matun ge ta enal a ket?”

“Iulileta kuu lina vhika enal. Sulurhit kuu mketat enal ket.”

“Sulkaet ete a ket.”

“We’ll take you there,” Green said. “It’s not far, seiket.”

The ketal started walking. Harry put his hat back on, and he and Zebra followed.

The ketal took them east, toward Keisey, but not out of Snowtown South. The sun was setting, and the streets were washed with shadows. This did not comfort Zebra as he followed a pair of reptiles to even more reptiles, all of whom had a reputation, as a species, for eating people like him.

Sure, they all denied it. But he knew for a fact that at least one of them had a long-pork habit, and if one of them did then there was no reason to believe that others didn’t. Reputations don’t just spring out of nowhere, after all.

But, if worst came to worst, he could throw Harry at them and run. Harry was ridiculously tall (by Zebra’s standards), if dangerously lean — he would keep them busy at least long enough for Zebra to get away.

They came to an empty shop with a FOR LEASE sign in its busted window. The ketal climbed through, deftly avoiding the broken glass. Harry and Zebra followed, a little more awkwardly, but they did manage to avoid cutting themselves.

“Marhsen Sevial are through there,” Green told them, pointing at a door in the back, behind a dusty counter. “Vhiket etal. Be careful, seiket.”

“Luck on your friend,” Blue added.

“Thanks,” Zebra said. “Luck on you.”

The ketal gave him an odd look, Green’s ears cocking, but they both left without saying anything else.

“Nice couple,” Harry said, and Zebra wasn’t sure if he intended the statement to be ironic.

There was another symbol on the door, in a warm, rust-brown colour that Zebra found very familiar. This one was also much like a T with extra stems — three total, running down the door’s surface in crooked, careless drips.

The door’s handle was missing, leaving a knob-sized hole behind. Zebra put his hand through, and pulled the door open.

The room on the other side was dark, lit only by a street-lamp on the other side of a filthy, nearly opaque window. It looked like another abandoned shop-front — wide, open floorspace with box-shaped shadows close to the walls and stacked in the corners. There were ketal scattered around the room, but it was so dark and they were all holding so still that it was difficult to pin down exactly how many there were. Zebra was left with an uncomfortable feeling of being watched from all sides.

“Oh, seken via hat ket,” someone said, and Zebra turned in the direction of the voice. There was faint laughter from all corners of the room, ominous chuckles that felt very much at his expense. He didn’t appreciate it.

“Tii tanul se sevia?” the ket asked. Zebra assumed they wanted to know why he was bothering them, and even if he was wrong, that was information he wanted out in the open, anyway.

“I’m looking for a friend,” he told them. “A ket, she’s been missing for two weeks. I’m worried she’s in trouble.”

“Uel, vasulken lin se, nai sevia,” another ket said from somewhere behind him, sparking more laughter.

“Why here, sevia?” the first ket asked.

“We think she might have been with some other ketal at the Hammer & Shark yesterday morning. We heard they might be you.”

There was a pause before the ket stood up and crossed the room to where Zebra stood. In the dark, they strongly resembled Katters, except that they were very tall — taller, even, than Harry.

Zebra thought, again, about the rumours that ketal ate people.

“Tekaet,” the ket said, a lilt in their voice. “Sulkaet. Perhaps some of us were there. Perhaps your friend was with us. What then, sevia?”

“I’d like to see her. I want to know if she’s okay.”

“What, then, if she isn’t okay, sevia?”

Zebra hesitated. He wasn’t sure where the ket was going with this — where they had already gone with it — and he couldn’t make out the ket’s expression well enough, in the dark, to get a read on their intentions.

“Then I help her,” he said. “Until she is okay.”

The ket considered, tilting their head and looking Zebra over.

“The human is very small,” they said. “What, then, if the human is too small to help the ket?”

“I brought backup,” Zebra said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at Harry.

“Uh,” Harry said, “I don’t—”

“The human is less small,” the ket admitted, giving Harry the same once-over they’d given Zebra. “I will speak with the human pack, sevia,” they said, and moved toward the door.

The ket looked less like Katters in the light. Their hair was shorter, their scales and ears darker. They did have a number of their own scars — jagged, white marks that cut through their shield-scales like shattered glass.

“Prey-animal is brash,” they said, outside. Their accent was lighter, here, away from their peers, but their tone still had an amused edge that rubbed Zebra the wrong way. “Cannot imagine what possessed the pack to stumble into the hunter den without a ‘hello’ or a ‘come to me’.”

“Without a what?” Harry asked.

“We’re just looking for my friend,” Zebra said.

The sun had set while they were inside, but its ambiance still lingered, faint ghosts of daylight highlighting the abandoned buildings and malfunctioning street-lamps in hazy greyscale.

The ket was wearing a black, leather jacket and nothing underneath it. Showing off even more scars marring their chest. “You carry a storm with you,” they said, waving a hand over Zebra. “Him—” they nodded at Harry, “not so much. But your storm is sharp. It will cut you.”

“I’ll buy an umbrella.”

The ket laughed. “Your storm tells an old story, but it tells it from the wrong side. It tastes like the lost ones.”

“Yes,” Zebra said, impatient. “I lost my friend. She’s missing. Have you seen her?”

“The lost ones aren’t missing. They aren’t found. They’re lost. Taken by Tii Kasal Lirasalne, to Iuleir.”

“Okay. But unless Tea Cuss-All can tell me where my friend is, I don’t care.”

The ket’s ears twitched down, and they sighed. “Tell me of your friend.”

Finally. “She has brown scales,” Zebra recited. “Sky-blue ears. Black hair, she ties back with a red ribbon. She’s shorter than you, taller than me, and usually wearing a green vest.”

“Tell me of her.”

Zebra frowned. “I just did.”

“Tell me of her insides,” the ket said, tapping their stomach with all five of their digits. “Tell me about her blood.”

Harry raised his eyebrows, but the ket wasn’t being literal — Zebra hoped.

“She’s stubborn,” he said. “Impulsive, but she doesn’t change her mind. She likes to argue, but she likes to fight more.”

“Sharp and hard.” The ket nodded.

“You know her?”

“No. Am sorry, your friend has never been here.”

“God damn it,” Zebra said. “Why’d you drag me out here? Why’d you drag all of that out here?”

“Curious,” the ket said, rolling their shoulders. “Was curious, am curious. But your friend is okay, I think.”

“What makes you say that?”

“A hunter makes trouble for themself, but never trouble they can’t handle. Think your friend is a hunter.”

Zebra shook his head. “Believe me, she makes more than enough trouble for herself pretty often. She can handle it because I’m around. So, I need to be around.”

“Ah. Her pack. Your tribe. Then, you will find her.”

“I hope so.”

“I also hope so. Am sorry to not know your ket, to have been of no help. Hope that your ket is not lost.”

“Waste of my time,” Zebra muttered, walking away.

“Thanks anyway,” Harry said, before following him.

“Luck on you,” the ket called after them. “Prey-animal will take care in the dark, tonight.”

“Well, heck,” Harry said, catching up with Zebra. “Sorry that didn’t go anywhere.”

“Sorry isn’t useful to me,” Zebra spat.

“Sorry,” Harry said, reflexively, and snapped his fingers as he bit back yet another apology. “Where are you going, now?”

“Home.”

“But what about, what about—”

“Katters?” Zebra snarled. “What about her?”

“Well,” Harry faltered, losing pace with him. “What — what about her?”

“She can take care of herself. Or, she can rot, I suppose. I’m done with this goose-chase.”

Harry caught up with him again and waved his cigarette back at the ket-infested store. “But what about all that, she needs your help, to handle the trouble she gets into? I thought you were going to help her?”

“I wanted that lizard to tell me where she was,” Zebra snapped. “But they didn’t, and I don’t know where she is, so I can’t help her. So, I’m going home.”

Harry grabbed his shoulder, stopping his forward march and turning him around. Zebra turned his snarl on him, his eyes wide and furious.

“Hold on,” Harry said, either ignoring Zebra’s glare or unaware of it — either way, Zebra thought, he was an idiot. He swatted the hand away.

“We have no leads,” Zebra said, barbs in his voice. “There are three-and-a-half million people in this city, how exactly do you expect to find one of them with no earthly idea of where she could be?”

Harry’s shoulders tensed under his bulky coat, but the look on his face was still one of confused concern. “Leads don’t usually just fall out of the sky. You have to find them — which is why I want to stop and think, maybe we’ll get an idea.”

“What do you even care? Why are you even here?”

Harry took a step back, but he didn’t shy away from Zebra or his dirty look. He took a long drag off his cigarette, which conveniently hid half of his expression behind his gorilla-esque hand. But not his furrowed, thoughtful brow.

“Could be a story,” he admitted, finally. “Already is. I can sell that ket den to someone if I spruce it up a bit. But, I’d like to get a bow on the missing person thing. For the readers, but for me, too. I never like to hear bad news, even if it pays.”

Zebra scoffed. “Of course. The tragedies of others are yours to sell.”

Harry shrugged. “Vive la freedom of the press.”

Maybe he wasn’t an idiot. Or, less of one than Zebra thought. At least he wasn’t just tagging along out of the goodness of his heart.

“Fine,” Zebra said, voice still cold. “What do you suggest we do?”

“Well, let’s backtrack. What brought you to the Hammer & Shark?”

“She goes to bars. She’s been to that one.”

“Alright, but she wasn’t at that one yesterday. What other bars does she go to?”

Zebra thought. “The OA6,” he said, recalling the list. “And the 42.”

“The 42 is in Snowtown South. Is that all?”

“All that I know of.”

Harry nodded, relaxing, and started walking. “Well, we’ve got a long way to go — hope you’re up for it.”

“No, nevermind that,” Zebra said, pulling his phone out. “We can get a ride.”

The 42 was loud and crowded. There was a jukebox in the back, surrounded by cleared floorspace that served as a small dance floor. A handful of people were there, mingling and dancing, but the majority of the bar’s patrons were sitting or standing around tables. Trying to talk to each other over the music, and everyone else trying to talk over them.

Zebra threaded himself behind the crowd, along a wall, while Harry headed for the bar. Presumably for the drink he hadn’t gotten at the Hammer & Shark.

Now that Zebra was inside, this did not seem like a very bright plan. It seemed like the sort of plan a person might come up with when they were accustomed to needing quotes from people, and not from specific individuals — like the kind of plan a fluff journalist might concoct.

He pulled out his phone and made himself busy with it.

Maybe he should leave. Come back tomorrow, before it got so full, see who made a home here when it wasn’t happy hour. That had kind of worked at the last place.

He tried to catch up on his social media feeds, but kept gravitating back to Katters’ profiles. Kept refreshing her Twitter, looking for a retweet, a quote, a mention, anything. Anything more recent than two weeks ago.

This wasn’t helping. It was just making him feel — hollow, listless.

He thought about stepping outside and calling her. Of listening to her voice-mail message and feeling the confused nostalgia it would bring. A spark of it caught in him just thinking about it, heavy and bitter — but it vanished when he remembered calling her, earlier. When it had gone to voice-mail sooner than he’d expected. When someone — Katters? Her captor? — had dismissed his call?

The bar was very loud, suddenly. He couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t ignore the music and the chatter and the blood rushing through his ears. He wanted to try again, to confirm that had happened, and he wanted to do it now. He plugged his ear with a finger and dialled her number.

“Hello. You’ve reached the phone number of — Katters Jones. Please leave a message after the tone.”

No ring. Just voice-mail.

No one had dismissed him. No one hand hung up on him. Her phone had died, and it happened to die while he was calling her.

He had killed it.

He let his hands drop and leaned against the wall. The jukebox switched over to some electro-swing and he let the thumping bass rise up through his feet and his legs, let it drown out whatever this was he was feeling.

Zebra wished Katters were there. He really needed to blow off some steam, and she was always willing to help him out with that, after a little needling. Picking a fight with Harry would not be satisfying, he knew, but he was tempted to try it anyway — but he tried to calm himself, instead.

He needed to do something. Find someone who knew where Katters was, ostensibly, but more he needed to take his mind off everything, for a while. This was too much failure to deal with in one night. He stood back up and made his way to the back.

He danced. He started alone, but gravitated toward another man on the floor, also dancing alone. A man dancing alone in a bar is probably gay, which would be something they’d have in common.

He was tall, muscular, wearing straight-cut jeans and a tastefully striped shirt with two buttons left undone. For a while, he and Zebra only danced near each other, sizing each other up, testing the waters, but before long they entered each other’s orbit and began dancing together.

“Let me buy you a drink,” Zebra said to him, in the relative quiet after one song ended and before the next began. His dance partner agreed with an eager smile.

They snagged a table as another group left, and Zebra went to get the drinks.

“What’s your name?” he asked when he came back.

“Alden.”

“Zebra.”

“That’s an interesting name,” Alden said, sipping at his drink.

“Thanks, I made it myself.”

Alden laughed. He had dimples, which gave him an innocent, boyish look, ruined in the best way by the impish curl of his lip.

“Come here often?” Zebra asked, because he couldn’t resist. They had to lean in close to each other, over the table, to talk.

Alden laughed again. “Yeah, actually,” he said. “Haven’t seen you around before, though.”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“I think you found him.”

Zebra snorted his drink and started coughing. “No,” he said when he could breathe again, though he was still blinking back tears. “I mean, yes, obviously, but I’m also looking for a friend of mine who’s gone missing.”

“Oh.” Alden frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “But if you’ve seen her, she’s a ket, with light brown scales and light blue ears.”

Alden thought, leaning back a little. He took another drink, then: “Jones?”

Zebra snorted his drink again, this time in shock. “Yes!” he said, and his voice carried over the rest of the bar and caused a brief pause in everyone else’s conversations. “That’s her! You know her?”

“Let’s take this outside,” Alden said. “Where it’s quieter.”

“Of course, yes, let’s,” Zebra said, standing. He and Alden went outside, leaving their drinks on the table. As he left, Zebra tried to get a view of Harry, but couldn’t find him.

They went around behind the bar, and Zebra lead Alden across the parking lot, where they couldn’t feel the bass thrumming through the pavement. He had hoped for some privacy, but they passed several other couples sitting on wheel-stops and leaning against cars, who had had the same idea. But at least they could hear each other talk.

“So,” Zebra said, “you know Katters?”

They stopped next to a lamp with a wide concrete base, and Alden propped himself on it. “Yeah. I guess you do, too?”

“We live together. We’re business partners.”

“Oh, you work in her shop?”

“I’m co-owner of her shop,” Zebra said, only slightly annoyed. He had paid to have the shop built. It had mostly been his idea, in the first place. It wouldn’t have existed without him. “She’s been missing for a couple weeks,” he continued. “Do you know where she is?”

“No, I haven’t seen her in, like, a month. Which is weird, but I just figured she was busy or something. I feel awful, that she might be hurt somewhere.”

Alden had his hands in his pockets, his shoulders high and square.

“She can take care of herself,” Zebra said. It felt weird to be reassuring someone else about her wellbeing. “But I’ll feel better seeing her for myself.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s tough.”

“Did you ever see her—” Zebra twirled a finger. “Anywhere else? Away from the bar?”

“No. Well.” Alden looked up, squinting at the halo of light above, cast down on him and his stubbled jaw-line. On the dark, wavy hair that hung around his ears in loose curls. “Sometimes we’ll leave together, us and a few other people we know.” He looked back down. “We’ll just kind of wander around the city until we find something to do, or until we get tired and go home.”

“Like what?”

“Food, usually. Find a twenty-four hour place and sober up a little. We stumbled onto an arcade once but I’ll be damned if I can find it again. I think Jones got the high score on something while she was there, I wonder if she’s still got it.”

“But nowhere specific, that she might be now?”

“No. Places start, uh, kicking us out if we go to them too often.” There was a hint of a guilty smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “We’re pretty drunk by then.”

“Do you think your other friends might know where she is?”

He shook his head and the curls, lit up gold and copper by the lamp, fell over his forehead. He brushed them away. “I don’t know. I doubt it, I think they’d have mentioned if they’d seen her.”

“Hell,” Zebra said. He closed his eyes and sighed.

“I’m sorry. If I could think of something…”

“No. No, it’s fine. It will be fine.”

He opened his eyes again and Alden was staring at him, his head tilted thoughtfully. He pushed himself away from the lamp and touched Zebra’s arm. “Here. Let’s walk, and maybe something will come to me. You’re not going to find her just standing around here, anyway.”

Zebra put his hand over Alden’s. He was tired of walking, and tired in general, but Alden had a point. They let go of each other and started out of the parking lot.

“Have you tried calling the cops?” Alden asked.

Zebra didn’t roll his eyes, but the temptation was strong. “No. That wouldn’t help.”

“I guess not. Maybe you should try it anyway, though, if you can’t find her yourself. Couldn’t hurt, right?”

“I beg, humbly, to differ. Calling in police intervention could very well result in hurting Katters, specifically.”

“True. At least, if they hurt her, that means they found her, right?”

Zebra gave him a look, unsure of how serious he was being.

“Sorry,” Alden said with a half-smile. “Too dark?”

“No. Maybe too soon, but it’s fine.”

“What about a PI? Someone who knows how to find people, and is much less likely to shoot them when they do.”

Zebra shrugged. “Not specifically. I did have someone helping me who claims experience in finding people, but I seem to have lost him, too.”

“The guy you came into the bar with?”

“Oh, you saw that? Yes, that was him. He’s a journalist, not a detective, but there’s some overlap in the skillsets, or so I understand it.”

“I’m afraid you’ve traded him for a guy with no experience in either.”

Zebra waved this off. “I’m pretty sure he abandoned me to go home with some woman.”

“Which is different from you abandoning him to leave with some man.”

Zebra smiled. “Yes, because it’s me doing it.”

They’d gotten pretty far from the bar by that point. The 42 was near the edge of the downtown area, so the neighbourhood was fairly active, even as late as it was. They passed by other people as they talked, parting groups and parting for groups like schools of fish coming together before darting away.

“Detectives,” Zebra said, “are expensive, and they don’t come with a guarantee.”

“You don’t think the chance of finding her is worth the price?”

“I haven’t given up on finding her myself.”

“Do you really think,” Alden started, and then paused, gathering his words. “Do you really think that she’s just hiding somewhere? That she’s fine?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“It’s very unlike her to just vanish for so long without a word. I never did think that’s what happened, but I don’t know where else to look.” He ran a hand through his hair, over the back of his head, rubbing his neck. “I just think, maybe, if she was taken somewhere against her will, then maybe she was taken from somewhere with which she was familiar.”

“That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Zebra asked, glancing up at him before staring back into the distance. “Because it feels less and less like a good plan the longer I stick with it.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you should try something else.”

“Like what?”

Alden shrugged. “You won’t call the cops. And you won’t hire anybody to help. You won’t spend money on the search at all.”

“That’s not true. I bought you a drink.”

“Very generous. Have you thought about magic?”

“I try not to.”

“A magic-user might be able to find her.”

Zebra sighed. “It’s funny you say that. There’s a user looking for her, too, unless she’s given up already. We’re not on good terms, though, so I wouldn’t have any word on her search.”

“Well, maybe two users could find her twice as fast.”

“I’ve honestly had as much experience with magic as I need in one lifetime. More than, really.”

Alden shrugged again, raising his hands and his eyebrows. “It’s getting cold,” he said, half-smiling. “It’s getting late.”

“You’re right,” Zebra agreed, but he was thinking about Sor. Maybe he should try to get in contact with her, see if she’d turned anything up. Maybe he should try calling Katters again.

“You’re far from your shops. Maybe you’d like to come crash on my couch?”

Zebra inhaled too sharp and the cold night air cut into his throat. “I would like that,” he said after clearing it. “Are you far from here?”

“Just around the corner, actually,” Alden said, a little sheepish. “I’ve kind of been leading us there.”

Zebra had to admire this. “Maybe I’ll try something different tomorrow. After I’ve slept.”

“Makes sense.”

“I hope she’ll be okay overnight.”

“As okay as she’s been the past couple of weeks, I’m sure.”

“True.”

They decided to eat before doing anything else. It had been a long day, and Zebra hadn’t had much more than a box of crackers and several glasses of vodka. He offered to pay for delivery, and had a local Chavidean restaurant send something over.

“I don’t usually get Chavidean,” Alden said as he spooned some salada nissarda, a mess of boiled eggs and limp greens, onto a paper plate. He had to dig closer to the bottom of the styrofoam bowl to find any of the minced fish. “There weren’t any restaurants nearby when I was a kid, because of the stigma.”

Zebra speared a couple of quenelles with his fork. More fish, breaded and poached. It seemed to him that Snowtonites thought Chavideans subsisted entirely on seafood.

“I grew up with this,” he said. “Well, I grew up with the actual recipes, anyway. This is more of an interpretation of Chavidean cooking than anything else.”

“You’re Chavidean?”

Zebra nodded. “Originally. But I’ve been living here in Snowtown for years.”

“I guess if you were here to overthrow our government, you’d have done it by now, then.”

“I have been playing a very long game.”

Alden reached over the table for a box of what the restaurant claimed was brandade, but in practice were deep-fried balls of fish served with an artichoke sauce. Functionally the exact opposite of the brandade Zebra had growing up, where the cod would serve as a dip or topping for lightly seasoned sourdough.

He wasn’t even sure the fish they were eating was cod.

“She doesn’t like Chavidean,” he said, distantly aware of his own voice. Unable to stop himself from turning the conversation back to Katters. “So, we don’t get it very often, either.”

Alden was quiet for a moment, his fork hovering over his food. “Jones?” he said, and resumed eating. “Hard to imagine there’s a food she doesn’t like.”

Zebra shrugged, rolling a fish ball back and forth on his plate. “She doesn’t hate it. But it’s hard to get good Chavidean in Ripton, and she doesn’t care for it enough to put in the effort.”

“Maybe that’s where she went. Find good Chavidean.”

Now it was Zebra’s turn to be quiet. He was aware that he had made things awkward in the same way he was aware that there was sauce creeping across his plate toward his quenelles.

“What are you going to do if she doesn’t turn up?” Alden asked.

“Leave,” Zebra said, because that had been his answer every single time the question had come up in the eleven years since he and Katters had met. But it was so close to being reality, now, and his conviction was shaky.

“Leave to where?”

He shrugged again.

“But, what are you going to do after that? What are you going to do with yourself?”

“That depends on where I end up.”

“You don’t know.”

“I guess not.”

Alden sighed, stood, and started gathering the empty (and half-empty) delivery containers. He carried them away.

“I’m sorry,” he said from the kitchen, and Zebra realised he’d spaced out on the couch.

“No,” Zebra said, standing. “I’m sorry. I should have helped you clean up. I must be tired.”

“Don’t worry about it, you paid. But, I mean.” Alden stopped putting things into the fridge and turned to face him. “I know this is hard. I’ve lost people, I know it’s always hard.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

Alden set Zebra up with a couple of pillows and a blanket, and after a little more awkward conversation, retired to his own bed. Zebra found himself sitting in the dark, in a strange man’s apartment, thinking strange, dark thoughts and barely entertaining the idea of sleep.

The battery on his phone was getting low, so he didn’t spend an hour checking Katters’ social media for updates. He did try to call Hyde — the closest person to Sor whose number he had in his phone — before changing his mind after a single ring and hanging up. It was late, Hyde was probably sleeping, or working, or otherwise indisposed, and even if he wasn’t, Sor probably was.

Zebra’s eyes adjusted to the dark his phone’s screen left behind while he sank ever deeper into the couch cushions, and his thoughts turned to the fact that Katters was probably gone for good.

Dead. Or worse.

He stood. He didn’t want to go to sleep like this — having accomplished nothing, made no progress. Not with these thoughts. He paced around the coffee table, making wide, careful arcs around its corners.

They say that, after a person’s been missing for seventy-two hours, you shouldn’t hold onto any hope of finding them. They don’t have anything to say about three-hundred hours, because they don’t have to say anything about three-hundred hours.

Maybe he should go to the cops after all. File a proper missing persons report. Then, if they find the body in a month, or a year, they may get around to telling him about it and he could get some closure.

He thought about her turning up in the marsh, half decayed, her skin sloughing off, her eyes eaten out by wildlife.

Thought about all the bodies they’d buried in the woods together — what if the cops never found her, either?

Thought about the remains hidden in their basement — if the cops came looking for clues, what else might they find?

Thought about Katters chained up in someone else’s basement. Still alive — but barely.

He wanged his shin against the table with a loud crack, clenched his teeth against the swear that sat like teapot steam in his throat. Rubbing his leg, he waited for Alden to come investigate, but the bedroom door didn’t budge. He must have been asleep.

Zebra sat on the table, still clutching his leg. He would have to find her himself. He couldn’t rely on anyone else to do it. He couldn’t sit back and wait for her to be found, passive and dumb.

There came a faint knocking at the front door and Zebra tried to ignore it. It was, after all, not his door to answer. But then the window next to it slid open, and Zebra started to wonder if he should do something about that. And, if so, what?

“Psst,” the would-be intruder hissed. “Zebra?”

Well, that did make things easier. Zebra stood and walked across the room. The voice continued: “Zebra, I know you’re in there.”

“I’m here.” He poked his head out the window, through the curtains.

It was Sor.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “How did you know where I was?”

“You,” she said, “are much easier to find than Katters is.” She did not look happy. Rather, she looked tired, her green hair a mess, dark bags forming below her eyes. Her ears were stuck in a limp, emotionless droop.

“And you wanted to find me, because?”

Sor’s frown deepened. She was looking at the walkway outside Alden’s apartment, and had her arms crossed over her chest. “I think,” she said carefully, “that we should look for Katters together.”

Zebra narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Have you found her?”

“No.”

“Neither have I. Maybe we’ll have better luck as a—” her voice cracked, here, like she was trying to hold something down. “As a pair.”

“Hold on.”

Zebra stood back from the window, glanced toward Alden’s bedroom, and opened the front door. He stepped out into the night.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

Zebra nodded. “Okay.”

“I kind of expected you to fight me on this.”

“I’m not in the mood to fight.”

Sor tilted her head. “Really.”

“It’s been a long day. I’m sure you understand.”

She sagged a little. “I do, actually. I guess you haven’t had any luck, either. It’s like she just vanished, without a trace, off the face of the planet.”

“So, what do you propose we do?”

“What do I propose? You don’t have any ideas, Mr. Strategery?”

Zebra rolled his eyes.

“Where have you looked?”

“Bars, mostly.”

“That’s an idea,” Sor said. “But not a good one. You’re not going to just happen to find someone who knows her at a bar, there’s too much variation in clientele from one night to another.”

“Is that so?”

“That is so.”

Zebra crossed his arms. “Except that’s exactly what happened.”

“Oh? Do they know where she is?”

“No.”

“Then they’re not much help, are they?”

“I may be in the mood to fight, after all.”

“No, listen,” Sor said, waving him off. “Where else does she go? Besides bars?”

“Grocery shopping, but I already tried there.”

“And? Any other chores?”

“Well, where have you been looking, exactly?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Zebra sighed and tried to think. “We go into the woods every so often. But we always do that together, I don’t know why she’d do it alone.”

“I already checked the woods. If she’s there, she’s very well hidden.”

“Like, in a grave,” Zebra muttered.

“Don’t say that.”

“Pawn shops,” Zebra said. “We pawn things every month.”

“That’s a start. What shop?”

Zebra looked around, trying to get a bearing on where they were. “There’s a bunch of them. But I think one’s nearby.”

“That’s perfect. Lead the way.”

Zebra gave in to his impulses as they walked, and checked Katters’ social media again. It was worse than stasis — someone had deleted all of her previous content, leaving only empty profiles behind.

Like she’d vanished, he thought, without a trace. Off the face of the planet.

It was ridiculous. An exaggeration. After all, there were traces left — he, himself, was a trace of Katters’ existence. Sor was, too. Alden remembered her.

Still, he found himself gnawing at the idea.

The pawn shop was still open, but barely, the proprietor (a muscular, blonde woman) starting to shut down for the night. Sor disappeared into the aisles, leaving Zebra at the front as she started going through the available wares.

There was someone else in the shop with them, a familiar face.

“Shoot,” Zebra said to the tall man. “It’s been a while.”

Rick gave him an odd look, his brow furrowed. “Sorry,” he said with a deep frown before turning back to the rack of heavy winter coats.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Katters, lately?”

“Who?”

“Katters,” Zebra said, too tired to deal with any bullshit. “You know, she tried to kill you?”

“I think I’d remember that.”

“You cut her arm off?”

“I’d definitely remember that.”

“The same night you stabbed me in the kidney?” Zebra pulled Rick by his shoulder and he stumbled back, away from the coats. “You nearly killed us both,” Zebra continued, “and locked us in the basement for our troubles. The least you could do is acknowledge our existence.”

Rick rubbed his chin. “And you are?”

Zebra grabbed Rick’s shirt collar in his fist. “Are you screwing with me?” he asked, pulling him closer. “Now is not a good time to screw with me.”

“Hey, uh—” Rick raised his hands, holding them up but away from Zebra. “I’m sorry I don’t, uh, know where your friend is. Sorry I can’t help you, please let me go.”

Zebra twisted the fabric and it tightened around Rick’s neck. “My friend, who?”

Rick’s eyes widened. “Uh — K-Kat?”

They were pushed apart suddenly by the shop owner. “Alright,” she said, leading them both to the door by their shoulders. “That’s enough of that.”

“Why do I have to leave?” Rick whined.

“We’re closing,” the owner said and shoved them both outside. “Come back tomorrow, or never.”

The shove tipped Zebra over and he stumbled into the gutter. By the time he’d righted himself, Rick was gone.

He grabbed at the air anyway, where he wished Rick was, and growled until his throat hurt. He pulled out his phone and dialled Katters’ number.

“We are sorry,” came the immediate reply. “You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

“God damn it!” he screamed into the phone. “You bastard!”

“If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try again.”

“You fucking son of a bitch!”

“We are sorry—”

“How dare you leave! How dare you leave me! How fucking dare you!”

“If you feel—”

“I’m going to murder you! When I find you, I’ll rip your god damn heart out and feed it back to you! And you’d better fucking be alive when it happens, or!”

“We are sorry—”

“You won’t like what I do if you’re already dead!”

“—or is no longer in service.”

Zebra pulled the phone away from his ear. He swung it at the ground, over and over again in wide, whipping arcs, but kept enough self-control to stop himself from letting go. Instead, he threw his shoulder out.

“Fuck!” he screamed.

“Jesus,” Sor said from behind him. “Are you alright, Zeebs?”

He paused, hunched over and panting, before slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Oh, I’m dandy,” he said, straightening up and smoothing back his hair. “Don’t I look dandy?”

“You look like shit.”

He sighed. His throat stung when he breathed. “Well,” he said. “I feel like shit.”

“Feel better,” she said, holding up a mohair sweater. “Because I found this.”

“I’m not sure why that would make me feel better.”

“That’s because you don’t know where it came from.”

“The pawn shop?”

“Yes, but before that. This sweater, it happens, was pawned by the very person we’re looking for.”

Zebra stared at it. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Magic, Zeebs. I know it, because magic.”

“Oh,” he said. “Of course.”

“And magic will also lead us from this sweater to the person who pawned it, if we can find a user who knows what they’re doing.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“Such a thing is standing before you, today!” Sor said, striking a pose, her arms akimbo. She stood there for a moment, clearly waiting for Zebra to react, but he refused to give her the satisfaction and she shifted back into a more normal position. “But first, we’ve got to get back to my lab. I’m running low on field supplies.”

“Of course,” Zebra said again. “You know,” he added, “if you needed something of Katters’, many of her possessions are currently located at her house.”

“I actually need something that’s only had passing contact with her. Her belongings don’t know she isn’t coming back, this sweater does — it can sympathise with us.”

“You’re insane.”

“Insane like a fox,” Sor said.

“Insane like a magic-user.”

“Funny, that.”

“Fine,” Zebra said. “It can’t hurt. Let’s go.”

“You’ve got your phone, right? Can you get us a cab?”

“It’s dead.” Zebra pulled his phone out. His tantrum had drained the last of the battery — it only had enough power, now, to demand to be plugged in.

Sor draped the sweater over her shoulder and pulled a small, plastic bottle from her belt. “Give it here,” she said, opening the bottle and getting its contents on her fingertips.

Zebra handed his phone over and Sor touched its charging port. There was a visible, and audible, arc of electricity from her finger to the phone, and when she handed it back, it was powering on.

“Thanks,” Zebra said, but he frowned suspiciously at the phone’s screen. “You didn’t damage it, did you?” he asked. “I just got this phone.”

“For crying out loud, Zeebs,” Sor said, “I just charged your phone with magic. It was dead, and I have brought it life. Where’s your sense of wonder?”

“This is a three hundred dollar phone, and using the wrong charging cable can break it. I don’t want to know what magic might do to it.”

“It’s fine. I do that to my phone all the time, and it works exactly like the day I bought it. Magic may even keep it young and sprightly.”

“I don’t know if I want my phone to be sprightly.”

“Just shut up and get us a ride.”

Zebra did, summoning yet another rideshare. “Hell,” he said, when he saw his assigned driver.

“What?” Sor asked. “Is something wrong with your phone?”

“Should something be wrong with it?” Zebra looked up at Sor with narrowed eyes. “No, it’s just that Kendrick’s picking us up.”

“Who’s Kendrick?”

“The only driver in Snowtown, it seems,” Zebra said. “He’s a nice guy,” he added, in a way that implied that he didn’t think “nice” was an admirable quality to have.

“Well, if you think he’s nice, I’m sure he’s a great guy.”

“He wanted me to turn you over to the cops.”

“He what? Why?”

“Because you might have known where Katters was, but wouldn’t tell me.”

“So I should be arrested?”

“Detained for questioning.”

Sor crossed her arms. “So he’s a nice guy,” she said.

Zebra nodded. “And a nice guy, too,” he said. “Here he comes.”

Kendrick’s blue car pulled up next to them and they got in.

“Hey, B!” Kendrick said, apparently harbouring no ill will over their last encounter. “Did you find your partner?”

“I did not.”

“B?” Sor asked, from the back. “Like a stinging pest?”

“Uh, no,” Kendrick said. “Like the letter. B.”

“Bees aren’t pests,” Zebra added.

“But you are,” Sor said.

Kendrick pulled the car out into the street. “Okay,” he said, “where are we goin’?”

“Back to Ramsey. This is that friend I was telling you about.”

“Oh, hi,” Kendrick said, looking at Sor in his rearview. “Nice to meet you. I’m Kendrick.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sor said.

Zebra glanced over his shoulder at her, then at Kendrick. “So, I didn’t need to have the police talk to her, after all,” he said.

Kendrick almost swerved into a passing bike. Zebra grinned.

“That’s, uh,” Kendrick said, straightening the car out. “That sounds bad,” he said.

“Isn’t that what you said?” Zebra asked, the picture of innocence. “That I should call the police and have them talk to her, if she wouldn’t talk to me?”

“Well, your partner’s missing, I just meant that you should file a report.”

“And turn Sor in to them.”

“I guess. I don’t — it sounds bad, when you put it like that, but I just meant that, if she had any information, they could talk to her.”

“Yes,” Zebra said, grinning again despite himself. “Give her to the police, for questioning.”

“Jeez,” Kendrick said, struggling to merge into the inside lane. “I mean, you make it sound like I wanted her thrown in jail, or something, I don’t even know her!”

“No, right, you just thought it would help if I had a strange woman held indefinitely by the police until she acquiesced to their demands. It was perfectly reasonable.”

“Zebra,” Sor said.

“It was,” Kendrick said. “You’re putting it all wrong, but it was reasonable. I was just trying to help.”

“Well,” Zebra said, “I appreciate it. I don’t know if Sor does, but I do.”

“Okay,” Kendrick said, a wobble in his voice.

Sor reached forward to grab Zebra’s arm. “Zebra,” she said again. “Stop.”

“That doesn’t sound like she appreciates it,” Zebra said.

“Zebra!”

Zebra sighed and swatted her hand away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, “but fine.”

“Okay.” Kendrick found Sor in the rearview, again. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s alright,” Sor said, but she looked annoyed.

“Yes,” Zebra said, “it’s alright that you wanted to turn Sor here in to the authorities.”

“Zebra,” Sor snapped.

Zebra huffed. “It is alright,” he told Kendrick.

“We’re, uh, about to Ramsey.” Kendrick swiped a finger over his phone, realised he was about to run a red light, and pulled the car into an abrupt and jarring stop. “Shoot,” he said. “Sorry. Uh, we’re going just up Stone Way, here, right?”

“That’ll get us there,” Sor confirmed.

Zebra tapped his fingers against the passenger door handle. He wanted to poke Kendrick some more, but it wasn’t wise to push him any further, just yet.

“I saw it was a bookshop?” Kendrick asked. “When we were here before.”

“Among other things,” Sor said.

“You read a lot?”

“No,” Sor said. “I hate books, that’s why I’m trying to get rid of them.”

“Oh.”

“I’m kidding.”

“Oh.” Kendrick laughed, a weak chuckle. “My daughter’s got a birthday coming up,” he said. “She loves those Nod Limb books, would you recommend something else for her?”

Sor considered. “Has she read Undone, by Alex Bauers?”

“I don’t think so, what’s it about?”

“A couple of kids have to stop the world from falling apart,” Sor said, “when the magic that holds everything together starts disappearing. It’s in the same age bracket as Nod Limb, and the characters have that anti-hero quality that the twins have.”

“That sounds good, maybe I’ll pick up a copy.”

“It’s the first in a series, I’d recommend them all.”

“Thanks,” Kendrick said.

He pulled up in front of K. Whimsy’s. “It was Undone?” he asked as Sor and Zebra got out of the car.

“By Alex Bauers,” Sor said.

Kendrick typed that into his phone. “Thanks again,” he said, and drove off.

Zebra frowned, and pulled out his phone to pay for the ride. He’d wanted to get one last jab off before Kendrick left, but with all that book talk, he hadn’t gotten a chance.

Sor lead them into the shops. “I don’t appreciate you using me to torment other people,” she said.

“Hmm?” Zebra hummed, still on his phone. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Just leave me out of it, alright?”

“Katters’ Twitter is gone,” Zebra said. “Deleted. So’s everything else.”

“Fuck. Okay, we should hurry, then.”

‘We’ apparently didn’t include Zebra, who Sor locked out of her lab even though he had been in there before. She said she didn’t want him distracting her, whatever that meant, so Zebra hovered around the bookshelves.

One corner was devoted to Khetten books, and Zebra poked through them. He found a Khetten to English dictionary, but he couldn’t remember any of the words the ketal had said, except for ‘ket’, which he already knew. So that wasn’t going to be any help.

There was another book dealing with ket myths, and Zebra paged through it, trying to remember the things the blue ket had told him. There was something about storms, he recalled, so he flipped to the index and looked for something to do with that.

Sahvhol was the god of storms, and dealt with prescience — so that ket was tasting Zebra’s future. That was weird.

The ‘vhol’ suffix was familiar. The ket had mentioned one of the other gods, and Zebra flipped back to the index to see if anything jumped out at him. It was either Eimavhol or Liravhol, he wasn’t sure.

Eimavhol was the god of the fields, and dealt with prey animals, which the ket had also mentioned a few times, but Zebra suspected this was unrelated. Liravhol was also called the Absent God, and that, too, seemed like a long shot. If they were absent, Zebra reasoned, they couldn’t very well be doing anything to him, could they?

Not that he believed a ket god was manipulating him from ket heaven, or whatever.

Then again, maybe the Absent God would have something to do with the Absent Katters. Zebra flipped the book back to the section on Liravhol and started reading.

The book told him about the lost ones, yet another term the ket had used. When a ket, it said, works too long in Liravhol’s domain, Liravhol takes them and they become lost. What that meant, exactly, varied somewhat from tribe to tribe, ranging from the ket becoming a wild beast, devoid of all reason, to the ket being literally taken away from reality. Sometimes people would remember the lost one and mourn their disappearance, but sometimes even the memory of their existence would fade away.

Of course, the book didn’t have anything to say about bringing lost ones back. They aren’t missing, and they aren’t found — they’re lost.

It was all very relevant, and that made Zebra uncomfortable until he thought more about it. Of course it was relevant — the ket who told him the myth knew he was looking for a missing person, and processed that information through a cultural lens that spat all of this back out at them. There are plenty of myths about people going missing, because people go missing all the time and their loved ones like to explain that with more comforting stories than ‘they died an unremarkable and random death’. Any one of them would have exactly as much relevance to his search for Katters, now.

He wasn’t about to start jumping at ghost stories.

Sor emerged from her lab as Zebra put the book back.

“Find anything?” she asked him.

“What?”

“You look like you were looking for something,” she said. “Did you find it?”

“No. Did you, whatever it was you were going to do with the sweater?”

“I did!” She had the sweater wrapped around her back, the sleeves clutched over her chest. She shrugged into it, pulling it even tighter around herself. “And I stocked up on field supplies, so whatever happens, I’ll be ready for it.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“Anything and everything. Be prepared, as the scouts say.”

“Right,” Zebra said, leaving the corner. “And what are we doing, now?”

“That was the ket corner,” Sor said, leaning sideways to look around him. “Nonfiction. What were you looking for?”

“Is there a ket fiction corner?”

“More like a shelf, it’s very sparse. Did you want to look at it?”

“I was just killing time,” Zebra said. “Waiting for you to come back. What are we doing?”

“I believe this is called ‘conversation’.”

Zebra crossed his arms, refusing to dignify Sor’s statement.

“Well!” Sor said. “You’re all business, today. I’ve teased some of Katters out of the sweater, and it wants to go back to her. We just need to follow it.”

“Where is it?”

“Back in the sweater, so I can keep track of it. It’s on top, though — above the sweater’s actual owner, which was very hard, I’ll have you know, because, let’s just say there’s more of them in the fibres than there usually is, which is probably Katters’ fault. And above whoever made it, and whatever goat the yarn came from. And—”

“Great,” Zebra said, cutting her off. “So let’s follow it.”

He walked up to Sor, and as he did so the sweater visibly bristled, all of its fuzz standing on end. Sor also bristled, the hairs rubbing against the back of her neck. She jumped away from Zebra, and the sweater calmed down.

“That’s weird,” she said.

“It doesn’t like me,” Zebra said, deadpan. “A sweater has an opinion about me.”

“A piece of Katters has an opinion about you,” Sor corrected. “And it should have the same opinion of you the rest of her does.”

“Oh, well, that explains it.”

She stepped toward Zebra, and then back again, immediately. “That’s weird,” she said. “That feels weird.”

“Well, take it off, then. And let’s get going, I—”

“Catch!” Sor threw the sweater at him. He caught it with his face.

The fuzz was sharper than he expected, the bristles poking and scratching into his skin. He tried to pull it away, to drop it, but it clung to him like a cat above a lake. He pulled it from his face, only to find it stuck to his arm, and then to his other arm, and then to his chest.

“That’s what I thought,” Sor said, tone serious. “It does like you.”

“Get it off of me,” Zebra snapped. “It itches!”

Sor took it from him easily, and carried it out of the apparent radius of Zebra’s effect on it. “This is a problem,” she said, “because it won’t lead us to Katters if it’s trying to lead us to you.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Zebra asked, scratching at his arms.

“Well, it only wants you when you’re close enough. It wants to go outside, right now.”

Zebra stopped scratching and pulled his sleeves straight. He narrowed his eyes at Sor. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Zeebs. But maybe you don’t need to be around for this part.”

“I don’t think so,” Zebra said. “I’ll stay four feet away, but if you think I’m going to go home and twiddle my thumbs when there’s an actual chance of finding her, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Fine, okay,” Sor said, wrapping the sweater back around her shoulders. “Have it your way, trail behind me like a puppy while I find your partner.”

He would definitely frame her for murder, later.

It’s difficult to stay four feet away from a person in the same car as them, so they walked. The sweater reacted to a few other things as they went, in the same way it had reacted to Zebra. A sewer drain. An abandoned building. A broken street lamp. Sor felt this said something about Zebra, but Zebra was pretty sure it was a more damning insight into Katters’ personality.

They stopped after an hour, to rest their legs. The sweater had led them east, toward North Snowtown, and it was so late that the streets were abandoned. They sat on the edge of the sidewalk, their feet in the gutter. Sor held the sweater in a ball in her lap, running a hand over its fluff. Zebra stared at his shoes.

All of this walking was not good for them. He would have to replace them, soon.

A car drove by, its xenon headlights blinding them as it turned a corner, and then it was gone and they were alone again.

“Does the sweater working mean that she’s okay?” Zebra asked.

“No.”

“I see.”

“The piece of her,” Sor said, her fingers curling into the sweater’s fibres, “is from before she went missing. It doesn’t know if she’s — if she’s hurt, or — or if she’s — dead. It’ll lead us to her, where-ever she is, whatever’s happened to her.”

“I see,” Zebra said, again. “Is there a way to know if she’s okay, with magic?”

“Don’t you think I would have done that already if I could?”

Zebra shrugged. “You’re a little funny,” he said.

“You’re a little bit of an asshole.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Zebra leaned toward her, and Sor yelped as the sweater bit into her hands. He turned the lean into a shift to his feet, standing. “We should get going,” he said.

Sor glared at him, but stood, too. “It’s still this way,” she said, nodding toward the end of the street. She led the way, and Zebra kept four feet behind her.

“Do you suppose somebody took her?”

Sor shrugged. “I don’t know what to suppose. It’s possible.”

“I’m going to torture them,” Zebra said. “Before I kill them.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Feed them to the animals.”

“Alright.” Sor spun on her heel so she could look at him. “Your revenge fantasy? Not helping anyone but you, right now. Let’s just focus on finding her, first, and then we can dispense justice, if it’s necessary, afterwards.”

“But it is really helping,” Zebra said.

“Keep it to yourself. Or I’ll kick you off the search party.”

“Fine.”

She spun back around. “Good,” she said.

Zebra pulled his coat collar up and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “So, you don’t want to hurt them?” he asked her.

“We don’t even know if there is a them.”

“But if there is,” Zebra said, jogging into the street to come around Sor’s side while still staying out of the sweater’s attention zone.

Her expression was blank in an unnatural, forced way. There was tension in her brow and her jaw, and she kept looking straight ahead, not even glancing in his direction.

“There probably is,” Zebra added. Sor’s jaw tightened further, and he continued: “She probably didn’t leave of her own volition. Someone took her away from us, and we have no idea what they’ve done with her. What they wanted her for.”

“Of course I want to hurt them,” Sor said. “But I want to find her, more. And I don’t want to get distracted from that.”

“Why not?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re very tense. Why is that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because my best friend is missing and some asshole keeps talking about how much trouble she’s in, and all he seems to care about is hurting people.”

“That’s not all I care about.”

“Yeah, well, you could have fooled me.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

Sor frowned. She was clutching the sweater to her chest, her hands crossed in front of it.

“Thinking about hurting the people who took her,” Zebra said, “takes my mind off it. I can’t only think about how she’s gone, I’ll go crazy.”

“I can’t not think about her,” Sor said, quietly. “I’m afraid I’ll forget her.”

“What? Why would you?”

“I keep almost. I keep almost forgetting her face, or her name. What she sounded like, how she moved. She keeps slipping away, and I have to think about her to keep it all there.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?” Sor shot him a dirty look. “But I hate it. I hate it a lot.”

Zebra watched her, for a moment, before turning his attention to the street in front of him. “We’ll find her,” he said. “And then you won’t have to work to remember her.”

“I hope so.”

“And,” he added, “we’ll find the people who took her, too.”

The sun was rising as they crossed from North Snowtown back into the Downtown area. For a while, they were worried the sweater was going to lead them back to the pawn shop for some reason, but they passed it without the sweater reacting at all.

Instead, the sweater lead them to Alden’s apartment.

“That son of a bitch,” Zebra said as he climbed the stairs to Alden’s door. “I should have guessed.”

“What is this?” Sor asked, holding the bristling sweater gingerly, away from herself. “Who’s in there?”

“He knows Katters. I thought he was worried about her, but he must know where she is. Shit, maybe she’s in there right now.”

Alden’s lights were on, and there was someone moving around behind his curtains. No one had locked the door after Zebra left, which was lucky, because he didn’t feel like knocking. He threw the door open, and he and Sor barged into Alden’s living room.

“Whoa—” Alden said. He was on his way to the kitchen when they interrupted him, carrying an empty cup. “Who — what?”

“You son of a bitch,” Zebra reiterated, advancing on him. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“Who? What’s going on?”

Zebra grabbed Alden’s shirtfront in both hands. Alden looked more surprised, and confused, than threatened — Zebra came up to his chin, and would have had trouble circling Alden’s bicep with both hands.

“Don’t play dumb,” Zebra snarled at him. “You know where she is, where is she?”

“Jones?”

“Yeah,” Zebra said, pulling himself to his tip-toes by Alden’s shirt to approach his eye-level. “Jones. What did you do with her?”

Alden frowned. He looked past Zebra, to Sor. “You’re a magic-user, huh?” he asked her.

“I’d like you to answer his questions,” she said.

“You must be good. There shouldn’t be many traces of her left.” He looked down at Zebra, taking one of his hands in his own to remove it from his shirt. “She’s gone,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘gone’? Where is she?”

“She doesn’t exist, anymore.”

Sor made a strangled noise, and when Zebra turned to look at her, Alden removed his other hand. She was clutching the sweater, again, despite how uncomfortable it must have been against her skin, and looked about to cry.

“I’m surprised you remember her,” Alden said. “Are you using magic to keep her?”

Sor nodded.

“You should let her go. It’ll be easier, in the long run.”

Zebra turned back to him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“She wanted to go.”

“Bullshit,” Sor said.

“Yeah,” Zebra agreed. “She would never.”

“A lot of people think that,” Alden said. “They’re usually wrong. She was in a lot of pain.”

“I don’t give a shit how much pain she was in,” Zebra said. “She’d never just give up. She’d never want to, to stop existing.”

“Well, from her perspective, she didn’t. She just doesn’t exist here.”

Zebra jumped at Alden, knocking him over, into an end table. It broke under them. “So where is she?!” he shouted.

Alden wrapped his hand around Zebra’s face and shoved him away. Zebra pushed at his arm and wrist, but Alden’s hand stayed in place, and he lifted Zebra up as he got to his feet.

“She has to be here,” Sor said. “You have to be lying.”

“I’m not.” Alden glanced at the sweater. “You wanted that to lead you to her,” he said.

“That is what it’s doing.”

Alden shook his head. “It’s leading you to nothing,” he said. “Because that’s where she is.”

“It lead us here.”

“It lead you to me. I am nothing.”

Zebra punched at his wrist, and Alden let his face go.

“You’re nothing, too,” he said to him.

“You talk a lot,” Zebra said.

“You could stand to listen more.”

“Wait,” Sor said, stepping forward. “She doesn’t exist, because she didn’t want to, and now she’s someplace else, which is nothing, which is you?”

“That’s close.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’ll start at the beginning. Would you like to sit down?”

“No,” Zebra said.

“Kind of,” Sor said.

They sat down. Alden on the couch, Sor and Zebra on chairs.

Alden brought his hands together between his knees. “She was taken by the Absent God,” he said, and Zebra flinched.

“The Absent God,” Sor repeated. “That’s a ket deity, isn’t it?”

“Jones was a ket,” Alden said.

“She is a ket,” Zebra corrected.

“She wanted to know how things might have turned out,” Alden continued, “if they were different. The Absent God offered her that opportunity, and in exchange, she would no longer exist here, where things are the same. She took it.”

That actually did sound like her, Zebra thought. Leaving not as some convoluted suicide plan, but for the sake of her damn curiosity. She probably thought she’d be able to find some way back, when her curiosity was sated.

He and Sor exchanged looks. She’d come to the same conclusion, and the worry of how plausible it seemed was painted over her face.

“So she’s in another reality,” Sor said.

“Yes. From our perspective, she doesn’t exist — from her perspective, we don’t exist.”

“She doesn’t remember us,” Zebra said.

“That’s right.”

“What does this all have to do with you?” Sor asked.

“The Absent God lives in nothing,” Alden said. “In the holes and the gaps between things, in the things that no longer work. And, in the people with broken pieces,” he said this last, looking at Zebra. “They live in you,” he said. “That’s why you remember her.”

Zebra scoffed. “What broken pieces? I can assure you, I am fully functional.”

“The Absent God worked through me to help her.”

“So you sent her to another dimension,” Sor said.

“You could say that.”

“Can you bring her back?”

“No.”

“Can you send us to her?”

Alden paused. “You are in a lot of pain,” he said, finally.

“She’s my best friend,” Sor said, hugging the sweater to herself.

“I think you would be happier letting her go.”

“You’re wrong.”

Alden sighed. “It would be difficult. You don’t live in their domain, like she did — like he does,” he nodded at Zebra.

“Then you could send me after her,” Zebra said.

“Easily. You’re already half lost, as it is.”

“You said it would be difficult,” Sor said. “Not impossible.”

“That’s right, but I would have to pull you into their domain. You would have to be broken.”

“Broken how?”

“It’s hard to explain.” Alden pointed at Zebra. “He’s missing parts,” he said, “in his soul, or his personality, or whatever you want to think of as what makes him who he is.”

“Excuse you,” Zebra said.

“He was born like that.”

“I believe it,” Sor said.

Alden brought his hand to his chest. “Parts of me broke, and rotted away,” he said. “I lost something, and the Absent God lives in the empty space it left behind.”

“I’ve lost something, too,” Sor said.

“But she’s still there. You won’t let that be an empty space.”

“Oh.”

“It will take time,” Alden said. “Whatever breaks, it will take time to rot away.”

Zebra stood up. “But I’m already broken,” he said. “I’m already empty. So send me.”

“Are you sure? You’ll lose everything.”

“I don’t care.”

“You may not remember her on the other side.”

“I don’t care.”

“You can’t bring her back,” Alden warned. “Even if you do, even if you find her, you’ll be stuck there forever.”

“I tell you, I don’t care. I don’t want to be here if she’s not.”

Alden stood. “Okay,” he said, and then Zebra didn’t exist.