Before anything else, she went back and fed Splodge. There were plenty of meat scraps to raid, and she left them in a bowl in her room by a bowl of water with a makeshift litterbox stowed in one corner. Splodge showed little interest in any of it. Her room was too small to keep an adult cat in, especially without any towers or toys, but Splodge hadn’t started trying to slink past her when she entered or exited yet either.

Animals could get depressed same as people could, when they lost a loved one. A month was a long time for a cat. Keeping it in the same tiny space wouldn’t help.

She didn’t want to lose Splodge in the guts of the base, though. Just a few more days, she silently promised.

Orfeus sat thinking, the unresisting cat in her lap. There were too many ways for people to go missing, was the thing. Roving killers, maybe even hunters of the Wild if they were that bad at communicating. A one-off, someone preying on people in his family or someone from his past. Too many possibilities. She should investigate Tinctora first.

The next problem was where to get information from landside. Who was left? She’d burned so many bridges down to ash.

Normally her first choice in town to get rumours from was Linden himself. Em had no specific knowledge, and Orfeus had relied on her for too much already. Bright was hyper-focused and thus more or less useless for this.

Orfeus flew down in early evening, in the hopes fewer people would notice the bike streaking across the sky. After landing, she arranged ferns over her bike, and then spent more time than was necessary arranging her own self. She smoothed her hair out and patted down her shirt, the best tunic she’d brought with her, robins and starlings embroidered at sleeve and hem. Light grey slacks she’d dyed herself. Thin, flimsy clothes, they had fared badly on the flight.

Orfeus fussed and smoothed and fixed, then stood there, alone in the forest.

Once the sun set, she pretended that was what she’d been waiting for, and strode to the western edge of town.

Primrose and Bellan lived in a large house, Prim’s personal workshop appended to the back. Orfeus walked past the picketed rows of cabbages and shrubs to the door. She pushed her mask back so her face showed clearly, and knocked.

Bellan opened the door. Orfeus should’ve been prepared for that, but she blinked at the sandy-haired, inoffensively handsome man like he was the one intruding.