Time is a spiral, space is a curve I know you get dizzy, but try not to lose your nerve - Neurotica, Roll the Bones, Rush

None. Not a rumor or a sign. For nearly a month, every informant was dry and each lead as empty as the alleyway where Lirssa paced. Slushing snow and ice framed the brick walls and tucked into its corners with the refuse and soot.

It was too confining. To think, Lirssa needed open space. She needed the rooftops and the edge between earth and sky. With a hopping turn on heel, she bolted towards the back wall. It needed timing. A leap struck the wall with her foot where she pushed up and away. With a twist, she reached to catch the bottom of an iron emergency ladder cradled against the building. The metal whined and grunted as she climbed it to the stairs, gaining the roof a few moments later.

The cold wind snapped at her, snatching tendrils of hair slipping from the black head covering. It wanted to crawl inside her, seeking any way to freeze her to her core. That was a familiar feeling. It was not to be repeated. There was no one to find her or bring her back this time. No, freezing was very bad.

Starlight danced above her, beyond the tracery of curtaining clouds. Lirssa tried to give each flicker of light a touch of her attention. There were too many and too many places to look. She would never see them all, never give each one it's moment of being known by at least one someone. Never.

Small things, she reminded herself. Do this one more thing; find the warehouse and shut it down. Then, do the next small thing. It was all steps in a complex dance. Only, her dance partner wanted to see her fall. And never get up. Whomever he was.

Complex. There's an understatement.

Lirssa needed to move. Breath in, chin down, run. The rooftops of that part of West End were mostly uniform. A jump here or a leap into a roll there, and she was able to sink into the rhythm of the run. It was a good way to think.

Yes, maybe she was part of it — part of the whole scheme of moving children about, coaxing them, playing intricate games to see them off the streets. But there was a difference beyond outcome: intention.

Intention. Her uncle, bastard though he was, had said as much. Cane even mentioned it a time or two. She had the intention to give the shadow children a home, a place of safety to discover themselves and create their own future. Whomever was taking them offworld was giving them security, sure. Food, shelter, and maybe a place in the new world was going to be theirs. But it was set for them what they would do and become. There would be no choices, no chances for self discovery. They had their life plotted out for them. It was for his profit.

Like Bubber.

That truth tripped her like a chain. Pain more pure than a cut erupted inside. The rhythm was destroyed, shredded into fragments of patterns. Lirssa choked on a shout, stumbling to crash in a tucking roll against an elevator shaft. It was the sound of a tolling bell at her back.

"No, no," she whispered, her breath setting a troop of ghosts into the frigid air. No, Bubber had given her a trade. He had taught her how to take care of her herself. He had made sure she had places to stay when he could not be there.

He had made her what he needed; a way for him to survive. He kept her as maid in brothels so he could find her again. A fair trade. Her work for a roof and food. His knowledge for her performances. Performances with broken legs, racking coughs, dizzy fevers. Performances in rain, heat, and cold.

She would not cry. She could not cry. Get up, Lirssa. Take the next step.

The cry came anyway. Sorrow and anger struggled to control the sound. It came out in a gurgling, growling whimper.

And it echoed.

Lirssa waited on the roof until the first grey of morning. No one else entered the house. No one left. As the day and its workers went on their hustling bustling way, the house where she perched was still and silent. There should have been the sound of water, or the calls of morning rising and day preparations. The house rested peacefully.

Morning was speeding away. There were other tasks waiting for her. There was a flight, for one. Highclere Tea Settings" shipment was due, waiting in orbit for her to transport down to the surface for them. If she was going to pay Katie overtime while finding new foster parents for High Spires house, she needed the money. Whatever income she earned with the recording on the RhyDin Nights soundtrack was dedicated to helping establish a new foster home. It was all dedicated somewhere, really.

At least there she had a lead, made some progress, but investigating the couple still needed to be researched and then trained. If she had just advocated more, she would not have five homes stretched beyond their means. If this and if that. She really needed to stop thinking about things that could not be changed. A lot of things. And too much to be done with it all demanding her attention.

Gritting her teeth, it was time to keep moving. Sitting on her arse on a cold rooftop was getting nothing done. It was her own fault. Lirssa rolled her eyes as she quietly dropped down into the garden and slipped out into the flow of pedestrians on their way to work or morning stroll. But what would she give up" The flights" The training" The performing" — the kids" It was all connected. But if she didn't claim a few nights for herself, she'd go mad. Or madder. Was she Hatter or Hare at this point"

Passionate. Not crazy, just passionate and driven. The little voice inside her head laughed at her justifications.

As she looked down one alley, craning to catch any glimpse of one of her informants, a twinge heralded more grievances from her body. It was scolding her for sitting on a roof all night. She could not do that again. But before breaking and entering the house, she would set some scouts about. Pip and company could use some clothes and coin, no doubt. His little gang tended to loiter around this area of town. Shadow children set to watch a house that held threat to them irked, but she reasoned they had the greater interest in this rotten work being stopped. Or Pip might get caught up in it.

**

Pip sat at the corner of an old wooden church, its lights inside filtered through stained glass and painting the evening street in blues, reds, and greens. He was hunched over a heel of bread like a pup gnawing at a bone. His sandy hair dripped from beneath a faded dun cap.

"Eh, whatcher, Pip" Ya spaken" me?" Lir called as she approached and crouched down across from him. She was in her charcoal and ash clothes, hair concealed by a dark cloth wrapped and knotted.

Pushing the lump of bread to a bulge in his cheek, Pip grinned the gap of his snaggled front teeth. He still had some teeth at least. "Whatcher, Lir, what?s the shake?" He sniffed and bolted down the lump of bread. They both stood, and Pip was able to look Lirssa straight in the eye. He had grown much in the past year, though at best guess his age put him five years younger or more. "Still gotser "ease?"

A shake of her head, "Not like I used to. New words and old words with new meaning."

"Not glim." He grinned.

The laugh felt like tin, bitter and brittle, in her throat. She set a few coins in Pip's outstretched palm. "News?"

"Aww, now, worth more than this." He crossed his arms and sulked.

"That's for me to say, Pip, or you want me to show you up to where that bread came from?"

The boy looked a little green. "That's gutter, Lir."

"News, Pip, or I see the bakers learn word of you."

He scowled some more, but then shrugged and shoved his hands — along with the coins — in his ragged pockets. "Kept watch. Nice place. Tomb. None out, as you said. Just two go in, talking warm beds and soup. I could use some soup."

It was street jargon: tomb. Quiet as",but Lirssa dreaded the truth of that. Lirssa saw the hint of hunger and as quickly pride snuffing it out in his dark eyes. "One a grown up?" Lirssa asked.

"Surin." Pip described the woman of the night before. She went in, but not out. The woman had to have gotten out some time, but Lirssa trusted Pip and his crew had not shirked the job. It didn't do them good to have, because they'd know she would find out, and there goes any future trade.

It was enough. "Thanks, Pip." She gave him three more coins. "Feed your crew, eh?? And she walked away before he could argue it was for himself. She set the terms. He had to meet them.

It was time to find this woman, and since she was looking for children in need of a place, Lirssa did the same. In a way, just another night.