Lost in thought, Nina sat in silence as a waitress she didn’t recognize placed a few dishes on the table along with another glass of ale. Wondering if she had upset Naztra, she idly picked at the food as she thought about what she had said. It didn’t make sense to her that SuTSU would essentially leave the bottom few floors to fend for themselves, but many things didn’t seem to make sense to her here.

Realizing that someone else had approached her while she had been idly gazing out into the street, she looked up.

“Can I sit?” Reina asked.

“Sure.” Nina was nonchalant as she returned to picking at her food, glancing up as Reina sat across from her. Unlike Naztra who had sat to her side to allow her to gaze outside, Reina sat in the seat that occupied her view.

“How did you find me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Reina waved her hand. “I thought you would be hungry and I knew this place was familiar to you.”

“I could have gone somewhere new.”

“You could have, but you didn’t.” Smiling as a waitress placed a glass of wine before her, Reina looked into Nina’s eyes. “I knew that you would be here, but I didn’t know if you would want to see me.”

“Not particularly,” Nina replied as she looked down at her food to dodge Reina's gaze.

“You don’t have any questions that you want to ask me?”

“Not particularly.”

Reina sipped her wine as she examined Nina from the other side of the table. “You don’t want to ask why I allow Saela to carry a gun?”

“…”

“I let her carry one because she should be able to protect herself if she needs to.”

“She’s only 16.”

“This isn’t Caecus,” Reina said as she swirled the wine in her glass. “The time you spent in school there, the things you learned at work there… how much of it is useful now?”

“I never asked to be here.”

“You didn’t, but Saela did ask to be here.” Reina sipped the wine again before lightly knocking on the table, causing Nina’s gaze to move up to meet her own. “Not only is this place unforgiving, but we’re also near the bottom of the pile. Do you think academics are going to help these people put food on their plate?” Leaning forward, she placed her elbows on the table. “This is what Saela wanted to do, and now is the perfect time to start learning.”

Nina avoided her gaze yet again as she didn’t have a response. Seeing that she had nothing to say, Reina continued. “As the person that is responsible for you all, it is my duty to make sure that I do everything I can to ensure that you remain safe. If that means I have to force you to carry a weapon around, it means that I will force you to carry a weapon around. If I ever heard that someone else from the team was hurt or killed because you were too stubborn to carry a weapon around and provide support, I’d wring your neck myself.”

“You never told me I would have to do this though.”

Reina sighed. “I didn’t, no. I know that your situation isn’t ideal, but I’m working with what we have.” Finishing her glass before standing up, she tossed a key and a slip of paper on the table. “If you want me to contract you out as an office worker or something safe here instead, then fine, we’ll do it that way. However, I cannot take you with us to the other plates if you haven’t had any practice with a weapon as I don’t want to put the team in any more danger than they need to be.”

Reina turned before heading to the stairs, leaving Nina in silence. Thinking about what she had said, Nina agreed that some of it had made sense. Inside, she had already chalked off being contracted out as there was no opportunity to return home. Reina had saved her from being picked up by SuTSU before offering her the pay and training to help her return home, yet here she was questioning every decision before things had even started rolling.

Wondering if she had been ungrateful, she examined the slip of paper that Reina had left behind. Roughly hand drawn, the slip contained a map which included some landmarks that she had seen before. The Sandbell, the Talewood Arms, Eye of Iron, and some of the shops she had visited before were all marked.

Sighing as she realised that the map had been drawn specifically for her, she thought of how Reina had actually been quite good to her. After paying her outstanding tab and pocketing the key that Reina had left her, she left the Sandbell while following the map in the direction of The Eye of Iron.

After an uneventful trip, Nina passed through the security and once again entered the luxurious lobby of the store. Walking to the counter, she was met by a young man at the reception counter and asked if she could see Julia.

Looking at the band around her arm and the clothes that she wore, the receptionist looked skeptical. “You’re looking for Ms. Ruryn?”

Nina assumed that this was just Julia’s surname. Remembering her kind words about finding her anytime, she nodded.

“If this is a prank, there will be trouble,” the receptionist warned before picking up a phone. “What’s your name?”

“Nina,” she replied as she watched the man dial a number on the phone, thinking that The Eye of Iron seemed to take asking for someone directly quite seriously. Wasn’t she just a saleswoman?

“Yes, hello Ms. Ruryn, I’m very sorry to disturb you but someone is asking to see you… Yes, she said her name is Nina…” With a cold glance, the receptionist looked at Nina before his expression suddenly changed. “Yes, of course… Yes, I’ll send her up straight away.”

As soon as the phone call ended, the receptionist bowed to Nina. “Please forgive my earlier rudeness. The miss will see you now, please follow me.”

Although it seemed a bit strange, Nina followed the receptionist through a guarded door and down a hall to a small room that was separate from the lobby. In the room that was of similar design to the larger space, there were three elevators, one in the centre of each wall.

“Please take this elevator to floor 5. The miss will see you there,” the receptionist said as he called the elevator on the left before bowing again and leaving her alone in the room.

The miss? Nina thought. It was sounding more and more like Julia wasn’t just a saleswoman at The Eye of Iron, but she had already come this far and it seemed like Julia would see her anyway. After the elevator arrived, Nina stepped inside before pressing the button for floor 5.

As the elevator shot upward, Nina guessed that the elevator she was in was traveling much faster than the one she had been in previously. Judging by the time it had taken her to travel this far and the speed of the elevator, she concluded that although the button read ‘5’, she was in fact travelling to somewhere much higher than the fifth floor of The Eye of Iron. When the elevator finally stopped, the doors opened to a tiny waiting room, around two meters square. With a white marble floor and white walls, the sole light hanging from the ceiling illuminated a black door before her.

Stepping out of the elevator, the doors closed before she heard the mechanism move, sealing her inside the tiny space. Next to the door, a small panel was set into the wall, a camera lens protruding from the top. Taking a deep breath, Nina pressed a red button on the panel labelled ‘doorbell.’

After waiting for ten seconds, the lock clicked open, the door swinging away from her to reveal the space beyond.

Wow, Nina thought as she stepped through into the room. Like the waiting room, this room was also white and airy. Around five or so meters wide, the room stretched away from her, ornate marble arches crossing overhead every five or so meters. On her right, wide windows which featured operable panels ran the length of the room, semi-transparent white curtains dancing lightly in the breeze. On the left, a bookcase filled with thick books sat behind a white sofa and table. As Nina stepped further into the room, she noticed that the light coming through the windows felt natural in comparison to what she was used to below. Although it had still felt real when she had been below earlier, the air didn’t have this lightness or breeze that reminded her of being outside on Caecus.

“I didn’t think you would ask for me so soon.” Nina looked upward to see that Julia had appeared at the other end of the room with an interested smile on her face.