In the end, Sirla returned to her cooking, and Wurn stayed to talk with Drade.

Wurn leaned back in his chair. “The thing is, I don’t know what sort of cash you’re willing to shell out. The guild sells most of their stuff for ludicrous amounts.”

“Ballpark?” Drade asked.

“If I had to say, yer’ gonna need to drop 50k for a recording device capable of connecting to computers.”

“50 thousand...I can’t spend that much. I’m confused about something, though. You phased through your counter a few minutes ago, right?”

“Yeah, that’s my shoes of ethereality.”

“Could you enchant a coat with that?”

“Sure, I guess I could. Why’d you ask?”

“I saw some kid with a coat that let him do that earlier today. How could he get his hands on something that expensive?”

“Ch! Darn Blackmarket enchanters,” Wurn muttered.

“Blackmarket enchanters? Isn't magic a free market -with the government not knowing it exists and all?”

Wurn reeled back in surprise. “How did you hear me?”

“I’m not sure why I wouldn’t,” Drade responded.

Wurn showed Drade a bracelet on his wrist. “This is my bracelet of communication. Among other things, it lets me mutter to myself without being heard. How did you hear me? Sirla, did you hear me?”

Sirla shook her head. “Not a peep.”

Drade clicked his tongue. “I can see through all illusions.”

“What? Why...never mind, I don’t even want to know.”

“So what about black market dealers?”

Wurn sighed. “As I said, the guild controls the market entirely. It’s a monopoly. By making sure each enchanter follows a code of secrecy, they make sure the prices stay high, and the government doesn’t find us and break that monopoly.”

Drade crossed his arms. “That sounds scummy. From your perspective, you’re keeping magic a secret just to make your few lives easier.”

Wurn shrugged. “I’m not going to fight against a system that already benefits me.”

Drade stared Wurn down.

“What?”

“Don’t the poor stay poor because the rich say that, rather than following their duty and helping everyone?”

Wurn didn’t know what to say to that insightful comment, so he just continued. “Well, some people agree with what you just said. Those are the black market enchanters. They sell magic items under the guild council’s nose to anyone and everyone who can shell out a few thousand dollars. Lots of them were excommunicated or punished by the guild in the past.”

“So that’s how a kid gets a magic coat?”

“Basically, yeah. It’s because of them that the prices don’t get higher than a hundred thousand. Though, it’s a miracle all on its own that the general public doesn’t know about magic yet.”

“A hundred thousand!? What would cost that much?” Drade asked.

“I dunno, a magic computer?”

“So the black market dealers are down selling by over 90%, and still making a profit. Just how much is the guild making off it?”

“Well, the enchanters take half their profits while the guild itself takes the other half. So, like, 15k on the smaller purchases. Enchanters are super scarce, though. Even in Changeton, which has the highest market density, we have just a few dozen enchanters and three locations.”

“Downright extortion,” Drade coughed out.

Wurn shrugged. “Eyy, we just want cash. Besides, our market is the rich, so I can’t feel too bad bout’ it.”

“Well,” Drade said, standing from his seat. “I’m not interested in being extorted, so could you hook me up with one of the black market dealers?”

“Nah, dude. I don’t know any, and if I did, I probably would’ve notified the guild about them. There’s a cash bounty for em’.” Wurn pulled out his phone, “I’ll contact them about a quick deal with you.”

“Don’t bother. I’m gonna look for the black market myself.”

Wurn looked worried. “That’s dangerous, man. They’re connected with some strange people, and the guild won’t like you if they learn you’ve bought from them. Besides, if you want this now, it’ll take you at least a while to find a dealer.”

Drade clicked his tongue. “I’ll manage. If it doesn’t work, I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Sure. Just don’t forget our deal, you got that, brotha?”

Drade waved back as he walked out. “I repay my duties.”

After Drade left, Wurn noticed a card on the table and picked it up. “Huh, well, if he ducks out on me...” he said, looking at it, “I can always send Sirla to rough em’ up.”

Drade made his way back to the friends’ base for the second time that day.

Drade had called Datai up half an hour earlier to gather the Friends. At the current moment, Datai was busy taking account of each of the people at the base. Most of the group lined up outside the building.

When Datai saw Drade walking across the street, he waved him over.

“So,” Drade asked, “Anything to report about the incident?”

Datai sighed, annoyed. “Not much. I made nobody else had to see that gruesome scene besides Daio. Did you really need to put a sign on her back that said ‘please stab me?’”

“You didn’t like the joke?”

“Was that the time to make one?”

Drade thought about it for a moment. “Maybe not, but it was a rush of the moment thing.”

Datai rolled his eyes. “Anyhow, I’m going to the programmer now. Sorry I can’t help out.”

“Not a problem.”

Datai walked away.

The Friends were quite a diverse group. From a guy dressed in a dark suit with a bat-looking pin, a blue-haired middle schooler, to an ordinary family of four, they had people of all ages.

As Drade took stock of the group, he asked a question. “Where is Daio?”

A black-haired girl the same age as the blue-haired one, and holding her hand spoke up, unusually confident, for a child, “He’s currently mourning Faio’s death.”

“He does know she’ll come back alive, right?”

“He does. If Saphi died, I’d be mourning her from dusk till dawn whether she revived or not.”

Drade shrugged. “I couldn’t blame you. Actually, what happened to Faio’s killer?”

“Daio stabbed her with her own knife.” Drade remembered he’d placed the knife outside the room. “So, what are we doing here?”

Most of the Friends understood that Drade was basically the ring leader. The group got a stipend for being his sister’s ‘Friends,’ but Drade was the one who raised their money.

“Ok, so we have Lumia, Saphi, Batman, Luuko, Sara, Felix, Ketar, Halvman, Saina, Vertai, the Kimbersons, and Hera...do we have Traser?”

A voice said, “I’m here.” from somewhere.

“Good. Our plan is simple. Right now, Plan-B needs us to get a magical recording device.”

Vertai, a nervous-looking college student with glasses, raised her hand. “Why do we need that?”

“We can’t record Uffield with any other camera,” Drade responded. “Now, I need you alls’ help in getting access to one. Across the city, there is a guild for enchanters who make magic items. They sell their stuff at ludicrous prices, so we will instead try to find the black market enchanters, where they sell at reasonable prices.”

“How do we go about that?” the black-haired child, Saina, asked.

“By looking for it randomly through my contacts across the city.”

A guy with a baseball bat on his shoulder asked, “So we’re just hoping this works?”

“Basically.”

“Any dangers?” Saina asked again.

“Not as far as I know, but we will assume there is. I’ll separate you all into groups.” Drade looked between the Friends, thinking. “So...the kids, Saphi, Saina, and Lumia are group one. The schoolers, Sara, Luuko, and Felix are two. The Kimbersons will be group three, escorted by Ketar. And Traser, Hera, and Halvman will be the last group. Batman, you can stay behind and direct people at your base.”

Batman, the man with the bat pin, nodded. “Then what about the contacts?”

Drade tore four sheets of paper from his notebook, then gave it to each of the groups as they formed up. “Those contacts each have a good chance of having interacted with the black market. Also, if anyone has time, and isn’t a group of small children, ask those south-city drug-dealing lowlifes for directions. I also emailed everyone extra details about them.”

Drade left, leaving the groups to organize amongst each other. Luuko, Sara, and Felix, the schoolers, and the three children found their routes overlapped a little.

Felix, an ordinary looking, brown-haired seventeen-year-old, was crouched beside Saina, comparing his phone’s map with the black-haired girl’s. “Will you three really be alright?” he said, standing back up after he’d compared their routes.

Saina shrugged. “I think we will be fine. Worst case scenario...” she placed a hand on the blue-haired girl’s head. “Saphi’s gonna protect me, right?” Felix hadn’t noticed before, but despite Saphi’s strange hair color, he could see a striking resemblance between the two.

Saphi smiled at the other girl and hugged her, Saina smiling at their embrace. “I’ll protect you, mom!” Saphi said.

Sara, the same age as Felix, though a little smaller and with red highlights in her hair, blinked, confused. “Excuse me? Are you two playing house?”

Saina looked up at the girl with a grouchy frown. “No, I’m her mother.”

“Like...pretend, right?”

“I wished for youth, and I got monkey pawed. Now, I’m the same age as my daughter.”

“O-oh, wow. I wonder how it’d be to grow up with my mother like that. I-is your husband legally able to-”

“I never had a husband, and her father was a very bad man,” Saina said.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Sara said in panic, jumping a step back on the sidewalk.

Luuko put a hand on Felix’s shoulder, using him to prop herself up. She looked at Saina with half-closed eyes that moved with deceiving intelligence, taking account of Saphi’s downcast expression. “Didn’t Drade need to, you know...kill that guy?”

Saina shrugged with fake apathy, and Saphi hugged her mom in response. It was clearly a sore topic for them.

Lumia, the little girl nobody had seen wearing any clothes beside her highly ceremonial, yellow and black-outlined robes, narrowed her eyes at Luuko. “Drade said it’s bad to kill people.”

Luuko observed the girl for a second before being ejected off Felix’s shoulder. When she looked back to him, Sara had possessively hugged his arm, shooting Luuko a passive-aggressive look.

Luuko cleared her throat, then looked back to Lumia with a tired expression. “Well...there are exceptions. Some bad people...make you do things you shouldn’t do.”

Lumia frowned and tilted her head at Luuko, a somber expression forming on the usually cheerful girl. “I think I know bad people like that...”

Felix cleared his throat. “S-so let’s get going. We don’t want to be out in the city while it’s dark.” He took the lead, and the rest followed, Sara taking his hand into hers as he walked down Changeton’s streets.

“First to count to ten is it!” Saphi said as she walked down the sidewalk beside her mother and Lumia. “Start!”

Lumia and her spoke in desynchronicity, “Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten! You’re it!” They both pointed to each other.

“What?” Lumia said, “I was faster!”

“No, I was faster!”

“No, I was!”

“No, me!”

“Hmph, fine, you were faster...” Lumia admitted, making Saphi look pretty proud as she hid behind her young mom. Lumia didn’t bother trying to tag the other girl, as she was addressed by Luuko.

“Hmmm...I never noticed your eyes...” Luuko said sleepily, staring at Lumia as she walked backward beside Felix and Sara.

Lumia looked up from Saphi with an indiscernible expression. “My eyes...?” Their yellow color was so prominent that Lumia’s eyes almost seemed to shine. And strangely enough...

“One of your pupils is white.”

“Whoopsies!” Lumia’s chuckled, then blinked. The anomaly in her eye vanished, leaving her pupils both...white.

Wait, that’s normal either.

“Hehe, that sometimes happens when Noir peeks in,” Lumia said, wiping her nose.

“Noir? Who’s that?” Luuko asked.

Lumia shrugged. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather girl?”

Saina chuckled, then patted Lumia on the back. “She’s picked up a few snarky lines from the internet ever since Drade gave her a phone.”

Lumia reached behind herself, then pulled a cellphone out, despite her bulky robe’s lack of pockets, and presented it to Luuko with a big smile, like she was exceptionally proud of it. “He gave it to me for being good.”

“Mmmm, well, isn’t that nice.” Luuko leaned on Sara’s shoulder, who was leaning on Felix’s shoulder, making for a strange-looking group.

“Umm,” Felix began, a little uncomfortable, as he opened his email on his phone. “So I didn’t really check to see who we were actually asking...Isaphela...a vam-a what!?”

Sara leaned in more to get a look at the phone. “We’re asking for help from a vampire? Why did Drade send us to her?”

Felix continued reading, “Well, it says she prefers the blood of...”

“Teenagers.” Sara finished for him

The usually reserved Saina began chuckling behind them, “He used you for your blood, heh...Drade never changes.”

Luuko sort-of shrugged, still walking beside Sara’s shoulder. She half-yawned out, “Weeelll, we don’t need to give her anything if she doesn’t know anything.”

“R-right,” Sara said, clinging to Felix’s shoulder sheepishly.

The ‘schoolers’ as Drade had called them(despite that both he and them were the same age and went to the same age) had been a part of the Friends for about a year, excluding Luuko, and had grown used to Luuko’s hypersomnia over that time. Because of that, Sara wasn’t fazed when she rested on her.

“W-well, at least it says she doesn’t take blood unwillingly,” Felix said to ease his squeamish partner.

“Oh, it seems this is where we part ways,” Saina said as they neared a crosswalk.

“Oh? Well bye,” Sara said, waving at them. “Who are you all contacting, by the way?”

Saina shrugged. “Apparently, some salamander people are living near the Michigan lake coast.”

“Sneple?!”

“Salple, more like. Anyhow, bye-Saphi, I told you to look at the light before you cross.”

Saphi had already taken a step onto the road. “But there’s no caaars, mom!”

“And there isn’t a liiiiight, Saphi.” The light changed then, telling them to walk across. “Well, now there is. See you all!” The three ‘kids’ walked across the road, and the Schoolers waved back.