Her home was well secured. The door locked, the windows shuttered, the walls made of a solid foot of stone. Her heat haze extended her senses to the far walls of her living room, and the air around her was a slave to her will. She could feel through the heat in the air, hear with the vibrations in the air colliding with the fringes of her heat-haze, and see through the candles on her desk and the torches on the walls.

And despite that, she had no idea how Mathias managed to get into her apartment unannounced.

"I've found him," Mathias said, with an amused smirk that Tabitha was beginning to suspect was simply how his face looked at rest.

That or everything amused him.

The fact that, once again, he had managed to slip inside her home despite her locked door and shuttered windows didn't seem to bother her as much as it should.

"Well, where is he?" Tabitha asked, standing up from her desk and abandoning another sketch of an airship's lift-bag.

"We suspected he would find a legitimate reason to be at the wall. Our mistake was looking in the wrong agency," Mathias explained, drawing a small piece of paper out of his pocket.

"He didn't join a construction crew?" Tabitha asked.

"No. Nor an agricultural detail. I checked both of those last night," Mathias said, as he set a small paper bag on her desk.

"Last night? Have you slept yet?"

Mathias frowned at her, and said, "you left me with the impression that this wayward apprentice has a City shattering secret in his possession. I've spent most of the night examining paperwork by torchlight in record rooms I don't have clearance for."

Tabitha took the small paper bag and raised it to her nose. The smell of burnt oils and slightly seared coffee beans wafted through her senses, making her smile contentedly. "I'll get on a pot. Where do you get so many beans?"

"I stole these from the Bureau of Agriculture's warehouse when I was trying to find their records room. Someone owes me for an all-nighter, may as well be an obstructionist bureaucrat," Mathias muttered, as he rubbed his eyes.

Tabitha stood up and strode over to her kitchen, where she took out a teapot and filled it with water. She set her will to the water as she walked back with it, and set the pot on her table just as it reached a gentle boil.

"Set the whole bag inside, and pinch the top of the bag with the pot's lid," Mathias said, as he set his hands in his face and rubbed the sides of his head.

Tabitha set the bag in the water, and shut the lid, draping a bit of the small paper bag over the pot. "So, where did you find him?"

"Army recruitment," Mathias said.

"What?" Tabitha asked.

"There were no records of his application to construction or farming," Mathias said, as he reached over and took the lid off her teapot. "The only other posting at the Last Wall is sentry duty. But to get that post, you need to pass basic training, which is usually done fairly close to populated districts."

Mathias carefully drew the bag out of the pot, flinching as his fingers pinched the bag before dropping it into the pot lid.

"You know I can walk into a blast furnace without sweating," Tabitha remarked, as Mathias waved his fingers I the air. "Putting my hand into boiling water actually makes a neat party trick."

"Allow us creatures of flesh and blood our proclivities," Mathias replied. "Now, strangely enough, I remembered a ceremony I was invited to a few weeks ago. They're celebrating the second generation of coffee plants surviving to a harvestable age with a ceremony. It's held in a reclamation zone, which means it doesn't even have a wall. And the honour guard will be the nearby army trainees."

"Why are you being invited to formal ceremonies?" Tabitha asked.

"My mother was a superb botanist," Mathias replied.

"Okay, so there are trainees at the last wall?" Tabitha asked. "Do you know for certain this Raeth kid is there?"

"Yes. I dropped into the military records office this morning," Mathias said, as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Tabitha scowled when he didn't pour her one, even as she held out a cup. "My questions were given the third degree by the meanest looking clerk I've ever met, but I eventually persuaded him that I was looking for a potential reject who may have gone by an alias."

"It also helps that you're a fairly intimidating person," Tabitha reflected.

"If I wanted to be intimidating, I would have stolen your coat," Mathias said, with a smile. "I found his name in the entrance exam records. His math scores were good enough to pre-qualify him as an artillery specialist. He was selected for a special trainee program lead by Emily Varnell. Poor fool."

"Emily Varnell?" Tabitha asked as she poured herself a cup.

"The City's preeminent soldier," Mathias said, a measure of respect in his voice. "If she hadn't resigned her commission and returned to the army as a petty officer, she would likely be the front-runner in the election for Lord Captain."

"Well, it sounds like you found him," Tabitha said. "Where is this ceremony?"

"Eastern walls. The first train doesn't leave for a few hours, and the train schedule is less than reliable," Mathias said. "If we time it wrong, we could end up needing a second day to make the trip. And I'm not sure how fond you are of hiking through farmland."

"I'll survive the experience," Tabitha said.

"We should leave as soon as this coffee starts to kick-in," Mathias said.

Tabitha dropped her cup when she noticed Mathias staring at her intently, with a quizzical, bemused expression on his face. "You've been up late," he noted.

Tabitha scowled. "I had a meeting. Council Privy. You're in, by the way."

Mathias, impressively, didn't react as he took another sip. "I suspected it would go this way."

Tabitha raised her eyebrow or tried to. It wasn't a trick she had ever mastered. "How did you know that?"

"Someone's trying to preserve your life by giving you the apprentice papers. I know the trick, I recommended it for Roenal Carrahe, five years ago," Mathias said. "And you already told me you were recommending me. Since the only other option is my death, refusing my nomination would put you in the unenviable position of having a missing final evaluator. Oversight would be unable to ignore it."

Tabitha chuckled, and said, "I'm surprised at how clever you are, at times."

"I'm not just pretty," Mathias replied, as he poured himself a second cup.

"Who was your mother?" Tabitha asked him.

The change in Mathias' behaviour was pronounced. His posture stiffened, his face vanished behind the shadows of his hat, and the fingers of his free hand found themselves in the folds of his coat.

"Is, actually," Mathias replied, his voice strained. "What has you so curious?"

"Benden Tammerlane apparently knows her. I was curious how that happened," Tabitha said.

"Benden served in the Fifth," Mathias said. "He was seven years old at the time, but he attached himself to an army squad running water, supplies and messages. My mother was a botanist in training, volunteered with the same unit Benden helped."

"Lionel Adams said you have an infamous name," Tabitha added.

"Lionel Adams is entitled to his opinions," Mathias scathed, his voice straining a little against his self-restraint. Like someone trying to knock down a wall with a pillow. "His attitude concerning self-sacrifice is part of why he doesn't sit on my list."

Mathias smiled, and held up his hand to Tabitha, as she started to speak. "No, madam crafter, I will not share that story."

"Fine, keep yourself tall, dark and mysterious," Tabitha said.

Mathias set his cup down awkwardly, the motion completely uncharacteristic for a man who normally appeared to glide rather than walk. To Tabitha's profound pleasure, he even spilt a little of his coffee.

Mathias studied her for a moment before she saw him smile. "You've been practising jokes. That, or I should treat this like finding a broken clock with the correct time."

"If I could get two good jokes a day, I would be gifted at comedy," Tabitha remarked.

Tabitha leaned back in her chair, and took another slow sip of coffee, smiling behind her cup. She let the aroma linger in her nose, drank her cup slowly, and sat across from a remarkably pleasant man.

For a single, incredible minute, even as she sat across from her executioner, she drank coffee and let herself ignore how the demands of the City were crushing at all that was left of her life.