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As the morning grew later, the group headed to a café for breakfast. They all had their outfits; in the black, silver-pattered bag under the café table, Clementine's new suit was wrapped in black silk. Atop it, a horned wolf masquerade mask sat. Mavis had her butterfly mask placed on the table as she squealed about how beautiful it was, and Mathew's black half-face mask rested in his lap. The feathers of Elliot's mask protruded from the top of his bag, swaying in the light, cold breeze. As for Sebastien, Clementine hadn't seen what he'd brought. The kid was sitting next to him and his bag was under his seat, but Clementine couldn't see what was buried under the black silk.

          He didn't partake in his allies' chatter, though. Instead, he stared out at the busy streets in the distance. He kept his hands wrapped around his cocoa mug, which was providing him some warmth—they'd have sat inside if it wasn't for the group of five academy students sitting by the snack stand. But the longer he stared, the more his heart started to ache. Knowing that his sister used to run through these streets with Marco saddened him. If only he had gone with her that night, if only he had insisted more.

          No. There was no use in wallowing. He'd done enough of that. He took his eyes off the town and looked down at his cocoa. But it was harder to ignore his grief when he was sitting in the very town he'd found his sister's body. All that blood, all those tears. He scowled, picking up his spoon, which he then used to stir his drink.

          His scowl evidently hadn't gone unnoticed, though. Sebastien leaned closer. "What are you frowning at?" he mumbled.

          He tutted and leaned back in his seat. He wasn't in the mood to deal with him right now.

          "We still need to get some crystals," Elliot said. "Clementine, do you know if there's a crystal store around here?"

          Looking over at him, Clementine shrugged. "Somewhere. I didn't really leave the orphanage."

          "That's okay, we can ask someone." Then, he went back to chatting with Mathew and Mavis.

          "Hey," Sebastien mumbled.

          With an irritated sigh, Clementine looked over at him.

          "What's wrong?" he asked, this time without a smirk.

          But his tone change didn't make Clementine feel any less hesitant to answer. "Nothing."

          "It's something."

          "It's none of your business."

          "Come on," he urged.

          "No," he growled.

          "Hey, Clementine," Elliot said.

          He looked over at him.

          "We're just going to finish our drinks and go and look for a crystal store. Is that okay?"

          "Yeah," he said, and then sipped from his cocoa.

          Clementine looked out at the town again. He watched as the horse-drawn carriages passed by at the bottom of the road, along with the occasional automobile. But when a cargo carriage passed by, blowing thick black smoke into the air, he scowled as his heart swiftly became enthralled with sorrow again.

          "Are you ready?" Elliot asked.

          He looked up at his roommate as he stood up, along with Mathew and Mavis. "Yeah," he mumbled, taking his bag from beneath the table.

          "We'll head over there," Elliot said, already leading the way towards a crowd of aristocrats.

          Clementine followed, and as Sebastien walked at his side, he sighed, ignoring his smiley face.

          When they reached the crowd, Elliot asked them for directions to a crystal store, and the men happily gave him what he asked for. Elliot continued leading the way; the snow started picking up, so they walked a little faster, soon reaching the crooked, eroded storefront of Mr Malevorker's Magick Modules.

          Elliot excitedly led the way inside as Mathew and Mavis followed. Sebastien went in next, but Clementine hesitated. He moved up onto the store's step, but he didn't go in. He stared down the road, watching the carriages and cars. And he wondered...had Anette walked up this street? Which streets had she chased the carriage down? Which street had she been discovered? Attacked? How far away had she been from the ditch the Ravenblood had disposed of her body in? He scowled, clenching his fists.

          "You're literally seething, babe."

          Clementine sharply turned his head and set his eyes on Sebastien.

          "What's eating you?" he asked, pulling the store door shut behind him.

          "Nothing," he growled, moving away from the storefront.

          "I'd be a pretty lousy investigator if I wasn't able to tell when something's bothering someone," Sebastien said, following him away from the store.

          Ignoring him, Clementine made his way over to a bench beside a set of horse-hitching posts and slumped down.

          Of course, Sebastien sat beside him. "Something about this place has got you wound up," he deduced. "At first, I thought it was the fact you'd have to keep up the charade that you lived here—you got out of playing tour guide pretty easily."

          "That's because Elliot knows when to shut up," he growled.

          He smirked. "That's because Elliot's a wuss."

          Clementine rolled his eyes and glared out at the street.

          "But then I remembered what you said about your sister. It was a little weird for you to choose Ulrora Slope as your place of fake residence. You could have chosen Ripperton or even Traeychester. This is where your sister died, isn't it?"

          He glared over at him. He wanted to ask how the hell he was able to work these things out from the slightest hint of evidence, but there was no point. Sebastien had said it himself. He was a student of Aldergrove Academy Law Institute. It was his job to investigate.

          "I also did a little research—"

          "Of course you did," he grumbled.

          "There were three places that got hit real bad by the poison clouds. Ansby, Seah, and Itamore. Obviously, you had to be from one of these places given your condition, and the closest to Ulrora—"

          "Congrats, you worked it out, whatever," he interjected, the sound of his voice aggravating him once again. "Now leave me alone."

          "Where did you find her?" he asked, losing his smug tone. "Your sister."

          "Why does it matter?"

          Sebastien stared at him, waiting.

          With a deep sigh, he shrugged and looked down at his shoes. "Not too far outside town."

          "And how do you know it was the Ravenblood that killed her? They cover their tracks pretty well."

          "Because it was the Ravenblood she was stealing from. Marcus knew a guy that worked in the shipping yards; they ship the stuff the Ravenblood need from all over the world, and it comes through here before being sent to the New World. This guy Marcus knew would mark the crates that had the medicine for colligo-interitus in them. If my sister and I could afford it, she wouldn't have had to steal the stuff. Not only that, but the Ravenblood made us sick. Why should we have to pay them for the medicine for something they spread?" he uttered.

          "And the operation was busted."

          "I don't know how the Ravenblood were alerted, but yeah, I assume so."

          Sebastien nodded slowly. "Maybe this guy Marcus knew sold your sister out."

          "He was sick, too. We all were. None of them had any reason to betray each other."

          "Well, they obviously knew their stuff was being stolen. They'd have gotten someone to look into it."

          "Anette said they were always so careful."

          "Things like that can only go on for so long, especially with people like the Ravenblood. They were bound to get caught—"

          "Yeah, well, we didn't have any other options," Clementine snapped.

          Sebastien leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "So what do you do for medicine now?"

          "I've got enough to last me the time I have left."

          "Where'd you get it from?"

          He shrugged. "The warehouse in the docks. It's the Ravenblood's largest import. They were convinced they'd put an end to the operation, so it wasn't hard to sneak in there and get what I needed."

          "Okay, and how did you afford the academy's fees? Where did all this come from?" he asked, pinching Clementine's jacket. "This isn't the sort of stuff you see a poor little boy from Itamore wearing."

          Clementine shuffled away from him. "I stole it," he grumbled.

          Amused, Sebastien smirked. "Oh?"

          "There's too many rich people here. They deserve to have their things taken. They're swimming in silk and jewels up here while people where I'm from are choking on their own blood. No clean water, barely any food."

          Sebastien shrugged as he leaned back and rested his arms along the bench. "A lot of people pretend it isn't happening. Everyone's trying to focus on the fact the war is over. They just wanna enjoy the peace—"

          "What peace? How is letting people suffocate, in any way, peace?"

          "People are selfish, Clem. They don't care about things that don't affect them. For example, when you saw those girls killing Mavis' bodyguard, you didn't intervene, because it wasn't your concern. That guy meant nothing to you, nor would his death. So you just carried on."

          He wasn't surprised Sebastien knew he'd seen that guy getting melted into the ground. "That's different."

          "Is it?"

          Rolling his eyes, he glared back down the street.

          Sebastien shuffled around so that he was facing him, resting one of his legs over the other. "But...you care. Everyone knows the Ravenblood are responsible for so many awful things, yet they ignore it. Why wouldn't they? I mean, they didn't get sick, they're not dying. But you are. So, you decided to put an end to it—you're the only one that can, after all."

          Clementine looked over at him.

          "You've got nothing to lose. If they catch and kill you, so what? You were gonna die already anyway. And if they don't, you'd have put an end to the Ravenblood for good and saved an indefinite amount of people from what they might do next. Not a bad way to go."

          "I'm doing it for Anette. I'm not gonna let her have died for nothing."

          "She died trying to help people. I wouldn't exactly say..." he stopped as Clementine glared at him. "I'm sure she'd be proud of what you're doing. "

          He didn't want Sebastien's approval or compliments—and he didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Why law?" he asked, changing the subject.

          "Because I'm good at it. I've always had a knack for weeding out liars; no one ever knows I'm there, so it's pretty easy to trail someone. And I enjoy the clout, too," he said, smirking over at him.

          "Of course you do."

          "I wanted to apply to the Zenith's High Court Council when the semester finished."

          "Why?" he questioned.

          "Uh, why not?" he laughed. "That's literally the best job in the world. I'd get to work directly under the kings of the New World. I'll get to command a whole section of the Venaticus and be responsible for some of the world's most dangerous cases."

          "The Venaticus? Demon police?"

          "Yeah. I heard they prefer demon bounty hunters, though."

          "I'd have thought someone like you would have gone for that job."

          "Nah."

          "You killed those three kids without breaking a sweat—well, apart from when Horace got you."

          "Yeah, well, unlike you, I don't enjoy killing people."

          Now that was a surprise. "Really?"

          Sebastien frowned. "What have I done to make you think otherwise?"

          "Oh, I don't know...maybe the fact you strangled me three times, almost killing me the first."

          He laughed and moved his arm around Clementine's shoulders. "I wasn't trying to kill you, little mousey. I was having fun with you."

          Clementine shrugged his arm off and shuffled a few more inches away from him. "That's not the impression you gave me."

          Just then, the door to Mr Malevorker's Magick Modules opened, and the sound of his allies' chattering voices came their way. They both looked over there, watching as Elliot leapt outside into the snow, followed by Mavis and Mathew, who were both holding a small paper bag each.

          Sebastien looked at him. "We'll talk about the Ravenblood tonight," he said. Then, as Elliot, Mavis, and Mathew headed over to them, he stood up, as did Clementine.

          "We got everything we need!" Elliot called excitedly.

          "We will just need to go to the bank to get some golden coins, and then we can go back to the carriage," Mathew said.

          Clementine nodded. "All right."

          "Do you know where the bank is?" Elliot asked.

          He sighed quietly, but just as he was about to repeat his excuse, his eyes located a signpost at the end of the road. Its left arrow read 'residential district', the one below it read 'Canyway Gardens', and the arrow on the right read 'world bank.'

          "Yeah, I do, actually," he answered. He moved past his allies and started leading the way towards the sign. "It's this way." And as his allies followed, he headed for the bank.

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