Faeth, as I am learning, is a city that can provide almost anything. If you have the money to pay, that is. At any time of the day or night, there are people walking the streets. In the day, the sun casts long shadows through the city, an emerald halo bathing everything in dazzling light. At night, the people navigate by the magical signage that blares harsh light out to illuminate the dark. At any time, you can buy anything: groceries, medicine, entertainment, and just about any commercial good that I have ever heard of. But what most impresses me is that there does not seem to be a time of the day or night when the kitchens in the city shut down. Food, as much as the oddly-colored coins, is the currency of the city, and I intend to try everything.

The seat squeaks beneath me, the surface made of some slick but pliable material that is a dark maroon and filled with glittering particles. To call it a seat would not be correct, really. It is more like someone cut a strangely-textured sofa in two and stuck the two ends to the wall on either side of a table. The table too is strange, made of something harder than wood but lighter as well. The top is smooth, painted a terrible shade of bright green, and rimmed with a steel border. I can't help but scratch at it, trying to figure the piece of furniture out.

The cafe I sit in is full of delicious air, all manner of short-order fragrances decorating the small restaurant three blocks from where I ran into the man across from me. Out the square windows that make up the wall on my right, the early sunset of Faeth has begun, the light of the city darkening and changing to the unmistakable green of the barrier wall ringing the floating island. In the window, I delight in reading the name of the cafe, "Taes' Tastes." Hells, I can even read it backward.

"So," Jasper tries. The stonespeaker man looks much the same as the last time I saw him, his skin a smooth gray riven with black whorls. He almost flinches as my eyes flick up from the table between us, landing upon him. The words die then, and he stares down at his hands.

Honestly, I thought at first that I must have the wrong man. The trial, when last I saw him, was so long ago that I imagined he couldn't possibly have stayed the same. I certainly haven't. Yet, my eye tells me what I need to know.

Jasper Callaway(Level 44)<Rank One> Seer Conflux

"How have you been?" I ask, forcing my hands to still. On top of the table, a shallow groove is cut through the top from where I was working. A bit of frustration; I wasn't trying to damage the thing.

"I have been good," he answers. Then he nods to himself. "Yes, good. And you, Miss Devardem, have you been well? You look so different from when we last saw each other that I wasn't sure it was you at first."

"Reaching the second rank will do that," I say. "At least, I have been told that it will."

"Of course. Of course."

"What convinced you that it really was me?" I ask.

The man blushes at my question. How a man with gray skin can blush, I don't know, but there is a flare of dark black on his cheeks as he tries to find something interesting about his hands. "Your eyes," he answers after a moment. "I knew you by your eyes."

"That makes sense," I acknowledge. If I had normal eyes, I might think of that as a compliment. As it is, one of my eyes is actually a powerful enchantment, and the other has a slitted iris that usually causes people to shudder when they first see it. They aren't exactly my most flattering features.

A woman approaches our table, a metal rectangle in her hand. Over the last few weeks in Faeth, seeing the faethian dwarves carrying the devices has become a ubiquitous experience. As far as I can tell, the devices are relatively cheap in the city, allow for the recording of information, and can even communicate with other devices in the same way people exchanging letters can. My eye is supposed to be able to integrate with them as well, but with how concerned I have been on the upcoming academy tests, I haven't found the time or money to purchase one to make an attempt.

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The waitress has to ask Jasper three times what he wants to drink. The man is so quiet. He starts off asking for coffee, but after the second time of needing to repeat himself, he lamely changes to water. I order a coffee for each of us, though I have lost any taste for it recently. I just don't often feel the need for anything to pep me up.

By the time our drinks arrive, Jasper has started to come out of his shell more. He orders no food, but as I am digging into my own order(something called Dizzt; fried dough, stuffed with sharp cheese and drizzled in apple honey. Gods, the food in this city is ridiculous), he has found a topic that has him really going, complaining about the trial.

"Pure insanity," Jasper curses. He moves to slam a fist on the tabletop, stopping just an inch above to lightly tap the surface with his fist. "My sponsor was most displeased. Most displeased. The convalescence in Grim was not worth the time lost, and at the end of it all, that damned guild managed to offer just a token apology. I was told, quite explicitly, when I was made to participate in the ludicrous affair, that the only things I had to fear were beasts. I did as my sponsor ordered, I found strong people to protect me from such things, and I offered them the support they needed. Then, the entire event turned into a madhouse. I thought those people were supposed to be noble, yet they turned out to be maniacs, dragging all of us down to their level. Well, I will tell you one thing. Any romantic fancies I carried about aristocrats and their ilk has abandoned me. Bless her eyes, we don't have any of them running around here. At least, none that hold authority."

"You don't have nobility in Faeth?" I ask, stopping his tirade. I am a bit disappointed to cut him off. There is something cute about watching a man go on at length about something with even a little passion.

"Why…Well, no, Miss Devardem," he says, readjusting his spectacles. "We have a mayor and a parliamentary body that discusses and executes the will of the people."

"A mayor," I scoff. "We had a burger in Westgrove, but the man was only responsible for maybe a thousand souls, not all of this." I gesture out the window, where even at this time of day, I can spot enough people to fill half of Westgrove.

"It is a difficult position, I have been assured," Jasper says.

"Why is anyone assuring you of that?" I ask.

He coughs into his hand, blushing as he stares down at his coffee. "Quite right you are, Miss Devardem. Quite right. Don't allow me to put on airs. Humility is the path of study."

I can't help but smile at him. "I agree with most of what you said about the trial," I tell him. "But I had already learned that nobles can be particularly awful before I ever entered that tower. Honestly, I am a bit jealous that you don't have them here. I suppose you wouldn't need them to keep monsters at bay and protect you from neighboring lands and bandits, given that the city flies through the sky."

"We have neighbors," he says.

"Truly?"

"Faeth is not the only flying city. On this side of the planet, they are somewhat sparse. When we begin to go south toward the end of the year, we might even pass one. Festivals are usually held then, exchanges between two people."

"I have only been here a few weeks," I say.

"Then, you have quite a lot left to see." Jasper puts on a smile, a genuine one. "Though the most frustrating part of that whole experience," he says, turning back to talk about the trial in Grim, "was the limitation on magical materials. Deprive an enchanter of his equipment, and you might as well deprive him of life."

"You're an enchanter?" I ask.

"Oh, yes. I have four semesters at the academy under my belt now, not including my sabbatical in that detestable and cursed land. Why?"

He flinches as I grab his hand to lean over the table. "You are attending the academy?"

"I am."

"Currently."

"Yes. Miss Devardem, might I ask you to release my hand?"

"Sorry." I fall back into my own seat. "It is just, after several weeks here, you are the first person I have run into that is currently attending. I am planning to enter myself when enrollment opens in a week or two. Could I perhaps pick your brain about it a bit?"

The waitress returns, setting down a plate in front of me with a confection of cake and sweet cream atop it. In front of me, Jasper gulps; he literally gulps as he looks back at me.

"I could hopefully accommodate that," he says.

And that is how we spent the next three hours, him answering the questions I posed one after another as the light in the sky slowly fades away. I don't let him leave until he has agreed to meet with me again, planning to see him once more at an interesting club he tells me about. All in all, today has been a good one.

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