Alden was not much of a reader in much the same way that a one-legged dwarf was not much of a ballerina. He tried, gods knew he tried, but it couldn't help the fact that the letters twisted and changed positions even when he was looking hard at them.
Numbers – ah, numbers were another case entirely. They had the decency to stand still while he read them.
These particular numbers, however, he was not that fond of. It was his economical status. He sighed. It was about a cheerful a read as an obituary. He had thought things would get better when he had opened the investigation firm. He had taken six cases this far; five of them had been unbelievably boring and kind of embarrassing (as the task had consisted mostly of following galdori men and women around, making sure they didn't do what their husbands and wives thought they were doing). The last case had been rather traumatizing in all it's surreality, as he had searched the entire city for a parrot he was quite sure only existed in his client's mind. Its name had been Polly. He shifted uncomfortably, sitting on the edge of his desk.

Where was the excitement, the dangers, the real cases?
He moved restlessly on his chair and looked around his apartment. It was small, dusty and also served as his office. There was no bookcase there, but there was lot of paperwork on his desk. He needed an assistant, even if he couldn't afford it. Someone who could actually put two sentences together on the paper and make sense of it afterwards, he thought, a tad bitterly. He looked at his own shaky handwriting. He looked into the mirror on the wall opposite him to avoid looking at his own shaky handwriting. He smoothed down his hair.
Fair enough. Jobs wouldn't come jumping at him if he kept sitting there. He got his coat, black and threadbare. Gelina, his sister, had proposed to buy him a new one, but he had said that the old one had personality, and by the way they didn't make that kind of coat these days. To this she had answered, drily, that indeed they didn't, and how you just couldn't get that blow-right-through quality anymore. He had come up with no better response than to stick out his tongue at her, just like when they were children. She had laughed.
On his way out he blew out the candle, got his battered hat and checked once more in the mirror that he hadn't got any blotches of ink in his face, blinked at himself and then he shut the door behind him, locking it properly.

Then he went out on the street, quite certain that some heavenly light was indeed shining on him, despite the apparences, and that he would have a job to supplement his not-so-thriving-at-the-moment-business by noon. Maybe someone needed a man who could play the piano. You never knew.

Vicka kept her head down in these districts, out of sight and out of field. She didn't even want to get a whiff of Seventen. She was here because of a human friend, a good friend from her days at the Little Bell. That friend was sick, and needed someone who was cheap and affordable and trustworthy.

Vicka huddled under her huge coat and produced a map, which she shielded from sight with her body. She hung close to a wall, trying hard to ignore the golly. She was never in this part of town, even though she assumed that it was not the highest end of Vienda. She ran her finger along the streets on the paper . . . where was it . . . Good Lady, she just wanted to get there and be done with it.

When Alden came out on the street, the first thing he saw was a wick. There was no doubt; no galdori would ever dye their hair like that. He groaned inwardly. Hadn't the government got them all? In his eyes, they were little other than vermin; talking vermin, granted, but vermin nevertheless.
In his family (who had been obsessed with social status, and also with magic) the wicks had always been frowned upon; not quite as bad as human, but neither completely... well, people. Alden remembered, as he observed this figure, that when he was a very little boy, he had seen a young wick in the street, crying, and Alden had pointed to him.
“They look like us,” Alden had said, with his characteristic honesty and a child's clarity of sight. “And they cry like us. How are they different from us?”
His mother had taken him roughly by the arm and given him a lecture in the inferiority of the other races. He could have been, what, four years old, and his mother's sincerity had made a deep impression on him. There had been no wickedness in her voice, only calm reassurance that this was the way the world went. He was by default better than them. It was the galdori solemn duty to watch over these people, because they couldn't do it themselves.
Alden still believed his mother.

The girl was wearing a coat that could have belonged to her father. Or possibly her husband; she was young, but wicks started breeding early, after all.
He saw only her back. He was feeling quite awkward, just standing there. So he mustered some scorn and said: “Is the map too hard to read, or are you just holding it upside down, since you've come here? We don't like people like you around here.”

Vicka nearly swore, she was so startled. She felt a bolt of fear, painful and sharp course through her. Vicka peered over her shoulder, holding the map to her chest--it did have words and she'd grown too used to reading them--but then looking at the golly himself, scowling, she got an idea.

Scraping her voice down till it was meek and hoarse, she said, "I'll be gone, sir, soon as I can figure out the map. 'Tis hard going by only the shapes of buildings. Just one moment, begging you, sir."

Alden rolled his eyes and let his tongue move without consulting his brain: “Oh, clock it – give that here.” Her meek voice irritated him somehow.
He attempted to take the map from her. As he did so, he realized that this might become very embarrassing. Longer words – like 'marmalade' – usually took quite a lot of thinking to make understandable. He squirmed when he thought about displaying this particular weakness of his in front of a wick girl. Or anyone else, for that matter.
But he was a member of the master race, begads! He should... he should be better. He should be able to do this, both his teachers and his own inner voice had told him constantly the last fifteen years, and his mother before that.
And anyway, if he'd stopped reaching for the map now, it would seem strange.

Vicka let him take it, keeping a close eye on the map. She paid good money for it--maybe a golly might not steal a cheap little map but she did not trust him, not by a shot. Gollies sometimes harassed wicks for the clocking hell of it.

"It's northward street, a shop for go--fine lady's things," Vicka said, catching herself. "Miss Pendregast's Millinery, if I recall rightly, that's the name. My husband's cousin, she works there, the shopgirl."

Her "husband's cousin" lived above the shop in a room and a half, like many human servants working uptown.

His forehead wrinkled as he listened to the wick girl. He had absolutely no idea where the shop was, not being married or cosmetically inclined himself. But northwards... that would be up on the map...
Painstakingly he began running his index finger under the names of the streets, trying desperately to make it seem like a thoughtful gesture. He could feel a blush coming up.
In an attempt to get a hint or two more, he said: “Well, that would be fairly close to... er... the Paper Tiger, am I right?”
And if it wasn't fairly close, he could just rip the map in two and be on his way. This was only a wick, after all. They always stole some money if they needed it; she would have a new map in no time.
By the way – what right did she have to make him look a fool? He ran one hand over a cheek so warm that it was adequate to fry eggs on.

"Er . . . I suppose," Vicka said, unsure. The Paper Tiger? Really? Was he just guessing? "Those two are in the same city, so . . . oe--yes, I suppose so, they're close . . ."

Vicka looked down at the map. She looked along the street he was pointed, recalling her instructions. No, the right street name suddenly came to her, in her friend's placid voice: north along such and such street . . . two rights and then . . . she tugged at the map's corner, ready to make a break for it.

"I think I have it. Thank you, sir, I'll be on my way now," she said, looking up at him. He was a terrible reddish color. It was the healer in her that made her ask--even the oppression of his field couldn't stop the words from forming. "Are--are you ill, sir?"

In the same city... well, Alden told himself, it could have been worse. It could be raining, or the cobbles could have been made of snails. The wick girl took a hold on the edge of the map, and he let it go.
“I'm – I'm perfectly fine,” he muttered, crinkling his forehead and rubbing his neck ferociously. He noticed how hot he was. “Just... Metabolically challenged.”
He tried telling himself that she couldn't read either, and that she had no right to judge him. Well, he could read, actually, if he just had a lot of time and some hints on the more difficult words. Like 'horse'. Even if that wasn't very impressive, it was more than a wick would ever be able to do.
Unsure if he should say something spiteful or just leave in a haughty fashion, he ended up staring at her.
“Well. Anyway. Right. Be on your way, or whatever.” He made a gesture towards the street, shushing her away.

Vicka nodded, skeptically, as she folded up the map and put it into Cal's coat pocket. "As you say, sir."

Metabolically challenged? Was he not eating right? Maybe his business wasn't doing well--could gollies have a failing business? Vicka didn't particularly know what to think about that; there was a part of her that sympathized and a part of her that rejoiced.

He'd been fine before she'd asked him for directions . . . the map wasn't so hard, really, for her and he was doubtless to have a better education than her. Cal had done good by her, she could read anything she damn well pleased, but he was not exactly Brunnhold.

Maybe this golly was just unusually red all the time. It wasn't as though she spent a lot of time in their company. The way he was staring at her discomforted her a great deal and she took a step backward.

"Best of luck, then," she said as a sort of neutral farewell, pulling the coat collar upward.