The Quimby Hotel

━ 06: Inadequate Compensation

"Relax, Father," he said, and as usual, he sounded far more confident than he ever possibly felt.

His father turned to him, arching an eyebrow. Cairo offered his apathetic, half-dead brand of smile.

"I'll handle this one."

━━ ⬫ ❪ ❖ ❫ ⬫ ━━

Tensions were high in the hotel but somehow everyone was going about their day like usual. The cleaning crew had already made quick work of making the body in the lobby disappear by roughly seven in the morning. But the body, being of little use to him in his task to locate and eliminate the spy, was the last thing on his mind.

Cairo slid into an empty seat beside a man whose coffee was stirring itself, small containers of creamer unfurling and hovering in the air to pour into the cup. He wore the easily recognizable dragon emblem of the Fallon University Dragon's Breath frat tattooed on the side of his neck and stretching across his collarbone, undoubtedly a warlock. Everyone and their brother had been a member of a Fallon University fraternity these days, but they still clung to it like a sign of glory and prestige. He looked up from his newspaper to glance curiously at Cairo, who kept his voice low.

"You think there's any In-Betweens around here?"

Fittingly, the Dragon's Breath warlock released an ungraceful snort, lowering the paper. "Augh, I hope not," he scoffed, sending shifting glances around the room. "Think the owner, that Quimby fellow, is one, though. He's a fine guy, but In-Betweens are the lowest of faefolk if you ask me. Nature's loophole abusers."

Cairo shrugged. "Can't say I disagree with you."

Just get on with it and tell me if you've seen any, dimwit.

To his dismay, he'd unwittingly spurred him on a rant. "I mean, really," he began, plucking the sentient spoon out of his cup and waving it in the air for emphasis, "I didn't spend six years at the Fallon University of Alchemy just to carry a certification that says I'm allowed to make magical transactions—" Cairo regretted coming over and asking anything at all. Warlock bureaucrat gobbledegook was the least of his worries. All things holy, this guy was still talking. "—only for a bunch of high school dropouts who spontaneously developed unregulated magic at birth to be walking around doing whatever they please! They've only got the one rule, don't kill each other, and they can't even manage to do that. Absolutely dreadful."

"Dreadful," Cairo mumbled with a mindless nod of agreement, not really listening anymore but hoping that would be sufficient to get him to shut his trap. The problem wasn't that he was wrong—he was at least partially correct, albeit clearly uninformed. This man couldn't have recited anything about In-Between culture or even the workings of the Court, but his opinion of In-Betweens as lesser, more chaotic magic-wielders was reflected among many others in the magical population. Cairo just didn't care at the moment and had more pressing things to fret about.

The warlock made mocking air quotes. "'Not quite human, not quite magic'. Whatever the hell that means. I'll tell you what it means; it means they get away with anything they can manage, and they can't be trusted. Oh, there are In-Betweens somewhere in this place, alright. I've seen some shifty people, and that murder looked like the work of one."

Cairo perked up slightly. Finally, something relevant among the babbling. "So you think the killer is an In-Between."

He laughed. "Who else would get away with it?" He leaned closer, an unwelcome invasion of Cairo's delicate personal space. He forced himself to stay put and bear it. "Between you and me, the fifth floor hall has this one guy. I've seen him do subtle things—vanishing and reappearing, magic use of that sort. No spells, nothing hanging from the door... just doesn't seem like an ordinary fae to me." He drew back, returning to his newspaper as though nothing was amiss and they'd never had this conversation in the first place. "But I won't say anything. Better off for us magic folk to sort ourselves out without the involvement of the police, 'specially with the—you know—real nice fellas here who don't get along with them too well."