“I guess the hot spring dried up, then...” Emily said as soon as they stepped out of the bathhouse. It was the most likely possibility.
The old woman had apologized repeatedly to them as though any of it were her fault. She must have wanted the hot spring to come back to life more than anyone. Emily couldn’t bring herself to say to the old woman’s face that it must have dried up for good.
“Well, the only thing we know for sure is that there’s nothing wrong with the magical devices—though there’s obviously room for improvement. But my field of expertise is magical items, not hot springs...”
“If anything, Emily seems to know the most,” Nina piped up.
With a start, Emily realized she was right. She wasn’t an expert by any means, but she’d picked up a fair bit of knowledge about hot springs by growing up in Japan.
“I guess I am the most familiar with them of all of us.”
“The bad smell is coming from the hot spring,” Tien said. She was still pinching her nose against the stink of rotten eggs that hung in the air.
Astrid made a thoughtful noise. “It’s just the smell, so perhaps it’s coming from the intake pipe. But why would that be, Emily?”
“Um, hold on. Let me think.” Emily held up a hand and muttered under her breath for a while. Then she looked up at the other three and, with uncharacteristic uncertainty, said, “It’s possible—I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I think I’m right—that the hot spring hasn’t dried entirely.”
“What do you mean?” Astrid asked.
“Okay, so a hot spring is basically geothermically heated water bubbling up from underground. If the crust shifts, that can mess things up and make the spring dry up. It’s been... She said just over two years, right? But there weren’t any earthquakes around then, were there?”
“Earthquakes...?”
“Y’know, when the ground shakes.”
“Not that I’ve heard of.”
Emily didn’t know if it was just the region or if earthquakes were rare on this planet, but either way, if one did occur, it would be a major enough event for news of it to reach neighboring countries.
“In that case...maybe they drew too much water? If they used more water than seeps back into the ground, then over time, the hot springs would naturally dry up.”
“But then wouldn’t the baths at the luxury hotels have dried up too?” Nina asked.
“Yes! You’re right!” Emily blurted out. “The head of the Mojito Merchant House, the one we were protecting—he said his hotel was complete with hot springs! He wouldn’t say that if the spring had dried up!”
“So could it be that just this spring dried up while the one the luxury hotels use is still flowing?” Astrid said.
“That’s impossible. They’re too close together—they must be drawing from the same source.”
“Hmm...” Astrid mused. “Maybe the intake for the public bath is clogged. Though as far as I could see, there was no blockage or anything.”
Emily fell silent, thinking hard.
“I need some time to work this out,” she said at last. “I feel like I’ve almost got it. Sorry, do you mind if I go back to the inn?”
“No, of course not,” Astrid said.
Muttering under her breath, Emily walked away.
“Huh... Emily’s taking this really seriously. Do you think hot springs are really all that?”
“It seems to Chi that she is very deeply attached to them.”
“They must be tied to some memory for her, don’t you think?” Nina suggested.
“That could be it,” Astrid agreed. “But anyway, what are we going to do now? It doesn’t feel right to leave Emily and go stroll around the town.”
“True...” Nina cast her eyes around them, then said, “There might be something else we can do to help.”
A boy and a girl covered in grime peered out of the mouth of an alley. They looked around ten years old, but they were skinny and their clothes didn’t fit properly. They were also barefoot. Recognizing Nina and the others as outsiders, they stared—not with the intensity of surveillance, but with equal parts curiosity and wariness.
Nina made a beeline for them.
“Hello!” she said. Both of them answered with looks of open suspicion.
“We’ve just arrived here. Do you think you could tell us some things? I can give you a little pocket money for your trouble.”
She jingled the copper coins in her pocket, and the children’s eyes lit up.
“Or I have bread, if you’d prefer.” She lifted the lid of the basket over her arm to reveal it was full of freshly baked loaves—she’d borrowed the oven at the Sable Fin Inn earlier.
“What sorta things d’ya wanna know? And hey, ain’t you the ones who tossed that feller down the street before?”
Had he seen Tien fling that crook earlier, or had the rumor already spread?
The boy was still dubious, but his eyes never left the coins and the bread. He looked like he was weighing the risk of trusting strangers against his need to eat.
“What sort of things do you usually eat?” Nina asked.
“Huh?” The boy sounded nonplussed. “Why d’ya wanna know?”
“To me, it’s of the utmost importance. Here, there’s a copper for each of you if you tell me.”
Nina wanted to understand the current scale of this slum and the kinds of lives the people here lead. The only way to find clues as to what she could improve was to talk to the people themselves.
The boy and girl looked at each other.
“We want the bread.”
Nina smiled and said, “You’re welcome to it.”
Then, she listened as they told her how they spent their days, how they earned money, and what their families were like. When they were done, she handed over the bread. They tore into it with so much enthusiasm that they nearly choked, so she gave them some water too. Each roll was the size of both Nina’s fists together, and between the two of them, they devoured five.
“Thank you very much,” Nina said. “You’ve taught me a lot. Now, I’d like to ask you a favor. Could you come back here tomorrow morning? I’ll have more bread—or coins—for you.”
“Um... Can we bring our mates too, miss? They’re all hungry too.”
Apart from the five rolls they’d eaten, the boy and girl had also saved three. They probably planned to share them with their friends.
“Of course,” Nina said. “Bring as many as you like.”
“Thanks, miss!” Beaming, the two children scurried away down the alley.
Once they were gone, Nina’s brow furrowed slightly as she thought over what they’d told her.
Conditions in the slum were far worse than she’d expected.
Jobs were next to nonexistent. In the capital, even slum kids could find odd jobs doing errands or carrying packages, but in a small town like Côte Sud, the only jobs were in tourism—not an industry that had any work to offer children.
To make matters worse, they were all orphans.
They’d all been abandoned by parents who had no other choice. Perhaps it was a final act of kindness, leaving them in a place like this. The south was warm at least, unlike the north, where they’d have frozen to death. Staying alive was easier here than in lands with snowy winters. Here, there was food, so while they were hungry, they could survive.
The forest offered up many gifts that the children ate. They sought out wild tubers that were edible when cooked, even if they were chewy and tasted like mud, and dark purple berries with juice that left stubborn stains on their hands. Although intensely sour, they had just a hint of sweetness.
There were also the rocks out beyond the sandy beach that were swallowed up by the ocean at high tide. When the waves receded, they left small fish and little octopuses that were easy for children to catch, roast, and eat.
So, there was food, just not enough to fill them up. They had nothing else. They couldn’t keep themselves clean, and had no hope at all of getting an education.
“Nina, it is almost dark,” Tien said.
She looked up and realized that night had all but fallen around them. They went back to the beach where a few people strolled along the sand. They were clean and well-dressed—nothing like the children from earlier.
“How about we go get Emily and find something to eat?” Astrid suggested.
“All right...”
The only light that remained was a faint vermilion glow on the western horizon. Beneath the deep blue of the sky, the ocean sank into darkness, and even the white sand looked blue. Despite the refreshing breeze, Nina’s heart was heavy.
As they made their way back to the Sable Fin Inn, they ran into Emily coming the other way.
“What are you doing walking the streets on your own?” Astrid asked.
“Gathering information. There was something I wanted to check. But listen to this—I worked out something big.”
“What sort of thing?”
“The reason the hot spring dried up. I think...it’s that.”
She pointed up at one of the luxury resorts, taller than all the others, its walls still gleaming in the last of the day’s light.
It was the golden hotel.