Nero was wrong to think that Azui would stay behind in Torelen, and at this point there was no point in pretending to be surprised. Azui did as he wanted, even if there was no clear reasoning for it.

A notion that would never bother Nero, because the things Azui did never truly bothered him, even when they should. Nero liked Azui, most people liked Azui, it was his personality. To not like him would take effort. Everyone was attracted to talent. 

“I would have stayed longer, if I were not exhausted from the ordeal. I had hoped to find a hint of her presence in the city, not a whole person she left behind,” he admitted. “I am glad I found her however. She promised to write to me and I look forward to her correspondence.”

He leaned against the railing on the promenade deck, facing away from the river, while Nero leaned forward over it, watching the horizon.

“Having a sister was a surprising twist to your case, I’ll admit.”

“I’ve bet you’ve seen some pretty great twists in your line of work.”

“Yeah,” Nero nodded, recalling some rather scandalous ones. “The ‘secret sister’ trope isn’t as common as the ‘husband having a second family trope’.”

“What was your worst one of those?”

“I had a case where a woman hired me to trail her husband, to verify whether or not he was having an affair. And when I discovered him with his second family, I recognized the man from a previous similar case. The man had three families.” 

Azui laughed, “No!”

“He was also a pretty high ranking officer in the Gaidos guard, which made my life all the more difficult.”

“You don’t seem to be fond of the guard, but I noticed that you have that tattoo on your inner arm.” He motioned towards it castually. “That means you’ve served, have you not?” 

Nero winced, pondering if he should bother with the long version of the story, or give him the abridged one. ”Well, not everyone who has this tattoo served on the guard. Though you are right in my case.I was never as connected to my Rudian roots as I longed to be. I hoped that learning how to fight through the guard would help me connect with that part of my history but in truth it did not work out.”

“Did you tell them that was the reason for your joining?” Azui asked, surprised. 

“Oh no, they would have never allowed me into the guard in the first place.” 

“Yeah they’re not incredibly accepting, in all frankness.”

“No they are not. And I kept a pretty low profile for a while.” He straightened up, Azui’s eyes following him. “It is exactly like you said the other day. There are some things we can hide, and other things we cannot. I don’t wholly look Rudan, but I don’t look wholly Bevij either.”

“So what happened?”

“I-” Nero’s voice caught, no one had ever asked for his side of the story. He glanced down at his hands resting on the railing, “A niece of one of the higher captains made a complaint. It was quite horrible what she said I did, and the only thing I could say to my defense would have resulted in my being discharged anyway, so I made the choice to not fight it” 

Azui frowned, recognizing then that Nero would answer any question he asked. The look in his eyes calculating, regrettably, if he should ask another or express his condolences. 

And Nero would answer, if Zui asked him about what he could say to his defense. He felt that the musician would not judge him for it. 

The reason the accusations against Nero were in his eyes, absurd, was because Nero did not love women. Not the way he ought to anyway. 

Azui didn’t ask, instead he spoke in empathy, “That is quite horrible, I’m sorry that you had to live through that. 

“Do you typically take on more than one case at a time?” asked the young gentleman on a later evening in their journey. “I suppose that makes a lot of sense.”

Azui had returned to their room earlier than Nero had expected him to. He sat cross legged on the floor, shuffling through research pertaining to another case, warm cider in hand.

“About 3 or 4 at a time,” he confirmed, leaning over to collect his mess of papers.

“Oh don’t stop on my accord, work if you must.”  He stood over him, sipping his own steaming cider, far fresher than the one Nero picked up from the dining lounge half an hour ago.  “Is it an interesting case? Am I allowed to ask?”

Nero’s client hadn’t specified how confidential the information he was giving him was. He shrugged, “I don’t see why not, if anything a fresh pair of eyes might help me.”

Azui’s eyes lit up, he crouched down to take a seat.  “Oh, please tell me then. What are you to find, Mr. Finder of things?”

“A lost will. Sort of. It’s complicated.” He pointed to a lithograph of the exterior of an inn. “There’s this very wealthy Baron who was not a local to Gaidos but retired there to run an inn with his wife.”

“Are you talking about the Sea Fairer?”

“That’s the one.”

“I thought they closed it down forever ago.”

“They did when the Baron died. A previous client of mine recently purchased the property hoping to turn it into a bed and breakfast. He’s been renovating the place but he has made a number of discoveries while doing so and has come to the conclusion that he and his wife liked to make puzzles for one another. Hiding their puzzles within the walls and furniture of the inn.” Nero picked up a scribbled note and handed it to Azui. “They were playful, simple notes, filled with their lovers' banter much like this.”

“How wholesome,” he commented. 

“After doing further research however, my client discovered that the Baron’s will was never found.”

“Is he worried that some long lost relative will try to claim ownership of the Inn?”

“Not really no, he likely left everything to his wife regardless, and although she died shortly before him, we don’t suspect there was much time for him to amend the will afterwards. They had no children, so everything went to his nephew who sold a majority of his assets, and who has since passed as well.” 

“So why the will then?”

“Among their notes, it's insinuated that if he were to die, there would be one last game for her to play. While upon his death, all his assets would have gone to her anyway, my client is convinced there may be some existing assets that weren’t exactly known to the monarchy.”

Azui’s eyes glistened, “The Baron was a shipping magnate, do you mean money acquired through nefarious means? Pirates?” 

Nero nodded, “Dealings with pirates aren’t exactly taxable income. Although this is only the theory of my client’s. He assumes these missing assets will be located with the will.”

“It could be treasure, is what you’re saying?”

“Whatever it may be does not concern me, my job is to find whatever it may be.” 

“Right, so what progress have you made?” He shifted to peer over the spread of materials. 

“I’ve only just begun reading these but the Baron wrote two books in his lifetime. One about shipping vessels and another about his early childhood. I figured this could be a way for him to leave his wife something, although I’m inclined to believe the shipping one will be of no use. He wrote this one before meeting his wife.” 

Azui picked up the latter book, “Would his wife not already know all this then?”

Nero shrugged again, “Maybe she knew a different version of this, and he was counting on her recognizing the differences.”

“If that’s the case how would you be able to decipher them?”

“Through painful fact checking.”

Zui laughed at that, flipping through the book. “It’s illustrated, have you looked closely at the illustrations? Perhaps there could be a clue there?”

“I doubt he did the illustrations himself, but that does remind me.” He held his hand out for the book, which Azui promptly handed over. Nero shuffled through the pages, locating the page he wanted. “So these pages are scattered throughout, I thought it was a pattern but if you look at all of them, it’s not constant. That’s too intentional to be a coincidence-”

He hadn’t finished the sentence and Azui was scrambling for a blank piece of paper.

“That’s a piano player roll,” he explained. “Can you not see it?  Or one from a music box, it's very simplified.”

“Zui, it's abundantly clear that I know absolutely nothing about music.” He brought his fingertips to his lips, tapping them in thought. “Although there is a piano player in the inn. My client mentioned trying to get it back in working order.”

Azui focused on the lines and dots of the pattern, scribbling things down and murmuring numbers and letters to himself. Then he crawled over to where his mandolin case was, dragging it haphazardly to where they were sitting. He propped it open, twisted the pegs and played a quick tune. 

Then he plucked away a steady tune, frowning while he played. “I don’t recognize the tune do you?”

“I don’t.” 

“Hmm, I’m worried it’s an original. If that’s the case, this isn’t super helpful is it?” He strummed a chord in defeat, and put the instrument away. 

“I don’t know if I would say so. This has given me an idea, but I will have to wait till I can visit the inn in person to see if it has any merit.” Nero grinned, blinking in disbelief, “I would have never thought about a player piano roll, good god.” 

Azui beamed, “Ah, well I’m glad that if this musician thing doesn’t pan out, I have ‘finder of things’ as a second career to fall back on.”

“You are pretty impressive at it, I should honestly be worried.” 

While that comment wasn’t meant to upset Zui, it very much clearly did. His face dropped, and Nero was confused as to what part might have offended him. 

“I-You were right I think,” he said suddenly. “I shouldn’t have come along, this was a bad idea.” 

“What do you mean?”

He picked up his instrument and stood up, “I’ll get out of your hair. Pardon, I’m going to ask if there’s a spare stateroom I can purchase.”

“Did I offend you?” Nero got up, dusting himself off. 

“No, you didn’t.” He turned away facing the door. “I- Earlier when you said- Nothing, nevermind.”

Nero said nothing, not fully understanding and all the same not completely clueless.

“I find myself overtly interested in you and the things you do, when everything else in my world is constantly reminding me as to why that is a bad thing. I apologize. Truly.”

Again Nero stood silently, despite knowing fully that Azui wanted him to say something. Condemn him and that he had confessed. 

But he couldn’t. “If it helps you in any way, you’re not alone in your internal conflict-” He was wording it like a lab report, when it least called for it. “What you feel is mutual.”

“Is that so?” He said over his shoulder, his voice solemn. “That actually makes me feel a little bit sadder. But, it gives me peace of mind in a way. Thank you Nero.”  

He left Nero alone to think about all too much for the rest of the night.