He arrived in the late morning with a mule, a cart, and opinions.

She knew he had opinions because he introduced himself while she was treating a patient, waited with the patient competence of a man who understood that interrupting a medical procedure was the kind of thing that cost you the goodwill you came to use, and then told her, once she was done, that he had heard about her all the way from Siyang.

"Everything you've heard is probably wrong," she said.

"Some of it almost certainly is," he agreed pleasantly. "That's why I stopped."

His name was Nestor. He moved cloth and spice and specialty goods from the capital city down the coast route and back up again, had been doing it for fifteen years, and had the particular quality of cheerfulness that came from a man who had seen enough of the world to find most of it interesting rather than threatening.

She gave him a cup of water and he sat across the preparation table and told her what he'd heard.

---

The first story: she had been called to treat a dying man with a broken arm, alone, in the dark, with nothing but a fishing knife and river water.

"The grain store has lamps," she said. "I had four of them lit."

"The version I heard had no light at all."

"The version you heard is wrong."

"The man walked out the next morning," he said. "This part, at least, seems to be confirmed."

"The man has been resting for four weeks. He's not walking anywhere. His arm is healing correctly because he is following his instructions."

Nestor looked at her with the expression of a man who found this very funny.

"You're very precise," he said.

"Inaccurate stories become inaccurate expectations," she said. "Inaccurate expectations become people thinking they can walk on a broken bone after one night."

He considered this. "That's a practical reason to care about accuracy."

"It's the only reason I care about accuracy."

This was not entirely true. She cared about accuracy for many reasons. But it was the reason most immediately relevant to the current conversation.

---

The second story: she had traced the fever cluster by following the spirit signs upstream, reading the water the way a Babaylan read omens, and had sealed the well through some kind of formal ritual command.

She was quiet for a moment.

"I walked upstream and found a dead animal in the water," she said. "Four days in. The decomposition was causing contamination. I had the animal removed and the downstream well sealed until the water cleared."

"No spirit reading."

"I looked at the water. I looked at the animal. I counted the days."

"Practical," he said again. He had the tone of someone filing this somewhere useful.

"What does the story say I did after that."

"Stood in the rain and spoke the names of the sick children to the sky until the fever broke."

She looked at him.

"I stayed up for thirty-six hours and monitored their fluid intake and temperature," she said.

"Less dramatic."

"More effective."

Nestor laughed. It was a real laugh, the kind that came out before a person decided whether to let it.

"You understand," she said, "that the version where I perform mystical rites in the rain is going to make people expect things I cannot do."

"I do understand that now," he said. "I will correct it."

She doubted he would correct it completely. Stories like this moved on their own logic and corrections traveled more slowly than exaggerations. But having one person who had heard the accurate version was better than having none.

---

He was there for two hours.

He bought three items from the supply she had available for trade — Inang Cora's excess dried goods, mostly — and paid fairly, which she noted because fair payment was not guaranteed on trade routes and the variance was information.

In exchange for the water and the conversation, he talked.

Siyang, he said, was in the particular kind of political tension that came from an aging Datu with three sons and no clear intention.

"He hasn't named a successor?"

"He's said things. Different things to different people, at different times. His eldest son Rodrigo has the most support among the established families because he's predictable and has been managing the trade administration for eight years."

She kept her expression even at the name.

"Predictable," she said.

"Efficient. Not the same thing, but close enough for most purposes." He turned his cup in his hands. "His second son is popular with the maharlika families but has no administrative experience. The third is young, very well-liked, and completely uninterested in the position. Which makes him interesting to watch in about five years, when interest tends to develop."

"And the Council of Lakan?"

"In session. Currently arguing about the timber situation." He shook his head. "Buhawi has a claim on a forest territory that Siyang considers under their administration. It's been argued for six years. It'll be argued for six more."

"Why Buhawi specifically?"

"Their new heir-commander is very good at arguing. And at other things." He paused. "If you're in this territory for any length of time, you'll hear his name. Bathala Reyes. He's been effective enough to make people nervous, which is either a good sign or a bad sign depending on which side of the table you're sitting on."

She kept the name with the rest of what mattered: effective, makes people nervous, heir-commander of House Buhawi. Relevant eventually. Not today.

"Is there anything else moving through Siyang," she said, "that would affect the coast route."

He thought about it.

"There was one thing," he said. "Minor household matter, but the kind that creates noise." He was already moving to the next topic in his head, she could see it. The way people mentioned things they didn't consider particularly significant. "One of the Silab family was in the city last month asking questions. A steward, by the look of him. Inquiring after a young woman who'd apparently gone missing."

She drank her water.

"Missing," she said.

"A daughter of the household. Concubine's child, so the third or fourth tier of the family. The story was she'd left the estate without permission and they were concerned." He made a small gesture with his hand — the gesture of a man summarizing something he'd filed under unremarkable. "The description they were circulating was of a very young girl. Soft-spoken. Studied music, I think. The kind of girl who wouldn't last a week on the coast road."

He looked at Maricel while he said this.

Not with suspicion. With the incurious attention of a man having a conversation, noting the person in front of him the same way he noted everything — as ambient information, not as significant data.

"They didn't find her?" Maricel said.

"Not that I heard. People disappear. Most of them don't want to be found." He stood and began gathering his things. "If she had any sense she found somewhere useful to be."

He left.

---

She stood in the doorway of the grain store for a while after the cart disappeared up the road.

Kiko was inside. She could hear him sorting things.

She ran the variables.

House Silab was asking questions in Siyang. The description in circulation was of the girl Marisol had been — young, soft, the kind of person who studied music and wouldn't survive the coast road alone. The description did not match the woman currently standing in the doorway of a grain store she had converted into a treatment clinic in a fishing village she had arrived at nearly drowned.

That was her protection. The gap between who Marisol had been and who she was.

The problem: the gap would not last forever as a protection.

Whoever had disposed of Marisol had done it on the coast road. This village was on the coast road. If the search expanded past the city — if someone methodical enough started working outward from the last known point and asking the right questions in the right settlements — a girl found washed up on a beach was exactly the kind of thing that surfaced.

Timing mattered.

She had been here four weeks. The steward had been asking in Siyang a month ago, which meant the search had been active for at least five weeks total. It hadn't reached Panlaot yet. The coast settlements were far enough from the capital that routine inquiries moved slowly.

Not as slowly as she'd like.

She went back inside.

She had work to do, and work was the most productive use of the time she had before the problem became urgent.

She would build as much as she could before it did.