The third river street, as the name suggests, was near the river Abern after which the capital was also named. The area, where the street was located, was mostly residential with a minimum of stores and a complete lack of industry. It was a relatively prosperous middle-class neighborhood with no major crime in the area, but mostly theft. It was a mostly three-storey building with 12 apartments and narrow streets with little green around it.

It took about forty minutes to get there. At the spot, four carriages lined the narrow street. And Mike's carriage was the fifth and not counting another that followed them at a distance and seemed suspicious to him.

"Young master, we have arrived," Doran informed him.

"Thank you," he told him, and he and Caroline left the carriage.

There were a lot of people crowded outside the 31st house, mostly locals, questioned by the city guards and prevented from getting too close. At the second entrance, where Selvi Meyer lived, Mike noticed three men from his department talking to the local guards and an unfamiliar couple from the Ministry of Foreign Intelligence, judging by their uniforms. The couple was most likely from Lieutenant Selvi Meyer's analytical department.

As they approached those people standing there, Mike introduced himself.

"Major Mike de Graaf and Lieutenant Caroline de Tarro, Internal Investigations Department, Ministry of Foreign Intelligence."

"Captain Hans Rithof," one introduced himself. "Sylvie Meyer's direct superior and with me Lieutenant Klaus Blücher."

"Captain Steve Danton, sir, and Lieutenants Stevens and Bruchke of the district division of the capital guard," the others introduced themselves.

"Did you go into the apartment?" Mike asked them.

"Yeah, there's a team working there now," Captain Steve Danton answered him.

"Captain Nights is there, too," Captain Eric Shtof replied.

"Is anything known yet?"

"Not much yet, sir. There are signs of a fight in the apartment. There are no bodies on the scene," Lieutenant Stevens said. "We're questioning the neighbors for now. Maybe someone saw or heard something."

"I see," Mike said and then turned to Captain Danton. "Can I go up to the apartment?"

"Yes, sir. First floor to the left."

Mike went into the entryway. The entryway was clear with no signs of a fight or any damage. The door to Selvi Meyer's apartment was open. There was a guard at the front door. Mike introduced himself.

"You may go through, sir. But don't touch anything until our team is finished working," he told him.

"Yes, of course," Mike confirmed and went into the apartment.

The apartment was not large, with only three rooms - one large room with a kitchen, which served as an entrance hall, one room was a bedroom, and one smaller room served as a restroom.

The big room had signs of a battle. There was no other way for Mike to describe what had happened here. Things were scattered or destroyed everywhere. Burn marks could be seen on the wall in several places. A couple of overturned chairs, one destroyed in splinters. The door to the bedroom had been kicked in and was lying next to the door. Mike didn't see any sign of a cold weapon, but there was a big puddle of blood on the floor in one place and smaller puddles in a couple of other places.

Also in the room were Captain Nights and one of the guards collecting evidence. Two other guards were in the bedroom. Mike said his greetings and introduced himself to those present.

"Just don't touch anything in here until we're finished," one of the guards said.

"Yeah sure," Mike assured him.

Then he touched his eye with his finger and recited a spell of magical vision. Closing his other eye, he looked around the room. There were only a few sources of magical energy visible - the light sources on the ceiling, the light switch, and the wall clock. It was the same in the bedroom. There were also remnants of fire energy on the wall in burnt areas. Deactivating the spell, Mike asked.

"Anything is known at this point?"

"Not much," Captain Nights answered him. "There's a broken window in the bedroom. That's probably where it all started. Then there are signs of a fight in the room. And there's this pool of blood, someone probably had bad luck."

The two guards who had been in the bedroom entered the room. One of them introduced himself as Captain Craig Delion, the other as Lieutenant Crisk.

"I can clarify that there were at least four people on the scene here, one woman and three men. Apparently, they got in through the bedroom window where it all started. She was most likely not so lucky, although we have yet to find out. We took blood and hair from the scene for analysis. We're finishing up on the fingerprints now. The results will be ready in a couple of days," Captain Delion informed him.

"Can we at least tell from this puddle of blood whether it belongs to a woman or not?" Mike asked him.

"In a couple of days, at the earliest."

"I see," Mike said. Then a thought struck him, for he had only recently completed his attestation. "Captain, I have a favor to ask of you."

"What kind of favor?"

"We have blood samples of all the officers in the ministry. So I would ask for one blood sample for us."

"All right we can do that, it's not difficult," the captain replied without a second thought.

"Captain Nights, will you take a blood sample."

"Yes, sir," the latter replied.

Mike then went outside.

"Captain Danton," he called out to him. "Have you questioned any witnesses yet?"

"There have been no direct witnesses, sir," he replied.

"What, no witnesses at all?" surprised Mike.

"House neighbors heard a window break and there was a short fight. And a lady saw a carriage pulling away from the house around that time."

"I see. Will you send a report with the results of the investigation to our ministry?"

"Yes, of course, sir. You'll have it in a day or two."

"Thank you, Captain," Mike told him and then turned to Captain Eric Shtof. "Captain, will you continue to be here?"

"Yes, sir. I'll wait until the city guard is done," the captain replied.

"Good. Don't forget that there will be a meeting with the Colonel this evening."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm going back to the Ministry."

"Have a good trip, sir."

Mike was about to leave when he remembered one thing that bothered him.

"Captain Rithof, can I ask you one question?" asked Mike to him.

"Yes, sir."

"Did Lieutenant Selvi Meyer possess the element of fire?"

Captain Rithof hesitated and could not immediately answer the question asked. Lieutenant Klaus Blücher answered in his place.

"Sir," he turned to Mike. "Sylvie did possess the fire element as well as the air element. And managed them pretty well, too. I think both were rank four."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he thanked the Lieutenant.

After saying goodbye to everyone present, Mike picked up Lieutenant Caroline de Tarro and returned to the ministry.

In the evening Colonel Tirel held a meeting. Mike and his men briefed the colonel on the current results of the investigation and the disappearance of Lieutenant Selvie Meyer. Mike and the others concurred that Selvie Meyer had been attacked and either killed or abducted. That remained to be found out.

All agreed that the connections and relatives of Selvie Meyer should be thoroughly investigated and the results of the City Watch investigation should be awaited.

 

Mike asked Doran to stop the carriage outside Mrs. Edenmeyer's bookstore on the way home.

This time the store was quite crowded. One group, in particular, stood out, and there was Mrs. Edenmeyer and her assistant. A young couple, husband and wife, wealthy by appearance, wearing expensive clothes according to modern fashion, were discussing their order. Next to them stood three others. One was a dark-skinned, tall man, dressed strictly like a butler or attendant to a gentleman's feast. The other two were young gray-skinned men in simpler but identical clothes, probably servants. But what caught Mike's eye immediately was that both were wearing collars. The collar was black, obviously anti-magical, which Mike was deeply convinced was an excess and reeked of banal slavery.

That's right, slavery was permitted and quite legal. But there were only two types of slavery, debt slavery, and criminal slavery. In debt slavery were people who, for whatever reason, could not pay their debts. And, accordingly, they were put at the service of the creditor for a time until they could work off the debt. The time and type of work were determined by the court, as was the assignment and removal of debt slavery status itself. Usually, debt slavery lasted from three months to three years. A longer period was forbidden by law. Anti-magical collars were not applied to them. Criminal slavery was used for both minor and moderate crimes. The term of criminal slavery by law was from one year to a lifetime. The anti-magical collars were used if there was a threat of violence or an attempt to escape by criminal slaves. Usually, such slaves were not put into personal use but were assigned to specialized state institutions.

So the sight of the two men wearing anti-magic collars surprised him. If these two were only in debt slavery, then the use of anti-magic collars on them was forbidden. But the penalty for that was purely symbolic. If they were criminal slaves, then if they were wearing those collars, there had to be an escort for them, and they couldn't use them for personal purposes. For that, there was a heavy penalty for those who used them and serious trouble for the one who gave them away for personal use.

The couple argued vigorously among themselves while Mrs. Edenmeyer and her assistant stood side by side. Then, having finished their discussion, the man went with Mrs. Edenmeyer to pay for the order, while his wife was left to see to it that the order was packed in several cardboard boxes.

Mike was distracted by a magazine on the shelf that seemed interesting to him. When he heard a woman scream.

 "Ahh...my invitation cards," wailed the same woman. "You cave dog, what have you done," she yelled at one of her servants.

The reason for this seemed to be that he had dropped a box of these very cards and some of them had scattered. The lady was no longer just yelling, she was already hitting her servant with her hands, even the butler got hurt when he wanted to intervene. At the lady's shout, her husband came running and didn't hesitate to start beating up the other servant, allegedly for not hurrying to pick up the fallen cards, and generally offended his precious wife.

Mrs. Edenmeyer and the store security had to intervene to pull the young couple away from the servants. That didn't do much to cool them down; they kept trying to hit their servants, who were already showing bruises on their faces. It was only the threat to call the city guards that cooled their ardor. The young couple finally decided to leave the store.

"That's all right. We'll have another talk at home. I'll make a nice life for you," the lady protested as she passed Mike. When she noticed him, she stared at him angrily. "What are you looking at? You also want me to..."

She didn't have time to finish. Her husband, who was following her, saw Mike, or rather his uniform, and hurried to shoo his wife away.

"That's enough," he told her and apologized to Mike. "Sorry, don't mind her."

Pulling his wife toward the exit, he snapped at her.

"Don't you see who you're snapping at?"

"What? What are you talking about? I'm just..."

Mike couldn't hear the rest as they walked out of the store into the street. Mrs. Edenmeyer approached him.

"Mr. de Graaf, I'm sorry. That you had to witness such an unpleasant scene."

"Don't apologize Mrs. Edenmaier, it's not your fault," he reassured her. "I didn't know you made invitation cards."

"Unfortunately, books and newspapers alone make it hard to feed a family. And so we have a small print company in our possession. And it brings in a good income. Allowing us to do what we love, among other things," she smiled at Mike.

"I see."

"How can I help you today," she asked.

"I told you last time I was going on an overseas mission soon."

"Yes, I recall something about that."

"Right. So I'd like to place an order with you in advance for information of interest to me."

"All right. Let's go behind the stand and I'll take your order."