I leaned back on the stone wall and tried to catch my breath. Man, those guys could run.

"I'm dying," gasped Rosa next to me, holding her sides. I met her eyes and made a strangled goose sound in agreement.

We huffed and puffed for maybe two minutes more in the secluded alleyway, which I was grateful for because I probably looked like a gaping monster (like most people would look like after practically thirty minutes of nonstop racing) with skewers in each hand, while Rosa remained sparkly and beautiful no matter what. Even her sweat looked like shimmers, not actual liquid running down her skin.

Where was the justice?

After we calmed down a bit, I looked past her to see where we were. "Um," I said, still a little breathy, "where are we?"

She looked up too. "I don't know. Is that the fountain over there?"

"Where?"

"Behind the sign for noodles." She pointed. "There."

"Oh, there," I said, though I saw nothing but food vendors. Well, Rosa had good eyesight. I trusted her vision. "I see," I lied. "Wow, how far have we come, then? That rundown society place was pretty far away from this area, wasn't it?"

Rosa kept looking around, but nodded. "Since we ran for approximately 31 minutes in a distance I would say is about 7 miles in total, roughly including the way we weaved around places, we can estimate our speed to be around 6.8 miles per hour. Do you know what this means?" she demanded, suddenly turning towards me.

I leaned back. "Um, we were fast?"

Excitement sparked in her eyes. "No, it means that we were faster before!"

"...huh?"

"It means, Filly, that my theory about crowd obstruction in the velocity of an individual being chased within the crowd is roughly correct!" She grabbed me by my shoulders, and I flinched. I could practically see fire dancing in her eyes. "I was thinking about it while we were running because this time we ran into the crowd, right? And last time, when we were saving Idel, I theorized that we would have been approximately 20% slower if we'd run through the crowds like you had suggested! And if I compare the speed I calculated then with the speed I can calculate now, which was around 8.2 miles per hour, then that's near 20%!"

She threw her hands up and started dancing while I blinked at her. "Uh, sounds great," I said. "Congratulations."

"Haha!" she responded, and I had to laugh, too. Her eyes shined even in the dim light. "And I could theorize our constant stopping and restarting as we run takes more energy than a straight line, which is why we found this chase, which was slower, more tiring than when we were running from the thugs."

Something clicked in my head, and I slid up the wall and pressed my lips into a straight line. "Speaking of the thugs, that reminds me. Remember when Paul told us that some higher-up pressured his family to let Idel's family go?"

Rosa nodded. "What about it?"

"I was talking to Paul the other day-- and I meant to tell this to you, too, but I kept forgetting-- and he recognized the thugs who were chasing us."

Rosa's eyes popped open widely. "He knew them?"

"Yeah! I remembered one of the thug's names, and he recognized them all. The shrimp kid. Even the foreigner," I added.

She shook her head. "Then they were keeping an eye on Idel?"

"No, more like they happened to come across her and knew who she was?" I tilted my head. "Do you think this could be a problem?"

Rosa tapped her chin twice. I half-expected her to come up with a probability right on the spot, something like there's a 48-to-5 ratio that it will not be a problem or the likes, but she shrugged instead. "I hope not," she said.

"What, no percentages of chances?" I joked.

She gave me a strange look. "With limited information? That would be useless. But aren't the thugs all in prison now?"

"But if they have friends in the higher-ups, then they could be out in no time." I sighed. "I hope they don't stick around Minstia, even if they do get out."

"And I sure hope they don't target Idel again. Once was enough for a lifetime," she said, and I agreed. "But that's not the real problem we're in." She fixed a serious look on me, and my heart skipped a beat.

"What is it?" Was there something more?

She exhaled slowly. "We're late." And at the exact moment she said so, the clock bell in the distance chimed two, and understanding dawned on me.

We'll meet you at the sheriff's station in thirty minutes, we'd said, an hour and a half before now. "Oh." I closed my eyes, the dread only growing. "We're super late."

"Run for it?"

My legs throbbed in response, but I nodded. "Let's go."

We looked around cautiously to make sure none of the secret society members who'd been chasing us had waited for us to appear in the streets, then began jogging in the general direction of the fountain Rosa had seen. She looked back at me at one point and said, "If we find the fountain first, it'll be easier to find the sheriff's station," and then we were back to wheezing and stumbling through the crowd.

That is an absolute lie. I wheezed and stumbled through the crowd. Rosa remained fabulous even when she was gasping for breath.

Once the fountain was in view, we got a more accurate sense of where we were (Rosa drooped a little; "my calculations weren't as exact as I wanted them to be," she confided). Off we ran.

About halfway to the sheriff's station, Rosa twisted her upper body around to yell back at me about some statistics. She was in the middle of saying "Our velocity" when she slammed into someone in her way. I heard her cry out, but I couldn't stop myself and didn't get to see who she collided into.

I skidded to a stop right away and turned back, almost running into someone myself. 

"Are you okay?" I heard Rosa say, and when I found her among the milling people, she was stretching out a hand to the person who'd fallen, completely fine herself. "Sorry, didn't see you there."

The man on the ground clutching his shoulder looked up at Rosa, and from where I was I glimpsed a flash of embarrassment go through his face. Knocked down by this little girl? And she's fine?? he seemed to be thinking. I almost wanted to tell him that Rosa was definitely not a normally little girl, but he scrambled up and stiffly apologized, then hightailed it out of there.

Rosa watched him speed-walk away, bumping into multiple people in his hurry, with furrowed brows.

I ran to her. "Are you okay?

She turned to me and said, with some confusion, "He was super light."

"Huh?" I said, for the second time today. "What does that have to do with--"

"I barely felt a thing when I ran into him. Light as a feather. Even at the speed I was going, the force shouldn't have increased that much by the momentum..."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, that's enough of your mathematics, we need to go. Mother Lily is scary when we're not on time!"

"No, it's not just mathematics I'm concerned about," she insisted, frowning at me. "It's just..." She trailed off, suddenly shifting her gaze past me into the distance. She gasped, pointing. "Look! It's--"

"Rosa!" someone squealed, a voice I knew too well. Wasn't that?? I whirled around.

"--Ruth!"

Sure enough, I spotted Ruth's brown hair almost right away. She was clutching onto someone else's hand. Before I could react, Rosa flew past me towards her.

"Rosa!" dear little Ruth squealed again, and she let go of the person she was with and ran towards us with arms out. Rosa swept her up into a fierce hug, squeezing her so tightly that Ruth began coughing and looking pained.

I began laughing hysterically, tears forming in my eyes as I ran towards them as well. "Ruth!" I half-sobbed, and she reached for me from over Rosa's shoulder. I held her hand with both of mine, feeling the softness and smallness of her tiny limbs. "Where were you all this time? We were looking for you!"

Ruth's smile crumbled down at my question, and she sniffed. "Ruth was lost," she said. Tears surged into my eyes again. She hadn't referred to herself as Ruth for such a long time, and she only did that when she was truly scared. "Ruth didn't know where to go," she whined, her voice sticky with tears, too.

"Oh, Ruth," I said, hugging her the best I could over Rosa's shoulder. After a breath's time, I let her go, and Ruth struggled to get back down on the ground. Rosa let her, reaching for her hand instead. We stood on either side of her, both holding one hand each.

Both Rosa and I raised our heads at the same time to look at the person who'd been holding Ruth's hand. Two men stood, one in front of the other, looking fairly young, maybe just a few years older than we were. I vaguely heard a small beep from Rosa, just like a censored curse word would sound, but I was too preoccupied to dwell on that weirdness.

"Thank you," I said to the man in front, the one with the dirty blond hair and broad shoulders, with a voice as heartfelt as I could make it. "Thank you for finding our sister, we've been looking for her," for so long, I wanted to add, but my throat closed on its own trying to hold back a sob.

The man inclined his head in a formal yet strangely graceful gesture. "I am glad to see that you have been reunited."

I only nodded. If I opened my mouth right now, I might start wailing, and nobody deserved to hear that in the middle of a festival like this one. I looked over at Rosa to tell her to say something, too, but only blinked when I was met with... empty air?

"Mm?" I croaked, looking down at Ruth. She looked up at me and shrugged, holding out her other empty hand, and I looked around us. Did she just disappear without thanking Ruth's saviors? I groaned on the inside.

"Behind you," Rosa hissed, and I began to turn around to give her a good whack on the head, but Rosa hissed another warning. I stopped midway. "He can't see me!" she said in a hoarse whisper.

"Who can't see you?"

"The second guy! He's the one that always dies!"

I turned back to the two men, and the blond man seemed just as confused as I was, and a tad bit scared. I didn't blame him-- who disappeared like that in the middle of a conversation and hid behind the crying girl? The second man behind him, with the dark brown hair, seemed to be extremely on guard, his eyes narrowed at me. 

Yeah, he did look a bit scary, now that I thought about it. "Why? Is he like Glitcherman?" I whispered to her.

"Yes! So don't let him see me."

"Um," I said, wiping away my drying tears and sniffing them away. My tears were quite gone from my eyes now, thanks to Rosa. "She wants to say thank you, too. Really," I said weakly. "She's just, um, shy."

The two didn't look very convinced. Understandable.

I bowed to them a few times. "Thank you very much. We will not forget this grace. Please be happy wherever you go."

"Thank you," the first man allowed, inclining his head in my direction. He turned back and walked away as I watched with Ruth. The second man glanced my way one last time before he followed, and I couldn't shake the feeling that he had something against me. But I ignored it-- I mean, we'd just met for what, five minutes? I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything to offend him in so short a time.

But that wasn't important. I squeezed Ruth's hand, giving her a warm smile. I crouched down. "I'm glad you're back," I whispered.

She smiled at me too, sniffing away her own tears. "Me too," she warbled. "Can we go to mommy now?"

I nodded. "But first, let me just--" I stomped on Rosa's foot. She yelped, and I smiled brightly, my eyes not leaving Ruth's. "Okay, now we can go."