Uhhh…. okay, so I’m pretty sure he was originally Chris, I’m not sure at what point the spelling turned to Kris but I guess he’s Kris now. Also this is tiny but will hopefully be a two-parter with day 22. I probably spent at least an hour coming up with a proper localization of the bar name in English… My priorities are way off.

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It was Kris’s job to see things.

He had a certain reputation, without doubt. Keeping the one bar to which patrons sensitive to magic seemed to flock, it was his job to know them, recognize them and their abilities, gently nudge them… well, wherever Kris himself thought was best.

But there was also a danger to this business, and a danger to knowing too much. Most of all, Kris had perfected the art of recognizing people’s masks and seeing behind appearances, observational skills and magic alike telling him who’d walked into Quail’n’Snail, who could be played with and who was to be avoided.

The art of seeing things meant ignoring some of them.

There was a man that came to the bar sometimes to meet with people. Sometimes he was pale with equally pale eyes, quiet and threatening. Sometimes he was read-headed and loud in a way that seemed empty and a little fake. Sometimes he came as other masks, rarely more than once.

People like him turned up every once in a while. Kris wasn’t as young as many seemed to think – he’d seen his share of those like that man.

They were not Kris’s to deal with.

There was no side in that conflict that ended well for him or the bar. Picking one meant inciting the wrath of the other, and so Kris pretended one of the man’s friends didn’t smell like insanity and blood, that there were no strings of magic entangling the minds of several people he’d met with.

The detectives come, asking about him.

The man asks casually, if anyone had been snooping around.

Kris smiles, and sees nothing.