The next morning, Trafalgar waited with Selara in a place she had clearly chosen because privacy cost enough money to discourage interruptions.
It was one of Aurevane's higher-end cafés, tucked along a raised terrace that overlooked one of the city's quieter avenues. The tables were spaced far apart, the waiters moved as if trained to vanish between orders, and even the cups had that expensive thinness that made every sip feel like it had passed through a committee. Nothing new for Trafalgar, exactly, but Aurevane had a talent for making wealth look like a civic philosophy.
Trafalgar had ordered coffee. He had not drunk it in a long while, and the bitterness struck him harder than expected on the first sip. Not bad. Dense, dark, a little aggressive. The sort of drink that felt less like breakfast and more like being warned.
