Greater Plum Harbor, Meldan · 3725 Rainmoon 25

Behind a grey and purple wall there is a city inside the city, and inside that city there are tea shops, and inside the tea shops there are booths, and in every booth hooded people talk about taxes like they are weather.

The shop on the corner has a robot that has stopped working and an owner who has stopped caring. Zip walks in, picks up the robot's tray, and pours. It is tea. Zip has poured worse for things with more teeth.

By the third day the regulars ask for the barback by name, which in Greater Plum Harbor is a scandal, because nobody asks for anyone by name. By the fifth day Zip knows the rules of the place. Every name is a door. You burn at the door to prove you are worth opening it for. The bigger the burn, the louder the knock.

"Privacy for the weak, transparency for the powerful." Snowmoon, ch. 32. Zip is not sure which one a barback is. Zip wipes the counter.