Chapter Text
Against all odds, they were making things work a little smoother day after day. Thomas was able to pull them both into a more regular schedule, even if Alexander griped and moaned about their early morning start, and Alexander was at least given enough to do at work that he wasn’t going insane with boredom. If anything, it was stimulating to walk around and visit new places (even if they were all contained within one complex) and just get a change of pace. That, and flaunt his position over everyone else. He was just making the most of his situation, that was all, honest!
If nothing else, Alexander was pleased to not have been really shuffled into the secretary role -- Thomas already had a work secretary, and she was unbelievably efficient at her job; Alexander knew he wouldn’t be able to compete with that. Hell, Thomas probably had a far greater extended admin team working behind the scenes. And as far as “personal assistants” went, at the very least, there was no expectation for Alexander to make executive decisions, planning out where they would go when and arranging everything ahead of time. That sort of planning was best left to Thomas being that the human was more familiar with the area, or would be shuffled off to some other poor soul working for the man.
Alexander had noted before how surprisingly not out-of-touch-with-reality Thomas was. For being quite a wealthy and powerful man, he had expected Thomas to be more inclined to already have a team doing each and every little thing at his beckon and whim. It still felt strange to stand in the kitchen with him trying to cook, or some other equally mundane or domestic activity, even if when out in public they would visit nice restaurants and Thomas would snap his fingers and have anything he wanted. It was a weird dichotomy, and Alexander still grimaced and didn’t hold his tongue when Thomas became a little too much.
Make no mistake: he still despised the man. But now, he remained in that city for a bigger cause (and, well, for his own benefit. He wasn’t a complete saint, though he liked to imagine he would fight for what he believed to be right). So, he tried to get along...and surprisingly, they were starting to work things out.
People can be defined by their actions and opinions, but such things change. It wasn’t Alexander’s duty to deal with changing Thomas, of course -- he was just told to refrain from rocking the boat too much so that he would be given more freedoms, more chances to aid in the revolution -- but Thomas had loosened his grip and relaxed the restrictions that had been thrown over Alexander for those first few nights.
It reminded Alexander that Thomas was still just a weird 20-something not much older than himself who had apparently grown up to be a complete asshole. And, well, he was pleasantly surprised during the little glimpses he got where that singular personality trait dissolved -- when Thomas had held Alexander, fixed his feathers.
Maybe he was picking for anything redeemable about the guy in order to cope with the situation at hand, but it did give him hope.
Over the next few days, the rest of the clothes Alexander had ordered came in; to his delight, the awful, frill-covered outfits were still in the works. Thomas seemed to have dropped the issue of forcing Alexander to wear them, but Alexander liked the extra assurance that came with plain unavailability. In any case, he still spent a good bit of his time in his set of formal office wear -- Thomas had gone about looking for a few additional changes of clothes in a similar style so that Alexander could switch out what he was wearing each day.
Though Alexander would be content being stuck in the same suit every day if it meant he continued going into work with Thomas -- because that meant he would inevitably have a chance to slip away to see John.
He had only been in New York for about a week and a half at that point. It had only been a few days since he had gotten John’s number, and he hadn’t even thought to text John the night of -- Hell, he hadn’t even had the chance to see the guy the next day, and that had been what prompted him to send a short and sweet message of:
“Thomas’ cooking is actually pretty good when it isn’t unhealthy as shit and that makes me mad.”
John had done a good job conveying his wheezing over text, and they had exchanged a smile when they by chance passed by each other the next day at work. No chance to talk, but a smile lifted Alexander’s spirits. The next day was the same story retold, so in lieu of having been able to see each other, Alexander outright texted him that night to try and organize them both meeting up at once. Thomas was quite insistent that he and Alexander take lunch together, but John promised that he would be sure to set aside some time to meet with Alexander. And hey, if any of John’s superiors questioned it...well, they’d have to answer to Mr. Jefferson’s ezfi, and that was never a good threat to hang over another’s head.
John had previous obligations the day after that, so it wasn’t until several days past their initial encounter at their workplace that they had been able to meet up -- though this time, Alexander was happily able to step into John’s office.
Being that John was an ezfi himself, he wasn’t nearly as gentle with Alexander’s wings when he went to examine Alexander’s wingbands. Thomas had, if nothing else, done his very best to be cautious and delicate; John, on the other hand, was more focused on the goal of his task, but at least dialed back his roughness a touch when Alexander complained of his injured wing.
(Said injured wing had healed enough that he no longer faced daily pain from it, but he didn’t want to accidentally resurface healed wounds.)
John’s fingertips ended up resting just past where Alexander’s wings were enveloped into the bands, keeping his wings steady and out of the way. John made a noise of interest, and Alexander tried to turn back and ask what was the matter -- to which John pushed his head back, telling him not to move.
Alexander moved just enough to cross his arms. “I’ll stop moving if you tell me what you’re thinking.”
John let out a slow huff between his lips before replying, “Well, firstly, Jefferson’s company is the one that produces a lot of this tech. Government contracts, y’know. That’s why there are so many security precautions -- it’s sensitive information. Apparently a lot of the contracts n’ shit basically got handed down after he inherited the company and took over a couple years back.”
Alexander knew that Thomas had a role in the local government, but he was surprised to see how far it extended; that did make him wonder how much of his role was related to particular business interests. “So...what does that mean for my wingbands?”
“Well, okay, let me throw out some context first. You’ve seen me wearing them as well, yeah? Now, typically if you see an ezfi wearing them out on the street, that might mean they had a run-in with the law, were put into the system -- whether kidnapped and sent to educational work with Laf or being thrown into the workforce -- or, as is my case, are heading to or from a workplace with sensitive material. A human has to leave through the typical exits, after all, while an ezfi smuggling secrets could get the hell outta dodge in six minutes flat if they really wanted to. Now, I’ve found ways around that, and even if shit did hit the fan, I’ve taken preemptive measures; I physically broke the internal components on my wingbands so they look normal, but don’t work. Not like anyone checks a guy like me, anyways. But you , on the other hand…”
Alexander grimaced, and John dropped his hold on Alexander’s wings, allowing him to fold them back once more. “There’s no guarantee Thomas wouldn’t try to mess with them at some point and find out that they were smashed to shit.”
John nodded, fiddling with his own armband. “Latest work has been trying to find a way to reliably, uh, hack them, I guess would be the best word. The police have the ability to send out a signal that will lock wingbands in the immediate vicinity, at least to the setting you’re on now so that ezfis would be forced to land and unable to take off. Then, they can activate or deactivate an individual’s bands as needed. That’s all done wirelessly, so there has to be a way for us to override their signals -- only issue is figuring that out. But, theoretically, if we could get our hands on how it works, you’d be able to do something as simple as downloading a script to your armband to have total control -- and, best of all, it would be untraceable.”
It was an easy guess as to why they would want access to such technology. Alexander hadn’t seen any large-scale protests going on around the city, but if such a thing began, the police could make a move to literally mow them down.
“Sounds like a good deal,” Alexander murmured. Even if it took a little longer to get the ball rolling, it would be eons better than risking Thomas finding out what he had been trying to do. As amicably as the human had been acting lately compared to how things had been going earlier, he couldn’t imagine the fallout if Thomas realized he had taken the initiative to destroy his wingbands and dip out whenever he felt he wanted to. How would Alexander even reply to that? ‘ Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ve already decided I’m not going to leave anyways, so it’s not like it matterns. ’
Yeah, that wasn’t going to fly.
Still, Thomas had already gone so far as to loosen his wingbands. The guy was apparently intolerant and a general asshole, but he was still making a surprising effort to at least smooth things over and try to figure out something from where they stood now. Alexander wasn’t going to get his hopes up, but he didn’t want to disregard the possibility that, even if it were merely for health reasons (Alexander had mentioned wanting to go work out at some point), Thomas might eventually release his wingbands entirely. After all, it seemed that other ezfi owners were comfortable with such a thing.
His armband buzzed with a little notification. John looked at him expectantly, and Alexander swallowed and tapped the screen to pull it up. It was from Thomas; apparently, the human had been called away for a sudden, unexpected council meeting.
‘ You at a good stopping point? We gotta get out soon; really short notice with this one. We could pick up an early dinner afterwards?’
Alexander hated how domestic that message felt, but he typed back, ‘ I’ll be right up ’ before turning back to face John, putting out a hand. John took it, suddenly pulling Alexander into a side-hug and clapping him on the back. When they parted, John just twisted his fingers through his curly hair, clearly becoming lost in thought.
Not wanting to pull him into stilted, drawn-out goodbyes as he fell into a train of thought, Alexander just said, “Well, I need to get going. Thanks for...all of this, really. I’ll chat with you sometime soon, yeah?”
John’s mouth was tight as he nodded, and Alexander turned and walked out of the room.
They had already climbed into the car and were well on their way to wherever-it-was-Thomas’-meeting-was-at before Thomas awkwardly brought up, “So...it’s been well-established that what you’re wearing isn’t...proper ezfi attire.”
Thomas conveniently didn’t emphasize that it was proper owned ezfi attire, considering it seemed like only those who were forced to wear such demeaning garb would actually don such a thing. Every other ezfi just trying to get through life wore the same sort of thing that any human would wear, albeit with wing slits cut into the back. But no, owned ezfi attire was a whole different sort of beast. That was where the frills and the laze and the gauzy fabric came in; at least men still seemed to have the typical dress pants, but the tops didn’t cover nearly as much. He was decently comfortable in his body and his masculinity; that wasn’t the issue. No, the problem was that he was being forced into a more typical uniform top that left more skin showing than usual and frankly seemed to serve the purpose of dehumanizing and humiliating him, making him into a showpiece rather than a person.
Seeing the expression on Alexander’s face, Thomas scrambled to backpedal and explain himself. “Listen, I know you don’t want to wear that kind of thing. I- I got that. Been made plenty clear. I’m just...tryna think about how to explain that away.” He drummed his fingertips against his knee. “Well, on such short notice you wouldn’t have had the chance to run home and change anyways, and I need you to keep a professional atmosphere at work. Besides, it takes time to get things ordered and altered. I’ll just say that and we can figure it out later.”
“Wow, thanks,” Alexander just muttered, shifting in his seat to prop his chin up on his palm and leverage his elbow against the window. Thomas seemed to have gone through an entire thought process in fifteen seconds and in doing so had managed to deflect the actual problem while only vaguely hinting towards actually considering Alexander’s role in the wearing of the clothes.
Maybe he hadn’t changed so much. Or maybe, this was just his awful roundabout way of showing compassion without having to outwardly change his shitty personality and equally awful actions.
Whatever the case was, so long as he didn’t have to wear those frills (they were the mark of an owned ezfi, and he certainly didn’t want to play with fire in breaching such a topic), Alexander couldn’t care less. If anything, he was a bit surprised Thomas had, at least to some extent, changed his tune from “we’re going here and you are going to wear this stupid thing or there’ll be consequences” to “I suppose you don’t need to wear that.” Sure, Thomas clearly didn’t care about social appearances so much, so he could probably just hold his head high and blow off any comments regarding what Alexander was wearing. But he was still taking a perceived social hit, and while Alexander was still expected to go with the flow, at least Alexander’s wishes were being fulfilled, so he wasn’t going to complain in the meantime.
Honestly, he’d just found himself with a lot to think about that day, and wanted to finish up everything they were up to and head back to the apartment.
After a prolonged silence, Thomas must have finally realized that Alexander wasn’t going to reply with anything of substance, so he instead went off on another tangent trying to explain his position. Even through his apathy, Alexander kept one ear out to hear what Thomas had to say, though he wasn’t exactly taking notes.
Thomas explained (probably in more detail than Alexander gave a shit about) his position. He wasn’t just a typical community member; oh, no. He was someone whose voice was meant to be heard, someone to act as a representative for other’s interests as his opinions were clearly more noteworthy than any other’s! Sarcasm aside, his council position placed him acting as an advisor. He offered his voice on technology and innovation, an admittedly understandable placement considering the government backing he sat on, and it was a relatively comfortable position for someone who wanted a political voice stronger than pure lobbying without playing the real game of politics. A chosen position, and while its hours were unreliable, Thomas wasn’t in it for the money -- though whether he was in it just for the hell of it, because he was interested in politics, or because he thought it would truly be beneficial for his business, Alexander couldn’t quite decide. Honestly, it could be a combination of all of them, plus any number of additional factors thrown in just for funsies.
Ezfis brought to New York were separated into three categories: those who were assigned to controlled living, given a labor ID, and sent into skilled labor training (he assumed that they would gain freedoms over time until they lived lives like any other citizen, but those first few months...); those who were sent into the academic system (dormitories and classwork, exploited for academia, but at least Lafayette would be there for them); and finally, those in Alexander’s situation -- sold off and broken in.
Thomas represented, for the most part, his own company’s interests. He stood for innovation and technology, a distinct sector due to how integrated his company’s products were with government contracts. Then came Washington, who apparently represented agriculture and its related components, including food resources in the city. There were others, as well -- Lafayette, of course, for higher education and skilled labor; then, those in more general political and labor-based roles, including a John Adams (and James Madison, the one they had gone over for dinner with). People who represented electricity, or those in public services.
Then, there was the man who ran the ezfi trade, King. Apparently he held far more political power than Alexander had first assumed, as being the one who had the final say on just about everything, and the one who had built up the advisory committee with additional members in the first place. It felt like too much decision making power held in the palm of one man’s hand, and Alexander didn’t miss how bitter and annoyed Thomas sounded when he muttered, “The man wants us flocking around him to give our educated stances, pretending that we have a say, but has a tendency to shuck us off and ignore our advice when he doesn’t agree with it.”
No wonder Lafayette had made such little progress despite his position. Still, Alexander replied with a noncommittal noise, enough to show he was still listening, and tucked his knowledge of Thomas’ frustrations away for later.
Not everyone would be gathering that day. Apparently, seeing as most people on the council specialized in a particular section of the city’s functioning, they typically were only called as-needed. So, they had King; Thomas would obviously be there, and Lafayette, too. Washington was coming for sure, but beyond that Thomas shrugged and admitted he wasn’t positive who else would be there, only that it would be a smaller group that day. “That’s more preferable, though,” Thomas added, trying to spin it into a positive. “You’ll get an idea of how everything works, and can take your own notes and everything, without it being a major and more regulated gathering.”
“Surprised I won’t be fetching you coffee,” Alexander scoffed under his breath.
The building where council meetings were held was quite spacious, with its own dedicated underground parking and the likes. If anything, it felt odd to know that less than half a dozen people would be attending when surely the auditorium itself would be able to fit far, far more based on Thomas’ descriptions of it.
Similar to Thomas’ workplace, they had to swipe their armbands to step inside, but as they were heading to the main entrance, they were stopped at the doors by a security guard. A human one, who looked tired and almost embarrassed to be speaking up to someone like Thomas. “Sorry, sir, but King’s asked that your meeting today be privy to councilmembers alone.”
Despite the guard’s politeness towards Thomas, Alexander couldn’t help but feel that with his getup, he was being sized up and judged quite harshly. Thomas’ brow furrowed, glancing between Alexander and the guard as if he were processing the situation and the guard’s statement, before trying, “What? He’s my ezfi. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t be able to attend. Hell, I’d wager King’s ezfi’ll be there all the same.”
“King has yet to arrive, but he wanted to make it clear that all ezfis have been asked to wait outside. No notetaking would be required, I’d assume. I hope you can understand.”
Thomas made a show of rolling his eyes, but shrugged when he once again faced towards Alexander. “Well. I’d imagine this is good news for you. Have fun, and just stick around with Charles and Samuel. They’ll know where to go.”
Alexander wasn’t sure who Charles was (he assumed that was Lee’s first or last name? Come to think of it, both Charles and Lee could work in either position), but he knew Samuel was King’s ezfi (they had “met” back before Alexander had been taken to the auction house), and he grimaced, but shrugged back. “Whatever.”
He half expected Thomas to pat his head and show him off with a sickly-sweet “good boy,” but the man must have somehow restrained himself, as he just nodded in return. Fortunately (or rather unfortunately, considering the circumstances), the awkward silence didn’t last very long.
Instead, the entire situation got so, so much more uncomfortable as King (was that even his proper name, or did everyone just call him that?) strode into the room hall, Samuel trailing after him, a faint smile still on the ezfi’s lips. When Alexander had last seen him, Samuel was dressed in more utilitarian, working garb, albeit still of the sort that was well-fitting and reasonably nice-looking. Now, he was wearing the exact sort of frilly outfit Alexander had been grimacing at the thought of. While everything that had been tossed at Alexander was a more standard black, and not nearly as gaudy, Samuel was in a deep red accentuated with sheer yellow fabric for the sleeves and acting as minor accents. The colors worked well with his bright red and gold wings, and the actual look of his clothes was quite nice, though Alexander couldn’t imagine why or how he looked so pleased in his current getup.
King took the satchel that Samuel had been carrying for him and daintily slipped it over one shoulder, giving Samuel a wide smile and saying, “Sorry Sammy, but you’ll have to stay out here today.”
“Of course!” Samuel chirped back, no longer really smiling in reply, but still staring with a polite look.
King nodded to the guard, pausing as he saw Thomas still standing by the door. His gaze swept between Thomas and Alexander, and then chuckled, greeting Thomas with, “My, I’m so glad to see you enjoying your new ezfi. I hadn’t even heard you were planning to get one.”
“Mn, well, I wanted to be sure I found the right one,” Thomas replied, mouth tight. “And it’s been a pleasure ever since.”
Hah! What a damn liar.
King crossed his arms. “I’m surprised you’ve brought him in so soon. Especially if you haven’t even gotten more...proper getup yet.” Alexander just made a show of adjusting his tie, carefully not looking directly at either man. “And...quite obedient, too. For how rowdy he was during processing, I’m surprised.” He motioned for Thomas to start heading into the meeting space with him, continuing on into a judgemental tangent. Alexander didn’t miss Thomas glancing over his shoulder and shooting Alexander an apologetic look before passing through the door and disappearing from sight.
The guard stood outside for a few more moments, idly tapping at his armband, before nodding to Samuel and saying, “If anyone else shows up and didn’t hear that ezfis and other assistants aren’t allowed in today, let them know.”
Samuel replied with a light, “Of course, sir,” and the guard adjusted the collar of his work uniform and walked off.
That left Alexander and Samuel. Samuel stepped a few feet away from the door and found a nice spot against the wall to stand by. He kept his wings half-spread, chin up, and stared straight ahead to wait.
Alexander just leaned up against the wall by the door, letting his wings droop down behind him. Not to the point of being draped on the floor, of course, but enough to relax them.
He perked up a bit when someone else walked in, though -- because that person was Lafayette. His hair was up in a very loose tie, just enough to hold it back, as it seemed was his usual preference; he was dressed nicely, too, though not much of a step above what he had been wearing during their previous meetings. Lafayette smiled and nodded in a small greeting towards Alexander, but didn’t acknowledge him further -- instead, he went on to pause in front of Samuel. “Sam, good afternoon! How are you today?” The red-feathered ezfi perked up, and Lafyette raised his eyebrows.
“It’s a pleasant day, as always,” Samuel replied almost automatically. “Mr. King mentioned this morning that the weather was particularly nice, being sunny and a comfortable temperature.”
Alexander noticed that Samuel never actually answered the question. Lafayette’s smile faded somewhat, but he tried, “Oh! Do you like days when it is sunny?”
“Fair weather is the easiest to plan around,” Samuel said in return. “I know Mr. King appreciates good weather, so I must agree.”
Alexander didn’t miss the way Lafayette’s mouth crooked into a frown, but the man replied with a short “well, that is very good” before he walked off, gaze lingering on Alexander as he slipped by and into the meeting hall.
Alexander shuffled his wings, a bit disappointed that Lafayette had walked past him, and further disappointed that he was once again left alone with Samuel, who seemed content to stay stock-still with that freaky, blank smile still pinned on his face. The ezfi made absolutely no move to start a conversation, and Alexander scuffed the toe of his shoe against the fancy, polished flooring, trying to make a point of looking anywhere but at Samuel.
Should he say something? Would anyone snap at him if he did? He didn’t particularly care if someone did so, but it’d be annoying if he was told to stand outside, or worse, if he got dragged in to be tattled on to Thomas, and the man got legitimately angry for it. He dared to think they had made some progress, and didn’t want to throw them into argument again (or, at least, antagonize Thomas more than he typically did).
Alexander fell into staring blankly at the floor, slowly dragging one foot over the tiles, then scuffing the sole of his shoe against the tiles until they squeaked. He thought he heard Samuel make a disproving noise at that, but by the time Alexander turned to look up at the other ezfi, Samuel had that faint smile back on his face, gaze singled in on the opposite wall, and was comfortably ignoring him. Alexander grimaced, finally scraping for something to say to the ezfi, when footsteps sounded out down the hall.
Awesome. More people.
That thought had become sarcastic, but it wasn’t long before it flicked through his head again, this time genuine -- more people. People, in this case, who he knew!
It was Washington and Lee.
Washington looked as he had the last time Alexander saw him, although he was dressed a bit more formally, in a proper suit and all. Charles, on the other hand, was dressed more similarly to Samuel, though his clothing was blue and tan rather than red and gold. His wings were also more dull than Alexander would have expected, seeing as it seemed owned ezfis were expected to have brighter, more colorful wings; Charles’ wings were primarily a dark navy, accented with lighter blues and an alarming spot of red, not unlike John’s bull’s-eye wings.
Considering Lafayette of all people didn’t stick around to chat, Alexander wasn’t too shocked that Washington didn’t linger either -- though his gaze stuck on Alexander for a bit longer than typical. Samuel nearly chirped, “Mr. Washington, it’s been requested that your ezfi wait outside with us. I hope you can understand.” Washington nodded at that, telling Lee to wait outside before heading off without him.
Lee did as he was told, though Alexander was amused to see it was clearly without a smile on his face. He didn’t quite make the same racket about things as Alexander had, but he did still huff and cross his arms, shuffling his wings a few times over. Standing straight and proper, but without the blank pleasure of it all that Samuel seemed to hold, and he tipped his head and watched as Washington left. The moment the doors shut he visibly relaxed, wings slumping, and looked back over at Alexander with an eyebrow raised.
Very much wanting the awkward silence to end, Alexander cleared his throat and said, “Uh, hey.” He added a tiny nod and, “Alexander Hamilton. Just call me Alex or Alexander. You’re Washington’s ezfi?”
The answer to that last question was obvious, but Lee nodded anyways, responding, “Charles Lee. Call me Charles, if you don’t mind; not a fan of nicknames. You’re with Jefferson, right?” Alexander nodded in confirmation, to which Charles hummed and asked, “So, how long have you been around? I got the impression that you were new, but seeing as you’re here, I...assume not?”
This was Washington’s ezfi in the flesh. Alexander fumbled to recall what he knew of the man; Washington seemed to pride himself on the good working relationship he had with Charles, while John had expressed the exact opposite: that Lee was a coward, beaten down and just barely scraping by.
Biased accounts on both ends, no doubt.
“What you see is what you get,” Alexander shrugged in reply. “Only been here a few weeks at most. Got dropped here, thrown in Thomas’ general direction, and now I’m his roommate and help out at his job. That’s about all there is to it.”
He was lying through his teeth with those last few words, but the rest of it was more or less accurate.
Charles’ eyebrows were significantly closer to his hairline than they had been before he furrowed them and shot Alexander a confused look. “Really?”
“Mhm.”
Charles still wavered between surprised and almost jealous before he set aside his thoughts, shrugged, and turned to face Samuel. “Sam, how are you holding up?”
Charles flinched back when Samuel raised a finger to his lips and shushed him. Charles opened his mouth a second time, Samuel shooting him a dirty look and softly hissing, “Ezfis are not to be fraternizing while awaiting potential work orders.”
“We were told to wait outside. We’re currently doing just that,” Charles pointed out, a fact that Samuel was clearly not so delighted by.
Alexander leaned forward, just to ensure Samuel couldn’t ignore him, before he finally spoke up with, “Sorry about...the other day, by the way. The whole ‘tackling you and throat-punching you’ thing. It was nothing personal. Just didn’t want to be gagged and handcuffed.”
Samuel scoffed. His forced pleasant look from earlier seemed to have faded with little effort on Charles’ and Alexander’s part, to Alexander's delight, but it was replaced with him practically sticking his nose in the air and simply replying, “Hardly hurt because of it.”
Alexander shot Charles a funny look, trying to convey over the look in his eyes alone ‘Sam is a weird guy, isn’t he?’
Charles just shot a look over at Samuel, then spread one wing to essentially block Samuel out of their conversation. When he spoke, it was in a whisper, though it wasn’t soft enough to make Alexander assume he was actually intending for Samuel to not hear them. “Don’t mind him. He just likes to be an absolute self-absorbed, pompous prick to everyone else he deems beneath his owner. That, and he’s an awful conversationalist. I wouldn’t take it to heart.”
When he folded his wing back, Alexander once again saw Samuel, this time looking for a moment as though he had sucked on something sour before the ezfi shifted on his feet, lifted his head, and smoothed his expression.
Alexander returned to scuffing his shoe against the floor, suddenly hit with a realization: he was standing with two ezfis who worked for men with quite a list of connections.
“Hey, either of you-” Alexander started. Charles looked back over to him; Samuel did not. “I’m looking for two women who were sent to auction with me. So, recent arrivals. One with pink wings, one with yellow wings.”
Charles tapped his chin, thinking.
“I want to say I know about the second one, but I couldn’t tell you who exactly. Within Washington’s extended social circle, at least.”
Washington’s extended social circle. Lafayette and Thomas would surely be included in that.
Was the solution really going to be to just... ask Thomas outright?
“And the other?” Alexander tried.
To the surprise of both Alexander and Charles, Samuel was the one to speak up at that, commenting, “It’s unlikely one will be parading their ezfi about until training and acclimation is complete. Especially in times as they are now; a proper ezfi is key.” He had a sort of snobby tone tacked on to the end of his sentence, which Alexander ignored for once in favor of motioning for him to elaborate.
Charles was the one who picked up in lieu of Samuel offering anything else in the way of useful information. “You haven’t kept up with the local news?”
“Hardly as much as I should be. What’s going on?”
“A human owner was recently murdered by his ezfi.”