Tilarna and Kei suddenly find themselves deep in the world of vice and political intrigue, as Tilarna serves as bait for a john at a high-end brothel, and they end up arresting Cole Mozeleemay, a powerful Semanian politician running for mayor of San Teresa. While Cole didn’t get far at all with Tilarna before Kei and the cops take the hotel room, the fact he touched her hair is enough to make her upset Kei didn’t bust in sooner.
Mozeleemay very publicly asserts his innocence to the press (gaslighting them in the process), while his ambitious politician’s wife commits to helping him get through this (but that doesn’t mean he can touch her). Tilarna is as expected disgusted by Earth’s slow, plodding brand of justice, especially when even that kind tends to slow even more when a powerful person is involved.
All Kei tells her is that this is the way it is, and that she’s going to have to resign herself to that, as he has over the years. She needs a friend—someone other than Kei—and is comforted when she has a chance encounter with Zoey, the woman who was kind to her at the brothel, and who is also an amateur photographer.
Zoey actually needs help moving after the police raid, and Tilarna, being nice, helps out. Knights may be solitary by nature, but the more Tilarna hangs out with Kei, the more used to relationships she gets. Her need for female companionship must have been stronger than ever considering what she went through and how Zoey (unlike, say, Cecil) can relate to the life.
Tilarna and Zoey become fast friends over their brief time together, and Kei just happens to return to the spot where they split up to pick her up later that night. She’s also enchanted by Zoey’s photography. They continue to hang out despite Kei’s warnings not to get too involved with people they’re investigating (Zoey believes Tilarna is merely a rich runaway).
Meanwhile, the already-tenuous solicitation case against Mozeleemay takes another blow when a list of the club’s clients is leaked to the media. Some of the names are real and some are fake, creating more reasonable doubt for Mozeleemay’s lawyers to use in his defense.
We learn that Zoey is the one who provided Mozeleemay with the list, in exchange for enough cash to afford the gorgeous apartment with an ocean view. Mozeleemay shows his true colors once more when he offers extra pay for a quick trick, but Zoey spurns him. Mozeleemay’s wife, who is following him, spots Zoey exiting his car.
Tilarna, increasingly distraught over the increasing possibility she went undercover and endured what she did for no good reason, brings up the possibility of an employee at the club being the leaker. Jamie shows them the video stills of everyone who accessed the list, and sure enough, Zoey’s photo sticks out.
She goes to Zoey’s place immediately to confront her. Zoey doesn’t answer the door and Tilarna prepares for the worse by drawing her sword, only for Zoey to ambush her…with her camera. She has a photo canvas for Tilarna as a gift for helping her move, but Tilarna is all business, and starts with the accusations. Zoey denies, then asks if Tilarna is a cop, and Tilarna can’t lie.
Then, as the two stand almost back-to-back in front of those huge ocean view windows, a bullet strikes Zoey in the chest, then a hail of bullets shatter the windows as the women hit the deck. Kei, providing backup for Tilarna, manages to shoot one of the two assassins, but he says nothing about who sent him before passing out.
That night, as he watches the news about himself, Mozeleemay gets word that Zoey was shot, and relays the message to his wife when she comes in the room, and noting how it could help him beat the charge. Then he realizes his wife was the one who arranged the hit. She denies it, of course, but taking his hand in hers, tells him he shouldn’t worry about such things—the implication being his job is to win the election; nothing more.
Zoey’s final words to Tilarna before passing out express her disappointment in having been betrayed by someone she thought was a friend. There’s not enough time for Tilarna to explain the complex circumstances, and how she considered Zoey a good friend too. Kei is by her side at the hospital when she learns Zoey has died, and upon returning to her apartment, unwraps the photo Zoey gave her as a gift: a behind-the-back of Tilarna beaming in the sunset. Tilarna takes Zoey’s camera as a memento.
It’s as heartbreaking and poignant as Cop Craft has dared to get so far, and really makes me feel for poor Tilarna. While she’s no fool, she is young, inexperienced, and naive. And Zoey was right when she said Tilarna can’t understand the difficulty of lowborn Semanians trying to go straight in San Teresa. Adding ironic insult to injury, the self-proclaimed advocate of Semanians like her is…Cole Mozeleemay.
Yet look at what he allowed to happen to someone like Zoey, just because he couldn’t keep it in his goddamn pants. I want Tilarna to get revenge, but I don’t want her to get in trouble. At the same time, I don’t want her to suffer the unique turmoil that comes from being perpetually unable to do what is right and just in a world where justice is whatever the most rich and powerful say it is.
As far as Tilarna and Kei’s partnership friendship may have come, Earth still feels like a place that will only continue to eat away at her pure and virtuous soul…as it has already done to him. How can a place like that—which gave her a new older sister then took her away just as fast—ever feel like a home?
