[b]Ailee![/b] <[i]Burning watercress,[/i]> someone curses. You turn your head so hard you nearly dislocate it. There is a very cool mouse nearby. She has [i]goggles[/i]. Goggles, as everyone knows, are very cool, because they show that you care about the health and safety of your eyes. But she is not wearing the goggles. They are pulled up onto her leather cap. She is an ear shorter than you and one sleeve’s been stapled shut at the elbow, but who cares? She is a mouse in a burnished leather jacket, very irritated at having bumped into someone taller and gotten Dipping Dotties all over her scarf. She huffs, and does the complicated dance of trying to hold the ice treats with her half-an-arm while brushing the sticky little things off with her hand. Somebody should offer to hold the treats for her. Or pluck each one off for her. Or offer to go and pummel the offending tallman with a hammer made out of vice. For the King’s sake, do [i]something[/i], she’s right there and her ears are as pink as the sky immediately before sunrise and she’s a [i]delver[/i], she comes down here professionally and hunts for oracular books and magical byproducts, and if she vanishes into the crowd you’re never going to find her again unless you summon up spirits from the high airs to hunt her down and she probably has, like, a ghost-vanquishing mirror or something, because that’s the kind of person she very obviously is, and you are losing your window of opportunity here, girl! Do something!! *** [b]Lucien![/b] The professor considers your words with the gravitas of someone who was paid quite a lot to think about things just as hard as he could. “And here I hoped I could tempt you away,” he says, finally. “If this is the right thing, after all, this metamorphasis that I am courting, then logically spreading it to the deserving is itself a virtuous act. But you will not leave them yet. Naturally. You would risk eternal regrets.” Unlikely. From what little you have gathered of clowns, [i]regrets[/i] are something they shed when they… molt? Ascend? Succumb? Pogo and Bobo over here, for example, don’t look as if they have a care in the world, other than the slight tension of reminding themselves that they will have a very stern talking-to if they rip your head off without a very good and pressing reason. “I am doing the right thing?” It is a sliver of vulnerability. “In the face of that tyrant, Time, this is the last redoubt. Imagine what I could keep alive, Lucien. Thousands of years of tradition, history, culture…” He taps his grease-painted noggin with one finger. Someone is deluding himself very hard, and it’s not you. *** [b]Coleman![/b] “Of course,” the Blemmyae says, thoughtfully. “Temporal misalignment. An opportunity to undo what has been done. Perhaps when I leave in victory, my pod will labor still in To-vo-Kan-moz, awaiting my return.” He opens his abdomen-mouth (his teeth are the size of your hand, each one) and the report of his gun-tongue nearly takes off your ear, not to mention the actual seed-bullet. It strikes against Sasha’s side and the acid coating begins to eat away at her paint, but its tendrils don’t manage to set and it falls, a nasty little ball of death, to the packed earth. There are all sorts of interesting hints and tips and solutions to how to deal with a homicidal Blemmyae (and here’s one for free: they’re reliable pacifists as long as you don’t move their cheese, as the saying goes, and in this case “moving” is murder and “cheese” is every member of their pod), but the rest are up in the air, want to try and catch one? *** [b]Jackdaw![/b] It’s a blessing you get in to the House of Mirrors when you do. Somebody a lane over is shooting some kind of very wet gun. But don’t worry, in the House of Mirrors you’ll be safe, you and Wolf, just you and her and you and her and you and her and you and her and you and her and you and her and you and her and this may not have been the wisest idea, after all. Because this is the House of Mirrors, and all of those mirrors are very strange indeed. When you turn around, you find that the door is mirrored, too. It has to be, right? It’s just a trick that it looks like a corridor extending off into the dark, they do it with mirrors, and you’re just not close enough to the door to be able to touch it. Yes. This is a good thought. And you know what? Maybe, just maybe, you should go through the House of Mirrors anyway so nobody has to panic. Yes. Solid call. Great going, Jackdaw! “Great going, Jackdaw!” Oh no. You turn and find yourself face-to-face with a soldier. Her uniform isn’t patchwork, it’s just an easy mistake to make: it’s been patched and repaired on the battlefield, stitches hidden underneath brutalist medals. She’s standing ramrod-stiff, all lean muscle and scars and shiny round glasses. Is that a smile, or is her lip curling because of another scar? “I’m the one you need to trade with,” your reflection says. “You and I both know that books haven’t gotten us [i]anywhere[/i]. But you’ve found your way to me right away! So here!” Your reflection reaches for you. “I’ll find our name, no matter what stands in our way.” “Don’t listen to her,” another you says from behind you. You spare her a glance, and she is very, uh, pink. And frilly. And flouncy. And is that a golden bow? That’s impractical, right? “Her heart’s all cold as ice, and we? We are all about our [i]heart,[/i] Jackdaw. We have so [i]much[/i] to give the world, and I can do it right. Trade with [i]me[/i].” Her lip quivers dangerously as she presses up against the glass. Wolf stares down another reflection, which has discarded things like clothes. And dental hygiene. And baths. And not killing adorable foxes. (That last is an assumption but it is probably absolutely a dead-on one.)