[b]Coleman! Jackdaw![/b]

Wolf makes an annoyed snuffle. “Not mirror,” she points out. “Mirror was... [i]it[/i] was... unique. Distinct. That’s it. Distinct.” She gives Coleman a flat glare and then awkwardly pats the bundle of quivering fox. “You’d tell,” she says, and then clams up again, having presumably used all of her words for now. But she keeps patting fox and being [i]present[/i]. A skinny, traumatized rock for foxes to cling to.

“I must confess some curiosity,” the Blemmyae says, turning to look at Jackdaw (a movement of his entire torso). “What, precisely, brought this one down here? She’s not one of the Vermissian’s folk, and she seems constitutionally unfit for the environs of the Heart.” A gleam enters his dark nipple-eyes. “Now, if she has some pressing business... perhaps I could augment her, for a fair price.”

***

[b]Ailee! Lucien![/b]

“Surma,” the one-armed mouse says, by way of introduction. “And hopefully we won’t have to fight at all. It’s like, who’d come to a carnival just to get their hands on clown books?” But Ailee notices her tensing up, and she’s definitely sizing up Lucien and the Professor.

The sound of the rain on the canvas is becoming almost deafening. There must have been a sudden storm rolling in. The lanterns hanging from the top of the tent start swaying, casting shadows this way and that as Surma approaches the pile of books.

“Find anything interesting?” she asks, with a surprising amount of menace for how terribly small she is.

A crack of thunder almost drowns out the rain— and Jackdaw enters the tent. She’s had a carnival makeover and is under the influence of another name she’s picked up, thus the glowing spray-paint tattoos and the uncharacteristic confidence. Everybody say hi, Jackdaw. Come to watch Ailee’s crush beat up Lucien?