you can throw me if you want

[truthwright]

It turns out that there was really not much point to making a schedule. Kas and Helen visit the witch clan whenever Helen feels like it, and stay as long as she wants, and go when she wants to be somewhere else, and it all adds up to plenty more time spent with the clan than away.

After the aquarium jaunt with Ranata, it's a little more than a month before they visit the clan again.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

[I'm going to need to tell the queen, and Helen should talk to her, too, can you bring her here as soon as you're both up to the trip?]

[truthwright]

[Yeah, of course.]

[alicornucopia]

[All right. Please let me know right away if you learn anything else that could be a clue to who it was.]

[truthwright]

[Yeah.]

[alicornucopia]

[I can't believe someone would - it's an act of war.]

[truthwright]

[No shit,] he says. [You mean between witches, though?]

[alicornucopia]

[Yes.]

[truthwright]

[Guess they really wanted Helen,] he says, hugging his daughter some more.

[alicornucopia]

[Or didn't think they'd be caught because her mother's not in evidence, I suppose,] says Ranata disgustedly.

[truthwright]

[Sucks to be them, either way.]

[alicornucopia]

[Oh yes.]

[truthwright]

Kas cuddles Helen. Petaal cuddles Kalavar.

[alicornucopia]

It's about six hours later when a sudden shock of cold descends over Kas and Petaal, freezing them solid and stuck together.

[carillons]

They are all asleep by then, so Helen doesn't notice until the next morning.

She shouts. She cries. She hugs the parts of Kas that are not too close to icy Petaal. She inventively boils the kettle and pours hot water over them. It freezes.

She curls up in bed with Kalavar as a fluffy viscacha, and she tries to think.

She wishes Ranata were here. Ranata could protect her from the scary witches, and maybe even fix what happened to Kas and Petaal, or bring them to the clan and find someone else who could.

She closes her eyes, and—listens...

[alicornucopia]

Ranata is asleep, apparently, and snores whuffly little snores.

[carillons]

"Ranata!" says Helen, putting her voice where her listening is. "Wake up, wake up! Something scary happened and I don't know what to do!"

[alicornucopia]

"Wh- huh - Helen?"

[carillons]

"Kas and Petaal froze all up," she says, sniffling, "and I don't know how to melt them, and the scary witches who tried to kill him might be coming for me again!"

[alicornucopia]

"How - I - where are you exactly?"

[carillons]

"In our hotel room in Toronto," she says. She even has the hotel address and room number memorized.

[alicornucopia]

"...I can come for you, but it will take me hours to fly there. Are you all right right now?"

[carillons]

"Yeah," she says. "I'm just really scared."

[alicornucopia]

"Okay. Don't you open up the door until you see Castarilan at the window telling you it's okay, all right? Call the front desk from the hotel room, and tell them that some witches from another clan cursed your daddy, but that someone from your clan is on the way, and they shouldn't let any witches except me in, tell them Castarilan's a broad-tailed hummingbird."

[carillons]

"I'll do that," says Helen. She gets out of bed and finds the phone and calls the front desk.

[alicornucopia]

"Are you still - how are you talking to me?" Ranata asks. There are the sounds of silk tying on and cloud-pine brushing against and lifting from the floor.