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]

"Any witch who's any good at magic does a blessing of the lands when she gets to be about fifty or sixty," says Ranata. "They add up. I did one myself."

[carillons]

Helen nods slowly.

[alicornucopia]

Nicoa snuggles Kalavar and purrs soothingly.

[carillons]

Kalavar is soothed. So is Helen.

[alicornucopia]

That is good. That is the idea.

"The queen will find who did it," Ranata sighs.

[carillons]

"I hope so," says Helen. "She should find them and make them stop."

[alicornucopia]

"She will."

[carillons]

Helen nods.

[alicornucopia]

The queen does in fact do this.

The Ontario queen is not interested in defending her subjects; they are flown onto Olympic ground, trussed up and gagged, their daemons tangled up in nets with them. (While not as traditional as bows and daggers, nets are sometimes used for things like this.)

"Are these those who harmed you?" the queen inquires of Helen and Kas.

[carillons]

Helen inspects them.

"Yeah," she says.

[truthwright]

"Yeah," Petaal confirms, wearing her witch shape.

[alicornucopia]

The accused are not given an opportunity to speak in their defense; there is always the risk of verse. The queen reads off the charges - kidnapping of an Olympic, interference-spell on an Olympic, attempted murder of a relative of an Olympic. She then sentences them to death. This is open to supervision.

[truthwright]

Kas supervises.

[carillons]

So does Helen.

[alicornucopia]

The queen slits their throats. The associated birds dissolve into gold and vanish.

[carillons]

Helen turns to Kas and hugs him tight, hiding her face against his chest. Kalavar curls up in Petaal's arms as a blue-grey dragon with soft pebbled skin.

[alicornucopia]

The queen sends someone to burn the bodies, clasps hands with Ranata in a sort of ceremonial acknowledgment that the damage to her family has been avenged, and departs.

[carillons]

"What does 'interference spell' mean?" says Helen to Ranata.

[alicornucopia]

"That is how we think they found you. It's a complicated kind of spell that makes little chances add up over a long time to get something - like making you cross their path so they could take you home," says Ranata quietly.

[carillons]

Helen shivers.

[truthwright]

So does Kas.

[alicornucopia]

"Hardly anyone does them."

[truthwright]

"Yeah," murmurs Kas.

[alicornucopia]

"It's all over," Ranata says reassuringly. "If they hadn't acted alone, the Ontario queen wouldn't have turned them over so quickly."

[truthwright]

Kas nods and pets Helen's hair.