He does. This power can indeed do fireworks. Green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers, disappearing just before they touched the fairies' upturned faces. Fountains of butterflies flying glittering into the trees; pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air like an embattled army. Each illusion stays until erased.

While Cozy is busy taking him for a conjurer of cheap tricks, Eidolon uses it for its other purpose. He writes his message to Promise at her tree in letters of fire and doesn't erase them.

Meanwhile, Promise has hacked together an anti-Fallen's-hostage-situation power interaction out of two Kept, a rogue from Oklahoma who frequents her forum thread, a Baltimore Ward, and a roll of duct tape. The Kept are a postcog and a (usually-)combat anesthetist to help him operate through the Thinker headaches to scale up as necessary. This assistance prevents him from actually reporting on what he sees - it's impossible, even with fairy orders helping, to speak clearly without being able to feel one's body - but the rogue has the ability to let people she's touching all touch whoever someone also in the handholding chain is thinking of. (She currently monetizes this ability for people in long-distance relationships with modest needs and/or exhibitionist streaks; years ago, she got out of jail time by turning in her past allies from when she hired herself out to supervillain Strikers as a range delimiter.) This allows the Ward, who can remove many kinds of ongoing parahuman effects from others but only after doing them some token injury, to apply tape to the Fallen's victims, rip out a few arm hairs and their little Master problem, and repeat until the postcog accidentally thinks about his ex-girlfriend instead and it seems like they're done.

Then they have a war.

Promise acquires 57 darted Fallen as new Kept. Anybody going to try to stop her from taking them home with her?

Plenty of people disapprove, but at this point it would be like trying to stop Glaistig Uaine. (Which they would love to do, if anyone knew where she was.) And there were far fewer injuries and deaths than there could have been, thanks in part to the overwhelming force that wasn't made entirely of Protectorate heroes.

(The Fallen's doomsday device probably wouldn't have worked anyway. But this way Texas stays definitely on the map. The Chief Director, at least, does not regret having accepted Promise's help.)

So Promise heals her injured-but-not-dead, tells her Fallen Kept to obey the Hawthorn rules, brings them home, schedules them interviews, and goes back to her Valley Continent tree for lunch. She doesn't mind sleeping in her Hawthorn one but she hasn't started growing any crops there besides haws, and she's in a grains-and-flower-petals mood.

...What is this decor. In her tree. What.

Who the fuck wandered into Fairyland and couldn't handle it and was able to put a note in her tree. Promise is displeased.

She goes back, bumps all the interviews to the next day, and consults Tinkers about a mass juice delivery system. A subtle mass juice delivery system. That they can have done fast.

Sigh.

Promise goes and asks Plague and Pestilence if they want to help her with juice-delivering mosquitoes.

As in, alter insects to deliver foreign substances harmful to the recipient? ...maybe.

Bonesaw constructs one with the tiniest surgical implements anyone ever did see. With that as a model, the Amies turn regular mosquitos into the less evil version in whatever numbers it takes.

Excellent.

Promise puts her mosquitoes in a box, turns it and them invisible, and hopes the mystery idiot's description suffices for a gate.

It does. Lucky mystery idiot. She steps through.

The mystery idiot, from whose perspective everything made sense at the time, is Eidolon. She might recognize him from the fact that he's Eidolon.

He, like all the fairies around him, has no idea she's there.

Oh, so that's how you misplace a 133468.

She quietly revises her estimate that she could not beat him in a fight, because she was assuming that his excellent power was not operated by a MORON.

She releases the mosquitoes.

Yeah, that she has to handle separately.

She goes behind a rock, turns visible, sets down her box, and flies up to the court like she's just passing through on forage and thought she'd say hi. "Hello!" she calls to the nearest fairy. "Who's your master or envoy?"

"We're dealing with a change of mastery," the fairy says, "so we don't have an envoy right now, it used to be Dazzle. Uh, Cozy's in charge, I guess." He points.

The pollencloud. Of fucking course 133468 would get vassaled by a fucking pollencloud. Promise smiles and waves at the pollencloud. "Hi! Is this a bad time to ask about buying your mortal?"

"Yeah, kinda," says Cozy. "Besides, I think I want to keep him!"

"Aww," says Promise. "Really? Nothing you'd rather have?"

"He's a weird mortal, he can do mortal sorcery stuff."

Oh. So it was Promise. Eidolon had been hoping for Cauldron, and not just because they can't possibly fail.

None of his reaction is visible, of course. He's waiting.

"A weird mortal," says Promise. "Gosh. I probably don't have anything to tempt you into giving him up."

"Probably not!" agrees Cozy. "He makes pretty fireworks and stuff."

133468 got captured by a stupid pollencloud. Joy. Maybe she can Nilbog it a little.

"Aww. Are you going to have him put on a show for everybody?"

"That's a good idea! Hey everybody! Come have a look at the fireworks!" exclaims Cozy. "You, do something nice and pretty."

And now everyone is assembled and looking at the pretty things. Promise says, "Stop."

The food vassalization fails to take hold on five fairies. They notice everyone else freezing and bolt. Promise gets their names from Peak and makes them come back, and stop. Promise lets everyone breathe. And then, to make sure there is no one whose vassalization didn't take who is just hiding it, Promise starts selectively enforcing trivial orders against various subsets of the group. "Clap. Shrug. Jump. Stomp. Wave." She catches one such hider and gets her name from Peak too before she realizes she's been found out.

And she notices Eidolon doesn't jump when she says jump.

And her blood runs absolutely cold, because it's expected for haw juice to have a failure rate against fairies, but. When could he have slipped her something? How could he know? If he picked up the wrong Thinker power, got it accidentally, couldn't he have the fucking decency to - not again not again -

...So she takes Peak aside for a chat, asking after the composition of the court, is anybody away, how long has Cozy had it, yes you may hold hands with your consort... And she thinks of names. And names. And names. Hundreds of names. So many names.

Eidolon shares a first name with Ficus, a Kept who does topiary golems. Mid-sentence, Promise says again:

"STOP."

And she whirls on Eidolon.

"You may breathe, and be glad I'm letting you do that."

Yeah, if that had been compulsory she would have restrained herself.

She asks Peak, "Does anyone in your court or among your neighbors have unusual hearing?"

There is a broadear, one of the court gardeners. Promise has the broadear put his fingers in his broad ears and hum.

Then she glares at Eidolon again and says, "Use no powers. Follow me."

And stalks off away from the earshot of Peak's court.