...okay this is so not the time to comment on how pretty he thinks she is. Moving on.

"Let's find Thorn and ask him, then."

"What in particular do you need to know?"

"Best way to get sets of bugs to all courts so we're not limited to monitoring only one at a time."

"I can just distribute some orders to some of the faster fliers, no Thorn required."

"Okay." He goes to the stash room and fills a cloth bag with a few more cloth bags as well as some cameras and earbuds. He writes down their unique identifier identification numbers so he can find their signal later, gets some other relays because it's a good idea to have more than just that one invisible one, and is ready.

"You should wear an earbud of your own so I can talk to you."

"Yeah, good idea." He gets another set and opens a window on a computer, pairs them up, and he's live. "There we go."

"Off with you, then."

"Off with me," he agrees, and through the gate to the court he goes.

The court is well-managed and quiet by Promise's remote direction.

Where would the fastest fairies there be?

They present themselves.

"Should we interview these already since we're interacting with them and sending them on errands?" he asks Promise.

"I can get to them later, I'm going in a priority order."

"Really? What priority?"

"Psychological condition. Medium first."

He starts dividing the bugs into five separate bags. "Medium on what scale?"

"...not sure what you mean. The ones who are functional enough to be interviewed but weren't really embedded in the court, the ones I can likeliest let go soonest."

"Ah. Makes sense."

He gives the five fastest fairies the bags, equipping each with an earbud-camera pair, then sends them off to the other courts.

"Yeah. It's turned out better than I expected so far."

"Really?"

He equips another fairy with a bug and starts setting up a couple of other cameras and speakers here and there in the court.

"Yeah. He got to them but not - irrevocably? They're taking him not being in charge all right."

He shudders a bit involuntarily at 'he got to them.' "All right meaning 'they'll deal' or 'thank goodness he's gone' or 'they'll figure out how to move on somehow'?"

"Varies. But I feel okay releasing them on light safety orders."

"Fair enough, I suppose," he says, sounding a tad uncomfortable.