"Do you want to live somewhere Christian?"

"I... think that would be nice. For now. And I suppose I have forever."

...oh.

This was not what she expected the end of the world to look like, but hey, OK, she'll take it.

She's smiling. "Mind, I can't tell anyone you said that."

"Oh, do I have to repeat it all? I mean, I can, I'm good at repeating things, but I was sort of hoping I could just give you permission to repeat parts."

"No, no, you can absolutely do that, you just need to let me know which parts you'd like me to share."

"...I would appreciate it if you explained that the Emperor of Scandinavia is an immortal demon after I and my children have left this castle. Assuming you can cause us to be somewhere that isn't this castle."

"I can absolutely do that. I will need to coordinate with some people to make sure we get all of your children at the same time."

"I don't actually know where the eldest two are."

"It might be a few hours until we know where everyone is and can move them without startling them too much, is that okay?"

"I wouldn't have expected it to be that fast."

"I'll see you soon, then!"

She considers whether she has any earthly possessions that matter to her. Not many, as it should be. She has one thin book of already memorized poetry (a gift from the emperor, as virtually all of her possessions are), which she places in a bag with a candle and a crust of stale bread and a very old and very ordinary ribbon whose owner has been dead for very nearly nine years. 

She scoops her baby up and sings to her and tells her a story about the end of the world.

A request gets submitted to the forensics demon on duty and half an hour later when the next non-urgent batch gets done they get locations. They bring the kids to Catherine so she can explain why they're leaving. They coordinate it, and appear all at once, four teleporters and four kids. Three of them immediately leave; they're very busy.

The fourth one is the one who talked with Catherine before. "Hey!" she says. "Do you want to explain everything before we leave, or after?"

"Now would be nice," says Tyr, as commandingly as an eight-year-old can, and she is gratified that she at least knows this much about him. She wordlessly hands Ragna off to Sigrun and kneels at her son's feet.

"We are leaving the castle. Things are very complicated and we want to be able to make decisions about our futures without the Emperor preventing us from doing so."

Her son frowns angrily at her. "Are you kidnapping us?"

She almost says no. "Would you like me to be?"

"...that would be simpler." Because that way it isn't his fault, of course, that way he can rebel later and return an escapee, and not a prodigal.

"Then I am kidnapping you. I promise not to kidnap you for very long. Will you come quietly?"

"I suppose," says Tyr, eyeing the wizard. 

"Sigrun?"

"Vigdis and Helka aren't here," she says.

"Vigdis will arrive later. Helka will have to leave with her own mother."

Her daughter nods seriously. 

"Frey?"

He looks frightened, like he doesn't have any idea what's going on - which is fair - but he gives an exaggerated nod.

She takes his little hands in hers. "It'll be all right. As all right as I can make it. I know it's very scary, but it's very important, and sometimes we have to be able to do scary things when they're important. And it's easier when the people we love are helping us."

"All right," he says, quietly.

"All right," she echoes, ruffling his hair. Ingolfr stares wordlessly up at her, sucking his fingers. She can't explain it to him, really, but she pats his head, too. "All right. We're ready."

They vanish. A few different places blur past them. Then they're somewhere else; it's a big cathedralish room, nothing in it impossible to build with technologies they've seen before but all of it astoundingly impressive, given those.

"These are Melody and Ez," says the teleporter, waving over an oddly-dressed couple against the opposite wall. "They work in resettlement, and they'll get you all set up from here, okay?"

"....OK."

She is pretty sure that a more sensible person would have something to add here but she seems to have misplaced most of her ability to think.

"I know this is a lot to take in," Melody says. "And I'm sorry we've shuffled you off between so many people. That isn't going to happen any more; as the resettlement coordinators for this district we will live right next to you, with my sister and our children, and we'll be available to help with things as they come up. Now, there are two things we need to do. One is to take you to your house, and the other one is to get you your money. Which one do you want to do first?" This last question is directed at the children as much as at Catherine.

"We're not going to be settling anywhere," says Tyr, crossing his arms. Frey sees this and crosses his arms, too.

"We'll show you your rooms, and then we'll show you your bus stop. From the bus stop, you may go anywhere in the universe, except places that prohibit children, or prohibit humans, or prohibit boys, and if you want to go places without any gravity you need to prove you know how to be safe without it. Rooms first, or money first?"

"Rooms."

"Rooms!"

"Rooms are fine."

They walk out onto the street. The city is built around canals, with bridges over them; the houses are narrow, four or five stories tall, and squeezed up against each other facing the water. People are riding wheeled vehicles about. They cross the street and Melody shows them a pad on the door with numbers. "The passcode is 49001," she explains to them."You type it in, and then the door will open. Do you want to try it -"

Tyr wants to try it. He is very serious about making sure he understands the commands for the magic door. Catherine waits for him to finish before attempting it herself, trying not to think too much about whether specific interactions constitute the use of witchcraft. 

Frey thinks it is very important to get an immediate sense of what their rooms contain and how they are structured and where one can hide, and he bursts through the door immediately in search of answers to these questions.

It's four stories. It has a spiral staircase and an elevator between the four stories. There's a kitchen and a formal sitting room that looks out on the river and a playroom full of toys and a spacious pantry and five bedrooms, one of which has a nursery attached and the others of which each have two loft beds, with the space underneath the loft bed curtained. All of the bedrooms have closets. There is an attic; its ceiling is too low for grownups, but it has four rooms of its own, each with a view in a different direction, and the floor is outrageously soft and fluffy and giving. The attic opens out onto the roof and from there you can walk along an awning (with a railing) to the next house over. 

There's a laundry chute big enough for children to slide down it. It goes to a basement with a cellar and two square chrome machines.

There are also five mysterious rooms with a tiled floor and weird metal contraptions everywhere. 

Ingolfr likes the toys; Frey likes the attic. Tyr does not comment.

"Be a very nice set of living quarters for people who hadn't been kidnapped," remarks Sigrun, blandly.