When she thinks she can see him without crying again, she holds her baby close and walks silently back to Rana's.
The room has been replaced with - something else. She has no idea what this means. She has nobody to ask but Rana. Everything she asks places her further in his debt, of course, but it hardly matters now.
She steps inside.
Hug.
"Cassie has kids. Maybe she has any idea what to do about it. Or at least what you're supposed to do about it in Kansas."
She's hanging out at a table playing with some french fries.
"Hey. Got your last kid tagged. Do you want him in the room with the others?"
"I think..... he would probably appreciate getting to meet everyone down here right away. Actually. If that's okay with everyone."
This is okay with everyone.
A few minutes later there is a five-year-old.
This five-year-old is super confused!
"...mom??"
"Hi! Sorry about disappearing. I found a fairy and he took me to fairyland. And then I ended up somewhere else. And I thought you'd like to get to see all of this, so we had some people go and get you with magic."
"Woaaah."
"Your siblings are already here. Don't tell anyone your name, or call anyone by theirs, it'll do magic things you're not prepared for. We're going to go someplace else soon, so you might want to look around this one while you can. All right?"
"Cool! Thanks mom!"
He hugs her and then bounds off to explore the rest of downstairs.
"...the others were more like that. Before. I mean, they were all different people, but - less the thing they are now."
"I guess we get the little one back from your father. And then Kansas. - has anyone told your father about any of this, I feel like he'd want to know."
He does! He is annoyed no one told him sooner only until it's clarified that time is meaningless. He races over to the bar and orders an astonishing quantity of books, heedless of the tab.
"There's no debt. Admittedly that probably just means we can't sense the debt or understand the system that tracks it but -"
"I'm just saying, no one anywhere seems to know how to get back the dead unless they're the kind of dead who go to another dimension and that sounds bad."
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