The carnival barkers look at her curiously, but they don't stop her.

The opportunities of London lie before her. Where would she like to go?

Well, she'll just wander, for a bit. Gosh, so many people. And none of them know the first thing about her. 

She does eavesdrop, though, seeing if she can pick up where good places are to get a bit of coin, a bite to eat, and a roof over one's head.

A bite to eat can be found in any of the corners of the city; each district has its own specialty. A roof over one's head, similarly, can be rented for a reasonable price.

Coin is important to either goal, though. She could find work hauling in the Docks if she's strong, or spying in Ladybones Road if she's canny, or working as a courier in Spite or the Flit if she's quick on her feet.

While she's eavesdropping, she may hear something of particular interest. "-and she said, she honestly said, there was a diamond down here the size of a cow! She was probably honey-mazed, but wouldn't that be something?"

Uh. 

What. 

"Who said that?" she asks smoothly, stepping into the conversation. 

The man speaking jumps a little, then realizes who addressed him and tries to look cool. "Oh - old friend of mine, called the Fading Music-Hall Singer. I was just saying, you know, what a thing that would be. You know?"

"Well, I don't know about the size of a cow, but diamonds are a lot more common down here." 

"Oh, certainly. Even with Mr. Stones' taxes-"

His friend jabs him in the side with an elbow. "Not a topic for discussion with strange girls you just met."

The man rubs the back of his head guiltily. "Ah, yes."

"Where could I find the Fading Music-Hall Singer, do you know? I've quite an interest in the geological myself." 

"Heh. Er, she works Mahogany Hall these days, you could probably catch her after a show."

"Okay. Thanks!" she says brightly, waving as she departs. 

Mahogany Hall...she's not sure where that is, so she eavesdrops some more until she runs into someone discussing going that way and then surreptitiously follows them. 

Plenty of people go to Mahogany Hall, and plenty of them discuss it as they walk; she'll have no trouble finding her way there.

There are a couple of guards at each entrance.

...Checking people for tickets?

People have tickets! Usually they're in coat pockets or purses, but some people keep theirs in their trouser pockets.

She watches the crowd carefully to see if anyone drops one. 

It isn't too long before a ticket slips out of a gentleman's coat, fairly close to her.

She walks over and casually scoops it up before walking away in a different enough direction that he'll be unlikely to correlate her position with his by the time he realizes his ticket is missing. 

Once she's made it far enough off she circles back around to present "her" ticket to the guards. 

The guard accepts it without any trouble.

"Your theater's to the right," he says.

She goes off to the right. 

The theater is large and filled with reasonably comfortable chairs.

After she's been sitting for a little while, the gaslamps dim momentarily, indicating that the show will start in ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, the lights go down... and nothing happens. There's some muttering among the patrons. Five minutes after that, when the muttering has reached something of a crescendo, the curtains part slightly, revealing a mousey-looking man with a nervous tic.

"T-the F-fadiing M- sorry, sorry, I mean, the Eff-f-f-ulgent Evangeline, is unable to s-sing tonight. Your t-t-tickets will be ref-f-funded. Mahogany Hall apologizes for the inc-c- for the inconvenience."

A groan rises from the audience as the lights come back up.

Lucy makes her way through the crowd towards the mousey-looking man. 

"Excuse me," she says, "is the Effulgent Evangeline alright?"

"Sh-she didn't send an urchin, or anything," says the Stammering Manager. "We were h-h-holding out hope she'd get here in time, b-b-but." He shrugs. "D-damnably inconvenient."

"Oh no. Is there anything I can do to help?"

He looks appraisingly at her. "W-well, if you'd be willing to ch-check up on her, I wouldn't have to s-send an urchin - I'd pay you fair courier r-rates, ten moon-pearls. She lives at 56 Sedgwick W-w-way, in Flowerdene Rookery."

"Deal." 

She cashes in "her" ticket on the way out, and heads for the named address. 

The ticket gets her fifteen bits of glossy purple glim.

The named address is an only moderately squalid tenement, with a tiled roof and mushroom beds out front. It's also surrounded by Constables.

"Excuse me, is everything alright?"

A Sharp-Eyed Constable squints suspiciously at her. "Who wants to know?"

"Well you see sir, it's just that the lady that lives here, the Effulgent Evangeline, she was supposed to sing at Mahogany Hall, but she never showed up, so they sent me to come see what was going on sir."

He nods, mollified. "Well, she's nowhere to be found, I'm afraid. Her home was broken into a few hours ago, and her neighbors haven't seen her in days." His voice lowers. "It's odd - the place was obviously searched, but there were moon-pearls all over the floor, like they weren't what the intruder was looking for. Damned queer business."

Well. 

That certainly lends credence to that happenstance scrap of gossip, doesn't it. 

"How very strange! I do hope she's alright." 

"Sure as we all do, miss."

The Constables appear to be wrapping up their investigation and trickling away from the house. The Sharp-Eyed Constable goes with them.

To some, it would be awfully tempting to check inside and see if they missed anything.

What, there are some who wouldn't? 

The Singer's apartment is small and rather cramped - there's a mattress on the floor, a desk with sliding drawers, and a rod for hanging outfits. The constables very considerately cleaned up the moon-pearls the Sharp-Eyed Constable mentioned. They didn't clean up anything else.

Ah-huh. 

She goes through the drawers, and, if that turns up nothing, the pockets of the outfits. 

The drawers are empty, as are the pockets.

While she's checking the pocket of a dress that ended up under the desk somehow, though, she might observe the sound of something fluttering in the breeze from the open window, directly above her head. It's a business card, fastened to the underside of the desk with a metal tack.

Well, well. 

She unpins the business card and examines it. 

The contact information is for one William Butterfield, the Sensible Under-Secretary - an agent of Mr. Fires. 

Ah-ha. 

Does the contact information include an address?

It includes a home address and an office address!

On the back, it also has st dunstans churchyard plot 3c written in deep-etched pencil.

Well that's concerning. 

First she's going to head back to Mahogany Hall to report to the mousy guy what happened (omitting the part where she searched the Fading Music-Hall Singer's stuff) and collect her courier's fee. Then she's going to head to the home address on the card to scope the place out. 

The place is fairly nice, in a fairly nice neighborhood; the kind of place where the residents have servants, but the servants don't have servants of their own. He lives alone, or at least there's no evidence of a spouse or children.

Hmm.

She purchases the cheapest meal she can get nearby and sets to discreetly watching the place as she eats. 

As she eats her rat kebab (which is honestly pretty good), the Sensible Under-Secretary leaves his house. He moves quickly through the streets, making a beeline for Spite.

She follows him, still gnawing on the remnants of her rat kebab. 

He doesn't seem to notice he's being tailed, or even really consider it. Once he's in Spite, he heads for the spire of St. Dunstan's Church, but instead of going in, he heads through the lychgate into the graveyard.

She creeps in after him. Does he head for the grave written on the card?

He heads for section 3c, yes, but he doesn't go to any of the marked graves - instead, he ends up at an unmarked mound of dirt.

It's a very small patch of dirt. A foot or so in length, less than that in width.

Apparently the Mountain isn't the only one whose children she has to worry about. 

Fuck this sneaking around bullshit. 

She steps out. "Is that a baby, is that your baby, do you know anything about the whereabouts of the Fading Music-Hall Singer, and do you know anything about a diamond the size of a cow that may or may not be a child of the Mountain of Light of the Elder Continent."

He looks up, his eyes red-rimmed. "I- what? Who are you?"

"I am the Light-Hearted Wastelander, daughter of the Pale Adventuress, and I know things that few in London know, and I can do things that none in London can do." 

He nods slowly. "Yes, the child was mine - by Angie. The Fading Music-Hall Singer. She's missing?"

"Yes. What happened to the child?"

"She... she died shortly after she was born. They do that, sometimes. I had refused to claim her - perhaps the fault was mine. The vicar allowed her to be buried on hallowed ground. It was generous of him."

"How tragic, when lingering death is so rare in the Neath...well. As I said, I can do things that none in London can do. Bide a moment, no matter how disturbed you are by what you see."

She plunges her hands into the earth, allowing them to express more of their true adamant nature once out of sight, plowing through obstructions that would halt human flesh, until they reach the tiny coffin. She grasps it and yanks it out, earth spraying to either side as she does so. Opening the coffin lid reveals little more than bones and scraps of leathery desiccated skin. Well. 

She bites her lip, hard, and allows the blood to drip onto her finger. With the blood, she draws a Correspondence sigil on the tiny skull. 

There is a flare of un-Neathly light, and a living babe screams in her arms. 

She holds the child out to their father. 

When she reaches into the earth, his eyes widen. He begins to look angry when she removes the coffin. When she begins her ritual, he looks horrified. Then the child is reborn, and his eyes fill with tears.

"I..." He slowly reaches out, hands trembling, to take the infant. "How?"

"My mother traveled to the Elder Continent, and learned and saw many things there, and when I was born, several months after she left, she taught them to me as well. She cannot do what I can do. Nobody else she's tried to teach can. But death is even less permanent wherever I find it than it is in the rest of the Neath."

"I don't have much to give you," he says slowly. "Not even much information - I'm only an under-secretary. But if you're looking for Angie, you should ask Hephaesta, at Mahogany Hall. They - were, at least - very close."

"Thank you, that's very helpful." She looks at the child. "What's their name?"

"...I don't know," he says. "I wasn't there."

"...Well. I'll find our mutual friend and we'll find out. Thank you again for the information, I'll see what Hephaesta knows." 

She makes her way back to Mahogany Hall and starts looking for entrances other than the main one that seem more likely to lead to performers' rooms.

There are various entrances, mostly guarded.

On the other hand, there are rather a lot of windows on the second floor. Some of which stand open.

She makes her way to a mostly unobserved patch of entranceless wall and climbs to the nearest open second-story window, diamond nails sinking into the relatively soft brickwork.

It leads into a dressing room, currently unoccupied. The mirror is cracked.

What kind of dressing-room? If it doesn't seem plausibly a strongwoman's she'll slip out into the hallway. 

Not a strongwoman's; lots of make-up, and a box of throat lozenges.

The hallway contains a handful of dancers, gossiping amongst themselves. They glance at her as she emerges, but none of them seem to care that she's not the person that typically comes out of that dressing room.

She looks for Hephaesta's dressing-room. 

Well, this dressing room has a little bronze plate on the door reading HEPHAESTA.

Yep, that'd be what she was looking for. She lets herself in and waits. 

After about a quarter of an hour, the door opens and in walks a woman with muscles like grapefruits under her skin.

She notices the Light-Hearted Wastelander and looks her up and down, then sniffs. "Come to ask me where it is? I don't know where it is. Come to kill me? Like to see you try. Come for an autograph? I can do you an autograph."

"Where what is?"

She snorts. "If you don't know, then you don't know, and that's a weight off my mind. Just hand me what you'd like me to sign."

Lucy hands her a scrap of paper. "Thank you--but that's not actually why I'm here. Nobody's heard from the Fading Music-Hall Singer in a while and I'm worried."

Hephaesta relaxes a bit, scrawling her name on the paper. "Well, that's quite an ask. Angie had a lot of friends, so she said, but none of 'em came looking for her, far as I can tell..."

She hands over the paper. "Truth be told, I'm worried for her too. I think she's hiding from something. Something big. But I don't know that you're not part of it, see?"

"Do you know what's buried at St. Dunstan's? The Sensible Under-Secretary can vouch for me."

She nods slowly. "I don't think much of that bastard's word, but if you know what's in that churchyard...

"Bugger this twisty thinking," she says eventually. "Just tell me you'll help her, alright?"

"I have no intention of allowing any harm to come to her that I can prevent."

"That's enough for me, then. Angie's hiding out in the Forgotten Quarter. Her sister's up to her neck in some awful business, and she's been dragged into it as well. She was s'posed to be back by now - I'm worried summat's happened to her."

"Oh dear. I'll see what I can do."

"Here," Hephaesta says, removing a daguerrotype of the Singer from her mirror and pressing it into the Wastelander's hand. "So you'll know when you find her."

"Thank you." 

Off to the Forgotten Quarter. What does the Forgotten Quarter contain. 

Lots and lots of ruins.

Also, a woman in a finely tailored navy-blue suit, wearing a rakishly tilted hat of a kind she's never seen before, sitting on an intricately carved plinth. "Hello there," she says, inclining her head slightly.

"Hi!"

"You don't walk like a Londoner," the woman observes. "But you don't walk like a tourist, either. A bit of an enigma, there."

"Oh, I'm from the Prickfinger Wastes."

"Aha. There's an answer that I didn't expect. And what brings you to the Forgotten Quarter?"

"Trying to track someone down who's trying to be forgotten."

"And that's an answer I did expect. You don't have the look of a tomb-raider or a fugitive."

She hops down from her plinth. "This person you wanted to track down... a woman? Blonde, a touch past her prime?"

"That's her."

"You're not the first to come this way looking for her. The last two were minions of the Masters."

"Well, I'm not."

"Oh, I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm laying out the facts. They were from the Masters... and they found her. She was staying in a Fourth City stable to the east, but I don't know where they may have taken her. You might look at where she was staying for a start, though."

Sigh. "Great. --Thank you very much for telling me." She heads off towards the stable. 

"Au revoir," says the woman in the suit.

The stable is somewhat dilapidated, but the roof is in decent shape, and it has a good line of sight to the Royal Bethlehem Hotel. Someone has been living here, but there are signs of a recent struggle: an overturned cooking pot, scuff marks in the bare earth. Dried blood, too. A considerable quantity of it. A quantity that bodes ill for the person it used to be inside.

Fuck. 

Okay. So. 

Does the blood form a followable trail.

Most of it was spilled in the house, but enough of it dripped as whoever-it-was carried her that she can follow it.

The trail leads to the Stolen River.

Oh come on, is she going to have to search the riverbottom for the Music-Hall Singer's corpse.

It's beginning to look that way, yes.

Fuck!

She finds a hidden corner with no witnesses, strips, slips into the water, and turns into an enormous diamond-shelled crab. Heeeeeeeeere Fading Music-Hall Singer...

She's sunk straight to the bottom, but hasn't had time to sink into the mud. She's also been beaten to death, apparently with some kind of sledgehammer.

Well, at least finding her was easy enough. 

She drags the waterlogged body back to the surface, turns back, re-dresses, and picks at the scab on her lip enough to get the blood to mark the sigil. 

Before she has to, the Fading Music-Hall Singer chokes and expels the river water from her lungs. She sucks in a heaving breath, then coughs several times. Then her head falls back to the ground, and she starts... singing. Is that a song? Her neck convulses as if the muscles of her throat are in revolt. But the effect is weirdly calming. Each note follows the last like a stylishly dressed assassin: dramatic, unexpected, inevitable.

...Huh. 

She sits back and listens. 

The song is fairly short. After it's done, the Singer's eyes open.

"I couldn't leave her," she rasps. "But I couldn't get her out."

"Who's 'her'?"

"Clarabelle. My sister... in that madhouse. The Hotel. That's how they found me."

"They caught you trying to jailbreak her?"

"No, they just knew-" She coughs again. "I wouldn't be far."

"Okay. This is very important--what do you know about an entity that may or may not be a diamond the size of a cow?"

"That- that damned jewel," she says sleepily. "I never - never saw it - but... Poor..."

She lapses into unconsciousness.

Hoo boy. Fine. 

She picks up the unconscious Singer and starts carrying her towards the Sensible Under-Secretary's house as discreetly as possible. 

It's surprising how discreetly one can carry a severely bludgeoned woman through a crowded city if one sets their mind to it. She reaches the Sensible Under-Secretary's house unimpeded.

He opens the door and gasps aloud when he sees his former lover. "I- what happened?"

"She got attacked, I rescued her, I tried to ask her about some stuff, she fainted, I figured I'd bring her here so she could find out the baby was alive sooner rather than later."

He bites his lip, but nods. "I'll, I'll put her in the guest bed, I suppose, and send for a physician. Do you know who attacked her?"

She's about to say "someone working for the Masters," but then she remembers that he works for one of the Masters, and while probably he wasn't involved with the attack she doesn't super want to make him feel like he has to choose between keeping something from his boss or not betraying the mother of his child. "She didn't say, before she fainted," she says instead, which is true; the conjecture she has about the attackers' identity came from the person who pointed her towards the stable.

"All right," he says. "I suppose she might say more when she wakes up." He takes his shoulder under the Fading Music-Hall Singer's arm and walks her to his guest bedroom.

She helps him bring her and then sits at the woman's bedside until she wakes. 

She slips in and out of consciousness a few times, but she's too delirious to recognize that there's someone there.

Half an hour passes before the Sensible Under-Secretary comes back with a Somnolent Physician. The Physician examines the Fading Music-Hall Singer.

"This was very nearly a successful assassination," he says grimly. "Her first death was recoverable; had she awoken in the river, however, she'd have drowned and drowned until she faded away. As it is, she's just dealing with several broken bones, a concussion, and blood loss - not so terrible, down here. When she wakes - she probably will fairly soon - give her as much of a bottle of F.F. Gerbrandt's Tincture of Vigour as she'll drink." He places such a bottle on the bedside table. "She'll still be convalescent for a while, but it'll put her in a condition to heal. Might be a few weeks."

The Under-Secretary counts out a fee in jade and sends the Physician on his way.

Lucy waits with bottle and spoon for the next time the Singer slips back to consciousness. 

She wakes up an hour later, lucid enough to be given some Tincture. She drinks it greedily, stopping only after about half the bottle.

Then she looks around, to the extent she can. "Where are we?" she asks.

"Uh, it's sort of a long story. You see, I was conceived on the Elder Continent under mysterious circumstances, and I have strange abilities as a result. So, I started looking for you in the first place because I heard from someone that they'd heard from you about a diamond the size of a cow, and I was concerned that it might actually be a living being who needed help. But you had already disappeared. So I looked through your apartment and found the Sensible Under-Secretary's business card, and I followed him to the graveyard, and uh I brought your baby back to life and left them with him while I went to find you. So we're at his house, because that's where the baby is."

The Singer stares.

"I-" She stops.

"Can I see her," she finally manages.

"Yes," she says, and gets up and runs out of the room to fetch the baby. 

The baby is with the Under-Secretary, who is feeding her from a bottle. He looks up, almost panicked. "Is she-" he begins, and doesn't seem to know how to finish the sentence.

"She's awake and wants to see her daughter."

He looks as if he's about to ask something, then decides against it. He holds out the baby wordlessly.

She takes the baby and brings her to the Singer. 

She tries to reach out to touch her child, but her arms are still broken; she hisses in pain and resigns herself to simply staring.

"I... so, you want to know about the jewel."

Nod, nod. "If it's an actual rock that isn't alive then I don't care," she adds, and lays the baby gently on her mother's breast.

"I don't know if it's alive or not," she admits, as the baby crawls over her. "I just know - let me start from the beginning. My sister was called the Eccentric Opera Singer. We're twins. The trouble started some months ago, when she started receiving visits from a man wearing a mask. He brought her glim jewelry and told her stories, and one of those stories was that this glim was chipped from the sides of an enormous jewel. One day, the two of them... disappeared. For months. I paid every investigator I could find, and none of them could find either one. Then they found her. Clarabelle. She was pregnant, heavily pregnant, and she was stark raving mad. She wouldn't stop talking about how much she loved... something. And she sang these... terrible songs. Inhuman. They ruined her voice." Tears come to her eyes. "I put her in the Royal Bethlehem while I saved money for us to go back to the Surface. I suppose I can't anymore... not now that I've died, not now that Elisabeth is alive. I'll need a different plan."

"I don't know about the long term...in the short term, though, I could hide you at my mother's place in the Prickfinger Wastes. People will think twice about bothering you out there."

Her eyes widen, but then she shakes her head effortfully. "I can't... not with Elisabeth. A baby in the Prickfinger Wastes wouldn't last a minute, with all the razor-stones and fragments, and I'm not leaving Will to nurse her alone. I think that whoever tried to kill me believes I'm dead - and I have no intention of revealing myself. I'll stay here. And-"

An idea strikes her. "If you want to help me... you could withdraw Clarabelle from the Royal Beth. It doesn't have to be me who checks her out, now that I'm supposedly dead, you just have to convince her to come with you. Withdraw her, and bring her here, and we'll pretend Will is taking care of her to atone for how he abandoned me. I think we could make it work."

"My brother and I did fine, but I see your point. Alright, I'll fetch her here. What do you want me to tell Hephaesta?"

"Hephaesta can know - she's my closest friend, I couldn't bear if she thought I were dead."

"Alright. Should I suggest she visit, perhaps ostensibly to yell at Will?"

The Singer bites her lip, then nods. "It's dangerous... but yes. I should see her again, at least once."

"Yeah. I don't think it would be better if she got suspicious and decided to investigate."

"And she certainly would," the Singer laughs weakly. "Alright - I think I have some things to discuss with Will. Could you send him in?"

"Sure." 

She leaves, telling Will that the Singer wants to see him, and heads for Mahogany Hall and Hephaesta. 

Hephaesta is in her dressing room again, as she often is.

"Hullo," she says when the Wastelander enters. "Did you find her?"

"Yep. Some people tried to kill her. We're letting them think they succeeded; she's hiding out at the Under-Secretary's place while I retrieve her sister."

Hephaesta heaves a sigh of relief.

"Thank you. I guess she's probably not in great shape, if they think they managed?"

"Not great, no. She did die a bit, but I managed to get to her before any permanent damage was done. Besides the fact that she can't go back to the Surface again. If you want to visit her, you could pretend you were going to yell at the Under-Secretary."

She nods firmly. "I've enough reason to, I think, especially if my best friend just died. Thank you for finding her, thank you for telling me - if there's aught you need a very strong woman for in the future, just ask."

"Thanks." 

And then off to the Royal Bethlehem! 

The Royal Bethlehem Hotel stands at the far south of the city, near the Forgotten Quarter. It's an enormous, beautiful structure.

When she walks in, there's a youth at the front desk with a smile almost as bright as the brass buttons on their coat. "Hello, miss!" they say. "How can I help you tonight?"

"Hi, I'm here to discharge the Eccentric Opera Singer on behalf of her sister."

"Oh!" they say. "It'll be a pity to see her go, the rest of our guests love her songs. But I'll check in the records for what room she's in- shouldn't take me but a moment..."

They flip through a registry book the size of an atlas, and frown. "Hmm... I know she was here last night, she was singing that lovely song about the moon by the fountain, but it doesn't have her on the fifth floor. That can't be right, I know she was on the fifth floor..." They flip through the book a bit more. "Let me consult the Manager, miss?"

"Of course."

The youth vanishes into the office behind the desk.

They return a couple of minutes later, followed by a tall man with an even wider grin and even shinier brass buttons on his coat. "What seems to be the difficulty?" he asks.

"Well, the lady came searching for the Eccentric Opera Singer, but I'm checking in the records and she doesn't seem to be listed?"

His grin fades. "Ah. Yes, well, I'm afraid you're a bit late to collect her. She was taken by a gentleman called Poor Edward. Apparently, after her sister's death, Mr. Fires felt that she would no longer be... secure... staying in our establishment. She's been taken to stay at the Orphanage, instead."

The youth's eyes widen.

"What's the Orphanage," she sighs. 

"An establishment... not entirely unlike our own," the Manager says, not gritting his teeth but looking as though he would very much like to. "They care for persons with certain specific obsessions. The accommodations are less generous than ours, of course, and I can't say I like the décor, but their security is paramount. And they are unlikely to give her up. Once someone has been consigned to the Orphanage, they stay in the Orphanage."

"We'll see. Where is it?"

He gives her an address in Spite. "I wish I could do more to help you," he says, smiling sadly, "but with the Masters involved... I must think of my guests."

"I understand." 

She heads for Spite, and the Orphanage. What does this dreadful building look like?

It's a squat red-brick number. No guards out front.

A throat clears behind her. "Good evening," says a sepulchral voice. "I thought that you and I should, perhaps, have a little chat before you make any mistakes."

She turns around and smiles. "Good idea. Shall we go somewhere private?"

The man behind her is wearing a scarlet mask, frowning in the Greek tragedian style, made of some kind of dyed leather.

"Yes, that would likely be best," he says, his voice shifting to a higher pitch. "There's an eatery just around the corner where we can speak without being observed." He turns and walks off, either trusting her to follow or trusting his senses to tell him if she doesn't.

Still more public than she would prefer, but she can burn that bridge if she comes to it. She follows. 

He brings her to a crowded but dimly-lit restaurant and takes a seat at a corner table, gesturing for her to sit opposite.

"You are close to making a number of unpleasant discoveries. My employers would prefer that you didn't. If we were on the surface, I would simply kill you. But as I'm sure you're aware, death is no guarantee of anything around here, and I dislike butchery. I have a more civilized proposal." He pushes a small paper packet across the table. "These are Lethean tea leaves. Very expensive. One brew of these, and you will forget all you have ever learned about a certain subject, and enough else to make it never come up again. You could forget the Orphanage. It is not a place you would enjoy. I certainly didn't."

Edward leans back in his chair. Casual movement does not suit him. He looks like a scorpion settling into a slipper. "You don't have to use them," he says. "If you choose not to, I shall arrange instead for you to be buried alive. Take a few moments to consider what that means, down here."

She picks up the packet and toys with it, attempting to collect her thoughts. 

She wants desperately to denounce him, to rail against the obvious evil in which he is complicit, to spit in his face and close a diamond pincer around his throat, to announce just how much more difficult to deal with she is than he thinks. 

But that would be stupid, so she does not. 

"I will," she murmurs, making the very expensive slip of paper and plant matter disappear inside her clothes, "consider your generous offer."

"That is all I can ask," he says, his voice coming through in a clear, pleasant tenor.

A waitress comes by to ask their orders, not seeming to mind Poor Edward's mask. "A plate of garlic moss-balls," he requests. "Would you care for anything, Wastelander? I'll pay."

"Chanterelles au jus," she orders.  

The waitress leaves.

Poor Edward doesn't seem to mind the silence between them. His blue eyes, behind the mask, focus on the flame of their table's candle.

She studies him intently, as though a sufficiently thorough inspection of his visible traits would yield weaknesses she could use against him. 

His visible traits: a cotton longcoat, a red leather tragedian's mask, black leather gloves. He's showing about as much skin as a Tomb-Colonist. His eyes, as mentioned, are blue, and the hair cascading around his shoulders is dishwater-blonde. She can see the gleam of his perfectly white teeth behind the mouth-hole of his mask when he speaks, but nothing else.

The food arrives. They eat in silence. 

Lucy gets up and leaves with the barest murmur of pleasantries. 

Hmm. What to do now. 

Well, regardless of whether Hephaesta can help, she probably deserves an update. She heads for Mahogany Hall. 

Hephaesta's in her dressing-room, apparently debating what to wear to visit her friend.

"It'd have to be in black, because I'm supposed to be mourning," she frets, "but I look awful in black, it washes me out..."

"Bad news. The Singer's sister's been transferred someplace called the Orphanage. Some goon of the Masters tried to threaten me into leaving the whole thing alone. Do you know where I can find some Revolutionaries who might be up for blowing the place up a little bit?"

"Shit!" Hephaesta explains. "Pardon my French, but- shit. I don't have any Revolutionary connections m'self, but I know they like to hang around where there's not a lot of people - the Flit, the Forgotten Quarter, that kind of place."

"Hmm. Alright. Do you know where I could discreetly acquire some very concealing garments?"

Hephaesta eyes her. "Hmm. You're about the size of a chorus girl... we talking concealing like 'hooded greatcoat' or concealing like 'tomb-colonist bandages'?"

"Either'll do."

"The Chipper Chorus Girl owes me a favor, let me pop over to her dressing-room and see if she's got anything like that."

Hephaesta leaves the room for a few minutes and comes back with a hooded coat in approximately the Wastelander's size, along with a black scarf. "Would this do? Got her to throw in a scarf so's you can cover half your face too."

"Perfect, thanks." 

She dons the concealing clothing, slips out of the Hall, and makes her way as inconspicuously as possible back to Spite.

Now. To watch the Orphanage and see what she can find out. 

The Orphanage is staffed by orderlies who wear white coats and face-concealing masks. They check in and out on an exquisitely regular schedule. A dirigible docks at the roof on a much less regular schedule. The place gets delivery-carts of Murgatroyd's Fungal Meal round the back daily.

No one goes anywhere near the place if they have any choice in the matter. Urchins avoid its roof, cats avoid its alleys. She doesn't even see any rats.

She waits until a point in the schedule when an orderly is due to arrive, then quietly raps them on the head with an adamant knuckle and collects the uniform from their unconscious body. She ties them up and gags them and stashes them nearby, then knocks on the door to be let in.

A panel slides out of the door, revealing two disinterested brown eyes. Then the door opens, and the doorman returns to his chair and newspaper.

She enters. 

She looks about her discreetly to see what the "other" orderlies are doing, and copies it to enough of an extent to not look suspicious, while wandering around to see what she can find out. 

Some of them clean the floors. Some of them guide patients from one room to another. The patients are usually clutching some object. One has a teddy bear which he holds unselfconsciously to his chest. Another strokes a wooden spoon, heedless of her splintered fingers. A third carries a severed human head in her arms, cooing to it like a baby. Patients who don't have something to hold are usually screaming and fighting the orderlies leading them around.

The door leading to the basement is locked, though it isn't guarded; from behind it come horrible sucking and gurgling noises, and groaning like a beast in pain. There's a door on the fifth floor with a plate reading REGISTRAR, which may be the key to finding Clarabelle's room. There's a guarded door leading to the roof and, relatedly, the dirigible dock, which if she times it right could serve as an escape route.

Who's in the REGISTRAR room? Are they ever not there?

An elderly woman with a suspicious gleam in her gimlet eye. There's a cot behind her desk.

Oh come on. 

Fine. She'll just look in every room until she sees someone who bears a resemblance to the Fading Music-Hall Singer.

There's rather a lot of rooms. In one, a young man stares into the mirror. When the door opens, he stands in front of his reflection protectively. In another, a woman sits, giggling, covered in a carpet of iridescent scarabs. In yet a third, one of the two residents is clinging to the other, who tolerates this while gazing adoringly at a painting of him. Everyone has something or someone, except a handful of people wrapped in straitjackets.

Finally she comes to a room containing two beds and two women. One, massively pregnant, is caressing the wall and humming to herself. She bears a more than passing resemblance to the Singer. The other is the Singer, lying in the bed, covered in bruises. She's harmonizing with her sister's humming, or at least she's trying; she can't always predict the next note.

When the Wastelander enters, she stops humming and lifts her head effortfully. "Oh, thank God," she breathes.

"What happened? Is Elisabeth okay?"

"Those same Clay Men who tried to kill me came to Will's house after you left. They told him they'd kill Elisabeth if he didn't give me up. So he gave me up. I don't blame him. They brought me to the Orphanage and put me in with Clarabelle - she'd been asking after me, quite insistently as it turns out."

"For crying out--okay, I don't blame him either, this is just damned inconvenient. Any thoughts on where to go once we get out of here?"

"If we get out of here," she says grimly. "They're clever here, you see. They've got something in the basement, and they milk it, and the stuff they get out, it's... love, in liquid form. They strap you down, and they feed you the milk, and they show you something, and you love it. Like nothing else exists, usually, though if you're strong enough you can prioritize a bit. Do you want to know what they showed Clarabelle?"

Sigh. "Something damned inconvenient?"

"Rather. They showed her the Orphanage. And now she lives inside her heart's desire."

Tears come to her eyes. "I can't leave her - couldn't even if I could walk right now. And she'd die before you could drag her out."

"Crap. This explains so much of what I've seen of the other prison--ooh. Wait. I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"Poor Edward accosted me and said I ought to forget the whole matter else he'd have me buried alive. And he most graciously gave me the means to do so. Do you think Lethean Tea Leaves would do the trick?"

The Singer's eyes widen. "They... they would. My God, you could do it. I'd only hinder you in this condition, but if Clarabelle goes free I don't care what happens to me."

"No, I'm definitely going to get you both out of here." Deep breath. "Don't tell anyone what I'm about to do, alright?" 

"Of course," the Singer says firmly.

She approaches the two, and kneels beside the Singer. 

Her hand glows, and as it passes over the Singer's body, where the light touches, her infirmities heal. 

The Singer gasps as her bones knit together. Slowly, hesitantly, she sits up, and prods herself in various places to see how healed she is.

"That's... quite a talent," she says finally.

"It's the same talent that let me save Elisabeth, really."

"Well, whatever it is, thank you and thank God for you. Before we leave, there's a couple of things you need to know. First, the thing in the basement... whatever it is. They've used it to cause untold suffering, and before we escape, we should kill it."

"What is it, do you know?"

"It looks like... a giant insect, with a purple flesh and a diamond shell. Eyes all over it."

"Ah. The supposed diamond the size of a cow, one presumes. I don't suppose it would be possible to just let the poor thing go instead of killing it..."

"If you think you can let it free without these bastards just getting it back again, that'd be fine too. The second thing..."

She inhales deeply, exhales slowly. "Clarabelle's baby. It's... not human."

"Well. Hybrids can turn out alright."

She smiles weakly. "Glad you think so. But I think the... 'father' is the thing in the basement. Which is the size of an elephant. If the baby takes after it, we're going to have another problem on our hands - I had a hard enough time producing Elisabeth, and she w- she's the size of a loaf of bread. I don't mean to say this is an immediate concern, I just think you should know what I know in case anything happens to me."

"Okay, well, my mother survived having me, and my father was much bigger than an elephant, but that doesn't prove anything. Um, probably even if it kills her coming out she'll be alright, but...how far along is she?"

"I don't know when in her absence it started, but she was gone for six months and that looks more to me like a nine-month pregnancy. If not twelve."

(Something shifts under the skin of Clarabelle's belly, for a moment.)

"I've never tried to do anything for something that died unborn and I'm concerned for the baby if this keeps on. --Not that I want anything to happen to Clarabelle, I can fix it but that won't make it not horrible to undergo--anyway. We'll have to figure something out, find a doctor who has any idea what to do."

The Singer nods. "That's all I had to say. How do we want to do this - presumably you go down to the basement and kill or free the creature, we... escape somehow... but I'm not as sure of the details."

"Yeah. You still implacably opposed to the Prickfinger Wastes? I promise it's safe inside my mother's house, and I can carry you there without danger."

"I'm not as opposed to the Wastes anymore, no - I'll have to leave Elisabeth with her father whatever we do, and I think Clara and I can manage there until her child is born."

"I fully intend to solve this situation thoroughly enough that you can safely walk the streets of London again, but in the short term, yes. Alright. Clarabelle, chew on these, please," Lucy says, procuring the Lethean Tea-Leaves.

Clarabelle chews the leaves placidly, wearing the same blissful expression as any other Orphanage patient with their object of affection. After a few seconds, the mask of joy falls from her face like a cliff collapsing into the sea.

"Where... where am I?" she asks, her pupils dilated.

"It's not important," her sister says, hopping out of bed and helping her up. "We're getting out of here."

"Right. Pretend I'm an orderly escorting you licitly," Lucy instructs, opening the door and leading the two women out. 

They pretend, following dutifully. Clarabelle still looks confused, but she manages a sort of beatific smile in addition; Angie just looks surly. 

They make it down to the basement where the creature is being kept. 

Lucy carefully closes the door, then says "help me barricade it, that'll buy us some time."

The sisters comply, bringing various furniture to bear.

The creature is everything Angie said it would be - massive, diamond-shelled, covered with eyes. It’s connected by tubing to a tank filled with white fluid, and every few minutes there’s a sucking sound and more fluid is collected. 

The creature itself is in a sorry state. Chunks of its shell have been chipped away, and half of its eyes are glassy and dead. The others roll wildly. Yellow slime oozes from cracks and rents in its carapace. 

Poor creature. 

Lucy starts by disconnecting the equipment from it everywhere she can, her hands glowing with healing light.

Once the creature has been disconnected, it thumps to the floor, and milk trickles out from under its bulk. Its eyes turn to focus on her.

"Can you talk?"

It cocks what might be its head and issues a series of clicks.

"That's fair. I hope you can fly." She checks to see if it needs more healing.

It’s quite large, and while most of its injuries were focused around the tubing, not all of them were.

After she's done healing it, the creature scrabbles to its feet. Its shell opens, and it buzzes its wings experimentally. Then it chitters and nudges her, possibly affectionately.

"Excellent." 

And then she picks up the heaviest discrete piece of equipment in the room and smashes it into the corner where ceiling meets wall on the outside of the building. 

After a few good swings, she bursts through. There's a shower of dust and rubble, but there's also a hole leading out of the Orphanage.

Angie stares. "You've quite an arm on you," she says.

"Yeah, remember when I implied I was some kind of hybrid? I don't know if I was blatant enough about that, but, yeah." 

She'll give it another couple of swings if the hole isn't big enough for their fellow escapee to fit through. 

After a few seconds of this, there's a lot of yelling and banging on the door down to the chamber. Clarabelle whimpers.

Their fellow escapee scurries up the wall and through the hole.

Lucy picks up Clarabelle and jumps up out of the hole, then turns around to see if her not-heavily-pregnant sister needs any help. 

She's trying to clamber up, but she's not exactly an athlete. Her hand slips on a patch of milk and she falls back to the floor.

Lucy jumps back down and hoists the other sister up, then turns and leans back inside to see if there's anything else she needs to rescue and/or destroy before blowing this popsicle stand.

The door bursts open, and who should rush in but Poor Edward.

He's got a pistol in his hand. He fires it -

and the bullet goes wide, and shatters the tank of moon-milk, which sprays everywhere. He's soaked in the stuff, and as he looks at the Light-Hearted Wastelander, his eyes widen.

She sees none of this. As soon as the barricade burst, she started turning; by the time he sees her, her back is to him; a moment later, she's gone. 

"This way," she tells the other two women, indicating the most direct path to the Prickfinger Wastes.

The Music-Hall Singer follows her. Clarabelle sits sidesaddle atop the giant beetle, which chitters happily as it scutters along.

They reach the edge of the Wastes. 

Lucy starts taking her clothes off. 

The sisters politely look away, as the Music-Hall Singer gets up on the back of the giant beetle to join her sister.

And then Lucy turns into a giant diamond crab-thing.

The sisters, at this point, are not particularly surprised.

"Should we get on your back instead of the moon-miser's?" asks the Music-Hall Singer. "So it can fly over the stalagmites."

"That would probably be more convenient for all of us." 

They clamber up among her vanes and spires.

And she sets off, easily navigating among the razor-sharp stalagmites without letting either of her passengers get so much as a scratch. 

An area has been cleared of razor stalagmites, and in this little clearing is a house. 

The door opens, and a woman peers out. 

"Lucy! You've brought guests?"

The moon-miser buzzes after her and sets down in the clearing. It clicks appreciatively, its various eyes swiveling.

The sisters dismount from their savior's back. "Hello, ma'am," the Music-Hall Singer says with a curtsey.

Clarabelle curtseys as well, but remains silent.

"...Ah, hm, hello. Can you understand English?"

The moon-miser nods.

"Well, welcome to my home." 

"This is the Fading Music-Hall Singer and her sister, the Eccentric Opera Singer," Lucy says, lifting each one down in turn, "You guys, this is my mother, the Pale Adventuress. Mum, the moon-miser is probably the father of her child, an occurrence which neither of them consented to. I'm going to get a doctor to help with the, uh, unusual gestation."

"And you figured this was the safest place for them? Fair enough. You two come in, get off your feet. Are you hungry?" she addresses this last to the moon-miser.

It shakes its head and clicks some more.

"I think they fed it through those tubes," Angie hypothesizes.

"Tubes. My, this sounds like a story." 

"Yeah. You guys can tell her the story if you want, I'm going to find a doctor."

"I'd like to hear it, too," Clarabelle says wryly. "I don't remember much of the past... how long's it been?"

"Six months," Angie says. "Goodbye, Wastelander. I can't thank you enough for your help."

"You're welcome!" 

She scuttles off through her eponymous Wasteland until she hits the edge of the city, turns back, puts Hephaesta's concealing outfit back on, and heads inwards, keeping an ear out for anything related to the Orphanage incident or where one might find a doctor. 

There is a fair amount of discussion of the Orphanage incident going on. People don't see giant bugs running through the city every day, even in London. Few people seem to know the actual purpose of the Orphanage, and there's a certain amount of discussion asking why an orphanage would have such a thing in its basement anyway.

Doctors can be found throughout the city; surgeons and sawbones congregate in Watchmaker's Hill to take advantage of the Department of Menace Eradication, but general practitioners are usually found in population centers like the suburbs around the Shuttered Palace. She could also try the University, based on the idea that scientists and doctors are rather similar.

Also, like, a regular doctor isn't necessarily going to know what to do with a half-giant-insect baby. 

She heads for the University. 

On campus is a familiar face, wearing a familiar blue suit and hat.

She peers at the Wastelander, then strolls up to her. "You know," she says, "I've heard some fascinating things over the last few days."

"What a funny coincidence, I've done some fascinating things over the last few days. And am looking to do some more! Can you recommend me someone who would have any idea how to help with a truly bizarre pregnancy."

"That would depend on what you mean by bizarre... and by help, for that matter. I can make a recommendation for any combination of the two words, though."

"Not quite human, and ensuring that the child lives."

"Ah. Not quite human... I know just the woman. Regrettably, she's dead. And, more pressingly, I don't know where she is. Besides 'with the Boatman'."

Sigh. "Of course. Because every time I try to do something, stupid complications arise. I don't suppose you know of any way to summon the Boatman for a chat besides dying oneself."

"I don't, unhappily. I do, however, have some very convenient ways of dying."

"Let's hear it."

"I've studied enough medicine that I could bleed you out without trouble. You'd hardly feel it, past the initial sting - just like falling asleep. If you prefer to be dead for a set period of time rather than simply staying that way until you heal over, I could put a knife through your heart and remove it after a certain amount of time. For the sake of completeness, I've got poisons too, but I'd prefer to stay away from that side of things. Too... unpredictable."

"Yes, let's avoid poison. If I let you bleed me, what are you going to do with the blood?"

She laughs. "So few people would think to ask. I'd like to examine some under a Semiotic Magnifier, but if you ask me not to I won't."

"Tell you what. Convince me I ought to let you."

"I have an interest in enhancing humanity's lot; the deck is a bit stacked against them, at the moment. My ultimate goal is immortality for all who seek it, as in the Presbyterate, and freedom of form. I have reason to believe your blood could help me immensely in achieving either or both of those. I have other aims, as well - I'll not claim I don't - but they pale in comparison."

"Well. I like that goal, and I do also believe my blood could help with it. I'll make you a deal: you can have my blood, but if I find out you've been using it for more nefarious purposes, I find you and I end you."

"Your confidence is beautiful. I agree to your terms; shall we repair somewhere more suitable?"

"Certainly. But first, might I have the name of the one whom I seek?"

"Of course. Her name was Dr. Vaughan. Never chose an alias, and no one could make one stick to her. -oh, and I'm called the Soulless Provocateuse. A pleasure to meet you properly."

She begins to lead the Wastelander out towards Spite.

"A pleasure to meet you! What happened to your soul?"

"It was the price I paid for knowledge of the Red Science... the arts which can break the Chain. Unfortunately, while it's proven useful in my work, my contact overstated just how useful it would be. I made him aware of his error, but by that time my soul had already been sent to the vaults of the Brass Embassy."

Her face is impassive. "I haven't missed it too terribly."

"...Hmm. Well, I am the Light-Hearted Wastelander."

"A fine name. Less revealing than my own, certainly... unless someone is already possessed of certain information."

"Indeed."

Once they reach Spite, the Provocateuse leads the Wastelander into an abandoned tenement-house. They ascend several stairs, all the way up to the roof.

"You're not afraid of heights, are you?" she asks, glancing over the edge.

"Certainly not."

"Good."

She leads her across a tangle of rope bridges, into the depths of the Flit. Eventually they come to the roof of a handsome townhouse, and the Provocateuse picks the lock on the trapdoor leading inside and beckons the Wastelander in.

The Wastelander follows. 

"I do hope that either this place is yours or you're quite confident the owner won't be back soon. If I wake to screaming I shall be cross."

"It's my brother's, but he spends all his time at the University. If he does come around I'll tell him I've got a project in the lab and he shouldn't go in. Which will be true."

"Excellent."

She leads her into a well-appointed laboratory, which has a Correspondence sigil meaning the knowledge that though not everything is in its place, you are home inscribed in a lead plaque hanging on the wall. The persistent smell of burning lead indicates that the lab is usually used for Correspondence-work. She then goes over to a supply closet and retrieves what can only be called a cauldron.

She regards the Wastelander. "You might want to disrobe."

"Naturally." 

She undresses unselfconsciously, though she does steal quite a few glances at the Correspondence sigil. 

The Provocateuse notices the glances. "My brother's handiwork," she says with a mixture of distaste and fondness. "I'm sure it's something insipid, he's never told me what it actually means."

"...Insipid. I suppose I can see that. Or quite powerful, in the right context."

"Well. Such things often are. Are you ready to attempt to retrieve Dr. Vaughan?"

"Indeed."

The Provocateuse positions her over the cauldron and withdraws a ravenglass knife from her pocket.

As promised, there's hardly any pain. A line of stinging heat on the side of her neck, and a strange sensation as the blood rushes out of her. She feels dizzy, for a moment, and then slips into darkness.

On the other side of the darkness is a slow boat, passing a dark beach, on a silent river. She's surrounded by pale, shivering people. At the boat's prow stands a tall, skeletal figure. The Boatman.

"Hi!"

The Boatman turns to look at her. His face is clean white bone, under a simple black hat.

When he sees who addressed him, he- flinches.

"You are not meant to be here," he says, sounding almost afraid.

"Yeah, I know, but unfortunately there's someone I need and I don't have a better way to get her. A Dr. Vaughan?"

A matronly woman adjacent to the Boatman sits up a bit straighter. "Really? What do you need me for?"

"Some Master or other decided to perform horrible experiments on people and as a result I have a patient for you with a most unorthodox case."

"The unorthodox cases are always the most fascinating," Dr. Vaughan says with a gleam in her eye.

"You can't just poach people from my boat," the Boatman says, somewhat indignantly. "This is my domain."

"What's it matter to you how many people are on your boat?"

"The Land Beyond requires an accounting," he says. "Her vitality is gone; the Mountain's light does not touch her. She cannot be returned."

"Oh, I can fix that." 

She starts glowing. 

Color returns to Dr. Vaughan's face immediately, and to the half a dozen other passengers in the radius of the Wastelander's light. "Good lord," says Dr. Vaughan. The others fade away, returning to their bodies.

The Boatman shrieks and flinches away from the light. "No, please! I'll grant you this one if you'll leave me in peace!"

"Alright." The glow fades. "--Oh, one question, first: do you know what happens to babies who die unborn?"

"They don't come to me," he says. "Not until the first light hits their skin - all light carries a little shard of the Judgments, you see."

"Mm. That's good to know." 

She offers her hand to Dr. Vaughan. "Shall we?"

Dr. Vaughan takes her hand -

and she wakes up, fully clothed with her hair damp, feeling hung-over and still holding Dr. Vaughan's hand.

She doesn't wake to screaming, per se, but there's a very intense conversation happening outside the door to the lab. "-my business!"

"It becomes my business when it's in my lab, Diana! I have a nose, I can smell the blood - is this even a real experiment, or more of your shady revolutionary-"

"Shh! I think she's awake."

"She? Is this an experiment or a-"

"I said shh!"

There's a knock on the door. "Wastelander? Did all go well?"

"We're good! All the blood's mine and I consented!" she adds for the Provocateuse's brother's benefit. 

"That is... better than the alternative," the brother admits.

"Excellent!"

The Provocateuse opens the door to the lab and lets herself in, followed by her brother. "Wastelander, this is my brother, the Incandescent Investigator; Henry, this is the Light-Hearted Wastelander. And we all know Dr. Vaughan. I wasn't really expecting you to be awake so soon, but that's what I get for underestimating you, I suppose." She uses a glass pipette to transfer a drop of blood from the cauldron to a microscope slide, then begins to examine it.

Dr. Vaughan looks surprised. "Miss Dresden! I should've known you'd be involved with this project."

"Dr. Vaughan! I heard you were irretrievably dead!"

"I was!" she says. "But this young lady retrieved me anyway. It was very considerate of her."

"I'm pretty excellent that way. If either of you have need of someone irretrievably dead being retrieved anyway, let me know." 

"...she's well past the Boatman. And she's buried on the Surface."

"...Have someone who can still go to the Surface fetch the body and I'll see what I can do."

The Investigator stares. "...you mean that. I'll- I'll see what I can do."

Dr. Vaughan clears her throat. "Now, as I recall, when you came for me you mentioned a 'most unorthodox case' in need of my skills. Is now the time to explain?"

"What, if anything, do you know about the Orphanage?"

Dr. Vaughan's eyes narrow. "That they've done a great many terrible things," she says. "And that they have a moon-miser held captive."

"What in the world is a moon-miser?" the Provocateuse asks.

"It's a creature from the ceiling of the Neath, a kind of giant insect, sometimes called the 'false-stars'. They secrete a venom called 'moon-milk' that can cause obsession with the first thing that the afflicted creature sees."

The Provocateuse shivers. "How unpleasant."

"Well, the good news is that they no longer have a moon-miser held captive. The bad news is that they decided to get a human woman pregnant by them before I could jailbreak the both of them, and while I can mend whatever that does to the mother, we're rather concerned for the viability of the baby."

Dr. Vaughan looks uncontainably excited. "A hybrid? With a moon-miser?"

Remembering her audience, she composes herself. "Well! Ahem. I couldn't possibly ignore a woman in such a position, especially not when you've done me the favor you have. Lead the way, dear."

Lucy bows to the Incandescent Investigator as they take their leave. 

"They're hiding out in the Prickfinger Wastes," Lucy explains quietly once the front door of the house has closed behind them. "I can take you there safely, but it will require showing you...well. The truth of how it is that I can revive even the so-called permanently dead."

Dr. Vaughan nods. "I'm not easily shocked."

"Then let me assure you that the moon-miser's child is not the strangest hybrid you shall have encountered today."

"Ah. Well, don't worry about shocking me that way either - just show me to the patient."

She nods, and they make their way to the edge of the Wastes, and she takes off her concealing outfit. 

And then she turns into a gigantic diamond crab again, picks up her clothes and the doctor, and heads off towards the house. 

"I'd love to sketch you sometime," Dr. Vaughan comments. "Those curious structures on your shell... I don't know what biological function they serve, but they're lovely."

"Thank you! I don't know either. I'll sit for you if there's a good time between everything else."

"Oh, yes, I was thinking after this was all over."

When they reach the clearing, Dr. Vaughan hops down and stares at the moon-miser for a moment. "I'm going to want to examine that later," she notes, before striding into the house.

"Alright, ladies, where is-" She notices Clarabelle. "Oh my. I'm guessing you would be my patient. How far along?"

The Music-Hall Singer shrugs. "She lost her mind for a time, and we were forced to induce amnesia to rescue her from the moon-milk. Nobody knows but Poor Edward and Mr. Fires."

Dr. Vaughan grimaces. "I'd prefer to have a definite time estimate, but we work with what we have. What has she been eating?"

"We were fed mostly on fungal meal and potato bread," Clarabelle says. "But I got bat-meat or fish with mine most days, I remember that. It was unusual. The others thought I was sleeping with an orderly."

"Good," Dr. Vaughan says. "-that they were feeding you better, I mean. Sounds like they were trying to keep the baby healthy. We're going to be doing something somewhat similar."

"Somewhat similar like how."

"The hybrid is growing past its mother's capacity to contain. We need, first, to strengthen - what's your name, dear?"

"I'm the Eccentric Opera Singer."

"I said your name," Dr. Vaughan says primly. "I don't hold with all these pseudonyms."

"...Clarabelle."

"First, we need to strengthen Clarabelle until she can bear it to term. And second, we need to convince the hybrid to be smaller, so that it can fit through the relevant portal. For the first, we'll need to go down to the Rubbery Men and get quite a quantity of Warm Amber. For the second, we'll need to go up to enlist the assistance of the father's own kind. The False-Stars."

"Can you help with that?" Lucy asks the father. 

The moon-miser buzzes his wings and chitters.

"He can help by getting us up to the roof of the Neath, but only the Moon-Mother can produce the chemical we'll need," Dr. Vaughan clarifies. "And we'll need to get a few other supplies while we're up there - stalactite nectar and moon-silk, certain other sundries. But first we should focus on getting the Warm Amber to reinforce Clarabelle's constitution."

"I'll talk to my brother about it. He, uh, he has Rubbery Man acquaintances."

"Half-brother. Technically. He can't do what she can do."

"I'm sure he has his own talents," Clarabelle says gamely.

"He's very smart. We can't all be miraculous diamond crabs."

"Quite."

Dr. Vaughan begins asking Clarabelle clarifying questions about the pregnancy - has she felt morning sickness? Has the baby kicked, and if so, how many legs at once? Has she ever found herself glowing? Clarabelle answers to the best of her ability.

"Wilbur's at the University, do you want me to grab anything for you while I'm there?"

"Oh! That would be dear of you - I had packed for a Zee-voyage before my assassination, if you could just bring me my valise I'd be much obliged."

"Okay! Uh, is there anything I can say to people so they know you're alive and authorized me to pick up your stuff and I'm not some random burglar."

She writes a note reading No longer dead; authorized the bearer of this note to collect possessions; schedule of return to active teaching uncertain, embarking on extended research project and recovering from traumatic death. -Jacqueline Vaughan.

"Thanks!" 

She heads off for the city; she transforms and dresses; she heads for the University, explains the situation and the need for amber to her brother, collects Dr. Vaughan's valise and delivers her note, and decides to swing by Hephaesta to update her before going home again. 

Hephaesta is in her dressing room, pacing frantically. "Oh, thank God, it's you! I went to visit Angie, but the Under-Secretary said she'd been taken by Fires' men - then I hear about some kind of giant beetle rampaging through the streets - what the bloody fuck is going on?"

"The giant beetle is a friendly and Angie and her sister are hiding out at my mother's place in the Prickfinger Wastes. Don't blame will for giving her up, they threatened--um. Did I ever get around to telling you the part where I am extremely weird and Angie's baby isn't dead anymore."

"He told me you'd brought her back with some kind of miracle. I don't believe in miracles, but it's hard to argue with a reborn baby."

"It really depends on how you define miracle. I didn't call on anything the church would sing hymns to. It's more like...an extension, or amplification, of the effect that makes death not permanent in the Neath in the first place. Anyway, they threatened the baby to make him give her up and she agrees that not letting the baby get hurt was the right choice. They were holding both Angie and her sister at the Orphanage, and also the giant beetle, and I broke all three of them out."

Hephaesta nods slowly. "Well, whether you're a miracle worker or not, you've done something great. Thank you. I won't ask you to bring me to her, that'd be a risk and I don't want to add any more risk to what you're doing. Just... is she alright?"

"Yeah, it's her sister who's got medical complications from the whole mess."

Hephaesta's face falls. "Shit. Clara doesn't deserve that. Well. None of us deserve any of this, that's not useful. There anything I can do to actually help?"

"Do you know how to get warm amber on short notice? Or even less-short notice."

She frowns. "Could ask one of the Rubberies at the Carnival. The one at the Anatomical Exhibition tried to give me some once, but I think it was flirting with me, and I didn't want none of that."

"That might be useful, thanks."

"Luck, then. I'm here if you need backup for anything."

"I'll let you know."

She takes her leave and heads for the Carnival.

The Carnival is, as always, bustling. There's the Most Educational Anatomical Exhibition, where "the NOTED PEDAGOGUE Mrs Plenty presents an INFORMATIVE and EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITION of ANATOMY and DANCES OF ANTIQUITY for DISCERNING GENTLEFOLK. You will BE IMPROVED!" There's also "MADAME SHOSHANA, the NEATH'S FOREMOST CLAIRVOYANTE," who can "SEE the FUTURE, the PAST, and THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE SEEN", and "the HOUSE of MIRRORS," which does not appear to have much of a line out front.