Anemone holds the book close and waits to land.

...Mordred goes back to working on his article, and then takes a nap.

"So... do we have any way of contacting Oswald, or do we have to ask at every hotel."

They do not have to ask at every hotel because there is a stressed-looking businessman anxiously watching their arrival. He heads towards them as they head out.

He has dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. He's around 5'6 but feels taller than that. He is wearing the most boring suit imaginable. His expression is closed-off and appears to be permanently stuck in a frown and gives the general air of only being able to convey negative emotions. He seems capable of being very scary but mostly he's just sad, right now. He's handsome, sort of, but in a way where it feels like if you informed him of this you would immediately die under mysterious circumstances.

Oh Good. What A Sensible Person.

Shake the ziggurats off. No ziggurats here. "Hello?"

"Hello. You're the woman I spoke with on the phone?"

"You're Oswald Ferrier? Yeah. Mary Anemone Silverstring. Pleasure to meet you."

"Mordred Orkney, and likewise."

"I would like to claim the pleasure is all mine," he says, not looking any more pleased than two minutes ago. "You said you had someone to pick up while you were here. Let's talk on the way?"

"Probably tomorrow morning, it's what, midnight here now?"

"I guess we should go to a hotel, then? ...not the one we stayed at last time, though."

(Frank has collapsed asleep on his airplane.)

"Honestly that sounds like enough of a pain that I'm tempted to stay on the airplane with Frank."

(Frank is not conscious but if he were conscious he would say that they had BETTER stay on his airplane to guard it from AIRPLANE-STEALING THAI THUGS.)

"Would you like to get some sleep now, then?" Oswald asks, looking like he'd really prefer to grill them till morning.

"Eh, it's a bit earlier where we came from. We could probably catch up on the plane for a bit?"

"And I slept some on the flight."

"So now would be a convenient time to tell me whatever it was you were leaving out on the phone call."

"Well there's a lot of it! I don't even remember what parts I told you. We were hired by Mrs. Winston-Rogers to look into what her father was up to ten years ago, and what he was up to was investigating a cult, which turns out to have been the same cult that was run by a business associate of your father's around the same time. And I guess they did a lot of murders. And maybe also some more concerning stuff? But I just tell you you're gonna think it's crazy."

"I can decide that for myself, I think."

"They were trying to summon something; the one surviving cult member and one surviving investigator we've spoken to say they succeeded."

"Currently we think that Mr. Winston, his associate Mr. Henslowe, and Mr. Aarons, the person we came here to pick up, are all being haunted by - some sort of shadow of that being, I'd guess, some force that hangs around them and gets into places they've spent a lot of time. In the mental institution here it manifests as violent tendencies in the patients, and an obsessive fear of mouths. In Mr. Winston's old mansion, it causes very distinctively mouth-shaped water stains to appear all over the house. We've decided to remove Mr. Aarons from the facility to see what else he can tell us, but be advised, it might be contagious with enough exposure. Anyway, your sister went to ask your father what, if anything, he knew about this cult and what they were dealing with, and we haven't heard from her since."

"And this would be how the occult ties in," he mutters. "I don't expect Lacie knew about the connection between Echavarria and Mr. Trammel, because I didn't, so she would have gone to him asking about -- what, just mouths, was there a name for what they were summoning--"

"Gol-Goroth. We think."

"Or - I think it was the Fisher from the Outside? I could be mixing that up with the title of one of the books, though."