"I think Gol-Goroth is the Fisher from the Outside? And the Liar from Beyond is related but distinct, according to Ayers's notes. He thought that Gol-Goroth was the herald or the harbinger of the Liar from Beyond. So, you know. We have that to look forward to."

"Gol-Goroth," he says, sounding it out. "Much easier to look up. Much harder to dance around than questions about mouths. And then, simplest case, she starts asking him about this and accidentally stumbles too close to a whole mess of murders he doesn't want people asking questions about. So he doesn't let her leave."

"Could be. How do you suggest we get her out? Assuming she's still alive?"

He is very much not thinking about whether she's alive. "I... negotiate. It's a 10-year-old case. Everyone involved is now dead or insane. He has nothing to do with any of it and disavows any nonprofessional relationship with Echavarria. My sister was using the situation to get another shot at his private library and she was selfish and defiant and deeply misguided but she didn't uncover anything and if she did she was only confused into thinking she did and we will of course leave LA as soon as he'd like and this indiscretion makes it to neither the police nor the press." The nice thing about being worried and upset at literally all times is that it's much less obvious when you actually have a reason to be worried and upset. "Unless you have a better idea."

"...uh, well, we can say that, if you think it'll get her out?"

"I think it might have to be some degree of true. He's hard to bluff." Especially if he's the one who taught you how bluffing works.

"I mean, I will certainly not contradict you if you claim that this indiscretion will not make it to the press, but, um."

...Well, dammit. "If we want to stay in Mr. Trammel's good graces, and Lacie and I very much do, his connection to this case does not get published."

"I'm not particularly attached to printing anything or contacting the authorities, but if that cult did something and the mystical reverberations are being felt to this very day, then I think that bears more investigating. Also, uh, why exactly do you want to stay in this person's good graces?"

"If it helps I have no concrete plans to publish anything until I know much more than I do now."

"Because he is both my father and my employer? And my livelihood depends on him not deciding to destroy it?"

"Have you considered not being dependent on people who are demonstrably willing to kidnap your sister. We could put in a good word for you with Mrs. Winston-Rogers."

Gee what a thought it never occurred to him to not get hopelessly tangled up with Samson Trammel. "If you think that would help."

"Presumably he knows his options better than we do," Mordred says quietly.

"I'm sure he does. I'm not sure he understands what he may be weighing them against. We have reason to believe that members of this cult are still active, active enough to hire thugs to threaten us away from talking to Mr. Aarons, on the other side of the country from LA. And they're active enough for that, then they're active enough to continue to be up to the same sort of things that they were up to ten years ago."

"All the more reason to stop poking it until Lacie is definitely safe again," he says, a little more subdued. "And a good argument for not provoking Mr. Trammel until we have a sure case against him. If you need to track down some LA cult so be it but that man is dangerous and willing to do a whole lot to keep people off his trail and you don't seem to have any definite reason to believe he's still involved, rather than trying to cover decade-old tracks and taking out some frustration on my sister."

"Sure, I don't know that he's involved. Just don't go making plans that rely on us actually not caring whether there are any more ritual murders occurring these days."

"Maybe I'll have a better plan come morning."

Come morning Oswald does not have a better plan but he does have much more energy. He is going to use this energy to wait impatiently for the others to wake up and try to summon a taxi and worry more cogently than before.

They go to the hospital! Mordred is wildly unclear on whether it is at all a good idea for him to try and go inside.

"I think Carrie wanted us to ask Henslowe what cipher he used on his accounting books, if he was available for the asking."

"Seems like a terrible idea? If he could tell us anything more inside the asylum, he'd have told us. They were watching him the whole time, he doesn't wanna look any crazier than he does already. I guess we could try asking, but I worry it'll make it harder to get in to see him again, if we look like we're encouraging him."

He's staring up at the sanitarium. "Does one of you need to sign him out."

Shrug. "Don't think so? I think they're just releasing him. Just gotta be here so he isn't stuck on the street outside the asylum without a penny to his name. I can go in and ask, though. Wait here, Magnificence."

Oswald dubiously tries to pet Magnificence. 

The nurse is happy to give Lev to any person who claims to be the person whose job is collecting him.

"Uh. Hello."