"Uh. I just kind of. Liked everything. Made it hard to pick a dissertation topic."

"Should be easy to find something, then." And she can look for some history books, maybe some books on eras or peoples that haven't already been written to death. "Any of these?"

Lev picks one, observably at random.

"We'll get a couple of those, then." And a couple magazines, and a cheap western, in case he turns out to want something lighter. "You hungry? I bet you haven't been out to eat in ten years."

"Yes." It is good when people ask questions in a way that tell him what the answer is supposed to be.

"Anything in particular you missed?"

"Not really?" Why do people keep asking what he wants.

Mordred, meanwhile, finds a post office and mails his article to the Savannah newspaper offices with a cover letter and contact information (Agravaine will be dealing with his mail in New York, thank God for brothers who put up with him), and -- Lev studied anthropology and psychology and languages, Mordred goes to a bookstore and picks out a couple of nonfiction books on the basis that it won't hurt and if he and Anemone manage to get duplicates then he and Lev will both have reading material.

They can head in to the first restaurant they see. "Do you wanna order something yourself?"

Lev orders the country ham and green beans.

Cool. "So I don't actually know what exactly they've told you, Lev. You know where we're going next?"

"No."

Mordred spots them and joins them for lunch.

Anemone delicately feeds pieces of her lunch to her monkey, entreating him to please eat neatly when he's in fancy places. "We're off to LA, next. We tried to track down your old thesis advisor, but it looks like he's gone off to Ethiopia, so that could be a while."

For the first time Lev has a facial expression other than "misery." It is recognizable, in fact, as hope. "He's still in Ethiopia?"

"As far as we know. It was ten years ago, though, so nothing's very certain. He hasn't come back to UCLA, though."

"We don't know where he is or if he's still alive, he isn't answering his mail," Mordred says, and immediately wishes he hadn't.

"We know where he was."

Lev has a facial expression like someone just murdered his puppy. "Oh."

THIS IS WHY HE SHOULD NEVER SAY THINGS.

"Honestly, I don't see any evidence that there's been any mail to answer. Nobody at that school seemed to care what he was up to. I did get my hands on his notes, though. - briefly. Need to get them out once we get back to LA. Which I think I can do. They were pretty dense, but I think I'd feel better having them on me."
 
 
 

"What's he studying in Ethiopia?"

"He left to go on a dig that he believed was related to Gol-Goroth. An ancient site of Gol-Goroth worship according to certain books he'd read."

"Sound relevant to our investigation to me. Have figure out how to rescue Lacie first, though. - oh hey, Mr. Aarons, you knew Echavarria. Do you ever meet a Mr. Samson Trammel?"

"Yes."