"She does, but she's much more limited than we were worried about."

“I am still interested in how she interacts with the warding stone. Perhaps if it seems worth it to see her again you can try to find out.

What is the weird news?”

"The weird news is that apparently I am not human and have managed to not notice up until now."

....That’s certainly a sentence!

It certainly is!!!

"...What are you instead, an alien? A werewolf? Some kind of... whatever Frankenstein is?

I mean, I'm not stupid, I know we've been dealing in nonhuman life, but you look really human."

"No idea! Something to do with the ocean but other than that she didn't recognize it either."

He does not actually manage to keep the hysterical edge out of his voice.

Profoundly valid. Araari is pretty sure that she would be way more hysterical than this if it were her. “Did she have any reason to lie?”

"...Selkie?"

He is like half joking but mostly because what else is he supposed to do. This is kind of freaky actually. His usual "ask questions until it's resolved" method is kinda difficult to implement.

"No reason to lie that I could tell -- I wondered too -- and I'm an inch taller than I was when we left for Ethiopia --"

Well that's moderately concerning.

"Uh. We also found out some stuff about how they're using Nectar at the hospital? They said their two most interesting cases were a pair of eight-year-old girls, one with the surname Donovan. We were gonna think about how to get access to any medical records that existed."

"What I do for medical records mostly is walk in and ask an assistant nicely. Eight. Christ."

"If that works. Worried it'd come off as a tad too suspicious if I did it, I've been hanging around the hospital a lot lately. You'd be looking for anything on Tereza Doe and Lela Donovan."

"Oh, and Montgomery Donovan probably sacrificed Portia Sapenzia to the bigger Mouth in February last year, which is when Nectar supply here rocketed. So long as we're going over events."

"Well. Fuck."

(That night Mordred dreams he and Anemone are on the street in some city, listening to jazz music coming out of open windows. Just walking around. Listening and talking; his brain doesn't bother to come up with what. But then a police car drives by and Anemone starts to run, so he runs after her. He and Anemone end up in this maze of alleys, their shadows huge on the walls, and that’s when Anemone turns on him. She has a shotgun in one hand and a snake in the other. And the snake bites him, over and over, on his arms, and then she fires the shotgun right into his stomach… and that’s when he wakes up.)

(Oswald dreams that Mordred is in a forest. A dark forest. And he's running. The ground and the underbrush are spattered with blood and with something like honey. He's bleeding, too, from a gash on his arm. And he was chasing a wolf, or something, at first, but then the wolf was chasing him, and he comes through the woods all crazed and mad and bloody, and he runs up to Oswald with a knife or a machete in his hands… and that’s when he wakes up.)

Oswald does not feel like processing that right now. In terms of what he's prioritizing today, the mouth is probably more objectively concerning but Oswald cares more about the kids. On a gut emotional level, he means.

Araari is also very concerned about the kids! ...Also about Mordred but she’s less sure of next steps on that one.

The mouth is probably more objectively concerning but there are more obvious steps to doing anything about the kids. (Mordred takes a moment to be very grateful that Gale is in New York and does not need to be talked out of throwing himself into the mouth.)

He's just sort of not thinking about the other thing he learned yesterday. He'll deal with it later. He tells himself he'll deal with a lot of things later but it's fine probably.

Mordred's thing has apparently remained stable for over two decades now without anyone even knowing it was a thing, it'll probably keep.

What are the obvious steps to doing something about the girls. Go... find them?

Anemone or someone else—Mordred?—can go ask more questions at the hospital, maybe? Other than that...pretty much, as far as Araari can tell.

"Does anyone want to come with me to lie our way into a hospital records room?"

“I probably shouldn’t.” She sounds sad about it, though.

"I'm not the best at lying. Maybe there's... public records of the girls, somewhere?"

"If you do the talking it'll be fine, right?" Contrary to popular belief he is not the worst liar in this room. Might not even be the second worst now, he's been practicing.

“If we look through public records we can look for anything on Portia Sapienza, too, I don’t think we’ve searched for her name yet, and anyone else with the last name Donovan?”