On the plane, Araari brings up being incompetently threatened. “Two men stopped me yesterday. From Captain Walker. They wanted me to tell you that continuing on this path is dangerous. —They meant because of them, because they will hurt you if you continue, but I suspect they are not the most dangerous thing we will encounter if we continue.”
"I don't know! She says them in the weird language.
And no one will let me read comics, and they don't have rabbit stew anymore, and I can't listen to the radio because the meds make me keep falling ASLEEP."
"I'm sorry." Logistically it is a terrible idea to try and get her out right now while there are armed guards in the hallway and it's not like it won't keep for a week but he really, really wants to.
Satisfied by Mordred being the only adult in a year who has listened to her complaints, Tereza says confidentially, "Can I tell you a secret? It's a REALLY good secret. There aren't any boys in it."
"I keep having a dream where there's a REALLY pretty blonde lady in a green dress. And she says that she's been SWALLOWED and now she is in a STOMACH and it is DIGESTING HER."
She takes an eight-year-old's delight in this fact.
..........Mordred has a suspicion about who the very pretty blonde woman is.
"Gosh, that is a good secret."
"And she says that the stomach opens up. It opens up on the New Moon.
Which is weird? Stomachs don't do that. But it's a funny stomach. It's called some funny thing."
"Huh," says Mordred, in lieu of a real response. "Do you remember what she says it's called? It's okay if you don't."
"Uh." She tries really hard because Mordred is really nice and listened to her about the rabbit stew and maybe she will get rabbit stew again. "It starts with an M I think?"
Nodnod. "Thank you."
None of the gods' names they have so far start with an M, but Rift of the Mouth had something about a Maw.
"I am concerned if we go in there Lela will report us to her mother who will then murder us," Oswald says without much force.
"That's fair but it's not like I'm in danger of running out of fake names to give people, if she's even conscious, and leaving without checking feels like a waste of a good opportunity."
There's a copy of The Cat Who Went To Heaven, a children's book about a cat who got painted into a picture of the Buddha. On the inside of the front cover is written "For Lela. Get well soon. Love, Mommy."
There is also an unused and apparently unopened embroidery kit with a note that says "Get Well Soon, From Peter Lukas."
HMM.
HMMMMM.
Mordred does not especially want to confront the guy from the newspaper archive here but he is absolutely going to note down that he's come up twice.
They can leave. Mordred gives the key to the records room back to the receptionist and thanks her sincerely for her help.
When they all get back to the hotel--
"Hey. Checked out the freighters and one of the factories. The freighters are for exporting nectar all across the globe, which in hindsight is obvious, right? Can't figure out what the factories are doing, only that everyone around them looks even more miserable than you'd expect. Was thinking about saying I needed work and seeing if that let me learn anything else about them. Not sure it's particularly worth it, though."