Terrible. "Could we--" he calls in Donovan's direction, and then glances down at himself. "Well, I was going to ask for a ride, if you don't mind us ruining your car. The plane's too far to walk, and I'd at least like a dip in some water before getting there."

"It's fine, I intend never to use this car again."

"Thank you."

The ocean water is pleasantly cool and Zoe is very grateful to wash herself of the mixture of Nectar and putrefaction coating her skin.

When they get to the airplane--

"Do I want to know what happened?"

"Oswald!" and Tereza is wrapping herself around Oswald's legs.

Hahaha fuck he is going to die oh no now Tereza's confused and upset and he's panicking and his arms are vaguely hovering he would like to hug her--

He really thinks his feelings should cancel out if they contradict each other and not double up.

Zoe starts to say something vague, but then remembers the last thing she said to Peter Lukas.

"The spell didn't work. But Peter Lukas showed up, and sealed the mouth himself. Mordred told him how."

"Zoe, I really don't think he has context. Frank, in our defense you did specifically ask us to not give you context."

"Right, that was one of those rhetorical questions. Sure. The bad guy is sealing the mouth now. What is a mouth and why are we sealing it. Whatever."

"Sorry. You tell someone before they die that you'll let people know what they did, then you gotta follow through."

Zoe is SO tempted to say "cult shit" and not explain any of the stuff she barely understands to Frank but maybe he kinda deserves to know?? Given all the flying them around to dangerous shit all the time.

"It's... a long story. Can I tell you when we're in the air?"

Mordred kind of suspects that Frank doesn't actually want to know what's going on but he has run out of ability to persuade people of things. Also, Oswald really doesn't seem okay but not in a way Mordred thinks he can help with. So he's just kind of sitting, next to Lev, not dealing with his feelings.

Lev is going to put his head on Mordred's shoulder. "You smell like ocean. It's nice."

"Thank you. Or you're welcome. Whichever."

When they are aloft, during the parts of piloting where Frank isn't busy, Zoe can do her best to catch him up on what mouths are and why they are sealing them and how it came to pass that the bad guy did the sealing. She is not the best at explaining but she will try. She knows what it is like to be the one who is confused all the time and just does the most straightforward thing in front of her.

Frank is, honestly, really disturbed by all of this.

Magic is real and it sucks. Why couldn't there be fairies.

What a good question.

"I love you," he tells Tereza hoarsely, still on the floor, arms awkwardly folded together, "I'm so glad you're here, I'm not very good at hugs right now but I love you so much."

He is going to sit next to Tereza and let her talk to him and answer her questions as best he can without veering into upsetting or emotional or trauma-laden territory.

After a while he remembers how to summon up a smile. Not a real one, but it's not for his sake.

Back in New York, Mordred writes to Inaaya.

He tells her that they're in New York for a few weeks where not much is happening but are bound for Bangkok next. He promises that there is an explanation for what happened with the Mouth (although he carefully doesn't promise a reasonable one), tells her he hopes to see her again, and then immediately gets down to the important business, which is book recommendations.

When he gets a letter back, he reads every book on it.

Oswald cannot read any eldritch tomes, but he can read some things, and he's tired of feeling useless and out of the loop. So he stays in reading Anemone's books and he goes out and tries to do independent research, copying down key names and locations and time periods and topics from Mordred's notes and trying to separate the grain from the chaff. There is... a lot of chaff. But he is getting a better sense of the concepts and motifs surrounding the esoteric periphery of what they're looking into, and just because most of the explanations are probably wrong doesn't mean that the subjects aren't significant.

A lot of his reading is going towards researching the occult, but he tries to take the opportunity to spend some time at the library without any objectives, trying to find that peaceful feeling again. It's hard to separate the two, though. It mostly ends up feeling like he can't take a break.

Every day or so, he sees a vision of a mouth. He can't tell whether they're hallucinations or real, or the former sometimes and the latter other times. They hiss words in the Tongue of Lies: Lacie, they say. Lacie loves you. Lacie is looking for you. Lacie wants you. Lacie is waiting for you. If you go back, you can be with her again. Sometimes Lev sees them too.

Another nice thing about the occult studies is that they're too far removed from what's really going on to remind him he's fighting his own sister.

He whispers into Lev's back that he misses her. He braids Tereza's hair and reminds himself that there are people here he is fighting for, that there is a person he is still trying to be. He remembers his own terror when he thought they might die under that warehouse and tells himself that taking Nectar is its own kind of death, which does not feel convincing, and that he does not want to live to see all the ways he can hurt his loved ones, which does, a little. He closes his eyes and covers his ears. Sometimes this doesn't block anything out; sometimes it does, and that's somehow worse. He thinks about talking to their resident cultist whisperer. He stalls.

Meanwhile--

Mordred is in the apartment he shares (shared?) with Agravaine, helping Agravaine cook. (Whether he shares it still or not is complicated. Things with Agravaine are, in general, complicated.)

He's given the broad strokes of what happened in Malta via letter already-- he wasn't going to not tell his brother he had died-- but they haven't gone into specifics, and he doesn't want to bring them up until Agravaine does.

"I heard you broke your promise."

"....yeah. I did. I'm sorry."

"So are you a zombie or a fishmonster?"

It's supposed to be a joke but it doesn't land. He sounds too tired.

"Fish monster. Or something like one, apparently 'doesn't die when drowned' doesn't narrow things down much."

It's supposed to be a joke. He's not sure if it landed or not.

"That sounds like you broke both of your promises."