"Weird like how?"

"She says things to me in some weird language," Tereza says. "I don't like it. It makes me feel weird. The first time I heard it I screamed."

".............that sounds pretty bad," he agrees.

"And I'm SO brave," Tereza says. "Everyone says I'm so brave. I don't scream at anything, not mice and not cockroaches and not anything. And one time I punched a boy TWICE as big as I am."

He's heard a Mouth sing. He can imagine terrifying languages. "We believe you.

Your papers said she gives you special treatments. Is that all the treatments are, or is there more?"

"Yeah. She says weird things to me."

"Like what?"

"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."

"You can."

"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.

And Ayers.

"I'm really sleepy," Tereza announces.

Mordred glances at Oswald. "You can sleep."

When they leave Tereza's room, Montgomery has left; the armed guards are gone.

"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."

Then he has no reasonable objections. In they go.

Lela Donovan is asleep.

She's crying out "Auntie! Auntie! I want my Auntie Portia!"