Right. Okay. That's-- got a lot of implications, if that's something magic can do-- what would she expect given that world-- that can happen later focus now. "Okay. Thank you, that's much more helpful than what I knew previously."

"Ben Best and DeVille I haven't heard of. Shub-Niggurath sounds like the name of a deity, and-- some deities are unfortunately quite real. Whistles carved from meteorites I know nothing about, and I also know nothing about that monster or Clare Melford. Carcosa, Hali, and Aldebaran are all mentioned in the King in Yellow, which is evil."

"The knife wounds in your case are apparently a spell. I suppose we can't expect you to know if the same spell could have left them on the murder victims surrounding Roby and Donovan."

"It happens when you push your spells too far. The mind has a certain capacity to-- channel magic, and if you try to push yourself cuts like knives open up." He has been thoroughly bandaged. "Some tea, please," he says to his secretary.

"Do you know any of the names I mentioned?"

"Roby wrote Der Wanderer but I don't know anything else about him. --Randolph Carter has horrid melodramatic stories and my brother rather likes William Way's music. I have no idea of the supernatural connections either of them has."

"Carter also used to go to the Dreamlands. If Way has ever been connected to anything-- uh, other than the foreseeing his own death-- I don't know about it."

"I don't know about the Dreamlands but that seems like a less urgent discussion."

"The place black liao takes you, it's real and some people dream about it. You're right that it's not particularly urgent."

He raises his eyebrows.

The secretary brings the tea-- chai for Inaaya, black for Sal, and green Japanese-style for Sano himself.

"Way was friends with Roby, his murderer might be poking around our case. If he is and you don't know about it more's the pity, Terrence thought it might be one of your guys and I was hoping it could be resolved by clearing up which side we're on."

"I have not sent anyone to threaten Terrence. I threatened him personally to keep him from putting on another performance of the King in Yellow. But he stopped, so I have no need to threaten him more."

Let's just hope it stays that way.

"The King in Yellow I only became aware of a few weeks ago," Sano says. "I attended a performance in a-- private capacity-- and quickly recognized it as not merely a play but a powerful magical ritual. I interrupted the performance before the ritual could complete, and tried to find and destroy as many copies as I could. That is what Mr. Latz took offense at."

"I was there! I still don't see what anyone saw in the performance but the play does keep driving people insane so I trust you had a good reason."

...no, it isn't. Inaaya knows it isn't because Oscar wasn't angry when they found sixteen copies of the thing in Sano's back room, and also because Oscar was yelling about disposable people being happy to die for Japan, not about destroying books.

"Or, rather-- So I do not have Miss Sinope's convenient way of understanding whether books are cursed. What I do have is access to a research institute in Japan, with volunteers who are aware of the riskiness of their job. I flew a copy of the King in Yellow to Japan as soon as I got one and a volunteer read it. They-- still live, but in a very real sense the person they were is dead.""

"That," Sal says, "is much more in line with what Oscar Latz takes offense at. ...I'm curious about the specific impact on their personality. We are relying on anecdotal evidence and second-hand accounts here. As well as metaphysical sortings."

"They no longer care about anything they used to care about before-- their family, their friends, Japan, their honor... only the King in Yellow. Only studying and reading the play, and getting other people to read it, and writing their own works based on it, and seeing it performed."

On a timescale of a few weeks, though. And Terrence still cares about his friends. "If you could keep us updated about the longer-term effects I would be very grateful."

"I shall, Miss Sinope. Der Wanderer incorporates many of the same themes as the King in Yellow, and I believe Roby read the play. Again, I didn't read it myself, a volunteer read it. They preserved their sanity, but they learned-- a spell."

Sal stiles a laugh at the mention of Roby. Gosh, really, did that man read The King in Yellow. Sal hadn't noticed. "I've got a guess what kind of spell it was, but tell us anyways."

"The caster receives a vision of the future, and will not die until the vision of the future occurs. We tested it with captive-- devils, I suppose-- they shy away from the caster, almost as if they can tell."

"What do you mean by devil, Mr Sano? You said you couldn't tell us about the things we've seen without names, but you do seem to know of the general category."