"Aha."

"Yeah. I went to see him about my shop-- he's trying to hurt people who promote the King in Yellow."

And he's hurting people by making them read King in Yellow. But he can't say that to Terrence.

"He offered me money, for my shop, if I'd cooperate. I said no."

Terrence's eyes blaze. "Good man," he says, approvingly.

...He realizes a minute later that Oscar's shop has emphatically never sold The King in Yellow, but Terrence doesn't feel the need to think too hard about that, it's the principle of the thing. Or something.

"He threatened me for the same, and then - and then sent a man after me when I was asking around about the Roby case. Broke my nose. The man's a menace."

"...I wish my punch had landed."

It's going to look the same from the outside anyway. Might as well make it count.

Terrence giggles. "You tried to deck him? Well, good.

That's why you say not to trust him? Because he tried to manipulate your business?"

"It's because he hurts people to get what he wants. Uh,I guess you already knew that but it happens on a greater scale... Sal and Inaaya are hearing his side of the story right now delivered in deeply calm and reasonable tones.

I'm not sure what to do about that because if they decide I'm a bad person things could get even worse... I thought about leaving London but Hannah isn't going to believe me either. I feel like they're just sitting in there hearing about how certain people are disposable if the end is good enough."

Terrence sighs. "I... see. I see. ...I mean, you have me, but if they're also hearing about how The King in Yellow is a corrupting menace to society, that may mean less. ...But it's something, perhaps. I'm in a kind of confidence with Sal and Inaaya about certain things, so... I don't know. I doubt Sano shall pollute their heads fully." Terrence is stewing something over in his head.

"When you say 'on a greater scale', is it... um... is he in charge of - whatever it is, is he the ringleader? I'm just... pondering... our options.... Well, somebody's options...

What am I saying. I'm an academic. Jesus."

Oscar kind of wants to leave London but he is pretty sure most villages are not going accept a vaguely German stranger and also he'd be deserting his family and his community and magic'd still be real. Also Terrence-- seems to be taking him really seriously. Even if he might reveal horrible motives in the future.

"I don't think there's anything we can do physically," he says. "I mean, in a sense I tried. Ha. Sano has people working for him and he's really powerful."

Is Terrence going to pick up on the subtext?

"Not surprising, I suppose, he seems rich as god."

No.

"He'll probably try to get me blacklisted for standing up to him. And if you keep promoting the play he'll probably send someone after you again."

Meanwhile--

That night, Sal has a dream.

You stand among finely dressed people, talking and laughing. Your surroundings are gracious and music plays and your eyes are upon a particularly lovely girl here in white lace and muslin.
One by one men approach her but after a brief moment each quickly slips away and you notice they look panicked and lost. When the last has gone she raises her fan to her face and turns towards you. You walk over and then your fingers are against the small of her back guiding her in the dance. Her perfume fills the room, and now the two of you are alone in a gallery with glass doors all along one wall. You realize you’ve not yet seen her face and suddenly you’re afraid. A chill comes off her, and you shut your eyes tight.

You feel her hand on your face, cold and questing.

Sal makes a note to get more bedding. She keeps waking up cold to the bone.

She can't tell if that was a dream or a nightmare, some subsumed longing or a prophecy. She hopes it was nothing at all.

Terrence, also, wakes up the next morning from a dream, and thinks back on it, for obvious reasons. In it, the Stranger was there, and the shimmering lakes of Hali, and that was great - well, it was full of heart-pounding dread, but in sort of an ego-syntonic satisfying spiritual way.

But also in the dream, the lakes twisted and vanished throughout, confusingly, and there was also the much less spiritual terror at forgetting to show up for a secondary school class he's forced to retake for some reason. In the dream, there's a puddle of milk that's spilled in the icebox that Terrence has been ignoring for days and  continue to ignore until he's afraid to open the icebox and see the mold. Not even afraid. Just nervous.

And for some ungodly reason, in bed thinking back on it, he starts crying. But he's a smart man, he tells himself. Inaaya cannot be right about everything, although she's clearly right about some things. The City will come back to him. The King in Yellow does not act without reason. It must be trying to get a message to him, through this, something about everyday things, something about a warning to re-examine his surroundings... He can't tell what, yet -

But he thinks about the arches and carvings of The City, and about the fake class, and about the icebox mold - and he cries harder until he's stuffing blankets up against his mouth to muffle the noises, and tells himself he's being stupid, he's being ridiculous, he's acting like a child -

He's pulled himself together by the time he gets dressed and makes coffee. A momentary emotional crisis, due to light sleep and an upsetting dream. These things happen. He's fine now.

On Tuesday night Inaaya goes home to her girlfriend and on Wednesday she is.... still emotionally wrung out but after a good night's sleep.

She tries Oscar's shop first, remembers when she gets there that it's closed, then tries various locations in which one can find an Oscar radiating out from the shop in a semi-systematic sort of manner until she finds him.

He's at the park again. It's a good location because he runs into few people and has never been bothered by police. He has a book with him but little attention for it.

Inaaya can walk pretty quietly but this morning she's deliberately stepping on branches and dead leaves, telegraphing every movement.

"Hi."

"Hi, Inaaya."

She looks tired. Also there's a handful of what are pretty recognizably bite marks not quite concealed at the edge of her shirt.

"I'm-- sorry about yesterday," she says, "I could have handled that better."

That's not good at all.

But Inaaya doesn't like him nagging her about random things at the best of times. "...Thank you. I already told you about how I feel about you talking to Sano but I can't stop you."

He's very tired.

"...I didn't stab him or anything, you know."

"I know. You're not really the stabbing type.

...also his shirt wasn't torn."

"Right." Inaaya seems like she's not recoiling from Oscar.

"...Terrence agrees with me that he's dangerous."

"As far as we can tell he's not trying to kill Terrence and doesn't know who is, but I don't really expect you to believe me about that and don't have a real way to prove it.

I... don't dispute that he's dangerous but I don't think he's dangerous to me, if that helps any?"

"His thug came after him and broke Terrence's nose."

"I don't think we know whose thug that was. It could very well have been Sano's, but it could just as easily not have been, for all we know it was Parker's.

...but this isn't really the point. How much did he... show you?"

"...You promise you won't tell people I've gone insane or something."

"I won't.

--I won't tell people that, that is, I do promise."