(The night after Clare Melford, Inaaya goes home, and that night she curls up on her Joan, and-- doesn't, actually, cry. She talks through everything that happened, including the parts where she froze up or made stupid choices or abandoned something that mattered because she was panicking, even though she's pretty sure Joan is going to be pissed about her taking unnecessary risks or about her leaving Clare Melford without even trying to do anything, and--

--and then Joan just. Isn't mad about it. Is scared, but she's not mad, not even a little. It turns out to actually just be okay.

It's... really nice. Both not having her girlfriend be pissed, and finding out that no, really, there are in fact some things in her life that are actually just okay.)

Sal thinks that they should avoid each other for a week, and has said as much.

She is planning to go out dancing every night for the next several days. Though events are perhaps going to conspire not to let her. (She got home and took something and slept for several hours and then spent the rest of Saturday out dancing until sunrise, as planned.)

Terrence has a full-on panic attack in his bedroom once he gets home, as soon as he stops ruminating on The King In Yellow, and it IS bad and does suck immensely. But he does feel better after a day of rest. He sees Sal's reasoning; maybe they can stay in touch in writing, or just meet up in twos and threes as necessary, so they're never "that one distinctive group of oddballs that were spotted in that village." That just seems like good sense.

The Roby news is on a deadline, though. Maybe they can meet up in he and Jing Yi's apartment again, and just come and leave slowly. He proposes writing to Aarons and asking to talk with Roby again first.

Oh boy is this not the time. On the one hand: they have no good reason not to release him. On the other: if they could explain the Clare Melford thing, that would be a great reason to get more time to investigate, at least.

Why has the timeline been sped up. Why now.

"If we could come up with a story for why he's not safe because of Clare Melford that sounds sane--"

Inaaya is so so so so so tired. She was tired before Clare Melford and it's not exactly better now.

"Do we need a story. Can we not just say that people keep mysteriously dying around him. Aarons knows the murders weren't conventionally explicable."

"But he might not believe those were Roby's fault."

"--Nigel knew Roby, and Roby wanted to show him the 'nine teeth' in Clare Melford. And, well, guess what there are nine of that we ran into."

"Right but I think then we just run back into the problem of 'how do we say this to Aarons in such a way that it's both clearly Roby's fault and not completely insane.'"

"Now, I know this is counterintuitive, but - are we sure it is Roby's fault? For all we know, he was trying to destroy whatever ritual was performed at Clare Melford. If someone summoned such beasts to Roby's home, it's more likely that they were trying to kill Roby as well, than that Roby summoned them and believed he could control them."

"--I don't think he would have wanted to show off the rock pillars if that was the case?"

"He's obsessive. His writings are the ramblings of a madman. He told Way exactly how he was going to die, he may well have arranged that in advance. His pillars..." He grimaces. "...You know what would be a terrible idea. What if one of us took Dr. Aarons to Clare Melford."

"...Obsession is not the same thing as murderous."

"It does sometimes mean crazy, though."

"I really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt too. But--"

"Showing an asylum doctors something crazy at least be amusingly ironic. Though probably still also a terrible idea."

"We should have gotten pictures."

"Anyway, I don't know if Roby is insane, but I am worried that he's dangerous."

"Terrence, Roby confessed to the murder, remember? Aarons mostly had reservations because Roby couldn't explain how he'd done it." 

"I - see what you mean, Inaaya. But, but confessions are not an art - he couldn't explain how he'd done it. Maybe he couldn't explain what else had happened either. Or thought it was his fault. Or - or he thought the asylum could offer him physical protection.

I'm just saying. There are ways he might be innocent and still have felt pressure to say that."

"I think it is very obvious why he couldn't explain how he'd done it!" 

"I am saying that the case can be easily made that he is insane, and that is all we need to convince Aarons of."

"He's insane because he's convinced he did a murder he physically could not commit. Watertight, that is."

"I wouldn't be surprised if other magic users pressured him. Given what we've seen of them so far."

"I think you're all being remarkably callous. We were asked to assess if a man is merely eccentric or is, is deserving of being locked up for life. We weren't even asked to assess if he'd done the crime, although - obviously that's a relevant factor. We can't stop just because we're in over our heads. It's a man's life! His freedom! Who's to say what a sane or insane reaction to all, all of this, ought to be? Well, not us, but we can't - we can't give up on him."

"There's more here. You know that. We all know that."