"I as well," says The Hanged Man, who. Maybe already agreed earlier, but just wants to be clear, okay.

"It's a deal, then," says their host, playful about Her ominous phrasing. "One week from today, at the same time, unless either of you have objections?"

Kind of nice that She cares about their schedules literally at all, actually. More proof that She's the best goddess -

"That would be fine," he agrees, out loud.

"That is acceptable to me as well."

"Very well. Is there anything else for today, or shall we end this meeting here?"

"No, thank you." He suspects Ms. World wants to run off to acquire her potion's reagents right this second.

"Nothing on my end, either," agrees Audrey, who definitely does.

"Then fare well."

Thus ends their second meeting.

The week passes with only the usual amount of problems. Despite taking various different routes between McGovern's place and hers, Elaine's memory of where she could've left the notebook isn't jogged, which is entirely unsurprising given how thoroughly it was erased, but still not great. She continues to organise the books and records and study historical ones and study mysticism with Old Neil, and James takes her to the shooting range every night so she can learn how to use her gun. 

At the same time, James himself remains as busy as ever. There's a ritual he has to stop by some cultists of Emperor Russell Gustav, and a haunting too minor to require their extremely busy Spirit Medium's attention, and of course they're still trying to look for other clues about the Antigonus Family Notebook, although at this point it's all but certain that it's been found by someone. Their sources suggest that it wasn't the Secret Order, because they still seem to be looking for it, too, but their sources aren't perfect, and could be misled.

On Friday in the afternoon, though, there's a change. That change is heralded by James showing up at the study where Elaine is studying a tome from the Fourth Epoch with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. "Oh, good afternoon, Ms. Moretti!"

If James is particularly curious about what work Elaine is doing, she's trying to figure out what orders this tome is associated with, so she can give it the appropriate set of colored ribbons for easy location later. Also writing a brief overview of her translation of what it says, but she's still at this point going wide, not in depth with her work. Also, books are heavy, and she's tired of moving them around for now; at least this work lets her sit.

She looks up, blinking with suspicion. "Good afternoon."

It's not time for her to go try to shoot things yet, and her mandatory physical training is in the morning. Is this surprise extra training of some kind?? His cheerfulness fills her with wariness.

Her wariness for some reason makes him even more cheerful. "Say, Ms. Moretti, how do you feel about helping rescue a kidnapping victim?"

Oh. Divining work. That's much better, and she perks up immediately.

"Fine, I can successfully locate hidden things with my dowsing pendulum and everything!"

She successfully played item hide-and-seek with Neil all across the Nightwatch tunnel system a couple days ago, and was pronounced to be 'decent enough' at it. The Nightwatch gossip network, being a thing of power, has already decided that Elaine is the one to go to for random misplaced objects.

"Excellent! This will be much harder than that. And probably more dangerous. Did you ever get a cane? Dowsing rod seeking might be better for this than dowsing pendulum divination."

They have a DIVINER now this will go SO MUCH BETTER than it could've otherwise.

"No. Carrying a cane everywhere sounds like a massive pain." She does not look like someone who does not have a rod available. In fact, she looks downright smug.

Be professional.

"I'd wager you have a good alternative," he says after a beat.

"Did you know that you can get someone to carve a hairpin out of cedar and decorate it with silver embellishments if you bring them the wood and ask very nicely? And also pay them, of course."

Cedar and silver in particular because both types of material resist outside influence and corruption, making them excellent materials for divination.

"Interesting! That seems like a service that should exist, yes.

"The client is waiting upstairs. I assumed you'd want belongings from the victim for the divination, but that's your show, not mine."

"Yes, yes, let's go." She marks the place in the book she's at (with a white ribbon for 'in the middle of reading') and then up she gets.

Then something occurs to her.

"... Wait, how'd this come to us? Do they already expect occult involvement with the kidnapping?"

"Oh, no, this came through the Blackthorn Security Agency front," he says, leading the way towards that secret exit. "There's no reason to expect occult involvement."

"Oh. And. They didn't instead go to the police?? ... I guess a private company that prioritizes it above the safety of the city does... make some sense. What's the story for my abilities, then, am I to be the handler of a well trained sniffing animal or something?"

"That seems like a good idea! And they did go to the police; they're coming to us in addition to the police, for a different perspective on the problem."

"I see." Her mouth twitches. "And in addition to the police, they have found... the occult police. Well. All right then. I suppose I'm a dog handler for small adorable little sniffing terriers. Nobody would believe I train bloodhounds."