"Seems unlikely."

"We think someone tried to kill us and that's how we got here. You got your Rebecca? That's good. The other Macalaurë had killed his before we got here and he's been so so sad."

"Killed -"

"Uh she was being horribly tortured forever by weird Elf magic, not, like, randomly murdered her -"

He squeezes Peka.

Squeeze. "Elves have torture magic?"

"Yeah if they swear to do things they have to and she got her Catherine out of a really bad place and didn't remember anything she swore there and then swore to not hurt anybody here and stuff and then remembered what she said in the bad place and couldn't do all the things."

"Kat knows to never ever swear anything no matter what reason anyone gives her, the rest of us don't have to worry because we aren't Elves."

"Kat's not an elf she's an orc, and Beka was an inbetweeny thing."

"...okay."

"It's, uh, nice to meet you all."

"You too! The Catherines get along real well, it'll be fun to have three around." (The Catherines are debating between "smelly" and "old" for Katin, who does not really smell of anything but is older than them chronologically because Valinor.)

"Maybe save 'old' for the grownup one."

"Okay," says Kat, "so you're smelly."

"Did you already have a yelling contest."

"Yeah!"

"Who won?"

"Me!" says Kat.

"I bet -"

"Outside," says Rebecca, "if you're having a rematch."

"All the Elves'll still be able to hear them."

"Even we will be able to hear them it just won't be deafening. So are we going to meet the last island -"

"Yes but we should maybe send someone other than Timothy because of the collective insanity."

"Collective insanity."

"They have this absolutely loony taboo about touching people who have touched people who are hereditarily unclean as indicated by red hair, they're horrible and it's horrible."

"Uh, yeah, okay. I can head over and offer them a ride to the mainland?"

"Maybe you could head over and explain everything and then once the Catherines are done with their yelling contest we could all meet at the music hall, I think it's prettier than the mainland."

"- sure, okay."

And he Apparates on the final island and knocks.

The wi-fi is out and the phones are out and the windows now appear to open on a foggy lake and they're terrified.

Katin is pacing and Peka's trying to keep Elemi from picking up on the agitation in the room and Ana and Hala have decided to make a pillow fort because that is what you do if there is something scary is hide in a pillow fort. Imeles is clinging to his mother and pretending he's doing it to reassure Asame. Ladah is sitting in a corner trying not to get in the way of anyone who can do something productive about this and Kaloa is destroying progress on the pillow fort.

Knock knock.