15 May 2019
Miss Yvette spoke with Lucio, who disparaged her lack of subtlety, and expressed surprise that she wasn’t “on the chain”, in the structure of obligation and protection that made up Fey society.
The “runestone” was in His hotel, but it was going to be sold to Her, and She was now our main problem. Lucio thought maybe the demand for the stone’s return, and the hounds, might both be coming from Her.
His polish and poise had been shaky whenever violence was mentioned, but he recovered by the time his bodyguard returned, and ushered Miss Yvette out.
We all got together at the local diner (the dog stayed outside), and coffee and cake became involved. Eva was still in a strange mood, and we brought her up to date on what we’d received. And the hounds. (Cue a smirk from outside.)
It seemed from gossip that Federwell was trying to move out of town, not up; out to the far realms, which was way above his place. She, Elise, was born and raised in Faerie but had been exiled, and was looking for a way back; and Federwell’s stone could have been a way back for him, or perhaps for Her. She didn’t at all get on with Him, Andros, though on his side it was more toleration; and it was in his territory (the north side) that the theft had happened. Elise was on the south, and in the west it was more non-Fey groups, “iron bands”, who didn’t use magic but did deal in it.
Nobody knew where the runestone had gone; the last it had been seen was when we handed it over. We could ask in the Sound… or more practically around Arawak Bay.
And nobody knew much about what the runestone would do, but Eva suggested a consulting wizard who might be able to help out.
It looked very much as though Elise might have killed Federwell herself, or at least ordered it done; and the wings might have been payment to someone else.
Eva left to return to Pepper’s, pausing to let the Hound go past. Mac got some scraps for it, which didn’t interest it much, but when we followed it back to Mac’s car it jumped onto the bonnet and started to eat. It said, or thought loudly, that we were remarkably civilised for barbarians. (There was a mention of the “lower breed”, the others we’d met.) It served “the huntsman”, and since we’d disposed of its kin it had been sent to see what sort of barbarians could do it…
After some car talk from Mac, it tried to bite one of the wheels; Mac got in the way, and it seemed happy. Mac gave it a card; it chewed it up, and went off happily with a comment that it would enjoy hunting us.
We returned home to get some sleep.