Consul Vorlynkin turned and spoke through the glass, earnestly.  "These are all solvable problems, Madame Sato, but none of them need be solved today, or all at once.  As part of the Lord Auditor's case—a protected witness, more or less—your immediate needs will be covered by our consulate."

"My committee, my friends—what's happened to them all, beyond the ones you say NewEgypt murdered or took away?  What if they—"  Her voice shrank to silence.

"Your first task must be your own physical recovery," Raven-sensei put in, with a look of concern at her sudden distress.  "Your normal mental resilience will follow.  In two to four weeks, not two to four days—you have to give yourself time."

"I've never had enough time."  She pressed her hands to her temples.  "And that appalling creature—!"

Vorlynkin cleared his throat.  "I'm not sure the Lord Auditor was thinking it through, when he accepted the animal.  Nevertheless, it may be kept in the consulate's back garden with the rest of Jin's creatures, for now.  They're doing no harm at all, there.  Livens the place up, really.  The space was underutilized."

She sighed, folded her arms, half-laughed, quelling Jin's growing alarm.  "I suppose it just looms so absurdly large because it's closest."  But her eyes sought Jin and Mina, not the sphinx.

Since they weren't going back to the consulate tonight after all, Vorlynkin let Jin speak on his wristcom with Lieutenant Johannes, and talk him through how to care for his creatures till Jin returned tomorrow.  Johannes didn't even sound sarcastic at the added chores.  So that was all right, for now.

Miles-san and Roic had taken Leiber-sensei off to another room to talk, right after they'd come in.  They returned at length, toting, unexpectedly, a big stack of dinner boxes from Ayako's Café.  Miles-san let it be known this bounty was courtesy of Miss Kareen, who had somehow found out where to get it, how to have it delivered to the facility, and had paid for it all, too.

They all ended up having a sort of picnic in the recovery room; Raven-sensei even took in a box to Jin's mother, so that when he pulled back the curtains after his medical check, it was almost as if they were all eating a family meal together again.  Jin thought she looked a bit better after she ate, sitting up less wearily, and with more color in her face.  But then, Ayako's curry was always very good.