{Please.} Fift sent zir context advisory agent. {I have a right to send. I have a right to use my own mind!}

{Sending at this time}, the social nuance agent sent, {poses a severe danger of exacerbating your instant-fame.}

It was just a one-word note from Shria—{Hey.}—sent several hours ago. Ve might be too exhausted and hurt to send anything else. But that word meant ve was talking to Fift again.

Dobroc had sent quite a bit more.

{It’s not going to pose any danger!} Fift sent. {I won’t do anything public. No one will know. But I have to write back to them.}

{It does pose a danger. And not only to you.} the social nuance agent sent.

{The issue is anyway one of local infrastructure.} the context advisory agent sent. {This house is governed by the consensus of Iraxis cohort, which is quite solid on the matter of your use of the send.}

Nupolo was still protesting. “You can’t expect—”

Smistria was pacing the hallway outside the supper garden. Ve paused in front of the door, then turned towards the breakfast room.

“I just don’t see what good it does!” Frill cried. “If they’re not vowed, they might as well just take Vails! Why not? Take some of these Vail . . . ‘emergent armies,’ adorned with their team-tags, as if they were at an impromptu sporting event! [Mothers against the Unraveling], or whomever! And give them the stoppergoo and the spidergear . . . !”

“Now you’re just being absurd,” Nupolo said wearily.

Watching the street in front of the apartment, Fift saw Father Grobbard emerge from a local tunnel, hurry to the door, and come in.

“Thank Kumru,” Smistria said, sauntering into the breakfast room. “I told Grobbard not to go anywhere! At least ze’s back now. Is Thurm going to make it?”

“Not in time,” Nupolo said.

“Miskisk?”

Frill snorted.

“Well, it’s not impossible,” Smistria snapped. “At a time like this, I would think even Miskisk—”

The supper garden smelled like spice-bees, and absence. The mud was scuffed, and the tendrils of the vestris vines were yellowing. Fift went out into the hallway to greet Grobbard.

Grobbard’s face was blank. Ze took a deep breath. And then ze came forward and embraced Fift. Fift stiffened. Ze couldn’t hug zir back—it felt too awkward and strange to see Grobbard overcome with overt emotion; the world had turned inside out, and Fift had no idea how to react—but ze wanted Grobbard to hold on, to keep holding on.

Grobbard sighed, patted Fift once, let go of zir, and stepped back.

“Father Grobbard,” Fift said. “I don’t understand why I can’t send.”

Father Grobbard rubbed zir face with zir hand. Behind zir, ze came in the front door in another of zir bodies. “Fift, my child, would it be all right with you if we postpone this discussion?”