“I’m coming,” I answered, forcing my unsteady foot across the threshold. It was not fear that slowed me, reader, it was the sight of marvels. At Hobbestown’s gate, for caution’s sake, all things reveal themselves: the many robot guardians which crawl and hover undetectably about the Porphyrogene uncloak, the Masonic guards who flank their Charge pull back their jackets baring hidden weapons, and the Delians materialize. All around me they appeared: coats of cold stone, of faeries dancing in the autumn, of the swirling deep, all with Apollo’s sigil on their backs, grim enough to remind us that the Sun is merely our nearest taste of violent starfire. I had known for weeks that they were with us, invisible, these alien angels, but to see them step into existence all at once, each trailing the dreamworld they seemed to have sprung from… it was the kind of magic one can never stop believing in. No matter how grim this war becomes, even if our sins drive all Utopians into hiding, if I go weeks without seeing them, years, yet to our dying day we who saw them even once will still believe they might appear again, like wishes out of nothing, at our time of need. You must believe in them too, reader—your ancestors walked this Earth when they did, saw them, touched them, passed down whispers. Perhaps a thousand years have passed since any glimpsed them, but a thousand years cannot erase the hope that faeries might return if our belief and need are great enough, or lost King Arthur, or Utopia.

“Thank you for coming, Jagmohan.” Tribune Natekari offered her Colleague a warm hand.

I know we must have walked the road from gate to Town Hall through Hobbestown’s streets, yet I remember nothing but the nowhere coats flanking the Most Precious Visitor.

“I come gladly, Tribune Natekari,” He answered. “You ask important questions.”

Blacklaw Tribune Natekari smiled her sharp smile, sharpened by the scar she will not let science remove from her left cheek. “You seem better today. Your English is better.” It was the warm observation of a familiar colleague.

“True,” He answered, “though I remain grateful that you allow Me My choice of inquisitor and translator.”