Since the Ring Day party, the Temple's investigation has petered off further. Lord Pink paid a social call a few days afterwards, having seen Elise at the Di Medicis' but not had a chance to speak with her. If Pink was aware that the Bellefeuilles are "under a shadow," he showed no sign of it during the visit. However, Elise had little opportunity to discuss serious matters with him during the visit.

On Reckoning Day, Elise receives an unexpected caller shortly after breakfast: Inquisitrix Faith. The striped gray-and-black feline salutes Elise after being shown into the parlor. "Good morning, Lady de Bellefeuille," she says, in her characteristically monotone voice.

Now that her leg has healed as well as the Collegia said it ever likely will be, Elise can, and does, return to her old habit of military posture. This includes salutes, and the lady is quietly pleased at being able to return a salute again. She stands beside the chair she had been sitting in earlier, and as she drops from her salute she gestures towards a chair across from her own and bids the Inquisitrix to be seated. "Inquisitrix Faith. Please, have a seat. What brings you to my home once again?"

The Khattan Inquisitrix inclines her head slightly. "Thank you, but I will stand. I have come to tell you that my investigation into the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping of your sister is over. I have evidence suggesting that the deceased Lord Dominic haut Glas was responsible for the kidnapping. Luke Nomar, his head butler, has confessed to helping him enlist the services of the Body of the Sisters. He has also produced certain damning papers, including the plot to frame Lord de Ayde for the crime. Your sister has told me she will consider bringing suit against his estate for damages done. Luke Nomar is in Temple custody, as are certain individuals from Kilroy's Revenge, for bearing false witness to the Temple."

The lady but nods slowly. It's nothing she didn't suspect, but to hear the proof of her suspicions brings a certain vindication to the woman's heart, and more than a little relief. "Lord de Ayde proved an important part in averting this conspiracy before it could come to completion. I would offer that he too should seek damages, and I would inquire as to the state of the haut Glas line – if a heir remains to claim the holdings of that family. But that can be answered in a moment. Is there anything further you wish to report?" says Elise.

"The haut Glas estate has passed on to a younger brother," Inquisitrix Faith says, crisply. "The other guilty parties involved all appear to have been slain in the course of unfolding events. Apart from those I have named, no other charges will be brought against any one in connection with the kidnapping or the events aboard the Siren's Tail."

"I am pleased, then," says the lieutenant poodle. Her relief is tangible, and she smiles, though faintly. "Have you anything further then? Did you discover who intended to … " She pauses, her lip twitching as if bordering on a snarl. "… buy my sister?"

"My investigation in Gallis suggested that your sister would have been brought to a private auction, held by a Monsieur de Mer, an auctioneer in Fauxpas. De Mer claims that he was told she was a convict legitimately purchased by the Body at the Temple, and that if her papers had not been in order he would not have conducted the auction. I was not able to gather evidence to the contrary, and as the auction was never even held, the Temple has declined to pursue the matter further." The Khatta speaks in cool, indifferent tones, like one discussing the weather.

"I see," says Elise, though her voice holds an icy tinge that is far from toneless. "I will have to remember that name, I believe." She turns her head to glance out the nearest window, eyes narrowing as if she were considering something. "There was nothing else?"

The Inquisitrix's eyes narrow for a moment, the movement out of place in her usually impassive face, but she only shakes her head. "That is the essence of my final report."

The poodle nods briefly and turns back again to face the Inquisitrix. If Elise noticed Faith's change in expression she does not choose to show it. "Then I praise you for your effort in this, and your results. If that is all you have to report then I will not keep you further," says the lady.

Faith repeats her salute. "Good day." She exits the room.

The salute is returned with practiced efficiency. "Walk in Their light, Inquisitrix."

A little while after her short visit from the Inquisitrix, Elise goes in search of her Eeee houseguests, Mrs. Leisa of Krodos, and her son, Keyni. The two prove to be outside, enjoying the garden and the crisp autumn day, with leaves in reds and yellows on the trees. Leisa sits on one of the stone benches, a book forgotten in her lap, while her son plays hide-and-go-squeak in the hedge maze, with a pair of young Katthans Elise thinks are the cook's children.

The lady of the manor approaches the widowed Eeee woman with her Drokar-tipped cane in hand. The steady noise of cane meeting the path can be heard long before Elise reaches Leisa, giving the woman ample time to notice her arrival.

Mrs. Krodos's large ears swivel at the sound. As it becomes clear Elise is heading her direction, the dark gray Eeee sets her book onto a low table before the bench, and rises, curtseying to the poodle. "Good afternoon, Lady de Bellefeuille." Her soprano voice gives a lilting accent to her Rephidim Standard.

Elise stops several feet away and inclines her head to her guest, smiling faintly. As she straightens from the gesture she cocks her head to the side and asks, "I hope I have not disturbed your reading, Miss Krodos? I was rather hoping we might talk," she says with a glance at the book, "though if you are presently occupied I can return another time."

The volume is from Elise's library, and looking at the title, A Brief History of Rephidim, reminds the poodle immediately of many long hours with Tremaine in study of it. The tome is thick enough to stun a Dromodon, and had the power to render a pupil unconscious merely by a glance at the tiny characters covering each large page. It is "brief" in much the same way that Rephidim is "close to the ground." Leisa shakes her head, her ears pinkening. "Not at all, my lady. I was hardly heeding the book at all, I fear. Of what did my lady wish to speak?"

Elise's eyes return to the tome for a moment before she answers, and Leisa might catch the brief look of distaste that forms on the poodle's face. "Of many things," is the answer the lady gives. She places both hands upon the tip of her cane and shifts her weight more on it, giving her something of a brooding appearance despite her smile. "I suppose I shall start with where it began, at least regarding our acquaintance, that is to say the matter of gods and dreams. Tell me Mrs. Krodos … did you witness the final act of those dreams?"

The Eeee inclines her head, remaining standing along with her hostess. "I did, my lady."

Elise tilts her head again, this time so that she can regard the other woman as if studying her reaction most carefully. "Pray tell, what did you make of such a thing?" she inquires.

Mrs. Krodos looks away, her eye seemingly caught by the sight of her son vaulting over a hedge, wings flapping. Cries of "No fair flying!" echo after him from the other two children. "I am not sure what you mean, my lady."

Elise moves to clarify, head still tilted in that considering look. "I was wondering your opinion of the events." Her eyes flick to watch the boy at play as she pauses before continuing. "Your theological view of it, and the players within it."

The other woman takes a little while before answering, watching her son slink back over the hedge apologetically. "Mage Cyprian told me about the dreams and the mages," she answers. "I know that the beings you fought against were only spirits, creations of magic. Not the Sisters. The High Princess was wrong to have them created, and worse to try to set herself above them."

"Thank you, Mrs. Krodos," says the lady of the manor, and she sounds faintly relieved. "You may or may not be aware that another had discovered my identity as one of those that fought the 'spirits', though his belief took a … " Elise hesitates long enough that the other woman might think she is considering the next word carefully. " … unpleasant turn. Though he was the first, I cannot imagine he would be the last. This effects you, Mrs. Krodos. As ones knowing the truth we see this matter differently but there are others who may come to see it as that man did and endanger me again – and you."

Leisa's skirts rustle in a cool breeze that shakes a few leaves from the overhanging tree. She nods to Elise. "Even those who know the truth might hate you no less for it. Babel is filled with fanatics, and people who hate Rephidim because it is strong. I did not realize, at first, that there would be others who knew who you were."

"And I fear there will be those who choose not to believe regardless of the truth offered. I am certainly not one to offer such truth, for why ever would the citizens of Babel chose to believe me – or on a larger scale, Rephidim?" Elise lifts her head slightly as the wind blows across her causing her hair to stir in the gentle breeze. Her uniform robes rustle only faintly, being of heavy material. "Regardless, it poses a danger to you and your son. Should my identity become public knowledge, you will undoubtedly be aligned with me. And there is another aspect you should be aware of, that of control of the truth. I am … undecided if the truth need be spoken at all. To spread the belief that the goddesses have fallen is a wound of belief I am not certain I should let heal."

The one of the kittens streaks across an open space of lawn, this time Keyni in hot, if ground bound, pursuit. The Kattha shrieks with glee and ducks back into the hedge maze as Leisa watches. "I would not," the Eeee woman says, with sudden emphasis. "I wish they had been the Sisters, if only so my people would stop believing in them. Worshipping them." She sounds angry and bitter, but the emotion fades to resignation with her next words. "It's not enough. Their temples still stand."

The lady inclines her head to the point, and she is quiet for the moment as she releases a hand from her cane and moves to settle herself down on the bench. Once seated, the poodle continues, "Then I shall not, and let us hope it is of some worth. It is said that logic has no place in the spiritual matters of the Seven Sisters. The truth of fate and faith in this manner cannot entirely be resolved even with extensive records of rituals and what have you. This is a point I wished to discuss with you – Mrs. Krodos, from the point of view of one who has been taught to believe, would this not be considered a matter of faith?" Elise looks up to the other curiously. "And … thus not constrained to logic? And there is another matter: if they were not the Seven Sisters, how then did the Seven Sisters permit this to occur at all?"

"You would do better to ask Mage Cyprian that, than me. I was raised to worship the Sisters, but I have not believed in them for a very long time." Leisa hesitates for a moment, then takes a seat on the bench herself, turned to face Elise. "Please don't tell him I said that," she adds quickly.

Elise watches the other woman for a moment, then nods briefly. "Of course," she agrees. "I was considering asking your help in this matter. If you truly wished to injure the belief, then I am willing to play the Godslayer … " The word is not Rephidim Standard but Babelite, and sounds distinctly foreign placed against the language of Elise's home. "… for what good it will do. The Seven Sisters are in a manner directly responsible for threatening all I hold dear again and again." As the poodle woman comes to finish her tone changes, becomes more angry, touching on a growl. "I have tried, I have desperately tried to never despise your people, but I cannot accept the Seven Sisters. I will not."

"I do not think it will do much good, except to make the believers angrier," Mrs. Krodos answers, after some consideration. "The temples themselves preach of the deaths of the Sisters, time and again at each others' hands. Death, for an immortal, is apparently at worst a minor inconvenience. Maybe the temples have already added that story to their repertoire, and the moral to it is: 'Hate the outsiders.'"

After giving a rather annoyed snort, the Lady de Bellefeuille tilts her head, looking skyward as if for divine help. "I suppose being spoken of poorly in a tale is tolerable. Perhaps someone with some sense will draw wisdom from it and find a new meaning: that a mortal can stand against a god, and hope to succeed." She breathes a sigh. "And perhaps the temples will burn to the ground with a wish. Cyprian would undoubtedly have something to say to that bit of wishful thinking."

A small smile plays on Leisa's lips, and the expression reminds Elise of the woman's brother, though the two do not look very much alike. "I'm sure he would," she agrees. "He is not an optimistic man."

"No," agrees Elise, allowing the word to trail off. The noblewoman turns her head from the sky to the tip of her cane, and she studies it with a certain intensity. And a distinctly uneasy flick of her tail just barely visible under the fold of her robes. "He never was. Mrs. Krodos, that … is another matter we … we should discuss … I … " As the lady speaks she seems to become increasingly uneasy to the point where she does not finish her though letting the sentence end part way, her eyes never leaving the tip of her cane.

"I know." The two words, softly spoken, fill the gap where Elise broke off. The Eeee glances to her from the corner of her eye. She gives the poodle a small nod and a look full of sympathy.

Those two words seem to drain the strength from Elise, removing her fight and at the same time easing causing her to ease. Her shoulders drop, almost slumping, and she closes her eyes as she shifts to lean heavily on her cane. "There is another tale for the ages, and I do not wish to think what the lesson might be," she nearly whispers.

Mrs. Krodos gazes forward, showing respect for the poodle's moment of weakness by not watching her in it. "If I were a preacher, I would spin a better moral from a love story than all the Sisters' tales of death and bloody wrath. Why the latter should be greeted with approval and not the former is another subject I leave for wiser heads," she says, with a briskness that suggests the word "wiser" is not chosen with complete sincerity.

"Perhaps it is a piece of Babel I actually envy – their freedom of choice." Elise's voice becomes almost mockingly stern as she recites what sounds like a passage from a book or an instruction from a tutor. "A Gallee 'must observe proper marriage and continue their bloodline in accordance with the state of one's station and quality of one's blood'. To do otherwise is to 'disgrace one's family and heritage' and 'forever mark oneself as a pariah'." Her voice drops, and she straightens enough to at least give an air of strength. "Would that he despised me. It would be so much easier; the inevitable would be so much easier."

For a long moment, her Eeee companion says nothing. Then, "Perhaps it is for the best." One of the felines runs out of the hedge maze from one exit, and moments, later, a small black bat form tackle-dives onto the Kattha, knocking him squealing to the ground.

"My sister would agree," Elise says. She turns her gaze towards the children at play, and she finds the distraction welcome in her current state of discomfort. "Forgive me, I should not have brought my burdens to you. Though you know I have no right to involve you in them."

"I do not mind," Mrs. Krodos replies quickly, then she adds, with care behind her words to show they are heartfelt, "Truly, I do not mind. I am not like your people." She smiles. "I am not even like my own people. I do not bow to the Sisters and I do not care for the 'quality of one's blood.' Though it is just as well that Mage Cyprian does not marry."

"Why do you say that? I had thought you might wish to see your brother married. Even … " The lady hesitates, then continues with a good-natured resolve, "Even I would hope that he would marry. It might ease him some, to have another. Someone as willful as he can be, though perhaps a touch more positive."

Her ears twitch nervously, as if she regretted speaking. "Oh – it's not that – " She twirls a fallen leaf by the stem. "Only, I do not think he would make a good husband." Leisa smiles, looking embarrassed. "Now you will think me disloyal. It is not that I don't love him … only … Well, if he were here, I am sure he would agree with me."

Elise tilts her head and turns to regard the woman beside herself. "It is because of his temper, is it not? That frightening aspect of the man he tries to hide so very much?"

Mrs. Krodos looks away, unsmiling. She nods slightly, then calls out to her son. "Keyni?" The young bat scrambles out of the scuffle he was in with the servant boy, dusting off his clothes and walking obediently towards the two adults. The Kattha, looking worried, falls in behind his companion.

The poodle woman's focus is broken by the mother's call, and she also turns to regard the boy saying nothing further of Mage Cyprian for the moment. "He is a good child, as far as my ability to judge such things. I am not a mother and I do rather admit to a certain bias. Have you considered his education?" she asks.

"I had been tutoring him myself, before we came to Rephidim," the woman admits, before Keyni comes to stand before her.

The small black-furred boy looks at his mother with intensely green eyes. "Yes, mother?" he says, brushing a few blades of grass from his sleeve. Something about the gesture and the words resonates, making him seem eerily like a miniature version of Mage Cyprian.

"Don't play so roughly," she tells him, picking dirt off the front of his tunic. "I don't want you hurting anyone – or getting hurt."

"I see," says Elise, sounding as if she had more to contribute on the subject. Instead she offers, "Your son does look a great deal like his uncle. The blood is strong."

The Kattha boy looks ready to contest Mrs. Krodos's allegation, but Keyni lifts a hand to forestall the other. He bows to Mrs. Krodos, saying obediently, "Yes, mother." When he rises from the bow, he flashes a quick bright smile to Elise, pleased by her comment.

As the lady sits she readjusts her hands upon her cane, intertwining her fingers together before resting them upon the Drokar's head. She makes a point of correcting the small flaws left in her posture from her earlier moment of weakness, so that she can face the boy properly. Something about his appearance and how he moves beckons the lady to treat him well. "Good eve, Keyni, I trust you are enjoying the grounds?" she asks, and her smile returns to her face.

"It is," Leisa agrees, while her son nods eagerly in answer to Elise's question. "The men of my family especially share that look – the green eyes, the black fur." She motions to her own eyes, a grayer shade of green, flecked with brown. "I do not quite fit the mold, but then my – Mage Cyprian is the very image of his own father."

Elise's brow raises, and says, "Indeed? Cyp- … Mage Cyprian did not oft speak of his father." She turns her gaze from the Eeee mother to her son, and she leans a bit close to the child. "Keyni, do you need for anything?"

The boy shakes his head. "No, m'lady," he replies. He enunciates well despite his youth, like a well-trained child of the aristocracy. "My lady has been very genro-" He hesitates briefly over the word, then sounds it out carefully, "gen-er-ous with us."

"Oh, dear me, and here I had hoped to further ruin my fearsome reputation by indulging you." The lady casts a glance to the boy's mother, looking faintly guilty, though smiling all the more for it before she looks back. "There is nothing you might wish?"

The boy exchanges glances with his feline friend, who believes Elise's fearsome reputation, judging by the way he hides behind the young bat, peering curiously around him at the noble. Keyni looks to his mother, then back at Elise, and shakes his head solemnly. "No, my lady."

Leisa chuckles. "Doubtless he only wants to get back to rolling around in the grass with his friends and getting his clothing messed up."

Keyni flattens his ears against his head, looking guilty.

The noblewoman gives a laugh at that, rich and amused. She shakes her head and returns to sitting upright and stern as she had been. "Oh very well. Off with you two, return to your games." Elise untwines her right hand long enough to make a shooing gesture with her fingers, though given the lightheartedness in her tone and smile on her face the lady seems delighted by the exchange rather than disappointed they children would leave.

The boy appears to be reassured by Elise's tone, and offers her a bow and a "Thank you, my lady." He flaps his wings to regain his balance from the bow, rather ruining the effect, then seizes his friend's hand and drags him back to the hedge maze, where the third boy has emerged, wondering why his playmates hadn't found him yet.

"It is perhaps good that I am never around. I fear I would think to spoil the boy so. It has been so long since the de Bellefeuille manor sounded truly alive. For I was away, and only my sister remained. Now children play in the garden, my sister meets with her suitor, and … all begins to feel well again." The lady settles back a bit, eyes half-closing as a breeze stirs her hair. "Undoubtedly I will need depart again, soon enough, but I thank you, Mrs. Krodos for staying here. It is … less lonely than it once was."