Friday, October 16 in the Year 723 After the Founding

Had anyone in The City paid attention the next morning, they might have noticed a few unfamilliar faces among the militia and the Guard. Even some bouncers at the casinos and taverns were new. But, what with the Festa weekend beginning that evening, there wasn't anything particularly unusual about unfamiliar faces. All of these groups and places pulled in extra personnel for every Festa.

That these new people directed suspicious looks at every single adult that passed by, and not a few teens, was somewhat unusual, but, given how young they obviously were, it could be put down to them being overly zealous new recruits and employees who were trying to impress their superiors/employers. The reality was that each one was an experienced agent working for either Blair, Hiroshi, or Miranda. Every one of them had seen Avi's portrait. They all had been instructed that, should they recognize Avi, they were to do nothing other than continue to scan the crowd as they had been before they saw him. Only after he was out of sight were they to contact their twin and report his location and direction.

The plan was workable and made sense. The only problem was that Avi, whoever he really was, had eluded capture for at least 12 years. While it was true that very few people knew what he looked like, some of his victims had had elaborate security precautions that should have kept out any stranger who tried to enter. Nobody should have been able to reach them. Unfortunately the saying about his skills was undeniably true. He could indeed, "kill one person at a banquet and leave the other 99 alive, but he can also kill 99 and leave just one living." The bodies he'd left behind gave ample proof.

That same morning, Miranda was again sitting in Blair's office. "We have one thing going for us, no, that's not right, probably two. Unfortunately there are numerous unanswered questions."

Blair gave her an encouraging look, so she continued, "First of all it would seem that Avi doesn't use a disguise unless he's about to strike. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to recognize him from Yoko's drawing. The only reason we know what he looks like is that he wasn't disguised when we saw him outside the party where he killed Baroness Hauptman four years ago. He obviously changed his looks after he entered. If he hadn't, we'd have seen him when he left since there was only the one door to the outside."

She sighed. "Would that we had known that the person we saw at that time was him. Hindsight is so incredibly accurate and useless....

"At any rate, the second thing we know is that... Oh blast! I can't remember what number two is. I didn't get much sleep last night. Did you?"

"Not really Manda. But I think I know what your number two is. This is the first time, ever, that we've known in advance that he was planning a murder and what city it will occur in.

"Now dear, please continue. Tell me your unknowns. Maybe we can figure out a way to 'know' at least some of them."

"Right Blair. First of all, he may not be using disguises at all. Given that nobody has ever seen him leaving the scene of a murder, and given that yesterday we learned of three new mental/magic/whatever skills, it stands to reason that he may have some sort of concealment ability like Genie has. I must confess to blinders in that area. There are so few mage talents that duplicate in any given generation that I totally discounted the possibility that he might have one, or possibly even more. If he does though, that makes our task that much more difficult."

They lapsed into silence, working at thinking of options and countermeasures.

They were interrupted by a hesitant knocking on the door. Both of them subtly shifted their positions so as to have better access to their weapons. Everyone in the household knew not to ever knock when the door was closed. The logical assumption was that there was a stranger outside.

That assumption was proven wrong by a soft voice, "Mother, I know the rules, but this is important. We need to speak to you, right now."

"Very well, come in."

The door opened slowly. Once again the ladies were surprised as not just Yoko and Hibiki entered but also Jason, who carefully but firmly closed the door behind him. Then the three of them put their heads together. Their observers discerned that they were having a discussion, or possibly an argument.

Both Blair and Miranda raised eyebrows.

Finally the trio reached a decision. Yoko spoke first, "Mother, there's something we need to tell you, but we want to make it accurate and brief," She smiled at her mother, "Just like you taught us."

She nodded to the other children. "So Jason is going to go first, then Biki will tell you the rest."

While she was talking Yoko surprised both Miranda and Blair by silently walking to Miranda and then whispering in her ear, "First ya need ta make it so nobody outside can hear us, please?"

The idea of an eavesdropper in this particular household was ludicrous, not to mention that she had no idea how Yoko knew of her ability, but, given the extraordinary circumstances, Miranda waved a hand at the door and wove a silence across that wall. Yoko turned to Hibiki and nodded. Then Hibiki tugged slightly on Jason's sleeve

"Ah, yes, well, it's like this. I came over this morning to visit the girls and we were..." He was interrupted by Hibiki stomping, none to gently on his toes.

He winced and went on, "I'm sorry, I tend to get distracted. I'm trying to do better. Anyway I could feel you worrying, a lot, about something. Then I felt like it had something to do with not seeing something. The three of us talked about it and decided that we should tell you."

"Tell us what Jason?" queried Blair.

"Ah, it's Hibiki's turn now, isn't it Biki?"

She nodded and took up the narrative, "After what we saw yesterday, and what you had us, Yoko, do, and what we overheard -- you were not being all that careful with what you said last night you know -- and combining that with what Jason sensed just now, we figured that you might be worried about this Avi person being able to turn invisible, or something like that. Maybe?"

Miranda nodded slowly. "And?"

"And, well, we thought that we ought to tell you that we," she pointed to herself and Yoko, "can see someone when they are working a spell that makes it so other people cannot see them."

She looked down at the floor and mumbled, "Would that be of any use to you at all?"

This pronouncement was followed by absolute silence for a good 10 seconds. Miranda broke it by saying, "Well, that firmly puts me in my place. I guess I really hadn't believed that I could have missed something like that. I only mentioned it for the sake of being thorough."

She turned to Hibiki. "Biki dear, how long have you been able to do that?"

She turned to Yoko and had a brief "twin" conversation. "Uh, we are not entirely certain. We just became aware of it ourselves the time Genie sneaked into our classroom right after we started at Chapman. We were never able to ascertain why she did. She watched us for a few minutes, then she stared at the ceiling for the rest of the hour. She exited when the teacher did.

"Oh, and Jason said that she looked sad and that it probably had something to do with the reception after Sara and Paolo's wedding."

She startled everyone in the room with a loud shriek, "Wait a minute! Jason, you could not know that unless you saw her too! Why did you not say anything?"

He turned a quizzical, irritated face toward her. "I don't know what you mean. I told you at lunch that day how she looked. How could I have known that if I hadn't seen her?"

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Hibiki and Yoko both had dismayed expressions. They'd been so excited and upset about learning that Jason could speak "twin" with them, that they'd never considered that he'd had to have seen Genie.

While the children were speaking, Blair and Miranda exchanged a long look, then nodded. The reason Eugenia had visited the classroom was obvious. Perhaps they did need more security when they were "alone." It seems that a certain precocious, trainee spy had been more active than they realized.

This time Yoko spoke up, "We still don't know why she was there. Maybe ya could ask her. She's hiding outside right now. We saw her when we came to talk to ya. Since we weren't sure if she was doing something you wanted her ta do or not, we pretended that we didn't see her."

She faced Miranda. "That's why I asked ya ta put up a silence. Just in case she wasn't supposed ta be listening."

Miranda stood, walked over to the door, and took hold of the handle. "Which side is she on, and how far away."

"She was leaning on the wall about a half meter to the left. Ah, your left if you face the door."

Miranda jerked the door open. Her hand flashed out toward what appeared to be empty space against the wall. When her hand encounted cloth she grabbed it and jerked it toward her. The next thing she knew she was looking at her daughter's face from about 10 centimeters away.

"You, inside, now!"

Not giving Eugenia any choice, she pulled her inside, closed the door, then put up her silence again.

She pointed at the chair that appeared in front of Blair's desk. "Sit!"

All four children headed toward the center of the room. When Miranda commanded, everyone obeyed.

"Not all of you, just Eugenia."

The other three withdrew as far as they could. Nobody wanted to be the object of Miranda's wrath, ever. They'd have preferred not to even be in the room, but with the door closed, they were trapped.

Blair tipped her chair back with her hands behind her head, then leaned forward and looked at the twins and Jason. "Do you have any other hidden skills that you haven't told us about yet?"

The girls shook their heads "no" then said in unison, "At least not that we know of."

Blair looked at Jason. He obviously had something to say.

"Go ahead Jason, this is important so take your time and tell us everything that's pertinent. However please remember that we're pressed for time and do your best not to go off on a tangent, OK?"

"Yes Mother, I will."

Blair just stared at him and blinked. "What did you call me?"

"'Mother'. I'm sure you heard me. I didn't mumble or say it in 'twin', he looked at Yoko and Hibiki, "Did I?"

They had both facepalmed, but still managed to shake their heads "no."

Blair took two deep breaths. "I see that my question was in error. What I should have asked was, 'Why did you call me that?'"

Jason's reply was clear and succinct. "We are going to get married when we're older. When we do, that will make you my other mother."

He blushed slightly, and looked embarrassed. "I just wanted to try saying it."

Blair's attention was distracted by Eugenia blowing her nose on her handkerchief. Tears were streaming down her face, and she was hunched over as if she had just received a great blow. Blair realized that she probably had. Suspecting something and having absolute knowledge of it were two different kettles of fish. Her eyes flicked to Miranda who gestured assent. She'd take care of that part of things later.

Blair picked up the thread of conversation, "I'm sorry Jason, I told you to not get distracted from the topic then I did just that. I do want to say one thing though. Please don't call me 'Mother' again until after you're married. It's not something acceptable before that."

He looked over to the twins who still had their faces in their hands, but they did both nod at him. "All right Mrs. Macklin. I won't. Ah, yes, getting back to your question. It's highly unlikely that they, we, have any other abilities. We've already manifested all of those our many times great-grandmother had."

Suddenly every eye in the room was fixed on him, even Eugenia's. Blair said only, "Explain."

He stood stock still for about 20 seconds then nodded to himself. That would work and would probably be the fastest way to tell it.

"It was about a week after Yoko gave my other mother that geneaolgy scroll. I looked it over the next day and saw that she'd drawn in some of Johann's other wife's descendents. You know, the one called Raven. There were a lot of unfinished areas, and I knew that she's not the type to leave things unfinished."

He turned to Yoko. "I must admit that it was the perfect bait to hook my mother with though. Show her a history puzzle and she'll swallow it all the way down on the first bite."

Everyone turned to see Yoko standing slack-jawed with astonishment. "How..how did you..."

Jason smiled slightly and said, "Dear one. I may be 'socially inept', but I'm not stupid. It was pretty obvious what you were doing."

He asked hesitantly, "Is it OK to call Yoko and Hibiki 'dear one' now, or does that have to wait too?"

Hibiki took that one. "It is still a bit premature. I shall explain it to you later when we have some free time."

Jason nodded his thanks, noticing at the same time that Eugenia had buried her face in her hands again. It hurts to have something painful that you've just learned rubbed in, even if it was unintentional.

"Well, anyway, Mother wasn't able to get to it right away, but I was free, so I went to see Sara and Paolo. I figured that I could reconstruct what Yoko had done and then tell my mother. After I got there and told her what I wanted to do, Sara explained to me why I shouldn't do that."

He smiled and said, "Mrs. Macklin she's awfully nice, isn't she? She's the first person besides my mother and the twins to be that nice to me."

He didn't notice Eugenia folding herself so far that she almost looked like a ball.

Blair made an "and then" gesture, so he continued, "That's when I remembered something I'd read in the family library a year earlier. There was a history that mentioned an ancestor of ours with the same surname as one of the people on Yoko's chart."

He looked up and realized he'd better make it even shorter than he'd planned. "Yes. While I was sorting things out, Paolo let me look at a diary he'd found. It talked about Johann and Lilly and Raven and said what their abilities were and how they used them. Something awful happened to Raven before she married Johann, but Paolo didn't let me read that part. He said maybe when I was older."

Seeing the others strained faces, he went on, "OK, even shorter, I can do that.

"I put everything together, and even checked it all twice, and checked it all over again after we saw what Eugenia did in the classroom. That's why I said 'our' many times great grandmother. My father's, mother's family is descended from Lily Kastner, just as yours is Mrs. Macklin. As best I can figure, Yoko, Hibiki and I are 32nd cousins.

Into the surprised silence he added, "And Eugenia is our cousin too, but she's descended from Johann's other wife, Raven, from her daughter Aradia. Raven's strongest talent was the ability to make it so nobody could see her, as long as they were at least a meter away from her. Genie can do better than that, I think.

"Lily was the only person, besides her mother, who could see Raven when she was hiding that way. She could also tell exactly what anyone around her was feeling, ever since she was little. That's why she was a secret advisor to Duchess Abigail. She could always tell when someone was lying. Always. That's more than I can do. I have to be concentrating, at least a little, on what someone is saying to tell if they're lying.

"I don't think I'd like it very much if I could feel everything all the time anyway. I already know that a lot of people don't like me very much."

The twins rushed over to him, wrapped their arms around him, and nuzzled him with their cheeks.

He looked down at them tenderly. "But I don't care about that so much anymore."

Eugenia looked up at the three of them and smiled. It was weak, but it was a real smile. She admitted to herself that she'd lost, and that was that. She also had just realized that seeing that someone you love dearly is happy is of itself a very satisfying thing. Besides, once he married the twins, he'd be her relative by marriage, which would make him family. That was a lot better than not being around him at all.

Miranda and Blair were blotting their eyes as well, though for different reasons. Miranda drawled, "Well cousin, it's no wonder that we think so much alike. It's in the blood."

Blair smiled back at her. "Indeed cousin. I believe you're right. I was wondering how random chance could produce two such devious women in the same generation. Now I know that it's only the result of inbreeding."

That set both of them laughing. None of the children caught the reference, so they just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. That was one more thing they'd have to learn later.

Once they'd wound down to occasional snickers, Blair and Miranda turned as one to the children, and Blair said, "You children go downstairs and get yourselves a snack, but don't leave. Once we figure out what to do with you, we'll need to coordinate with Hiroshi, Duchess Henrietta, and Captain Murray directly. Now shoo!"

The four of them fled out the door and closed it. The twins hurried ahead, exchanging ideas in "twin" about what might happen and what they could do to help. They didn't notice that Eugenia and Jason had lagged behind, mainly because Genie had stepped in front of him and stopped moving.

"So tell me Jason, I hear you got here rather early today. What were you and the girls doing?" She was proud of herself. She'd used every trick of expression she'd been taught to put him at ease and get him to answer before he could think.

"Oh that. We were practicing kissing. Yoko and I that is. Hibiki and I decided that since we did it last night, it was Yoko's turn this morning. Biki was listening at the door to make sure than nobody walked in on us. That's beca...."

Anything else he might have said was muffled as the twins tackled him to the floor and put all four of their hands over his mouth.

Eugenia smirked at them. "I see. I see. Children nowadays can certainly be precocious. Well, well."

Leaving the others in a pile on the floor, she ambled downstairs, then into the kitchen, and told Cook that Blair had said that the four of them could ask for a snack.