#90% of them are ariadne of course but there are some that she's not in

[voluptuarian]

Somehow I never watched the Jim Henson's Storyteller series as a kid (considering I did most the other fairy tale and myth productions of the 90s idk how I managed that) but the other day I saw their Greek Myths series was on Tubi now, and I'd heard good things about it and was in the mood for some mythology-based media that didn't just suck, so I gave it a try-- I had decent expectations, especially for the creature effects since this was a Jim Henson production. However, I did not expect, at this jaded stage of my life, to come out hugely impressed and passionately singing this series' praises. Also I am very unhappy that they only made one season of the myths series, I want more!

It's an older series of course and a modest production, both in budget and scale and while it doesn't shy away from that it's very visually pleasing for what it is. They have a frame story where the narrator tells the myth to the audience, hearkening back to events that might have happened in a distant mythic past, which is represented by a fairly faithful mix of Bronze Age and Archaic fashion and architecture, complete with long curly wigs and eyeliner on the guys (always love when a production is willing to Commit.) They are surprisingly open about the darker aspects of the stories, but usually include them in a way where only a more sophisticated audience will get it, so they can just pass over the heads of little kids which I thought was very clever. Also frequently they can only fit part of a character's story in due to the limited run time of the episode, but they always do a nice job of either going "and then x character had many more adventures" or implying the direction that their path would eventually lead them on. There's also a lot of filling in between the lines in this series, especially in depicting character's motivations, which is always well done; Ariadne for example, is aware of the Minotaur, and shows both affection as well as embarrassment towards him, and that is reflected in her motivations for helping Theseus as well as her feelings about things afterwards.

But the thing that won me about this show, which is kind of nuts since I was just complaining about it, is that the people in charge of adapting these stories were clearly familiar with and had a good understanding of the myths, what they meant, and about the history that went with them. This is obvious not only in their adaptation choices, but in the little details they put in! First episode got on my good side immediately by introducing Medusa not with the Ovid-brand backstory but as a bonafide monster complete with wings AND including her sisters 👏👏 The second episode is Orpheus and Eurydice and does a lovely job representing the agricultural and ecological aspect of ancient religions, and as the Thracians begin a celebratory dance to welcome in the spring, Persephone can be glimpsed winding through the dancers, the literal personification of spring arriving, which I thought was so beautifully done! And then later in the episode, Orpheus is playing for Hades and Persephone; Hades is unmoved, but Persephone is deeply affected and decides to plead for Orpheus herself and as she is entreating Hades, drops to the floor of the hall and pounds on the ground with her hand-- to make her speaking to Hades a formal plea, they had her take on the role of a supplicant and use the actual gestures people used when making offerings or prayers to him. Almost nobody watching this show is going to catch that or understand its significance (certainly not the children that are going to make up the biggest part of its audience), most people making a myth adaptation wouldn't even know about it, yet somebody on this production not only knew about it but thought it was important enough an element that they included it! The inclusion of that insignificant little detail absolutely sold me on this series and is indicative of an overall understanding of the material and detailed approach to adapting it that I've rarely seen anything come close to.

So, I absolutely recommend this series-- it's on Tubi and Prime right now, and someone's uploaded them all together on Youtube as well so if you somehow haven't seen it before now do yourself a favor!

[geohenley]

AIYSHA HART as ARIADNE — Atlantis, 2x13 “The Queen Must Die”

[roosterbox]

Inceptiversary Day Six: A headcanon about the dreamshare team.

@inception30daychallenge

Hmm. How about this: Karaoke Night.

Dom only sings when he’s drunk, and he has a soft spot for 80s torch songs. Also an unexpectedly soulful voice.

Eames loves 70s punk, but he’s not above a little 90s britpop. And the night is never complete until he belts out at least one epic love song for… someone. (someone = Arthur, of course)

Arthur, if Ariadne twists his arm, is incredible at Emo classics of the early 2000s. Like move over, Gerard Way. He loves classic rock, though his favorites tend to be outside his vocal range. He’ll still try his best.

Ariadne does teen pop. Like, any and all. And she goes ALL OUT. Tales and legends are still told amongst the crew of the night she performed her solo rendition of Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), complete with dance moves. And, unlike Dom, she didn’t even have to get drunk to do it.

Yusuf is too shy to sing most of the time. But he’ll bust out a Beatles song once in a while. He likes Paul’s songs best, but his singing voice is pure George.

Saito is a pure 50s style crooner. His Elvis is legendary, and his Roy Orbison is a stone cold killer. Many a drink has been sent his way after a performance.

And, if you want to include him, Robert also loves doing 90s britpop. In fact, he and Eames used to enjoy duetting on a few songs. But then, some fool (it was Cobb) made the mistake of asking them who the best band from that period was. As soon as Robert said the word Oasis, it seemed that their duet days were over. (the correct answer, according to Eames, is the Stone Roses btw)

[thetypedwriter]

Chain of Iron Book Review

Chain of Iron Book Review by Cassandra Clare 

You know, I was actually really irritated when this book came out because once again, the Dark Artifices seems to be shafted for this new series (that nobody asked for) to shine, but fortunately I wasn’t as bothered by it as I predicted I would be. 

In case you are in the small minority of people who haven’t heard of Cassandra Clare and her millions of Shadowhunter books, Chain of Iron is the next nephilim installment in Clare’s never-ending series. 

Chain of Iron is the sequel to Chain of Gold, and the series as a whole is a sequel to the Infernal Devices series, but a prequel to the original Mortal Instruments as well as the Dark Artifices which is the sequel series to the Mortal Instruments. 

I would be surprised if you weren’t baffled right now. 

I’ve said this before for other Shadowhunter installments, but these books are not user friendly for new folk. You genuinely need to have read the other series to get full enjoyment and understanding of these books.

 If you do read them without having read the others, I'm sure it would still be enjoyable to a certain extent, but a large case of ensemble character and relationships will be lost to you and a big portion of these novels are the relationships within them. 

To delve right in, Chain of Iron has our main cast of friendly teenagers nicknamed the Merry Thieves (which I just abhor, sorry, not sorry) return from Chain of Gold after fighting one of the princes of Hell, Belial, and now with Cordelia and James being married as to avoid a scandal of Cordelia’s reputation and James’ criminal record. 

In addition, there is a new serial killer on the loose murdering shadowhunters at dawn and stealing their runes. Most of the book is dealt with trying to catch the culprit, the Consul and Inquisitor along with the whole of adult shadowhunter authority being inconsequential and inept as usual (how these people became parents are beyond me as they never have any sort of clue what their children get up to) along with side plots including raising Jesse Blackthorn from the dead and romance galore in typical Clare fashion that makes you want to rip your hair out because if everyone just communicated and was honest there would be no issues. 

The beginning of the novel is molasses slow.

I’ve come to expect this with Clare’s books. Actually, I think I’ve figured out the formula entirely. Here is is:

Mostly nothing of consequence happens for nearly 400 pages except for character building and small instances of plot 

Intersperse some random demon attacks for flavor 

Everyone is beautiful, everyone is in love, and love is the most groundbreaking, earth shattering thing in existence 

Get into the last 200ish pages and shit hits the fan with action, misunderstandings, and confessions 

Nobody is honest with anybody and lying is commonplace

End the behemoth on a cliffhanger so that the audience is kept in suspenseful anxiety until the next installment 

You can’t see me, but I am bowing right now. 

Genuinely, that is how 90% of Clare’s novels pan out. Obviously, as she has a very successful and long-running book series, the formula works. 

That being said, there are some vices and virtues to it. 

For this book, the beginning was slow. Almost nothing of significance happens for most of it and it's a dredge to get through. 

However, it’s mundane to get through in the same way that reading fanfiction of your favorite characters is mundane. What Clare does for 400 pieces of paper is build up her characters and their relationships. Normally, you would do this interspersed with plot, but not in this case. 

It’s not very conventional, but it kinda works?

I definitely struggled connecting with the characters from this series more than any other of Clare’s novels. The Mortal Instruments, as the original, were beloved if a little cheesy. Then came the Infernal Devices with witty Will, soulful Jem, and intelligent Tessa. Then we got the Dark Artifices, which to me, is still the best as Julian, Emma, Mark, Christina and the others are the most flawed in any of the series and I enjoy that. 

I enjoy that they’re not perfect, I enjoy that they’re devious and conniving. It makes them more interesting and more worthwhile to read about. 

Instead, the main characters in Chain of Iron and the subsequent series are mainly James, Cordelia, Matthew, and sometimes Lucie. I would argue that no one else matters in the book and are just added in for some sugar, spice, and everything nice. 

Some of you might be outraged at this statement. What about Grace? You might say. Or Jesse? Or Thomas, Christopher, Alistair, Ariadne or Anna?

They don’t matter. 

They matter in a very small, plot convenience, fluff ensues kind of way, but not really in any way of substance. Or, at the very least, that’s how I feel. 

Anna is just there to be cool, Thomas is a gay gentle giant with literally no personality, Christopher is so basic and is essentially the Trader Joe’s version of Henry who was better and more interesting as the first, Alistair is a redeemed bully, and Ariadne is an orphan who loves Anna. 

The end. 

Once again, sometimes Clare bites off more than she can chew and I wonder if she just throws these characters in there just because it makes her happy. 

As for our main protagonists, they’re mediocre. Matthew is definitely the most interesting in the bunch and I was jubilant to see him get more screen time this time around. The increasing realization of his alcohol abuse, his feelings for Cordelia, his nonplussed attitude. 

All of it is intriguing. I still don’t like him as much as other protagonists from other installments, but he is by far the winner of this triad. 

James is too perfect, too beautiful, and a worse version of his father. If I wanted more Will I would have turned to fanfiction of the Infernal Devices instead of imagining up his son. The only interesting thing about James is his demon connection which is not even something he does, but rather something that is done to him. 

Cordelia is banal. Once again, she’s too perfect, too brave, and too kind. Literally nothing is wrong with her. She’s level headed, intelligent, forgiving, and fierce. 

Basically, she’s boring to the brim. 

I do think Clare did a better job this time around to include more of Cordelia’s Persian heritage, but it still mainly fell to the backburner of her lackluster and blank personality. In fact, I think James made more of an effort for Persian food and culture than Cordelia did, but I digress. 

Also, a small note, but still with weight, why does Cordelia have eight names??

It bugs the living daylights out of me that in a single sentence she will be called Cordelia, Layla and Daisy. 

Clare. Give the girl one name. My god. 

Actually, as a side note to this side note, Clare is talented at many things, but nicknames are not one of them. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THIS NOVEL has a nickname and all of them are horrible. I have never in my entire life known a Matthew that has gone by the nickname Math. 

What. In. The. World. 

Anyways, the only other character of note is Lucie. I like and dislike Lucie. Lucie is also boring and her novelist passion is aggravating to me. However, I did like her turn with necromancy and her increasing desperation to save Jesse that drives her to work with Grace and lie to her friends and family was a much-needed note of interest. 

Overall, this book did make me like the characters more than I did in Chain of Gold, but it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get there, more than what I think should have been afforded. If you need to kill 400 trees in order to make me like your main characters, that’s a problem. 

Whatever the method, I do care about them more than I did previously so I suppose mission accomplished. I do think some of the strongest relationships in the book are the romances, but then also the parabatai bond between Matthew and James. 

Matthew and James have one of the best relationships in the book and I’m equally frustrated and intrigued how things will play out with Matthew now having confessed his feelings for Cordelia. 

I do feel like female parabatai get shafted in a lot of Clare’s novels compared to the boys. The coed pairs often do well like Clary and Simon or Emma and Julian. Otherwise, the boys far outrank the girls in terms of bond and friendship. 

Even in this novel, the “friendship” between Lucie and Cordelia is laughable. They barely talk to each other or spend time together and when they do is shallow.  Whereas Matthew and James seem much more involved in each other’s lives. 

That being said, if you noticed I didn’t speak much of the plot it’s because for me plot comes very much second in a Shadowhudenter novel. It’s there of course, and it’s entertaining, but I do enjoy the characters and their relationships more than anything else which makes Chain of Iron  better than its predecessor but still worse in my view than any other of Clare’s novels. 

Plot just doesn’t compare to the soul crushing love and friendships shown between the pages, for better or for worse. 

Recommendation: The Dark Artifices > Infernal Devices > The Mortal Instruments ...and  The Last Hours fall somewhere after the Mortal Instruments and the trillions of side novels that Clare has co-written with other authors and all seem to be about Magnus Bane.

Score: 7/10 

[ariadnelives]

Chapter 7 -- The Nightmare

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3]

“I hate this lady so much,” Pilar practically snarled as she adjusted the ship's course. “Was she ever young, do you think?”

“Nah,” Ariadne said from the passenger seat, trying in vain to get a spoon to stick to her nose, “I feel like she's probably been an unpleasant old crone forever.”

“She was probably already on Calisto when they got there and they just built the bio-dome around her stupid rocking chair.”

The Jovian moon Calisto was now within visual range, and the rest of the viewport was filled with yellow and orange swirls. No matter how many operations they ran through the colonial moons, they never quite got used to the scale of a gas giant. Jupiter and Saturn took their breath away every time they looked at them. Something primal and hard-coded into their DNA told them that this was not something they were meant to see, and yet, here they were, a stone's throw from Jupiter.

The ship pulled closer to Calisto and Ariadne abandoned her spoon effort to pull out fake IDs to get into the bio-dome.

They got into the dome without incident, found a small garage to park in, and gave an almost comically large tip to the downtrodden-looking lot attendant.

La Pesadilla's high-rise apartment was at the top of a building whose elevator was constantly broken. While a woman of her means would be able to have it fixed, she liked that it was broken because it meant anyone who wanted to visit her would have to take the stairs.

Ariadne quickly repaired the electromagnets, actually making the elevator much faster than it was before it had broken, and wrote “HA” on the “Out of Order” sign. They were at her door in seconds.

La Pesadilla answered and, like Jupiter, her appearance never ceased to shock Ariadne and Pilar. At a glance, one might guess she was 90 years old. Her skin was eerily reminiscent to a well-worn catcher's mitt both in texture and coloration. Her expression was about as friendly as a large-mouth grouper, and under her tattered bathrobe was an inexplicable t-shirt depicting what appeared to be a zebra wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar. Whether she wore pants under the bathrobe was up for speculation.

She walked with a cane, even though she did not need one, simply because she liked to jab it at people when speaking.

“You didn't fix my elevator, did you?” she more snarled than said.

“Nope,” Ariadne lied.

“Good, I like it broken,” La Pesadilla grumbled, “makes it harder for people to drop by and ask me favors.”

There was a moment of silence in the hall as Pilar and Ariadne struggled to find the words to respond to this statement.

“Well, come in if you're coming in,” she said, gesturing into the apartment with her cane, “I pay to air condition the inside of the apartment, not the hallway. Every second this door is open is a waste of my money.”

Ariadne and Spacebreather, still at a loss for response, stepped into La Pesadilla's apartment.

The place was decorated like a family-style restaurant, which is to say, the walls were covered with hundreds of curios, oddities, and other units of nonsense which begged the question, “what exactly is the difference between vintage collectibles and old garbage?”

Two other women sat on an overstuffed couch in the corner, their focus divided between small information terminals affixed to the armrests and a holographic table at the center of the room playing an old rerun of Val Deimos, P.I. at an almost obscenely loud volume.

“Balotelli's cheating on his wife again,” said the one on the left, a relaxed-looking black woman of approximately 70 with wraparound sunglasses (worn indoors for reasons that were known only to her) and a blue-and-purple sweater knitted to look like a particularly starry galaxy that Ariadne thought might be subtly swirling and twinkling. “How much do you think he'll pay us to keep it under wraps this time?”

“No dice,” replied the one on the right, a strong-jawed white woman of perhaps 65, wearing a tank top, cargo pants, and combat boots with an iron-gray buzz cut. With one hand, she rapidly tapped on her terminal. With the other, she repeatedly lifted a rather heavy hand weight. She did not seem to break eye contact at any point with the flickering rerun streaming on the surface of the coffee table. “His wife knows. Hired a private dick to tail them last week. Tried to have 'em whacked but lost her nerve at the last second.”

“Do we have the records?” Galaxy-sweater asked.

“I have the contract here,” Tank-top replied.

“We double down. He's up for reelection in May, and I'm sure neither of them wants the scandal breaking in April. Probably pay a pretty penny to keep it under wraps.”

“Sex, betrayal, and intrigue?” Tank-top asked. “This sounds like a pretty valuable story. It'd be a shame if some reporter outbid them for it.”

“Oh my god,” Ariadne cut in, “do you always talk in clichéd banter or is this for our benefit?”

Tank-top stopped her arm curls for half a second and then continued. Galaxy-sweater raised an eyebrow at her.

“Who's this lunchbox?” Galaxy-sweater asked in a derisive way that seemed to be second nature to mean old ladies and made even the most baffling of insults seem to make sense.

“This is that brat I was telling you about,” La Pesadilla growled.

Tank-top did not look away from her television program. “The one who always fixes the elevator?”

“I think so,” La Pesadilla grumbled. She wandered into the kitchen but continued speaking, incrementally increasing the volume of her voice so she could still be heard. “Her name starts with an A, and her wife here is named after … I don't know, some kind of rice dish.”

Pilar pondered this for a moment and resolved to ask Cookie about it later on.

“Shoot, hope that elevator is fixed.” Galaxy-sweater smiled, “I got bad knees and shit to do.”

La Pesadilla returned with two brightly colored plastic cups, filled with a cloudy yellow substance. She practically shoved these into the hands of her guests with a grunt.

“What do… what is…” Ariadne was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She was barely reaching adulthood herself and she still had very little experience in the department of respecting her elders. She suspected that perhaps sixty percent of the people in the room were not acting as they should, but she was unsure of where she fell in that ratio.

“It's lemonade.” La Pesadilla removed a smallish disc-shaped tin from her bathrobe pocket, pulled out a handful of leaves, jammed them into her cheek, and began chewing them. “You're kids, you drink lemonade. You're in my house, I offer you a drink. The elevator's out of order, you take the fucking stairs instead of trying to fix it. There's rules to this sort of thing.”

“I said I didn't fix your elevator,” Ariadne stammered.

“You always say that.” La Pesadilla rolled her eyes. “What do you want? You're talking through our program.” She gestured at the hologram. The show was popular enough that Pilar had seen this particular episode several times with her parents, and since she had not had parents in approximately a decade, it was a safe bet it was not their first viewing.

“You could always pause it while we conduct our business,” Pilar offered in a tone she hoped would come across as helpful. She took a polite sip of her lemonade, which had no ice and seemed to be little more than powdered mix stirred into room-temperature tap water.

“You could've shown up on the hour, like a normal person, so you don't interrupt the last five minutes of my show.” La Pesadilla slumped into an old, heavily-patched recliner, searched for a small metal jar, and spat the leaves out into it. “So, spit it out.”

Galaxy-sweater let out a small “heh” at her phrasing.

“Why do you come here and bother me again?”

Ariadne finally seemed to find her voice. “We're looking for information.”

“Well, you've come to the right place,” Tank-top grunted, somehow still lifting her weight, “we've got all of it.”

“The Red God cult that's formed on Mars in the last year or so. We need to know everything we can about them.”

“What do we get?” La Pesadilla asked. “I mean, you're asking me to do the opposite of my job here. People pay me to keep their secrets. If I tell you about these guys, I ain't got no leverage on 'em, can't charge 'em for my services, feel? If I'm gonna spill the beans, I gotta know it's worth more than keeping my mouth shut.”

“Cut the crap,” Pilar said simply, “money is no object to us, and I think you'll be pleased with the amount we've deposited in your account as an act of good faith.”

La Pesadilla tapped at her display and raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Well, I'll be damned.”

“You'll get the other half when we have our information,” Pilar said.

La Pesadilla looked at Galaxy-sweater and nodded.

“Think we got something on them.” Galaxy-sweater said, tapping away on her own display. “Yeah, their leader's this fancy scientist turned whacked-out bible nut, calls himself the Zealot.”

“Real original nickname,” Tank-top added.

“Got into some real shady shit.” Galaxy-sweater furrowed her brow at the display. “We got our hands on a few black market ledgers about 20 years back, and the shit he was buying? Banned on just about every rock in the system.”

“Why would someone selling illegal goods on the black market keep a ledger of their customers?” Ariadne wondered out loud. Galaxy-sweater looked at her flatly and gestured vaguely at the blackmail operation they were currently sitting in the middle of. Ariadne took a sip of her lemonade. “I see.”

“You said 20 years ago?” Pilar looked confused. “These guys have only been operating for the past year, year and a half.”

“Nah,” La Pesadilla grunted, “they been around longer'n you kids have been alive. The Red God stuff is new. They used to walk around the moons, door to door, saying that the Earth was a New Sodom that was to be destroyed due to its sin and heresy and that the only way to be sure Jesus would spare the rest of the system was to join their church.”

“Or make a donation,” Tank-top said.

“Course, the day they predicted came and went.” Galaxy-sweater chuckled. “The Earth was still there. Then that happened, oh, five or six more times before everyone stopped giving them the time of day.”

“Buncha idjits,” La Pesadilla mumbled, “Jesus don't need our money, and he's got a whole universe to run. He doesn't go around blowing up planets because some people didn't pray right. All he cares about is if you're a good person. He don't even care if you believe in him if you ask me, just live your life best you can and he won't bother you.”

“Like bees?” Galaxy-sweater asked, smirking.

“Exactly, like bees. You don't bother him, he don't bother you.”

Ariadne thought this moralizing was rich coming from a professional blackmailer, and she couldn't help but think she'd been given the same advice about what to do when you encounter a swarm of bees, but she bit her tongue to avoid starting another tangent.

La Pesadilla took a sip from a nearby mug that seemed to be full of red wine. “Anyway, nobody bought his end-is-nigh crock and, last I heard, he was a pretty sick fucker. He bought a bunch of illegal shit and went underground. Nobody heard from them for a while, and they came back with a new god and a shiny new preacher. Little white girl, 'bout your age.”

Ariadne scowled. “Not even close.”

La Pesadilla matched her scowl. “Kid, if we're talking years, I'm easily five of you. You both got all your original teeth? You're the same age, far as I'm concerned.”

“What exactly did he buy?” Pilar attempted to break the tension. She, at times, was confused by Ariadne's talent for locking horns with grumpy older women, but suspected this was a deeper issue than they had time to unpack at the moment.

Galaxy-sweater looked at her screen. “We got three Cortex brand neural implants. Those things were all the rage back in the 90s, companies used to get them for all the employees so memos would go right to their brain.”

Tank-top laughed slightly. “Yeah, but they got banned pretty quick.”

La Pesadilla took another sip of mug-wine. “Security risk… a lot of bosses got caught snooping in their employee's thoughts. There was one big scandal where a manager tried to increase productivity by planting thoughts in his employees heads while they slept. An entire office working 16-hour shifts and sleeping at their desks because their brain was telling them 'if I stop working I'll die, if I ask for overtime I'll die, if I make a mistake I'll die.'”

“Yikes,” Ariadne concluded. “Go on, what else?”

“Blueprints for immersion pod,” Galaxy-sweater  explained, “That's a VR capsule that uses the brain's visualization center as a processor to create realistic simulations of pre-programmed scenarios. Originally designed for video gaming, scrapped because every focus tester who attempted to play a children's shoot-em-up game had to be treated for very real PTSD, and made illegal after the prototypes were found being used as training simulators for a radical Earth-based supremacist paramilitary corps.”

“I'm sensing a theme here,” Pilar chimed in.

“Here's where it gets really interesting,” Galaxy-sweater said, pointing at the screen, “he bought up a bunch of medical equipment. Machines for growing and implanting new organs.”

“Shouldn't need that,” Tank-top piped up, still watching her show but seeming to slow down on the weights. “I know he was sick, but if he needed a transplant he could get one at any hospital and be home for supper.”

“Could've been for implanting the Cortex device,” Ariadne suggested.

“Could be,” La Pesadilla said. “We ain't here to speculate, we just give you the information.”

“Aaaaand,” Galaxy-sweater reached the end of her list, “one Quantum Shift Generator. Weird little devices, designed for the Shop-n-Go corporation. They had this idea for expanding to the colonial moons that they could just build a single store interior which all of their storefronts would lead into, that way they could have a dozen stores in a bio-dome but only pay one set of overworked employees.”

“Wonder why that got banned.” Ariadne smirked.

“If you're thinkin' it's some worker's rights whatever, you're wrong,” La Pesadilla grumbled, pouring herself another mug of wine from a bottle that had been conveniently located next to the mug on the table. “It's because all the exterior doors led to the same interior, but they ain't give you the same courtesy on the way out.”

“What she's trying to say,” Tank-top said, placing her weight on the ground and reaching for a nearby bottle of water, “is that people would attempt to leave the store only to find themselves coming out of the wrong one. You could end up 15 miles across town in the 40 seconds it took you to buy an iced tea and a candy bar.”

“Would've made a great public transit system if there was some way to predict which storefront you'd come out of,” Galaxy-sweater offered.

“That's all we've got,” La Pesadilla said. “Where's the rest of my money?”

“Now, hang on,” Galaxy-sweater said, easing herself off the couch, “these girls paid good money and we have got one more thing. Been meaning to get rid of it anyway.”

She ambled over to a bookshelf, grabbed a small, shabby-looking paperback, ripped the back cover clean off, and handed it to Ariadne. “They dropped this in our mailslot back when they were still pretending to be Christian. Got a picture of the Zealot on the back. Might help.”

La Pesadilla jabbed her cane towards the closed door. “Now, get out of my house and put that money in my account.”

Ariadne and Pilar put down their half-finished lemonades, more than glad to not have to finish drinking them, and walked towards the door. As they exited, they heard La Pesadilla mumble, “and so help me if that elevator is working.” The door closed behind them and they immediately heard it lock.

In the elevator ride down to the first floor, Ariadne looked at the laminated cover she'd been handed. The photograph was of a white man, perhaps in his 40s, with squinting, intense eyes, a full but neatly trimmed gray beard, a straight, pointed nose, and a wide-brimmed black hat.

She felt uneasy and turned the book over. Something about him, something she couldn't quite place but knew very few others would see, hit upsettingly close to home. She didn't look at it again for the rest of the trip back.