August 20th, 2025 – New York City
The man standing across from the theater is wearing nice clothes and seems to be examining the building, looking towards the floor the party is on. Emma sees the man as a magnesium-flare of life compared to the candleflame of the average person. Daphne sees the man glad in golden fae armor. Jamie recognizes him as the man who slaughtered the commune he had been studying across the veil. The man sees Jamie watching from the window, mouths the words “I see you…” him, and vanishes. The party concludes he must’ve stepped into the world of the dead much like Jamie. The party debates the merits of pursuing him to ask questions.
After several lines of research, the party finds out that the proprietor of a bookstore in One Eyed Cat lane is about as much of an expert on the fae as can be found, and they introduce themselves to him. The party’s internal chat and conversation with Dr. Pickens reveals some information:
- It’s possible that Seamus was “awakened” by the presumed Daughter of Winter when she was attacked and killed in Las Vegas.
- The “Daughters” aren’t traditionally meant to have Knights. The fact that Seamus is attached to Daphne somehow could be perceived as a threat to the Queens.
- The man outside is very likely the Knight of Summer, Queen Titania’s enforcer. Much like the Winter Knight, they’re typically not sent to negotiate with people.
- Dr. Pickens’ relationship with the fae began during a botched summoning where he accidentally summoned Queen Mab – which gave him enough information to build an academic career enhancing with evidence from the world.
Meanwhile, Hugo has left The Castle and gone to the pier for a walk and a coffee. Someone has written “you are being watched” at the bottom of his cup, and he heads back to the coffee shop to figure out who – going so far as to reversing time ten minutes to see if he can catch the person in the act. As it turns out, the cup was written on sometime during its packaging (almost certainly implicating Jones).
Hugo does, however, identify someone following him. He chases the man down, drags him into an alley and disarms him. The man informs him that he works in intelligence and operates out of the FBI field office in Lower Manhattan. He and his partners were given instructions to monitor the movements of anyone in the party if they left the theater and there is a strong implication that Jones or Jones’ superiors are calling the shots.
As Hugo attempts to perp-walk the man through Hell’s Kitchen, a pair of armored Suburbans pull up and disgorge a number of armed agents in suits. They tell Hugo that they’ve been told to avoid conflict with the party, but can’t allow him to kidnap one of their agents.
The locals have obviously called the police, as the sounds of sirens increase, drawing attention from the rest of the party back at the theater.
Margaret decided to head over to the local bookstore to see if she could find any books with useful information. Emma joined her, and, for some reason Seamus. It seemed he had decided they needed someone to watch their backs. Her first reaction was that it was some kind of macho bollocks. Her second reaction was that neither she nor Emma were really any good at fighting, so if they were to run into trouble, having Seamus along would actually be helpful. She really had to start thinking of the world in a different way. It was clearly a more dangerous world than the one she had grown up in.
The store owner did not have any books that would help. He did, however, seem to have at least some knowledge of the sidhe, though he was reluctant to give her any information; he pointed out that she, or rather the vampires in general, were not exactly considered friends of the sidhe.
Then Seamus decided to step in. He invited the store owner to come meet Daphne. Not exactly what Margaret would have done, but since both Summer and Winter now clearly knew where she was staying, she couldn’t see any harm in it either. And it did convince the man to tell them what he knew.
Dr. Pickens clearly knew more than they did. Granted, that did not take much knowledge. But he seemed to be able to tell the group things like Seamus’ heritage; it seemed there was some leprechaun blood in him. That made her laugh; Seamus was somewhat taller than what she would have expected from a leprechaun. Still, dr. Pickens seemed entirely serious, and unless someone with more knowledge said something else, she would believe him.
It seemed that the leprechaun blood had allowed someone to awaken the sidhe side in Seamus. Not Daphne, though. Most likely, it was the girl who had approached him and told him to defend her, before the Division had picked him up.
More important was the fact that the Daughters were not supposed to have Knights. That Daphne now apparently had Seamus might explain why the Summer and the Winter Knights were so interested, and why the Queens might see her as a threat. From what dr. Pickens said, a Daughter having a Knight usually happened when she was preparing to make a bid for one of the thrones.
It was only when they heard the sirens that they realised that Hugo wasn’t there.