It turns out that the Duchess has been brought to the same hospital as Miles, and is in fact only a few rooms away from him (they're both in the really-bad-bludgeoning-ward). Miles is dreaming. In his dream, his hospital bed is lying in the center of a blasted field, with dying plants around him stretching away to a dim horizon. There is also a hospital chair, and the Seer is sitting on it.
The seer tells him that Miles and his friends have caused a problem with the Seer's plans, but that he is going to use Miles to fix the problem. Miles says no, but the Seer says that as long as Miles wears his mark, he can do whatever he pleases to him. Miles tries to put up a brave front, but doesn't do so well. In the dream his left arm begins to corrupt and fester and break out in scales and writhing tentacles. The seer shows him what will happen: the Queen and everyone will come to the hospital to visit the Duchess, and Miles, his body corrupted into something disgusting and powerful, will kill almost all of them. Miles uses his foretelling powers to see if this is true, and it almost is... except there's something subtly wrong with it.
Meanwhile the Queen's court travels to Boston, where the Queen closets herself with the Duke. Sir Ten is sent for as well and drawn into the consultations, and eventually so is the Countess. When everyone emerges they seem satisfied, but the Countess won't tell Magda what the plan is because she doesn't want to jinx it.
Also meanwhile Desiree scores some drugs from Baron Kenmore's cookie jar (with the assistance of his personal assistant and drug tester who is under the impression that he is a potted plant) and decides to embark on a journey of discovery. She decides to use the drugs to invoke her powers while Milton watches in the hope that he can understand what's going on. They go hide in the steam tunnels near MIT to perform this experiment.
Desiree takes a hallucinigen and flowers start growing from the walls - flowers with Victor's face! They all plead with Desiree, and one of them finally births a real-size Victor. That Victor asks Desiree to do something for him, but Milton shoots him. There's some chaos as Desiree tries to help Victor and Milton tries to prevent the chimera from doing what it wants, which ends when Milton shoots Victor's head off. The subsequent outburst of screaming shadows brings Pricilla and a couple of hacker minions to the scene.
They get from Milton that Desiree's hallucinations are the cause of the chaos and try to duct tape her and tranquilize her, but she merely blinks them to somewhere else through a gate. When Milton tries to get her to duplicate that so that he can retrieve Pricilla, a lot of water is conjured, and in getting rid of it Desiree sweeps Milton away to somewhere as well.
It later turns out that Milton and Pricilla and co. end up at the gate to Arcadia, which is closed to them. So deep in the dreaming, their own innate banality causes things around them to wither and die. Still, it's a marvelous place to be - only a few changelings have even claimed to have been to the gates in hundreds of years. Unfortunately, it means Milton is absent during the excitement that follows.
The Queen takes her court to the hospital. Desiree also arrives, having mostly chilled out, and tries to get Victor to help her retrieve her friends, but he claims not to know where they might have gone. She extracts from him the promise to help after the excitement is done here with the Queen.
Queen Mab has her healer awaken Miles, who awakens, realizes that the Queen is here, starts yelling about how they have to tie him up, then realizes that his left arm is gone, thinks about that for a moment, and collapses into a fit of giggling: "My arm's gone! I'm not going to kill the Queen! That'll show him!" which doesn't let up for the entire rest of the proceedings. He is wheeled in on a chair to the Duchess's room, where she is awakened to hear the Queen's decision.
And quite a decision it is. The Queen declares that the ancient treaties which divided Boston and Cambridge and Harvard and Radcliffe have allowed their enemy to creep in. To prevent this from happening again, the Queen annuls those treaties, declaring that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The counties of Harvard and Radcliffe are united as the county of Radcliffe, under the now Countess. The Count's infidelity during the recent fight with the Duchess causes the Queen to declare that he is not a fit ruler, and he is sent to live out his days on an estate in New York somewhere.
Similarly, the Duchess, whose mind has become unhinged, will be sent away to be cared for and hopefully cured. Duke Ottersblood will act as caretaker of Cambridge, and when he passes on Sir Ten will become Duke of Boston and Cambridge. The Duchess collapses into raving about traitors again and has to be subdued by the healer.
Finally, Magda is asked to lead an attack on the Seer in his tower. Before she can gather her troops, however, Mile's severed arm crawls in, having sprouted some tentacles, and tries to leap on the Queen! It's just an arm, though, and Magda is able to destroy it with her bronze dagger. Interestingly, the corruption was present in both the fae and the mortal seemings of the arm.
Magda then gathers the troops: Sir Ten and six knights for strength, Desiree as a healer, and Miles because he won't be left behind. They go to the court of Radcliffe and assault the tower. Sir Ten blows the door in with a spell, and inside is Forkas, his missing arm replaced with one made of cold iron! Magda and Sir Ten press forward into the tower with the help of some incredible luck on Magda's part. Then Sir Ten hamstrings Forkas, allowing Magda to shatter his arm with the Tenth Child. Bits of cold iron go everywhere, however, killing one knight outright and wounding several others badly. Forkas, however, is stunned, and Magda finishes him off with her bronze blade.
The Seer, meanwhile, is starting to shed his skin, revealing something like a giant slug, covered with little breathing spiracules and tendrils. Sir Ten and Magda leap to catch him, and Miles pronounces a curse: either he (it, really) will die here, or be forever imprisoned beneath the sea with the others. It chooses the sea, apparently, and slithers through a magic window. Miles prevents Magda and Sir Ten from chasing it through the window, which is probably good since it seems to be a portal to the bottom of the Bottomless Ocean. Afterward, Miles and Sir Ten destroy the tower with fire and lightning, and knockers arrive to cover the rubble in bronze. Miles does take the Focus of Ialm, though. Sir Ten is also asked to retrieve Milton with a summoning spell by Desiree, and saying he cannot refuse her anything he does so, getting Milton, Pricilla, and the other hacker back from the deep Dreaming.
Afterward (well, the next day) there is a huge banquet. Queen Mab presents Magda, Desiree, Miles and Milton with Silver Apples, one of the highest honors in the kingdom. The Countess of Radcliffe asks Miles to be the new and hopefully improved Seer, and he humbly accepts. Everyone has a really good time at the party.
Player Notes:
I'm taking suggestions for how Maggie's EP should be spent. Various thoughts:
With Forkas dead, Maggie and her family go back to their house.
She tells them some story about how the stalker was killed when the
police tried to arrest him. Maggie's in a really great mood. She
doesn't even squish Desire for being such a ninny. -MIN