A couple of weeks pass with little event. Magda is recovering from her exposure to the cold-iron-like room at the base. Sir Ten also is recovering, and goes on a week-long trip into the Dreaming. A messenger is sent to Queen Mab to inform her of the whole MIB thing. It becomes the beginning of September, a Friday.
That night Miles goes to Milton and discusses the Sir Ten / Dragon / Madame Lao thing with him. Magda enchants Bill so that she can tell him what really happened to his sister. He takes the enchantment pretty well, remembering his past experience, but the news about Soraya hits him pretty hard. Even after the enchanment wears off he is pretty down.
Saturday Miles and Desiree go for a walk in the Public Garden and listen to Amanda's outrageous swan-boat ride patter, filled with bizzare lies. Magda is also in the area shopping for back-to-school, and Miles and Desiree end up with the children. Magda heads home for a relaxing bath, but is interrupted on the way by a Sidhe fop (Sir George, the Swift!) who has come all the way from Seattle to duel with her. She's pretty short with him and basically tells him to look her up in court and not to bother her when she's busy. He excuses his rude behavior by the fact that she hasn't been in court for a couple of weeks, and promises to challenge her when she goes back to court.
Sunday passes by without so much as a whisper. Monday, Miles, Desiree, and Magda end up at court. Sir George is indeed there and proposes a duel, to which Magda agrees. They set the terms as swords, no magic, and until a physician (Desiree) declares that it is unsafe for one to continue.
Sir George removes his overblown hat and embroidered vest and ties up the sleeves on his ruffled shirt, drawing his rapier. Magda selects a huge two-handed sword larger than her opponent and generally projects an attitude of suffering fools not too gladly. The circle is drawn, and the duel begins.
It soon becomes apparent that Sir George is in fact incredibly swift, at one point running along Magda's blade after she strikes at him and vaulting over her head. He gets first blood, as well, skewering Magda with a blow that would have felled many a Sidhe but to Magda is merely an inconvenience. She bloodies him slightly, and then catches him with a huge blow, ending the fight when Desiree declares that he should not continue. He does not protest, and Desiree patches him and Magda somewhat. Afterwards, Desiree hangs out with him and discovers that the fop exterior is somewhat of an act, and that he really is serious about becoming the best duelist he can. She enjoys his outrageous flattery, which is so overblown as to be both humorous and somewhat disarming. Perhaps she also enjoys dealing with a man who clearly isn't expecting his words to manipulate her.
Miles wanders to Boston and reports what Milton has found about Mr. Lee and the Master to Victor, who doesn't have much to say about it. He seems to be constructing a new story, frankenstein style from tiny fragments of romance novels. More on that later.
On Tuesday, Milton does some hacking and chatting and discovers two
things.
One is that Madame Lao doesn't seem to have existed in San Francisco, her
reported point of origin. The other is that most large cities seem to have
a dragon in Chinatown. There are lots of phone calls, and everyone
speculates wildly about what Victor is up to and what should be done about
it. There is also much speculation on what is up with Harry.
On Wednesday Desiree dines with Harry and fills him in on everyone's suspicions about Madame Lao (although not on the suspicions about Mr. Li.) Harry has a picture of a young Chinese woman who is supposedly the dragon's daughter, but hasn't seen her yet. He is eventually persuaded to push a little for some resolution, and also to pay more attention to the Duchy and a little less to the whole matchmaking thing (although he does consider appeasing the Master to be important to the Duchy). Desiree is especially concerned that everyone in power in the Duchy seems to be distracted - Victor with his book, the Duke brooding about his father (which seems to happen periodically) and Sir Ten with the Master's daughter.
Thursday Miles goes to see Victor to try and read his work-in-progress. Victor reluctantly agrees if Miles will use his Seer powers to help out. It's the first half of a surprisingly good romance-ish novel. In the novel, the evil V. rules over a sort of renaissance town, keeping everyone in terror with his dark magic, when the beautiful D. arrives. He captures her, it's all really bad, but of course her beauty and kindness inspire him to have a change of heart and he reforms, becoming better and happier... well, that's as far as has been written yet. Miles scrys it and finds that it is a big magical ritual, and when it is complete Victor will have reformed himself by magic. If Desiree goes along and accepts the new Victor romantically, then his reformation and happiness will be complete. If she doesn't, he'll plunge back into evil and despair. The ritual doesn't seem to pressure Desiree at all... Miles suggests a few important points for the novel and leaves to consider what this means.
Player Notes: