The little house on the hill is empty as we approach, and it leaves me wondering as to what the theatricality of it all is for.

We’re not entirely unawaited. Outside of the tea house there’s a woman who looks to be in her late twenties or early thirties, a little older than Vonne and a little more humanoid, with her fur blending into russet skin at her upper arms and just above her knees. She’s wearing a wrapped dress of some sort, one that leaves her arms bare from the shoulders down and her legs bare up to about a third of the way up her thighs. The dress is tight enough to make it clear her basic physiognomy is not much different from Vonne’s; lean muscle, mostly, and a distinct lack of any of the curves you’d expect on a human woman. Or an orcish or nephil one, for that matter.

Well, not much different other than her tails. She’s got two of them, to the one that Vonne is displaying, or maybe one tail that splits into two in a way that isn’t quite as topologically reality-defying.

She bows, hands, and unlike Vonne’s they’re distinctly hands, flat at her side. “Magelord, we bid you and your party welcome as our guests,” she says serenely as she rises. “Taveda, you are always a welcome presence in our demesne. Reca, your beauty and strength precede you. Miss Evetheri, it is always an honor to give honor to a generational child; may your genius always open doors, and be assured we make no demands upon you this day.”

I glance to the side, where Vonne is smirking, eyes raised to the sky. “Did you just get snubbed?” I keep my voice to a stage-whisper, and my eyes on the woman greeting us.

“Shh. Don’t embarrass my big sister. This is a big day for her.” Vonne mimics my intonation, snickering. “I’m not one of your companions, so formally I’m just your guide; technically Shalma’s right to ignore me.”

I have to give respect to her; Shalma doesn’t so much as twitch her ears or either of her tails at that. “We are made welcome,” Zidanya says smoothly, stepping forwards. “In this house of earth, this house where dwells the skulk, we rejoice to be welcomed.”

That’s apparently enough, whatever it means, and Shalma turns and starts walking slowly into the little open-structured house, the five of us following in her wake. For some reason I’ve got it in my head that earth and skulk are words for a group of foxes, which I chalk up to Omniglot shenanigans, though actually it’s the kind of thing that I’d have read somewhere. Animal congregations, now with clowders of cats, prickles of porcupines, and parliaments of owls?

The little house, honestly more of an extremely elegant hut, is interesting enough to take my mind off of that. It’s made of a dark, sort of slate-grey wood with the characteristic tiny hints of blue, and how I managed to pick up that tidbit is a mediocre and boring story so I won’t get into it, but unlike the bridge, each plank of wood is set enough apart from the next that you can see through them pretty easily. It’s a lattice, a beautifully polished grey lattice of wood that is the most impractical little house I’ve ever seen; neither privacy nor shelter.

The furnishings are more practical. There’s a long, low table in the center—the red-brown wood that I saw outside, not the grey—with seven settings, lit by seventeen hanging light sources that look like stylized animals made out of paper and densely covered in tiny, intricately detailed logograms that I’m too far away to make out the meanings of. The table is laid perpendicular to our line of approach, with a couple of squat little side tables in a grey a couple shades lighter than the building itself, one on each side and both containing three covered trays.

All seven settings are identical, from what’s on the table to the pillows placed on the floor that we’re clearly expected to sit or kneel at, judging by the woman doing so on the other side of the table. That’s a good sign; or at least, I think it’s a good sign, but it could be some sort of power play, or her making a point of putting herself on the same level as us could be some sort of insult.

There’s four settings on our side of the table, and three settings on the other side, which is unambiguously going to be a challenge of some sort.

For that matter, I’m socially maladroit, but I’m not an idiot, and I spent a remarkable amount of time involved in the closest thing the Spirit had to halls of power. Just because six out of seven of the Leadership Council were sectorally elected representatives didn’t make it any less of a hassle for the notional seventh to do the job and make sure that the necessary steps were taken to avoid everyone dying. Early on, that meant getting rude about it, and weaponizing my pain and anger instead of letting them twist me around their finger using my shame; eventually, it meant learning when it was necessary to smooth ruffled feathers and when it was necessary to ruffle them harder.

Well, I guess technically all seven of us were sectorally elected. I just had a sector of one.

My hand is on Vonne’s shoulder before she finishes taking a step to the side, gripping. I hear the intake of her breath and I feel her tense under me, but that split second is all that my companions need.

“Most gracious,” Amber says over Sara’s and Zidanya’s footsteps. “To seat us as though we are family is a signature honor, and we accept.” Her hand is on Shalma’s shoulder, and she and I wait the few beats necessary for our two companions to make the turn, one crisp and the other casual, before we let go.

And then the woman sitting on the other side of the table smiles, and I experience a whole welter of emotions. “Please, sit,” she says quietly, one hand coming out to sweep the two pillows in front of her.

I wrestle with my feelings as Amber and I settle onto the pillows, and keep wrestling with them as the other four do likewise. I’d been consciously ignoring the woman in the hut, the woman who can’t be anyone but the sed we came here to meet, but that’s blown away like dust in the wind. Mama Vix, Shulemi, whatever other names she has, has a presence that’s tangible, now that she’s turned it on, and it’s a lot more complicated than Lily’s was.

This isn’t just attraction and power and dominance. There’s a little bit of that, and she’s certainly stunning, but it’s far subtler than Lady Sheid’s fusion blast of a style; the only thing they share is their height and their perfect, unselfconscious poise. Lily looks ageless, not exactly like she’s in barely old enough to be settling into a trade but rather like she’s been in that moment for a millennium; Mama Vix looks like she’s got a child the age Lily looks, like she’s looking at her second gigasecond coming up and considering how she wants her third and last to go with an equanimity and joy.

She looks my age, in other words; in our late thirties, by Cadoran years, or at least Iavshetani ones, but with subtle cues that show the additional couple of tens and suggest that the initial evaluation is wrong.

I have a hard time looking anywhere but her smile. Well, that’s not quite true; she’s plump and generously proportioned, and her dress is tight across her chest and both short and cut at the sides to show off her crossed legs. It’s just that I find myself staring, at her thighs and at her breasts, and it’s all I can do to drag my eyes upwards, and then I’m drowning in her smile again. It’s warm and understanding and heartfelt, it makes me feel gratitude and joy and like I’m seen and valued and welcomed. I’m fairly confident that there isn’t any magic involved in it, not even on the level of Lily’s mirroring; this is just body language and a particular kind of beauty, structured around a promise of comfort and understanding rather than just raw power and sexuality.

Well, there might be some magic in it, actually. “I get to wondering, sometimes,” I say quietly, trying my best to keep my voice neutral, “what the name of a particular Skill is. It might be Detect Weakness? It’s a thought that’s come up more often as of late, possibly by coincidence.”

I can hear Vonne’s sharp intake of breath to my right, but Mama Vix just smiles. “You’re a very gratifying young man, Adam, but it doesn’t take magic to hear your stories as the Temple tells them and know what will affect you. Lily might have used Exploit Vulnerability, or whatever variant she’s evolved that into; she never did have the patience to do things properly, when a shortcut was available.”

My shoulders come down, and I force myself to relax the muscles along my sides and legs, letting the anger drain out of me. “I appreciate your candor, but why?”

“Vonne, Shalma.” This is apparently enough instruction for the two of them; they rise gracefully, in almost-unison, and uncover the first tray from each side of the table. There’s a cup on each of them alone, and then two cups together; they put the singleton in front of Zidanya and Sara, and the other two each in front of first myself and Amber and then themselves. I’m about to ask about the lack of Mama Vix’s own cup when I double check, reflexively, and it’s right there, placed perfectly where I should have seen it before and didn’t. “I’m told you don’t drink stimulants, Magelord, and so have very little experience with tea?”

“I’m given to understand,” I say slowly, “that you’ve lived teraseconds, tens of thousands of years. Helped lead a rebellion against demigods. Matriarch, you don’t need to feign deference with me.”

“I suppose I have done those things. Adam.” I force my eyes away from her smile, cataloguing bits and pieces of her… her affect, really; I strongly suspect that she’s enough of a shapeshifter that anything I see is a deliberate construction. She has lightly-furred ears, midnight fur shot through with tiny veins of silver, and that’s the only sign at all of her being anything other than human. Her fingernails and toenails are painted in that same color and pattern, like the galaxy’s splendor against space. “But I won’t take false deference from you, either.”

“Fair enough. Feel free to suggest a name you think is more honest.”

“I could ask you to call me Mama.”

Her smile acquires a teasing edge, and—not for the last time tonight, I suspect—my brain stutters as I mentally reel for balance.