After the recording finished—ending with Pel shooting the twEfE in the head—I dismissed the memory with a nod and then turned to face Suisei again.

"Okay…" I said, "so… do you have any advice for me, Mr. Pataphysics?"

Suisei's looked up at the canopy and the dappled light filtering through. His stalk flexed back. "Hijacking others' pataphysics in that way isn't unheard of, but it's generally difficult to pull off, especially on the fly—pun intended."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's a lot like tuning to a radio frequency. As long as you know the frequencies of your favorite channels, tuning in is just a matter of turning the dial. But, if you didn't know the frequency of the channel you wanted to listen to, the only ways to find the channel would be to either check all frequencies one by one until you found the right one, or go ask someone who already knew the station's frequency."

"Let me guess," I said, "the 'frequencies' have something to do with the plexuses?"

"Essentially," Suisei replied. "In order to hijack someone else's threads, you either have to know the configurations they're using in advance, or be brilliant enough or lucky enough to figure it out on the spot, and, speaking from personal experience, that's no walk in the park."

"Then how did she do it?" Ileene said, butting into our conversation. "Or are these hummingbirds—"

"—twEfE," I interjected.

Ileene glared at me, quivering her pink and yellow queues in frustration. "twEfE, whatever." She sighed. "The point is, are they savants or something?"

"You were watching the fight?" I asked.

She nodded. The motion flicked through her two flower-queues.

"If they're that skilled, Ms. Plotsky," Suisei said, "it doesn't bode well for the wyrms. The amount of skill that—"

—But then he paused. A moment later, Suisei chuckled and then laughed and shook his head, flicking his sprout leaves side to side, making a maraca of his body.

"What's so funny?" Mr. Himichi asked.

"It's the oldest mistake in the book," Suisei replied. "Don't be predictable."

"Explain," I said.

"How much do you know about Munine martial art styles?"

I glanced at Mr. Himichi, who stuck out his hands in defeat. "Don't look at me. I chose rock-climbing club over kendo club."

"I know the gist of it," I said, "but go ahead and remind me."

"I don't really know what you guys are talking about," Ileene said.

"Back when samurai needed to have skill with a blade to earn their government pensions," Suisei explained, "Mu was practically carpeted with dojos. Temples, dojos, and hot springs; that was the trifecta. There were a thousand different schools of martial arts, and each one claimed to be the best. In my world's Mu, the dojos included pataphysical techniques."

"Wizard samurai…" I muttered. (Not gonna lie, that was an awesome idea.)

"When I was growing up," Suisei continued, "public spellcasting education followed the seventeenth century Midori-do school. It's what everyone learned, and what most people used in their day-to-day lives. On the other hand, if you signed up for the military, or law enforcement, you had to learn an entirely separate set of techniques. It was mandatory. Can you guess why?"

"Because everyone knew Midori-do, and that made it easy to counter?"

Suisei nodded. "Exactly. Whether it's on the battlefield, or in the streets, only a fool would use the same techniques they taught us in school. It would be like playing Poker while showing everyone else your hand."

"So?" Ileene said.

"One of the issues that came up in the Self-Help Group was that the wyrms only had access to pataphysical abilities of a kinetic nature," Suisei explained. "You must understand: that's an extremely narrow range of abilities."

That brought to mind the time I'd tried to break out of that narrow range, without yet knowing that I was confined to it. The reward for my efforts was throwing myself off the roof and nearly getting killed.

"Yeah," I said, lowering my head in shame, "I… uh… learned that the hard way."

A look of understanding flashed on Mr. Himichi's leaf-bearded face. "Ah, so the twEfE know their enemy to a T," he said. "That's what you're saying."

Suisei nodded, making the leaves atop his stalk bob to and fro. "Precisely."

"Explain," Ileene said.

"The Vyxit have been hunting &alon for a long time, yes?" Mr. Himichi replied.

Ileene nodded. "Yeah."

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"So," he continued, "it's only natural that they'd learn how to counter the wyrms' abilities, especially if the wyrms had a limited inventory of abilities to draw from."

"Alright," I said, "what can I do about this?"

"Polarization, if you can manage it," Suisei replied.

"Wait," Ileene said. "Polarization? Like, polarized light? That sort of polarization?"

"Yes, although pataphysical polarization encompasses frequency variation, in addition to the classic the physicogeometric orientation of—"

"—Ms. Plotsky, how do you know what he's talking about?" Mr. Himichi asked.

"It sounds like technobabble," I said.

Ileene proudly raised her head high. "Shrimp," she said, as if it was obvious.

"Shrimp?" I asked.

"No, not just any shrimp," Ileene said. "Mantis shrimp."

I smiled. "Oh, so this is a marine biology thing?"

She nodded, ruffling her floral queues.

Several of the krummholz had spun their heads around to watch us as we talked.

"As the name suggests, mantis shrimp are a kind of shrimp. Their eyes are their claim to fame; they possess the single most complex eyes in the entire animal kingdom. They're one of the only known organisms that can perceive the polarization of light!"

"Neat," I said.

"They're shrimp," Mr. Himichi said. "Why would they need such fancy equipment?"

"So that they can think less!" Ileene answered. "Not only do their eyes give them the edge when it comes to discriminating between different types of prey and coral and stuff, their eyes are so sophisticated that mantis shrimp don't need to devote that much brain power to making decisions, and can instead invest in responding as quickly and forcefully as possible."

"This sounds violent…" I said.

Ileene nodded. "Oh yes, they're violent little buggers. Incredibly, incredibly violent." She feigned doing fisticuffs. "They can flick out their claws so quickly that it creates cavitation bubbles in the water. The weight of the ocean pressing down on the bubbles causes them to instantly collapse, sending out little shockwaves strong enough to stun or even kill their prey."

"Okay," Mr. Himichi said, "but this still doesn't tell me what polarization is."

"Light is a wave," Ileene explained. "But there are a lot of different directions in which a wave can wave." To illustrate, she stuck out her arm and started waving it up and down, and then from side to side, and then back and forth at an angle. "These are all different ways light can wave, and—unlike us—mantis shrimp can tell the difference!"

"Alright, so, back to my question: what should I do to take advantage of this?"

"Next time you're up against one of the twEfE or any other Vyxit," Suisei said, "summon me. I'll guide you through it."

"Why not do it here?" Ileene asked.

Even I could answer that question. "Because using my powers might attract the anti-virus units that we're currently hiding from."

"Right," Ileene said.

Not long after that, the woodland path led down a hill, winding its way between the massive granite boulders clustered on the slope. While the four of us took the slower, safer route, following the path's warp and weft, the krummholz hopped down the hillside, moving from stone top to stone top.

They quickly reached the bottom, and then spent several frustrated minutes waiting for us, rapidly thumping their feet on the ground.

Finally, we made it to the base of the hill; the krummholz "hupped" in unison, and then our traveling party set out once more.

A while later, Ileene came up beside me, concern slanting her emberglow eyes at an angle.

"I… uh…"

"What is it?" I asked her.

She tugged at one of her flower-petal queues. "I heard you talking to Treefather Night last night."

"You were eavesdropping on me?"

"No," she shook her head, "not intentionally. I was just having trouble sleeping, that's all." She reached out from her robe of pink flowers and autumn leaves and palmed the sides of her head with her hands. "It's like I've got a freaking beach ball for a head. That made it hard for me to get comfortable in my bed."

"I slept in a hammock," I said. "It was really nice."

Ileene stopped in her tracks. I did, too, and immediately turned to face her.

"Dr. Howle… it's just… if you ever need anyone to talk to, I'm here for that. I owe you that much, considering what you did for me."

"Ileene, you don't owe me anything."

She shook her head, flicking her petals through the breeze. "I know what it's like, Dr. Howle. And I know that you know it, because you precipitated it, and then experienced the results right alongside me." She sighed. "In the cult, my world was small. Yes, it was a lie, but it was a beautiful lie, all the same. When you tore down that lie, Angel's breath… that was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me."

I nodded. "I know."

Up ahead, Suisei, Mr. Himichi, and the krummholz were giving Ileene and I a rather grumpy stare.

We picked up the pace and walked up to join them.

"It's gonna be okay, Dr. Howle," Ileene said, softly. "I might not know how or when, but… you'll find a way, because it's what you do. I have faith in that, and in you."

"I wish I shared your confidence."

I kicked a stone off the path.

"Why don't you?" she asked.

"Because," I said, "how can I grow, like Night said, if I don't have truth? I'm sick and tired of walking on guesses. I want a rock to stand on, so that I don't have to worry about slipping."

"You taught me that we can't be given our truth, we have to find it."

"Yeah," I said, "well I wish I knew where to look."

We stopped talking after that. Ileene could tell I was upset, and she was kind enough to leave me to my brooding, as did the rest of the group, at least until the lead krummholz hopped in place, turned around, trumpeted: "Hep hep! Arriving at Day's Glade! Arriving at Day's Glade!"

— — —

In its broad strokes, Day's Glade was a lot like Night's. Like Night's Glade, Day and the two Treefathers with him—named Wind and Sound, as the krummholz told us—were arranged in a triangle at the center of the space. But where Night's Glade was calm and contemplative, Day's was filled with life. Rivers and brooks babbled up and down the Glade, making for a sparse canopy.

It really let the sunshine in.

The fish were silver bullets, drawing through the water. They moved so quickly, you'd think the breeze-shivered reeds were trembling in their wake. Insects buzzed among riparian blossoms, daubing at the waters. Every few seconds, little minnows leapt through the surface tension and splayed their fins to pilot through the air, swallowing berries or bugs before crashing back into the current and disappearing into the shade.

We entered the Glade at the edge of one of the rivers. The krummholz skipped across the water, as if by magic. Of the four of us, only Mr. Himichi showed the slightest interest in trying to do it herself, but, thankfully, we managed to persuade him to play it safe and cross the fallen log's makeshift bridge. The log didn't lead all the way to the other side, but let out onto a small sandbar about two-thirds of the way across the river. A mess of broken tree branches and leaves clogged the section of the river in between the sandbar and the riverbank on the opposite side. Fortunately, our krummholz bodies were light enough that we were able to climb the log without disturbing it. Mr. Himichi helped quite a bit by pointing out we could grab the thicker twigs and use them as grips.

"And people say rock-climbing has no place in modern life," he quipped.

The krummholz waited for us patiently, standing in their usual perfect line, thumping their feet like impatient rabbits.

"Come! Come!" they said.

The Treefathers were waiting.

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