#bergen_county

“My da wears them too, when he’s not in an evening gown.” Piper reasons.

A nod, thinking.

"Ah, Mickey has lovely gowns but a bit too glitzy for my tastes"

"And...it doesn't take long to shapeshift, right? Like, it doesn't take a lot of preparation?"

"Well, it's a cantrip, you need a bunk but if you're willing to burn the glamour you can skip that"

“So we just want to ask someone- some.. thing? That knows for sure if it could have been Jonas. Like, maybe he DID find a way back…” Wistful, liking this train of thought better than Siv’s.

Sylvi starts to say something, then stops and starts with something else, "I could go back over and check what I can learn from the balefire right now."

“Does it, like, talk to you?” Curious.

"Wait, Dagmar wanted in on this too. She helped us. Not saying she should use the boon to sense if the whisper is telling the truth, but feels wrong to trot her out then disregard her"

"It's...not quite like that. Not like a voice. It's mostly like...." she searches for the right word.

"It's like a feeling. And sometimes images. I think if I ask for images, I might get more of them."

“Makes me wonder how many freeholders might use their Bales to spy on people.” Piper muses. “Not you, but.. like, there are a lot of nobles I’d not put it past.”

Siv answers "Forgive me love, but if they're not spying on their own demense, they're not doing it right. It's one way to protect the fire itself"

"I mean...it's not spying," she says a bit defensively. "It's more like...like checking in with a partner about what they've been doing."

"How they're feeling, what they need, and so on."

"Important in a relationship" Damn it, Jonas.

Sylvi misses the subtext there, and just nods. "Yeah, like that."

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, Sylvi.” Apologetic. “Any power can be abused, is all. And I guess that’s a risk one takes, like, even AirBnB’s have cameras these days.” A little smile.

Leaning over to give Siv a little arm squeeze. “And spying can be a damn noble profession.”

Siv smirks "I'm your Double Ooh Oh Seven" A wink

“Sylvi, it’s YOUR balefire, at the end of the day. If you want to quiz it alone, I guess I respect that. The important thing is getting an answer, and I don’t know where else to seek this guy. Maybe… I dunno. An omen, or something? Too far back for Chronos… I wish Zane was here, almost, but I don’t know if I could trust him not to tell the fam. We’re tight like that… but he knows more about magic than I’ll ever guess.”

(Okay, Pause with Piper's trust 🙂 )