Our young Heroine's Origins are revealed

A new figure appeared on the sidewalk.

She was walking toward them with the unhurried grace of someone who had nowhere to be and all day to get there. A woman in her thirties, with a neat bob haircut and far too many crystals hanging from her neck. In one hand, she carried a canvas bag stuffed with what appeared to be dried herbs.

Bill froze.

There was something about her. Something familiar. The way she moved. The way she held her head. The way—

Splock's voice was quiet. "'Wasn't exactly Illyria.' A classic presentation. Like Tesora at Messer Dimitri's ball. The same essence, but in a different body. Clean memory slate. No recollection of previous incarnations."

Bill took a step forward. "Illyria? Is that—"

Splock's hand on his arm stopped him. "She does not know you. She does not know any of us. To approach would be to confuse her and potentially alert the household."

The woman—Illyria-adjacent, Illyria-shaped, Illyria-in-all-but-memory—walked past them without a glance. Her eyes were fixed on the York residence. On something moving in the yard.

Ryder.

The dog had been dozing in a patch of sun, his multicolored fur rising and falling with each labored breath. At the woman's approach, his head lifted. His mismatched eyes focused. His tail began to wag.

He launched himself at her with the enthusiasm of a creature who had never learned restraint.

The woman laughed—a sound that made Bill's chest ache with its familiarity—and bent to pet him. Ryder writhed with joy, pressing his massive body against her legs, leaving streaks of drool on her skirt.

He shook his head.

A spray of saliva arced through the air like a fountain of pestilence. Most of it landed on the grass. Some on the woman's dress. One single, perfectly aimed droplet flew directly into her open mouth.

She gagged.

Coughed.

Made a sound like a drowning cat.

Her eyes rolled up in her head. Her body went rigid. And then, with the slow dignity of a felled tree, she collapsed onto the lawn.

Ryder looked down at her. His tongue emerged. He licked her face. Once. Twice. With increasing enthusiasm.

She did not move.

Ham Duo watched the scene unfold with the expression of a man who had just witnessed something that would require decades of therapy to process.

"The dog," he said slowly, "just killed a psychic with its spit. I have been across the galaxy. I have seen things that would break lesser men. But I have never—" He paused. "That is a new one. Definitely a new one."

The front door burst open again. Karen York flew onto the lawn, her face a mask of maternal panic mixed with suburban horror—the kind of horror that comes from finding dead childcare on your grass.

"Miss Jo! Miss Jo!" She dropped to her knees beside the prone woman, shaking her shoulders with increasing desperation. "Wake up! Please wake up! The children—I have appointments—you can't just—"

Miss Jo did not wake up. Miss Jo was, to use the technical term, extremely deceased.

Karen looked up, wild-eyed, searching for help. For an ambulance. For anyone.

What she got was a old man with a beard that could have nested small birds, shuffling into the yard from the street. He wore what appeared to be a burlap sack with arm holes, and clutched to his chest a wooden model of something that looked vaguely boat-shaped. Tiny carved animals spilled from its interior as he shook it at the sky.

"Forty days and forty nights!" he bellowed. "I warned you! I built the ark! Did you listen? No! You laughed! You pointed! You said 'Crazy old man with a boat fixation'! Well, who's laughing now? The flood is coming! The animals are restless! The—" He noticed the tiny giraffe that had fallen to the ground. "Oh dear."

He bent to retrieve it, nearly toppling over in the process.

Bill watched this with the expression of someone who had long ago given up on understanding anything. "Local crazy," he decided. "Hired by a pet store. Promotional thing. Zoo opening, maybe."

Splock's ears twitched. "I am not certain. The garment appears authentically ancient. The model is consistent with descriptions of the Noah's Ark narrative from Earth's religious texts. It is possible the Historian has extracted another temporal refugee."

"Noah? Like, boat Noah? Animals two-by-two Noah?"

"That is the reference, yes."

"He's real?"

"Apparently."

"And he's here. In Brooklyn. Shouting about floods."

"The Historian's temporal extractions do not appear to follow logical selection criteria."

A sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. The door opened.

Counter-Dirk emerged.

He moved with the calm of a man who had just returned from a successful business meeting and expected the universe to arrange itself around his convenience. His suit was immaculate. His hair was perfect. His expression suggested that finding a dead woman and a ranting prophet on his front lawn was mildly annoying but not outside the range of normal experience.

He surveyed the scene. The body. The prophet. The prophet's scattered animal collection.

"Get rid of this," he said.

It was unclear whether he meant the corpse or the old man. Possibly both.

The sedan's other door opened.

A woman stepped out. Her back was unnaturally straight—the kind of posture achieved only by military cadets, professional dancers, and people who had been assembled in factories. Her chest was... impressive. Also unnaturally straight. It looked less like anatomy and more like architecture, as if someone had attached two cantaloupes to her ribcage and hoped for the best.

Counter-Dirk gestured toward her with the expansive pride of a man presenting a new appliance. "Karen, this is Lisa Roselli. Our new nanny. For Delia and Alexander."

Lisa smiled. It was a smile that had been practiced. Rehearsed. It reached her lips but not her eyes, which remained flat and watchful.