I'm doing my best to hold my shit together, but it's damn hard.  With the manacles apparently keeping my murderous rider in check, I'm not being bolstered by its seemingly unwavering confidence and purpose anymore, so it's just me...but I'm exhausted and starving and terrified and bewildered all at once.

Augusta and Council-bitch banter with the seriously black-haired dude, and clearly there's something I've missed...did this guy bring us here?  And if so how?  But Augusta makes her theory plain with the word 'wish', and while I don't speak whatever language the guy used, the manacles aren't blocking my Aura-sight...there was a serious flare of power at that single word.  Plus, his own aura is weird, beyond the weirdness of ours, it's like he's Johnny Storm or something, surrounded by flame, but not very impressive flame for all that...thin, flickering, and smoky.

"You're an actual Djinn?" I blurt out.  "I thought that was just demons pretending, and that wish stuff was straight-up bullshit?"  Council-bitch looks like all the blood was just Vanished from her face, and her expression is priceless, but I can already see her eyes searching for some advantage.  The man chuckles.

"I have been named such.  And yes, the Fallen have at times masqueraded as my kind.  But the 'wish stuff', as you so eloquently put it, is quite genuine...if frequently misrepresented by mortals and Fallen alike."

"Fine," says Council-bitch.  She waggles her Rambo knife...which should've looked ridiculous but a yard away just looks dangerous...and circles around the card table, backing into the corner of the room opposite the bed I'm sitting on, where she can watch everyone at once.  There's something else odd about this, something about the room, but I can't quite put my finger on it.  "Get on with the disclosure, then," she urges him, deadly tension written all over her body language.

"As you wished," he replies with a small smile and nod, and Council-bitch winces.  "You did not specify duration...had this been a true negotiation you'd have been at my mercy on that point alone.  But as it happens my own interests are served by expediency, so I shan't drag things out.  As you neglected to specify the nature of the disclosure, however, I will explain matters according to dramatic whim, rather than in a strictly chronological order."  He pauses, inviting comment, but no one takes the bait and he continues with a shrug.

"You are here, along with your recent quarry," he says, nodding his head backwards towards me, "because this one-" a nod at Augusta's head, "wished the two of you were present so she could speak with you, and this turned out to be something I could grant.  Likewise her earlier wish to restore volitional control of her head."  As he speaks, he begins, seemingly idly, reassembling Augusta's body on the card table.  The knife-wielding woman takes half a step forward, raising the knife a little, but seems to stop herself, deciding to speak instead.

"And so it just happens, even though you can't Conjure a person that hasn't been Vanished?" protests Council-bitch.  The Djinn nods, with another shrug.  "My skills are not strictly of the Word, but of the Weft.  They are not so broad as yours, but can be leveraged with a sufficiently flexible perspective, and do not share many of the limitations you conceive of as immutable laws."  She frowns at this, but makes no further objection.

"As for 'everything there is to know' about these two...another point on which you would have perished, as a strict accounting would extend far past your probable lifespan...I will instead restrict myself to what I consider relevant to your interests, and you may request elaboration or specific detail if you deem it necessary?"  Council-bitch looks like she ate something rotten, and she seems to be searching his words for traps, but after a moment she nods curtly.  I tense up a little, but then I realize that really Augusta and Selina Kyle both already know all the worst things about myself...though I'm still not anxious to hear them described.

"As part of the search for an explanation for the unprecedented 'contagion' of Fallen influence, you have been looking for a link between these two beyond their seemingly coincidental meeting.  There is, of course, no such contagion, though it was a reasonable conclusion under the quite unusual circumstances.  But there are multiple links between them...if rather well-hidden ones."  By now he's secured Augusta's head, arms and hands in their proper places on her torso, and he gives the key on her back a few quick twists, leaning back and allowing her to begin finishing the remainder of her own reassembly.

My frown at his words is echoed on Ms. Angry-claws' face.  I don't know what she knows, but I can see the thin, subtle taint in Augusta's Aura, and how it's somehow splashing off of the Djinn and myself without adhering, but beginning to slowly collect on the other woman's psyche.

"Um, none of that is right...I never met Augusta before that night at the club, and I mean, I can see Auras, you know, so I know weird things are still going on with the Demon taint, even if I can't explain any of it..."  Council-bitch glances at me in surprise, as does Augusta, pausing in attaching a slippered foot onto her ankle.  The Djinn just nods, smiling.

"You are correct about the taint, though it is not what it had been thought to be.  But I shall get to that."  I hear a growl that for a second makes me think the Council-bitch has turned back into a tiger, but apparently she's just really irritated.  Still, she says nothing, just waving the dagger again.  "You have, however, indeed met 'Augusta' on multiple occasions, though you do not currently remember the earlier meetings, nor does she, fully.  When you were a very young woman, not long past your first flowering, you were induced by a self-styled 'Demon Prince' named Taob into infatuation with one Augusta Constance Klein, though you had developed true feelings towards her before that."

"What?!" I yelp, in unison with Augusta.

"The reason why she does not fully remember this is...involved, though her own attraction towards you is connected," he continues, gesturing towards the clockwork-girl.  "While your own lapsed memory was originally due to a psychological disassociation caused by your involvement in Augusta's death by burning, along with your parents' similar fate.  At the time, you were known by the name 'Viola Juliet Bryce'."  The other women look extremely confused, but I can't really pay attention because of how the world lurched when he said that name.  My name, buried under two separate Cloaks, one thin, one much more substantial.  In my mind's eye, I can see flames, and hear screaming.

"Oh my God, I'm going to be sick," someone says.  I think it's me.  I do feel like throwing up.  But the words sound far away.  Under the relentless mystical pressure of the manacles, I feel a surge of indignant rage, cut through bizarrely with...sorrow?  At the same time, I hear echoes of comforting words, and a beautiful woman in a tattered white shift.  But I can't look at Augusta...after everything I did to her...or before, really...I'd killed her?  Even if Demon taint was involved and none of this makes sense, I'm still drowning in guilt.  I turn away, and my stomach empties over the foot of the bed.

"Resurrection is not possible, unless the death was a Seeming..." I hear the tiger-woman say, warily.

"True enough," confirms the Djinn, "once a soul has fled to its final destination, it cannot be induced to return by any means now available, even mine.  And the young woman's death was entirely natural, and genuine.  But her identity...her knowledge, her memories, her hopes, her dreams...these are echoed in the brain, and recorded much more faithfully in the Annals of the Earth.  There are those with the gifts to read those Annals..."

"Demons," spits the Council woman.  "So, what, she's a fucking zombie?  Bullshit.  No matter how clever they're spelled, Animations can't use magic themselves which she clearly has...and are you fucking serious, where could you possibly have imprinted that?!"  I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and risk a glance back at the rest of the room's occupants.  The Djinn looks disturbingly amused, and the Council woman is pissed as usual.  Augusta must've finished putting herself back together and Quick-changed while I was looking away, as the Council woman's remark seems to be directed at the black body armor Augusta's now wearing, just like in Circe's dungeon.  She's moved over to the bed and is reaching out to comfort me, despite hearing that I'd killed her, her face filled with pity.  I recoil, pushing myself against the wall, even while I desperately wish I could just let her hold me and somehow that would make everything be alright.

"No," says the Djinn.  "She is something much more interesting.  In the strictest possible sense, Augusta Constance Klein is a Cloak.  Not the name, but the woman herself...likely the strongest Cloak ever woven, strong enough to hide her true nature from her own mind, even from the Warp and the Weft itself, wrapped tightly inside the identity of a girl who died young.  And it was woven by Viola, of course."  Augusta is staring at me warily now, her arms lowered.

"You...made me?  Into your dead girlfriend?"  There's such confused hurt in her voice, and eyes, I want to tear my own heart out.  I'd throw up again, but there's nothing left.  "Who was I before?"  I shake my head helplessly, I don't remember doing that, I have no idea what to say.

"Double-bullshit!  No offense, she's tenacious as H-...fuck...but Viola is barely-trained mediocre dinner-theater fodder," growls Council-bitch.

"Why would I take offense at that," I mutter, and for a strange moment Augusta looks like she's going to laugh, but it dies inside her lips.

"How is she supposed to have pulled off this major world-class enchantment, exactly?" continues the woman, without any sign she noticed my aside.  The Djinn grins.

"That is a question I was very much curious about myself, and before your helpful Wish, I might never have discovered the answer.  But to explain sensibly, I will need to introduce one more player in this little drama.  A so-called Duchess of Hell named Gremory.  She was recruited by Taob into his byzantine maneuverings against the late Circe, and so met Viola for the first time, after forcibly restoring her memories.  But it would seem this Fallen did not so enthusiastically embrace her apparent role after the Fall, and often pined for lost communion and the fate of Humanity.  She took pity on the girl and guided her to Cloak herself quite firmly, via her own True Name, once again repressing her traumatic past until she had developed the mental strength to withstand it."  Council-bitch looks like she's going to object again, but waits, glowering, and the Djinn nods approvingly.  I wonder if I'm supposed to be strong enough to deal with all this now, but I bet instead this just happened early.  Still...I'm not going crazy, so that's something...or at least, not crazy about that.  Augusta is just listening intently, her expression stony, and who can blame her?  God, did I actually over-write someone's identity with Augusta's?  That makes the unforgivable Name-binding seem like giving someone a mild rash...

"The success of this effort gave her an idea, but it would require help.  Taob, who, among other gifts, holds the power to effortlessly impart knowledge unto mortals...and at the extreme limits of his ability, he might teach someone the perfect sounds and cadences of Enochian, the First Words, the language Spoken by God to craft the world.  Plus, of course, a mortal to teach it to, for Fallen cannot use the Word any more than I.  And she would need to be sufficiently pliable to then say only what Gremory wished and no more, for the First Words hold dangerous and irresistible power, a fact this mortal has recently become well-acquainted with."  He looks at me meaningfully, and there's silence for a moment as everyone tries to absorb this.  Council-bitch looks utterly gobsmacked and mouths the word 'bullshit', but without enough conviction to give the denial actual voice.  I'm still confused, but things start falling into place.  The strange incants I've been tossing off, the white-out, turning Circe into a fucking pillar of salt.  I still don't know what any of those words meant, but apparently the Whispers did, and weren't opposed to using them without restraint, and...

"Her strange dream was that she might give some tiny redress to lives and love demolished by Taob's spiteful cruelty, by giving herself up to a dead child's memories, she might recapture something of what she'd thrown away millennia ago.  She was Fallen, of course, so she had no right to expect it to go smoothly, but her plan has worked out surprisingly well so far.  In any case, it would seem, Viola, your guilt is somewhat misplaced.  Your Shaping of 'Augusta' and all that happened since were not violations per se, but rather accepted consequences and acknowledged risks.  Because in the end...and the beginning...she volunteered, of her own free will, out of hope for love.  Restoring those memories is beyond even me, though in the interests of 'full disclosure', I will remove the Block which has bound her memories of Viola."  He says nothing, makes no motion, but Augusta gasps, and looks at me, her eyes filling with tears.

"Oh my God.  Oh my God.  Shadow didn't ask me, he just...Vi...I'm...so sorry..."  She half-reaches for me again, and this time I meet her, taking her hands in mine.

"Fuck.  Let's just...not try to work out who should be more sorry, okay?  Can we just agree that things have been apocalyptically shitty for way too long, and maybe try to move past that somehow?"  Augusta lets out a pitiful half-sob, half-laugh.

"God help me, as fucked up as all this is, I really think I genuinely lov-"  Her hands tighten on mine, and her tremulous smile widens into a grimace, her eyes glazing in shock as she topples forward onto my lap.  Red blood is spilling onto my white clothes from a wound in her right side between two armor plates, and Council-bitch is standing behind her, the black knife dripping more blood onto the already-dingy floor.

"Would you believe, neck-deep in all this bullshit, I nearly missed that this ditz has actually been a fucking demon all along?!"