"If Charlie were - but he isn't. And I don't see Renée being very useful here either. I suppose we could tell Trouble."

Robin considers this notion.

"No harm in it," says Ethan. "...Probably."

"Well, I don't know what use he'd be, but one thing I definitely don't expect is for him to decide unauthorized that the situation would be better if forty more people knew about it."

"Yeah, you've got that dead right," Ethan agrees.

"And then he'll know to - I don't know. Avoid that intersection at night? Go looking for that intersection at night? I actually don't know, maybe we'd better not tell him."

"There is that."

"We can tell him, though," says Robin, "if we think of a way it would help. Help what, I don't even know. I just saw some stranger murdered by a, a demon. What's going to help with that?"

"Unless you want to risk explaining to a therapist, I don't really know."

She shudders. "No, thank you."

"Didn't think so. Do you want some meringues? Trouble made, like, ninety of them, there are still most of them around."

She perks up a little. "Don't mind if I do."

Bella goes and gets meringues. She puts them down in the middle of the group.

Robin eats meringues. They seem to be very helpful to her mental state.

Ethan has some, too, occasionally sneaking one right out of Robin's hand while she's not looking.

Bella eats one. She makes incomprehensible notes.

Andi eats meringues and pats Robin on the shoulder occasionally.

"What are you scribbling about?" inquires Ethan.

"The monster. Alien, demon, whatever. Thinking of things it could be and whether there are ways to find out that are relatively safe."

"Any luck?"

"Not really."

"Didn't think so."

"Yeah, I haven't had to figure out anything like this before."

"I bloody hope not," he says dryly.

"No kidding. But - Robin, did this thing look to you like a species? Well-adapted for something, good at moving around, not - sick, asymmetrical?"