"Suppose that could be true there already. It wouldn't get talked about so much that people up here have heard."

"Yeah, news travels slow." She shrugs. "I might go there someday, if I get terribly bored and this takes long enough."

"If it takes long enough to make large-scale life plans like moving across a continent, I'll know by then that I can't do it. Should be inside a year at most."

Is there any subject he's avoiding changing back to, probably.

"—right, it's the forties, going to California is a large-scale life plan."

"International flights are trivial where you're from? I guess it does seem like it'll be going that way soon enough."

"Yeah, few hours between here and California."

"Impressive. Really impressive.

You might accidentally pass for cavalier about spending inordinate amounts of effort on random things, if travel's any indication. Though that's not much of an issue, in comparison."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

(Malcolm continues to resolutely not mention the nothing in particular.)

The Behaims have made some arrangements for a Montreal trip, whenever she's ready.

And presently she is ready, either oblivious to or ignoring the nothing in particular.

It will be successfully ignored.

Malcolm checked that it's definitely possible to get boring mundane jobs no questions asked. Once on the other end of the train trip she'll have a list of potential employers where she can basically walk in, if she wants to go that route.

That seems like a reasonable route to go! What sort of boring mundane jobs can she choose from?

Most of it is factory work. Aircraft, ships, tanks, and of course weapons. She could get secretarial work, especially if 2013-era typing skills transfer.

...yeah she's gonna go with secretarial work, she knows how this war goes and she knows she won't be helping it any and she knows Germany is in the wrong but still, better for her conscience.

Some factories are pacifist-compliant. Textiles for uniforms, parachutes, and more than literally zero civilian uses. Food packaging plants.

But staying out of factories might be a historically-validated decision in its own right.

Yes, probably.

Alright, off she goes, then.

It will be completely ordinary, except possibly to people who haven't seen this country in half a decade.

The other preliminary issue was that Montreal has a Lord. It has for a very long time. If she decides not to there's a chance no one would notice and a decent chance no one would care, but it's expected that newcomers visit a Lord to introduce themselves and bring a token gift.

Yeah, she should get around to that, shouldn't she?

...magic blood has the property that it can be divided into different containers and she's been taking good care of Bob. She lost a lot of it when confronting the Charybdis but has since recovered some. So she gets a small, pretty vial, fills It with magic blood, seals it with wax, and...

...where is the Lord?

To the extent he's more in one part of Monteal than another, he's in his temple near the center of the city. An official-looking building with a white stone facade and no mundanely visible indication of exactly what its function is.

When Sadde arrives, she's greeted by a young-looking woman dressed nicely for 1943, but not so different from everyone else that she'd stand out walking down the street. "You must be the new practitioner? I am Hélène, priestess of the Lord of the city. Welcome to Montreal."

"That would be me, and thank you," she says, dipping her head in respect. "...before I go in, I'm curious about the Lord's name—unless it would be disrespectful of me to ask. Everyone just uses his title." She smiles apologetically.

"It's no secret." She smiles, unapolagetically. "Though I'd advise against using it. If you speak his name in his city he will hear you, and the attention of a god is a mixed blessing for most people." She hands Sadde a piece of paper, after jotting down Francois Grave Du Pont. "Some gods might add superfluous syllables after ascending. But everyone's used his title for longer than I've been around so it hardly matters that he didn't."

"I'll remember that. Thank you." And the name is...?

The syllables on the paper. An unremarkable mortal name when he picked it; must've been an awkward early godhood.

It must've.

She thanks the doorkeeper again and proceeds into the temple.

Some of the priests stop milling around doing priestly things to escort her into the Lord's sanctum. The temple is set up with a pretty clear progression of outward to inward. There's no physical presence, but the air feels like it has a kind of gravity that increases as they proceed. When they reach the inside the priests solemnly bow toward an altar and introduce Sadde to the definitely-not-thin air. Still no visible person they're addressing.