"The situation is the Duchamps angling for power. It's much too polite and slow-moving to be called a feud, but they've set themselves up as our opponents."

Nicole cuts back in. "Thank you, Laird, I'm sure your description will be taken in the same spirit it was intended.
If you're from here, that's good to hear. Stronger ties to the place, you have more of a stake in what happens here."

"His description is interesting, at the very least," she comments.

"And that would be a part of how it was intended.

You're from Jacob's Bell, but haven't been here before. How did you know to find the meeting place?"

Okay. How to phrase this... she thinks on her feet. "My mum was involved in this somehow, but I don't really know everything about it even now. It's possible she might have been hiding it from my father, but I can't really ask, 'cause whatever it was she was involved in killed her, I'm pretty sure. But what little information I did receive included the usual dates and location for these meetings. I don't know how she would know it, though; she wasn't part of your group here, was she?"

"It's not likely. We haven't lost any members in a long time."

"Yeah," she says, shrugging and looking slightly uncomfortable about having to talk about her dead mother.

In a room full of practitioners and Others, the odds that no one noticed the evasion are...who even knows.

The bulk of the council meeting isn't clearly labeled this way, but it's about anything that touches on the inter-faction balance of power. Any notable Others that have taken up residence near the city. The Behaims having allegedly sent a humanoid plant after some Duchamp practitioners, and the occasional biting of thumbs at each other.

Of the two other practitioners, the Aboriginal woman doesn't seem to acknowledge that anyone else is present, but the older one is following the score.

She's interested in the stuff here, too. What exactly did the Duchamps do, according to the Behaims?

(She also positions herself in the most neutral spot she can find. No use taking implicit sides, and she's sure everyone there will grasp the significance of this.)

They don't go over the backstory, but what seems to be the root of the problem is that there can only be one most powerful family in Jacob's Bell. The Behaims want it to be the Behaims and the Duchamps want it to be the Duchamps. The current grievance is that the Duchamps have been too successful at it lately, where lately is measured in decades.

Once Sadde understands this is what's going on she does not laugh because it is not ridiculous and childish at all.

It is not. Serious!

At least one of the other practitioners in the room thinks it is, but everyone else is ignoring that one and she's ignoring them. So it's unanimous.

Well, it may not be the brightest move to let this opinion be known, so she doesn't. Instead she tries paying more attention to the other participants. Who are they and what do they seem to think?

The practitioners—still just the one exception—think it's serious business. Others pay varying amounts of attention. What agreements the families come to does sometimes influence how much free rein they have and where, so they tend to watch for those cases. The older woman is intensely focused but rarely speaks. The impossibly good-looking people are spectating. As if the event is less important than interesting.

Hmm. Interesting. She figures she'd better pay attention, too, since information seems to be even more important amongst practitioners and Others than in general.

She'll wind up with background information on who's who in Jacob's Bell. The conversation rarely has much to do with the exact abilities of particular Others and humans, let alone their weaknesses, but she might be able to get a sense for who to ask about what classes of problems.

So, what kinds of things do the Duchamps do, then? The Behaims? Is it any clearer than what Johannes said? What about the players Johannes didn't mention, like the old lady or the aboriginal woman or the three gorgeous people?

Aside from their magic specialties, enchantment and chronomancy, the Behaims are the keepers of the status quo and the Duchamps are consummate politicians. To a first approximation, the Behaims are the circle to go to for help if actively threatened by someone or something, and the Duchamps might be a better bet if it's something that can be reasoned with.

The old lady is Rose Thorburn, and the aboriginal woman is called Crone Mara. It's probably not an insult. Practitioners, especially the younger ones, generally stay away from both. There's not a lot of reference to what they do, just the implication that everyone hopes and expects that they won't do it. The three spectators—or at least their most talkative representative, Padriac—disclaim having any agenda to speak of.

...which probably means they have the most agenda of all agendas. Right.

She'll figure this out later. For now, watch and gather whatever information she needs, pretend she is who she's saying she is, etc.

That should be fairly simple, since she is who she's saying she is. It's just a few timeline details, and no one here cares about time.

After the meeting adjourns, the head Duchamp walks over to her neutrally placed seat.
"Sadde, may I speak with you a moment?"

"Naturally," she says, standing up, curiously.

"It's not obvious, if you were trying to keep it a secret; I wouldn't have spotted it if my niece hadn't pointed it out and I doubt anyone else noticed. Your practitioner's sight. You've had it active since you walked in the door. It spanned the meeting; did you intend this?"

"...not exactly. It's been active since this morning and I've been trying to deactivate it without much success," she admits, because she can't think of a way this information could be used against her that wasn't very convoluted (and she spent a good deal of the afternoon trying to think of one).

"If it's stuck it can consume your waking days until you lose your grip on the real world. But if it's just since this morning you probably have time.

I'm bringing this up even though you likely already know because this is an enchantment problem. Connection to this world, connection to that world. I can help. Not trivially, but I can help."

"...how?"

And what do you want in exchange?

"I'm thinking a magical equivalent of corrective lenses. It would be an expenditure of power, since enchantment isn't at its best with persistent effects when they aren't self-reinforcing, but we could design something. Highlight the mundane, emphasize differences between the spirit world and reality, make it so you don't lose track of which world you're standing in. You'd still have one foot in each, more so than practitioners usually want to, but you wouldn't be actively in danger."