The writer gives life to a story, the reader keeps it alive.
Faced with an unstoppable indestructible Amanojuko in their home, Alexand appeals to Inajda, to help get out of this impossible situation. (Re: Longsheng, See Issue 299 The Unbound Box part 4, Issue 300 The Unbound Box Part 5 and Issue 326 The Search for Filius Anderson Part 8)
The lecture theatre has emptied of everyone save Xan and Edith, as their granddaughter, Heyem, unaware that they are her grandparents, and not part of this time, struts towards them to lecture them about talking in her class.
The Guild Master’s General has had the audacity to take Katherine with him on the very same cart ride that Alexand’s father is on. Neither of them is phased out of focus and are corporeal. The Guild Masters General has replaced his balaclava with a Stetson hat, and his sunglasses have clear lenses, so they look like ordinary glasses. They are both a few seats behind Eric Mehmed. Thankfully Eric doesn’t recognise Katherine as they had never met, although Alexand told her father a lot about the woman she fell in love with, so Katherine has insisted that the Guild Master’s General call her by her middle name, Anastasia.
Helga Ritter returns to the Floating Asylum to give news to Lord Anderson about the death of Eric Mehmed.
Abouna Panak has used his writer to travel to Alexand’s village in Yunnan and materialises inside her uncle’s house.
Antun was relieved when Alexand walked with him to the barn, and he was able to show her the grave robber, he captured stealing her father’s body.
Antun has tied up the grave robber, gagged him and locked him in his outbuilding. He has sent his wife and children to her mother’s house, ten miles away. He hasn’t called the National Guard, as he thinks they may have ties to the Amanojuko, and has locked all the doors and windows, waiting for Alexand to arrive, after he requested she come to him, in the letter he wrote.
Alexand, on her way to see her uncle Antun, dropped by Heyem’s apartment in Hong Kong, as she wanted her sister to be present when she shares intelligence with her uncle. She has been given the profiles of all known Amanojuko agents, has memorised the faces and the names of the Chinese and Indian agents, and mapped them inside her head, like musical notes attached to songs. She realises that this may not be possible for Heyem or Antun to do, but she needs them both to tell her if they recognise any of the agents. She and Heyem materialise outside their uncle’s village.
Antun Rekaya has been quite shaken up by his niece Alexand’s recent high-profile announcement, against an invisible enemy, that she believes responsible for infecting her with that virus. Antun remembers being taken from his own home as a boy, in Russia, and seeing his parents murdered. He has a very bad feeling that history is about to repeat itself, as it is rumoured that the people responsible for annexing Russia are these Amanojuko fundamentalists. Antun has been guarding his children obsessively, to the point of madness.
