The next morning Chamone, following up on a suggestion from Tourmaline, talks to Pensius about helping out at Count Tormentil's while he is incapacitated. She convinces Pensius that she can both be of help and learn things from the experience, so he agrees to let her return to Tormentil's to stay for a while. She packs her bags and has Franklin drive her over, after Pensius gets permission from Sir Armand for the venture. An attractive troll just about her age greets her and Franklin at the door. His name is Joshua, and he is a new armsman to the Duke. He escorts her to Sir Armand's study. Chamone finds Sir Armand overwhelmed with paperwork and unorganized. She convinces him to let her sort out some of the problems, and Armand leaves her in his study to work while he takes care of some "other business". Chamone, which some help from Joshua, manages to figure out how to handle several of the problems now in her charge. She continues to work on other problems that don't yield so easily to her nascent administration skills.
Later that afternoon, Pensius receives a phone call from Marti Emerald at Channel 9 News. They want to do a morning show feature on Starry Wisdom Temple, after reading about it in the recent issue of North County Times. Pensius says he needs to think about it and get back to her. He does so later, agreeing to do the show and promising that famous actor Aaron Hunter (Erendil) will also make an appearance. The reporter is very pleased and makes an appointment to do the interview for the next afternoon.
That evening, Jenny and Erendil go to Baron Carnelian's freehold for their weapons training session. After a brisk workout, the Baron asks them if they will entertain a proposal from him. They agree. The Baron tells them of an unseelie "secret society" called the Knights of the Cold Watch. There are creatures from the Deep Dreaming which, unbeknownst to the Seelie leadership, escaped the bonds of Arcadia when the Shining Path was opened in 1969 and invaded Earth itself. Many of these creatures have malevolent intentions towards both mortals and the fae. Most seelie do not even believe in the existence of these creatures, much less see the need to track them down. The Knights, the Baron explains, are unseelie warriors and wizards who, due to their unseelie nature, are able to perceive these creatures more easily than their seelie counterparts. They have sworn to track down and destroy these creatures before their predations endanger the Dreaming itself. While some unseelie actually ally themselves with these creatures, the Knights consider this a foolhardy and potentially harmful tactic. Such alliances usually cause more harm to the unseelie cause than good.
While the Baron is telling them about the creatures the Knights fight, Erendil finds himself becoming more and more uncomfortable. At first, he steadfastly believes that such creatures cannot exist. The more the Baron talks, the less comfortable Erendil gets. All of a sudden Erendil is seized by a flashback to a part of his forgotten past and falls to the ground. While an alarmed Carnelian, Jenny and Giselle try to rouse him, he is trapped in a vision, seeing:
He is at his former freehold, Dreamshield, in Sedona, New Mexico. In a vision he has experienced several times before, he watches as sidhe knights massacre his friends and foster mother, Kaia, while he is powerless to do anything but run, riding away on Giselle's back. But this time, the appearances of the sidhe knights melt away as he watches, revealing their true forms: hideous creatures formed of the blackest glamour, so horrible that his mind resists seeing them as they truly are.
He awakens, remembering the whole flashback. Giselle asks him what else he remembers, as if she expects him to have seen more than that. He remembers nothing else, and asks Giselle what is going on. She says she is geased not to tell him, that he must discover it for himself. Erendil, frustrated but now convinced of the relevance of these strange creatures to his own past, listens to Baron Carnelian's explanations of the nature of the creatures.
Both Erendil and Jenny ask questions about these Knights. How secret are they? (answer: not very, but their existence is either discounted or ridiculed. Only those at the top of the order know who is a member. the Baron knows the leadership, and several members, but he does not know all the members.) Are they ready for such a dangerous undertaking? (the Baron reassures them that they are as ready as most novice knights are. He does not discount the danger, but does reassure them of their abilities.) Have they already encountered some of these creatures? (The Baron thinks that Asadar, the monstrous chimera who lurked beneath the Dauntain's lair, might well have been one of these creatures. He believes several others might be in Moria). The Baron suggests that Jenny might want to "get her feet wet" by trying to track down the creature drinking the blood of local fae: the Baron does not think it is a vampire, and thinks that Lorien, whose powers are attuned to banality, may need help defeating the blood drinker if it is a creature of glamour. Jenny, intimidated by the magnitude of the task, says she will think about it. Both Erendil and Jenny agree to join the Knights provisionally, the provision applying to both sides.
The next day Erendil goes to see Boom-Boom, the nocker weapons-maker
and craftmaster, to see if she will enchant his sunglasses so that they
can see trods, since he doesn't posses the Shining Path cantrips. Boom-Boom
is initially taken with Erendil, until he brings up his request. At that
point she becomes abrupt, mumbled something about 'already in enough trouble
as it is' and tells her half-witted troll guardsman Simon that Erendil
"is leaving now". Erendil is able to speak with a Nocker named Balderol
on the way out about enchanting the sunglasses for him instead. This opportunistic
nocker agrees after Erendil tells him that he can hook him up with some
Hollywood Nockers in the SFX areas
based on the quality of the work.
The next day, Pensius greets the broadcasters as they arrive at the
Temple. He has made sure that the childlings are out of the way and Toby
is locked up. Edward is told to stay out of the way and not pull any tricks.
The cameramen take some exterior shots of the temple and the surrounding
grounds. Erendil shows up late, driving up in his custom Ferrari (really
Giselle) and doing the whole movie star shtick. They settle down on the
set and start the interview. It goes fairly well, although Erendil insists
on acting the full-blown cultist, discussing his "close encounters" with
his little green friends from outer space. He just manages to stop from
crossing the line into ridiculousness, for which Pensius is thankful. The
only sticky part of the interview comes when the reporter asks to see and
speak with the children whom Pensius fosters. Pensius manages to explain
his shelter for children in a positive way, but it is a close call. Pensius
does allow the reporters to talk to some children (not Toby!) but not to
film them. The reporters leave, after telling Pensius that they may interview
others to get different viewpoints. Pensius asks them to allow him to reply
to anything negative that might be said, and they assure him they will
give him the opportunity. And this is where we end.
