. . .

Amelia dusts off her skills at networking. She tries them out.

She calls Bertram. She consults the papers. She talks to her expeditionary colleagues. She gets a line on a disreputable orphanage. She learns the names of possible boon companions in the rough vicinity of her home. She summons up evil djinn of smoke and interrogates them regarding child-raising practices, because she cares.

Even with all that, though, it isn’t until she finds Linus’ lonely scrap of paper, half-covered in coupons and other advertisements, that she conceives of her big Idea.

“A home,” she says. “I can make a home for all of them.”

Her eyes brighten. Nowhere there is a toad.

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