Theo Theo,

Clever, clever, clever! Every face, every guise, I wonder what will be the defining moment, the victory that will define me. But for once, I feel I’ve outdone myself! I shaped not just my legend but another’s. Lilith lives yet!

I’m sure you’ve realized that he thinks he won, that the sanctimonious hunter has metaphorically mounted her on his wall. But I kept an eye on her the whole time, trying to find a way to spirit her away without her minder realizing. She wouldn’t just let me take her, or else he might cut his own throat. Can you guess how I managed it?

Tar. For this form, it was a tar baby, but there are other artifacts like that across my tales and tales. A trapping object, designed to ensnare the clever by turning their own curiosity and strength against them. It’s a danger for me to even introduce with such a concept, but I wasn’t the one who did. The hunter did. She’s his tar baby. So while he performed the martyr’d one’s conversion, I made a tar baby and switched the souls out while he wasn’t looking.

Her body may be gone, but she lives. It’s an uneven translation; she complains about being diminished. But she’s not dead. I think she might be more amenable to talking to your scholar lover from the East. The tar body moves awkwardly, gets stuck on things. One of the few things she can do with full comfort is talk. We’re trying to see if one of her old students may take her in until she’s been sorted out, but after that, maybe I can bring you and him down to New Orleans to talk to her.

I hope this eases the sting of my sudden absence. I had an absurd number of complications with getting the tar body to safety. I’ll tell you all about it when I return.

Reynard,

The only man I’ve truly ever loved is dead. You took the one thing he’s spent his life searching for away from him, and he died under the assumption that he failed. I had to prepare his body alone, and send him home for burial alone. The town had withdrawn from the both of us because he tried to bring what Lamentations had done to light, and Lamentations and his unsuspecting accomplice were the only ones to comfort me. The sanctimonious hunter grieved with me and I have no idea what to think about anything, and I am so alone.

He never trusted you. I wish I listened to him sooner. Our business, as far as I’m concerned, is concluded. I am too old and lonely to let myself be pulled into your life and ejected at will repeatedly. Don’t return to Henshaw.

Theo Theo,

I did not realize such a tragedy occurred while I was gone. I’ll find a way to make it up to you. Perhaps a peek inside of a tar body? L is still taking to the body poorly, but us together may be able to put it in order.

Theo,

Your sorrow has not quelled, I suspect. I dare not to approach you in person, but there must be something I can do for you. I am The Trickster, the sleight of hand behind a thousand myths. Whose pocket do I need to pick to lighten your heart? Lamentations? The government’s? God’s? Ask it and I’ll find a way.

Theodore,

I’m sorry. I really am. Tricksters make poor lovers. If you ever need me for anything, put a letter into the wildest sky or unruly earth and it’ll find me. If not, then I hope I don’t loom over the time you have left.

[Ink blotchy on the signature]