April 15, 1918
Philo Jenkins

For a moment, he had thought they had succeeded. Then the woman had screamed and Philo had realized that, while this very well might be Xing, it was definitely not the town square of Wei Tu, where he had meant to end up.

Philo had quite promptly been surrounded by soldiers in red armor. They shouted at him, in a language he could not understand. Philo tried to answer them, first in Amestrian, then Xingese, then what little he knew of Drachman, but they did not seem to understand him.

Philo took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and began to write on the floor, thinking that maybe his accent was getting in the way. The soldiers took exception to that. One of them kicked the chalk from Philo's hands, while two more grabbed hold of Philo's arms and yanked him onto his feet.

"I'm sorry," Philo said, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good. "I don't understand what you want me to do."

The soldiers had obviously decided that trying to talk to Philo was a waste of time, because they were completely silent as they cuffed him and led him out of the room. Philo knew better than to resist. He was no combat alchemist capable of raining death and destruction on countless enemies. He just knew a little theory and could be counted on to copy out the transportation circle properly.

The woman who had screamed, she no longer looking frightened but instead downright furious, gave a few quick orders and the soldiers saluted. Philo had a little time to wonder where he had ended up, that a screaming woman could summon soldiers in under a minute, soldiers who answered to her rather than merely being alert for trouble, before he was yanked down the hall.

The decor was vaguely Xingese, but it was Xingese in the manner of a quarter-Xingese Amestrian native trying to get in touch with their roots rather than a recent immigrant keeping hold of their origins. But that wasn't quite right either, because there was nothing at all Amestrian about that place.

Could Claudia have overshot and landed him someplace past Xing? That would explain something being off about the place and the fact that no one here understood Philo.

It occurred to Philo that, if the original transportation circle was flawed, the reverse transportation circle might land him in Aeurgo or someplace even farther away if he tried to use it. He brushed the thought away almost as quickly as it came. After all, he didn't have much choice but to use the circle, unless he wanted to abandon his comrades and spend the remainder of his life here.

After about five minutes of walking through the building they were in, the soldiers led Philo outside. Philo wasn't much of an astronomer, but he looked up at the night sky anyway, thinking that if he could see where the constellations were he might have an idea of how far he had gone.

No luck. All the constellations were exactly where Philo remembered them being two nights ago when he had snuck out to the roof to stargaze with Xandra. But that had been later in the night, maybe ten o'clock and it wasn't past eight right now. Which meant he had gone east. Maybe.

One of the soldiers, obliviously displeased by Philo slowing down to gaze heavenward, gave him a jab in the ribs to wake him up. It worked. For the next several minutes, the time it took them to get to the guardhouse or prison or wherever suspicious people who appeared out of thin air were detained, Philo could think of nothing but how annoying it was to be arrested.

Most of the soldiers who had brought him in did not hang around to watch Philo being booked. The only one who remained had a slightly different uniform than the others and was probably the squad leader.

He talked the prison guard through the entire thing. Even though the words the pair of them were speaking meant absolutely nothing to Philo, he thought he could understand their conversation. It was something along the lines of:

'So we found this guy busting up the Armstrong family mansion. Good luck getting him to give you his name, he only speaks gibberish.'

'Eh, I'll just call him John Smith. Looks about thirty, wouldn't you say?'

'Yeah. Hey, you could make today his birthday! Wouldn't that be funny?'

'I'll just put down 'unknown'. We'll let the shrinks worry about figuring all that stuff out.'

There was a nod, a handshake, and the squad leader was gone.

The prison guard led Philo back into the cells. There were only a handful of them, most of them stone with metal bars, but one was lined with wood and had wooden bars. There was a woman in that cell, her hands cuffed together like Philo's.

The guard paused in front of her, obviously considering putting Philo in with her.

She smiled at him. It was a creepy sort of smile, something that Philo couldn't quite place was off about it, and it apparently scared the guard too because he marched down Philo down to the end of the cell block and opened the cell farthest from her.

Before stepping inside, Philo look the guard in the eyes and held out his manacled wrists. He tried to look as harmless as possible, as though their was nothing to fear from letting his hands free. Not like that maniac in the wooden cell.

The guard was making the comparison too, judging from the way he looked from Philo to the woman and back again.

Philo whimpered, sticking out his lip in an expression he hadn't used since he had stopped living with his mother. It was a dirty trick, but it had never failed him before.

The guard sighed and unlocked Philo's handcuffs.

Philo smiled a big goofy grin that was only a little bit exaggerated and hugged the guard. See, totally harmless madman.

The guard stiffened, but he didn't push Philo off until the woman in the wooden cell started giggling. Then he shoved Philo in the cell, locked it, and went back to his desk at the front of the prison.

Philo reached into the pocket of his jacket, feeling for his spare piece of chalk. He smiled when he found it. Sooner or later the woman in the wooden cell would fall asleep. And when she did-

It couldn't be that hard to sneak back into the mansion long enough to draw one little circle.