"I have to admit, Professor de Bouchard, this isn't the most insightful ancient document I've ever read," Steve said, looking up from the sheaf of loose, handwritten papers, his eyes starting to glaze over. "What does all this mean?"

The professor gave a dismissive wave. They were meeting in the main commons of the university library, surrounded by the hustle and noise of dozens of people trying to put as much time between themselves and the fulfilment of their responsibilities as was possible. Two cups of cheap, horrible coffee were on the table between them. Steve's was decaf; Jean-Michele's was triple espresso. Steve's eyes were constantly flicking to the crowd and back, scanning the faces of the students, hoping that he didn't see anyone familiar in them.

It had been two weeks since he had seen the spider and the bat. He wanted to think that it had been the last of them, but he couldn't convince himself. Ever since he first transformed there had been a twitching deep inside of him, his muscles strumming like a gazelle that caught the scent of a lion on the wind. He felt them closer and closer with each passing day, closing on him like the fangs of a giant mouth.

Jean-Michele was the first person he had spoken since this whole bloody mess started who hadn't been thrust head-first into it. If it wasn't Briggs trying to train him to fight, it was Johnny C. running endless tests on his new transformation, and if it wasn't either of those it was the stolid gaze of Jimenez standing between him and the door, and if it wasn't any of that it was the voice of a magical insect in his ear trying to get him to meditate. When Professor de Bouchard finally called about the translation, Steve had begged to be allowed to go, and if it hadn't been so quiet he knew that they wouldn't have even let him out of the safe house.

"Mean?" Jean-Michele made a dismissive wave of her hand. "Stefan, we have only just begun. You cannot tell what the story means until it ends."

"But this… what even is this?" Steve said. "I mean who is this Blue Jay person, and what does this have to do with…" he lowered his voice to a whisper and looked around the room. Briggs had coached him on that, on acting as though he knew nothing. He could tell that, somewhere, she was burying her face in her hands even has he spoke. "…the monsters?"

Jean-Michele let out a soft little laugh.

"Stefan, you shouldn't believe everything that they show on the television," she said, putting her hand on his. Her skin felt warm, and Steve had to look away. "The people are reeling form a tragedy, you more than anyone. In times like this it's the natural response to look for the easiest answer, not the best. In time, clearer thought will prevail."

"I sure hope so," said Steven, hiding the sour look on his face. "But Professor, this story… I didn't always pay attention in my American Indian studies classes. Do you have a cliff's notes version for me?"

"You… you want to know about a cliff?"

"No, not… it's like a simple version," Steve said. "Blue Jay for dummies."

"Ahh, pardon," she said, nodding her head. "But you should be less hard on yourself, Stefan."

"No, no…" Steve said, holding up one hand. "You see there's a series of books and they-"

"I understood that reference, mon chouchou," she said, the corners of her mouth turning up. "Let us see, to begin… The 'Blue Jay' and 'Io'i' are common stock characters of thee Amerindians of this area, the foolish boy and the wise sister. In part, they are lessons, behaviors to do and not to do, like the… what are the names? The two of them, in the cartoon for children?"

"Bart and Lisa?"

"Non, non, 'Goofus and Gallant,'" she said. "This is much different from their usual stories, and it far predates the formation of the modern tribes. It may be that this is the original, the story of the first Blue Jay and Io'i, the one who inspired all the stories, or it may be that the names were changed to include a more prominent figure."

"Why would they do that?" asked Steve.

"Would you rather watch a movie about Sir Bob of Somewhere fighting the Evil Vampire, or about Sir Lancelot fighting Count Dracula?" she said. "Myths are often about old figures doing new things. The characters are familiar to the audience, their symbols are established. The reader knows what the story will be about before they even read it."

"In this case, 'what not to do when seeking godlike power?'"

"Again, we shall have to see," said Jean-Michele. "The story is not yet finished. There's much more to translate still."

"Yeah, the work is never over," Steve said, and took a long sip of his coffee. "Thanks, I guess. I'm glad you got all this done so quickly. The way you talked this up I didn't expect to hear back from you for months."

"Oh, certainement," said Jean-Michele, straightening the leaf of papers. "I fear I may have overestimated the challenge of it. But once I started in earnest I found that it was not so difficult. Similar in fact to work I had done before."

Steve nearly choked on his drink. He coughed until there were tears in his eyes, the hot beverage searing the roof of his mouth. Jean-Michele stared at him with wide eyes.

"Stefan!"

"I'm alright," lied Steve. "Went down the wrong pipe is all… ugh. You… you said this is similar to something you've seen before?"

"Only in the way that Irish is similar to Bengali," she laughed. She looked at Steve and saw that she was the only one laughing. "Um… both of them are part of the same language family, the Indo-European. Celtic, Romance, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Aryan, all of these have similar roots, and some of the connections survive to this day." She held up three fingers and pointed to them in turn. "You say 'one, two, three.' I say 'un, deux, trois.' In Spanish, 'uno, dos, tres.' In German, 'Eins, zwei, drei.' Russian, 'odin, va, trei,' Greek, 'ena, dio, tria,' and Sanskrit, 'eka, dváu, trayas.' All of these come from the same mother tongue."

"So the language in this text here, that's like English?"

"Well… no," said Jean-Michele. "Pardon, I let myself be carried away in the metaphor. A linguist's risk. I mean that this language here may be a prototypical tongue for the peoples of the Americas. This text bears an astonishing degree of similarity with a form of writing found over six thousand miles away, carved on a temple in the middle of the Amazon."

"This… this isn't the first time this has happened," Steve said. It wasn't a question. De Bouchard stood up and left without giving him an answer.