Note: I'm introducing the setting's heteronormative standard enforcers this chapter, so blanket trans trigger warning to be safe. There is some mention of stigmatization of certain sexual orientations as well.

Magda day: Morning

The jeweler's guild kept samples of silver from various mines to be able to test them against any suspected false claims about the origin of the materials used to make a given piece of jewelry. Daniel found exactly one sample to have the same properties as the silver from the necklace. Unless one looked specifically for enhancement of Moon marble properties, specifically by putting a piece of Moon marble in contact with the piece of silver, it was impossible to notice that the silver sample had anything special about it; that included using magic to look for anything odd. Daniel was only mildly surprised when the silver sample turned out to be from a mine that Tobias had gotten re-opened during their tenure as councilor of magic. The mine had been closed for more than forty years at that point. Harald had only been able to get a limited number of documents relevant to his councilor function from the archives secured with the black-market King before the palace fire, and it hadn't included any information about the silver from that specific mine. Tobias had claimed to want to research the use of silver in magic and to need it to be mined and treated in a specific way, which had been easier to implement by letting them re-start the exploitation of a closed mine. With nothing but a map showing its location and the sample in the jeweler's guild remaining of the mine, Vivian had seen no reason to oppose it. Unfortunately, there wasn't any direct evidence to back Daniel's hunch that Tobias, via their impersonation of Vivian, had something to do with Håkan acquiring his own necklace. According to what he had told Daniel, the young prince had simply found the necklace under his pillow one evening, with a now-burned note that had done a good job of convincing him to wear it at all times in spite of the fact that it was at least a third choice by Royal standards. The "ghost trick" shared by Daniel and Tobias was unfortunately only one among many means by which the items could have been sneaked into Håkan's room. The only thing potentially pointing towards Daniel's prime suspect was that Håkan had acquired the necklace after Tobias' "death", upon which anyone could ask for permission continue any research of Tobias' that looked promising; nothing prevented the person with the power to give said permission from taking on some of that work themself. The entire rest of the council knew they had taken over a decent amount of it themself. Harald's voice interrupted Daniel's thoughts:
-I've left you plenty of time to think. Do you have any idea of who would want to give a magic-reducing piece of jewelry to Prince Håkan? If it was really for protection, Vivian would have given it to Princess Anna instead, and you seem to have taken to picking up our discarded bits.
Daniel unfortunately couldn't tell Harald the reason for which "Vivian" may have recently shifted more than a few loyalties, at least outside of a situation where it would be very obviously worth it; he, Tanja, Rolf and Kenneth were unfortunately just as likely to help with the situation as they were to take advantage of it if they were told about it.
-If I had any idea of who did it, I would tell you in hope that it was worth the mine's map "having a copy that miraculously escaped the fire". How much is it going to be, by the way?
Harald feigned embarrassment by scratching the back of his neck:
-The black-market King needs a quiet place where nobody will expect him to be to do some bookkeeping for a day or two. I've been having trouble finding the "or two". What are the chances of your household keeping their mouths shut or conveniently being absent? Though the exercise in keeping mouths shut could be useful to any Tiny Council you may be training in there.
The "Tiny Council" referred to the tendency of some councilors to have their most trusted house employees and relatives gain knowledge on the domains of expertise of their colleagues to have someone with whom to test their arguments and bounce ideas off. If a seat other than that of their own employer opened up, it wasn't rare for sufficiently skilled and experienced "Tiny Council" members to be among the strongest competitors for the seat. Emil aiming for Tanja's seat, and the use he was hoping to get out of Sune in the future were the closest Daniel currently was to forming a "Tiny Council" of his own.
-Considering who my employees are, they could use reasons to leave the house more. And one of them would have a ready-made reason to do so if his license to sell merchandise in town became available a little faster.
-That tea-maker of yours, right? If you come to see me using that "ghost trick" of yours, you may get it to him the day before he would normally receive it. For anything faster, my hands are tied. You'd have to "encourage" a couple of random clerks, not me. And if you have bribing money lying around, it will probably best put towards making sure Princess Helena's daughter doesn't get snatched up by the next Daughters of Magda patrol.
Those happened once a year on the name day of the order's patron figure, which was less than a week away. The Daughters of Magda had very narrow criteria for certain aspects of what made a proper family and had taken to abuse a law authorizing people to remove children from households they considered unsafe for them. Only a limited portion of the city guard could be dedicated to keeping an eye on them and protecting their potential targets without significantly reducing the personnel dedicated to things that could potentially happen all year round. Like many situations in which the supply was much smaller than the demand, that resulted in those with money and connections grabbing what was available and the rest having to make do with drawback-ridden alternatives and whatever a handful of generous souls were willing to spare. By Daughters of Magda criteria, Daniel's own household could be deemed "unsafe" for at least two different reasons. He had chosen to not pry into Helena and Vivian's plans for that day, as some means of escaping the patrols relied on as few people as possible knowing where the child was that day. Others took the opposite approach and made sure the child had as many trusted eyes on them as possible. Daniel took the opportunity to point out one of the issues he had noticed about the "make it look like Helena has a daughter fathered by Sune" plan that the other True Rulers had agreed to:
-I'm a little curious about something, if the information won't cost me extra. Forging the existence of a child whose father would have been ten years old at the time of her conception might as well be asking for a patrol to "rescue" both father and daughter. Were there any plans to keep Sune and Janine safe from the patrols if they ended up staying in Scandi, but not residing in the palace?
Harald answered with a shrug:
-Tobias insisted it wouldn't be a problem, even when Vivian pointed out that this exact scenario was a possibility. He took whatever plan he had to the grave. Guess that little family is lucky you're back, have the house and still care enough about the Princess to take them in.
Daniel was tempted to give the black-market King a second bookkeeping day in the house for finding out that Tobias had been the one with plans to deal with the Daughters of Magda patrols in regards to Janine. However, he had several reasons to not let Harald know just how important that information was to him and other members of his household.

xxxx

When Daniel made it back to the house, Helena turned out to have been using Janine's daily naps to make Magda day plans for her over the past few days. Helena took advantage of the fact that the current day's nap was underway to explain her plans to the other members of the household:
-From what we can tell, we have three options that are the right combination of being safe and not looking odd to outside observers. Unfortunately, they all hold a risk of putting Janine right where Tobias wants her if they have any plans involving her that day. The councilor of wisdom's orphanage is usually left alone because of an old arrangement and always lets a few children blend in with the orphans. I've gotten a message from one of the caretakers telling me there were spots for Janine and Sune due to a couple of "one-day" children aging out of their age groups from last year. Another possibility is to hide them in Runa's hospital room. Runa was originally slated to leave the hospital that day, but the patrols have been trying to find a way to "rescue" her ever since Rolf took her in, so Randi thought it would be best for her to stay an extra day. Finally, we could have them stay in the palace with the Royals. Any thoughts or suggestions? To cut to the chase, the park gatherings are definitely not an option for us. We all know that none of the crowds I would want to help would want to associate with me, and I wouldn't want to associate with most members of the crowds that would be fine having me around in spite of what many believe me to have done.
Among those gathered in the dining room, Emil was the first to speak:
-I see why the orphanage option may look suspicious to you. But I'm not sure I see what you have against leaving them with the family. They won't hurt either of them, and they are the best-guarded people in the country.
Sune replied with a shuddering tone:
-They still have those control runes inside them. Tobias can make them do all sorts of things against their own will. There's also the fact that I've spent so little time having actual honest conversations with any of them over the past three years that one of them could have gotten swayed by the Daughters of Magda or a group with similar beliefs where it matters, and I wouldn't notice. They may not need to be magically controlled to be convinced to hand Janine – or even me – over to people she shouldn't be handed over to.
Sune's words reminded Daniel of piece of news that Markus had told him of on that first evening of catching up. If anyone else at the table had been reminded of it as well, they didn't bring it up. Meanwhile, Emil answered Sune's statement with an expression that indicated that the possibility of a magical takeover of their family members, or one of them doing the wrong thing while thinking they were doing the right thing, hadn't crossed his mind. The half-slumped position Emil took on after that made it hard to tell whether he was overwhelmed by the realization or deep in thought. Lalli spoke:
-Even if you find a good place to hide Vivian from the women who take children, not-Vivian will be able to find her wherever you take her because they see and hear the same things as actually-Vivian. And not-Vivian can just come get actually-Vivian if they really want her to be somewhere tomorrow.
In response, Helena produced the necklace Sune had purchased earlier in the day:
-I've thought of this, and this just turned out to be able to help us. Janine's eyesight and hearing are technically spells. The magic-dampening effects of the necklace are enough to make her vision very blurry and greatly reduce her hearing. The surveillance spells are linked to her senses, so it would greatly limit the means by which Tobias could find out where she is. Unfortunately, if she ends up in the hands of someone who notices that the necklace is impairing her senses, I don't think that person will need to be believing the lies spread about me or part of the Daughters of Magda to assume the worst about how I'm treating her. It also makes the hospital, which is the option Tobias is the least likely to have planned for in advance, almost as bad as those they probably planned for; people there are constantly on the look-out for that kind of thing.
A door-knocking indicating the arrival of one of their regular guests put off any further discussion of patrol-escaping plans until later.

xxxx

Magda day came, and Runa's hospital room was continuing to look like the safest option. As Sune was preparing himself and Janine to be taken there by Sigrun, someone knocked at the door. When Sigrun opened, she found Tanja, her regular bodyguard and a very tired-looking Runa. After all mage-eyes present confirmed they were who they seemed to be, Tanja explained:
-The family that I usually "happen to be visiting" on Magda day recently found a crowd they like and are going to its park gathering this year. I thought this household would make a good new protectorate, considering how it came into existence. Someone needed Runa's hospital room more urgently than she did, and I owe Rolf a favor. Let's hope nobody will expect her to be so close to both her actual home and the orphanage in which she lived for a few months.
Daniel agreed, under the condition that all members of the household that didn't already have other plans for the day help keep an eye on the guests. The good news was that Tanja was unknowingly a deterrent for Tobias due to having easy access to some of the rare means of quickly incapacitating a mage if one was stupid enough to use their powers to blatantly break the wrong law right in front of her eyes. The bad news was that Sigrun, Helena and the housekeeper of uncertain loyalties were going to be the guests' only watchers who were both physically and mentally adults; Daniel, Emil and Lalli already had plans, though the latter would probably be grateful for an excuse to stay in the house. It had taken Markus promising that this particular crowd was among the quieter ones, if not actually the quietest, to convince the easily overwhelmed by noise Lalli to come at all. While Daniel has doubts about Markus' standards for quietness, he hadn't been able to argue against "All the boring faiths who have followers on our side are there, how loud can it be?". On the subject of Markus, the latter wasn't going to be awake for at least another two hours. Signs of possible genuine emergency did miracle work when it came to getting him out of bed early, but the lack of any actual emergency meant it was time for him to return to his bed before his body completely reverted to the state it usually was at this hour.

xxxx

When Daniel came to his senses after having been given Emil's tea, he was surrounded by the rest of the household and the guests, who were in the middle of having breakfast. Tanja was in the middle of having a sign language conversation with Janine:
-Very nice work, the two of you. I've actually met parents of mute or deaf children who refuse to learn this. She's even doing a little too well for a child her age. Do you have anything to do with this, Princess?
Helena replied:
-What I can tell you really depends on what Runa already knows about her. I don't want to be the one mentioning things that she's not supposed to know yet.
Runa intervened with a voice that was a much less sleepy than upon her arrival, but still indicated that whatever rest she had gotten wasn't enough:
-I noticed the child was found right around the time Prince Emil was found. I'm guessing Lady Vivian could have lied when she claimed the Princess is the child's mother. If that's the case, I like that you don't seem to be using this as an excuse for mistreating her in any way. If there is another secret about that child though, it probably shouldn't be discussed around me. Hey, Daniel, have you had enough food to be able to handle something you probably don't want to hear yet?
Given his plans for the day, he was at a fairly high risk for this happening anyway.
-Try me.
-I noticed a couple of Daughters of Magda patrols getting ready from the carriage on the way here. I'm quite sure I saw Alicia in one of them.
This was the fact that had come back to the forefront of Daniel's mind when Sune had voiced the possibility that one of the Royals could potentially cooperate with the Daughters of Magda. Alicia had apparently gotten her hands on a piece of propaganda that had persuaded her that it was some kind of miracle that she had yet to be sexually abused by some adult in the orphanage, forced into wearing men's clothing and forbidden from ever considering men as possible romantic partners. Markus' attempt to have a serious conversation on the subject – after several years of waiting for her to come to him whenever she would be ready – had quickly been dismissed as an attempt to "recruit" her. Having been fourteen at the time of the incident, she had been old enough to become a novice Daughter of Magda. This was going to be the first Magda day during which Alicia and Markus were going to be on different teams, after years of being siblings.

xxxx

Markus, who had this morning turned out to own another outfit besides his guard uniform after all, reacted to Emil's contribution to their conversation by looking at him as if he had grown a second head:
-How in the world did you live here until age sixteen and not find this out until your in-laws in Finmi told you about it? Did those parents of yours keep you under a rock or something?
Emil fortunately had a ready-made response for that kind of question :
-You've actually kind of got it. My parents were kind of protective, and we lived in an area where reaching out had too much of a risk of getting me the wrong kind of "help". It's one of the reasons why I'd really like to see those short plays you mentioned to convince us to come.
To Emil's relief, Markus welcomed the change in subject:
-I really like the theater troupe putting on the plays. It's actually one of the ones I'm hoping to join if someone leaves or they can afford to hire a new person.
Emil was a little surprised:
-I don't think I realized this was one of the jobs you were aiming for. Do you have any experience in acting?
-Did it a lot when I was younger, thanks to one of the means of keeping the orphanage children busy. I ended up learning how to fight because of the roles I tended to prefer. It's easier to find a guard job than an acting job, so I'm keeping both options open for the job that will let me leave the orphanage.
Emil was about to ask Markus why he just didn't get hired by Daniel as an extra guard, when he realized that keeping all of them in his house, even with most of them having a job to do, was probably already quite expensive. And two more people were going to be moving in any day now.

Emil's thoughts were interrupted by a leaflet being shoved in front of his face. As he regained awareness of his surroundings, he noticed that the leaflet was held by a hand, which belonged to a young woman who seemed to be around fifteen years old. Her hair was of an orange-ish shade of blonde, her hair style a slightly longer version of simple bangs and chin-length hair Emil and Sune had both adopted independently, her outfit a white sleeveless tunic over a longer-sleeved dress. The dress was dyed of a blue so light that it could have been mistaken for white if that weren't the tunic's actual color. Her feet were in simple sandals. Daniel had recommended to Emil to keep all leaflets handed to him, even those that he knew in advance he was unlikely to agree with, so he would get an idea of what people were being told by whom. Helena had also pointed out that it also made one less leaflet that could end up in the hands of someone who was either ignorant about the subject or having doubts about whatever they had been taught about it as a child. Emil took the leaflet, and the young woman stepped aside to let him and Lalli, who had been timidly walking behind him, pass. It was only then that Emil noticed that there were two older women nearby, wearing a more elaborate version of the younger one's clothes. Dresses dyed a darker blue, a blue cloth belt around the waist and the tunics sporting a shoulder-covering collar. Emil's brain finally caught onto to the fact that they had just run into a patrol made of a novice and two confirmed Daughters of Magda. Daniel was having a conversation with one of the older women, while Markus was waiting on the other side of the pseudo-blockade the women were forming, and meticulously shredding a leaflet similar to the one Emil was currently holding. Emil went to join Markus and showed Daniel with his chin:
-How long is he going to take? And isn't hearing out the representatives of most citizen organizations Randi's job?
Markus sighed while continuing his paper-tearing:
-Not too long, hopefully. They are persuaded that there is some kind of long-forgotten magic spell that can be used to easily "cure" whatever they think is wrong with us, and that it would be quickly be found again if they could get a mage the King will listen to on their side. Fortunately, we live in times in which the councilor of wisdom is a long shot, so that leaves basically all other mages who visit the palace on a regular basis.
Emil had to make a great effort to stifle a snicker for a few moments, while feeling a little bad for Daniel. When they had met of on the way to the gathering, Markus had greeted them all sounding like he was coming down with a cold, prompting Daniel to pull his medical diagnosis talisman out. It had turned out that Markus wasn't coming down with a cold, but was rather starting to show the effects of an arrangement between himself and Daniel. Emil had remembered Sylvia once mentioning that people in her situation sometimes get their bodies changed by magic, but that she wasn't interested in doing so herself. A quizzical voice interrupted Emil's thoughts:
-Marta? What happened to your voice?
The orange-haired novice was the one who had spoken, and her shift in location since the last time Emil had paid any attention to her suggested she was addressing someone in their group rather than any of her superiors. Markus answered her without detracting from his paper-shredding:
-Just following along on my plan to change various things that cause people to get mistaken about me, which I'm quite sure I've already mentioned to you multiple times. The voice is just the beginning.
When the young woman next spoke, she was quite obviously trying to keep herself from shouting and not quite managing it:
-Your voice was completely fine before! Now you just sound like you're sick! And whoever you tricked into helping you with this is…
A look of realization suddenly appeared on the young woman's face, and she promptly turned her attention to Daniel's direction:
-Daniel, how could you do this? You're giving advice to the King now, you can't be going along with Marta's games on the side.
Daniel answered her:
-Sorry Ali, but if you haven't understood this isn't some kind of elaborate game yet, I'm afraid I don't have any explanation that will want to hear.
The incident at least had the merit of making the woman who was talking with Daniel promptly end the conversation and let him go.

As soon as they were out of the group's hearing range, Markus confirmed that the orange-haired novice was his and Daniel's younger sister Alicia, whom Runa had mentioned just a little earlier in the morning. Emil couldn't help being intrigued:
-Then why did she tell you all that mean stuff? I thought that a child who grew up around you would be in good position to understand your situation.
The face Markus made told Emil he had asked him a sensitive question. Markus took a few moments before answering:
-I did my best to make my younger siblings understand what was going on and answer any questions they had for me at the time, and it worked with Dirk – that's our younger brother – but not Alicia. She didn't take the changes it involved well. A lot of Daughters of Magda propaganda claims that there is something objectively wrong about those changes and that they should be fought against. It reached her much better than anything I could tell her.
Emil processed what he had been told before asking the next question that came to his mind:
-Is there anything Lalli and I can do if something like that happens again? Nobody ever did this to Sylvia, at least not while I was around.
-For starters, just correct any incorrect names and pronouns she uses. Daniel and myself are trying different approaches because we know her a little better and using the same method for too long without getting any visible results can get tiring.
Emil answered with an understanding nod. As they continued walking to their destination, he couldn't help but give a quick glance in the direction they had come from at the thought that this young woman could be one of the people Tobias could eventually choose to hurt or take hostage if they deemed it necessary.

They quickly found the park, and space on one of the many cushions set in front of the makeshift stage just in time for the short plays to begin. Daniel briefly left between the two first and came back with what seemed to be a sweet pastry that Markus gladly accepted. He perked up enough to ask if there was any beer where the pastry had come from. Daniel reminded him that he was at the gathering partly to build a little reputation with the general public, and that he wasn't taking chances with Markus' ability to hold his liquor. Between them, the plays turned out to contain much more than Emil had ever picked before up on their common subject matter, even accounting for facts that he had learned as Stig. They told the story of various groups disparaged by the Daughters of Magda, including their bumpy history of legal status and public acceptance. How there had been times where the only way they could meet each other in relative safety had been by partaking in other illegal or poorly viewed activities, or at least pretending to do so. How, beyond a certain age, they would be often living a double life in regards to a family that they had started for the sole purpose of keeping up appearances. That the current times were among the better they had had, but that there were still far too many people who assumed that anyone who was attracted to the same sex, or whose body didn't quite match with how they felt inside, would also systematically partake in those illegal and poorly viewed activities in addition to being unable to keep a steady romantic partner. One of the plays about the latter subject seemed to actually be about people who weren't interested in anybody, which was a new concept for Emil. Several factors also caused many to view any pairing that wasn't made of a man and a woman as some form of hostility towards pairings who were. This made it quite easy for the Daughters of Magda to persuade people that many of those who were part of the gathering would inevitably make terrible parents. In addition to this, parenting was already a challenging task on its own right and mistakes with long-term consequences happened just as often in families the Daughters of Magda didn't approve of as they did in families they approved of. Because of this, the Daughters of Magda could always find people with a bad experience being raised by a certain type of family if they cared to look for them, and present them as proof of their beliefs being correct. This was one of the many reasons there were still many otherwise decent people who saw nothing wrong with the patrols and various other activities of the Daughters of Magda.

The last play was about the Royal family, and chronicled various members of the line who were known or suspected to be interested in the same sex or nobody at all, and how they had been treated in their time. The line-up also included a couple people who had been in Sylvia and Markus' situation. One of the people whose story was told was Emil's own grandmother Mia, who had had her children extremely late in life due to the need of new heirs arising almost from one day to the next; her youngest, Torbjörn, had been born little before her sixtieth birthday. Before this, she had been the older unmarried cousin to a main Royal line with plenty of spares who were all siblings to each other. The competition between the siblings to make themselves look like a good future ruler had escalated to the point where one of them had set his mind on conquering Finmi. When the first sibling to have the idea had died, other siblings had tried finishing the job, only to succumb to their own bad decisions. Others had been smart enough to stay out of the conquest, but had ended up being choice hostages from Finmi people who wanted to pressure the would-be conqueror into giving up. Various miscommunications and clashing rescue attempts had resulted in many hostages dying, as well. When the truce with Finmi had been signed forty years ago, the Royal household had consisted of grandma Mia, her oldest son Torolf (who would grow up to become Emil's father) and councilor of magic Fredrik, without whom Mia wouldn't have been able to have children at such an old age; it was also apparently well-known that Councilor Fredrik was the father of Mia's sons on a more biological level. Once that story was finished, Emil expected the play to do the same. It took his own name being told on-stage for him to realize that what had happened to him from the perspective of most inhabitants of the country would definitely be worthy of being part of that play. Overall, Emil's own portrayal wasn't bad as he had briefly feared it to be. A few inaccurate assumptions had been made about Lalli, but they had been no different from those that Emil himself had made before getting to know him properly. The only aspect to really catch Emil unaware had been the brief depiction of Helena and Daniel's relationship, alongside the barely stifled laugh it got out of Markus. It consisted of Helena straight-up telling Daniel that she expected him to have his entire life come second to her summons, and that he could say goodbye to ever becoming part of the Council if he tried to do otherwise, while showing Daniel too smitten to see any problem with the arrangement. He heard Daniel speak at a volume he probably wouldn't have picked up if he had been just a seat further:
-I know you didn't approve of it, but still…

Once the last play was over, Daniel decided that he and Markus would pay the troupe a visit, while Emil and Lalli walked around the park to get a general feel of the way it was set up before the "siege" started. Only Lalli was asked if he wanted Daniel and Markus to pass any message from him to the troupe, as Prince Emil was currently catatonic and being cared for at the palace as far as all but three of the people present in the park were concerned. Soon after they parted ways with Daniel and Markus, Emil decided to get a few thoughts he had off his chest:
-So… What that play showed about Helena and Daniel… I wonder where they got that from.
-It seemed about right to me.
Now, Emil was even more bewildered than before:
-What are you talking about?
-Before the fire… I didn't realize Helena was supposed to become your wife when you became old enough. Tuuri talked much more about how the Western Region used to be a Kingdom named Vege and Helena was the great-great-something-granddaughter of its last King. When I had to be somewhere else because Tuuri and Reynir needed the room, and Helena was visiting, I would sometimes hear Daniel and Helena talking in her room. There were two or three times where it was a lot like what they showed in the play.
-But… I never saw them interact like this… even…
Emil realized mentioning his very few memories of seeing Helena and Daniel interact before the palace fire – of which only one was vivid enough for him to be certain it actually happened – in public probably wasn't a good idea. Lalli fortunately provided him with the beginning of answer:
-They could have been doing that thing where people pretend that things are better than they really are when they know other people are watching.

Emil didn't realize how close he and Lalli had come to one of the temporary stalls set up in the park before a cheerful voice greeted them:
-Hello! Any questions to ask us? To save everyone time, the answer to "What are you doing here?" is "Please read our sign carefully and pay closer attention to our outfits".
Emil was taken aback, but quickly saw how the blonde young teenager with her hair in two low pigtails could have deemed the statement necessary. At first glance, the outfit she was wearing could be mistaken for the one identical to Alicia's. Upon a closer look, the tunic was of a natural white rather than the shade that required bleaching the fabric, and the blue of the dress was just dark enough to be recognized as blue on its own. Next, he looked at the sign, that indicated that the stall belonged to an organization named "Sisters of Magda". Emil next realized that the outfit wasn't the only vaguely familiar thing about the young woman occupying the stand. He looked at her more carefully, then turned to Lalli to get a second opinion. Lalli's answer was the last thing that could prove him wrong, and it failed to do so:
-Yes, it's her.
Emil's brain fortunately didn't take as long as it could have to tell him that discretion was probably the best option:
-Hum… Unfortunately, we are in a hurry. Do you have a booklet or something you could give us? And it would be great if you could write directions to get to one of your temples from Councilor Street on the back.
The young woman complied, and quickly handed Emil a booklet:
-Here you go, sir. We have two siege songs. Their lyrics are on the two last pages if you wish to sing them.
Lalli suddenly seemed more alert than he had been so far:
-Women are starting to surround the park. Twelve. Three on each side.
That meant the "siege" had started and that Emil and Lalli needed to be on "guard duty". They had been warned to not under-estimate the Daughters in spite of the low numbers. While the Daughter of Magda numbers had dwindled while the number of gathering spots they needed to surround had increased in number and area within past decades, both shifts had happened gradually enough for the Daughters to adapt. If a single child strayed out of the park before sundown, the Daughters would catch them and make sure they didn't return to their parents on their own. They would next tell the city guard various half-truths in hope that one of them would result in the child getting taken away from its parents with backing from actual law enforcement.

Emil and Lalli quickly found a patch of the park's fence to guard. Lalli took the position that was closest to the Daughters of Magda watching that side of the park. Emil could still see them well enough to tell that the group of Daughters wasn't the one they had run into earlier. Emil pulled out the booklet, and looked at what Anna had written on the back in addition to the requested directions: Call me Annika if we see each other again. Don't tell Sune. He was going to need to think about this later. He found the double page with the song lyrics and focused on the first, assuming it would be the first to come up among the two. He turned to Lalli:
-Sorry, this is part that may be a little hard for you. The Daughters of Magda are going to be signing and trying to convince children to come out of the park. People inside the park will sing also. They can take individual breaks, but the signing is going to need to stay loud enough to cover up what the Daughters of Magda are saying until sundown. If anyone sees you leave, they will be imagining just about any reason possible besides just having trouble standing loud noises in general. If it gets really bad, you can use that spell that blocks your hearing and I will handle things for you until it fades away.
From the corner of his eye, Emil saw a Daughter of Magda bring what was probably a sound-amplifying talisman near her mouth. On the stage that had been used for the plays, a chorus of children gathered and started signing, officially as the beginning of an amateur talent show. He hoped he would be able to keep things up until sundown.