The servitor halted before them.
"Welcome to House Perigal, Prefects," it said in a squeaky voice.
"Would you care for a drink?"
"Thanks," Thalia said, "but we should – "
Dreyfus put down the coffee bulb and dithered his hand over the tray.
"What do you recommend?".
"The red's acceptable.".
"Red it is, then." He took a glass and lifted it towards his lips, just close enough to sniff the aroma. Thalia took a glass for herself. Only Sparver abstained: his metabolism couldn't cope with alcohol.
"Follow me, please. I'll take you to the matriarch.". They followed the legs through the cavern, winding between the pools. If their arrival had gone apparently unnoticed, that luxury had passed. Thalia could feel the back of her neck prickling from the uneasy attention they were now warranting. They climbed to one of the highest pools, where four ornamental iron fish vomited water from their gaping mouths. Three adults were floating in the water, up to their chests in perfumed froth. Two were men. The third was Caitlin Perigal, her face recognisable from the summary file. Her muscular shoulders and arms tapered to elegant webbed hands with acid-green fingernails. A peacock's feather adorned her hair. Green nymphs and satyrs buzzed around her head.
"Prefects," she said, with all the warmth of superfluid helium.
"Matriarch Perigal," Dreyfus said, standing with his feet a few centimetres from the edge of the pool.
"My companions are Deputy Field Prefects Sparver Bancal and Thalia Ng. We've met, of course.". Perigal turned languidly to her two companions.
"The sleepy-looking fat one is Tom Dreyfus," she explained.
One of them – an aristocratic man with long, white hair – examined Dreyfus through clinical grey eyes. His plumage rendered him in impressionist brushstrokes.
"Your paths have crossed before, Caitlin?". Perigal stirred, breaking the water with the muscular fluked tail that had been grafted on in place of her legs. Thalia touched the stud on the side of her shades to verify that the tail was real, not a hallucination.