Hinnom can't help the way zir eyes keep flitting towards Riccin. They're stepping forward, ominous as a thundercloud, and the scratches on their face are bleeding a steady streak of gold.

There's no weapon in their mitts, but they're big enough they don't need a weapon.

"You need to focus." Ze can feel the tingle of zir psionics on the back of zir head as Castor pushes it down, gently. "Don't worry about them. Just think of hive."

"I can't focus," Hinnom whines.

"Think of the thing you were making," he insists. "With the bones, and the hair, and the shells. And your collection. And your shelf. And.."

Ze spends so much time at zir little table, working on zir toys. They're not the sort of things ze sees in the shop, but ze's proud of them: of little figurines, with their joints and pinions, of the tools ze made to make them, of the shelf cobbled together to hold them... it's always in the back of zir mind, and it's easy now to pull it to the forefront.

Hinnom sees, rather than feels, the moment that the picture clicks. Pheres's eyes widen, his eyebrows shoot up and he beams at them, hard enough that his eyes go all squinty. "You did it," he says, marvelling, and then: "Hold on tight."

The world goes white.