You Rang?

[Ashley] "My apprentice," she says, with a worried glance toward the girl. She's rather hoping that they don't have to use the Wonder to wake her back up again - it could be a rather dangerous endeavor, all told.

Unfortunately, she realizes a moment later that her cell phone was in her pants pocket - the pants which now lie in shreds and cinders inside the sewer. And there is no way in hell she's going back there. She's at a loss for a moment before she remembers Enid, and she reaches into the girl's pocket for her phone. Fortunately, there is Kage's number.

So she calls the Orphan.

[Kage Jakes] When Ashley says she needs someone to pick her (and Gregor [and Morgan]) up, Kage doesn't ask a lot of questions -- beyond, of course, the address.

This requires some work from Gregor or Ashley, because they don't actually know where they are, but after they've climbed out've the warehouse (a dangerous proposition: there are boxes, beams-to-worry-about), after they're out in the open (sweet) air, ignored as assiduously as if they were Neverwhere's denizens, after they find a street-sign, numbers scratched-on-the-sidewalk tell a tale, and the tale says google maps says here, and here is where they're eventually met by a [death cab] black truck.

Familiar: they've both taken plenty of rides in it. All in all it doesn't take the Orphan more than fifteen minutes to find them. To park the truck, let it idle, open the driver's side door, hop to the ground, and look them over.

"Hey," she says, and her eyebrows are up, but she's cool as can be. "Do we need a hospital stop?"

[Gregor] Gregor's frown is half-hearted. Apprentice. (Something to worry about later).

While Ashley calls Kage, Gregor moves to a nearby door that leads out to the West side of the warehouse. Enid still in one hand, adrenaline still pushing at limbs as the Fear threatens to bubble up and clutch his stomach taut, the Dreamspeaker leans back and punches a boot into the boarded up door.

Wood gives way as shoddy planks tumble to the alley ground and the night air is let in, swimming with cool breezes and stirring the long stale air of the warehouse's interior fitfully. Gregor sucks in a lungful of that freshness, moving out into the alleyway and to a nearby wall again.

The vision blurs slightly.

(See the wretch. Neck deep, hands clawing at the sides of his prison. His work has been crumbled and turned to a quagmire and years of practice put to test and failed. He stares, sightless up at the hole, whose light he cannot see any longer. He clings to some semblance of false hope, even as the muck creeps at his chin-)

"I have to go..." Quiet, as if more strength might break the voice. Shivers wrack the frame as the adrenaline ramps up another notch and Gregor leans forward to brush Enid's hair back almost neurotically, wiping the sewage smears away from cheeks and brow with trembling hands.

"..I...I have to go." An insistence then, wiping below his nose, sniffing loudly as he stands. Kage's arrival is given a berth as he steps back from Enid to allow the Orphan to work. They could handle this. He wipes his hands against his hoodie, back stepping further down the alleyway, turning as he goes. Words wouldn't bring him 'round. Ten steps and he's jogging. Around a corner and he's at a run.

[Ashley] When Ashley suggested that Kage come and pick them up, she'd tagged on, "and you might want to, um, line your seats with trash bags or something. And bring an air freshener," so in all likelihood, Kage already knew that what she would be finding was a bit unpleasant.

Up in the city again she holds Gregor's coat tightly about herself, breathing in large lungfuls of air, only slightly tinged with the unpleasantness from below. She's quiet while she and Gregor stand there waiting, an appreciative glance and a nod in the Dreamspeaker's direction her only real attempt at communication. She could use some time to herself too, evidently.

She usually could, it's just rare these days that she gets it.

The black truck arrives and Gregor announces then that he has to go, which makes Ashley raise her eyebrows and say, "Wait - " but it's no use, and then he is gone. So she turns to Kage and gives the woman a shake of the head. "No. I think...just getting back to my place is a good idea at this point. We both have some burns but they aren't that bad."

[Kage Jakes] "You look like the devil used you to wipe his ass. I'm curious as hell: but I'm not going to ask tonight. If you want some takeout, there might be something in one've the bags in back." The back, in this truck, is a claustrophic space that Ashley can only get to when the front-seat is pushed forward, which Kage does before she (careful [cautious]) crouches beside the Hermetic apprentice.

After looking her over, careful, thoughtful, after feeling her pulse, although Kage doesn't know enough of medicine for that to be useful anyway, she carefully gathers her up. Enid's taller, heavier: athletic, long-limbed. It's awkward, but Kage manages. She's an older sister. Of course she manages. And once Ashley's in the truck, she'll dump (heavy!) Enid in the front passenger seat.

"You good?"

[Ashley] Kage quips about her appearance, and she gets a flat stare in response. The look of someone who is completely exhausted, drained, and might find this entire incident hilarious someday but does not right now. "Thanks," she says, when offered the takeout, "but I'm going to shower before I even think about eating."

She climbs into the backseat and huddles there, curling into a ball so she can pull the coat over her legs on the drive home, shooting anxious looks toward Enid as Kage manages to maneuver her into the front seat. "Yeah," she says after a moment, "I'm good. Thanks for coming to pick us up. Trying to walk home like this would have been really awkward."

On the way home she runs through an inventory of the jewelry she has on, making sure she did not lose any of her instruments. And for the most part she's quiet. Except, as they near her apartment building: "If you tell anyone about this. I'll call every mage in the city and tell them there's a party at your apartment."