Pollux was not one to hesitate when he saw one of his own in danger. The way that the ancients and their deities so ardently protected their blood kin, he protected them. Because they were more than that, and also the closest thing any of them would ever get to blood kin. They were his and nobody was going to take that away from him, nobody at all.

Especially not a slimy little photographer, sticking his nose in where it didn't belong and taking his own out to the deck. Not after what had just gone down moments ago.

"Oi," Pollux charged straight for the photographer, grabbing him by the collar of the shirt. "You leave my friends alone."

"H-hey, let go of me!"

"Not until you tell me what you are doing to my friends."

Well, technically 'my friend and that other one', he thought to himself, but he didn't think it was quite the time to be splitting hairs. Besides, if Taygete was willing to give a Memnon member a chance then he would go with it until he saw the slightest indicator that she was going to hurt her. He gave Alistair Cox another shake, and the man yelped.

"Look, I just wanted to ask them-and you, actually. You are the cicada people, right?"

This surprised Pollux enough that he let go of Alistair, who squawked as he landed in a haphazard crouch. Oh wait, did I lift him off of his feet? Oopsie. Pollux made a show of wiping his hands against his suit jacket and staring down at Alistair, who righted himself and re-adjusted his plain mask before bending down to pick a piece of paper up.

"The cicada people," he explained. "Like in this note."

Pollux snatched it, and Taygete and Chione stood beside him, peering over his shoulders to read it:

In the matter of the queen and all she values,
there are motives darker than greed
even when it comes to jewels, so take heed.
Where the cicada people go, blood will follow,
their quest will lead to nothing but sorrow.
It is not just fortunes that will be lost,
beware, young truth-teller, beware.

"Why'd they just start a rhyming structure in the middle and then end up abandoning it?" Pollux wondered.

"Really?" Chione asked in a trembly half-whisper. "That's what you're worried about?"

"No, but still. If this is about us you'd hope they'd at least put some more effort into the poetry."

"How did you work out that we could potentially be 'the cicada people'?"

Taygete looked Alistair right in the eye, though she clung onto Pollux's sleeve as she did so. Alistair rubbed his eyes and with a deep sigh said:

"Honestly, at first I had no idea whatsoever, but watching you at the ball I realised that those parts of your cloaks, they reminded me a bit of cicada wings. Of course, I could have been wrong, but you don't get anywhere in my line of work without taking chances."

"Ah."

Now Taygete looked to Pollux, blinking and unsure. He tapped his foot, wishing that Phaedra were here. He wondered if any of the others had noticed. Even another Memnon member wouldn't go amiss right about now. He didn't even have any idea what had been going on with the lights. He'd smelt the blood and the panic, and he knew that Taygete had sent a message which had sent Atropos hurtling out of the room in pursuit of Leigh. But he hadn't read the messages, too busy he had been making sure that he kept an eye on the surprisingly speedy Scarlett as she moved around doing…what, he didn't know but certainly nothing that seemed suspicious.

Alistair looked at them all suspiciously and asked again:

"So? Are you the cicada people?"

Teachings from their bosses came to Pollux's mind.

..and eventually, Tithonus was doomed to turn into a cicada and he is in the world, even now, circling around with others of his kind, watching them live out their short cicada-lifespans while he continues to live on, helpless and even without his lover and his sons. But there will never be an extinction of cicadas because of him, for even when all the rest have gone he will remain…

"I suppose so, in the sense that these are meant to be cicada wings." Chione spoke up, much to Pollux's surprise.

"Chione?!" Taygete asked, also startled.

Chione looked over and said.

"But I'm not so sure that we're the cicada people? Honestly, I am not sure that I quite understand that note? It seems an oblique way to tell you something."

Pollux had to admit to being impressed and indeed, Alistair seemed to consider this.

"Ah, the trouble with these damn masks is that it is hard to read peoples intentions with them, though that is part of the fun. Who else would know what you're wearing?"

"Our friends?"

"Who also have cloaks such as this, yes? I wonder if it was one of them who left this note and stole some of my belongings?"

Pollux's jaw dropped open at that, and Alistair chuckled.

"Well now, that is an easy expression to read. Still, I wonder, how put-on is it? If I was to take a picture of you now, what would it reveal-"

Suddenly, Pollux really wanted to dangle Alistair by his shirt collar again. Preferably over the deck's railings, but that'd be more trouble than it was worth.

"Haven't you taken enough pictures already?" He snarled instead.

Alistair raised an eyebrow, and put a hand to his camera:

"Well, I had taken some, but you see they have been stolen from me, presumably at the same time this note was left and well…"

Alistair pretended to think:

"You can see why it looks bad, don't you?"

We're not stupid, Pollux wanted to say, almost as much as he really wanted to throw Alistair over the railings. But only his annoyance at the thought of the further inconvenience stopped him. Well, that and how Taygete's grip on his sleeve was getting tighter. He looked down to see that both her hands held onto it, not just one, her delicate knuckles straining. She is mine, one of mine, closest thing to and more than blood, he reminded himself. He moved forward, discreetly nudging Taygete slightly behind him while also making sure Chione was similarly shielded before saying:

"How do I know that this is not something you've made up yourself, in order to divide and conquer us? How do any of us know that you're not just the enemy and you're trying to throw us off?"

"Why would I be doing that?" Alistair said. "You have nothing to do with Delilah Wright's background, which is what I'm really here for. Though, if you have a more interesting story to tell me-"

"Over your dead body." Pollux hissed. "We've had enough of that."

Alistair raised an eyebrow at that.

"I knew it," he said triumphantly. "I knew that you were hiding something. Say, you two were there when Leigh Moriarty started bleeding, weren't you?"

"Y-yes?" Taygete said.

"You were?" Pollux asked even as he wondered, wait, what? Was that where the smell came from?

"Mhm." Taygete confirmed. "Chione was playing chess against Ms Wright."

"Oh."

"So, could you tell me what happened?"

"I'm sure plenty of other gossipy people saw it," Pollux said before either girl could answer. "So why don't you go and get 'the scoop' from them and leave us alone?"

"Oh my, how defensive of you."

Alistair's eyes sparkled, but he let go of his camera.

"Very well then, I'll be off…but I'm keeping my eye on you and your other friends too."

Alistair went back into the ballroom, and Pollux immediately launched into a volley of swearing, kicking a deckchair. Taygete let go of his sleeve and jumped back, and he felt both her and Chione's anxious gazes on them. Sighing heavily, he ran a hand through his hair and then turned to look at them.

"Tell me what happened. I know you sent messages, but-"

"Alright, so…"

Taygete quickly explained what had happened, and Pollux felt a chill run through him. If the necklace had been the root of that earlier incident then there was no two ways about it, it was an artefact of some sort. But he was sure that none of them had heard of an artefact being activated by blood. Yes, sometimes an animal sacrifice had to be offered to remove an artefact safely without angering its owner deity, and there were other artefacts whose power could sap energy quite easily, or cause strange weather phenomenon if not handled correctly but blood? That, he'd never heard of.

"I take it that none of you have heard of such a thing either?" he asked Chione.

He obviously couldn't tell for sure, but she did seem to at least genuinely consider the question.

"No…certainly, Dei and Narcisse haven't mentioned such a thing. I don't think it will surprise them, when I tell them what happened. Narcisse in particular, after you and he met Jackson in the corridor-"

Chione snapped her mouth shut, then shook her head and said:

"Actually, I should go and find them. Um, bye, Taygete."

Taygete's eyes went wide, but she gave a little wave and watched as Chione slipped back into the ballroom, quickly going out of sight. She sighed wistfully and Pollux took her hand.

"Hey, don't look so down," he said. "It's natural she would want to go back to her group."

"Mmmmm."

"So, let's go back to ours-make sure that Atropos and Orpheus haven't decided to actually start eating each other."

As he'd hoped, this managed to prompt a smile from Taygete, and the two of them went hand in hand back into the ballroom. Pollux immediately spotted Tomas standing against the wall with a glass of red wine, looking utterly done with everything. Wright was dancing alone, and he was sure that he could spot Scarlett weaving in and out of the crowds apparently cleaning up. But what really caught his eye was Orpheus and Phaedra dancing in the middle of the ballroom. How soft they seemed, and not just because of the slower pace of the music. Before, Phaedra's heart hadn't been in it and Orpheus had approached each dance almost ferociously but now, for the first time, it was as if they could both really enjoy the party.

Well, no, that's not quite it. Pollux knew full well that Orpheus had definitely enjoyed the challenge of getting the suspects to dance with him, of wielding his charm like the weapon it was in order to do what had been asked of them all. Here, though, there was no need for charm or for challenge, it was just a moment of peace that was usually so hard to grab. The outside world was fraught enough without both their mission and the detective's interference.

Ah, well, I suppose this party is fun too, all the freaky-lights-crap and the damned detective situation notwithstanding. I might as well enjoy what was left of it. So that was what Pollux decided to do, dancing and chatting with his friends, most of them loading up on whatever was left at the snack table. Of course, they did not forget what they were looking for, and kept their eyes on everyone they were supposed to. But Pollux allowed himself to while the night away as if he was just any guest.

And gradually, gradually, the rosy fingers of dawn grasped their way across the sky to gently herald the end. They all waited in the back of the ballroom, quietly whispering what they had discovered to each other. Iapetus and Andromeda were sent to follow Delilah and Frederick as the latter escorted the former to her room, since the two of them were the best at trailing others un-noticed, proving this by arriving right behind Frederick as he returned into the room, slipping back to them before he even realised.

Apart from the staff of the ship wearily tidying up, they were now the only ones there, and with his finger Frederick beckoned them all out onto the deck.

"Tell me what you found."

They went through it-the bits and pieces of rumour picked up, and everything they had noticed. Well, almost everything. They told them about the exchange they'd seen between Leigh and Alistair, and how Alistair had been seen almost everywhere, even coming out of places that a guest probably would not go (such as the main kitchens). They talked about Leigh's behaviour at the party's game table, and how he'd seemed almost taunting of Scarlett and had been heard boasting about his ability to acquire anything. Indeed, some of the rumours had claimed that Leigh's lifestyle was far more lavish than one would expect for a shopkeeper on a cruise ship, even accounting for his work in the casino. How in the end, it had really only been Leigh that they'd noticed leaving the room at all during the party-Tomas Walker, when he hadn't been challenged into a dance, had stayed in almost the same place the entire time. But they did not say that they had overheard his argument, that they'd thought his reaction to Delilah Wright gambling her necklace away off, that most of the rumours that they had heard had been about the nature of his relationship with her and how they'd both once come from rough beginnings. They certainly didn't tell him that his missing button had been noticed.

And though Frederick snorted when Chione described how the necklace had seemed to attract the blood from Leigh's wound (which, they also mentioned, was in almost the same place as Scarlett's), he listened and wrote it all down in his little notebook. Eventually, though, he raised his cold eyes to theirs and asked:

"So, to conclude, who do you think is the most likely to be guilty?"

Phaedra, who was now discreetly leaning against Orpheus, started to speak but then Deimos stepped forward and with a swish of his cloak said:

"Well, in truth, there are two we're suspicious of compared to the others…however, when it comes down to it, we suspect…"

Deimos paused and stared at Frederick and for a brief moment Pollux was impressed. Good, he thought, don't give this bastard everything he demands. Frederick, of course, was clearly not impressed if the glare he was giving was any indication. But Deimos, much to Pollux's further reluctant admiration, did not falter, stretching the moment out just a little more before lifting his chin, giving a sharp grin and saying:

"Leigh Moriarty."