Dash to Pieces – 11.4
Author: Wildbow

Dash to Pieces – 11.4 | Pale

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The three of them stood in the main room of the basement.  Snowdrop had gone upstairs to keep an eye on Matthew and keep an ear out for trouble, while John sat on the stairs, peering out the basement window.  Edith had moved back and sat on one of the cushy, squat chairs, lounging and tense at the same time, eyes burning dull orange.

Tashlit stood with her back to the wall, not far from Edith, and the Sable Prince stood opposite Tashlit.  It was like a fence stretched between them, hemming Edith in.

Lucy watched as Verona put the syringe on the top of a squat bookcase and let go of it.  It turned slowly to point to Edith, the darkness inside moving.  It looked at first as if it might be from the cooling wind rune that Verona had put inside her clothing, to compensate for the longer-sleeved clothing and pants they wore.

“Why do this?” Lucy asked.

Edith didn’t respond.

Lucy studied Edith’s expression, but it was hard to read.  One of Edith’s hands clenched briefly, as if she was unconsciously reacting to a thought, then it relaxed.

“Is the Doom dangerous to you?”

No response.  No clench, no wavering in eye contact.

“Is it your intention to force us to bind you to get answers?”

Edith looked up.  “You’ve destroyed my marriage.”

“That’s a distraction,” Lucy said.  “Answer my question.”

Avery looked up, then walked over to be next to Lucy.  “Didn’t you destroy your own marriage, with any lies you told, or whatever you were doing with the Doom?”

“All we had to do was show him a syringe,” Verona said.  “Which you lost.”

Edith kept her mouth shut, fuming.

Lucy could have pressed her on that, to see if they could get her to break, but it still felt like they’d be going down the wrong path.

There was clearly something screwed up here, and as Lucy stared down Edith, arms folded, it was hard not to think of every bit of awfulness that had spilled forth from this.  The Hungry Choir was the big one, unconfirmed, and then the chaos, the breaking perimeter, the invading Others, people getting hurt and scared.

They never would have awoken, and without them awakening and being thrust into things, maybe the attack at the end-of-school party could have been averted, or the Belanger involvement, Alexander and Bristow dying or something equivalent to dying…

So much pettiness for… what?

She could have asked but Edith wasn’t answering.  Lucy turned and walked away.  Out of the main room, to the staircase.

“Everything okay?” John asked.

“Frustrated,” Lucy said.

Avery and Verona followed her into the room, glancing back at Edith.

“Where we at?” Verona asked.

“Thinking.”

“We could use the circle we whipped up,” Verona said.  “We should also do the basement, to keep her in bounds, and as a secondary measure.  We’ll have to figure out how to compel the other local Others into not breaking her out, if we’re keeping her prisoner long-term.”

“Or we could move her,” Avery said.  “Might be nicer to Matthew.  Gives him his basement back, means his wife who betrayed him might not be sticking around…”

“I can think of only one good place to stick her and nah,” Verona said.  “That’s a whole can of worms.”

The House at Half Street?

Yeah, stowing a perpetrator at the same location could go really wrong.  All it would take would be one point of failure.

All of this practice stuff forced its awkward analogies.  In that case, it was like imprisoning a criminal in a jail with the weapons they were trying to steal.

“John?” Lucy asked.

“Yes?” he replied.  His eyes moved to her, studying her, before going back out the window.  Confirming she wasn’t holding something or taking a snapshot of her expression before returning to the task at hand: keeping watch.

“You’ve been bound before?”

“I have.  Confined temporarily, not bound to anyone or anything, not compelled.  I saw many other Dogs of War be confined and compelled.  When we were trying to find our way overseas, the same families and groups that were trying to bind us sent some bound Dogs after us.”

“Do you have any thoughts on us binding Edith?”

“And compelling her?” Verona jumped in.  “Since you’re making that distinction?”

“It should be a last-ditch effort.  Have you exhausted every other measure?”

“I’m not sure what other measures there are,” Lucy admitted.  “She won’t talk.”

“Then you have to decide if you’re fine with not getting answers.”

Avery leaned into the stairs and under the railing to look upstairs, before leaning back to a regular standing position and asking, “Would you think less of us if we did this?”

“I would think of you differently.”

“Differently how?”

“In the same way I would see a young man who’d shot an enemy in a new light.”

“We compelled McKay.  Is that not… metaphorically shooting the gun?” Avery asked.

“I don’t know about the others, but I saw it as less violent than a shooting.  Field surgery requires deep cuts, and without some form of attention on that front, he was a dangerous individual.  You did what you did to reach a point where you could safely release him.  He was dangerous and he needed to be forced to a new direction.  But you wouldn’t be releasing Edith, would you?”

“Not…” Lucy started.  Not what?

Not… immediately?

Snowdrop poked her head downstairs, then made her way down.  John leaned out of the way to make room, but Snowdrop slipped under the railing and hopped down from the stairs.

“Update?” Avery asked.

“He’s doing just fine, he’s going to blab about what’s going on.  He liked having my company, my words were really reassuring, I think.”

“I’ll check on him,” Avery said, grabbing the railing, sticking a foot up on a fourth or fifth step, and swinging herself up, before heading upstairs.

“What’s he doing?” Verona asked.

“He’s going to drink all night.  Hasn’t gotten around to putting a drink in his hand yet.  Staying inside, not looking out into the distance.  He had a lot to get off his chest in terms of talking.”

“Right,” Verona said.  “Tashlit?”

Tashlit crossed the room where she was watching Edith, and leaned against the entryway to the main basement.

“You ever been bound?”

Tashlit made a so-so gesture and then shrugged one shoulder.

“How’s that?” Verona asked.

Tashlit looked around, then grabbed loose skin and twisted it, wringing it until it was wound taut between her elbow and her hand.

“Rope?  You were tied up?”

Tashlit nodded.  She made a cradling gesture and then held up five fingers, then grabbed the middle finger.

“Her sibling tied her up.  Was this the skinless crime lord dude?”

Tashlit nodded.

“But not like, practitioner binding, no compelling?  You’ve managed to avoid all that, with all the travel?”

Tashlit shook her head.

“Good for you,” John said.

“Doesn’t really count if it’s rope.  Any thoughts, any strong feelings?  Binding Edith?”

Tashlit moved her face-skin, smushing it around, then pulled on her lower eyelids, dragging them down.

“That’s a level one uneasiness.  Cool, right, thanks.”

Tashlit nodded.

“You two are even more incomprehensible now that you’ve spent enough time together to work out a system.”

Avery reappeared at the top of the stairs.  “He’s sitting on the porch in the dark, has a drink in hand, doesn’t want to talk.  Says he’s drinking the one and won’t have any more.  Also, Snowdrop’s backwards talking while trying to reassure didn’t go so hot.”

Snowdrop sighed.  “I didn’t really try that hard.”

“It was good of you to try,” Avery said.  “Bad call on my part.  I thought it’d be easier than one of us going, and we need John to stand watch.”

“At least I’m holding up my end of the familiar partnership.”

“Don’t stress about it, Snow.”

Lucy paced a bit, then walked back into the main room.

She considered how to phrase what she needed to phrase.  She looked over at the Sable Prince.

“These things proceed much more smoothly if you have a plan in mind and execute it.  Particularly when I’m involved.”

“May-” Lucy started.  She stopped herself.

The Sable Prince liked definitive language, firm phrasings.

Lucy picked her words more carefully, no maybes.  “My instincts are that you’re right, these things do go smoothly if they’re straightforward, standalone events.  But doing these things in too straightforward a way without taking new facts into account can cause a lot of problems later on.”

“It can.  At the same time, I must take note of the uncertainty.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the direct one, Lucy?” Edith asked.  “Bringing two knives to your awakening?  Fangs, fierceness?  You’re practically pacing, leaving here to go to the stairs, asking questions, coming back.  You don’t really believe in this, do you?”

“You wronged us, Edith,” Lucy said.  “You wronged your husband.”

“For certain meanings of wrong, maybe.  Be careful with your words,” Edith said, voice low, eyes burning brighter.

“Edith,” Avery said.  “I got the vibe you liked us.  We had nice barbecue dinners here.  Now you’re so adversarial.”

“I liked you just fine.  I don’t like what you are and what you’re becoming.”

“We’re going out of our ways to try and avoid becoming the bad sort of practitioner,” Lucy said.

“No, you went out of your way, to the Blue Heron Institute, to train to become good practitioners.  You’re naturally inclined to practice in your own ways, you’re intelligent, and you’re driven.  You cooperate, and that puts you in close proximity to Alexander Belanger’s group, from Charles’s time being active as a practitioner.”

“What are you even on about?” Lucy asked.  “That makes no sense to me.”

Lucy looked, checking with Avery, who shrugged, and then with Verona, who tilted her head.

“I don’t think Edith differentiates between a competent practitioner and an evil one,” Verona said.

“By the roads competence and power are obtained, for your kind?  No, not really,” Edith said.  “Binding us, tapping us and our realms for power.”

“Most of what we do is from lessons taught by you guys!” Lucy retorted.  “If you had other ideas you should have communicated it!”

“Until you left!  Until you decided that wasn’t enough, that you needed to be able to bind us.”

“To catch the Carmine’s killers,” Lucy told her.

“We never asked you to.  We asked you to investigate, even indicated you didn’t need to put a wholehearted effort into it.  You decided to take it on yourself to take things this far.  You decided you needed the tools to then carry out your self-imposed goal.  You started on the road to associating with dangerous people, learning things dangerous to me and those I care about.”

Lucy shook her head.

Verona looked over at the Sable.  “Does this bother you?  That she didn’t want us to investigate thoroughly?”

“Are you trying to bias me?”

“I’m trying to figure out where you stand.”

“This is devolving to pointless argument on intentions.  I’m here to arbitrate something clearly defined and I’ll keep to that role.  The question I wish to answer is this: was Edith James Wrong?  If she was, I’ll lend power to any binding, and I’ll strip her of much or all of her ability.  You’ve suggested you don’t wish to extinguish her.  When the time comes, I’ll double check and verify that, limiting what I take.”

Edith’s expression twisted, a scowl, a look down and away.

“Well, as far as figuring out if she’s wrong, I think we’re on track,” Lucy said.

“Make it a less convoluted one if you can,” the Sable Prince told them.

“Is there a time limit?” Verona asked.

Lucy elbowed her.  Don’t ask that in front of Edith.

Too late now.

“Everything has its time limit, even if that time is in the far future, when all has crumbled and gone dark, devoid of Man and Other.”

“Right, but you here, tonight?” Verona asked.

“In effect, yes.  I may be impatient with your approach, and I intend to see this through, but if you take too long then other things will demand your attention, and if this becomes secondary to your attention, then I will make it secondary to mine.  I can arbitrate from a distance, as is the case in most forswearing and oathbreaking.”

Edith might have help coming.

“Better hurry, you three,” Edith said.  “Bind me if you must, with no clear proof of wrongdoing, and let every scared Other in Kennet know who and what they’re dealing with.  Or don’t, hold off, pretend to be noble, and forego binding.  Tell the Sable Prince that you’ve wasted his time.”

“No clear proof aside from your husband,” Avery said.

“We may have different definitions of clear,” Edith said.  “He inferred.  It’s for me and him to handle, or not handle, as the case may be.  You showed him the syringe, that’s doing more than enough.”

Lucy shook her head.  She looked at the Sable Prince.  “How would this process go if we were Others, challenging another Other?  If she wasn’t answering?”

“Many details would be different.  Foremost among them, I wouldn’t have come in the first place.  I can arbitrate from a distance.”

“You’re that aware of things?” Verona asked.

“I can be.”

We’re in a bind.  We need to get a clear answer from her to solidify the core argument about whether she’s basically forsworn, but she won’t give a clear answer without being bound.  If we bind her, we possibly ruin relationships with the locals…

Lucy stared down at the ground, fingertips digging into her arm above the elbow.

“Lucy,” John said.

She looked back toward the stairs.

“I can advocate on your behalf.  You used the Judge, you offered fairness, you’ve invited her to take a gentler route than binding, there are suggestions that she’s playing games and evading.  Binding seems necessary whatever her answers are, and compulsion can be forgiven if gently used.”

“If you make her say specific words then the words are yours, not hers, as are any costs,” the Sable Prince said.

“Meaning if we made her tell a lie by having her repeat something…?” Verona asked.

“Yes.”

Lucy folded her arms, staring Edith down.

Emotions kept leaking out, crossing Edith’s face, before being pushed down.

Lucy was reminded of Verona.  Verona did that sometimes, except it was almost never anger.  Suppressing valid emotions, holding back.  No, the anger was something Lucy was more familiar with.

The deep loss of someone she loved… it mirrored something Avery had evidenced.  Except for Avery, it was that there wasn’t anyone to love.  She wanted to connect and she knew there were no valid partners in Kennet.  It was its own kind of heartbreak, quiet, matched to Edith’s.  If you wanted someone and couldn’t, or if you had that perfect someone and lost them.

Matthew ceasing to care and going upstairs had been the point Edith had started to crack, more emotions coming out, the little bursts of lost control.

“You clearly don’t want to be bound,” Lucy said.  She noted Tashlit, Verona, Avery, and Snowdrop approaching behind her.  “Tell me, if you were compelled, what would you say?”

“Doesn’t that defeat the point?” Edith asked.

“Defeating the point is my point,” Lucy told her.  “You don’t want to be bound, you don’t want to be compelled, well, sorry, the binding may end up having to happen but we can make it easier to put up with, and we can skip the compulsion if you’ll just open your mouth and say what you’re going to end up saying regardless.”

Edith shook her head, mouth shut.

“When we go upstairs, Matthew is liable to ask us what we found out.  His heart is in turmoil-”

“Matthew has nothing to do with your business with the Sable Prince.”

“Matthew has everything to do with you.  If you turn this into a struggle, if you make us hurt you on some fundamental level in order to get answers, that hurts him by proxy.”

“I don’t think we believe Matthew is involved by proxy,” Avery told the Sable Prince.

“Thoughts and beliefs are no real concern of mine.  If you’re certain, tell me, and it can matter.”

Avery opened her mouth to say something, but Verona held up two fingers, before looking at Edith.  Verona asked, “Was Matthew controlled in any way, to make him participate in the conspiracy to kill and skin the Carmine Beast?”

“How should I know?”

“If you don’t give us clear answers, we’ll have to bind him until we know more,” Lucy told her.

“Leave him be,” Edith told them.

“Help us to do that,” Lucy said.  “Because the alternative is-”

“You’re forcing my hand.”

“I’m trying to find a course that isn’t using a binding to force your hand in a more brutal way.”

“This is brutish enough,” Edith retorted.

“What do you see happening when or if we bind you?” Lucy asked.

Edith drew in a breath, then said, “I’d tell you I swore oaths to keep the names of the other conspirators from you.”

“You’re admitting you had a role.”

“You know I had a role.  You were at the cabin.  You contrived to blow me up with my own runes, carved into the door.  You presumably stole the furs.”

“Stole you say, like they belonged to you in the first place,” Lucy accused her.  “You stole them from the Carmine Beast when you skinned the corpse.”

“I prefer to say we rescued the furs,” Verona said.  “It’s a better word.”

“Okay, let me get us back on track,” Avery said.  “You swore to keep the names of the other conspirators from us.  If I start by asking you if Maricica was involved…”

“I’m not answering,” Edith said.  “To do otherwise would break my oath.”

“Can I ask if Snowdrop was involved?  Or Cherrypop?”

“Really?” Verona asked.

“Can I?” Avery asked.

“I won’t lead you to an answer by eliminating every possibility other than the true culprits, if that’s what you’re after,” Edith said.

Verona looked over to the Sable Prince, asking, “If she was bound to answer and couldn’t because of a conflicting oath, what would happen?”

“It would count against her.  You could push it, you could even compel her to give a true answer, in violation of her other oath, depending on your power and the other party.  It would destroy her, but you would have your answer.  One answer, extinguishing her as the price.”

“Don’t want to do that either,” Avery said.

“But if lives are on the line, we might have to,” Lucy said.

Avery shook her head.

“When did you swear this?” Lucy asked.  “Not to name them?”

“A clear answer could lead you to them.”

“How about an unclear one?  Before or after you swore oaths to us in our awakening?” Lucy asked.

Edith stared at her, mouth shut.

“We could tell Matthew you cooperated some, made it an easier process,” Avery told Edith.  “He asked us to tell him things if we think he can bear it and you fighting and struggling the entire time to an unpleasant binding where we’re forced to leave you imprisoned in his basement…”

“Enough,” Edith spat out the word, standing at the same time.  The sudden movement saw Tashlit lunge away from the wall, interjecting herself between Edith and them, hand out.

Edith looked between them.

“I don’t think the person or people who got you to swear it was doing you any favors,” Lucy told her.

Edith didn’t answer.

“Are they doing you any favors?” Verona asked.  “Did they promise to free you?  Do you still have a role to play?  Or is this it?  You in this basement while they carry on?”

“I can’t give you any indicators about who they are,” Edith said.  “Unless I’m willing to unravel myself to do it.”

But after Edith finished that statement, she glanced back toward the stairs.  She wasn’t looking at John.  That was the direction Matthew had gone.

“Th-” Avery started.  Lucy raised a hand, and Avery stopped.

A moment passed.

Edith sat down, and her hand went to her forehead, so that the forehead rested against the webbing between thumb and index finger, the flat of the hand blocking her view of them and their view of hers.  There was no indication that her eyes burned or that she was anything other than a woman, like that.

To be safe, Lucy used her Sight.

Edith looked much as she often did.  Blades pierced her body in various places, and the blades glowed with a white-hot heat, as if heated by something intense within.  Each blade handle had ribbons trailing from it, edges singed, and the ribbons wrapped around her.  Many were red, but they varied in color and texture, each rough portion of her body given over to a certain color and material.  Blue-purple near the head, a red with a gold band running through it at one arm and shoulder.  A deep, iridescent red for the ribbon around the body.  The complex spirit was still inside the body.

The blades at her hands were new.  Broken blades piercing her hands from the back, watercolor staining weeping out, darkening the bandages they touched to a near-black.  When she clenched her fist the staining got more intense.

“I swore it after your awakening.  Recently,” Edith told them.  Lucy blinked, returning her vision to normal.

“Then by the oaths sworn, you conspired to keep information from us,” Lucy said.  “And by doing so, wronged us.”

“Yes.”

“So noted,” the Sable Prince said, from the background.  The words had weight.  “On the first charge Edith James admits guilt.”

“Did you ever have any intention of bringing us to the same level of status and equality as the rest of the Kennet Others?” Avery asked.

“You asked for fairness and equality when you awoke.  I didn’t argue when Matthew said you would have a vote.  It was an afterthought, after you brought it up in your exchanges with him while at the Blue Heron, but it wasn’t an afterthought I fought against.”

Lucy pressed, “But did you intend to follow through?  You’ve indicated a prejudice against powerful practitioners, did you-”

“No I didn’t,” Edith interrupted.  “I hoped you’d die and simplify matters, or that one of you would and the other two would be distracted and diminished.  I plotted to be rid of you in a way that would maintain other Oaths.  We did discuss using the Carmine role to help that along, but not to forswear you three.”

“Something else?” Verona asked.

“Yes,” Edith said.  “I’m cooperating.  May I have a cigarette?  There are some on the kitchen counter.”

“I think that would be dangerous,” Avery said, quiet.

Verona added, “It would allow Cig to drop in, it would allow you access to heat and fire…”

Edith’s voice became a near-growl.  “I want a fucking smoke.  That’s all, no ulterior motives.  I’ll swear whatever necessary.”

Lucy looked over at the others.  “We could do up the binding.”

“So eager to get to that point, are you?” Edith asked, bitter.

“No.  Not eager,” Lucy told her.  “At this point I think we have to do something to imprison you and keep you from participating further in the conspiracy.”

“Bring the whole pack and I won’t be too difficult,” Edith said.

Avery looked back at Snowdrop, nodding.  Snowdrop ran off.

“For the outer binding prison, sealing the room, we might need to move her,” Verona said.  She got her sketchbook, and quickly sketched out a right angle, then made each of the two lines double lines with a casual ease.  Lucy wasn’t sure she’d drawn that straight a line without using a ruler once in her life.

Verona added a bunch of overlapping triangles stabbing inward from the corner, then added a branching set of perpendicular lines that penetrated into the right angle from there.  “It’d be a square like this.”

“Okay.  Looks right,” Lucy said.  She dug in her bag for chalk.

“I’ll expedite matters,” the Sable Prince said.  “At least once, you were wronged, an oath broken.  You seek to seal, not unravel.  You’ll have my aid in part.”

“What does that mean?” Lucy asked.

He motioned, hand out, to the chalk, then to the floor.

Verona found a corner.

“I want my cigarettes first,” Edith said.

Verona didn’t touch chalk to floor, and remained crouching.  Avery walked over to the other, and Lucy ventured past the sitting Edith to the corner of the basement farthest from where John sat.

Snowdrop returned, carrying the pack of cigarettes.  She handed them to Edith, who leaned over to take them, then leaned back.  Edith tapped one cigarette out.

“Light them after,” Lucy told her.  “I don’t want Cig popping in or we might have to bind him.”

“Fine.”

Lucy touched chalk to floor, and it sizzled, melting like crayon pressed to a hot pan.  She jumped, pulling away, and glanced at Edith.

But it wasn’t a trick on Edith’s part.  The chalk that had melted out extended out into lines, parallel to the bases of the walls.  It wasn’t hot, but solidified into a pattern like crystal inset into the floor, crackling like it was freezing.

“Hold the image in your mind,” the Sable Prince told them.

Lucy remembered Verona’s drawing and held the image in her mind, touching chalk to floor again.

The entire stick of chalk disappeared into floor, sizzling and crackling.  The diagram Verona had drawn unfolded on its own.  Once the chalk was gone, Lucy skipped out of the growing cage, glancing at Edith as Edith bent beneath an invisible weight, or cringed back from the growing lines that extended behind her chair.

The diagram became more elaborate than what Verona had drawn.  Extending up the wall.  A matching diagram appeared on the ceiling. More white lines traced through the air, connecting floor to ceiling where there was no wall to travel up.  They crackled, catching the air around them.

A square prison cell, containing two chairs and a futon that could be laid on, including a television set.

“We may have to move her later,” Avery said.

“The same diagram, drawn for her and her alone, will have the same effect, my power lent to it.”

Avery nodded.

“I request permission,” Edith said, with an ironic air, waving her cigarette around as she looked over and up at the Sable Prince.  “May I use elemental power to light this cigarette and the ones that follow?”

“With their permission.”

“For that and only that.  Set no fires, no tricks,” Lucy warned.  “No alarms, no distractions, no bad intentions, no self-destructive intentions-”

“Beyond what cigarettes are,” Avery said.

“Yeah.  So you can do it so long as you’re doing it while sitting, making yourself comfortable, and answering questions.”

“Nice one,” Verona said.  “Good coverage of terms and things.”

Edith sat back and put the cigarette in her mouth.  She touched a fingertip to it and it glowed.  She puffed, and exhaled smoke.

The smoke stopped at the barrier.

“Do as you will,” Edith said, sounding hollow, like some of the life in her had left with that breath of smoke.  “I’ve lost my husband and marriage, I don’t care anymore.”

“On point two,” Avery said, quiet.  “She’s in clear violation.  She never intended to be equal.  She undermined us.”

“I did,” Edith answered.  “Simple enough.”

“It is established.  On the second charge, Edith James admits involvement.”

“And harming us?” Lucy asked.  “You were to safeguard us and you didn’t.  When Chloe was aggressive and the Witch Hunter was on the offensive…”

“Hm?” Edith asked.  Her eyes burned with the same heat as the cigarette, cutting through the haze of smoke that she’d already established.

“Did you or did you not use your fire to encourage Chloe to rampage in my direction?”

“If I did, it was unconscious.  But I’ll freely admit I had a lot of unconscious urge to be rid of you three.”

“Unconscious urges don’t count as much,” Verona said.

“No,” the Sable Prince said.  “Not by the terms of your awakening.”

“Did you erase the diagram and let Chloe come straight at me, where I thought I’d be safe?  You argued with me about diagrams a bit before.”

“I did not.”

“Did you bring the ghouls or any of the new invitations into Kennet with the conscious intent of putting us in more danger, instead of pursuing your oath to protect us?” Lucy asked.

Edith shook her head, looking away.

“If you’re honest we can tell Matthew-”

“Enough about Matthew!” Edith raised her voice, sitting up straighter.  Tashlit stepped forward, and Edith leaned back, waving her off.  “Leave him out of this and I’ll answer your damn questions.  You already have me, my life is ruined and it may be as good as over.  Don’t rub my nose in the shit.”

“Did you intentionally bring in dangerous or complicated Others, like Chloe, to raise the chances that we’d be taken out of the picture?”

“No comment, but to get this over with, I can say I had no intention of following through on my oath to protect you, unless I was directly asked, like I was with the Witch Hunters.  I sat out on the incident with the Abyssal Beast and the body snatcher and doppleganger because I was hurt, but also because I hoped you’d be too off balance to fight back.  Verona was having a bad day, you were tired and distracted.  One or all of you dying on your own would’ve been the most convenient ending.”

“For you.”

“For me and any co-conspirators.”

“On the third charge, Edith James admits guilt,” the Sable Prince said.  “You have asked that she live so she may continue to provide information.  On three counts, she has Wronged you, and she now exists at your sufferance.”

Edith barely reacted, eyes unfocused and burning in the smoke haze.

Moisture appeared at the corner of her eye, and it sizzled from heat, part of it bouncing off, while the remainder clung to her eye and fizzled away with a faint line of white smoke, distinct from the gray of the cigarette smoke.

The Sable Prince went on, intoning, “You have asked that she be imprisoned, and the binding is thus set.  You may set it, add to it, alter it, revoke it and replace it as you wish.  If you wish to compel her, you need only to set the appropriate diagram in place.  I, my peers, and the immaterial forces of this region will support this in all respects.  We will lend strength to diagrams working against her and secure them against outside forces.   Her power is restricted to what she requires to maintain clarity as spirit, echo, and elemental within the body of Edith James, unless you request she be restored, permanently or temporarily, to her full power.  Should she leave this region, the powers that hold sway there may or may not align with us on this.  Be warned.”

“We hear the warning and I hope we remember to take it into account if we ever transport her elsewhere,” Lucy said.

“Do you feel powerful, girls?” Edith asked, voice dry and a touch contemptuous.  When she looked at them, her eyes were a bit red.

Lucy shook her head, digesting all of that, before she could even begin to find a response.  She looked at the others, and Avery was paying a lot of attention to Snowdrop.  Verona was very quiet and still.

“Not in this,” Lucy said.  “I feel responsible for you now, and a bit pissed I’m forced to take on that responsibility and do this.  It leaves doors open for better things.”

Lucy wondered if the Sable Prince would leave now, but he remained where he was.

“We should ask other questions,” Avery said.

“The three teenagers who went missing around the time the Aware showed up,” Lucy said.  “Were you in the car, transporting the furs?”

“Yes.”

“Were you driving?”

“I must warn you, if I answered I would be unraveled, and I would no longer exist, at your sufferance or otherwise.  I can’t lead you to co-conspirators.”

“How would that lead us to co-conspirators?” Avery asked.

“Edith can’t or doesn’t drive,” Verona suggested, “so if she says she was driving it suggests the co-conspirators in the car, if any, were people who were even less able to drive.  That rules out a few people.  If she says she was in the passenger seat…”

“There aren’t many Others in Kennet who can drive,” Lucy said.  “Barely any, it seems.”

“It being a crummy driver would explain them bailing on the car and the furs instead of driving away, after nearly hitting Clem,” Verona said.

“Are they alive?  The three teenagers who took it on themselves to pick up the furs and drive them out of town?” Lucy asked.

“Are they a concern for us?” Verona asked.  “As revenants, echoes?”

“Ooh, didn’t even think of that,” Avery said.

“I don’t know.  If they are, it either wasn’t planned, or it was planned and I wasn’t included in that planning.”

“Would you be included in planning?” Lucy asked.  “Normally?”

“I think so.  Nothing prior to this has led me to think that would happen or be set as a trap.  If there’s a revenant or wraith then I’d guess it would appear back in reality with revenge against me and any co-conspirators in mind, a problem more meant for us than anything that could be aimed at you.”

“Where can we find the bodies?  Or can we find the bodies?”

“I warn you, I can’t answer either question without being unraveled.”

“How?” Verona asked.

“If I answered that question I could be unraveled…”

“Ugh,” Verona said, making a face.  “If we found the bodies we could figure out the person who inflicted the lethal wounds?  If there’s no body, it could indicate they had an Other who could destroy all traces.  If there is a body, it narrows things down.”

“And the way they’d hide a body, like by using glamour or sinking it into the Warren-muds,” Avery said, not taking her eyes off Edith.

“Were you the woman in the mask at the time Yalda was turned into the Hungry Choir?”  Lucy asked.

“I must warn you, if I answered, I would be unraveled…”

“Right, yeah,” Lucy said.  She glanced back at John and saw him looking.  He turned away to look out the window again.  She paused as she considered that.  “That’s an odd answer, isn’t it?”

“I think it says a lot, honestly,” Verona said.

“It’s not meant to,” Edith said.  “Did you start to suspect me when we had the interview?  Or was it back at the cabin, you went looking for the furs and found them, despite my efforts?”

When you departed the Awakening by coin, Lucy thought, and we realized it was from the Hudson’s Bay Company.  They started as furriers.

None of them answered.  Edith seemed to not care much, because she leaned back in her seat, staring down at the cigarette she held.

It wasn’t Cig, Lucy could confirm.  Wrong type, no cut along the side, and it got shorter as she smoked.

“Did you have any part in the creation of the Hungry Choir?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, but even the Sable Prince had a part,” Edith answered, not looking at any of them, but staring into the smoke instead.

“Did he?”

“He was there when Yalda died.  She would normally rise again in her own time, drawing on the tether that connects her to the war.  He secured her death.”

Again, Lucy glanced back at John.  He hadn’t turned his head this time.

“I did,” the Sable Prince said.

“More specifically, did you help conceive the Hungry Choir, knowing what it might end up being?” Lucy asked.

“I must inform you that I cannot answer that without unraveling myself-”

“You specifically,” Lucy said, sharpening the tone of her voice.  “Your mentality, your motives.”

“I have to warn you that I cannot answer that without unraveling myself.  I will answer if you demand it but it will be the last answer I give you.  You have no control over my unraveling if I unravel because of an oath made to someone else.”

“This is bullshit,” Avery said.

“It’s great,” Snowdrop added.

“Is that because the Choir is itself a co-conspirator?” Verona asked.

“I cannot answer that-”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Verona replied.  “Ugh.  That would explain some of the earlier answers, too.”

“Yeah,” Avery agreed.  “Both on the ugh and the explanation part.”

“Can we challenge that?” Lucy asked, turning to the Sable Prince.

“You may try.”

“I would say that the Hungry Choir is not a co-conspirator because it’s the murder weapon.  We established that reasoning and that way of talking about it at the time it was bound.  It had minimal volition, knew relatively little, and couldn’t be called a conspirator or ally.  They made it and set it loose.”

“You have called it the murder weapon before.  You questioned it and it knew almost nothing about the greater plots or plans.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.

“Edith?  Your counterargument?”

“I cannot make one because doing so would-”

“Enough.  You believe it but that does not make it so.  Allow me to verify,” he said.

He stepped across the lines of the diagram.

The smoke turned black, and the interior of the diagram that caged Edith went black with it.

“Uhhhh,” Avery said.

“I hoped to get more from this,” Lucy said.

“We’re on the right track,” Verona said.  “We should ask about the syringe after.  I’m curious how it works and what it does.”

“She won’t like that,” Avery said.

“I don’t like the murder of hundreds or thousands of people, but I’m sucking it up and trying to be fair, yeah?” Lucy asked.

She startled a bit, heart jumping, as the Sable Prince stepped out of the dark.  The shadows behind him followed him, disappearing into his suit with a crackle.

Edith stood in the corner, holding her cigarette by her side, not near her mouth, stiff.

“She had no defense, even with her word protected.  The Hungry Choir is more murder weapon than co-conspirator, and she admitted she has never considered it more than a tool.  Carry on.”

“What were we asking?” Lucy asked, quiet.

“Did she help make it?” Verona asked.

“Yeah.  That.  Edith?”

“I helped make it.  I cannot talk about how or with who or whom.”

“Why?” Lucy asked.

“Because of the oath I swore.”

“No, why did you do it?”

“For the favors I’d be owed when someone or something else became Carmine.”

“The Choir?” Avery asked.

“If I answered, that would lead you closer to the co-conspirators, and I’d be unraveled.”

“Didn’t we just handle this?” Lucy asked.

The Sable Prince shook his head.  “She’s not wrong.  A separate question.  Eliminating one concern does lead you closer.  The Hungry Choir wasn’t a co-conspirator but it was a candidate for the Carmine throne.”

“What favors?” Verona asked.

“The ability to bear a child safely.  Freedom from the Doom.  Securing Kennet against outsiders.  Not in that order, not all from the outset.”

“The Doom wasn’t wholly a manufactured threat, then?”

“We’re not talking about that,” Edith said, head dropping a bit, elbows on knees, eyes on ground.  Her free hand touched her forehead.

“What was the syringe for?”

“Not tonight,” Edith said.  “Ask another time, but not tonight.”

“It concerns Matthew.  If he’s a danger because he’s infected or controlled…” Lucy trailed off.

“Would you put him in a cell like this, right next to me?” Edith asked.  “To torment us both?”

“If Matthew needs to be restrained because he’s controlled, I wouldn’t inflict you on him,” Lucy told Edith.  “He doesn’t deserve that.”

Edith flinched at those words.

“Tell us,” Verona said.  “If we get it out of the way, there shouldn’t be a reason to bring it up past tonight.”

Edith stared down at the cigarette, then raised it to her mouth, drawing back until it was burnt to the filter.  She closed her hand around it, and heat glowed between her fingers.  She disposed of the ash that was left in the metal wastebin, then used her foot to push it in their direction before Lucy could say anything.

“Edith?”  Avery asked.

“I’m deciding what to say,” Edith snapped back.

“Okay.”

“Matthew found me the body of Edith James, he introduced us, snuck into the hospital, and let me in.  I told him I loved him, he said he couldn’t.  Too good a man to take someone he’d made and groomed as a lover, even if she was human now.  He made sure I was okay, checked in a few times, then disappeared.  I went to family for care and after I had some autonomy, I made some trips to Kennet to see Charles.”

“He was forsworn by then?”

“He was.  But he knows things.  I helped look after his affairs, it was hard for any of the other Others to do it when it required a measure of humanity to tackle the various little things.  It helped to take my mind off things.  While sorting things out and selling some of his practice things in exchange for favors, final things we needed for the perimeter, and for cash so we could pay for his food and accommodations, I found his address book.  Dramatis Personae, many practitioners have one such book.  I checked with a few people and by word of mouth I found an Alchemist.”

“The Leos family?”

“No.  A man from the master-apprentice line that made Jabber, as it happens.  I traded a piece of my old self for a syringe that I hoped would let me extract the negative emotions as a fluid I could then dispose of.  It’s something Matthew’s family would do, as heartless, cutting out or extracting the bad.”

“The Doom?”

Edith’s voice was hollow, her eyes more unfocused than ever.  The light that cut through the haze around her made her hair seem to glow like its own dull candleflame.  “My intention was to discard the heartbreak and resentment.  But my heartbreak and resentment is spiritual, out of reach.  Extracting Edith James’s Doom that had dogged her to attempt suicide did give me some relief, but when I disposed of it, it came back for me.  I had a scary moment, I thought of calling Matthew for help.  Around then, in a moment of weakness, I realized he’d come if I was the damsel in distress.”

“And you started feeding it?”

“I fed it when it was banished and weak, letting it come back.  It was easy to flirt with destruction when my life had no light in it so long as Matthew was gone.  Once we established that it would keep coming back, he decided to stay close.  I think a lot of men fantasize about being the hero to rescue the damsel in distress, don’t they?  I didn’t want to pressure him into romance.  Keeping him close and having him around was enough, but we did fall into romance in our own way, and I didn’t stop it.”

“And then you kept feeding it?”

“He bound it within himself.  Matthew grew in strength and ability to cope, winning the internal struggle against it, and at the same time, he pulled away from me.  Arguments about things that were petty and stupid in retrospect.  I panicked.  I strengthened the Doom he had inside him so he wouldn’t win that war.  I told myself I wouldn’t do it again.  It happened once in the span of two years.”

“Then you did it again?” Lucy asked.

“He grew as a person, his Self found strength.  We realized we couldn’t have children.  Because of the monster I’d made, because of what Matthew is, because of what I am.  He pulled away.  I panicked,” Edith said, sounding more like a robot than a spirit or human now, like she was reading aloud from a book she’d never opened before now, about someone fictional.

“And it didn’t take two years for the next shot?” Avery asked.

“No.  The syringe broke when we moved into this house.  I thought it was a good thing.  I had no intention of using it again.  So I traded for that thing on the table there.  I’d ask you not to give too much consideration to the design.  I won’t name who gave it to me, but more Others than you think will associate with the Fall courts where they engage in the most trade.”

“Sure,” Avery said.  “Even we did some shopping there.”

Lucy nudged Avery.  Don’t give away information.

“I didn’t um,” Avery replied.

Lucy pursed her lips.

“It came with terms.  That I cloud Matthew’s eyes and ears and burden him with distracting the Doom at key times.  I hated it more than anything, even more than being bound.  But I did it.  If I let myself become more Edith James the body, then the Doom stirs and Matthew struggles, and he misses details or gets distracted holding it all in.  That is the extent of the control.  He is not a meaningful danger to you.”

“Edith,” a male voice said.

Lucy turned.

John motioned at Tashlit for a moment, and Tashlit practically skipped in her hurry to go stand guard, letting John approach.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said.  “I know you have limited time before things get more complicated.”

“It’s okay,” Lucy said.  “I wondered if you’d come over or want to ask.”

“I consider Matthew a friend,” John told Edith.

“So do I.  I consider him-”

“What you did was monstrous.  You changed the course of his life.  Daily discomfort, pain, and worries.”

“I thought I’d be done with this,” Edith said, standing, turning away.

“Look at me,” John said.  “You’ve broken bread with me, had drinks with me, you’ve asked me to guard this town and face down threats the rest of the Kennet Others couldn’t, you’ve asked me to console.  We’ve known each other for a decade.”

She looked at him.

His voice became something less stern, softer, with a broken quality to it.  “You couldn’t let Yalda rest in peace?  She agreed to die because she didn’t want to kill innocents.  She couldn’t exist without binding and rotting the guts of the innocents in the area, she had enough influence there was no getting far enough away, it was the only option.”

Edith turned her back to John.

“Did you ever think of me as a friend?”

“Yes,” Edith said.

“But when the gloves were thrown down, you were willing to soil that friendship and take what you wanted?  A chance at a baby shared by you and the man you were exploiting?”

“I didn’t see it as exploiting-” Edith started.

“A chance to set up a new Carmine, and get an audience, banish that Doom you’d created so you could stop worrying about being found out?”

“And securing Kennet.”

“In order for me to believe that was anything but a selfish thing, I’d have to believe you were capable of anything selfless.  Treating Matthew like you did?” John asked, voice hard.  “Me?”

“I was-”

“Yalda?” he asked, voice cracking with the intensity he uttered the word.

“I was born first from a pyromaniac, selfish, broken, desperate, I-”

“You were also born from vigil, remembrance, friendship, love.  And you seem to have let that part of you slip to irrelevance, Edith.  You didn’t seem to remember your friendship with me when you did what you did.  Did you forget love and caring in your relationship with Matthew?”

Edith glanced back over her shoulder.  Moisture sputtered at the edge of her eyelid, the eye dim.

“You’re made of such great, rich spirit and experience, enough for several people.” John said. “I’ve looked up to you in the past.  You could be so glorious in your spirit form.  So tell me, please, how did you become so small a person?”

“John,” she said.

“You could have let her rest in peace.”

The dark look in his eyes was far too close to what Lucy had first seen in him.  Had that been the case back then because he was meeting them?  Three of them, all young, all girls?  Like Yalda?  It was always there, a little, but it was so intense now.  Hurt just sitting there on and around the eyes, in everything about how the face was put together in that moment.

If the words weren’t enough, Lucy felt like the look was sufficient to shut Edith up.

He walked away, and Edith said nothing to his back.

He paused at the entryway to the stairwell.  He took a long moment just standing there, his back to all of them.  Tashlit looked at him, eyes blinking beneath that shroud of skin, as loose on parts of her as a toga on a torso.

Lucy thought about saying something, but words failed her.  She thought of Alexander, lying in the dirt, head cracked open like an eggshell, brains ruined, blood thick and congealed at the edges, more ooze than anything that could pour or run.

That was the opposite of what John was here in this moment and she couldn’t talk to the John here and now either.

He spoke.  “Girls.  I’m going to go talk to Matthew.  I’ll be outside.”

“Okay,” Avery said.

“You have Edith secured, you have Tashlit keeping watch?  You don’t need a second.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, quiet.  “Go, look after him, look after yourself.”

John turned his head, looking at the Sable Prince.

Then he strode away, pausing only so Tashlit could squeeze to the side and let him up the upper portion of the flight of stairs.

Lucy watched the stairs for a bit, watched Tashlit stare out at the dark driveway.

She looked in the direction of the Sable Prince, who hadn’t yet left.  He met her eyes, and she glanced away.

Why was he still here?  Was there more left to resolve?  A final decision on Matthew?

“Want me to take point?” Verona asked.

“If you want.  My brain isn’t really in a position to take point,” Lucy replied.

“Figured,” Verona said.  She walked up a bit.

“You good?” Avery asked, quiet.  Lucy nodded.  She turned her attention to this whole business.  Edith still bound.

“Heya, Edith,” Verona said, voice artificially bright.

Edith didn’t reply.  She wiped at one eye and it sizzled dry.  She looked at Verona, eyes a bit red, expression glum.  “Can the rest of the questions wait?”

“What would you say the percentage chance is that you make it to tomorrow?” Verona asked.

“What?”

“Because of any pre-prepared tricks, traps, measures, you setting yourself up to burn up, ummm, outside forces?  Could any co-conspirators-”

“I have to inform you that if I remark on my co-conspirators-”

“Do you think that anyone would destroy you?  Have there been any hints?”

“No hints in that direction.  I think as long as I’m not in a position to name him, her, or them, whichever are true, they aren’t concerned.”

“So what’s the chance?”

“I don’t know.  If I had to guess, ninety-five percent.  I can’t account for you, I can’t account for random accident.  I’m not strong right now.”

“So we could leave this to tomorrow.  But I want to ask first… why the heck aren’t you guys freaking out more about the furs being gone?”

“The furs?”

“It’s been awfully quiet, apparently, you didn’t seem to be panicking, nobody’s acting erratic, there’s no signs that we derailed your plan by taking the furs, but they were important enough to take.”

“This can’t wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m curious now.”

“When you were ready to awaken, we told you we knew the power base of the Carmine Beast was still in Kennet.  We know that remains the case.”

“And?”

“That’s it.  It’s close enough to grasp.  I don’t know enough about that part of it to say how or why they would do the grasping.”

“But they’re confident?”

“If they aren’t, they’re hiding it from me as well as you.  I don’t think that reveals anything significant about the co-conspirators.”

“Okay,” Verona said, “so what would happen if we took the furs and bailed?”

“I don’t know.  I think you’d end up the same as the three teenagers.  Once they realized you were leaving, they would pull out all the stops.”

Verona nodded.

“Can I ask?” Avery asked, interjecting.  “Bit of a tangent.”

“Heck yeah, go for it,” Verona said.  Still artificially bright, as if to contrast the whole John episode.

“When did you blur Matthew’s vision and hearing?  Or tax him, or otherwise use the Doom and transition to being a bit more Edith?”

“I cannot list all the times because many would implicate certain individuals…”

“List some?” Avery asked.

“The meeting once you returned from the Blue Heron.  From Matthew’s perspective, he was tired, he had a few bad days and it made him more vulnerable to the Doom.  It put him on the back foot.  He let me set more policy, then he followed my lead and pushed for that policy when talking to you.  He and I both expected and hoped that you three would want to stand down or that you’d be struggling, after a difficult end to the time at the Blue Heron, Alexander dead, Bristow wishing he was dead.”

Verona’s smile faltered for a second.

“But you didn’t, and he and I charged forward with the discouragement of gifts, among other things.”

“And the next meeting?  Where we crashed it because we had the info about the Abyssal beast?  You wanted to get rid of us?”

“I couldn’t tell you who, out of concern for going against an Oath I’ve made, as established, the-”

There was a bang, a solid thud on the wall.

Lucy turned.

Lights were on, shining on the driveway, making it bright.  Tashlit stood, rather than sit.

The five of them, Lucy, Verona, Avery, Snowdrop, and Tashlit, all hurried upstairs, Tashlit leading the way.  Tashlit looked in through the small, high window in the door, and then headed over toward the back door.  The window was hard to peer through, so even Lucy’s attempt, as the tallest of the three of them, didn’t do more than show her the top of someone’s head.

She followed Verona and Tashlit to the back door and back porch.

Matthew and John were still sitting, and the gate in the fence was open.  The Kennet Others entered.

“They caught wind,” Lucy noted.

Lis carrying a lit cigarette, Nibble with a crutch and a nub of a foot, Alpeana, Guilherme, Maricica, the four original Kennet goblins, with Jabber sitting on Bluntmunch’s shoulders, the rest of the surviving goblins from Tatty and Creamfilled’s gangs, Ken in three aspects with one carrying a Montague-tainted radio, the Composite Kid Reggie, and Crooked Rook.

“What’s happened now?” Toadswallow asked.

“The perimeter faltered,” Rook noted.

“Is it down?” John asked.

“No.  But it’s under siege.  It’s worse than it’s been,” Rook said.  “Did the practitioners do something?”

“Edith James is imprisoned for her role in the murder of the Carmine Beast,” Lucy announced.

There was a mumur.

“Confirmed?” Matthew asked.

“I told you it was,” John said.

“I want to hear it from them.”

“The matter,” a heavier voice announced, “is confirmed.  Know it to be truth.  It was handled in a just and fair way, with more mercy and a more measured hand than I would have shown.”

The Sable Prince stepped through the open glass door and the four of them parted to let him through, Avery leading Snowdrop back, Lucy and Verona stepping back the other way, Verona bumping into Tashlit.

“Just like that?” Toadswallow asked.

“It’s done.  She is imprisoned and I’ve had a hand in setting up that prison.  Until they forfeit her, she will remain within.  They may choose to move her or alter the terms of the imprisonment.”

Lucy could see the unease in the Others, even among Others she was pretty sure weren’t involved.

“We checked with the Judge before and after, we validated it, and we went out of our way to avoid compelling her,” Lucy told them.

“This is so,” the Sable Prince agreed.

This was the advantage in bringing him along.  Even the most savvy arguers in this group couldn’t really argue against a grand arbiter of right and wrong.

Lucy addressed them all.  “Edith James played her part in the creation of the Choir, she harmed friends for selfish reasons, and used too many of us as tools.  Us three, Matthew, sorry-”

“I’ll explain to them in my own time, if I can get to grips with it,” he told her.

“-Yalda, John, sorry again,” Lucy said, with a bit more emotion and meaning in her voice than when she’d apologized to Matthew.  Maybe that was unfair to Matthew.  “Okay, yeah.  Please do.  She violated the terms she agreed to when she awoke us, and she’s admitted to harming three teenage innocents.  We’ve imprisoned her in what I think is a humane way, we’ll make sure she has the basic minimums until we can figure out a longer-term plan for her care and imprisonment.  For your safety, ours, and Kennet’s.”

“I’ve lent my power to the binding,” the Sable Prince announced.  “Not only will attempts to free her fail in most circumstances, but they will incur a heavy karmic debt.”

“We can cover the rest later,” Verona said.  “That’s just to give you an overview.”

“This was deserved,” Avery said.

“Are you done?” Rook asked.

“Talking?  For the time being,” Verona answered.

“Then I’ll tell you right now, Edith was holding back some of the echoes and spirits around Kennet.  They’ll be a problem until she’s released.”

“We’re not planning on her release anytime soon,” Lucy told Rook, frowning.

“As the case may be, you’ve created a mess.  If you’ve said what you need to say, would you please go and start cleaning it up?  A patrol, while the rest of us find our feet.”

“One of our allegations against Edith was that we were being left out of important things.”

“Someone needs to patrol,” John said.  He stood.  “I will.”

“We need more than you,” Rook told John.  “And we’ll need to figure out our next steps.  Your counsel would be appreciated.”

“Among those steps,” Matthew said.  “I can’t lead Kennet anymore.  Not now, not like this, when I’m questioning almost everything.”

“We’ll hold a vote,” Crooked Rook said.  “Electing a new leader, then, and deciding how we respond to the spirits.  Practitioners-”

“We get a vote,” Lucy said.  “It was pledged to us.”

“It was,” Matthew said.

“Fine.  Name your choice of leader, then.”

“I’d rather be involved.”

“Someone can give you a summary, practitioners.  How else do you propose we deal with the new influx?”

“Toadswallow,” John said.  “Temporary, until we can figure out another option.  Now I’m going out on patrol.”

Lucy looked at the other two.

“Toadswallow,” Verona said.

“You,” Lucy told Crooked Rook.

Rook’s eyebrows, fine white hair on purple skin, went up.

“Rook,” Avery said.

“I’m offended, my dear!” Toadswallow cried.  “Your opossum has failed you in her extolling of the virtues of goblinkind and what we offer!”

“Faerie are better,” Snowdrop said.

Faerie.  Lucy looked over at the Faerie, and saw Maricica’s expression was unreadable.  Guilherme looked like his best self, but he hadn’t said or done much.

It breaks my heart in small ways to see you be so blunt when you have such potential for grace.  He’d said it twice, and the second time, it wasn’t said in a way like he was playing with words or making a joke.

“For that reason, I pick anyone but Toadswallow,” Snowdrop said.

Rook asked, “Would you go?  Patrol, help secure us against spirit?  John will struggle with the immaterial things Edith was holding back simply by holding a leadership seat.”

“You want to be rid of us that badly?” Verona asked.

“It makes a lot of things easier.”

“Come on,” Lucy said.  She glanced back at Matthew.  “Nobody goes down to Edith?  They need our permission first.”

“Except Matthew.  It’s his house, he might need to unload,” Avery said.

Lucy made a face.  “Maybe.  Talk to us first, Matthew?”

Matthew took a second, then nodded.

“As you wish it.  Conversation across the barrier will be impossible, vision clouded, no signals will pass through until the word is given.  Now, as you prepare to take your leave, I will take mine.  Announcing that this was just and right is my last step of direct involvement in the matter of Edith James, barring incident.”

So this is what he was sticking around for.  He was anticipating this mob.

“Thank you,” Avery told him.

“Will you take your leave now?” Rook asked, with a hint of impatience in her voice.

“Will you make our prompt departure our gift to you?” Lucy asked.  “In exchange for a favor?”

“What favor?”

“A meeting, a chance to talk, maybe a trinket or three.”

“If you insist.  But go now.  The spirits and strange echoes are already making their way past the perimeter.  One part of Ken is working on it, the rest will follow after you as soon as we’ve fixed what we could here.”

Lucy glanced around, then hurried on her way, running with Verona, Avery, and Snowdrop.  Tashlit remained behind, as did John.

Rook was supposed to be on their side.  They’d have to trust things to her, and hope that by skewing the vote to be Toadswallow against Rook, counting on Rook to have some sway over newcomers, and Faerie being unwilling to vote for a goblin, that she’d win.  If not, they’d make do with a crafty goblin in a time of war.

Her Sight made it clear that the statement from Rook wasn’t a lie.

Something had given way as they’d removed Edith from the power base of Kennet.  She could only hope that whoever was put in charge could replace that with something equivalent.

Watercolor staining, bright and luminescent, was bleeding in from the edges, sometimes bursting out to splatter the nearby area, other times a slow, gradual march that trailed rainbow colors behind.

Leaving Edith behind felt like leaving the Furs with Verona.

But they’d gotten Edith, and they had a starting point for more, whatever Edith had sworn.  The trick was that they would now have to juggle the fact that the Kennet Others knew.  That had been unavoidable.  Edith would be missed in any event.

She could see more lights and stains now.

She paused, checked nobody could see, then pulled off her top, leaving only the camisole she’d worn underneath.  The lines were drawn out in silver marker on her skin.  For the others, it was black marker.  There were marks on her arm she could touch together for shields and for a burst of water.  There were wards against echoes and spirits, specifically against Edith, but they’d help here.

“Easy peasy,” Snowdrop said, as she took in the influx.

It felt like standing on a mountain, watching the water level rise to swallow up the mountain from all sides.  Shark infested water, maybe.  Except Kennet was a valley and they came from the edges and the high ground.  And Kennet was dark, still a bit dark, after the Sable Prince, and the spirits and echoes came in all colors, shapes, and types.

“At least we prepared for a scrap, just in case,” Lucy said.

“This is going to be a long night,” Avery agreed.

A building that had gone dark when the Sable had arrived and turned its lights back on in the meantime, near the north of town, had all the lights go off at once.  A blackout that rolled to several adjacent buildings.  To Lucy’s Sight, it was some kind of spirit.

“Do you think, when she told Matthew to do nothing, she was thinking that this was coming?” Verona asked.  “One last bit of manipulation?  So he’d stand down in a time like this?”

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