Dash to Pieces – 11.7
Author: Wildbow

Dash to Pieces – 11.7 | Pale

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Guilherme exercised inhuman agility to hop up onto a tree that had been bent and nearly broken by the weight of its upper branches.  The tree leaned over heavily, much of the trunk horizontal, the branches draping down to ground.  Guilherme wore the guise of a thirteen year old boy as he stood atop it, wearing a kind of kilt over simple homespun pants.  Rather than a grid-based stitch, the white fabric looked like overlapping stars.  The same pattern appeared at the top of each foot, in strapping that extended up his calf.  His chest was bare, he glowed instead of sweating, and his hair was Hollywood-rustic, long and unwashed but in a way that looked like a whole team of beauticians had gone out of their way to achieve that look while also making him look spectacular.

Lucy did not glow, and was in fact drenched in sweat.  Her tightly curled locks of her hair had pulled free of her ponytail and kept batting her in the eyes, and the trace sweat on them made her eyes water every time.

She gave him her best disgusted look.

“Focus on what needs to be focused on, Lucy,” Guilherme said, looking down from above.

“Why are you being so intentionally distracting then?”

“Being distracting for you is the most effective tool for honing your senses.  If you can put up with me while learning the lessons you need to learn, it might make the difference in a moment of crisis.”

“Did you drag me out into the outskirts of Kennet to teach me some bizarre lesson?”

“You tell me,” he said.  Then he clasped his hands behind him and tipped backwards off the far side of the near-horizontal tree.  He disappeared from sight, no body or anything falling to the ground on the far side.

She tensed, then pulled her necklace off from around her neck, slipping on the weapon ring.  She pulled the hot lead out of the bottom flap of her bag, where there was a loop she could stow a small, narrow umbrella in.  It stung against her palm, hurting but not doing any real damage.

“Good,” Guilherme’s voice echoed, from no place in particular.  “Why did you draw your weapon?”

“Because you like to attack me unprovoked to see if I’m on guard enough.”

“Hmmm,” he made a noise, noncommittal, the sound rebounding off of trees.

“That’s not the right answer, huh?” she asked, turning around on the spot, studying the environment, searching for hints of Guilherme.  He did sometimes leave her some clues he was around, so she’d be better trained at finding those clues when it came to dealing with less capable foes than a warrior Fae.

But this didn’t feel like one of those moments.

There were a bunch of different things that she needed to think about all at once.  Where was Guilherme?  He wouldn’t hurt her badly, but he wasn’t above bruises, scrapes, and wounding her ego.  If she ended up bruised in a way that she’d have to explain to her mom, then he seemed to think that was a good lesson for her to learn, figuring out what answers to give.  A bit of training in rhetoric and deception to go along with the training in hand-to-hand.

Deciphering his statements and purpose.  Why was she here?  Why had he been so noncommittal?  He’d asked her a question, she’d answered, he hadn’t given her any sign he liked her answer.  Was she wrong?  Did telling her that she was wrong risk giving something away, like Edith refusing to even hint at her co-conspirators?

She wasn’t just trying to answer a riddle, but she had to figure out what the riddle was.  She tensed the muscles around her ear, and the earring flexed with her ear.  Her hearing clarified.  He wasn’t giving anything away on that front.

She turned on the spot, anticipating a lunge.

“Lucy,” he said, behind her.

She sidestepped, not turning around, because that was what he’d expect her to do.  Turning around on the spot to face him was a surefire way to play into his next move.  At least going off to the left had a fifty-fifty chance of working.  Another option would be to bolt in the direction she was already looking.  If she was already looking, she had the beginnings of a sense of what was there.

Guilherme was there, not far behind where she’d been standing.  He followed her with his head and eyes as she continued moving to one side.  He smiled.  “For today’s lesson, a penalty.”

“What?”

“If I find you at my mercy three times, I’m going to cut off that ponytail.”

“You asshole!” Lucy raised her voice.  “You-”

She turned, because it felt like one of those moments, not just a moment where he would act unexpectedly, but a moment where he’d be able to act and punish or lecture her for being emotional and letting her guard down.

“The hair is off limits!”

“It’s not lasting harm, no blood is shed.”

“I could argue that I’m at your disposal from start to finish so this only counts as one incident.  Then I’d end training sessions forever to be free of the possibility of you getting me at your disposal a third time.”

“You could.  That would be to your detriment, Lucy, and it wouldn’t work.  You’re focusing on the wrong things.”

She tensed, watching, searching for him.  He was raising the stakes, which led to the question of why, why was he doing this, what was this?  Was it an exam, pulling ideas together?  Why here?  What was special about this place?

Her Sight cast the environment in various shades of dark watercolor, blots bleeding out here and there.

About as bloody as Kennet, but they’d traveled for a while south.  They were close to the perimeter, in a spot they hadn’t set up any shrines yet.  Why was it bloody?  Who or what was here?

She jerked, sidestepping, turning in a half-circle.  Felt like another Guilherme moment.

“You’re wasting energy by doing that.  Don’t guess.  Know.”

“I know you’re being a dickbag!  I asked for lower-energy training, because I’m tired.”

“Ideal!  If you’re that tired, then there is less in the way of you taking lessons to heart.”

He laughed, the laugh echoing through the woods.

“There’s less holding me back from trying to kick your ass!”

“Don’t ignore your instincts. They’re better than most.”

She bit her tongue, focusing.  He’d definitely go out of his way to punish her for not taking sound advice or acting in contravention of his advice.

There was a rocky crest to the right, and about thirty paces through the woods would bring her to the shore of the river that was trickling out toward Lake Superior.  There was a bit of a path…

The bloody ground here.  She moved, picking up speed.  If she headed south, would that mean getting away from the blood?

She remained on guard while running.  Guilherme liked the idea of… she had trouble putting words to it.  Adding weight to exercises to make it easier to build strength.  But it wasn’t always weight for the sake of physical strength.  He pressured her instincts to force her to develop them, targeted her alertness, targeted her ability to see through deception by layering deception over deception.

It made every little victory something earned and something lasting but it really made her hate his easy smile in the midst of any session.

If he was distracting her with the duel and threat to her ponytail, he was distracting her from something.  Maybe.  This could be a trick unto itself, and that trick could be its own layer.

The blood continued.  Why?  Was there-

A beam of light stabbing down through the trees tricked her eyes, and Guilherme reached out from the tree beside the beam, tapping one finger on the band that tied her ponytail back.  She twisted, jabbing, and he stepped out of the way, retreating behind her.

“One,” he said.

“You shouldn’t touch a girl’s hair, Guilherme!”

“A good thing I touched the hairband.  When I do make contact the third time, it’ll be with a blade.”

Lucy broke into a run, moving away from him, her senses and earring tuned to hear any movements he might make.  Chasing had to take more effort and that might mean a hint of a sound.

There was more blood on the ground.  There was-

A stirring in bushes.

She grabbed her fox mask, and she’d traced it with glamour, so slapping it into place on her head would cast the glamour out.  She leaped up onto a branch, then subdivided into three shadow foxes, darting up and around a tree.

Guilherme had come after her.  He ascended the tree, white teeth visible between slightly parted lips, his movements fluid, not even grazing branches as he climbed, matching her speed.

She leaped from a branch, then cast off the fox glamour, becoming smoke instead.

Weaving through branches-

Until branches swayed in a wind that wasn’t there.  Dense, thick, and rough enough to tear through her glamour.  She held onto what she could, even drawing it up around herself as she fell, slowing her descent.

She hit ground, sprawling.  Guilherme was there, standing where she was due to fall.

“What was-”

“Two,” he said, crouching, tapping the hairband.

“What was that?” she asked, rising to her feet.

She scrambled up to her feet and moved away from Guilherme, her eyes on him but her focus on the surroundings.  Bloody ground, the path bending…

Had she somehow landed back in the same spot?  That was weird.

She looked around with Sight, eyes on things, while the background of her focus remained on Guilherme.  Knowing him, he’d probably make the final stroke a sharp and telling lesson, because anything else would be too bitter.

She marked the landmarks, then backed off, keeping her focus on Guilherme.  He remained where he was.

She made it further down the path, then turned.  Guilherme was standing on the far side of her.

The path was looping.  The way up had been a kind of barrier or snarl.  That hadn’t been Guilherme.  She was in the middle of a snare.  He’d chosen this spot for their duel and lesson.  Bloody ground and difficulty in leaving.

“A little lesson on depressions?” she asked Guilherme.

“Not quite,” he said.

She had to be careful of what she asked or what she did.  She was on her last chance.  Stacking up too many wrong guesses, missing too many little lessons he’d already tried to impart on her, it would be cause and justification for that third move on his part.

Fucking with her hair.

She tensed.

The snare worked like knotted places did.  It might even be a tiny knotting.  Where trying to leave wasn’t impossible, but the ways out were steep and complicated.

If there was blood, where was the blood from?

The thought coincided with her ongoing awareness of Guilherme.  The sense of what he was doing and how it all fit together.  He was making himself a nemesis, distracting or contrasting from what she was meant to not just figure out, but fathom.  Something she was meant to take deeply to heart.

That what was here was very dangerous.

She’d walked the thin barely-a-path and she’d kept an eye out.  The only direction she hadn’t looked was-

She looked properly up.  Not up and at the tree, or up and out at the sky.  Branches criss-crossed above the narrow path.  There was a dark patch in the middle, that she could have dismissed as a bird’s nest if she wasn’t as suspicious as she was.  The more Lucy stared using the Sight, the more the criss-crossing branches seemed to expand, the nest filling up more and more of her vision.

Something was inside that nest, and the more she looked at it, the more that something grew, swelling.  It had arms, legs, and body all curled up around one another, and a rounded head of roughly equal size to the rest of it, oversized.  It looked like crude, slapped-together clay in a rough baby shape, with bits of shore mud, twigs, and dry grass sticking out, giving it a very ragged silhouette.  Roots and branches stuck out from around it, extending into the foliage.

Its eyes, closed, opened.  The emptiness behind those eyes were like a vacuum that almost pulled her off of her feet, into the air.

She moved aside, looking around.  Everywhere, there were smaller branches lying against trees, dry growths reaching up trunks or along branches, wisps of grass, and other things that stirred out of sync with the wind.

The longer she wasn’t paying attention to the thing, the more those things seemed to slip out of sight, elude her attention.  She looked back up, focusing.

It opened its mouth, revealing the same emptiness.

This was a thing that twisted the area around it.  It spread itself through environment, it created a snare, and it lurked… she wondered if it was lurking inside a twist of physical space.  Like spitting unchewable, unswallowable gristle into a napkin and then twisting up that napkin into a bulb.  That might be why it had a creeping, fishbowl effect on her field of vision when she stared at it, if that was why her awareness of its influence was so specific to her keeping her gaze around where it was.

She took a few quick steps to the side, moving out of Guilherme’s way as he stepped out of the trees, looking up.

“What are you going to do about it?” Guilherme asked.

“Is it dangerous?  Can we bring it on board?”

“That’s a good set of questions to ask,” he said, not supplying the answer.

To her Sight, the nest that cradled the thing was festooned with wooden spikes with ribbons tied to the end, and bones scraped down to have sharp edges, and stone blades with the sort of edges that could form if stones were struck together.  The staining was near-black.

The longer she stared, the more it expanded in her vision.  She’d thought at first it was roughly her size but she was getting the sense now that it was much, much bigger.

She started to realize that the width of it and its nest might be enough to take up the entire sky above this patch of path.  When she’d been scaling up the tree, taking flight, the branch had stopped her.

The creature’s mouth opened wider.  That weightless, awful feeling swelled.  Like standing on a bridge above a serious drop, no railing, feeling the lack of solid ground in front of her.  The amount of empty space behind that mouth, even though it didn’t look like that wide a gap- it had that kind of effect.

“Spirits and echoes often cleave together,” Guilherme said.  “But they’re fought in very different ways.  The goblins have complained about the recent influx, and I tried to offer my advice.”

“I’m guessing that was fruitless,” Lucy said.

“It was.  Echoes are memories.  You can contradict them, facing them directly.”

“Yep.  Been doing that.  Gotta disrupt the scene.  Lunging in to stab ’em does that.”

“Crude, but a good starting point.  Spirits are different.  Spirits are barely rooted in our reality.  They’re ideas and concepts.  Trying to meet a spirit risks meeting it on its terms.  But if you stay grounded, find what tethers it, or catch it at a moment it doesn’t have application…”

“I’ve been using my arena.  My arena, my terms.”

“That will work until it doesn’t.”

The light was fading, as the creature grew, expanding its influence.  Her earring picked up the creaking of swelling, growing wood and plant life, the rasp of dry grass and thin vines snaking their way up and around foliage.  The gaps between trees slowly but steadily shrank, the amount of light shining through the branches overhead narrowing down, from wide, diffuse beams to focused, sharp ones that cast long shadows.  More plant life took the shadows.

“I’m not sure I get an echo or spirit vibe from this thing.”

“You’ll want to be sure.”

“You’re talking about angles to attack from, and I’m thinking…”

“Don’t think, do.”

Lucy gave Guilherme an annoyed look.

“Don’t pout.  Do.”

“It’s not pouting, it’s me thinking you’re being aggravating.  I figured out the riddle, by the way, so you’d better not come after my hair.  Because that’d ruin our relationship.”

“You did, and I won’t.  Focus on the task at hand.  Ask less questions.  The longer you wait, the harder it will be.”

“How on earth did something this big get this far into Kennet?”

“A good question to ask, yes, but you’re asking it in a moment we should be putting questions behind us and pursuing action.”

She took that as her cue to move.  Navigating to the edges of this twisted space with the plant life caging them in, the spaces between the ‘bars’ in the cage narrowing and closing in.  A branch fell from overhead, barring any easy navigation between two trees, but in falling, it somehow didn’t subtract one from the number of branches above.  Grass and vines twined their way up to and around the branch, turning that minor obstruction into a larger barrier.

Not an echo.  She didn’t pick up on the emotional resonance.  Spirit?  But this was meatier than a spirit, and most spirits seemed to float by and be abstract representations of some idea, force, or principle, only occasionally getting strong enough to bring stuff into reality.

“Spirit…” she started, hesitantly, backing away from a drooping bough that was now blocking the narrow path and cutting it in half.  She sensed Guilherme’s disappointment.  “Mixed with elemental?”

“If so, what are you going to do about it?”

Elementals were forces that existed in often brief spans of time.  They were the lightning strike touching earth or torching a tree from the inside out.  They passed when the event did.

Spirits tethered themselves to reality.

Both were making contact.

She drew out a blade from the key at her necklace, then began cutting.  Slashing at the growths that were connecting this elemental spirit to reality-

More branches fell, dropping right on top of her.  She heard the cracks and she heard the rustles, and she hurried out of the way, before resuming cutting.

“This may be where I have to step in,” Guilherme said.  “You’ve found the right answer, and you’ve found it a touch late.  There are other lessons to impart here, but as it stands, you’ll have to focus on cutting for the next thirty minutes to get to the next part of the lesson, and that leaves no room for figuring out the next pivotal step.”

She kept hacking.

“It’s my fault, not yours.  It was a touch stronger than I thought,” Guilherme said.  He pulled a blade out from behind his back, when he hadn’t had a blade strapped to his back.  “For your edification, yes, it’s spiritual, and elemental, but there is a touch of the divine in it as well.  When deities spill their seed it can pave the way for things like this.  A bit of the life-bearing clay given seed enough for life, but nothing to shape it.  And because it’s divine, and because you’re in its realm…”

“Gotta attack it from outside!” Lucy grunted between swings.  She moved out of the way of a bit of wood that plunged from above, broken and forceful enough that it impaled the ground and embedded there.

She tried to catch her breath, and accumulated fatigue made her feel a bit dizzy as she turned.  The effect of the warped space and this thing folding its influence around them, like they were already inside its open mouth all compounded together.  She stumbled.  A bit of wood jabbed the back of her shoulder.

“Yes.  After thirty minutes of cutting, realizing that, and realizing you had to backtrack, find a way out, and then re-enter with an eye to its heart… that’s too much for you right now.  You did say you were tired.”

“Are you going to help?” she asked.

“In a moment.  I’m waiting, observing,” Guilherme said.  He swatted aside a branch that reached out from the right of him, his head facing the great crude figure of dirty clay that was suspended from branches above them.  “There’ll be a gap.”

“If you aren’t wrong about that, like you were about how strong it was.”

“Don’t be graceless, Lucy.”

The Fae way of saying ‘fuck off’.  Lucy grinned, then resumed cutting.  “Any moment now, Guilherme!  And don’t bitch at me about gracelessness, you were going to cut my hair!”

“I wasn’t going to, because you were going to effectively apply my lessons, especially with the motivation that threat provided.”

“You threatened to cut my hair!  I’m going to remember that!”

He sighed, still watching, waiting.

He tensed, backing up a step.

A ragged scream came from above.

There was no gap, and fighting through the non-gap, tearing through branches, was a goblin.  Gashwad’s skin tore as he came from high above and pushed through broken and thorny branches, cutting his way straight down, swearing profusely, and swinging two crude bladed weapons.

“Fuckin’ shit-stained diaper-licking- there you are!”

He hadn’t seen Guilherme or Lucy, but had fixated on the baby.  He screamed, a warcry, but he wasn’t making enough progress to properly finish the warcry as he reached his target.  Instead he got hung up and tangled in branches, struggling, cutting, and swearing.

Lucy glanced at Guilherme, who very pointedly did not look at her, settling the end of his blade in the ground, body language changing by small fractions.

Gashwad carried on, spitting with every invective.  He was the one original goblin from Kennet who hadn’t signed on for Toadswallow’s lessons in teaching kids, and his word wasn’t bound.  He was really going the extra mile here.

“Granny felching, ball-gnawing, fucking shitting sister-humpin’-”

“Gashwad!” Lucy called up.

“Hiiii-aaarrgh!  Hi!  As for you, fuckin’ crooked-dicked, queef jockey, son of a dog molestin’ virgin whore!  Lemme at you!”

“Appreciate the help!” Lucy called up, to rub it in for Guilherme.  “Very badass!  Hero of the moment!”

Gashwad cut branches, then dropped down onto the clay-bodied spirit elemental god baby thing.  He stabbed it, and it made a face, flailing.  He had to fight off branches while repeatedly stabbing and cleaving away bits of it.

“Very impressive!” she called up.

“It would be more impressive if he were doing more than whittling it down,” Guilherme said.  “He could have done it in one blow if he’d aimed it right.”

Lucy turned to her teacher.  “Are you sore, Guilherme?  Are you a sore loser?  You dragged this out, didn’t give answers, you misjudged, as you admitted-“

“You’re enjoying this too much, Lucy, it’s-”

“Inelegant?”

“Very goblin of you.”

“Goblin’s getting crap done,” Lucy said, giving Guilherme her best smug look.  “You lost your moment to show off.  Or to feel good about how well you’d taught me.  To make it up for me and get your moment to show off, I think you’d have to, I dunno, tell me stuff?  Teach me.  What do you think?”

“That would set an ugly precedent.”

“Would it?”

“It would only help to cement in and frame Gashwad’s profane lesson here.  There’s not much to be learned from that, and what little there is would be better taught elsewhere.  That haste can cut through many defenses.  He teaches that, but I’d much rather you take it to heart.”

“That stuff gets old, Guilherme.  It’s because it gets old that Gashwad’s thing works as well as it does.”

“Hmm.”

“-Chicken diddlin’, granddad fiddlin’, wang twiddling- take that!”

Guilherme watched with distaste as he commented, “Is it the time limit that has you so impatient?”

“I think I’m just not the most patient person ever.  The time limit doesn’t help.  What is it, two weeks and two or three days?”

“Two weeks and two days, now, yes.  What do you think would be a better use of your time?”

“Getting the answers so we can apply them.  Getting more power, to make up for what we’re losing.  Securing Kennet, so we don’t destroy it while dismantling the conspiracy.”  Even if Guilherme was involved, she was pretty sure none of this came as a surprise.

“The reason I want you to take things to heart is because it’s one arena where you might win.  In a game of questions and answers, you’re playing against forces who have dedicated far more time than you ever could.  Trying to outpace them would require the kinds of changed labels and abandoned humanity that would ensure you were no longer you.”

Lucy thought of Verona.  “So you’re trying to get me to, what, learn instinct?”

“In the Faerie realm we trade stories of humans, because humans are a short-lived currency to some, a… a book that is only available for a limited time.  Miss that story and you may never get a chance to see it.”

“A limited run of a television series.”

Guilherme gave her an unimpressed look.  “If you wish.  Part of the reason humans are interesting is that they can do the unexpected.  Cutting past the glamour, unraveling the riddles, arriving at the conclusion, victorious.  Not always, but sometimes.  It serves to keep us sharp.  Keen instincts and strength of character can triumph, not only over Fae, but over other forces.”

“Will you surrender!?” Lucy called up to the clay thing. “Sorry, Guil, just want to get in before Gash does too much damage.  Stop stabbing it for a second, Gash!”

Gash paused, panting for breath.

“Will you lend us your aid?  With a few rules for playing nice, we’d ask-”

Wood creaked, and branches reached in, more aggressive than before.  The creature twisted, forcing Gashwad to dance to stay on top of it, and directed a pained, angry expression at Lucy and Guilherme, face contorting more than a face should be able to, the deep void on the other side tugging at the air and making it rumble.

“Guess not,” Lucy said.  She made a gesture at Gashwad, who stabbed the thing in the temple.  Thin, dark mud oozed out as he pulled the blade free.  A stab at the thing’s neck made even more flow.

“If you can grasp what you need to grasp in order to triumph, then filling in the spaces between where you started and where you need to end up will be much easier.  Even that isn’t a guarantee.”

“You’re trying to prepare me for what’s coming at the end of summer.”

“Or beyond it.  We pledged you a long and full life.  This would equip you for one.  If it succeeds.  No guarantees.  Even for an exceptional person with the right ideas in mind, it’s a leap.  The reason Faerie share the tales are because those resolutions are rare.”

“So you’re preparing us?” Lucy asked.  “Plural.  Multiple teenage girls, easily molded, not yet set on our paths?”

“Two teenage girls.  Whatever I might give Verona, besides some easy access to glamour, would only hamper her.”

“Hmm.”

The light was starting to shine through the trees again.  There was a cascade of mud with bones in it from the gut of the creature, as Gashwad did enough damage.  It really wasn’t a fighter.

“I’m mentoring Crooked Rook, and she’s requested that I send you to her.  You negotiated for a meeting the other night.  She suggested she give you two minutes of time in the midst of your shrine building, but I asked her to be more gracious.”

“Ah.  Today?  Now?”

“As soon as you’re ready.”

“I wanted to head home, shower, change, do stuff with my mom, maybe, but I can adjust.  Just me?”

“All three of you.  You could shower and change and then go to Rook, if you count that as getting ready.  She’ll have a messenger waiting for you at the bridge between your homes.”

Lucy reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, ready to dial the others.  She clicked the button to turn it on, and it turned off immediately, going through the shutdown motion.

Guilherme leaned over.  “Hmm.”

“What happened?  I had a charge.”

“Elementals often run contrary to technology.  Something like this Other would benefit from being able to drain away or shut down your ability to reach out to outside help.

“…Frig.  Can you signal the others?”

“I can go,” Gashwad said.  “I saw a dead thing I want to tell Snowdrop about.  I can go to Avery.”

“Send someone to Verona?” Lucy asked.

Gashwad nodded.  He made his way down the branches, grabbing onto loose bits of the crumbling elemental as they drooped, and then hopped down to ground.  He looked around to get his bearings, then started north.

“Thanks again, you’re a champ!”

Gashwad pumped one fist while moving forward on his other three limbs.

“Ah, goblins,” Guilherme said, exasperated.  “You know he may well get so excited over the dead thing that he forgets the message.”

“That’s the risk.  Goblins who can’t see the forest for the trees and fae who can’t see the trees for the forest, metaphorically.”

“It’s best not to speak of Faerie and Goblins in the same breath.  You could get in trouble, making such odious comparisons.”

“Right.  I don’t think I’m wrong though,” Lucy said, enjoying having a slight upper hand on Guilherme.

“Are you so dissatisfied as that?” he asked.  “Do you think I’m so unaware of trees?”

“The problem with your approach, Guil, is… you live so long, I don’t think you always get the small time frames.  Two weeks and two days?  What if we’re not equipped.  We could have the character or the kernel of whatever but if we don’t have what it takes to see it through…”

“If you don’t?”

“We lose.  We stand to lose a lot.  The Sable Prince said we could be forsworn, if the new Carmine decides to be a dick about interpreting what’s an oath and what constitutes breaking it.  Losing has consequences,” she said.

“Losing is likely,” Guilherme told her.  “I told you, the moments I’m trying to cultivate in you and Avery are rare.”

“But doesn’t believing in victory and holding onto that belief count for something?”

“Not as much in reality as in your televisions and theaters.  Then again, those moments are the province of men, not Fae.  You could be right.”

“It feels like this entire setup with the spirits invading is pulling against that.  Wearing us down, tiring us out, taking up time.”

“Probably intentional.”

“We scored a win with Edith, kind of, and it doesn’t feel like a win.  It feels like losing.  I don’t want that.  I don’t want whatever comes next or whatever comes from the end of summer to be more of that or heaps of that.  And I worry it will.”

“You put a lot of emphasis on that. On not losing.”

Lucy sighed, nodding.

That sounded familiar, even if she couldn’t place it.  Some other stuff he’d said earlier had too.

“What about you, Guilherme?” she asked.  “Do you feel like you’re doing okay?  Holding out?”

“I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Is there something we need to do?  Anything that would help?”

“I’m fine, Lucy.  I still have adventures and tasks I must see to their natural ends.  Don’t make a mountain out of a fairy bluff.”

“And you do realize I’m not letting the hair thing go?  You crossed a line and I’m going to bring it up.”

“Go, Lucy.  Wash, wardrobe, then have your visit with our newcomer.  You traded for it, make the most of it.”

“It’s rude, the hair thing,” she said, as she walked away.  She glanced at the remains of the elemental, which was such a mess it mostly looked like someone had dumped a heap of mud on the trees from above, with some tangles and things draped from some vines and branches, hanging like intestines emptied out of a corpse.  “Don’t touch the hair!”

“Noted.”

She headed home, detouring to the water to wash arms and legs of flecks of mud and clay.  She put everything away and then fixed her ponytail with freshly washed hands while walking, getting those locks of hair that had come free.

Her mom was working, so she went inside, plugged her phone in, showered off the sweat with a quick rinse, changed into something nice and simple, then checked her phone again.

Verona had been with Jeremy?  There was a passing mention of needing to get dressed which… Verona.  What was that girl doing?

Lucy shook her head.  She took a second to sort out Verona’s things, which had scattered across her room.

Avery’s message was simply: Coming.  Gashwad is very excited about some dead raccoon.

She told Avery to bring Snow.  Even if the dead thing was exciting.

The others weren’t close to home, or Verona wasn’t close to Lucy’s home.  Or her own.  She’d gone up near Tashlit’s.  So Lucy took her time, heating a pizza roll and then eating while walking, wearing her bag with one strap so more of her back could get air.

Wallace from last year’s classes was standing by his garage, and the door was open.  The guy was wiping up oily hand with a dirty cloth, as best as he was able while in a sling.  He stood by the car in the garage with its hood open.  No adult in sight.  It felt like a weird scene, the sling, him out of sync with the picture, the nice shirt with a dense graphic of hand-drawn faces crammed in togehter, black lines against white, with black sleeves.  The shirt was already dirty.  He was her first thought when it came to what Lucy had heard Barbie, her grandmother, call towheaded.  Hair that was so blond and fine that it kinda stuck up everywhere.  Gel hadn’t fully succeeded in taming it.

He raised his hand in a wave.  She waved back.

“You can fix cars!?” she asked, calling down the driveway.

“My dad’s showing me stuff!” he called back.

“Cool!” she said.

“Wish it was a little cooler out though!” he called back.

“Yeah, I get you!  Cold weather any day!” she replied.

There was a moment where he didn’t have a response.  It felt like the moment was one where the two of them were very much aware that they’d kissed two times and had been due a third during the spin the bottle shenanigans at the end of school party.

“Haven’t seen you around,” he said, venturing a bit down the driveway.

“Went to a summer school thing, not because I need the extra lessons for regular school, just… learning some neat stuff we wouldn’t at regular school.”

“Oh yeah?  Like what?  Robotics?”

“We made a doll move.  It was really all over the place, though.  The school leadership really fell apart before we left.  We left early.”

“That’s too bad.  Sounds like it was neat while it lasted, though.”

“Yeah!  You do anything?”

“I really wish I had anything to say.  I can’t even find a good movie to watch.”

“Do you watch horror?” she asked.

“My parents restrict that, it sucks,” he said.

She thought about offering to let him watch with her or something but that felt like about fifty giant leaps forward and nah, she wasn’t ready for fifty leaps.  She wasn’t even sure if she was ready for the rest of this halting conversation.

One of the girls had been urging them to spend five minutes in the closet together, which Lucy had been very on the fence about, conflicted between Booker’s rule of just saying yes and a lot of other weirdness, and Avery and Verona not being there in that moment to back her up if that weirdness got super uncomfortably weird and…

She felt like she was obligated to come up with something to say, or find a good way to end the conversation, and she couldn’t do either.

“I was in a sling earlier this summer,” she said, noting his.  “Sucks.”

“It does suck.  But it’s better than the arm braces I had on both arms earlier this summer.  Got overly ambitious with some athletic stuff and overflexed my elbows.”

That’s right, he has joint issues.  Bringing up his disability and crap, dumb dumb dumb Lucy.  What’s wrong with you?  Dumb!

“How’d you hurt yours?” he asked.

“Oh, some dude knocked me over and I hit the ground wrong.  Banged it pretty solidly.”

“What a douche.”

“He was!  Yeah, yeah,” she said.  She’d sorely wished she had brought up Jeremy, who Wallace was friends with, but that was a whole thing and she felt like if she kept the conversation going it would lead to Jeremy and Verona and that would lead to boundary-crossing stuff or weird hints and why did Verona have to have such a weird relationship with that boy?  It made things harder for Lucy here.

She wanted this conversation to be over and she didn’t at the same time.  She couldn’t ignore what the Impulse wraith had reminded her was a thing, about boys and crushes, or the feeling of loss from another wraith that had lost a partner.  She’d thought of Wallace during the implement ritual and had flirted with the idea of spending more time with him.

Wallace’s dad stepped through a door that led directly from garage to house.  He waved at her.  That was excuse enough to end this conversation.  I’ll let you get back to it or something.

Thinking of how very bright that pink, rotating wheel the Wraith had held made her want to jump straight to telling Wallace she owed him a third kiss from the bottle spin.  What even was that?  Why would she want that?  What?

“Do you wanna-” she paused.  Wallace talked over her at the same time.  “Did the guy-?”

“Go ahead,” he said.

“Do you want to go get ice cream at some point?” she asked.  “Another day.  You’re doing this and I’ve got a thing.”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” he asked, in a tone that might’ve been incredulity.

She hadn’t expected that tone, or that kind of question.  She’d been braced for a no.  She had a flashback to the app, the feeling after being the only girl in her class and one of only three girls in their grade to zero out.

“I- yeah,” she persevered.  “Not a friend thing, but an actual date.  Is that okay?  You can catch me up on everything I missed while I was out of town.”

“I don’t know what you missed-” he said.  Her heart sank a bit.  Negation again, no, was he maneuvering for a refusal?  Was it-

“Canada day?” she tried.  Evading her own doubts.  Pushing forward a bit more.  “Or the party?”

“I mean, not sure what to talk about about that, but-”

“We can talk about whatever,” she talked over him, pushing forward again, despite herself, despite knowing she’d be feeling sucky and kicking herself for a week for every little push she’d extended herself if he said the wrong thing, already feeling sucky and kicking herself for taking things to this point, for sounding too try-hard, when he was going to say-

“But yeah,” Wallace said, flushing a bit, smiling all of a sudden like it was Christmas.  “Yeah.  We can talk about whatever.  Do you have your phone?”

She pulled out her phone.  They exchanged contact info.  She smiled, noticed a bit of hair was sticking out sideways, like stupid, and tucked it behind her ear.  She typed in the info.

“Gonna go talk to a grouchy old lady.  See ya,” she told him.

He nodded, smiling goofy.

She walked off, and at the very last point where he’d be out of sight, glanced back.  She caught a moment where Wallace rejoined his dad at the open front of the car, his dad clapping a hand on Wallace’s back.

And that was a whole lot of warring emotions and ideas in her head.  Gratification because that was clearly an attaboy thing and it was nice to be worth an attaboy, but also she missed that she wouldn’t get some equivalent from her own dad.  Or Paul, a bit.  Why had she brought up the sling?  Why not Jeremy or the end of year party or more movies or something?  She dreaded the next dumb thing she’d say if he did reach out or if he said yes when she reached out.  She was glad that they’d reached that endpoint of sharing numbers.  Her hair had looked dumb with that one bit sticking out without her knowing but the rest of her looked good, right?  She was worth a goofy smile.  Glad and anxious and kicking herself and validated and kicking herself and sad all at the same time.  She was left very unsure of what to feel.

She passed by Verona’s place and the idea of dads bubbled to the surface and she settled for feeling a bit down that she couldn’t share this moment with her own dad.  And her ex-stepdad Paul was there as a half entry who could’ve been a full entry if he’d tried, a guy who just made everything suck more by butting in, inside her head.

Just until I get to the bridge, she told herself.

Past the corner store, to the bridge, over the dinky little river that cut Kennet in half.  Avery, Snowdrop, and Reggie the Composite Kid were already at the far side.

“-there wasn’t even any skull sticking out.  It’s pristine!  Not even gross at all!” Snowdrop exclaimed.  “You could even eat off it.  I couldn’t, but you could!”

“We made a detour,” Avery said.

“So did I.  Hi Reggie,” Lucy said.

“Hi Lucy.”

“What are you up to these days?”

“Running errands.  Getting lessons from Lis on spying on people.  Keeping an eye out for those follow-up witch hunters we’re overdue.”

Lucy nodded.

Her earring picked up a creaking sound.  She turned her head.  Pavement cracked and parted, and paint striped a road it hadn’t earlier.  She looked back, saw the road that had widened, and watched as a car passed.  Verona stood where the car had briefly obscured the view.  She looked around, got her bearings, and jogged toward them.

Slowly, pavement creaked and cracked as the road returned to a normal width.

“Are you using city magic to navigate?”

“Ken said it was okay!”

“So lazy,” Lucy said.

“Efficient,” Verona retorted.

“Rook is very by the book, so if there’s nothing delaying us, we should go,” Reggie said.

“Hey Reg,” Verona said.  “No complaints here.”

“You were with Jeremy?” Avery asked.

“She doesn’t smell like that cat, so probably not,” Snowdrop said.

“I was.  Was nice.  Drew.  Stuff.”

That stuff got a look from Lucy.  Verona smiled at her, cocky.

“Recharging my Self,” Verona said.

“I’m envious.  Not of stuff, but of… anything,” Avery said.  “Blah.”

“Would it bother you if I talked about anything like that, or do you want to-”

“Please!” Avery said.  “Don’t make me hold you back.  I’m getting vicarious enjoyment from you guys and Verona’s the wrong brand.  Please tell me you’re more normal.”

“Normal’s overrated,” Verona said.

“I asked Wallace out on a date.  He said yes!”

“Yes!” Avery said, she had to duck around a light-pole while walking and hurried back to Lucy’s side to engage with her, jiggling her arm. “That’s normal!”

“It is!  It was super awkward!”

“That’s great!”

“Cool,” Verona said, giving Lucy a push on the other arm.  “Wallace is cool in my books.  Nice to his mom.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, “you’ve said.  Counts for something.”

“What are you doing, what’s the plan?  What are you wearing?” Avery asked.

“Ice cream, I don’t know, I don’t know, does it matter?” Lucy asked, matching Avery’s energy.  “It’s ice cream, we’ll talk awkwardly.  I’m putting my toe in the water.”

“That’s great!” Avery said, again.  “It’s normal!  Is Wallace like your Urge boyfriend?”

“My what?” Lucy asked.  Reggie gave all three of them a weirded out look.

“The pink wheel-”

“Impulse,” Verona supplied.

“Yeah!”

“Not really?” Lucy replied.  Wallace didn’t have long hair or sunglasses and he wasn’t ripped and really if she thought about it the fact they were guys was the only point of similarity.  Defensively, she added, “Verona’s wasn’t much like Jeremy either.”

“He’s a bit like my Impulse boyfriend,” Verona muttered.

“Ugggh,” Avery groaned.

“I didn’t want to talk about it if it’d make you unhappy or lonely or anything,” Lucy said.

“I’m just a bit frustrated, and talking about it doesn’t change that or bring it up it’s just a thing,” Avery said.

“Would you do anything online or long distance?” Verona asked.  “Jeremy suggested that.”

“I dunno.  I guess if I have to.  Maybe we’ll see what the next semester brings and if there’s nobody new in town I’ll explore that.  Feels off though.”

“Not looking forward to the new semester,” Verona said.  “Moving back in with le father.”

“That’s not even French,” Reggie said.

“You really seem like the type who should have a flirtation with French and France and wear a beret at some point in high school, fetishize going to Paris,” Lucy said.  “You should brush up.”

Verona made a gagging sound.  “Nah.  Besides, Canadian French compares to France French like goblins compare to Fae.”

“So you are a little elitist and judgmental on that front, huh?” Avery asked.  “Already partway there.”

Reggie was giving them looks, bewildered or unable to keep up, but Avery was engaged and looked happy and was teasing Verona, which was a step up.

Until Avery glanced in the direction of home.

Was it imagination?  The poisoning of the well from Guilherme’s training, getting her to overthink?  Or was it a tiny step down in Avery’s mood, from a glance.

Staying home with her Grumble, her dad, Declan, Kerry.

Sheridan and her mom, her advocates, leaving.

Lucy wished she knew what to do, because that was an entirely different thing from rescuing Verona from her dad.  There were resources for that.  For Avery it was something very different.

“Not totally looking forward to the new semester either,” Lucy said.  “But that’s a few weeks off.  We have plenty to do before then.”

“Summer, sun, possible beach, the new Carmine will take the throne,” Verona said.

“Distractions, I just hope we’re all in the same class, and I hope it’s doable, home lives and stuff, after,” Avery said.  “I could do with distractions from our distractions.”

“For now, you’ll have to make do with Rook,” the Composite Kid said.  He indicated a fire escape beside a building, not ladders that had to be pulled down, but an actual staircase in black and rust, running alongside the building, with landings for the doors on the second and third floors, and a final stretch going up to the roof.

Box plants lined the roof, and many of the plants were tall, including trellises with English ivy, cultivated tree growths, and towering floral plants.  Birdcages in various styles, all black, all at different heights, all but one empty with doors open, were dangling from hooks on rods.

One of the birdcages had Bridge in it, the door closed.  Lucy glanced at it, then felt like she wasn’t supposed to comment, and looked away.

A table with five sides in the same material and style as many of the birdcages was perched in the center, black metal slats woven like a basket to a flat surface, with five uncomfortable looking chairs in the same style.

“I am not always here,” Rook said, as she emerged from behind one group of reedy plants with white flowers at the base.  Her tone was imperious, no-nonsense.  She carried the mask in one hand and carried a teapot in the other. “Don’t look for me here.  I pack up and go where it suits me.  This location was convenient for today.”

“Thank you for meeting us,” Lucy said.

“You made it your request.  I was told it would be more trouble to refuse than to accept.  I did say I didn’t want to associate with you.”

“You did,” Avery said.  “We got that message.”

“Sit.  You’ll have tea, I insist.  You’ll have bread.  Reggie, would you?  To your left, by the Delphinium, under the lid.  That’s a warding plant.”

Lucy sat across from where Rook stood.  The teapot was set down, and four ceramic glasses without handles followed soon after.  Rook set the fifth down as she sat.

Reggie brought a platter of breads.  There was a butter knife and pre-sliced cheeses.

“Thank you,” Lucy said.  She leaned back as tea was poured.  Tea on a hot day?

“Don’t thank me.  Breaking bread is a time honored tradition.  You must know the rules before you break them or break your enemies’ backs over them.”

“I like that,” Lucy said.

“Yes, practitioners have a long and storied history of breaking the rules,” Rook said, walking around the table to Reggie.  She set a hand on Reggie’s shoulder and looked down at Snowdrop.  “We have had to adapt.  Reggie, dear, take some bread.  This one has chocolate.  There are some bottled drinks on the shelf over there.  Refresh yourself.  Then go have Lis go look after you.”

“I’m not staying, huh?”

“There are only five chairs.  No.  Unless our guests have second thoughts?  No?”

“Good luck,” Reggie said, stooping by one of the box plants, moving a section, and getting an old fashioned glass bottle that had clearly been hand blown, distorting in the process of being blown.  The fluid was orange and a rind from something that definitely wasn’t an orange had settled at the bottom.  He stepped out onto the fire escape and headed down.

“We have privacy, we can talk without pretending,” Rook said, as she continued to pour.

We were supposed to be pretending?  Lucy wondered.  She wasn’t announcing anything, and it was easier to keep a secret by sticking closer to the truth, but was the idea that she was supposed to be pissy with Rook?  That felt more fake than anything.

Rook gestured in the direction of the little cabinet where Reggie had picked up the drink.  “If you’d like cold refreshments, they’re there, but I’d enjoy sharing the tea.  Help yourself to the bread, but please-”

She emphasized that last word.  Snowdrop was already reaching over.

“-wait until I’m seated.”

“Is the tea drugged?” Verona asked, peering into her cup.

“Verona, hey,” Avery whispered, nudging.

“It is a drug, but of negligible effect.  Green tea has been said to help with many ailments of the fifth tier of the midsection; pancreas, digestion, and liver.  The stomach is linked to the mind.”

“Huh,” Verona said, continuing to peer into the cup.

“It’s tea without any malevolent or mischievous intent behind it,” Rook said, smoothing her skirt under her as she sat, the panels rustling.  “Drink, but don’t burn your tongue.”

Snowdrop’s hand hovered over bread.  Rook nodded, and Snowdrop took some.

“Borderline feral,” Avery whispered to her familiar.

Snowdrop put the end of the bread in Avery’s mouth.  Avery bit, and then Snowdrop partook.

“Can we talk about… things?” Lucy asked.

“Yes.  The conspiracy, Edith, Miss, the spirits?” Rook asked.  “Yes we can.  Even the subtler Others of Kennet would announce themselves by entering.  I’m at your disposal.  What do you need?”

“Guidance,” Lucy said.  “We’re running out of time.”

“Most of us are, whether we know it or not.  Tell me, how do you think things went, where do you stand, and where are you going?”

“That’s heavy,” Verona said.  “A whole lot for one answer.”

“Break it into pieces.”

“Can I ask… are you a part of the conspiracy?” Verona asked.  “To get stuff out of the way.”

“Not past nor present, nor, I feel, future.  My motives are ulterior.”

“Ulterior as in…” Verona pressed.

“An eye to the future, secondary to what’s going on in the immediate present.  I don’t want Kennet to suffer the fate that so many places like it have.  Miss took a large part in shaping Kennet to be what it is today, and I’d see her succeed, but the venal and short-sighted would make it something else.  I’ve seen that happen too many times.  It gets slapped down, or it becomes indistinguishable from those things that slap bright, overly noble, and eager ventures down.”

Rook looked at Lucy.

Lucy remembered the conversation with Toadswallow.  Venal meant greedy, right?  That sort of fit.  Ugh.

“You’re not in disguise?  I don’t want to dish information only for you to pull off a mask…”

“I’m not in disguise, but the guise of being Oni is something all of us wear.  I’m one of three Oni in this region from my sect.”

“The three practitioners from the Blue Heron, they let an Oni out of a box,” Avery said.

“One of the other three.  We talk sometimes, collaborate rarely.  We’re more effective independently than together.”

“No tricks, traps, listening devices, no sketchy motives, no rugs to pull out from under us?” Verona asked.

“No, though my ears serve as listening devices, I don’t intend to record what they catch and pass it on to anyone but possibly Miss, who is on your side.  I have traps on my person and in storage around here, but none intended for you, they’re only a tool I keep available.  There are no rugs, metaphorical or otherwise.”

“Sorry, to go this far,” Avery told Rook.

“I’ve been in times and places where asking those questions might have helped win a war that was instead lost.  It’s fine.  In the interest of balance may I ask the same questions of you?”

“We’re who we appear to be,” Lucy said.  “I have my earring, we have phones, but nothing here is being recorded for bad purposes.  I don’t remember the other questions.”

“No tricks or traps meant for you,” Verona said.  “No sketchy motives except, I think, Snowdrop is going to be a glutton.”

“Lies,” Snowdrop said.  “Baldfaced lies.”

“And no rugs,” Verona said.  “And we aren’t a witting part of the conspiracy.”

“I assumed.  How do you think things went?” Rook asked, not taking her eyes off of Lucy.  She moved the mask away from her mouth, and Lucy got a glimpse of those fangs of hers, that curved too far back into Rook’s mouth, until it looked like her narrow tongue would have to dance between them as she spoke.

“It could have gone better,” Lucy said.  “The spirits and echoes and everything.”

“Intentional on their part.  I wasn’t here, but I’ve gleaned the story.  When Miss left to face the Wolf, Edith and Matthew invited the lesser spirits over.”

“We saw some of that,” Avery said, indicating Snowdrop.  “Beginning of our surveillance.”

“Yes.  Edith directed the spirits lesser than her but greater than the ambient ones you draw on for runes and your Word, having them keep a perimeter.  The surface intent was fine and sensible, clouding vision, keeping practice that wasn’t from you three from easily passing from outside to inside, adding power where power was needed, and serving as crude alarms.  But in the doing she made a vacuum, she stacked spirits and other immaterial things outside… and nature abhors a vacuum.  When she was bound, her word was forfeit, the deals ceased, and they no longer avoided the territory the simple deals bound them from.  They came in, overeager and roiled up, many frustrated.”

“And the echoes?”

“A similar principle, but a little more active and ongoing.  Echoes were either burned if they didn’t seem useful, or they were cast out.  The sheer number of Wraith Kings and major Wraiths is derived from a specific climate fostered outside of Kennet.  Echoes mingle with spirits to become Wraiths, Wraiths naturally shred and consume other echoes and spirits, becoming Wraith Kings.  An overstuffed aquarium with carnivorous fish in it.  The fish grow fat.”

“I feel like we did everything right,” Lucy said.  “Or mostly everything.  We got permission, we stuck to the law, we answered a Wrong.”

“And if every practitioner acted as you did the other night, then the world would be a brighter place.  But they don’t.”

“I know you’ve told others that you don’t like practitioners,” Lucy said, wary.

“I don’t.  As an institution, I loathe practitioners and what they do.  I’ve been led to believe that you are not the biggest fans of the kind of practice that unfolds under Belanger, or Bristow, or Musser.”

“No,” Lucy said.

“Then we are on very similar pages, I think,” Rook said.  “The onus is on you to hold to your best version of Right.  Miss picked you carefully.  I hope you prove the value in that care.”

“It’s all gone wrong, things are a mess since we bound Edith,” Verona said.

“Be ready for the same to occur, whoever else you bind.  Where are you now?  Where do you stand?”

“Two weeks and two days away from John taking the throne and dying,” Lucy said.  “They don’t have the furs and they don’t seem bothered by it.  We’ve got Witch Hunters who are apparently still out there-”

“Miss cannot hold them off forever.”

“Shrines that need building,” Verona cut in.  “I hope we get a stamp of approval on those.”

“The shrines are fine.  I visited.  The spirits seemed content.  It may be that you’re planting seeds in the hope of enjoying the shade they one day provide, but it’s certainly not a bad idea.”

“We kinda need that spirit shade now,” Avery said.  “We’re weaker.”

“Kennet is shaken.  You draw power from the Kennet Others.”

“We’re adrift,” Lucy said.  “And I’m… peeved.  We had one of the guys who makes the big calls on Karma behind us, and this doesn’t feel like the good karma resolution.  How are we supposed to make a next move?”

“Do you have one?”

Lucy nodded.  “We have strong suspicions on the other culprits, but Edith fell in our laps, it was pretty obvious she’d been running around and playing fast and loose with the oaths.  It looks like Charles might’ve been involved, but because he’s beholden to the Kennet Others, it’s also possible that he’s having his arm twisted.”

Avery spoke up, “We suspected Matthew because he was around when certain lies were told, like when Charles misled us about Yalda, Matthew didn’t correct or clarify.  But he might’ve had his senses fogged by Edith.  Charles could be the same.”

“Feels middle of the road,” Verona said.

“Charles is easy,” Rook said.  “You’re dodging around the more difficult-”

“Maricica,” Lucy said.  “Too many of the quote-unquote gifts she gave us are nasty, the syringe Edith had looked like it came from the Dark Fae… and an awful lot of other, contextual things.  If she isn’t a co-conspirator-”

“I feel certain she is,” Rook said.

“-she’s… okay.  But even if she wasn’t, she’s messing with us enough to almost count.  You do?”

“Yes.  But it’s feeling.  I don’t have any clear proof I can hand you.”

“She’s been hanging back a lot,” Verona said.

“She was hurt by the Aware who came to town.  It’s an excuse to wait and watch.  She had a hand in how things unfolded.  Guilherme told me that Maricica told you she interfered with the beast.”

“Temporarily blinded it,” Verona said.

“Yes.  She set this into motion and she’s watching it unfold.  If you get close, she’ll act.  Perhaps rashly.  If you don’t, I feel she’ll be content to wait until it resolves, then take a hand in the conclusion.”

“You sound certain,” Lucy noted.

“I’m not.  It’s feeling, and my understanding of her and those like her.  There’s more going on, but it’s subtle, and it may only reveal itself in the climax of her plan, or in the aftermath.”

“Can we stop her?” Lucy asked.

“Not if you intend to do it like you did with Edith,” Crooked Rook answered, sipping her tea.  “She’s young for a Fae, but if you dragged her into a basement and put questions to her, aiming to force her to break her word, she wouldn’t break when the person closest to her lost faith in her.  She would use words to tie you in knots and you would most likely find yourself on the wrong end of the Sable Prince’s judgement at the end.  Which leads me again to my question.  What next?”

Talking to Rook was weird, because it felt like talking to Guilherme or even Maricica, though Lucy had talked to Guilherme way more, but when Lucy expected the dodge or the evasive wording, Rook talked plain.

She really appreciated that.

“Bluntmunch wants us to be more careful,” Avery said.  “Set things up so the table doesn’t flop over if too many legs are removed.”

“Sensible, but you only have so much time.  Do you have the time to prepare?”

“We know exactly what that would look like,” Snowdrop said, decisive, “and probably, yes.”

“I was talking about that with Snowdrop earlier,” Avery said.

“What if we don’t?” Lucy asked.  “No time to prepare things or set something else in place?”

“Or if the act of setting something in place would tip off something as wary as Maricica is?” Rook asked.  “Then you deal with the aftermath.”

“You said you’ve seen this play out.”

“I have.  Sometimes in small groups of Others, sometimes closely knit Other and practitioner, sometimes Aware and Other.  Sometimes they’ve tried to prepare, sometimes they’ve done without preparation and the consequences crushed them.  For what it’s worth, my focus and attention is on the consequences.  I’m assuming you’ll fail, and I’ll try to ensure that Miss and I still have influence in the wake of that failure.”

“And us?” Avery asked.

“They’ll be rid of you one way or another.”

Lucy leaned back, holding the tea.  She hadn’t really had much, because it had been hot, and she took a careful drink, digesting all of that.  Now that it didn’t taste like scalded tongue, it was really quite good.  Calming, when she didn’t feel calm.

“You don’t care that my cool friends would bite it?” Snowdrop asked.

“I care, I’ll certainly help,” Rook said.  “Anything you can do now makes it easier for us later.  You’re exceptionally capable for where you’re at in your development, Miss picked you well, you’ve worked hard, but I harbor no illusions.  You’ve been doing this for a few months.  They’ve been working at this for a decade, perhaps longer.  They have decades or even a century of practical experience behind them, between Edith, Maricica, a possible but unlikely Matthew and then Charles.  One possible Other, and any others they’ve recruited in the meantime.  You had the element of surprise and spent it.  Now they know you’re good.  They gave you Edith, knowing this business with the spirits and wraiths would happen, now they’re watching and planning.”

Lucy sipped.

“Are you prepared to lose?” Rook asked.

“Are you prepared for us to win?” Avery challenged her.

“We wrote letters,” Lucy said.  “As just-in-cases.  I’m letting my mom know what’s really been going on, if it all goes wrong.”

“That is not an unusual way to do things.  Miss has remarked on your mother, positively.”

“I told my mom to call in the Witch Hunters, evacuate the good ones,” Lucy said.  “You’re on the list for right now.  So is Reggie.”

“Perhaps calling them in is for the best,” Rook said.  “Compared to the tyranny that may result.  I’ve abandoned situations and I’ve regretted having to walk away to leave the worst people in positions of power.”

“That’s kind of my feeling,” Lucy said.

“We’re really considering this?” Avery asked.

“That the bad guys sometimes win?” Lucy asked.  “Don’t we have to?”

“Not if we succeed.  We can succeed, right?” Avery asked.

“Yes.  But as Edith demonstrated, that comes with its own costs.”

“So let’s talk possibilities, let’s sort it out,” Verona said, leaning forward.  “Also, this is really good tea.”

“It is,” Rook said.

“Maricica,” Verona said.  “Problems.  We can’t go the Sable route.”

“I would reconsider… a large part of my perspective on reality, if you went that route and came out successful,” Rook said.

“She’s way more experienced,” Verona said.  “Lots more years, lots of practical experience, she’s laying in wait, watching for the mistakes we make, maybe messing with us…”

“She may not feel she has to,” Rook said.  “If she can wait and let things fall into place.”

“They aren’t scared about losing Edith or losing… key components of their plan,” Lucy said.

“The corpse of the Carmine?” Rook asked.

Lucy nodded once.

“Don’t tell me anything more.  But, in the abstract, that is something I wanted to address.  You’re underestimating them.”

“Underestimating?” Lucy asked.

“You’ve learned the underlying purpose in bringing Montague into Kennet.  He keeps Miss out.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “Which sucks because Miss would help a lot.  If she was in charge again-”

“It would be complicated, but perhaps better.  Toadswallow is fine.”

“Would it have been better if you won?” Lucy asked.

“I didn’t think so.  I voted for Toadswallow.  Being a leader right now would mean being tied up in the same headaches that are snarling you up, with the spirits and echoes.  As it stands, I’m free to act.  No, Montague was one thing.  But every single Other that was invited into Kennet, I believe, with the exception of Tashlit and Peckersnot, and perhaps Peckersnot’s group by extension, were all invited in with a subtle purpose.”

“Subtle as in Maricica subtle?” Lucy asked.

“These are the traps, and the source of her confidence,” Rook said.  “You have limited time to unravel those traps and undermine that confidence.”

“Or two weeks to stop Maricica,” Verona said.

“Or that.  And you’ll want to stop their co-conspirators.  I’ve told you about Lis and Cig.  They’re helping hands and spies on the conspirator side.  Anything you don’t resolve is likely to be their masterstroke in their finale.  You can deal with those masterstrokes now, or you can deal with them then.  I will help where I can, and I will inform where I can, without making it clear that I’m on your side or assisting Miss.”

“That’s a lot,” Avery said, quiet.

“Totally doable,” Snowdrop echoed.

“It is.  Sorry, Verona.  You were talking about Maricica.  I suppose you may add this to the conundrum.”

“She’s more experienced, she’s too crafty to hold at trial with the Sable, and she’s holding the strings, I guess, of all these new Kennet Others?”

“Witting or unwitting,” Rook said.  “Each a double edged sword.”

“What if we had, like, five hundred or a thousand years of experience?” Verona asked, eyes flicking between everyone at the table.  “And we did the opposite of a trial with the Sable?”

“You’re saying that like you’re about to jump off the bridge at the Blue Heron,” Lucy noted.  “And you’re nervous.”

“Do we know when and where Maricica is patrolling?” Verona asked.  “She’s helping, right?”

“I know,” Rook said.  “I can pass on specifics when necessary.”

“Who’s that old and that… not-Sable?” Lucy asked.

“Not one who.  Lots of whos.  Do you think Liberty would be down for a visit?  With a sanctioned goblin raid to ruin the day of a Faerie, and try to bring her into custody?” Verona asked.  She looked at Lucy.  “You said you’d rather burn it down and bring witch hunters in than let them win.  What’s better as a counter to well-laid plans than a whole freaking lot of goblins?  We’d even take a bunch of the locals out of play because they love the Tedds.”

“Heck no,” Snowdrop said.  “That sounds terrible!”

“Oh boy,” Avery said, echoing Snowdrop, but in a worried tone rather than an excited one.

Next Chapter