Avery took a deep breath. Ugh. She could hear the noises.
“Want to bail, Snowdrop?” she asked. “You could go look at the dead thing. Or do you want to come and help me deal with these goblins?”
“The dead thing wouldn’t be as interesting the second time around.”
“You can go, I really won’t stop you.”
“You’re on your own. No moral support from me.”
Avery put her hand out. Snowdrop took her hand, then became small. Avery got some glamour from her pocket, then stroked Snowdrop as she walked around to the side of the house. Snowdrop’s fur became plush, her eyes beads.
“Horrible, I’m detestable,” Snowdrop said, moving stuffed limbs. “Grr, argh! Creepy doll-drop.”
“Thanks for sticking around,” Avery said.
The door of the house opened, and Avery quickly moved Snowdrop to the side of her backpack. Snowdrop squeezed herself into the side flap that was meant for water bottles, settling there with forelimbs sticking out into the air.
Goblin number one.
“Hey, red-headed stepchild,” Sheridan called out. “You shouldn’t have come home.”
“Strawberry blonde,” Avery said, pointing at her head. “Not a stepchild. And why not?”
“You’re a red-headed stepchild in our hearts,” Sheridan said, clasping both hands to her chest. She went to the passenger side door of the car and moved a bunch of stuff to the back seat. “Welcome to hell. Unless you want to trade it for hell of another brand. Want to hang out for a week?”
“Nah.”
“I wouldn’t either but at least this way I can help shop around for apartments, pick a room. “A room to myself. What a dream.”
“Tell me about it. Even when I was away for summer I was sharing my room with three other people.”
“Yeah, but one of those people wasn’t Kerry, right?”
“Or you.”
“Double bonus!” Sheridan said. “What are you sticking around for? It can’t be the hockey team. Your hockey team sucks ass-grit.”
“They’re not that bad, though they’re probably worse since Melissa’s ankle snapped off. Hmm. Just my friends. Staying busy.”
“Romance?”
“There’s definitely no romance. Why the questions?”
“Dunno. I figure if the parents do that thing again and they end up saying ‘I thought you had her!’ I can lord it over them or look like the one half decent family member in front of some cute cop. So I’m asking what you’re up to.”
“Uh huh.”
“They’re all distracted and crap. What do you even do with those two?”
“Investigating a murder the police can’t even touch, hmm, vigilante arrest, meeting with a grouchy old war survivor over tea-”
“That’s wild,” Sheridan said. “Murder? You can’t leave it at that.”
“What?”
“Dish! Details!”
“You’re supposed to go ‘haha, silly Avery’ or something.”
“Details!” Sheridan told her. “I want to know more. I don’t care if it’s made up. If you and your friends are making up games to play that are like this, I’m actually kind of interested in what you’re doing for once.”
Avery gave Sheridan her best eye roll.
“Dish!” Sheridan told her, “I thought you were playing with dolls or something.”
Sheridan reached out to flick the stuffed Snowdrop on the nose.
“You’re so annoying,” Avery said, turning her body to keep Snowdrop out of the way of further abuse.
“I’m easy compared to what’s waiting inside. Brace yourself, little sister.”
“What’s inside?”
“Not telling, you’ll have to find out for yourself.”
“Ugh.”
“Ugh,” Sheridan retorted, and she gave a much better Ugh. Like her entire life had led up to her being very good at that one specific thing. She was that type.
But Sheridan was in a good mood.
“Hey, Sheridan?” Avery asked. “You okay? You good with all this?”
“I’m great! Shit, kid sister, you know all those hundreds of movies where the teenager is in the car at the start and they’re all pissy because they’re having to move into some mansion? Or some broken down place? Usually scary movies?”
“Yeah. Saw some with Lucy.”
“Yeah, the opposite of that. Fresh start, kicking ass, new place, new room, and I don’t even care we’re downgrading from house to apartment. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Awesome. It’s-”
“Sheridan!” Rowan called out, interrupting, leaning out the front door. “I’ve got the passenger seat!”
“Not anymore!” Sheridan said, plunking herself down, leaving the car door open to let air circulate.
“What’s inside?” Avery asked, again.
“Run,” Sheridan said.
“I need my laptop.”
“Dibs are a thing!” Rowan said, as he approached the car. “Out.”
“You had dibs and then you lost them because you delayed everything by calling your lame girlfriend.”
“Laurie isn’t lame,” Avery commented, giving the car and the sibling fight a bit of space.
“Thank you,” Rowan said.
“You gotta step it up though,” Avery said. “Getting a cool girlfriend isn’t enough, you gotta keep her, y’know? Keep pursuing, keep showing her she’s wanted?”
He made a pained expression. “Because you’re such an expert, skates?”
Avery sighed. Him responding like that was a bad, bad sign.
“Or do you have a secret boyfriend? Is that where you’re running off to all the time?” he asked.
“Bye,” Avery said, sing-song, “and dibs can be forfeit!”
“They can’t!” Rowan said. “Screw that! I had my stuff in the front seat!”
“Had. Past tense. If you’re disengaged from crap so much you can’t even notice you’ve been moved, and you delay, you’re not doing what you gotta to hold your spot,” Sheridan told him.
“Agree!” Avery called out, skipping up the steps.
“I have long legs!” was the last thing she heard from Rowan before she went inside. She nearly walked straight into her mom, who was sorting out her purse while wearing it. Her mom looked up.
“Oh good, you’re here.”
Uh oh. “Temporarily, I was going to-”
“I need you to babysit and look after Grumble for a bit. Your dad is stuck at work.”
“Am I getting paid?”
“If I’m paying anyone I’ll pay Stuart,” her mom said, still digging in the purse. “And I’ll insist you stay home anyway so we know where all of you are. It’s close to dinner.”
“I can just, y’know, leave, and-”
“Avery,” her mom said, abandoning the purse search to give Avery her full attention. “None of this is easy, I’ve got a three or four hour drive with Rowan and Sheridan in the car, and I can already hear them arguing. This week is going to be a test run, bit of an apartment hunt. Your dad is overloaded with work.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s your choice. If your dad and I need to bring Stuart in to keep the peace and maintain control, fine. Or if-”
“Stuart doesn’t keep the peace though. He just shouts louder than any of us until we submit.”
“But it works, and he cooks healthy meals-”
“Blargh.”
“-and he’s willing to accommodate the vegetarian diet. And he’s good with Grumble. Stuart works in a pinch. Or- or, you can babysit, watch Grumble and help him to the bathroom, call if you need more help than that, you have Stuart’s number and Dad’s. Let Declan play his new video game, he’s playing with Kerry so Kerry is occupied, you can order from whatever place you guys can agree on, and your dad will be home when he’s home.”
“He’s playing with Kerry?” Avery scrunched up her nose.
“I made it a condition, if he wanted to use the TV.”
“How long do I have to do this?”
“Between forty five minutes and three hours. I don’t know, Avery. The problem at work will be solved when it’s solved, but he’ll be back before it’s too late.”
Avery made a face.
“Your call. Stuff like this matters in three years when we’re judging if you’re mature enough for us to buy you a car.”
“I’m thirteen, I’m trying to make it through the end of summer. Three years feels way too far off to even contemplate.”
Her mother stroked Avery’s head. “I know that feeling. Things should settle at the end of summer.”
Avery hedged, considering options, then conceded, “I’ll watch ’em, I guess. Let me drop off my stuff and go sort out some stuff on my laptop, first.”
“Okay, thank you, bless you.”
“Can I get paid a bit? Doesn’t have to be what you pay Stuart, but…”
“Here’s the money,” her mom said, getting her wallet, then holding up a case that she popped open to get her sunglasses. “And here are the sunglasses I was looking for, the moment I stop looking. The money is for dinner, you can keep the change. I’m going to tell your dad you have this, so don’t cheat.”
“I don’t really do that sort of thing.”
“Love you,” her mom said, putting on the sunglasses. “Be good, Declan, if you want to take that flight to Salt Lake City, and be good, Kerry. It’s takeout tonight!”
“Yay!”
Her mom stepped outside. Sheridan and Rowan were still audibly arguing.
Avery glanced into the living room. Grumble sat on the chair, watching the screen, while Declan and Kerry sat on the floor, each with controllers.
“Doing okay, Grumble?” Avery asked.
He made an inarticulate, unsure sound, the vocal noise almost a creak between two ‘ennhhh’ types of noise.
“That bad, huh?” she asked, walking up to the chair. She kissed his head.
“These thin’s they promote violence,” Grumble groaned. “Chill’ren play’m and it warps’m.”
On the screen, a small character with a dog’s head was stocking bottles on a shelf.
“Yeah, Grumble,” Declan said, sarcastic. “Real violent.”
“Makes me wan’ smack a smirkin’ dog ‘cross the head,” Grumble said. “What’re you doin’, whassis this? This dog.”
Declan laughed, an abrasive sound.
“I’ll be back,” Avery said.
She headed upstairs, taking her stuff.
She had the desk to herself, which was nice, and Sheridan had moved stuff, apparently to put in storage out there so they had to move less later, which was… this was really happening, and it was happening fast.
But it meant she had elbow room at the desk. She booted up her laptop and fixed up the anti-augur stuff to ensure she had privacy while on the call, signing in and letting the laptop chug its way through the process of starting up before fixing up the last one.
Then, just to be safe, she closed the curtains, shut the laptop, and closed the door, plunging the room into partial darkness. She flipped the light switch on and off about twenty times in rapid succession. The golden checkmarks stood out on her skin, out of sync with the changes to lighting, and Snowdrop changed from plush to non-plush regular opossum Snowdrop and back again, lit up by the room light and not lit up, in various combinations, many not appropriate to the scene. Nothing else stood out or looked odd.
Glamour could be slow to respond to unfamiliar things, and technology was often one.
The Garricks were organizing for another visit to the Promenade, and were sending out messages to ask for thoughts and if anyone had ideas that they hadn’t included in the debrief surveys and things. Wonderfully dorky. She bookmarked that.
Plush Snowdrop climbed up onto the computer chair and onto the desk.
She sent a message to Liberty Tedd. She’d texted her earlier, but Liberty wanted a video call for some reason, so… here she was. She sent the request for the call to go through, and it was accepted right away.
Avery found herself looking at a webcam feed of a goblin in Liberty Tedd’s room. It was about two and a half feet tall with a large head, and wore an animal’s skull with a clown nose on it over its head. Raucous music played in the background.
“Hi, can I speak to Liberty? She’s expecting this call.”
The goblin straightened up, then began to make slow motion, dance-type moves in front of the camera, wiggling its arms, then turning around and twerking, looking over its shoulder and peering through the skull’s eye hole, with a brief adjustment to positioning.
“Can you hear me?”
Snowdrop, still in plush form, began to do her own kind of interpretive dance, nose pointing skyward, arms windmilling lazily. The goblin responded by upping its game.
“This might be a bad omen of things to come,” Avery observed, picturing the big plan that she was trying to help pull together.
The goblin stopped, faced the screen head-on, then put one claw on either side of the skull, and then jerked the skull ninety degrees without moving its head. It went rigid, then collapsed like a rag doll, skull clacking against the desk’s surface.
“Oh no, did you snap your own neck?” Avery asked, dry. “What a mic drop. Now can you go get Liberty? Seriously.”
The goblin, still visible at the bottom edge of the camera’s view, proceeded to laboriously drag itself across the edge of the desk, out of sight. It made it about two thirds out of the ‘shot’ before slipping and falling off the desk. The shattering sound suggested the skull hadn’t survived the landing.
Liberty entered the room as the goblin with a bloodied head ran to the window, climbing up the bedside table before hopping out. Liberty wore denim shorts and a red camo bandeau top. She kicked some of the broken skull debris to one side, then sat down, clipping a mic to her top.
“Heyyy,” Liberty said. She matched Snowdrop’s ongoing dance moves for a second. “What’s going on?”
“We’re thinking through some options and we’re still figuring out the bits and pieces, but what do you think about us hiring you? To lead a goblin raid on a target.”
“I have requirements,” Liberty said.
“Okay. For sure. What are they?”
“To start with, show me something gross.”
“What?”
“Uniquely gross. I like you, Ave. I feel bad about nearly throwing you off a bridge, scraping up your tummy, all that-”
She likes me? Avery banished the thought from her head.
Liberty went on. “-and you associate with goblins, so you’re pretty cool. Snowdrop’s very cool. Love the plush appearance. I’ve gotta do something inspired by that. But I have standards, I’m in high demand-”
“Love you, Liberty!” a goblin shouted from offscreen. She carried on with barely any acknowledgement. “-so I have a screening process for those I associate with. Goblin, human, or other Other. I already pitched the ‘make me laugh’ test at some of your goblins, I thought you might be expecting that, so I’m gonna give you the ‘something gross’ test instead. Uniquely gross. Expand my world, sports girl. Show me something so abominably gross that it gives me a new perspective on who you are.”
Avery looked around her room. Considering her siblings were her siblings, she was pretty sure there was something, probably definitely something in Declan’s room, but… the more something that something was, the more it felt like crossing a line to show a stranger over the internet. She’d never been into gossip or really badmouthing others, and this felt like that.
“Are there options that aren’t grossness?”
“Sexy, badass, ridiculously over the top.”
“I’m not doing sexy-”
“No, because you’re doing gross. That was what I gave you.”
Avery grunted in protest. “Aren’t badass and over the top the same thing? Or isn’t there a lot of overlap?”
“No,” Liberty replied. “You can have badass sexy, badass gross, badass funny, badass violent. And you can have over the top sexy, over the top gross… I’m just asking for normal gross. Uniquely gross.”
“You took those pictures!” Snowdrop said, before turning to Liberty.
“The dead thing?” Avery asked.
“It was so lame!” Snowdrop said, turning to Liberty. “It was all pretty and so nicely put together, not artistic at all, it was all boring normal, and its face was half off so it was all…”
Snowdrop raised plush paws to her plush face, which was essentially a triangle of cloth. “Teeth like I have right now!”
“I can imagine it,” Liberty said. “Life lesson for you right there, Avery, take pictures of the dead things. Now you’re going to have to come up with something uniquely gross all on your own, instead of accepting it as it comes into your life.”
Avery sighed. “Okay, look, I’ll entertain this.”
“You have to, if you want to keep my attention.”
“But in the meantime, because this is a sensitive topic, can you do me a favor and secure your end of things?”
“Secure how?”
“Against augury and spies. I can show you what you gotta do.”
“Alrighty.
Avery showed Liberty, and Liberty set her goblins to the task, which looked like more work than drawing four runes on four pieces of paper and putting them on the wall might be.
Avery took her laptop downstairs, and settled in the living room, sitting in the chair in the corner.
“There’s someone, Kerry, mash the button, mash it!” Declan urged.
“I’m mashing!”
“Whatcha playing, Declan?”
Declan’s process of stocking things in what appeared to be a pharmacy was interrupted by a customer.
“Dang, it Kerry, I said mash the button!”
“I mashed!”
“You mashed the star button, mash the moon next time!”
“Sorry! I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay.”
“Declan!” Avery called out. “Whatcha playing?”
“Urban Animals,” Declan said. “Amber gave it to me. I’m only playing so I can tell her I did.”
“Why?” Avery asked.
“So she’ll let me go on the trip to Salt Lake City?” he asked. He twisted around. “Are you recording me?”
“No, but I’m on a call with a cool older friend of mine.”
“Is this the guy who gave you the tickets?” Declan asked, perking up.
“Nope. Girl, bit older, very badass,” Avery said.
Liberty, on the video feed, just rolled her eyes. Then Liberty said, “I’ve played that. What playthrough?”
“What playthrough?” Avery asked.
“Second. My first one went south fast. I got bad rolls.”
“Rolls?” Avery asked.
Liberty was making a shrugging gesture. Avery held up a finger.
“It’s a dicebuilder roguelike, so you get a completely new playthrough every time, and you collect dice, see? One spoon, two spoons…”
“Spoons?” Avery asked.
“Dunno! And here if I roll this I can aggro and the idea is you’re supposed to get through the day with what you’ve got but I’m playing as this sad ass dog with chronic pain and I’m working at a pharmacy and I can’t pay the bills and I can’t fix the pain and I’m barely surviving! I’m really not getting the point. I don’t know why Amber likes this!”
“If y’re gonna stack pills in the game, why’ren’t you stackin’m in real life? Get a job and get money!” Grumble said.
“I’m ten!” Declan said.
“Rake th’leaves,” Grumble said, before stringing together syllables in a kind of mumbling protest or list.
“I’m mashing buttons when people appear on screen!” Kerry said.
Liberty made a face as Kerry said that.
“There! Mash!” Declan said.
“Mash what? Mash what!?”
“Moon! Moon! No, too late! C’mon, Kerry!”
“Sorry!”
“Hey Declan,” Avery said. “Did you patch things up with your gamer, game-making friend Amber?”
“Why? What are you asking?” Declan asked. He tried to divide attention between Avery and the game, then gave up and gave the game his attention. “Is Amber on the call? Are you telling Amber stuff?”
“No and I haven’t talked to Amber.”
“We’re fine. She said I’m her probationary friend and I got her to agree to keep our friendship secret, so the other Declans don’t give me crap.”
Avery made a face, then looked down at the laptop in her lap and gestured.
Liberty made a series of expressions, as Avery gestured and made expressions back. Avery typed into the chat: its grosssss!
Sad, not gross, came the response.
its gross-sad! this cool girl and she’s accepting this and ugh! and they’re young and he’s going to keep acting like this. is gross that spreads out over the future!
Liberty made a face, considering, then nodded.
Avery nodded, and she sat back a bit, watching for a second. Listening.
“Mash, mash!”
“Mashing! Mashing hard!” Kerry said, hammering the controller’s button. “Mashing all the buttons!”
“Mash the sun! Mash-”
“I’m trying!”
“No, darn! Why do I keep rolling these blank die?”
Avery saw Liberty post a response to Declan’s question and volunteered, “Depression. You’re getting bad dice because you have depression. I think the game is trying to make a point.”
I think Amber was trying to make a point by giving this to you.
“It’s a stupid point, get over it dogface!”
“Toughen up,” Grumble mumbled.
“Yeah!”
Avery wanted to sigh and she somehow didn’t have the breath to. Hearing that and knowing Grumble was participating was a bit of a gut punch. The idea that Declan had picked up something from their grandfather? Disconcerting. Deeply upsetting and uncomfortable, in a way she couldn’t put her finger on.
She couldn’t even bring herself to argue it because she was ninety-five percent sure it would be like talking to a wall, and Declan would be shitty and Grumble wouldn’t get it and Kerry was six.
A goblin mooned her on Liberty’s webcam, and the flash of color from the colorful goblin butt startled her back to reality and present events. She stood, bringing the laptop with her.
“I’ll order dinner in a bit. You okay, Grumble? Need the bathroom?”
“Mrr’ight, Arrey.”
“Okay. Declan, if Grumble needs anything, even a mug of water, you let me know or you get it, okay? You can pause, right?”
“No, this game doesn’t-”
“Yes!” Kerry interrupted. “We can pause!”
Declan sighed, disgusted.
Avery walked with the laptop back up the stairs, then saw the chat changing. Liberty was listing some things about the game. That the two player mode didn’t work like that.
Avery put the laptop down on the stairs, jogged down, and investigated.
Kerry’s controller had a segment at the middle of the cord where a cord extender or something would go. Two pieces of cord plugged into one another. And a piece of paper was stuck in there.
Kerry, as the baby sibling, was on button mash duty, when her controller was effectively unplugged. Taking her big brother’s word for what was working and what wasn’t.
“Here,” Avery said, pulling the cord apart, to Kerry’s protests, removing the paper, and putting the cables back together. Kerry mashed buttons, and the screen flashed. A Roommate!?
“Yes! Oh, this is a thing!” Kerry said, excited. “Declan, it’s a thing! We can play together like this instead!”
Declan groaned, flopping back, arms on either side of him. He gave Avery his best dirty look.
“Teach her, be good. I’ll order dinner soon. Let me talk with my friend for a few more minutes.”
Avery headed upstairs, collecting the laptop from the stair she’d placed it on. “Thanks.”
“It’s cool. You okay?”
“Mmm. Managing. Babysitting them. All three, I guess.”
“So long as you’re okay. I’m giving you a pass, you know. That barely qualified as uniquely gross.”
“I guess it’s bigger when you’re living it. Let me get settled in my room, and we can talk business.”
Avery did get settled. She broke out some snacks for Snowdrop, who ate them while still wearing the glamour.
“Give me the details,” Liberty said.
“Runes are set up? You’re secure?”
Liberty nodded, with a slight time lag in the video.
“It’d be a raid. Sometime in the next week, ideally. We need a lot of chaos but with someone steering the ship, controlling the fallout.”
“Are you roping me into this situation that Nicolette and Zed are constantly whispering about?”
“Kind of. The idea is that you’d be on the edge of this situation. What we really want to do is…” Avery paused, looking around her room to double check Maricica wasn’t present. She looked at Snowdrop. “Anything change while I was out? Nobody slipped in, no weird moths or spiders or anything?”
Snowdrop shook her head. “I’m bad at hunting bugs.”
“Okay, yeah, Liberty, we’d be looking to mess with a Faerie. That’s part of the reason for the secrecy, if the Brownies are still on staff, they could maybe get word to this Faerie, right?”
“Right. I don’t think they’re that connected, but yes.”
“The idea is to throw some stuff out of whack, put her on the back foot. She’s young, arrogant, and she might’ve done an awful lot of harm to people.”
“Goblins might hate faerie but I’m not especially biased, y’know. Doing it for the sake of doing it isn’t enough reason for me. And I deal with a lot of people who’ve done some messed up stuff before.”
“You know Brie? That thing she’s restraining with tattoos?”
“Yeah. The song kids.”
“Each of those kids is a person-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some goblins explained it to me a while back. Yeah. Like, Liberty, you’re badass, why worry about your weight when you could do this thing? Glad I didn’t. I would’ve won though.”
“Ssssure. Well, this target of ours played a part in that, we’re pretty sure. We need to figure out what she knows and what she did and to do that we need to work this out so she doesn’t Faerie her way in circles around us.”
“Uh huh. You have any brothers?”
“What?”
“Besides that one you were talking to. Brothers. With red hair or close-to-red?”
“I have an older brother, but he’s twenty, has a girlfriend.”
“The girlfriend isn’t a solid no stopping point for me. Twenty-”
“No,” Avery said.
“Ugh. Look, if you need this, and if this faerie did some heinous stuff…”
“Very heinous. We think. We’d need to be careful about how we did this.”
“All I was going to do was ask if you had a cute sibling. Arrange a date for me as payment. I’ve never dated a redhead.”
“I don’t think you should date my brother. A, because I don’t want to do that to you, and B, he’s my brother and that gets complicated, C, he’s sorta lame, and D, he’s twenty.”
“Wow. You giving me the D was enough, but you had to go and throw him under the bus. I guess I’ll waive payment. As apology for before, if you’ll accept it. And take it as an apology for anything my sister does in the future.”
“Is she planning anything?”
“Who knows? If she gets in the mood. Walk me through the plan.”
“It’ll have to be nonviolent,” Verona said. “Is that an oxymoron, with goblins?”
“It depends on the person in charge,” Rook said. “The area, the influences.”
“I can talk to Liberty,” Avery said. “We exchange messages sometimes. I send her Snowdrop pictures and some goblin stuff as a once-a-week thing. Any more than that and I think I’d be pestering her.”
“Peckersnot was trying to paint a picture of her. You pick the best of their submissions or ideas every week, right?” Verona asked. “He was hoping to get picked.”
“Yeah, for the last few weeks. Just trying to stay in touch with everyone,” Avery said.
“Focus,” Lucy said, quiet. Rook offered a refill on tea, and Lucy nodded.
“Okay, so if we were to do this, we’d aim for nonviolent, we aim to throw Maricica’s plans out of whack, bit of chaos. Might have to aggravate Guilherme by sending goblins to scout out the cave and see what they can dig up.”
“Leaning on impartial goblins to execute a warrant, kind of,” Lucy said.
“Kind of!”
“I felt bad enough about Edith, this feels worse,” Avery said.
“I feel sketchy enough about being the cops around here, basically, I don’t see any way I’d feel better about being the cops with rampant violence and harassment worked into things,” Lucy added.
“Okay, okay, hold on,” Verona said. She pointed a finger at Lucy. “Hold on. Don’t fret.”
“Holding.”
“Hold on,” Verona told Avery. “Don’t worry.”
“Fine,” Avery said.
“Hold-”
“Do not point at me,” Rook said. “It’s rude.”
“Sorry. We’ve got a conundrum,” Verona said. “How do we handle Maricica, find out if she’s a culprit, and deal with her? And what I think is that a whole lot of goblins and a well timed move addresses that. What you guys are bringing up? Those are really good, important points but they’re not points that are like, what are you smoking Verona, ditch that plan, back to square one. They’re points that we can address and fix and refine while holding onto this plan, which puts us at, I dunno, square three?”
Lucy sighed.
“I hate this plan. What are you smoking, Verona? I don’t want any,” Snowdrop commented.
“Rook?” Avery asked. “Thoughts?”
“Does this get us to the point where we can capture or maybe bind Maricica, and you don’t have to reinvent your entire worldview to understand how we came out on top?” Verona asked, pressing hands together in a pleading gesture.
“Theoretically.”
“Yes!”
“You’ll want to tread carefully. This could easily poison relations.”
“Yes, we need to have a chat with Toadswallow,” Verona said.
“If we do this,” Lucy said.
“If we do. Avery, can you raise the topic with Liberty? Like, get us started, see if this is even in the cards. No point talking it to death if we can’t get her on board to start with.”
“Okay,” Avery said.
“So we bring the goblins in, we go after Maricica a bit… then what?” Lucy asked.
“Same idea… just goblinified,” Verona said. “Let’s have Miss go to a judge, as discreetly as possible, the Judge doesn’t come marching in, we could arrange for them to show up when we need ’em. Goblins storm in, catch Maricica at the edge of the territory, and then with permission from Toadswallow, we use goblins to storm in. Then we question Maricica in more of a trial. With goblins setting the tone.”
“A kangaroo court?” Lucy asked.
“A goblin court.”
“I would give you slim odds,” Rook said. “You need more. By holding back and staying discreet, Maricica has avoided giving you anything substantial in the way of evidence or motive. If you draw close now, this soon after binding Edith, she’ll suspect something is going on. Nonetheless, you need something, evidence, a clue, a greater sense of what Maricica is doing, before you go through with this.”
Avery shifted position on the metal chair, which looked cool but was a little bit hard on the butt fat, pulling her feet up onto the seat and sitting cross-legged with one knee sticking under the arm.
They didn’t have enough. She’d known that, pretty much.
Maricica was so dangerous but actually getting to the heart of things pretty much guaranteed that they’d have to interact with her, and interacting with a Faerie was dangerous. They’d heard it over and over again.
“So we need to figure out the individual aspects of the conspiracy’s plan for using the new Kennet Others,” Avery mused aloud, “or we deal with Maricica and hope that takes the meat out of things.”
“Technically, dealing with the individual stuff, like whatever Ken’s meant to do, or Jabber, or Lis, or you, Rook…” Lucy said, indicating Rook with hand out flat, very pointedly not pointing. “…We’d have to do that while Maricica might be messing with us or misleading us the entire way.”
“You would,” Rook said. “As for me, I suspect my part in this is already played. They think I’m anti-practitioner, a burden for you to bear and something you must constantly consider as a factor. After my vote for Toadswallow belied my ambition and after I’ve had this meeting with you in secret, that may well change. They may see me as an enemy and target me. We’ll have to see.”
“Do you need help?” Avery asked.
“We can mess with you better than they can,” Snowdrop said.
“I’ve managed for a long time against worse foes. Focus on what you need to focus on.”
“Okay,” Avery said.
Lucy nodded. “Okay. We should talk with Liberty Tedd, Avery.”
“Will do.”
“…chat with Toadswallow in private and get the go-ahead from the leader of town. Ideally with an excuse…”
“I might be able to arrange that,” Verona said.
“Be careful. I told you what I overheard thanks to Rook. That Toadswallow has bigger plans. I don’t know enough to say if they’re bad plans, but… drawing on Faerie ideology and starting some kind of goblin market in Kennet? I’m wary. And that might mean he’s not as anti-Fae as most goblins are.”
“He’s not,” Rook said. “Toadswallow breaks the mold, if you will accept the turn of phrase. On a subtle level, he’s a friend of Maricica, even.”
“So we’d have to be careful,” Lucy said, before looking at Verona. “Be careful?”
Verona nodded.
“Liberty, Toadswallow, and we have Miss initiate chats with a judge. Alabaster or Aurum?”
“Why those two?” Avery asked.
“We could do Sable again, but… I didn’t get the impression he’s super on top of the Fae thing. He deals with death and gates.”
“Alabaster is more nature-y,” Avery said. “Aurum is the guy on the centipede, technology and the modern world, right? Money?”
“Fortune, exchanges, games,” Rook said. “All four Judges oversaw exchanges of power and changes in status, gainsaying included, and all judges manage the arbitration of new practice, but in this greater region the Aurum makes these things his dominant focus.”
“Maricica left the awakening ritual by coin,” Lucy said. “Does that mean anything?”
“I don’t know. But if your instincts suggest it, listen to them.”
Avery looked at Lucy and Verona, then at Snowdrop, who shrugged. Right.
“What was your take on Alabaster?” Verona asked her.
“Hmm,” Avery mused, sitting back, hands clasped in her lap. “Peace, tranquility… she had a lot of the vulnerable. Snow and I talked about Louise maybe going there if her health took a turn for the worse again.”
“Hopefully soon,” Snow said. “Louise is the worst.”
“It’s hard to imagine her as a judge, exactly,” Avery admitted. “The Alabaster. Like, imagine what the Sable was like the other night. Now imagine someone… not aggressive or outspoken. Not… hard?”
“The Alabaster oversees sanctuaries, sanity, the finer points of balance. More than the others, people come to her, or she waits for others to come to her,” Rook explained. “Heroes might come to her for a gift before going out to slay a doer of wrongs. She can be sought out to give answers, but may set a task or set a restriction on the one asking. The afflicted go to her for cures or because they have no other place to go.”
“Ran into those,” Avery said. “Nice, but kind of creepy and sad at the same time. Like, they finally had peace and simple lives without worry but at the same time, it really sucks they had to? That they were driven to a life that didn’t have more? Eating grapes and apples and washing in the river and brushing some beautiful woman’s hair?”
“One of these things isn’t like the other,” Verona said.
“She’s a victim, too,” Lucy noted. “Like, by role, she’s a prey animal, not a predator, right?”
“The Alabaster is often slaughtered, her hide or furs taken to establish a large protected area, like the practitioner school in Montreal, or further securing one dangerous primeval that was bound in the arctic North. Other times, she is killed so her role might be taken, and the ones who do the killing are almost always worse than the Alabaster was on her own. That may be true for the Carmine killer as well. Unlike the others, she only runs, without fighting back. The Carmine fights back, normally, the Sable sets a price on his killing, and the Aurum makes it a contest.”
“Gut feeling?” Verona asked. “If you guys come up with the judges to go to when handling the Maricica situation, think of them clearly in your head, make the call, and I count down from three… two… ready?”
“No,” Snow muttered.
“One…”
“Aurum,” the three of them said, as Snowdrop said, “Alabaster.”
“If the last culprit is Charles, then having the Alabaster, who covers mercy, come in, might be a nice touch,” Avery said.
“We can’t bind Charles, though,” Lucy said. She looked at Rook. “Can we?”
“We could challenge things, couldn’t we?” Verona asked. “Charles lost, pretty much. We could ask that deals between him and the Kennet Others be suspended or undone, since he hasn’t held up his end.”
“Ugly, ugly, ugly,” Lucy said. “This is awful to say and really tricky to handle but Charles is… it feels like we’re inclined to treat him more harshly than he deserves because he’s Forsworn.”
“You are,” Rook said. “Karma affects how the world frames you and how the world’s inhabitants see you.”
“I’d rather start from compassion and treat a guilty man too nicely than treat a relatively innocent person too harshly. Especially with the stakes,” Lucy said.
“Look at you,” Verona said.
“Don’t. I don’t know. I’m not sure. A lot depends on how much he did and what he’s involved in,” Lucy said. “At the very least he misled us and played some games. We don’t know if he did it because he was forced to, and he’s a man who lives…”
“Exists at the sufferance of others,” Avery said.
“Hate that,” Lucy said, quiet. “Could be that. Could be worse. Could be complicated. Let’s start from compassion, go easy, I think we won’t regret it much if we do that. If we strip away the co-conspirators, there’s not a lot he can do.”
Rook nodded, and stood from her seat. She walked around the table to refill tea. “Which leaves the other issues at hand. You have the skeleton of a plan for Maricica, but to bring that together you’ll need to have something to use against her when you have her in your clutches. To get that, you’ll need to engage with her without alerting her.”
“Not easy,” Avery murmured.
“I’ll play my part. If she comes after me, I could draw her out.”
“And if we know Cig and Lis are part of this… according to Alpeana?” Verona asked Rook.
“Yes, she told me. I’ve informed you. They worked under Edith. Lis is nervous. Cig is… a cigarette.”
“Questioning them makes sense, they have to be expecting it,” Lucy said. “Then we see if Maricica makes any obvious moves.”
“A Faerie? Unlikely,” Rook said.
“But we can see,” Lucy said, “we have you keeping an eye out, we can maybe do some other stuff, if we talk to Toad.”
“Asking for permission to let Nicolette spy?” Avery suggested. “We have all these people willing to help.”
“Estrella?” Lucy asked.
Avery winced.
“Not Estrella?”
“Estrella’s great. Communicative,” Snowdrop said.
Avery nodded her agreement.
“Ah,” Lucy said. “Try?”
Avery nodded.
“Be wary,” Rook said. “You’re basing too much of this plan on your enemy making a mistake. She’s older than you, she’s more experienced, and the games of deception without lying, gathering information, and putting things into motion are ones she’s exceptional at. What will you do if she makes no mistakes that count?”
“What can we do?” Lucy asked.
“Edith was easy in that regard. For Maricica, you may need better bait, a better trap, or a better move.”
“What makes a move different from a trap?” Avery asked.
Rook remained standing by her chair, purple-orange skinned hands on the teapot’s spout and handle, fine white hairs on the backs of each wrist, nails white, pointed and long to the point of being talon-like. “Can you make a move which forces a response? One where, whatever the result, you stand to get something?”
“Yes,” Avery said, without hesitating. “But that sure feels like a move she’s expecting us to make.”
“What move?” Verona asked.
“Pam,” Avery said.
“Pam?” Rook asked.
“The fortune teller at the autumn court told us Maricica might be bad at dealing with humans,” Lucy explained.
“Ah. She might.”
“And Maricica got Avery to change skins and encouraged Avery to go out and…”
“I went out to tell a girl I liked that she’s great and she kissed me and I didn’t expect it and I didn’t stop her,” Avery said. “I don’t want to bring Pam into this.”
“But we can bring… what did you call him?”
“Kell,” Avery said. “Which is still dangerous on the Pam front, but if the fortune teller was right and Maricica’s overeager and wants to play all her cards at once, she might want to follow up on that.”
“What if we used Kell as a way of throwing Lis for a loop?” Verona asked. “Bit of glamour to throw the group averaging out of whack…”
“While keeping an eye out for Maricica wanting to do more of whatever it was she planned to do with the Kell idea?” Lucy asked. “This plan is turning out to have a lot of individual bits and pieces.”
“We can pull it together,” Verona said. “Rook? Can you get Miss to give us an audience with the Aurum? We’ll make it look like it’s about Cig and Lis, but we can also talk about Maricica with him.”
“We can arrange that. We’ll add to your eyes that aren’t obviously on your side, tracking what Maricica and the others do. Cig and Lis are probably lacking in leadership, if Maricica isn’t directly involved with them.”
“Good, I’ll do the talk with the Aurum, if that’s okay,” Lucy said. “Verona? Toadswallow. Avery? Talk to our outside practitioners. We can pay Nicolette a little bit, we really owe her for her help so far. And we’ll need Liberty for the final move and last segment involving Maricica.”
“As you talk about practitioners in aggregate, I worry,” Rook admitted. “John described a massive gathering at Snowdrop’s familiar ritual.”
“They’re good people,” Avery said, to Rook.
“They’re complicated, as all people are. But if this is your course, I won’t object. You’ll have our aid.”
“Thank you,” Avery said.
“Has everyone had their bread? I’ll put it away if so.”
“I’m done,” Snowdrop said.
Avery elbowed her. “Glutton.”
“You’re a bigger glutton than me,” Snowdrop retorted.
“One more piece,” Rook said. “And I’ll put away the rest. There you go. I’ll leave some at the shrines you’ve built so far as I make my rounds tonight.”
“So much to dooooo,” Verona groaned.
“Not all of it needs to be done tonight.”
“It needs to be done in two weeks and two days,” Lucy noted.
“For now, you have the start of a plan in mind. You’ll refine it. You hold a fair but losing position. There are routes ahead of you where you might glimpse or grasp victory. For now, don’t obsess. Let’s talk of other things.”
“I wanted to ask,” Lucy said. She hesitated. “I have a lot of things I want to ask.”
“We can’t spend too long together, or our enemies will revise what this meeting is in their heads,” Rook said. “You should leave angry, so perhaps it is best to talk of difficult topics before you go, so others may get the sense you didn’t get what you wanted from this meeting.”
“I was going to ask about the Oni, and rebellions, and justice,” Lucy said.
“Such things may impact my mood while illuminating you, raising your most inquisitive member’s mood,” Rook said, indicating Verona.
“Who, me?”
“For heavier, bad mood stuff,” Lucy ventured. “Guilherme’s your mentor, right?”
“He is my sponsor, not mentor. But he is a mentor, by nature. It’s a role he’s comfortable in.”
“He’s repeating himself more and more. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ He’s maybe not taking care of himself as well. It’s really hard to say.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any good answers. Some Others die, others fade away, others dissolve into constituent elements, and then others will stabilize. Guilherme will slowly, over the course of the next few weeks, stabilize.”
“He’s getting harsher. He threatened to cut off my hair and I don’t think he got it.”
“Winter Fae are often unforgiving. Forgiveness requires flexibility, and he’s losing his.”
Avery reached out and rubbed Lucy’s shoulder.
“And he’s getting weaker, kind of? Not as good at… things. When he taught me before I left for the Blue Heron, it felt like there was always something more. This last time especially, he admitted he misjudged his enemy’s strength, then he misjudged and let Gashwad cut in.”
“That may have been goblin’s natural ability to foil the plans of Fae,” Rook said. “But yes. This happens, too. He is, I think, whether he realizes it in full or not, deciding the tools and things he’ll bring with him into Winter. It could be that those things aren’t a priority, so he’s letting them fall by the wayside.”
“What if I took him as a familiar, to stabilize things like Avery did with Snow?”
“First, he wouldn’t accept. He decided a long time ago that he wouldn’t be a familiar again. He’s enjoyed that story and would prefer to leave it on the note he did with his old partner. Second, I asked him, and he told me he thinks you’d be a poor match. You’re not especially subtle on the typical day, Lucy. Third, the answer to what is happening to him isn’t a relationship of equilibrium between two people, nor is it stability. You’d run the risk that you’d share Winter together.”
“Just like that, huh?” Lucy asked.
“Just so.”
“Just like that,” Lucy said.
Avery grunted, setting the rock down. She dusted off her hands, then rubbed at her stomach. The wound from the Blue Heron had healed, but the talk with Liberty and the ambient goblins around in the background of Liberty’s room had reminded her of the event. It felt a bit like the scratches on her belly should still be there. It didn’t help that her lower abdomen felt like she’d been punched repeatedly, just from the constant lifting of materials.
They set up the shrine.
“One more done,” Lucy said. “I think? If you like it?”
The spirit flowed from the bottle to the bit of trunk with the round burrow hole in it. A man’s face with a very pronounced chin and brow peered out, looking around suspiciously. He stuck his ‘head’ out a bit further and began moving his lips like he was lecturing them, but no sound came out. His head had no solidity to it besides the face, and was instead a blur of red smoke.
“Do you speak spirit, Snow?” Avery asked.
“Nope,” Snowdrop replied.
“Is that a no?” Lucy asked. “Does he not like it?”
The spirit made a grumpy face and then settled back in the hole in the log that was framed with stones, done up in layers and made to resemble a house with rooms. Small trees in pots framed it. His lips moved again.
“He hates it and he won’t agree to anything, but he’s trying to be nice,” Snowdrop said.
“We good to go, then?”
“Nope.”
“Hey, grumpy spirit,” Avery said. “We bid you, protect this area from outsiders, slow the influx of spirits, and grant your boons to Kennet as you can, holding back your weapons and tricks for those who’d hurt us. We give you a castle, a manse, a sanctuary, a home.”
Avery paused. The words didn’t come.
“This is given freely,” Lucy said, giving Avery a quick double-check glance before picking up where Avery had left off. “In exchange for your willingness to cooperate, your strength in holding off hostility and deflecting mischief. Accept our deal and grow with us as we grow, thrive as we thrive.”
The spirit settled into the shrine.
Avery backed up a bit, then sat hard on a rock. Snowdrop went to her side, hugging her.
“Ave?” Lucy asked.
Home, sanctuary, manse, all of that.
She hadn’t realized she was struggling with the idea until those words came out of her mouth, and now…
Now she thought back to home and the idea of going back and it felt like High School had felt, in the peak of her lonely semester, before she’d been able to reach out to Ms. Hardy.
She hadn’t expected it to hit this hard, this soon, and the idea that This Was It and It Would Be This Way For Years took all of the air out of her mouth and throat. That home wasn’t there and that even having Kennet wasn’t something she was sure of, anymore. Not with this convoluted pile of heck mounting. Talks with other Others, waiting for word from Miss on the Aurum, dealing with Maricica. Even just the Pam-adjacent stuff coming up…
She tilted her head to the left and rested it against the top of Snowdrop’s.
“What do you need?” Lucy asked.
“I can call Verona, if that helps. Or anyone. We’ve got your back.”
Avery’s thumb traced a golden checkmark, invisible, on her arm.
Avery took in a deep breath. She swallowed hard, and lifted up her head from Snowdrop’s. “Water?”
Lucy scrambled to get water, digging in her own bag.
“This is a lot, it’s hard work every night, it’s stuff at home getting worse, it’s… a lot,” Lucy said. She handed Avery her water. Avery drank, greedy for it. “What’s going on? Hit a wall?”
“Hit a wall, kinda,” Avery said. She handed back the water, then stood. Snow gave her a push in the butt to help her stand and she messed up Snow’s hair. Avery glanced down, at her companion, at her arms, and saw the checkmarks. “Caught me off guard.”
“If you want to back down, slow down, change pace-”
Avery shook her head. Reminding herself of the checkmarks. Reminding herself she was strong. “I can do this.”
“Okay. Sure. I’m glad. Worried but glad.”
Avery nodded. Lucy gave her a worried look, then sorted out her bag, picking it up, and checked Verona’s sketchpad for the shrine idea for the next shrine they were doing. “Good to do another?”
Avery nodded. Her thumb traced another checkmark, for kindness to an enemy.
I can do this.
Until the end of Summer. I’ll stick it out until then, at least, then I might have to reassess.
Next Chapter