Dash to Pieces – 11.11
Author: Wildbow

Dash to Pieces – 11.11 | Pale

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This felt like a reminder.  A bit of a ‘hey, pay attention’ from the new boss in town.

They were crossing the park and there weren’t any people immediately around, so Verona called out.  “Avery, go long, get ahead and cut her off.  Lucy, out to the side.  Snow, with me!  If your partner is okay with that!”

“Snowdrop belongs to Snowdrop first, Verona,” Avery replied.  “Then to us, she’s one of us.  She’s ‘mine’ last, if at all.”

“I’ll never be yours!” Snowdrop replied.

“What are you doing?” Lucy asked Verona.

“Making sure our spirit doesn’t double back!”

“You’re doing that because you don’t want to run as much!” Lucy said, but she picked up the pace.

“That too!” Verona shouted.

“I’m narrowing down her location,” Snowdrop told them, scrunching up her nose.

The spirit was hard to track.  An invisible woman, highlighted by a trace of smoke that followed the line of one part of her silhouette, or a crackle of electricity, or something.  Mixed in with the trace moisture of earlier rain from early in the day and the light from streetlights and storefronts that were only now starting to come on, it was surprisingly hard to make out.  Snowdrop took point, touching her nose, then pointing.

The target’s target was a long line of cars at the front of an apartment building, on a residential block of mostly apartments and a few duplexes.  The same block where the Abyssal beast had been, as it happened.

“Snow,” Verona said.

“Go screw yourself, go away, I’m not helping with whatever you want.”

“Give me your nose.”

“No, stop.”  Snowdrop scrunched up her face as Verona took it between her fingers.  Marker in hand, Verona drew the triangle of overlapping ‘horns’.

There were people walking down the street, acting like everything was normal, and there was a spirit looking for a place to hide.

Verona used her phone to get a view of her face, and drew the symbol.  Then she touched Snowdrop’s nose.  “Gate of horn.  Share your sense of smell.”

“You can’t have it,” Snowdrop told her.

The entirely different sense of smell blossomed.  Verona could smell the ozone in the air, the trace of caustic smoke, and the hint of oil.  Verona gave Snowdrop a nod.

They split apart a bit.  Snowdrop touched her nose and pointed, while Verona sniffed.  More right than left.  Matched to wind…

“Can I have your whiskers too?” Verona asked.

“Uhhh… no.  Rude.”

With the permission came extended senses.  Verona tried to wrap her brain around the direction of the wind as the sense extended, the hair on either side of her face began to pick up the trace movements of air.  Goosebumps stood out on her neck and arms and the hairs became more sensitive.

Wasn’t as important as she’d thought it was.  She’d hoped that whiskers would give her a superior ability to read the wind, and had vague notions of picking something up as a cat, but she’d never explored it and had assumed there were deeper waters to dig into.  Nope.  It was a shallow pool, here.

She might have dampened her sense of smell, distributing power this way.  She might have said something or revoked it, but she was sorta interested in the learning process and the difference was small.  It was interesting that it tied into her sense of balance.

Nose.  Smell.  Right.  She walked down the street, backing up to stand between two cars as a truck passed by, then resumed her walk down the street.  Avery waited at the end of the row of cars, and Lucy walked down the sidewalk, matching Verona’s position, putting a hand on Snowdrop’s shoulder as Snowdrop caught up to her, using her nose to try to sniff it out.

Snowdrop frowned as they drew closer to Avery, and Avery tensed.  One of the last cars?

Verona sniffed.  Still a trace of that burnt, almost hollowed-out air smell.

Snowdrop pointed at the cars closer to Verona, and Verona shook her head.  Verona pointed at the last car in the row, close to Avery.  Snowdrop shook her head.

Both of them turned their heads simultaneously.  Snowdrop started running, grabbing at Avery’s wrist, pulling Avery behind her.  Avery found her footing, then picked up speed, pulling Snowdrop behind her, now.  Snowdrop glanced around, then became an opossum, instead of an anchor.  Lucy and Verona jogged after.

Their target spirit hadn’t gone for any of the parked cars, like they’d thought.  Snowdrop used her nose and directed Avery as they headed into a more residential area.

Verona saw a glimpse of a little boy with a baseball cap with a too-short brim, running across the road.

“No!” Verona groaned.  “No, no, no!”

“What?”  Lucy asked.

“There was an echo,” Avery said.

“I know him!  I put him to rest!  I put you to rest, kid with the stupid hat!” Verona called out.

There were other echoes now too.  Fleeting, flickering ones.

“Hold back, this is weird,” Lucy said.

Avery stopped running, turning around on the spot.  Snowdrop sniffed and looked back, before pawing at Avery’s shoulder.  “It’s a bit further down.”

Verona sniffed and confirmed.  The trail continued further into the midst of houses and lawns and other things.

“Are we being lured into a trap?” Verona asked.  “Is this a smart spirit?”

“It’s doing something, but it’s hard to say if it’s smart or something automatic,” Lucy said.

Anxiety and anger boiled up inside Verona as an echo anchored itself inside of a parked car.  A man, face red, hands on the steering wheel, jerking his body back and forth as if he could dislodge the wheel from its mount.

She packed down those feelings and gave the echo a bit of distance.

A child’s laughter.  The little boy ran across the road behind her.

It wasn’t the boy’s echo.  It was the mother.  The boy was indistinct, the mother an echo in clarity, face distorted in wild fear, chasing after.

This freaking family.  Verona didn’t say it out loud because she was holding back from letting the road rage guy get to her.

Another echo further down the street was freaking out, smashing and kicking a car.  Bits of keyboard flew off and away from the damage, but the echo was doing actual harm to the car.  It wasn’t much, a ding here or a dent there, but it was something.

“She’s pulling in thematic echoes,” Avery said.

“Let’s deal with her first!” Lucy called out.  “Watch out for the echoes!”

Verona pulled her bag around to her front, and dug inside for salt.  “The mom is giving chase to the kid who ran into traffic, don’t have too much fun escaping her!”

“Or we’ll get hit by a car!?” Avery asked, alarmed.

“I don’t think I’m meant to die that way!” Snowdrop added.  Avery bapped her across the back of the head, prompting a laugh.

They split up, Avery going ahead and then stopping to let Snowdrop sniff, while Verona zig-zagged, using her borrowed nose to sniff out directions while using her eyes and feelings to watch for echoes.

She touched her nose and swept her arm in a general direction, and Snowdrop did the same.  They triangulated, turning their attention toward a house.  No car in the drive.  Had the spirit gone inside?  Homes were supposed to be partially protected and harder to enter, but there was always a possibility of one person or thing with an especially strong affinity giving it a way in.

Lucy jogged up to the house, pressing her ear to the door.  “Nobody home.”

Verona, meanwhile, paced slowly down the driveway.

The skinny tech-smashing Other came at her, stepping out of the hedge, swinging a phantom keyboard at her.  Not at her, but at her bag.  She had to twist and throw herself back to avoid letting him smash her bag.  She landed on the grass by the driveway, tailbone first.

Him trying that got to her.  A wall breaking down a bit, the fall knocking them down a fraction more, like some coup stuff that they’d learned at school.  A tiny defeat that made further defeats at this echo’s hands easier.  Frustration welled and got its hooks in the more generalized frustration, at her inability to help Avery, at the state of the city, at the spirits and echoes turning up night after night, the shrine building-

She threw salt and he backed off.

The feelings ebbed.

“You okay?” Avery asked.  She was holding salt of her own, guarding Verona’s flank, while the echo mom chased the fragment of echo kid down the road.

“Grass softened my fall.”

“That’s not what we have to worry about when it comes to echoes,” Lucy said.  “Is she inside?”

They explored a bit, tracking the smell, but the spirit evaded them.  They tried to close in as it paused at the side of the house Verona holding one pre-used water bottle, but the spirit slipped away like a puff of dust she was trying to snatch out of the air with her fingers.

It started to move toward the garage, and Avery started forward.

“Let it,” Verona said.

Avery stopped.

It slipped under the door and into the garage.

“Let it find a home.  Then we go after it there.”

“Except it’s inside someone’s private property,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, well, that’s a snarl,” Verona said.

They tried the door, and it was locked, and then Avery used wind shoes to hop the little gate that barred the way between house and garage, and allowed access into the backyard.  Avery tried the door at the side of the garage, and it opened with a screech and crunch.

“Snowdrop, do us a favor, go in first?” Verona asked.

“Are you using Snow as bait?” Avery retorted, annoyed.

“I’m using her as an excuse.”

Snowdrop climbed down Avery’s arm, was lowered to the ground, and marched in.

“Excuse?” Lucy asked.

“We followed an animal in and we were worried.”

“That’s a bad excuse.”

“It’s an excuse that might help keep us out of juvie.”

They entered the garage.  The floor was poured concrete that had broken to the point of being more rubble than flat surface, the wood looked moist and rotted, and only barely enough space had been left clear to allow a car inside.  To Verona’s borrowed senses, the smell of ozone and oil were intense.  The spirit was here, and she couldn’t see it.  There was too much smell filling this space to-

Lucy bumped into her, knocking Verona into the door, which knocked the door into a shelf of tools and things, knocking some over.

Verona leaned into Lucy and threw salt.  The road rage echo backed off.

Lucy’s hand clutched at Verona’s shirt, at Verona’s stomach.

“He got you good, huh?”

Lucy nodded, tense.

“Hurt?”

Lucy shook her head.

“Where is the spirit?” Avery asked.  “It’s in here?”

“Nah,” Snowdrop whispered.

Lucy exhaled, working at calming down, and then the mom and child echoes darted past, making her jump.  Lucy pulled away from Verona and threw out a load of salt, emptying what had to be a third of the container in a flailing attempt to hit them, even though they were gone.

“Frig off!” Lucy shouted.

“Shh!” Avery shushed her.  “We’re already trespassing!”

“And don’t waste resources,” Verona told Lucy.

“We’ve got lots of salt,” Lucy said.  “They’re getting more intense as we get closer.”

“We have lots of salt in your room and places, but not on us.  Look.  Draw a line.”

Verona used her own box of salt to block off the door.

“Efficient, see?”

“Condescending, see?” Lucy replied, jabbing her slightly.

Verona smiled.

She could see Lucy working at relaxing.  Once satisfied Lucy was okay, she turned her full focus to the dark garage.  The lightbulb was probably as old as she was, a dark orange, and the light from outside wasn’t great.

Chainsaw, lawnmower, snow blower.

Working with Snowdrop, Verona sniffed, and the two of them settled on the snowblower.

“Planning on waiting it out until winter?” Verona asked the snowblower.  “Catch the homeowner unawares in a terrible accident?”

She used her Sight, and she stared the snowblower down until the meaty thing within began to move, like it was losing its ability to keep bluffing.

The spirit manifested in reality, the smell concentrating, and echo-stuff began to leak in through knot-holes and gaps in the side and base of the crummy old garage.

The mother with the child.  The road rager.  The tech-smasher.

“Stop!” the spirit roared, intense, frantic.  Then, in a deeper voice, she spat out the words, “Go fuck yourselves!”

She jerked, and the snowblower jerked with her, and a tool fell off the wall.

“Help us out?” Verona asked.  “We could talk, we could help you.”

“Fuck this!” the spirit said, in a third voice.  The chainsaw on the shelf to the side of the garage shifted, pointing at Avery.  The little light on the front came on briefly and the blades rotated for a second before stopping.

“Man, some people in Kennet don’t get along with technology, do they?” Avery asked, watching the chainsaw.

Verona approached slowly, holding the salt, minding everything.  She had to back away as the keyboard warrior came at her, swinging, pulling free of the spirit long enough to move three paces closer-  Snowdrop kicked at him and he folded, pulled back, and re-merged with the spirit.  A woman outlined in traces of smoke, sparks, and flames.

Lucy was rubbing her hands.  Verona saw Lucy start to draw on her hand, and understood.

One good thing about the nightly encounters with spirits and wraiths was that they were getting to hone certain skills.  Verona fished in her bag, tossed a bottle at Avery, then another at Snowdrop.

“Stop getting in my fucking way!” the spirit raised her voice.

Whatever she was doing, she was gaining more traction on the things in the garage.  Other tools, the lawnmower, the snowblower, the chainsaw.  The light flickered.

Stronger than many.

Snowdrop moved, running across the spirit’s path, and the spirit lunged, the snowblower roaring to life, the protective cover at the front tearing away as the rotating, snow-collecting blades spun, sparked and moved too fast.  She went after Snow, chasing her toward the front of the dim garage.

“You and me!  You want me out of your way?  Get me out of your way!” Lucy shouted.  She clapped her hands together, and the rune activated.  The Arena expanded, and enclosed a ten- foot area.  As Lucy’s colors painted the arena and decorated her hair and clothes, the spirit manifested in full color, no longer a glimmer in the air.  The boundaries of the arena meant she had to stop before reaching Snowdrop.

“Alright.  Terms of the duel are set.  Now you’ve gotta get through me first,” Lucy said, before swinging.

The spirit was more physical, and Lucy was armed.  Lucy got in two good hits with a pen-turned club, and one dislodged the keyboard smasher, who collided with the edge of the circle.

Verona lurched, reaching, and tapped the cup against the edge of the boundary.

The arena was for one-on-one fights, and left alone, the echo that was feeding into the spirit would re-merge with her, and the rule would be kept, but especially while it was at the point of being most separate and most disconnected, with the rule of the arena leaning hard into it…

Easier to go in the container.  The keyboard warrior flowed into the container, Verona capped it and placed it on the floor, surrounding it in a quick dash of salt.  She’d have to make sure not to kick it over in the next short while.

Lucy had to engage in close quarters, though, and the spirit was merged with the lawnmower, and blades were spinning in close proximity to her.  Lucy had to fight to hold a metal spear’s shaft against the blades and not let them pull the blades -and herself- into the midst of things.

Verona hurried to get another container, while Avery and Snowdrop circled the perimeter, ready to catch whatever came loose.

“If you have to drop the arena, you drop it!” Avery called out.

“I know!  But it makes her stronger if she has a victory over me!” Lucy grunted.

The spear got eaten, sucked into the turning blade.  Lucy twisted and kind of pole-vaulted up, stepping onto the top of the machine, before grabbing the spirit by the front.  The spear became a pen, then became a knife.

She was pushed away before she could get a good cut in.  Lucy landed on the ground, twisting as she landed, and was caught between the walls of the arena and the spinning, uncovered blades.

She reached back behind herself, grabbed the mask that hung off the side of her bag, and slapped it on.  She became a trio of foxes, each one bounding in a different direction- one off to each side, the other onto the top of the machine.  They moved around behind her, forcing her to turn around.

“We can talk, still!” Verona called out.  “Option’s open!”

“Fuck off!”

“You really think so, Ronnie!?” Lucy asked, as she rematerialized.  “Because she’s really trying to hurt me here!”

“Fuck off and die, bitch!  Learn to drive!”

“I’m thirteen!” Lucy called out.

“I wouldn’t piss on you if you were lying burning in a ditch, bitch, fuck off, fuck you, waste of fucking air!”

“Maybe she’s not all that cooperative,” Verona said.

“Fuck off!”

As the spirit got more active, the arena was faltering.  The chainsaw buzzed to life for another second.

“Can’t hurt to ask, try and deal,” Verona said.

Lucy extended her weapon, a pole, and the spirit’s head crashed into the side of the barrier.  Echo-distortion splatted out around the rim, and Avery captured it.  The chasing mom.

Leaving only the spirit and the road rager that was fueling her.  She got more angry, more intense.

“I made a deal.”

It wasn’t the voice of the mom giving chase, or the road rager, or the keyboard warrior.

The spirit.  A voice that was eerily calm, even though the rest of her was amped up, violent.

To Verona’s sight, it was meaty stuff boiling up from the damaged snowblower, some burned, some scorched, some tattered, in the rough shape of a woman.  Her mouth moved and the voice came out.

“Who?  How?” Lucy asked.  “Who did you deal with?”

“She burned.  Wax and fire and memory.  She said she could destroy me.  Should destroy me.  She let me go.  Told me- find something out there that is gentler.”

“Didn’t succeed, huh?” Verona asked.

“Shh,” Avery shushed her.  Quiet, she added, “Don’t provoke.”

“By the deal, I’m allowed to be here,” the spirit said.

Lucy spoke up.  “Edith, the Girl by Candlelight, has been bound.  She was found in violation of her word.  Whatever she told you, her word doesn’t have that sway anymore.”

Verona glanced to the side.  The putter of the chainsaw trying to start up, a power drill coming to life, and other things stirring had all gone quiet.

“I have a right!” the spirit exclaimed.  In another voice, the road rager’s voice, she added, “I had right-of-way!”

Lucy smashed her.

Snowdrop tossed a bottle to Avery, who was just putting the other bottle down in some salt, and Avery handled the ‘catch’.  Snow threw her the lid too, and she capped it.

Leaving only the spirit.  The blades on the machine weren’t even turning that fast anymore.

“Cooperate?” Verona asked.  “We could negotiate.  Give us some information on what Edith told you, and we can give you… something.  Maybe we can help you find the gentler thing that she told you to hunt down.  Round yourself out instead of-”

“I don’t want gentler,” the spirit said.  “I want tribute.  I want to stand as a symbol.  I want a life, taken and given in a blaze of twisted metal and scorched air.”

“We’re not in a position to give you that,” Lucy told the spirit.

“A family, brought together by tragic and sudden loss?” the spirit asked, like she was negotiating.  “A powerful moment.”

“I dunno,” Verona said.  “That’s a shitty thing network dramas do in the second to last or last episode of a season where they’re running out of ideas.”

Even her saying that seemed to diminish the spirit.

When she lunged, going after Lucy, there wasn’t much heart in it.  When Lucy parried and swatted the spirit aside, it crumpled.

One spirit became a collection of constituent ideas.  Dissolving into vague shapes and human forms, scattering.  Sparks and smoke and the handling of machinery and bits of violence.

Spirits had a hierarchy and at the bottom of that hierarchy were the ambient spirits.  Nothing was truly destroyed, just… collected, distributed, or transformed.  They milled around the arena, which was dissipating.

“Drop it!” Verona called out, looking at Lucy.  She fished in her bag, found the phone her dad had disconnected from service, with a slightly cracked screen, and held it up as Lucy’s arena collapsed.  “A Hallow!”

A few of the spirits flowed into the phone, and it briefly turned on, fritzing and sparking.  The echo of the keyboard warrior in the bottle lurched, trying to join in, and tipped over the bottle, falling across the salt.  Avery leaped in to handle that before anything became of it.

Verona reached into her bag again, holding the fritzing, sparking phone up and away from her, her other hand reaching, pulling at ribbon that was getting entangled.  She’d bought more on impulse at the dollar store, knowing they’d not had any when they’d needed it to rescue Avery, way back when.

Lucy bent down, helped get the ribbon, and untangled enough of it that they could start winding it around the phone.  They bound the broken phone in ribbon.

There were other parts of the spirit that didn’t fit in the phone that would go out into the world, but this was… hopefully manageable.  Verona tied the knot.

They sorted out the other bottles, fixed some of the mess, and then let themselves out, turning off the light and closing the door behind them.  Lucy indicated Verona’s nose, and Verona licked her hand before rubbing at her nose.  “Is that it?”

“That’s bad for your skin, you know.  Enzymes in your mouth and abrasions on your skin… it’s why it’s bad to lick chapped lips,” Lucy told her.

Verona licked her hand and then reached for Lucy’s face.  Lucy struggled with her, fending her off.  Verona stuck out her tongue, going for Lucy’s arm, instead.

“Hey, guys,” Avery said, holding Snowdrop out.

They stopped.

The homeowner was out in the driveway, staring at them.  A kind of dumpy, hangdog type of guy who looked very bewildered to see them.

“This opossum got inside,” Avery told him, holding Snowdrop away from her at arm’s length.

“We knocked and you weren’t home,” Verona said.  “We didn’t want you to run into trouble with your garage visitor.”

“I hope that’s okay,” Lucy said.

Snowdrop made a big show of snarling, flailing and kicking claws around, and making some high pitched noises.  Being a convincing little shit.  Verona had to fight not to smile at the scene.

“You’re holding it?” he asked, looking very confused.  He kept the car between himself and them or between himself and Snowdrop as they walked down the driveway.

“They’re more hiss and piss than they are biters,” Avery told the guy.  “Here, little opossum.  Go back to nature.”

She set Snowdrop down on the driveway, near the hedge, and Snowdrop disappeared into the foliage.

“Your visitor knocked the cover off your snowblower, sorry,” Lucy said.  “I’d get that looked at.”

The guy was too stunned to call them out or complain they’d broken into his garage or really respond.

They hurried off, carrying the water bottles filled with echoes and the phone with spirits.  To their meeting with Toadswallow.

Snowdrop, wearing a shirt where the back of it read ‘…and she’s a biter’, lifted up a piece of plywood that covered a window.  It grated a bit as it was pushed aside, but it did move far enough to one side that they could slip inside the old restaurant.  She stood to the side, holding it for them, and Verona could see the front of the shirt.  ‘Bark’ was crossed out on the front and hiss and piss written over it in bold letters, making the shirt “She’s more hiss and piss than bite”.

“You liked that line from Ave, huh?” Verona asked, as she ducked through the gap.

“It was a conscious choice to pick out the shirt,” Snowdrop said, in a snooty, dismissive kind of tone.  She pulled off her ‘possum ear headphones and put them around her neck.  “It’s not easily influenced or anything.”

Inside, it wasn’t an old restaurant but an old bar.  Colorful paint, decoration, and various pictures and torn out magazine pages were plastered over surfaces.  There was no stock left, but the lights were on, dim, and at the back behind the counter were glass shelves which sparkled with the lights mounted on and around them.  Some bottles were there, empty, and some objects and trophies had been collected there, including a child’s toy that was a very hairy, very ugly naked man, overweight enough that his belly covered the indecent parts.  There was also a bong, or something in that category, with a naked woman made out of blown glass, embracing the pipe part.

Some goblins were sleeping or hanging out in the booths, sprawled in puppy piles.  Doglick idly gnawed on Biscuit’s head while they slept, prompting expressions of concern and pain from the small, large-eyed goblin every time his jaw worked.  Butty and Gashwad were sitting under one table, a chessboard between them, and were moving a combination of playing cards and cards from one of those superhero trading card games across the chessboard in what seemed like very deliberate, meaningful moves.  Butty waved, smiling in a wide, guileless way that really jarred with the fact he was 90% naked, smooth, and wearing fancy underwear bottoms, and Gashwad took the opportunity to try to cheat.  Butty flipped the chessboard.

Jeremy would know what that superhero card game was.  He might not have played it, though.  That was one of the games that had taken the playground of their elementary school by storm when they were younger, dominated by the seventh and eighth graders, too expensive and complex for the rest of them.  Then it had faded out of popularity a bit later, by the time they were old enough to understand or pay for it.

Glass and broken glass clinked as Toadswallow climbed up onto the surface just behind the counter.  Verona hopped up onto the bar supporting the legs of a stool, and saw it was a more industrial, food and drink preparation surface.

Some goblins roused and greeted Snowdrop, and the gentle conversation and greetings seemed to stir more goblins awake than Butty and Gashwad fighting.

“You’ve beaten the spirit?”  Toadswallow asked, standing practically on the counter, holding a glass and a dirty rag.

“Sir Toadswallow,” Verona said, with a bit of dramatic flair, “Thank you graciously for hosting us and agreeing to this meeting.”

That got some responses from goblins.  “Boo!”  “Hiss!”  “Prissy!”

Toad, though, smiled, looking down at the glass he was cleaning.  “Be seated.  Tell me what happened.”

“We handled it,” Avery said.  “Broke it up, captured some of the pieces of it.”

“And the associated echoes,” Lucy told him, standing behind the stool without sitting on it.  She brushed at the padded seat but it wasn’t dust, it was discoloration.

“Good,” Toadswallow said.

“It looks like Edith released her with a deal or something,” Lucy said, looking up at him.

Toadswallow smiled, smug, like he’d expected that.  “We wondered if that was so.  Hmm.  She was supposed to destroy it, if I remember right.”  He looked down at the glass that was getting dirtier for being wiped, musing aloud, “I wonder if she’s been setting up her counterattack and allies for a while now.  Or if she felt attached to the that murderous complexity.”

“It was a bit like her,” Avery said, sitting next to Snowdrop.  “Complex, I think.”

“Another clue about what she was doing and thinking,” Toadswallow told them.  He took the dirty glass and held it beneath a nozzle, hauling back on the lever.  There was no beer, just brown spittle and thin froth containing what had probably sat in the pipes and tubes since the place had shut down, but he got enough into the glass to toss back half a mouthful.

“Aaaaa!” Cherry greeted Snowdrop.

“Aaaa!”  Snowdrop replied.

As Butty was kicked across the floor, skidding about fifteen feet and rebounding off of a stool to settle somewhere in the middle of the floor, Cherry crawled over him in a more arduous, slow process than going around would have been, sliding down an inch for every two inches of progress she made.  He helped her up the rest of the way, she pumped her fists in the air, and he knocked her off, sitting up and going after Gashwad.

“Did you bring food, tribute for entering the goblin den?” Tatty asked.

“Were we supposed to? I have food.” Avery said.

“You must!  Certain things must be respected!”

“Whoops,” Verona said, glancing at Lucy.

“You’re guests, invited, it’s not needed,” Toadswallow told them.  “It’s my responsibility as a host.  “As the lords and ladies of the day might have said, Tatty needs to shut her mouth-hole.”

“Certain things must be respected, Sir Toadswallow!” Tatty shouted, picking up a bottle nearly as big as she was off the floor.  “Me!  I must be respected!”

“Where’s my little man?” Verona asked, looking around.  She paced down the room, looking to see if he was sleeping.

Snowdrop gave a high five to a lounging goblin who reached out -Ramjam, looked like- then sat down on one of the stools.  “Barkeep, give me anything but milk.  I’m sick of milk.”

“I want stuff!” Tatty shouted, joining in.  “What do you have behind the counter?”

“Nothing.  Snow, this would be a good time to get some practice in.  Can you corral this crowd?”

Verona continued looking.  She couldn’t see Peckersnot, but Nat was sitting in a booth still, very pointedly not making eye contact.  As Verona leaned in closer, Nat pushed something into the corner of the booth cushion where it met the wall.  A tiny arm reached out, groping madly for something to hold.

Verona hopped up onto the adjoining booth, stepped over a collection of doll and children’s clothes that had been piled up for the goblins to take from, and reached down.  Nat, the female goblin with the one piercing-ridden arm that was more metal than flesh now, looked up and tracked Verona’s reaching hand.  Teeth snapped.

Verona ignored the snapping teeth, grabbed Peckersnot, and then held him carefully while he continued flailing, hammering tiny hands on her hand.

“Draw anything recently?” she asked.

His eye opened, belatedly, and he recognized her, stopped struggling and nodded his head.

“Show me later,” she told him, before letting him go.

The goblins were all awake now, Butty and Gashwad were fighting, Tatty was raising her voice to complain, others were trying to get Snowdrop’s attention, while Snowdrop held out her hands.

“Scram!” Snowdrop told the assembled goblins.

They all froze, except for Cherrypop, who ran about five paces away from Snowdrop before Ramjam swiped her off the ground.  Her legs kicked.

“Next one to make a sound gets a prize!” Snowdrop told them.

Cherry screamed.  She pumped her fists as Ramjam handed her over to Snowdrop, who got a marker from Avery and wrote something on Cherry’s forehead.  Goblins jeered and cackled.

“Can we talk in private?” Lucy asked, as the chaos continued.

Toadswallow sat down, leaning forward awkwardly to put his elbow on the counter in front of him, chin in hand.  “That depends on our would-be goblin sage.”

“Who has stuff to do?” Snowdrop asked the group.  “Patrols, errands, other jobs?”

Hands went up.

“Go,” Toadswallow told them.  “I have business with the practitioners.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Snowdrop said.  “So long, good riddance, I won’t see you later.”

The goblins went with very little reluctance.

“Doesn’t that undermine your authority?” Lucy asked, tracking Cherrypop, as Cherry stopped running and hid behind a bottle.  The shape of the bottle made Cherry’s image distorted and bigger, not smaller.  Her face, blown up, had ‘LOVELY’ written across the forehead.

“I don’t want authority,” Toadswallow answered.  “I don’t want Kennet.”

“Rook kind of led you to show me what you do want,” Lucy said.  She indicated Verona and Avery.  “I told them.”

Toadswallow nodded.  The smile dropped from his face.  “And?”

“And… I guess the rest depends on what you’re doing.  Do we need to worry?  Do we-”

Toadswallow threw a corkscrew.  It clanged off of the bottle Cherrypop was hiding behind, and Cherry ran, scrambling for the window, where she climbed the drawstring for the blinds and pushed her way out past the blinds.

“-need to know anything?” Lucy asked.

Toadswallow didn’t answer immediately.

“Is Charles coming?” Verona asked.

“Charles wasn’t willing to make the trip, with things as dangerous as they are at night.  He can hold to the appointment in two days time, if you like,” Toadswallow said.

Verona frowned.   She opened up her bag and got some papers.  “Let me, uh, make sure we have privacy.  If that’s okay?”

Toadswallow nodded.

“Tonight,” Verona said, butting in.  “Was this another test, asking us to go after the spirit?  A reminder of our duties?  Seeing if we’d listen to you?”

“It was a lot of things,” Toadswallow said.  He huffed a bit as he climbed up the half-foot or so to get onto the counter of the bar itself, which wasn’t a huge step up for him, but he was bulky enough and short enough he had to put a leg up, then lean his belly onto it, and then kind of climb up past that.  “Why do one thing when I can do five?”

“That sounds a lot like Guilherme,” Lucy told him.

“But that’s what we’re talking about in the big picture, isn’t it?” Verona asked.

Toadswallow nodded.  “I’ve spent years with him.  He could stand to extract the battleaxe from his disproportionately small rectum, but there are things to learn from even him.”

“You think goblins are Fae?” Verona asked.

“I think dirty limericks are still poetry and a story that ends in a fart joke is still a story,” Toadswallow replied.  “It might even be a better story than yet another yowling Dark Spring eulogy, wringing the last drops of sympathy out of an old tragedy, far better than a droning heroic epic slurred out by drunken warrior Fae of the high summer, better than a tragic tale of a family twisted up by loss of a child or a man twisted up by the loss of his original face.  Take it or leave it, you can decide if you like a fart joke or not without losing a year of your life.”

“Faerie are good at telling short stories.  They have no time to waste,” Snowdrop said, slumping forward over the bar.  Avery reached into her bag and got a thermos, and poured out some strawberry milk.  Snowdrop perked up.

“As for me, I much prefer to combine genres,” Toadswallow said, smiling, as he lounged on the bar, propped up on one elbow, ankles crossed, facing them all as they sat on their stools.  “The most tragic of fart jokes.  The bravest and most noble of bawdy tales.  One side of it is improved by the other.”

“And making a market is part of that?” Verona asked.

“Goblins fashion things.  I, as you may know or not know, am very good at putting tricks and trinkets together,” Toadswallow told them.  “Weapons, tools, distractions.  Gremlins dismantle and build mechanical things and work with the mechanical and technological.  Fomorian goblins deep in the Warrens conspire to make cursed things, raiding underground waters and organizing.  The Warrens themselves are dug out of muck, nightsoil, and dreck, supported by goblin will, the trampling of goblin feet helping to beat a trench downward, in a measure equal to the roof above.”

“Then a place like Kennet without many goblins-” Avery started.

“Does see Warren-tunnels collapse, until it has only a select few.  Or it would, but we’ve increased our population.”

“By design?” Lucy asked.  “On purpose?  Because of your long-term plans?”

“Some.  Many things at once, dear girl.  For now, it keeps Kennet upright.  They’re good goblins, here.  Most of them.  Don’t you dare tell them I said so, or they’ll think I’m soft.”

“You said something like that to Rook, before,” Lucy said.  “Not to tell anyone you compared goblins and Fae.”

“I did.  I’d make a lot of enemies.  Some would think I not only insulted the core of their Self, but their old friends and allies, family, their respected foes.”

“That’s a lot of secrets to be keeping, Toad,” Avery said.

“Mm hmm.”

“Do you talk to anyone about this stuff?  Besides Rook?”

“I have acquaintances and friends.  They put up with my ramblings and ravings.  My consort agrees with me.  It took some time, but she agrees.”

“I’m glad,” Avery said.  “That you’re not alone in that.  Worried though, about what it means.”

“What’s going to happen, if you succeed?” Verona asked.

“Who knows, my dear?” Toadswallow asked, his tone bordering on the treacle-sweet.  “I want to succeed no matter who wins.  I should succeed, whoever succeeds or whoever takes the Carmine Throne.  But the roads I take can change, depending on many things.  Whether it’s Matthew and Alpeana who are the culprits, or John making a marvelously subtle play, killing his child friend to set things in motion.”

“Probably not that,” Lucy said, quiet but firm.

Toadswallow smiled wide.

Verona turned it over in her head, then said, “It’s like your fart joke.  It can be a comedy or a tragedy but you want it to end with a fart joke in the end, kind of?  Except it’s a goblin market in the end, not a fart.”

Toadswallow smiled.  “The two things are similar.  A lingering stink, a bit of scattered mess if we’re unlucky, a few offended cries and complaints from the dainty.”

“Can we talk about that?” Lucy asked.  “The mess, the stink…”

“Then I’ll paint a clearer picture of this fart of a place,” Toadswallow said.  “If someone wins and Kennet doesn’t survive it, I would build on the ruins.”

“Profiting off of our failure?” Lucy asked.

“If nobody is willing to profit off of disaster, then no ruins would ever cease being ruins,” Toadswallow replied.  “That’s an extreme case.  More likely, Kennet suffers for the success of your enemies.  Too many places are like this dingy bar, empty and unlikely to rebuild soon.  With some work, a touch of outside help, we can use these spaces, keep humans from poking their noses in.  It could be a hub for goblins, working in every space humans don’t occupy, making things and sending them off elsewhere, allowing the occasional merchant or practitioner in, trading favors to the town and council in exchange for access to my shops.”

“If they even allow practitioners in.”

“I think they will,” Toadswallow said, with a smile.  “I’m confident a combination of myself as merchant, a good goblin sage as guide for the goblin riff-raff, and a stern hand from my consort as leader would handle the market side, and I can handle the council just fine.”

“And if we succeed?” Avery asked.

“Something quieter, perhaps.  You’re already reaching out to others.  I know you’re talking to Liberty.  Word traveled across the Warrens.  You’re talking with the Technomancer, Zed.  Our former invader, Nicolette.  Others.  That’s a network.”

“I feel like this could be a disaster,” Lucy said.

“It won’t be dull!” Toadswallow answered, laughing.  “But there’s room for profit, power, a place in the world.  We can make Kennet into a place others are invested in protecting.”

“If an even larger goblin presence doesn’t blow it up first,” Lucy said.

“Yes,” Toadswallow said, smiling.  “But I’m as content as a pig in cowslop here.  Our biggest and brutish-est goblin Bluntmunch has his group and I have mine, but my goblins are manageable.  They’re entertained, fed, safe, with things to do.  They enjoy Snowdrop, they listen to her, they’ll listen more after she has the title of Sage.”

“And you don’t think there’ll be a bunch of disasters or problematic goblins running around?” Verona asked.

“I think there will be, but the cost of that is outweighed by the benefits,” Toadswallow said.  “Kennet won’t ever be truly peaceful again.  There will always be something, either brewing inside our borders or preparing itself on our horizon.”

“It’s not an either-or thing, is it?” Verona asked.  “Because you bringing in goblins for a market and then those goblins causing trouble… it doesn’t mean there aren’t other things coming up.  Then we have two problems to deal with.”

“It can be either-or.  The Faerie courts work that way, so caught up in inserting their heads up their own rear ends and prattling about drama that any outsider is bewildered and confounded.  I know goblins who can literally insert their own heads up their rears.”

“Are you dancing around the subject?” Lucy asked.  “Because this sounds like a lot of cans and coulds and no guarantees.”

“There are only so many guarantees in existence.  It is a guarantee that babies and the elderly will mess themselves and it is a guarantee that any faerie, left long enough to their own devices, will debase themselves more than any goblin would, when they think nobody is looking.”

“Weird pull but okay,” Avery said.

“A monkey left to hammer randomly at a keyboard for long enough will write something obscene enough to make a nun recount her vows.  The Faerie have long enough.  You simply have to pay attention for long enough.”

“This feels like a hint,” Verona said.

“It’s our reality.  Aren’t all observations of reality hints?”

“Now you’re really sounding like a Faerie,” Lucy muttered.

“I’ll take that as damning praise,” Toadswallow replied, smiling.  He sat up, then straightened a bit, looking at them.  “I mean no malice to Kennet.  What I intend to do isn’t clean or perfect but I do think it is better.  I was fighting and goading another goblin to eat filth within half an hour of my entry to this world.  I saw goblins fight and die before I saw any thrive.  Some weren’t able to do anything before the Warrens and their fellow goblins put an end to them.  One of those goblins who couldn’t fight could have been our next great mind, a goblin capable of changing everything.”

“You say that,” Verona said, pausing.  “But didn’t you ask Peckersnot to kill another goblin, when you recruited them?”

Toadswallow smiled, eyes narrowing.  “Cherrypop’s little competitor mentioned that, did he?”

“Drew it.  I asked, he mimed, I filled in the blanks,” Verona said.

Lucy folded her arms.

Toadswallow nodded to himself.  He contemplated things for a second.

Verona studied him, watching his expression.  He had a good poker face, that smile with sucked-in lips, eyes too recessed in his face to be easily read.

Not that she was a great face-reader.

“I can only manage so many goblins.  We’d just brought some on.  You’re right, I use goblin culture even while wanting to change it.  I needed them on my side, and with only a few available to use, I wasn’t sure I wanted him,” Toadswallow said.  “He proved himself.  Inventive little snot.”

“I’m not sure that’s great,” Avery said.  “Can I trust Snowdrop to your care?”

“Anything I did to Snowdrop would hurt me, dear Avery,” Toadswallow told her.

“I’m not sure,” Avery said.

“If we asked-” Verona started, stopped, thinking.  Going in this direction sent her thoughts to dark places.  “-If we asked you if you’d be willing to stand down, and let some other, competent goblin take over, would you?”

“I could see myself being glad you made it happen,” Toadswallow said.  “I could work for or with them.  I meant what I said when I told you I don’t want to be in charge.  The goblins and practitioners at the top get removed.  Those handing out the weapons get to stick around.  I don’t even want to be on top of the goblins handing out weapons.”

“What do you want?” Lucy asked.

“If there are eight courts,” Toadswallow said, looking at each of the four of them in turn, “Do goblins oppose winter?  Are we at our ideal best if we’re spontaneous, opposed to the stagnant Winter court?  Because we’re stagnant.  It’s the same jokes, the same pranks, the same violence, over and over again.  I’ve met two goblins who had the same name.  I want to see more interesting goblins, like those I keep company with when I’m not here in Kennet.  I want them to stop getting killed before they have a chance, even if I have to goad one or another into killing or being killed along the way.”

“That seems like really dangerous thinking,” Lucy told him.  “I wish I could put it into words better, but I feel like I’ve heard stories like this before.”

“Do as I say, not as I do?” Verona suggested.

“Something like that, but bigger.  Political.  I think my brother’s talked about it.”

Toadswallow went on.  “I want change, upheaval among goblins.  It doesn’t have to be today, but if we can carve out our ditches and dark corners and pawn off our weapons and treasures, maybe the next story shared among goblins will be a long romantic epic, as florid and detailed as many Fae works of art, ending in the stark tragedy of a man farting himself to death.”

Lucy shook her head a bit.

“I don’t think Lucy’s with you, Sir Toadswallow,” Verona said.

“Do give some thought to the notion that Rook intentionally set us against one another when she had you listen in,” Toadswallow urged.

“Oh, I’m thinking,” Lucy told him.  “I don’t know, Toadswallow.”

“You hold my sweaty, greedy dreams in your hands,” Toadswallow told Lucy.  “All of you do.  To destroy me, you could mention my plans and the background ideas I intend to trickle-feed to them over decades.  It would all go to pieces.  The market, my place in Kennet, my place elsewhere.”

“And here I am, pretty unimpressed and unconvinced,” Lucy said.

“Gotta admit, I agree,” Verona told him.  “I like Peckersnot, I recommended him, you weren’t cool.”

“And I’m worried about Snow and her place in this,” Avery said.

“Then let me ask.  What do you want?” he asked them.

“A girlfriend,” Avery said.  “My family not leaving.  Kennet being okay.  Snowdrop being okay.  My friends being okay.  Not in that order.”

“I was worried until you said that last bit,” Verona murmured.  “I don’t want to rate fourth or fifth after the girlfriend thing.”

“Ha ha,” Avery said.

“For the first request, I know some goblins, sweet in their way,” Toadswallow told her.

“Uhhhh.”

“No?” Toadswallow asked.

“A goblin and a human?  Is that a thing?” Avery asked.  “Why?”

Toadswallow smiled.  “I’ll take it you’re not interested.  As for the others, I think the best way to keep to your awakening oaths is to not interfere in your family.  My plans fare best if I can help keep Kennet from collapsing in on itself, if Snowdrop is healthy and whole, and if you three are there.”

“If you’re running a market, then we need to know some of the things you’d be putting out into the world,” Verona told him.  “I think it would be a wise business decision to let us test run some of the goblin magic and goblin-made items, and maybe we can pass some free samples on to the people you seem to want us to network with…”

Toadswallow smiled.  “Quite mercenary of you, Verona.”

Verona smiled.

He nodded, without saying more, and looked at Lucy.

“The case.  We wanted to talk to you about stuff.  Possible arrests.”

“Who?”

Verona turned to look and check the papers she’d placed were there on the walls, without interference.  They were clear.  She double checked there was no smoke from lit cigarettes.

Lucy was doing the same, albeit quicker.

“Cig and Lis to start.”

“Sensible.  They’ve been running scared, shirking duties.  I’ve wondered if they were going to leave.”

“As a more complicated prelude to dealing with Maricica,” Verona added.

Toadswallow’s eyebrows went up.

“How sure are you?” Toadswallow asked.

“Pretty sure, but we don’t have a lot of immediate proof.”

“Of course you don’t.  She’s a faerie.  That’s like saying you don’t have much dry land to work with when hunting a shark,” Toadswallow told them.  “Is this why some of you voted for me as leader?  Already anticipating this?”

“Maybe subconsciously,” Verona said.

“You voted for Rook,” Toadswallow noted, looking at Lucy.

“Right from the start I liked Matthew’s description of her.  Sure, she doesn’t like practitioners, but… I get it?  I’m cool with it?  I respect it.”

“Even after your meeting with her?”

“Right off, she was cold, brusque, rude,” Verona said.

“But I like her anyway,” Lucy said.  “She, at the very least, is honest.  More honest than you.”

“I cannot tell a lie without paying a steep price for it,” Toadswallow said.  “I can’t reap the benefits of lying.  Karma and the Seal of Solomon won’t let me.”

“That’s nothing to do with honesty,” Lucy told him.  “Doing what you did with Pecker, the games you’re playing, the hypocrisy…”

Toadswallow adjusted his monocle.  “I like you three well enough, for what it’s worth.”

“I like you too, T.S.,” Avery said.  “Even if I don’t always like what you do.”

“Same,” Verona added.

“I worry, Toadswallow,” Lucy said.  “You have a lot of sway and a lot of power.  I think your intentions are good, but you know what they say about good intentions…”

“You can lead a pig to slaughter but then you can’t make him drink,” Toadswallow said.

“Wise,” Snowdrop said.

“What?  No.  If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, you’re… you’re headed that way, Toadswallow.  And I’m worried you’ll bring Kennet with you.  Even if the market is safe, even if you can keep goblins under control… if you’re betraying your own ideals to get there…”

Lucy raised her hands and then dropped them.

“I’m using what’s in my means to get there,” Toadswallow said.

Lucy shook her head.  “I think what I’m trying to say is that if you have to rely on that kind of messed up violence and murder then maybe what you get in the end isn’t going to look the way you want it to look.  The goblins who come after you are going to make the same calls or they’re going to follow your example, if you haven’t done the hard work of figuring out another way for them.”

“And demonstrating it,” Verona added.

Toadswallow frowned at them.  He pulled off his monocle, which was a piece of lightbulb melted to a metal ring, the ’40 watt’ stamp on the middle still there, and wiped it clean with care.

“I think if you talked to Rook, she might be able to share stories about that sort of thing,” Lucy said.

“I will talk to the old Oni, annoyed as I am with her,” Toadswallow said.  “Did you want to meet me so you could grumble at me and the choices I’ve made?”

“We want permission to deal with Cig and Lis, as a lead in to dealing Maricica.”

“Granted,” Toadswallow said, brow furrowed, gaze on the lightbulb monocle.

“Just like that?  You don’t want details, or-”

“I trust you enough,” he said.  “Snowdrop, do I have any reason to mistrust them?”

“Every reason in the world.”

“You have permission.  What else?”

“We want to bring in help.”

“Who?”

“Liberty, to start.  She’d love to see you, while she’s at it.”

“Granted.  What else?”

“And Zed, and Nicolette.  We’d need permission, to let her spy past the barriers we’ve erected, spy on Maricica.  And Raymond wants to visit Charles, or have Charles visit…”

“You have your permission.  They can enter.  I’ll talk to Montague about the barrier, he knows it well, grand horror of a thing, Montague is.”

“Can you do it without letting him know the full idea of it?” Avery asked.

“I will.  He’ll cooperate.  Is that all?  You have your help from outside, they have passage, they have license to operate and practice inside Kennet’s borders.  That may change if the Kennet Others call a meeting, oust me, and hold a vote, so work fast.  You’ll have to work fast if it’s a Faerie you’re after.  The moment she has time to think, she’ll start pulling ahead.”

“Aren’t you friends with Maricica?” Avery asked.

“I’m friendly with nearly all Kennet Others,” Toadswallow said.  “It’s a skill I refine and master as I try to pick up the best parts of gobin, fae, and man.  When and if I get my market, if you don’t sink my idea by telling the wrong people, if Kennet says yes to my plan, then it’s a skill I’ll put to use in keeping the peace and selling what needs to sell.”

“But are you friends with Maricica?” Avery asked, again.  “Is this going to be seen as a betrayal?”

“I am, it is, and it is going to be seen as a betrayal of Maricica by others who aren’t Maricica, and Maricica will feel you and I and others have betrayed her on other levels.  Be ready when you throw down the glove.”

“We’ll spy, pressure Cig and Lis for a bit, and then try to see if they implicate Maricica or if Maricica takes the bait we leave her as we go for it,” Verona said.  “Then a trial, goblin led, Judge presiding, hopefully.”

“Put Snowdrop front and center for part of that, if you can,” Toadswallow said.  “It will be good practice.”

They exchanged looks.

“Sssure,” Lucy said.

“I’ll tell you girls now, Maricica has been watching you,” the goblin told them.  “If she hasn’t been actively plotting how she’ll fight you from the start, it’s something that’s been passively worked through in her mind, with every detail she notes and everything she discovers about you.  You’ve trained, practiced, collected and figured out tools and devices?”

“Yeah,” Verona said.

“Take each and every one of those things you’ve studied and learned with and put them aside once you initiate your attack.  They’re useless or even dangerous.  She’ll turn them against you.  Turn to the tools and things that you’ve picked up but never explored.  The practices taught by non-Faerie, the things you learned when no Faerie or Blue Heron Brownie could spy on you.  Understand?”

“We’ve got things.”

“Don’t tell me about them.  Between outsiders, secret weapons, a swift and bewildering attack, and the fact that she’s been wounded since meeting your friend Daniel, you have a chance.  Use it.  I give you the necessary permissions to carry it out.  No community vote will be held, no word disclosed.  I know how Faerie are, I know that would spell ruin.  If this goes wrong I’ll take responsibility for giving you those permissions and powers.”

“I thought this would be harder,” Avery said.

“What comes next will be hard enough,” Toadswallow told her, smiling.  “I’ll take responsibility, but you will have to as well, if you’re not careful.  Be prepared to justify the steps made and actions undertaken, after.  It may be a hard thing, girls.  The fair folk are so good at playing fair that they won’t always give you a shot at being fair in turn.”

“You’re making me nervous,” Avery told him.

“Good,” Toadswallow retorted.  His eyes narrowed a bit, one eye magnified by the monocle.  “That’s healthy.”

“Do you want to know the timeline?  Do you want us to keep you in the loop?” Lucy asked.

“Give me a signal when you make your move, and I’ll keep the Others I can from interfering.  Don’t tell me, don’t let me or other Kennet others know in advance, or you’ll chance letting her know.  You’ve told me too much as it stands.”

“You’re sure?” Lucy asked.

“No, but we’re talking about Faerie,” Toadswallow said, smiling ear to ear.  “If you were sure, you’d have lost already.  And now, as the end of this conversation of ours, I’ll tell you that if you take too long, she’ll find it out.  She’ll study me, she’ll study Rook for what you might have hinted to this Oni who isn’t impressed with you, she could catch word from your trip to the Blue Heron and riddle out the history of an object you found.  So, with this in mind, you have permission.  I ask for nothing in return, but I hope I have your confidence and that you won’t upend my dream.  You don’t have to agree with me, but talk to me before you destroy it all.”

The three of them exchanged looks.

Lucy started nodding first, Avery second.

“Okay,” Verona said.

“You can do what you see necessary.  If Maricica is responsible, you face a situation where the council simply wont work for the task before us, and I am testing the limits of my authority to grant you all permission and power necessary.  Knowing the Others of Kennet, I think most who aren’t culprits would agree with me that this has to happen this way.  But I’ll set you a restriction.  How soon can you loop in this outside help?”

Verona glanced over at Avery.

“I don’t know,” Avery said.  “I really don’t.”

“Make it clear it’s an emergency.  If you need Liberty, then tell her I asked it of her.  For the augur girl who stranded our Avery… we can see what treasures and things we have.  You have until this time tomorrow.”

Lucy shook her head.  “We wanted to track them and study them and-”

“And you’re dealing with a Faerie, you tit,” Toadswallow told Lucy.  “Whatever you stand to gain, she stands to gain more.  Tomorrow, at this time, all permission and powers are revoked.  Figure it out.  I’m doing you a favor.”

Lucy sighed, then nodded.  “Okay.”

“Be ready,” Toadswallow said.  “She may pull out all the stops, which is a fight on a level you’ve never experienced before, and that, esteemed guests, is not the most troubling frigging possibility.”

“Do I want to ask?” Avery asked.

“Yes,” Snowdrop said, very firm.

“The most troubling possibility is that she may not pull out those stops, because she won’t need to,” Toadswallow told them.  “Go.  Rest, talk, get ready.  You have tomorrow.  That’s the one rule I set for you.  In nearly anything else you might try in good faith, I’ll defend you or share in the fault.”

“Thank you, Sir Toadswallow,” Verona told him.

He ducked his head low in a nod, setting his hand on his belly, where a screw was sticking out from the inside, protruding through flesh and clothing, with fraying at the edges that suggested it had been turned somehow.

They left, and regrouped.

“You good to go back, Ave?” Verona asked.  “If you wanted to camp out… somewhere, you could.”

“I’ll go home.  Declan will be a pain and dad will get on my case, but I can distract myself.”

“Don’t get grounded,” Lucy said.

Avery nodded quickly.

Avery left, with a passing pat on the back from Verona, Snowdrop walking fast beside her to keep up.

Toadswallow had suggested they use the tools and practices they hadn’t really tapped into thus far.

Verona’s mind roved over the possibilities.  Avery had received magic gloves on the Path.  There was some alchemy, there was the other basic practice from Raymond Sunshine’s online setup… what could she learn tonight and tomorrow?

She met Lucy’s eyes.  Lucy widened her eyes in response.

This was a whole thing.

The dropped pickaxe they’d picked up from the battlefield, that they had yet to run tests on.  The escape key.  The grungy keyboard.  They didn’t have any tapes left for the cassette player, but they could get stuff from Zed.  Probably too late to ask for something from Clementine.

To beat Maricica, they had to reinvent themselves, fast.  Change their approach, change their tactics.  Did that mean Verona had to be the opposite of the person who hung back?

They had echoes, they had some spirits, they had the keyboard warrior echo to pair with the grungy keyboard, and they’d have to avoid Glamour, which raised the question, what else could they do?

And all of that was just to get Maricica captured, in a position where they could hold a kind of trial, with the judge looking in.  Miss was already out there, talking to the Aurum.  Hopefully.

They still needed the material to make the trial a success.  They had to force it, or find it on the fly.

The silence between herself and Lucy felt vast.  Talking about anything when out in the open without the protection of the anti-spying and connection severing papers was a problem.

Was it dangerous if a part of her was genuinely enjoying the prospect of trying to make this happen?  Would it be dangerous if the opposite was true, if she was all doom and gloom?

When dealing with a Faerie and her allies, was there any possible question to which the answer to ‘is this dangerous’ wasn’t yes?

Anything, everything, felt like they were playing into Maricica’s hands.

Next Chapter