Pale: 2.2 - Verona

Verona

The three of them stood on the bridge that connected the mostly residential western half of Kennet to the messier southeastern quarter.  Cars periodically whizzed by, knocking as they went over the metal bit that was meant to let the bridge expand and contract.  Avery had taken a seat on the wide sidewalk, her back to the railing. Lucy leaned into the railing, looking out in the direction of Kennet, holding onto a small bag of sour cream and onion chips with two fingers.  As the bag got emptier, it blew more precariously in the wind.  The bag had a ‘skin’ over it, so thin it was translucent, and flakes of it were shed in a constant trail, like a dandelion that never ran out of seeds.

Verona leaned against the railing beside her friend, but her back was to the railing, and she looked in the opposite direction, toward the trees, cliffs, and hills south of Kennet.  Somewhere in there was the clearing where they had awoken.  With her Sight casting the sky black high over them, and a film over the trees, the entire city felt like it was set in a vast cave, not the wide outdoors.

They’d stopped by the convenience store, grabbing snacks.  Avery had suggested it, and seeing Avery now, Verona suspected she’d suggested it to just have something to hold onto.  The girl had a two-handed deathgrip on a bottle of soda.

The river below wasn’t that much of a river, with what seemed to be more bank than water, the banks gravelly and grey.  The water frothed as it ran into and over the rocks.  There were times of year where the water level and flow were much higher.  The bridge had streetlights as extensions of the railing, but it had nothing else on it.  Metal had been painted and parts of the paint were flaking like the bag of chips, never really reducing the amount of paint that was left behind, but losing flakes to the wind nonetheless.

Her stomach didn’t hurt as much, but there was still an empty, gnawing feeling in it, somewhere between the sensation of having done too many situps in gym class and having too much acid in her gut after eating too many toaster tarts.  She’d thought at first that it was because the Choir had laid something on them, like a curse.  It wasn’t.  Regular old stress.

The caffeine of her soda helped with the headache that she’d had since lunch, but she felt like the very fact she had a stress headache in the first place was giving her more of a headache.

It made her think of her dad.  He got stress headaches all the time, and if the Hungry Choir wanted to make her miserable, it didn’t need to trick her into playing its game.  Making her more like her dad in even the smallest ways was the way to do it.

“What can I help you with?”  Miss’s voice had a bit of that British crispness to it.

Verona leaned heavily over the bridge’s railing, until Lucy grabbed the waistband of her jeans to keep her from tipping over.

She could see Miss’s hair and skirt, below.  Miss had found a seat on an angled support strut beneath the bridge.

Verona sighed a bit.  Darn.

“We’re interested in going to see the Faerie, to interview them,” Lucy said.

“It may be unavoidable.”

“We’ve gotten a lot of warnings about them,” Avery said, twisting around a bit.

“Many Others warrant warnings,” Miss said.  “The typical goblin or bogeyman are more obvious as threats.”

“You mean you can see them coming?” Lucy asked.

“The tendency, I find, is that you see a Faerie coming, you have an exchange, you see them go, and two years later you discover the exchange contained key mechanisms that allowed someone to engineer your destruction and defeat.”

“Charles told us there were Others who’ve been playing a metaphorical game of chess for a long time,” Verona said.  “That they’re so good we might as well not play.”

“The Faerie may exemplify that concept,” Miss said, from below them.  “I would not be surprised if he was thinking of them specifically.”

“What are we supposed to do, then?” Lucy asked.  “Avoid them forever?”

“What you do is up to you.  I can’t and won’t tell you what to do with the investigation.”

“The Hungry Choir tried to get me,” Avery said.  “Changed a website in the last moments before I would’ve clicked.  If Faerie are good at deals, cheating, and games, is it possible they would have some safeguards or maybe they’d know something that’d help us deal with the Choir?”

“You got involved?” Miss asked.

“Kind of,” Avery said.  “We helped one of the contestants.”

“Then it seems you’re entangled now.  The patterns and precepts that make up the ritual are like the threads within a spider web.  By reaching out, you’ve entangled your hand in the strands, and the spider has only to follow the threads to have its access to you.”

“What do we do?” Lucy asked.

“Distance,” Miss said.  “Step back, move away from the metaphorical web.  The strands of a web should snap or thin out with distance from the origin point, and the spider’s journey from branch to hand becomes longer, if not impossible.  The rules and ideas of the ritual may still cling to you… sightings, tendencies, and traces of the patterns, but with enough distance you shouldn’t get bitten, metaphorically speaking.”

“What-” Lucy started, at the same time Verona asked, “How-”

The two girls exchanged a look.  Lucy made a gesture toward Verona.

“How do you know if you’ve got enough distance that the so-called spider can’t get you?” Verona asked.  “How do you tell if you’re seeing the clinging parts of the ritual instead of the strand that connects to the heart of it, that gives it the ability to get you?”

“I suppose you’d only know for certain if you didn’t end up getting bitten.”

“I would be very surprised if it managed to get you while you were moving steadily and constantly away from it.”

“What if we can’t?” Lucy asked.  “As part of the awakening ritual, I said we’d mete out justice.”

“Justice is a tricky thing,” Miss said, from her seat on the bridge’s support struts.  “Keep in mind that the worlds of Others and spirits are old.  The definitions of justice are older.  By old ways, families could be condemned for the actions of an ancestor, hospitality is more important, and one’s place in society and greater structures is far more emphasized.”

“Was I wrong, to tell them I could come after them?”  Lucy asked.

Verona raised her eyebrows.  Lucy wasn’t really the type to spend a lot of time dwelling on whether she was wrong.  Not anymore.

“I couldn’t say with any certainty,” Miss told them.  “I think you’d be fine if your justice was strong and consistent.  I would not hold up modern ideas of rights, wrongs, or the individual, then turn around and cite the old ways.  That is liable to backfire.”

“The old ways seem kind of ass to me,” Lucy observed.

“Agreed,” Avery said.

“The Faerie may indeed be your best counsel when it comes to matters of words and deals, and what directions you may wish to take.”

“I told them we talked last night,” Verona said.

“Ah.  Yes, as I told Verona when she inquired last night, they should have the experience and instincts that would help find a way to free yourself of the metaphorical spider’s web that clings to your hand now.”

“What do we need to know?” Lucy asked.

“That they are a set of metaphorical spider webs of their own, far greater, far more intricate, and you may never know that you’re entangled, or that the so-called spider has you, or that it has already eaten you.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “That’s freaky.”

Avery worked her way to a standing position.  She leaned over the railing to look for Miss, then settled down, chin on her hands.  “Out of the frying pan and into the fire?”

“They swore the oath at your awakening, to preserve you and your safety.  There are ways to deal with Faerie.  They are subtle, and the goblin arts are especially good at penetrating subtlety.”

“Poop jokes and slapping them in the faces with condoms,” Lucy said.

“Essentially.  Another way would be to accept it.  This so-called spider has agreed not to eat you.  Appreciate the beauty of the web when you can see it, accept you may find yourself entangled, and avoid the worst casualties.”

Verona leaned back into the railing, her head tilting back until she was looking up at the sky.  “What does this entanglement look like?”

“They like drama.  Different types of drama for different types of Fae.  You may find that events contrive to happen around you, involve you, and sweep you up.  Were you to spend a lifetime investigating such events, you might find the plots trace back to the faerie, only to then find the investigation is yet another expectation and machination.”

“This sounds exhausting,” Lucy said.

“It may be.  Try not to be the main characters of their stories.  Play your part and move on, if you can.”

“Can I ask?” Verona asked.  “This entanglement… is it something you can get snarled up in too?  You said you didn’t want to get involved with the choir for that reason.”

“What’s the distinction?”

“The Hungry Choir sets the stage, or sets a table, if you prefer that analogy.  For the Faerie, the world is a stage.  My nature and abilities make it easier for me to slip their net and escape into the wider world.”

“And you can’t, what, leave the table once the Hungry Choir has set it?” Lucy asked.

“I suspect I would become a prop, much in the same way the flyers, waifs, and setting details are.  I’d rather not say more on the subject.”

“Hm.” Lucy made a dissatisfied sound.

“What are the worst fates?” Verona asked.  “The big dangers, with Faerie?”

“Too many to name.  Watch your words with special care.  Courtesy is a knife they hand you, with expectation you will take hold of the blade, so you may wish to be impolite or rude, to do away with courtesy altogether.  Take nothing that is not expressly given.  The tales of mortals eating the fruit of a Fae tree and being stuck in their realm are implicitly stories of betrayal.  There are other stories, of mortals eating food so delicious they never want to leave, but the Awakening oath should protect you from such.”

“Glad we talked to you, then,” Avery said.  “I’m nervous now.  Is this going to be worth it?”

“Faerie have a longstanding relationship with humans, in patron-practitioner relationships.  Our approach here in Kennet hews to old ways, when a practitioner would have to seek out an Other, or the Other seek out the practitioner apprentice, and that would be how one would learn the practice.  In time, other ways have taken over.  Particularly family lines with families passing on the practice.”

“Man, that’d be something,” Verona said.  “That’s more of an established pattern, right?”

“And families may have resources, power to hand down, and extensive libraries.”

“That sounds so nice,” Verona said, sighing the words.  “No offense, but not having to go with hand out, begging for that new practice or power…”

“I can imagine,” Miss said.  “In any event, the patron relationship has advantages.  More access to power, where the patron or group of patrons supplies the energy for simple runes, basic practices and so on.  Faerie are fond of this kind of patron relationship, and exaggerate the benefits.  Expect impressive or sundry gifts, a particular kind of power in ample supply, and good counsel when it comes to deals and contracts.”

“That makes me feel better,” Avery said, her chin still on her hands, which were folded on the railing of the bridge.

“…And be on the lookout for subtle traps or mischief hidden amidst those traps,” Miss added.  “Drawbacks are magnified as well.”

“All practice has a price, Avery.  In exchange for the security of picking and knowing who will be our local practitioner investigating our affairs, we Others of Kennet pay our tax, small amounts of power from each of us, for wind charms and smoking cloaks.  We don’t begrudge you this.  But there are other kinds of price, such as a powerful gift where the price is the risk involved in using it, or the consequence when the true intent behind a power, trick, or object comes full circle and ruins you.  The Faerie may give you these kinds of powers.”

“Good to know,” Lucy said, quiet.  Avery nodded.

Verona mentally catalogued this information.  She wished she had a recorder, to take it down, but her memory was pretty good.

“They live for drama.  Some may say they live on it.  They’ve sworn deals.  They won’t be able to hurt or kill you, or do more than force a detour from a long and full life, but the timing of these things could easily be devastating.  If you look out for things of this particular stripe and shape, weather the drama as your price, I think you’ll manage.”

“Where do we go?” Lucy asked.

“Southeastern end of Kennet.  Follow the water’s edge and walk south from that arch until the road is out of sight and earshot.  Look for two thin birch trees forming an arch.  Stand in the arch, look for the cave in the rock face, amidst the trees.  Don’t take your eyes off it, or it may slip away.”

“We can’t just follow the rock face?” Lucy asked.

“You can, but I doubt you’d find the cave that way.”

“Anything else?” Miss asked.

“Are we bothering you, calling you to ask you stuff?” Lucy asked.

“No, but right now, there are three outside practitioners who are curious about what happened to the Carmine Beast.  I’ve engineered distractions, to postpone the point in time that someone shows up and comes to ask questions.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Lucy asked.

“I couldn’t say.  Too many possibilities.  But a bad-case scenario with a dim likelihood of happening might be that someone gets it in their head to arrive, declare themselves lord of Kennet, and claim dominion and province over local Others.”

“In which case… what happens?” Avery asked.

“We would lean heavily on you, fight back, and try to destroy them before they bound and enslaved us.  I don’t think this is likely.  More likely, someone arrives despite my distractions, asks, and you three present yourselves as well versed both in the practices and the current situation.”

“Is that so bad?” Lucy asked.

“It gets less bad depending on where you three stand, but word of mouth would get around that something is unusual about Kennet, more practitioners would show up, which would mean more people possibly finding or acquiring us, and that dim chance of a bad case scenario where someone decides to try to co-opt the entire territory by making themselves a Lord would increase over time.”

“Getting a better sense of the big picture,” Lucy said.

“Good,” Miss said.  “For what it’s worth, I’m glad I found you three.  You’re everything I hoped for and more.”

I don’t trust wording like that, Verona thought.  She asked, “Are we going to look back on this and groan, because you hoped for something nefarious?”

“Not at all, don’t worry,” Miss said.  “I should go.  I’ve been encouraging a riddling spirit to taunt civilians, which is the kind of thing an investigating body would want to look at, and agitating an echo of a hunter who talks about wolves and coyotes eating his animals.  It would be ideal if the fleeting spirit and ghost both disappeared before the practitioners got there, forcing them to carefully canvas witnesses while maintaining the innocence of those selfsame witnesses.”

“Oh, Miss!” Lucy called out.  “Before you go?”

“Could you stop by and tell John we might come by in a few minutes?  So he doesn’t get paranoid?”

“I will.  Goodbye.  Good luck with the Faerie.”

“Bye,” Verona said, joining her voice to the others.

Verona leaned over the railing again.  There was no sign of any hair or cloth.  Gone.

Lucy jerked her head in the direction they were meant to go.  They walked.

“I feel so useless sometimes,” Avery said.  “I don’t know what to say in conversations like that.  You’re on the ball with the investigation, Lucy, and you’re really quick with the practice, Verona.”

“Remember what Miss said?” Verona asked.  “She’s happy she found us three.”

“I don’t actually remember that specific wording, and it hasn’t been that long,” Avery said.  “Which is my point.”

“Come on,” Lucy said, in a bid to get them to move faster.  “You’re frazzled, so I don’t blame you.  After that stunt the Choir pulled?  About the other part of it, I’ve already told you you were awesome last night.  Do I need to repeat it again?  Because I will.”

“Nah,” Avery said.  She managed a weak smile.  “Thanks though.”

“Let’s see if we can get this bit done before dinner,” Lucy said.  “Do you guys mind if we do that thing?  Stop briefly by Stiles’ house?”

“No,” Verona said.  “Actually, I was thinking of going there sometime soon anyway.”

“Why are you so suspicious of me?  You were asking about me talking to Miss too.”

“Because you’re doing that a lot.”

“Because this whole thing relates to the relationships we’re building with the Others.  They can tell us so much.  Even the practice is the result of a relationship with the ambient spirits.  It’s a waste if we don’t capitalize on that.”

“This way,” Lucy said, pointing down the side street.  “Remember that we’re investigating the locals.  What happens if you have repeated visits and interactions with a local like Miss, and then it turns out she’s the culprit?”

“Then I should have the repeated visits, interactions, and trust built with other local Others to deal with her and whatever she’s pulled.”

“Verona did say she was all-in,” Avery said.

“I just worry,” Lucy said.  “Because I don’t think you can always deal, or escape, or duck the consequences.  I think sometimes you don’t get a chance.  You die, or worse.”

“Like Gabe,” Avery said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Lucy said, sighing.

They walked for a few minutes in silence.  Verona tried to imagine the scenarios where Miss would be able to get her that quickly, before she could throw down her dog tag, or use a rune.  Miss could move fast, and they’d joked before about Miss having a spider for a face, or something.

That kind of horror was easier to imagine after seeing the Witnesses and stuff last night.

The burned house where Verona had been held at knifepoint was more or less the same.  They approached and knocked on the door.

“Damn it, damn it, ugh,” Lucy muttered.

“You want your tag, huh?” Avery asked.

“Nervous,” Verona guessed.

“Nervous,” Lucy said.  She gave Verona a totally undeserved dirty look, for mentioning it.

They walked around the edge of the house, which involved stepping over some cordoned-off bits of burned siding, and around to the back.

John sat on the stairs that led from the back door to the back lawn.  John was smoking, and had a guitar.  He continued playing as they approached.  The three of them remained silent.

Weeds and the flowers and shrubs of a garden that had overgrown and spread out beyond its confines filled the space, and the film was especially thick there, with red things moving in the gaps.  Verona liked the aesthetic.  She wouldn’t like to live in it or walk in it -not if it meant that she’d have three bloodsucking ticks stuck to her legs by the time she made it through the far side- but she liked the wildness of it.  She liked the English style of garden, where it was a kind of intentional mess, with the added bonus of it being easier to maintain.  She’d rather have a mess like this, even with the ticks, than the formal, everything-in-its-place French garden that most houses seemed to go for, and she’d rather have an English garden than this kind of mess.

Not that she’d say anything like that around her dad.  If she did, he’d get gardening stuff and make it a big project for ‘them’.  Which would be her doing the work and him ‘delegating’.  It wouldn’t be an English garden, either.

John had said he wasn’t very good, but he could put the notes together.  It was nice to listen to.  The wind blowing through the backyard, the weather not cold but not hot either, the sound of the instrument in the air, and the world set in a vast underground cave, muted by film.

Then he started singing, and it wasn’t so good.  He didn’t really transition between notes well.

“Mockingbird,” he sung, his eyes closed, a slight smile on his face.  The pauses between each bit felt lengthy.  “You have not… said a word…”

He kept playing, but he stopped singing.  Verona smiled, despite herself, and hoped it didn’t seem at his expense.

“Need anything particular?” he asked, his tone normal.  He continued to play.

“I hope last night qualified as serious enough for a replacement tag,” Lucy said.  “The help was appreciated.”

“Really appreciated,” Avery said.

“Some of them popped up earlier, to give me the stink eye,” John said.  He continued plucking strings with one hand while the other hand pulled off the chain necklace.  With one hand, he removed a tag, then tossed it to Lucy, who caught it.  Rather than put the necklace back on, he draped it over the very end of the guitar, and resumed playing.  “No issues.”

Verona pulled off her bag.

“We had a few,” Avery said.  “Hopefully they relax some.”

“Hopefully,” John said.

Verona fished inside, and found what she was looking for.  She walked on the bricks that lined the garden so she was walking through the grass less, and set an old handheld console on the edge of the stairs.  She put down two games.

“What’s this?” John asked.

“A thank you, for saving Avery, and protecting Lucy.  It’s five years old, you might have to delete some save files, and there’s no cover for the batteries, but it works.”

“I remember those games,” Lucy said.  “I got the handheld and the orangered edition of the game to play and trade with you.”

“I just thought, y’know, if you’re killing time or something,” Verona explained, shrugging.  “And maybe in exchange, don’t hold us hostage with guns and knives anymore?”

“Thank you,” John said, nodding.

“There’s a shooty game and the monster game.  I don’t know which you’d like.”

“We’ll see,” he said.  “Let me know if you need any more help.”

Lucy said, “We’re going to go see the Faerie.  I really hope we don’t need any help.  Or you might have to help us deal with Guilherme.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” John said.  “I’ll do my best if it comes to it.”

“We’re going to try to talk to them before it’s dinnertime, so we’ll have to cut this chat short.”

John nodded.  As the three of them made their exit, Verona walking on the short brick wall that fenced in the garden until she reached the side gate, he resumed singing, switching to another language.  It didn’t sound much better than the last time.

They walked down to the water, and there were some people down there with their dogs, along with some kids picking through the rocks to try to find stuff that they could skip on the water.  Most of the rocks were the shale sort, flat and irregular, closer to pieces of broken glass in dimension and shape than a good round skipping stone, sharper edges and angles smoothed below the point of being dangerous by the passage of water.

They found the birch trees, white, narrow, and growing at angles, where branches grew into one another.  It wasn’t the landmark Verona had imagined it to be.  Verona disabled her Sight and waited a good ten seconds for the imagery to fade away from her eyes, just to see if she was missing something.  She blinked a bit at how blue the sky was, and how green the leaves on branches were.

Avery was the one to see it first, pointing.  At first, Verona thought it was shadows from the trees that grew at the base of the hill and cliffs, but as they walked and approached, the shadows clarified into a depression, which turned out to be a hole, ten feet high and narrow.

“Guilherme!” Lucy called out.  “Maricica!  The practitioner trio of Kennet are here to request counsel and discuss recent events!  We’re announcing ourselves!”

The call was answered with laughter, the voice young, high, and sweet.  The laughter echoed within the cave, and Verona couldn’t help but shiver.  The sound that bounced back didn’t seem to line up in any way with the original sound.  Like singing into a tunnel and getting a hint of a scream back.

Verona turned her Sight back on, and it was so quick to arrive that it felt like it had taken hold the moment before she’d decided to do it.

She saw a silhouette, a man just past the upper bounds of anyone she could remember seeing in terms of height, with a ton of raw muscle.  She touched Avery’s and Lucy’s arms.

“You called his name first.”  The voice was the same as the laughter, coming from the shadows off to the side.  There was just a hint of echo, still just a bit off.

“You’re lesser, Maricica,” the man spoke.  He had a cultured accent and power behind his voice, even though it wasn’t especially deep or loud.  “You hold no meaningful titles, you’re young, you’re of the most detested court.”

Maricica emerged from the shadows, stepping into the light from the cave entrance.

“Woah, oh, okay, naked woman,” Avery said, turning around.

“I am, but I’m also covered up,” Maricica said.

The young woman was wrapped in her own wings, but the wings were a translucent brown, covered in patterns that ranged from reds to yellows to white, many surrounded by darker outlines, with circles or other shapes within.  It was evocative of eyes.  Further patterns traced down the length of the wings, which were longer than Verona remembered seeing back at the Awakening.  It was hard to make out the ‘fingers’ within the pattern.

Back at the awakening, she’d seen those and taken them to be the ‘fingers’ of massive bat wings, but with the patterns, she could see how Avery had taken it to be like moth wings.  They seemed longer now than they had been, the wings trailing on the ground behind Maricica, extending ten or fifteen feet back into darkness thick enough that Verona’s sight couldn’t penetrate it.  Like a trail from a ball gown.

The patterns weren’t as transparent as the rest of the wings.  The faerie covered her breasts and the rest of her body, leaving her shoulders bare, and patterns or folds in the wings covered everything that needed covering.

“I’m-” Maricica started.  She stopped, twisting, her wings unfurling.  She rose up into the air as a wooden spear plunged into the stone where she’d been.

Verona backed away, silent, as Lucy yelped and Avery said something incoherent.

Maricica had moved those wings in a way that didn’t seem right or real.  It was like the material that was so thin that Verona could see nuances in the darkness behind it was also strong enough to lift the Faerie up.

Maricica laughed again, her laughter like tinkling bells and a song.  The echo like a cat’s screeches.

“Welcome to my humble home,” Guilherme said.  “I apologize for the pestilence within.”

“Our humble home,” Maricica said, sing-song, from the darkness.

“You aren’t friends?” Avery asked.

“She arrived from elsewhere to plague me and steal from me, like the lowliest kind of person or beast might.  She has yet to succeed in the stealing.”

“You have yet to succeed in swatting me,” Maricica taunted, before laughing.

“You’re enemies?” Lucy asked.

“A question of courts and houses,” Guilherme said.  “I’m of the Summer court above.  She is of the court of the most wretched of Fae.”

“Ooh, I want to know more about this,” Verona said.  “There’s courts?”

“Seven courts,” Guilherme explained.  “My court is one of wine and adventure, romances and tragedies, and simpler ballads of those led astray.  Heroes, courage, and the threads of epics braiding together and into one another.  The great bard wrote of us.  The court of nature and summer, touched by sun.”

“What are the other courts?” Verona asked.

“High spring, aristocrats and gilded things, parties, fine craftsmanship and even finer, craftier lies.  High fall, melodramatic and brooding, tangled in human ways and things, they play for keeps, with beginnings and endings in mind.”

“He paints it all so pretty,” Maricica said, from the shadows.  “But pretty paint is all so much of it is.”

“The courts below are dark shadows of the ones above.  The High Spring emulates human aristocracy and celebrity, the Dark Spring does away with the humanity and replaces it with the monstrous, dressing themselves in chitin, spiderwebs, and skins while they deal in nightmares and upstaging one another in the torments they can inflict.  The Dark Summer instead lost their Faerie nature, mingling too much with distant and opposed Others, because they fought them for too long, or they took them as allies one too many time.  Imagine the monsters of fairy tales, and you would not be far amiss.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you of the Court of Fall in Shadow,” Maricica said, slipping out of the shadows to appear right next to Verona.  “We cast off rules and roles.  That we should be this or do that.  Why wear one skin, hm?”

Verona looked at the Faerie in the eyes, then looked away.  She watched the wings as they brushed over the floor, the eyes and patterns of the wings forming new shapes as they ran into one another.  The wings were dusty, but it was a fine dust that poured off of them or slid on the surface of the wings.  The dust collected on the floor.

“The court of Dark Fall is the court of the wretched, if not the most piteous and powerful,” Guilherme said.  “When a Faerie of another court is cursed to carry a scrabbling rodent in her womb for every rodent born in her country, the penalty of a game lost or offending the wrong noble, she might crawl to the court of Dark Fall, to seek assistance and to become a different kind of Fae that can bear the curse and still function.”

“Grey Isbold,” Maricica said, like she was amused.  “Poor thing.  I did like her, as sour as she could be.  She went and got herself banished to Canada of your New World, of all places.  Nearly ten million kilometers squared of mice and rats being born, matching lives finding shape in her womb.  I suspect that was the intended final play, from the moment she scoffed at a comment from a young Faerie in the Bright Spring court.  The offended Fae became a princess, and her fate was sealed from then on.”

“How does that not devastate the ecosystem?” Lucy asked.

Maricica’s voice was a whisper.  “They grow inside her, they scratch and writhe, they’re eventually born, and they dart into dark corners, where they summarily disappear.  Their job is done, you see.  She’s learned to manage them, in more ways than the one.  My home court is one of transformations and curses.  I do think it’s the most interesting and subtle.”

“Is there a winter court?” Avery asked.

“There is,” Guilherme said.

“He doesn’t like to even think about it,” Maricica murmured, walking behind the three girls.  Avery averted her eyes, turning a bit. The Faerie woman went on, saying, “Faerie live for very long times.  Grey Isbold’s offense was done in an era when men held swords, not guns, and she had been around for thousands of years before then.  But as much as our bodies are immortal and we are ageless, our minds grow restless.  There are only so many things to see and do, so many stories to tell or adventures to participate in.  After a while, you start to see that stories tend to have the same underlying structures.  Then you see that ideas come from the same places.  There is precious little that is truly original in the world.  The courts are in large part defined by how we approach that problem.”

“That you get bored?” Verona asked.

“That we become boredom.  After thousands of years of listening to music and making our own, we might hear something new, and it entertains us for a few hours or days.  Then, trained by hearing thousands of years of music and its variations, our minds jump to the obvious conclusions.  We guess how the rest of it goes and what might come of it, and what follows from that new thing is only minutes, now, of entertainment or distraction.  Do the same for music, for interaction with others, and we fall into a kind of stasis.  Habits become personal rules, become inevitability, and the personality ceases to be.  That is the winter court.  Doomed to stasis, often powerful, but more automaton than individual.  Like your computers playing chess against one another, getting the same results over and over again, if you watch long enough.”

“That’s scary,” Verona said.

“Yes, I do think it scares him,” Maricica murmured, and she slid her bare arm out from beneath the wings she had wrapped herself in, along Verona’s neck and shoulder, pointing at Guilherme.  “The court of High Summer is the court that loses the most Faerie to Winter.  Adventure, festival, and pleasant debauchery can only tide you over for so long.  Of import: The court of Autumn Below loses the least.”

“She distracts you from what she is and what her court is,” Guilherme said.

“Okay, okay, wait, okay!” Lucy raised her voice.  “Okay.  You guys don’t like each other?  Fine.  We need to talk about more serious things.”

“Gifts!  We’re to give you three gifts!” Maricica said, like it was a realization.  She ducked between Avery and Verona, sliding past like silk.  There was almost no friction as the wings slid past them, but dust came away, forming clouds.  Verona’s Sight let her see Maricica’s hand move in the dust as she departed, a careful sweep of fingertips and taps at the air, like a piano player might play at his instrument.  The dust took shape, becoming something fractal as it expanded outward.

The last five feet of wings disappeared faster than Maricica had, as if they were being yanked into the dark.

“That’s not what I meant!” Lucy raised her voice, calling after the Faerie.

“But gifts,” Verona said, smiling.

Avery waved her hand through the air, dismissing the dust.  It smelled like forest, but not the tree and shrubbery part of forests.

“Are you getting the dust away or are you fanning yourself?” Lucy asked.

“I- both,” Avery said.

“I didn’t think she was your type.”

“She’s not, but she’s this woman that’s practically naked and she was right there.  Don’t you think most people would be flustered?”

“You’re not much better!”

Guilherme approached until he was more in the light, half of his body defined by the sharp sunlight that came in through the cave aperture, the other half by the deep shadow.  “The Fall fae is younger than you’d think, for a Faerie.  New to your world, new in many things.  Still old enough to not remember coming to be, but… no faerie I’ve met remembers.”

“Where do Faerie come from?” Verona asked.

“New Faerie?  Some say a human is taken, drowned in glamour, traded through hands until they pass under the noses of the oldest and most powerful Fae in the winter court, and then have the last traces of their old lives taken.  All that is left is the glamour and the general shape of them.  Other stories are similar, saying that a man who lives a lie can become more lie than person, they find their way to the places where Fae dwell, and the person is lost.  The lie becomes elaborate enough to have its own personality, and then you have a nascent Faerie.”

Guilherme smiled.  The cave was cool enough that his breath fogged a bit.  “While I’m telling you things about her, I could tell you one more thing about her court.  Fae of the High Fall traffic with humans, playing pranks, stealing them away to return them to the same place, years in the future.  You have the small, gnarled Fae who do errands and give gifts in exchange for cream or honey… but the Fae of the Darker Fall court don’t traffic with humans so much as they traffic in humans.  The children who are stolen away, the ones who I described making their way to the Courts, or being brought in to then be drowned in Glamour?  Largely the province of that girl’s court.  The ones who can’t be bartered away to other courts for power, cures, or fixes become parts and ingredients for remedies.”

“I’ve yet to decide if that’s what I wish to do,” Maricica said, dropping down from the ceiling.  For the moment her wings were extended and unfurled, they seemed to be bigger than the cave itself.  Heavily patterned moth wings stretched between finger-like sets of bones that extended too far into the darkness to see the limits of.

Then, crouching halfway between Verona and the cave entrance, wings wrapping around her, she seemed like the smallest one there, surrounded by a draping of her own wings for ten or more feet in every direction, the edges blurred by dust.

She jerked to one side, the wings pulling back out of the way, as more spears were thrown, wood sinking into stone.  She laughed.

“He doesn’t seem to want to let me have a dramatic moment without jabbing his big stick into it,” Maricica said, through her amusement.

“Can I ask what you did to get sent to the Dark Fall court?” Verona asked.

“Can we please stay focused?” Lucy asked.

“I was of the rare few born to it,” Maricica said, her eyes wide.  “And focus, yes, I’ve been thinking about your gifts since it was mentioned at the awakening.”

“Not about the gifts,” Lucy said, exasperated.  “I want to ask about the night the Carmine Beast disappeared, and about the Hungry Choir.”

“But,” Maricica said, “I will give you gifts you can use against me, relevant to your investigation.”

“What?” Lucy asked.  She looked at her friends, then back at Guilherme.

Looking at Guilherme as if for help.  Which was interesting, Verona decided, when Guilherme had done absolutely nothing to warrant being trusted, except for providing a bit of sanity when Maricica was being so manic and dramatic.

“Restrain yourself, Lucille Desiree Ellingson, and you’ll be rewarded for your effort.”

The Faerie walked, dragging her wings along the flat stone floor behind her.  Some of the patterns were reflective, catching the light and reflecting them onto the walls.  For a moment, the lines and curves seemed to suggest the building-tops at the horizon of an old city.  “Excuse me.  I thought of what gift might be best, and I couldn’t decide.  I then decided on three gifts for each of you.”

“How long is this going to take?” Lucy asked.

Verona reached over to mock-pinch at Lucy’s sleeve.

“A small piece of instruction for each of you,” the Faerie said, still pacing.  “Verona!”

“An individual creature, the cat that walks alone.  Individuality and a distinct style help this trick.  When you form a contract or a deal, or even if you’re engaged in a simple back and forth with someone, you can insert your individual Self into things.  Do you know the rule of three?”

“Repeat something three times, nail it in,” Lucy said.  “Make it stick as a curse?”

“That’s one form of it.  Worryingly crude,” Maricica said, and there was a note of distress in her voice, her eyebrows drawing together at a point high in her forehead.  “Nail it in?  Who told you to do that?”

“Goblins,” Lucy said.  “They didn’t mean actual nails.  They meant with taps, pushes, shoves, or bangs, among other things.”

“Yes, yes.  I understand that already.  I thought I detected a trace of their stink on you.  I’m not the most polite of Fae, but I’m still polite enough not to point that out at first meeting.  We won’t get distracted; the fact remains that threes make good practice.  The trick is simple.  When engaging with someone, find a turn of phrase and repeat it three times. If it’s yours or your habit, it’s all the better.  It makes the contract or exchange more yours, which gives you more power over it, and in coordination with other actions or tricks, acts as the setup for the masterstroke.  I pledge to practice it with you and teach you to execute it beautifully, if you so desire.  That is the first of nine gifts of varying size, and you can see how you might want to know that for your interview?”

“Except you know about it,” Avery said, “so how could we use it against you?”

“If there’s no against, Avery Kelly, then it works perfectly.  A conversation or interview is a dance, both participants doing their best to work with one another.  This is a complex set of three steps, in tune with a final maneuver.”

“Did you do anything to the Carmine Beast?” Lucy asked, butting in.

“Yes.  But not that evening.  I did small mischief to her weeks before she was lost to us, temporarily blinding her.  She had threatened to eat me or send violent, crude things after me.  I needed to get away and the one trick was enough.”

“What did you do that had her coming after you?”

“A longstanding grudge.  I see something like her, imperious and powerful, and I want to challenge it.”

“Dragging it into the ditches and murky places you live,” Guilherme said.

“You live in a cave, dear sun-touched Guilherme.”

“More specifically, what did you do?” Lucy asked.

“More specifically, I disturbed some Others in her charge, giving them counsel and direction so they could ruffle her fur.  She’s wanted to be rid of me for years.”

“How many years?” Verona asked.

“I don’t count the years well.  Twenty-two, I think?  Has it been that long, Guilherme?”

“What do you even do in the meantime?” Avery asked.

“Guilherme once spent three years targeting me daily,” Maricica said.  “In a specific way and pattern, that encouraged me to use certain muscles and ignore certain others.  All so I might jump in a certain way in response to a certain pattern of attack, in an ultimately vain hope that he could swat me with one fell blow and be done with me forever.”

“A long time ago,” Guilherme said.  “There was more to the plot.”

“Of course,” Maricica said.  “Fae of my court are adept when it comes to changing shapes and forms.  Changing form lets me be rid of the injuries of my other body… but he sought to force me into grooves and patterns with my transformations too, in preparation for another trick, when he would bid an Other from the forests north of here to attack me.  My instincts would be to transform into something familiar…”

“…And even if she escaped, which she clearly did,” Guilherme said, “she would be tainted by the attack, which she was.”

Maricica laughed.  The dark turnaround on the echo seemed shorter this time.

“Verona Hayward,” Guilherme said.

Verona turned, looking back at him.

“What you just noticed?  Your noticing is part of the trap.”

“What makes you think I noticed anything particular?”

“Your expression changed by small fractions.”

“You seem intent on coming across like you’re on our side, Guilherme,” Lucy said.

“John Stiles paid me a call, late last night.  He asked me to be gentle with you.  I’d rather have him as a friend to drink with than have you as a pawn.  I, barring intervention, will give you answers, give you gifts or promises of gifts, and then leave you be unless you need something specific, as John requested.”

“It sounds so good, doesn’t it?” Maricica asked.  “But that’s ample setup for a trap, right there.”

“What are you on about now?” Guilherme asked.

“He promises you what you desire.  You want answers, you want gifts, and after hearing so many local Others warn you about us, you want to keep things simple, with a minimum of fuss.  You trust John Stiles to some extent, so you trust his friend, who he asked a favor of.  Then if you accept the gift he can simply… tighten the noose, that comes part and parcel with the gift.  He promised only to be gentle about it.”

“You said you had nine gifts for us,” Verona said.  “Are we supposed to believe there’s no traps?”

“I did say I had nine gifts,” Maricica said.  “Three tricks, three sets of instructions, and three glamours.”

Verona raised her eyebrows.  “And… no traps?”

“Each of you gets one of each, and I’ll tell you right now that I also planned to announce to you three small traps across the nine gifts.  To teach small lessons and let you know what to watch out for.  The most minor of inconveniences.  I would have told you before handing out any more, but then he had to be unsubtle.”

“We’re getting off track,” Lucy said.  “Back to the subject of the Carmine Beast…”

Three traps, Verona made a mental note.  Trap from Guilherme?

“Antagonistic relationship,” Avery said.  Lucy gave Avery a look, like she was grateful to have someone on the same page as her.

“I wouldn’t call it such.  She periodically forgot I existed, and something like her has a good memory.”

“More unpleasant than pleasant?  She wanted to kill you at at least one point.”

“Yes,” Maricica said.

“Where were you on the night of her disappearance?” Lucy asked.

“I was here, in this cave.”

“Where were you in the moment of her disappearance?” Verona butted in. She wasn’t about to let Avery get all of the points with Lucy.

“I don’t know the moment of her disappearance,” Maricica said.  “But at the rough time I understand it happened, I was a short flight from here, on the west bank of the river, collecting spiderwebs and mosses for a structured glamour.  Not a glamour pertinent to your investigation.”

Lucy nodded.  “Did anyone come to get you or do anything?”

“The smallest goblin came by, screeching.  It relieved itself on the path and booby trapped the trees.  I was inside the cave by then.”

“You didn’t go out or answer?”

“I don’t heed goblins,” Maricica said.  “If anyone else had come, I’d likely have gone and I would have been glad to get involved in discussion and the selection of our town’s practitioner.  Not that you were poor choices.  You’re an amusing trio.”

“Do you know who did it?” Lucy asked, staying on target.

“Do you suspect anyone?”

“Of murdering the beast?” Maricica asked.

“Or absconding with its power.”

“I have no specific suspicions.”

“Non-specific suspicions?” Lucy asked.

“If I had to name anyone or anything I think is likely, I would say the Hungry Choir is a likely instigator or tool of an instigator.  You did say you wanted to talk about them, I remember.”

“Wait,” Lucy said.  “Is there anything you can think of that is pertinent to our investigation?  That we haven’t covered?”

“Yes,” Maricica said.

“No,” Lucy said.  “Stay put and be quiet.”

“So rude.  You’re a guest in my abode.”

“My abode,” Guilherme stated.  “You’re a parasite that has entered and refused to be shooed out.”

Lucy turned around one hundred and eighty degrees, focusing on Guilherme, her open notebook in her hands.  “Guilherme.”

“I had an antagonistic relationship with the Carmine Beast.  She wanted me as a tool to use, I resisted her wishes and labels,” Guilherme said.  “Had I been a bloodier or cruder thing, she could have made me her soldier or assistant for matters of great import, but the glamour I wear makes me harder to pin down or label.  I shrugged her off, she disliked me, I disliked her.  The exchanges became boring.”

“Did you want her dead?” Avery asked.

“I thought it would be more interesting if she died,” Guilherme said.  “A replacement would shake up things across this area.  I didn’t kill her, at the time of her purported disappearance, I was alone, meeting a contact, not too far from the clearing where you awoke.”

“I won’t say.  It would unravel plans and preparations I’ve made, in things unrelated to the Carmine Beast.”

“Anyone that can corroborate on your absence?”

“The spirits,” Guilherme said.  He spread his arms.  “Let them strike me down if I’m lying.  To be an Other and to be Forsworn is to be Undone.  Let them undo me, if they see it fit.”

Verona nodded to herself at that.

“Fine,” Lucy said, “and you got back when?”

“Not for a long time.  There were centuries of Court affairs to catch up on.  Even abbreviated, it took hours.  I returned here and Maricica taunted me with the announcement that the Carmine Beast was gone.  Then I went out to ask others for answers.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“Do you suspect anyone?”

“I suspect Maricica, because this entire affair lacks subtlety.  I suspect goblins, because they would like the chaos that follows.  With the Carmine throne vacant, more goblins will crop up, as will violent echoes and Bogeymen.  The goblins would like that.  Charles Abrams has ample reasons to hold a grudge.”

“Matthew Moss places Charles Abrams at his apartment at the time of the beast’s disappearance.”

“He was once a summoner.  He may be forsworn, but there’s nothing saying he couldn’t have something stowed away.  He can use objects that an ordinary human could stumble onto and use, they would likely hurt him or have a chance to turn on the user, but with caution or sufficient preparation?  He made Others as the core part of his practice.  He could have sent something to do his work.”

Lucy looked at Verona, then Avery.

Verona nodded.  Mental note on that, then.

“Is there anything you haven’t told us that you think might be relevant?”

“No.  I’ve given you a succinct and complete answer, as John asked me to,” Guilherme told them, his voice soft.

It was a nice voice.  Verona didn’t feel flustered in the way Avery seemed to be around Maricica, but she didn’t feel pulled in either.  She wondered if the lack of any obvious signals was the trap.

“I wish you’d asked that question, about what I think might be relevant,” Maricica said.  “It relates to one of my gifts.  An instruction.”

“What instruction?” Avery asked.

“Lucy,” Maricica said.  “My second gift to you is to move where you stand in relation to the Others of Kennet, and give you insight into the ones who picked you.  A tool if you’re to effectively move against the Kennet Others, or protect yourself against them.  I ask you… why you?  You three specifically.”

“We’re young enough to be non-threatening and lack ambition, we’re old enough to not be complete idiots, and still be believable as the local practitioners,” Lucy said.

“Because we were there?”

“I think you’d better just tell us the answer.”

“Because you’re already a little bit other,” Maricica said.  “Small ‘o’.  I could smell it on you from the moment you arrived at the awakening.  You smell like lonely frustration, Lucy Ellingson.  You stand apart and you know it.  Verona Hayward stepped back and isn’t even sure if she wants to step forward again, alienated in part by her own desires and intent.”

“And me?” Avery asked.  “Do I even want to know?”

Maricica shook her head.  “You told us your story.  That you’re alone.  I can tell you that there are three others around your age who could return your affections.  None are meant for you.”

“What?” Avery asked.  “No.  That’s- no.”

“The first of the three is self-loathing and denies her very Self.”

“Can you introduce me to her?” Avery asked.

“I could, but I would be in contravention of my oath to you,” Maricica said, shrugging, the totality of her wings rippling following the shrug.  “Like being attracted to like isn’t the entirety of compatibility.  You would love her at first but she would hurt you back.  Then you would hate her and she would hate herself.  Such is her loathing.  You should trust me when I say she would do lasting harm to you before you could heal her.  She will find her own happiness when her age is twice what it is now.”

“That’s…” Avery wrinkled her nose, swallowing.  “I’m not sure I believe that it’s that impossible.”

“All the same, I cannot act in contravention of my oath,” Maricica said, her head bowing.

“Who’s are the others?” Verona asked.

“Neither are meant for Avery.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Avery asked.  She looked and sounded a little horrified.  “Is there anyone out there that is?”

“What do you mean when you say not meant for her?” Verona asked.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Avery said.  “This is horrifying.  What kind of gift is this?”

“The second is incompatible in other ways.  She would want and need Avery to be someone she could never be, and Avery would need and want the same back.  The third presently has a girlfriend in another city.  She loves her, and would be heartbroken if ripped from her.  In two years she intends to move to a bigger city with her partner.  It is true love.  Barring illness or incident, they will not be parted.”

Avery blinked a few times.  “So your gift to me is telling me I’m going to be alone forever?”

“This gift is me telling each of you that you were selected with the idea that you could be made Other,” Maricica said.  She gave Verona a momentary look. “There are answers to each of these things.”

“With some traps scattered among them,” Verona observed.

“Small inconveniences to teach lessons, and life-changing possibilities,” Maricica said.  “Here.  Lucy, a trick for defense and counterattack.”

She handed Lucy a slip of gilded paper.

“A wedding invitation, blown away by the wind, never touched by ground or water before I caught it.  I removed the writing and added my own.”

“Nettlewisp,” Lucy said.

“A trick.  A pinch of glamour, hold it in your palm and draw the rune in it.  Whisper your anticipation of the enemy’s attack or ploy.  If you’re right, you can temporarily blind them and confound their senses.”

“Like you did with the Carmine Beast?”

“Yes.  For Avery.  Another slip.  An old piece of paper, enriched rather than damaged by time, and another trick.  Make one item into a similar one with a bit of glamour.  It will make dealing with those awkward hats and masks much tidier.”

“Okay,” Avery muttered.  “Hell of a lot better than the ‘no girlfriends in Kennet’ gift.”

“Verona.  A bit of hide from a creature with silvered skin, inscribed with a trick to create images.  They won’t hold up to many things, but if they stand for long enough, they fool reality and become part of reality.  Glamour is the Faerie’s power, lying to reality, then making a statement bold enough to sell the lie, and not always with words.  Illusions that can be real.”

“The remainder.  One instruction that could help with the Choir.  Deals made with greater forces have their means of appeal.”

“The Carmine Beast was a way to appeal stuff, right?” Lucy asked.

“Yes.  But this is different.  If you’re ensnared, and if you truly believe a situation or puzzle was impossible, there are ways to challenge it.  Speak loudly, clearly, and invite all present to witness and add their voices to yours, that you think it is not achievable as presented.  For something like a living ritual, you could demand they prove that one round was possible to complete.  It costs them power to prove it, they would have to stage something similar enough, and depending on that staging, it could be argued down further.  If they don’t answer your call, they are weakened, and ways to escape the inevitable open up.”

“And if they prove they can do it?” Lucy asked.

“In the case of the Hungry Choir,” Maricica said, “I would imagine all living contestants would have to pledge their voices to the challenge.  If it could be proven, likely by having Waifs take on the strength of normal people, with the same wounds as other participants, and succeed, then all individuals who challenged it would be forfeit.  The ritual would forever after be stronger and more resistant to such challenges.”

“A last resort,” Verona murmured.

“That’s three tricks, and three instructions.  A nettlewisp protection, a way to turn like into like, and a way to create simple images that may become reality.  A challenge for the choir and other great forces, a truth about why you were selected, and a way to make a contract your own.”

“I’ll reserve my gifts,” Guilherme spoke from the darkness of the cave.  “If what she gives you next doesn’t need fixing, it will still teach lessons that will enrich what I give you by what they lack.”

“So dour,” Maricica said.  Her eyes were bright in the gloom of the cave.  She moved her wings, bringing them forward.  “Would you like to change your skin, Verona?  Dress up as something different?  Lucy?”

“I’d rather watch over the others, first.”

“Avery.  Anything in mind?”

“No.  I’m a little leery after your other ‘gift’.  Geez.”

Verona hesitated.  When she didn’t say no, she saw the wings sweep over and around her.  Dust rolled off her skin, fine enough to sift into and through her clothes.  She didn’t cough from it.

“What’s the drawback?”

“You tell me.  This is instructional, in part.  Then I’ll give you some glamour to take, along with some more practical instruction, so you can try it out on your own.  Give it a try for now.  Try to stay calm.”

“I’m not sure I’m okay with this practical a lesson right off the bat,” Lucy said.

The dust was cool against Verona’s skin, so fine a sensation that the sensation slipped to a different place from where she was sure her skin and clothes were.  Her headache and stomachache were gone.

The wings pulled away, with a suddenness and a stirring that scattered Verona’s thoughts.  When they resettled, they weren’t in the same configuration as before, because her brain wasn’t a human brain.

She heard Lucy shouting, and she didn’t have the means to understand the words.