Summer Break – 13.4
Author: Wildbow

Summer Break – 13.4 | Pale

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One week until the end of summer.

Lucy pulled on a sleeveless, hooded tee in heathered gray with the word ‘squire’ in stylized black letters that ran from armpit to hip, then hiked on some black shorts in a stiff material with a thick white belt.  The shorts weren’t her usual clothing choice, but of her non-winter clothing that actually had pockets, they were the only option that wouldn’t fall down around her ankles if she put anything in those pockets.

Ankle-high socks, black sneakers with signature-like squiggles at the side, then the accessories: the wooden bead bracelet at her ankle, and the friendship bracelet Verona had made for her when making Avery’s, same ankle.  The funny thing about having an implement was that it wasn’t uncomfortable when it should be- someone with a sword implement could sleep in bed with their sword beside them and not worry about being cut, and she could lay her head on a pillow with her earring on, no fuss.  She still took it off at night.  The little things had some effect on how the implement worked, and according to the books, it would grow as she did.  Wearing it to sleep would make it use some of its energy to grow to give some quality of life.

She wanted it to be the sort of thing that would kick in and concentrate its efforts into being effective when she was getting out and about.

Her bag had a slot in the bottom where a compact umbrella or water bottle could be stuffed, but she put a stack of spare spell cards and a marker in there, the little arm on the lid of the marker hooked onto the flap.  She put notebooks inside, along with water bottle, some snacks, more spare paper, her pencil case with things like tape and rune-drawing materials inside, and her wallet.

Her glamour was in a compact she slipped into her pocket.  Her chain necklace with the scratched up dog tag and the weapon ring on it went around her neck.  The dropped watch went into the slim side pocket beneath the main pocket.

The question kept recurring.  She had options.  The knife she could heat with an incantation, and they had the dropped knives.

Her conversation with John yesterday afternoon had really driven some questions home.  She felt divided, between a version of herself that fought, that argued, that went to war against people who needed to be warred against, and a version of herself that found other routes, smoke instead of knives, but who felt she wasn’t making an impact.

If she didn’t take the knife, she felt it was important to focus on other things.

She opened the door and peered across the hall.  Her mother was downstairs, Verona had finished up her shower five or ten minutes ago.

It felt awkward, the whole Verona thing.  The argument last night… she’d asked if Verona wanted to sleep in Booker’s room and she’d both been glad Verona hadn’t because that meant there wasn’t any distance, yet anxious with Verona sleeping in the room.

“Ronnie?” Lucy called across the hall.

“What?” Verona called back, through the bathroom door.

“Can I grab some of your notecards?”

“Go for it.”

She took some blank notecards, then set about trying to figure out how to put her idea into motion.  This wasn’t in the textbooks she’d read, but she knew that what was set out in action and word could be put to diagram.

She wanted it to stick on impact.  So… mars sign, like Avery had used with her ‘smash with the weight of stone’ hockey stick.  She searched up the notes on connections they’d used for doing up the proper ‘murmuring’ connection diagram so her mom wouldn’t feel like they were gone, and found the various connection signs.  The un-knotted circle worked as the ‘zero’, the ‘fool’, and did have its effects on connections, barring many, or securing them within the circle, or connecting every individual at the perimeter, but it depended a lot on the power that went into it.

Then there was the knotted teardrop shape, vaguely triangular, but with two blunted, rounded corners and one emphasized one, as the ‘one’, the ‘magician’, representing hand, flame, raindrop, mountain, exhalation.  A symbol for connection to elements and power.  A certain form of it appeared on the borders of some elemental texts, so they could draw accurate runes without the book coming alive with power.

The ‘two’, the interconnected diamonds or interconnected eye shapes was the ‘two’, the ‘high priestess’, and leaned pretty heavily into both connection between the ‘real’ and the practice, and the division between such.  Use of the high priestess worked well for separating oneself from the innocent.

The ‘three’ could be the triquetra or valknut, often a line between civilization and nature.  A tool to manipulate insects and animals, or to secure hearth, home and family.  The empress.

The ‘four’ was the emperor, war, the shield knot.  It could be circular with a square formed by the interlocking lines in the center, or square with a circle formed.  Best used on those who would do harm.

This would be used on them.  She put the image on her phone, put paper over her phone, and traced it, using a small ruler for the lines.  She surrounded it in a circle, and filled in the gaps between circle and line, darkening it as evenly as she could.

Verona came in, dressed, hair damp and uncombed, and spotted Lucy at work.  She leaned over the desk, curious.

The fight from last night felt unresolved.

“What’s the plan?” Verona asked.

“I’m thinking… inverted shield knot, connected to the mars sign.”

“Stick to the aggressor on hit, sure.  Papers like to stick to targets anyway, you know.”

“I want this to stick hard.”

“Okay.”

“Then on the other side, lesser shield knot, with a mars sign inside it.”

“Connect to… the aggression itself?”

“Yeah.  Can I demonstrate?”

Verona nodded eagerly.

“Let me just finish… gotta fill this in, I’ll draw the other knot… smaller.”

Verona seemed to be itching to do it herself.

“How’s the gainsaying?” Lucy asked, as she drew.  She shrank the image on her phone by pinching it, then traced it.  It was hard to see through the notecard.  Barely a guide.

“Better.  Zed’s right, doing the ritual helped.  I think I’ll be weak but able to help out more tomorrow.”

“That’s great,” Lucy said.

Verona didn’t get angry or upset often but she’d been angry and upset last night.  Verona had said she didn’t want to go to bed angry or to harbor resentment so she was putting it to rest and Lucy was left thinking, how can you be that upset and then put it to rest that easily?

At least practice stuff was a good bonding exercise.

“I’ve gotta whap you.”

“If it’s for the sake of experimentation,” Verona said, sober, standing straight and clasping hands behind her back.

Lucy wrapped up a bundle of scrap paper they’d been using for doodles and quick-form experimentation, and then adopted a fighting stance.  She flung the notecard into the air, then swung the rolled-up papers at Verona’s head.

The paper in the air moved, getting caught by the papers mid-swing.  The rolled up papers connected with Verona’s head, and the notecard stuck to Verona’s wet hair.

It fluttered to the ground a few seconds later.

“It would’ve stuck harder if you actually were someone who was aggressive toward me.  As my friend, zero upset feelings, that’d last for zero seconds…” Lucy said, trailing off.

“Maybe it stuck for the time it did because my hair’s wet.”

“Maybe,” Lucy said, picking up the paper.

“Or that’s just the effect of us being strong, with a lot of Kennet’s power behind us.”

“Could be,” Lucy said.  “Or you’re a little upset, still?  Are we okay?”

“I don’t want to hold grudges, so I’m not.”

“Right.  That’s… it still stuck for a few seconds there.”

Verona sighed.  Lucy backed off, hands raised.  “Okay.  Sure.”

“Take my word for it, okay?” Verona asked.

“Sure.  Will do.”

“That’s cool, though.  I can see you like, scattering a bunch into the air, and then you’re holding a rapier, and each thrust sticks one to your enemy.  Then you have runes primed to explode.  All together, kablooie.”

“If I want to be super violent, yeah.  I’m kinda thinking of this stuff so I don’t have to go that route.”

“What then?  Binding?  You want to tie them up?”

“Maybe.  I had other ideas.  I was thinking I’d check on John, see how he’s doing, and since he knows the goblins, they’re both, uh, issues.  Blunt, Blunt’s crew, Gash, Tatty’s group.”

“Makes sense.  We’ve gone over the lists, the big ones we haven’t figured out are, what, the goblins, Miss and what Avery saw last night, Ken?  And a lot of question marks for the others, where maybe we should keep an eye out for trouble, but they’re probably not a direct issue?”

“And the conspirators.  Maricica and Lis are in the wind.  They have agents out there.  The animals, the beautiful man.”

Verona nodded.  “I can imagine Avery wanting to handle talking to Ken.  I think she gets him best.”

“Yeah.  We have a week.  Me going and talking to John feels like the best way to cover the most bases-”

Verona nodded in an exaggerated way.

“-see what he thinks, he knows the goblins.”

“I’m going to putter around, get some stuff set up that I don’t need practice for, check on Tashlit, make sure Avery’s doing okay.  I might take some time to relax, recharge, get centered.”

“If you need to, for sure,” Lucy said.

“If I’m sorta useless right now while I’m gainsaid, then spending time to recharge now so I’m better when I have magic again is just sensible.  Unless there’s stuff you need?”

“Nah.  Double emphasize the checking on Avery thing.  We should invite her over if we’re allowed while grounded.  I think she wanted to hang with Zed, Brie, and Jessica today.”

Verona nodded.

“Just so I know where you are, will it be with Tashlit?”

“Are you my mom, needing to figure out where I’m at?  Because even my mom doesn’t do that.”

“I’m a concerned member of our group in the middle of a really stressful, dangerous time, with witch hunters roaming around, and I don’t want to be completely screwed over if our phones stop working or if I need to send some of our allies your way.”

“Okay.  I’ll be with Jeremy, if I can wrangle it,” Verona said.  “Some clothes-off time, some time with Sir, chatting…”

Lucy frowned.

“What?” Verona asked.

“Are we okay?  Is this okay?” Lucy asked.

“I’m okay right now.  I think you’re being a bit of a tit about things, but whatever, so long as you don’t get on my case, we’re good.”

I think the way you phrased that suggests you’re not okay right now.

“Have fun,” Lucy said.

“That’s the plan.”

She drew up some more cards, and with Verona’s input, wrote out the epithets.  She sorted and arranged them, then put them in a back pocket.

Verona got sorted out as well, a little less intensive, and less ready for a possible fight.  “Have you eaten?”

“Hm?” Lucy asked.  “No.”

“Cool.”

They headed downstairs together.  Lucy’s mom was sorting out laundry, carrying two baskets up to the front hall, one stacked on the other.  She left Lucy and Verona’s basket in the hallway, a piece of cardboard separating the two halves.

“Take that up and put it away?” her mom called over.

“Yep!” Lucy replied.

“Don’t go wandering off in separate directions either.  I’ll be right down, I want to talk,” her mom called down the stairs.

Verona got some toastoat toaster cookies out of the freezer, held up the bag while making a quizzical sound, and Lucy nodded.

She ran the basket upstairs, put stuff away quickly, then hurried down before her mom could get down, just in time for the second batch of toaster cookies to pop up.  She put the filling on one, pushed them together, got some juice, and sat down across from Verona.

“Thank you for being prompt with the laundry, nicely done,” Lucy’s mom said. “It would be great if you ate actual food.”

Lucy, mouth full, grunted and pointed at the orange juice.

“That’s sugar with a bit of vitamins more than anything else.  Okay, gotta be a mom-slash-guardian for a few minutes.  Bear with me.”

They gave her their full attention.

“Are you guys okay?  That was an argument you guys had last night.  Poor Avery sat out there for a while before giving up and leaving.”

They’d caught up with her later, for the ritual.  She wasn’t wrong though.

“I’m cool enough, I can drop it if Lucy does,” Verona said.  “Gotta try to make it up to Ave.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “I don’t know about dropping it exactly-”

Verona pushed her plate about three feet to her left, plate banging glass, and banged her forehead against the counter of the little kitchen island with the stools around it.

“-I just… don’t do that.  Please tell me you can at least see where I’m coming from,” Lucy told Verona.  “Even if you don’t agree, because I’m trying to see where you’re coming from.”

Verona lifted her head up an inch or two, then banged it against the counter again.

“Do we need to have a talk?  Mom-mediated?” Lucy’s mom asked.

“Maybe,” Lucy said.  “If it gets us to a better place?”

“I don’t want to talk with a parent-ish figure about what I’m up to with boys, thank you very much,” Verona said, forehead still resting on the counter.

“Head up,” Lucy’s mom said.

Verona sat up, pulled her plate closer, and took a bite, before giving Lucy a look, like she’d smelled a fart.

“No faces, no shouting, okay?  I hope you got it out of your system, but this stuff is draining and I have work later.”

“Can we uh,” Lucy said.  “Can I think on this?  Give it some time, talk to Avery and Zed and people, and come back to this?”

“I sorta kinda don’t love that I’ve got this thing that’s supposed to be easy and fun, and people are sticking their nose into it and talking about it like Jeremy and I aren’t even a part of the conversation,” Verona said.

“So you don’t want me to figure this out?”

“I want you to butt out!  If you can’t wrap your head around it, then don’t!  Just leave it be!  It’s a me and Jeremy thing!”

“I want us and boys to be a best friend thing!”

“Then work on that, figure it out without round table discussions and talking behind my back with a bunch of people about how I tick and what me and Jeremy are doing!  I don’t want your mom knowing!  It makes it feel less easygoing and less neat!”

“As I don’t know the full picture, I do want to check, are you being safe?” Lucy’s mom asked.  “You’re not-?”

“See!?” Verona raised her voice.  “How awkward is this?”

“Easy,” Lucy’s mom said.

Verona moved her plate and went to thunk her head on the counter again.  Lucy’s mom blocked it, putting hand between forehead and counter.

“Can we call it quits on this conversation?” Lucy asked.

“Please,” Verona muttered, head down, barely audible.  Lucy’s mom lifted Verona’s head up with the back of her hand.  More audible, Verona said, “Please.”

“Come back to it later?” Lucy asked.

“Or never,” Verona said.

Lucy’s mom huffed out a sigh.  “Fine.  Either one of you can come to me to talk.  Verona, there’ll be no judgment.  Lucy?  Be sensitive to what Verona wants to keep private, if you do.  This is always a tricky time to navigate, when you have a good friendship but boys come into the picture.  I think you have something special, it would be a shame for something to spoil it.”

“I don’t think-” Verona started.  She looked at Lucy.  “We’re not, like, gonna stop being friends over this?”

“I love you, Ronnie.  No.”

“Love you too.  Even if you are a tit sometimes.”

“Easy does it,” Lucy’s mom cut in, before Lucy could retort.  “Okay.  I thought that would either take one minute or five hours.  Now, I’ve got some good news, more good news for Verona, and other news for Verona.”

“Bad news?” Lucy asked.

“Other news, I’m being impartial here,” her mom said.

She could read the look in her mom’s eyes.  “Bad news.”

“Hit us with the good, Mrs. Ellingson,” Verona said.  “I think we need it.  What’s my good news?”

“Your mom wants to come into town, take you out, and go shopping.”

Verona made a bit of a face.  “I already got clothes.”

“She wants to spend time with you, and video calls are sterile.  It’s a good thing.”

“Yyyyyeah,” Verona said, looking at Lucy.  “Okay.  Cool.”

We don’t have a lot of time, and that’s a whole thing.

“What’s the other good news?” Lucy asked, hopeful.

“I talked things over with Verona’s mom and Connor.  Separate calls, trying to figure out if I’m on the right track as I make a judgment call.  You’ve been grounded for a week, there’s a week left, but what Brie, Zed, and Jessica said last night sounded real.  I believe Brie, I like that group, I believe your heart is in the right place and it has been across many little incidents.”

Lucy took a sip of orange juice, keeping her expression as neutral as she could.

“I wish you’d communicated better.  I wish you’d called an ambulance for Brie instead of staying downtown, where I’d rather you weren’t hanging out in the evening.  You absolutely deserved to be grounded for being out past curfew.  But you’ve been grounded a week, we can count that as time served.  I think some of this fighting is that you’ve been in close proximity for a while, you do have wonderfully different personalities, and that’s great, but it can make things harder.  So…”

Verona held up both hands, fingers crossed.

“Yeah.  You’re off the hook.”

Verona thrust her fists overhead.  Lucy pumped one fist, smiling.

“On probation.  Be good, do extra chores, don’t fight like you did last night, don’t make a big mess if I leave you alone.  Okay?  Don’t make me feel like I’ve failed you by going easy on you.  Convince me you’re as good as your older friends made you sound.”

Lucy nodded.

“I’ve got to work every day this week, and there are going to be mornings I’m gone, and there are going to be afternoons I’m out.  You’re teenagers, consider this a trial run for adulting.  Fend for yourselves for breakfast or dinner and bed, and to warn you, I may have the neighbor come and do a spot check.”

“She’s super lonely, you know,” Lucy said.  “She always stays for twenty minutes or so, making small talk.”

“Yeah.  But she’s a good neighbor and a friend, so put up with it.”

“What’s the bad news?” Verona asked.  “How bad is it?”

“I want to reaffirm that this isn’t bad news.  I do know you weren’t looking forward to this, but the CAS worker reached out, and he wants to do a quick sit-down with you and your dad-”

“Nah,” Verona interrupted.

“-as supervised interaction.”

“Nah,” Verona said.  “Not interested.”

“I think it’s a necessary step if you do want to go back to your dad’s.  Which- you do want?”

“I’d stay if I could but I can’t, and I want to stay in Kennet,” Verona said.

Lucy’s mom didn’t reply to that.  She waited, a slightly apologetic look on her face.  Lucy looked over to Verona, who was frowning.

“Or maybe…” Verona sighed.  “Big nah?  No?  Not interested?”

“The CAS worker will be in touch, sometime in the next few days.  He brought it up to me, your mom knows, your dad knows, it’s just a question of when.  I said I’d bring it up with you in an impartial way, because it would be easier coming from me.”

“Meaning if you cause a fuss, it’ll look bad for my mom,” Lucy said.

Verona groaned.

“I didn’t say that,” Lucy’s mom said.

“But you’re not not saying it?”

Her mom shifted position, deliberately ignoring Lucy.  “Keep your schedule open for both your mom and the CAS meeting.  For now, you’re free.  Be good, don’t make me regret ungrounding you.”

Verona, looking weary, turned to Lucy.  “Want to go our separate ways until dinner?  Maybe grab Ave and make something?”

“You’re out tonight for work?” Lucy checked with her mom.

“I’m out with a friend,” Lucy’s mom said.  “Working late past dinnertime tomorrow as well.”

“Is this a man friend?” Verona asked, “it came up last night, cute doctors?”

“No comment.”

“So you guys can get up in my business but I can’t get up in yours?  That seems unfair,” Verona said.

“Go.  Get out of my hair, I’d love to have my own house without two grumpy grounded teenagers stumping around.  Stay in communication, know that I love you both.  Again, stay in touch.”

Well, they were free.  Not that they’d held one hundred percent to the grounding, and they’d slipped off enough, but now they could go out without stressing about setting everything up right.

Lucy grabbed her bag, chugged some water, and paused to watch Verona pull on her shoes with the drawings she’d done on the sides.

“You don’t need to watch over me,” Verona said, meeting Lucy’s eyes.  “I’m fine, I’ll deal, we’re cool.”

Saying anything in response to that that didn’t gainsay Verona carried a risk of Lucy being gainsaid instead.  She only nodded.  Nods were safe.

With that, Lucy headed out the door.

Nat liked the bridge as her hang-out spot, and she pointed Lucy in the direction John had gone, walking past the end of the bridge toward downtown.  Lucy followed the water, letting the wind blow down from mountain and through valley, past school and hospital to the slope of the water.  It was a steady, constant breeze.  Teenagers and families were camped out, doing their own thing.  Young kids splashed in shallow water, wearing plastic sunhats and puffy swimsuits around diapers, while parents made sure they didn’t slip.

She rounded a bend in the shore, passed a rockier part, after navigating some trees, and found a nook where some teenage and twenty-something girls were sunbathing, belly down, swimsuit tops on but undone at the back.  They startled a bit at her approach, and she hurried on her way.

Two more bends away, past a thicket of trees, there was a spot with a lot of junk gathered.  An inflatable raft had deflated badly, and was propped up on one side with sticks stuck into the ground.  A bit of a lean-to tent, covered partially with sticks and dry leaves and caked in mud.  The lime green stuck out despite their efforts.  A summer project for a group, it seemed.  Ramjam sat happily inside, paging through a waterlogged teen fashion and advice magazine with wavy pages.  It looked like he had a collection of pilfered snacks and a partially full beer bottle beside him.

“You okay there?” she asked.

“Girls are great,” he said, turning the page.  “We don’t have girls like this down in the Warrens.”

“That, uh, doesn’t surprise me.”

“Or pretty clothes.  Or makeup.  Some girl goblins really need good makeup.”

“Yyyeah.  Taking a break from things?”

“Yeah!  Worked hard and now I’m protecting this fort and studying about girls.”

“Sure,” she said.  “Be sure to get sleep.  Have you seen John?”

“He went up… thataways,” Ramjam said, pointing.  Further up the shore, toward the House on Half street, one corner of downtown.

“Right.”  She stepped around a grouping of sharp sticks he’d probably brought with him.

“I didn’t know a douche was actually a thing!” Ramjam whispered, excited.  “I thought it was a weapon all this time.”

“Bye Ramjam.”

“Don’t douche.  Trust your body’s natural chemistry or see a doctor.”

“Bye Ramjam,” she said, again.

“Bye.”

If Ramjam was cooperating with the conspirators, her instinct was that it was an unwitting cooperation.

Fuck, though, she really hoped it wasn’t witting or unwitting.

She walked up the shore for a bit, until she couldn’t be sure which direction John had gone.  She paused, found a vantage point on a hill at the edge of a neighborhood that had once had grass and was now being torn up and turned into sloped brick for some reason, then she took the dog tag necklace in hand, and whispered, “John Stiles”.

She sensed the connection.  She found it with her Sight and with her eyes, she traced that trail of watercolor that stabbed through the air, faint as smoke.

She followed it.

She came up on the Arena.  It was bounded on two sides by trees, and two more sides by parking lots, one large one at the front and one smaller one at the back, with more trees and sometimes a rink there.

She kept close to the trees, peering around to see if she could see John.

She pulled cards out from her bag and scribbled out a silence rune, trusting her earring implement to help turn the scribble into something intelligible.  She tucked a card with a rune into each sock, hugging her ankles.

On one side there was enough space for cars to pass single-file, more for employees, sports teams who’d be around a while, and extreme overflow for events, too exposed for her to use for the approach, unless she waded into denser trees.  She took the other route, a footpath with branches bristling with dense pine needles sticking out at face and chest level.  The branches were primed to smack any faces of passerbys, or to transfer spiderwebs and spiders to the unwitting.  She made a face and was very careful to avoid them, but she could still feel the faint touch of the trailing webs.  Cigarette butts littered the ground, as did stray bits of trash.

She spotted John in the trees, holding a gun pointed in her general direction, finger off the trigger.

He moved the gun away and turned his back on her, his focus on other things.

She approached, and squeezed by until she was between him and the building, her arm touching his.  She reached down and penned a simple connection block beween them and Musser’s group.  To help, even though low branches already helped to hide them, as they crouched in the trees, in the shadows, at the edge of the building.

She pricked the back of her finger, and let blood drop onto the connection block.  “For Kennet, we need this to work, so… be power hungry, keep this glyph secure, even against someone as strong as Musser, please.  Take of my power, take of Kennet’s, but… hold.”

The white chalk became red, taking on a heat shimmer.

“That should help.  I thought it was you,” he said, quiet.  “You called my name earlier?”

“Once, to find you.”

He nodded.

Musser was out there in the back parking lot.  Four of his more human-looking familiars were with him.

“His three other familiars remained back with his child and niece,” John murmured.  “These four serve as bodyguards.  How is your ability to identify Others?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Okay.  Middle of the group, black hair, pale skin.”

Lucy nodded. The woman was beautiful, wearing a top that sparkled like diamonds.

“She doesn’t sweat, her skin isn’t red even though she’s pale and standing in the summer sun.  Virtually anyone else with skin like that would burn in a matter of minutes.”

“Notice how she stands in the middle of the group.  Even as they wander and take in details, the others surround her, protecting her.”

“She’s vulnerable?”

“I think she’s more vulnerable than they are.  She moves with confidence.”  John’s voice was so much a whisper there was a hoarse quality to it.  “She doesn’t move as if she’s scared of being attacked.”

“Because she doesn’t care?” Lucy asked.

“If you’ll trust my expertise, I’ve seen people who didn’t care if they died.  I don’t believe that’s the case with her.  Do you remember Sol Ferguson?  The boy who could put his arms together and make explosions?”

“Yeah.  I remember his mom, too.”

“We saw him that last night I was at the Blue Heron.  I think this woman would be something similar to him.  Her confidence comes with bearing a lot of power, even if she’s reluctant or unsure about using it.  I’d think they protect her so that even as the situation turns, she’ll be able to use that power.  Whatever it may look like.”

“Okay, sure.  Makes some sense.”

“I don’t know this for sure, I only know what instinct and experience tell me.  But instinct and experience have given me a puzzle piece and it does fit with other things I see around her.  How they treat her, how they move.”

Lucy used her Sight.

“She has small knives in her.  The flesh around the wounds is cracked, not bleeding.”

“Hmmm.”

“Manufactured, not natural?”

“Perhaps.”

The cracks were surrounded by dark stains.  To Lucy’s Sight, the woman was forced to bend over a bit because of the blades set between bones.

“Do you see the old woman, at the back?” John asked.  “Hideous?”

Lucy looked, with Sight and without.

“No,” she replied.

He paused, looking at her, then said, “Describe who you see.”

“A man in a tight black shirt and pants, smiling wickedly, looks like a musician…”

“Yes.”

“Uhhh…” She assessed one figure, who was taller than the rest, Musser included, and stood at an odd angle, stooped, as if her back was a bit broken, arms hanging limp at her sides.  Her hair hung down on either side of her face, masking her features, and she wore a long black raincoat, black apron with leather strings, and a surgical mask.  With the Sight, she saw… different things.  The figure was heavily stained, making the black of the raincoat swirl like black water had blacker ink in it- and the way she stood was a little bit clearer, especially with knives and broken blades stuck into the raincoat, making it sit in a different way.  She could see the outline of heads and shoulders, a quarter of the way down and then halfway down.  She could guess, based on proportion and how short the legs seemed beneath that coat.  “I think four child sized Others wearing a raincoat and aprons.  Possibly Abyssal?”

“Abyssal, yes.”

“Bogeyman?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t know.  I’ve been wondering.  I don’t know enough about labels.  Bogeymen lean aggressive, feeding on fear and anger.  They’re often restless.  If she’s a bogeyman, she’s the most docile, least aggressive one I’ve ever seen.”

Lucy watched the figure walk closer to Musser, as he pointed a finger at one corner of the lot.

Where the rink had been.  The boards had been picked up and were leaning against trees, covered in tarp.  They’d been painted and would be painted again as the new season started, but even paint didn’t cover up the weathering of the wood.  It was dried and frayed even when slathered in fresh white and red.

“Something else of the Abyss, maybe,” Lucy whispered.

“Perhaps.  And the last one?”

The last one stood apart, far end of the parking lot, watching Musser and watching the lot.

“There’s a woman.  Older teens or twenty.  Old clothes, well worn, plaid-print shawl or cape or something swept around her shoulders, even in this heat.  White, blonde, badly taken care of hair, looks almost like straw, tied into a braid.”

“Older teens or twenty?”

“I think?”

“To me, she’s aged, moles growing out of moles, stretch marks on loose skin, which ranges from dry and flaking at the parts most exposed, to overly moist in the folds.  Her hair is caked with fluids.  Knobby limbs, long.  You could mistake her for human, but it would be hard.”

“Hm.”  Lucy turned on her Sight.  She described what she saw, “Watercolor bleeding out around her.  Very bright colors.”

“You’d know better than I what that means.”

“Tied into the environment?  Or a leaky power?  I tend to only see danger, pain, hurt, and whatever she’s got is bright enough to push into my way of seeing.  Like colors bold enough to make a colorblind person see…”

She trailed off as Musser spoke, voice low.

“I want Hans’ knowledge of blood.”

They shrank back into cover as the Abyssal Other looked around, then fell forward, arms catching it as the woman nearly faceplanted.

The coat and apron came undone, and the Others practically crawled over one another to rearrange.  One shook out a coat, while others bundled up the raincoat and apron.

The girl, about four feet tall, eyes so shadowed by a deep brow that they couldn’t be made out, took the spot on the ground, rolled up apron and coat at her shoulders to cushion the weight as another sat on her shoulders, another on top of him.  A boy with a strong jaw and messy dark hair took the spot on the top before pulling the long suitcoat on.  Hands buttoned it up.

None of them had had arms long enough to fill the long sleeves, but arms nonetheless did fill the sleeves of the coat, a large set of man’s hands extending out the ends.

One held a knife, scuffed and rusty, which it played with for a second, the other a battered and crumpled bowler hat, which it shook out to fullness and firmly set on his dark-haired head.

“What do you see, Hans?”

“It’s everywhere,” the boy replied, with a voice deeper than Bluntmunch’s.  “Washed away by rain and time, but I see it.  Death by five thousand bites.”

“I think that would be the Devouring Song they wanted me to help with.”

“They’re bound.”

“Alexander and Raymond managed the binding.”

“They’re talking about the Choir being partially responsible, being bound.  This Other can apparently figure out a lot from looking at old blood patterns.”

“Each ‘head’ with a different capability, perhaps,” John said.  “I think that may be the most dangerous of the four, even if you ignore how versatile they are.”

“Instinct?”

“Informed instinct.  The way they’re treated, the way they move…”

“The fact they’re kinda ugly and he seems to like pretty and neat looking Others?”

“Yes.  I didn’t dwell on that point.”

“So they’re apparently the most powerful-”

“Dangerous, out of this quartet, possibly excepting the practitioner.”

“-most dangerous of this quartet, possibly outside of the practitioner, sure.  The woman who looks young to me and old to you is a puzzle.  The pale woman with the nice shirt is a really heavy hitter, but not necessarily in a way that makes her most dangerous…”

“Yes.”

She looked at the ‘musician’ type with the black top.

“Look at how he moves.”

The guy paced, looking around.

He walked over to the woman with the nice top.

“Hoping for a fight to liven things up, Nova?”

“No.  There’s no need for any liveliness, and I’m used to long waits.”

“Looking for a fight to liven things up, he says.  She says she’s used to long waits,” Lucy repeated.  “Her name is Nova.”

When Nova didn’t engage with him more, the guy walked away, walking over to the stacked sections of wood that would bound the rink in the wintertime.

“Describe him.”

“Agitated, restless.”

“What’s his plan?  What orders has he been given?” John asked.

The guy lifted up tarp.

“I… don’t know?”

“N-O-V-A waits, keeping to the center of the group.  As the man wearing black walks away, she moves to stay closer to the center, but she avoids intruding too close to the practitioner who owns her.”

Lucy winced.

“The Abyssal Other follows instructions.  He’s still analyzing the blood?”

“Drip, drip, head lowering slowly, look at the timing… she wasn’t here that long.”

“Muttering to himself, but it’s about blood,” Lucy told John.

“And the young-old woman?” he asked.

“Standing at the back, keeping watch.  It’s… Verona-ish?  Kinda?”

“I don’t know if the orders were given as they got here, or if they’re instructions and roles they default to, but let’s turn our attention back at the skinny man with the black shirt.”

“Right.”

The man moved some boards, kicking one.

“One waits and watches, but she’s not so good at watching that she can see us, or if she is, she’s staying quiet for other reasons.  One holds to the middle, a lot of power at the ready.  Another, more aggressive and immediately dangerous, acts as his right hand.  And the last?”

“Investigative?  I really don’t know, John.”

“Not investigative.  I’m not trying to trick or pressure you, but to get you thinking about what the enemy might do before we know much else about them.  The fact he has no clear role is important.  The practitioner that heads that family and the Blue Heron is a commander with a firm grip over those under him.  Yet he allows one to roam more free than the others.”

Lucy nodded.

Something animal fled from amid the pallets as he moved them.  It looked like a family of raccoons.  They ran for the woods, crossing a section of parking lot – two larger ones, two pups.

Trees bowed and flexed out of the way as they ran into the cover of the woods.  The skinny young man with black hair, black shirt, and black jeans reached out a hand, and his shadow lunged out in four or five segments, diagonally across the lot, a section for the head, for the reaching arm and fingers, for the bend of his leg.

One of the larger, plump raccoons was tossed into the air as the shadow lanced beneath it.  Shadows rippled, arched off the pavement lot, and manifested teeth, reaching up.

The raccoon was bitten in half.  The raccoon’s upper half bounced once on ground before hitting shadow, falling into the darkness as if there was no ground there, only a hole.

Shadows withdrew like elastic bands snapping.  The second of the large raccoons was hauled to him with such speed and force that limbs bent the wrong way, back snapping audibly from where Lucy crouched, the length of a skating rink away.  The head went straight into the man’s mouth, even though it was too large to rightly fit inside his mouth.  He beheaded it, tearing with a jerk of his head.

The pups were already in hand, one dead, the other fighting.

Lucy itched to do something, because they were just animals trying to get by, but-

Before she could he killed the survivor, biting around head to the neck and tearing head from body.  He took the head of the other, then stood there at the end of the lot, blood coating chin to throat to the neckline of his shirt, a beheaded adult raccoon in one hand, two beheaded pups between the fingers of his other.

The second adult raccoon was gone, the only mark it had been there a single ‘splat’ of blood on the end of the parking lot.  Nova, the one with the nice top, had turned away, not watching the man eat.

“Chaos.  Being orderly means being predictable,” John said.  “He keeps one agent of chaos in his group.  Someone who pokes at bears, who peers behind curtains, and who upsets patterns, so they can’t fall into a routine with routine weaknesses.”

The man dropped the headless bodies to the ground.  They fell through his shadow.  Fresh skin folded over the blood on his face, then smoothed out.

“What’s the plan here, John?” Lucy whispered.

“If they notice us, run.”

“Okay.  I can get behind that.”  Lucy looked down at the glyph she’d put down.  “But why are you here?”

“Sometimes there are opportunities.  I’d like to watch for one.  Whatever you’re fighting, if you watch and wait, they’ll almost always give you a chance.”

“Pretty high risk.”

“That practitioner is the strongest immediate threat.  With several Witch Hunters dead, he holds a position of power at the moment.  The loss of his son hasn’t slowed him down, and he’s devoted very little time to visiting the hospital, or to the cabin, now that his son has been moved.”

“He was hurt badly, right?”

“His face was lacerated by a familiar gone rogue.  Miss assures us they were given the opportunity to retreat.  The boy didn’t take it.”

Lucy nodded.

“You’ve asked why I’m here.  That’s why.  Perhaps I can slow the practitioner down or take away something vital from him.”

“Perhaps you’d get bound.”

“That is a risk.”

“What happens then?  There’s no contest to the throne.”

“I don’t know, Lucy.  Perhaps the Judges would intervene, making an offer to the man.  Perhaps they have another backup.  I’ll endeavor to avoid being bound.”

“Please,” Lucy whispered.

“Again, though, you asked why I’m here.  That’s why.  Why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk about things, question you.”

John nodded.  He didn’t take his eyes off the practitioners.

“Hans?”

“The local Others, ones we met, they were here shortly after it died.”

“Can you track them?”

“I can track where they went after, but not before.  You could ask Rabbit Killer.”

“Leave him be.”

Lucy got out her phone and made a note, showing John.  They had a name for the one in the black top.

“What questions?” John asked.

“There’s so many things,” Lucy murmured.

“That doesn’t surprise me.  This is a time when there are many things in motion.  Everyone with an agenda, concerns, fears.  Intruders, guests…”

“You?”

John paused.  Then he nodded.  “If there are many things you wish to ask, I’d say start with the most important, whatever comes to mind first.”

“Verona and Avery.”

“It’s a good start.”

“I want to have Avery over later, when she’s done hanging out with Zed, Brie, and Jessica.  But could you send some of the cooler goblins her way?  To protect her and make sure she has what she needs?  Which is a whole thing, I know-”

“I can.  I’ll ask the Others to keep an eye out.”

“-and I’m not sure goblins are all trustworthy.”

John nodded.  “Yes.  But to stay on track, Verona?”

“Verona, yeah,” Lucy said.  She thought back to recent arguments and exchanges.  “Can I ask you about boy stuff?”

“Second to Miss, I may be the worst possible individual in Kennet you could ask about romantic things, Lucy,” John said.  “Or as you put it, boy stuff.”

“But you’re a boy,” she whispered, leaning into his arm.

“A man, but… that doesn’t qualify me.”

“You were a boy in the past, right?  In the memories of…?  Is that insensitive?”

“No it isn’t, and yes I was, but the memories are splintered, hidden behind a haze of battlefield smoke in the back corners of my mind.  Would you consider asking the Other who just bit the heads off three raccoons, instead?  Your chances could be better than they are with me.”

“But the fact you aren’t into it might be perfect,” she whispered.

“This is foremost in your mind?”

“Verona and I had a fight, and it’s making stuff harder.”

“Ah, team dynamics,” he said, releasing tension in his body, head, and neck as he said it.  “What happened?”

“She has a boy she sorta likes, but doesn’t… like-like.”

“My experience in this regard is lacking, Lucy, maybe focus on the team dynamic issue?  War didn’t dwell on those memories of love and early romance when she was bringing me into the world or honing me as her blade.”

“It relates, though,” Lucy whispered.  “This boy-”

“Jeremy.  Miss mentioned him,” John replied.

“Yeah.  He loves her.”

John sighed.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“I want to help, I just worry I’d fail you after opening up.  I don’t remember young romance, I’m unarmed.”

“That might be great though because… I don’t think Verona gets it.  I barely get it.  And I just want to talk to someone I trust who won’t blab or make Verona feel uncomfortable.”

John looked away from Musser and the four Others to give Lucy a long look, then turned his attention back to Musser.  “Go on.”

“Thank you,” Lucy whispered.

He nodded.

“I think she likes Jeremy, but it’s a friendship like, and other side stuff I won’t get into… and when he likes her like he really obviously does, and she doesn’t, that’s super unfair, right?”

“It could be.”

“And that’s sorta… Verona?  Like, it’s fundamental to who she is.  She gets into some stuff like art and creative projects and she’s so good at it.  Practice?  Bam, she got it right away.  She’s really smart and great like that.  But there’s other stuff she’s not good at, and she gives up on it so fast.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s one of my top three favorite people, but that can be a hard thing to get along with.  Because we’d get into stuff, like a sailing summer camp, and she had no talent, had no interest, and wouldn’t even try.”

“I find I like group dynamics where everyone has things they execute really well.”

“I do too, but sometimes you get into something and you want your friend to be there with you, and sometimes with Verona it just feels like if she’s not naturally the best at it she’ll kinda just bail… and in the process she never lets you be the best.  You know?”

“And you’re worried this will happen with you and boyfriends?”

John sounded adorably awkward as he asked that.

“I- I-, no.  Not exactly.  But I’ve had stuff I was pretty interested in, like, six out of ten excited for sailing, or seven out of ten for going to a music thing in Swanson.  And it was heartbreaking when she couldn’t get into it with me, you know?  I’d be six or seven out of ten and she’d be zero or one, and that sucked.  She’s unfair like that, a lot.”

“Have you talked to her about this?”

“Kind of.  But my point is… I think Jeremy is twelve out of ten in love with her and she’s one or two out of ten in love with him.  She likes him, but… I’ve felt the six point difference.  What happens to this guy if there’s an eleven point difference, he doesn’t know what’s up and doesn’t know to watch out, and he gets that heartbreak?”

“I don’t know, I’ve repeatedly stated young romance isn’t my field of expertise-”

“Accepted, I won’t hold it against you.”

“But that might be part of being thirteen.  If Miss thinks Jeremy Clifford could’ve stood in for one of you in an alternate assortment of young practitioners, she must think highly of him.  I think he’ll survive some heartbreak.”

“But-” Lucy started.  “But if she tried…”

“It wouldn’t be a friendship with whatever else they’re doing on the side, anymore.”

“But at least, at least maybe they could work out with her and him, and things could be so much better, and we could enjoy boys together like we enjoy the coolest parts of the practice together, bring Avery in when she finds someone, I really want Avery to find someone-”

“You’ve asked?  Earnestly?”

“Verona?”

“Verona.  You’ve brought this up to her?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s very fond of you, Lucy,” John said, glancing over.  “Again, I’m not an expert-”

“Totally understand.”

“-but if she could, I think she would.  For your friendship.”

Lucy held her breath, because breathing past the lump in her throat hurt.  She watched as Musser drew a diagram.  Three of the Others stood at the loose edges of the diagram, while Nova stood close to the man.

“You’re okay at this, John.”

“I’m glad.”

The diagram Musser drew was large, with an eye at the center.  It had math at the edges, making it a celestial diagram.  Turning lines of chalk, geometry and notations into something like a computer program, executing a more complex function.  Dates seemed to be part of it.

It was kind of surprising the man hadn’t noticed them.  The glyph was barely affected.

He acted a bit like he was invincible, and maybe he kind of was.  Or maybe the Others he’d brought with him were strong enough to deal with anything that happened.

Lucy thought of Verona again.  Of Jeremy.

“You know… back when I first met you, Awakening Ritual, you were there in the background…”

“Yeah?”

“Dealt with goblins, you were kinda scary.  Your eyes…”

“Somehow, they’re the first thing many people notice about me.”

“Sad and scary.  Um, they reminded me of my mom’s, in one minute or two where she didn’t realize I was looking.  I hope this isn’t too personal…”

John shook his head.

“But my mom looked that way because a man she loved had turned his back on her and left.  Twelve out of ten love against… zero, basically.  And you…”

“Yalda.”

“Yeah.  Heartbroken in a big way.”

John nodded, small and slow, like he didn’t realize he was doing it.

“Just seeing that, it hit me pretty hard, y’know?  Changed the course of my life.  My perspective.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t even imagine… I don’t mean to prod at sore spots.”

“It’s nice people think of her.  I’d hate the idea that she was used for something ugly, then promptly forgotten by the rest of the world.  You gave her a chance to talk to me before she was bound.”

“Of course.  I wish I could do more.”

“It’s enough.  But you were saying?  About it changing your life.”

“Seeing that, thinking about that?  Thinking about my mom, facing that big heartbreak?  It hurts me, secondhand.  And I guess- I haven’t put this together until now, but Verona is- I love her, she’s in the top four of my favorite people.  But if she did that to someone, if she was that unfair to Jeremy like I know she can sometimes be, I worry… it’d never end our friendship, it’d take more than that, but what if it changed how I look at her?  What if it didn’t end things but did… hurt things, I guess?”

Musser finished the circle and stood back from it.

“Do we interfere?” Lucy asked.

“Can you interpret the circle?”

“I think it’s augury,” Lucy told John.

“He’s trying to solve the Carmine murder?”

“Or figure out Kennet’s involvement in it.”

“Wait,” John said.  “What you said, about Verona’s actions hurting things.  I think that’s worth talking to her about.”

Lucy nodded.

“Is the worry that Jeremy could get over it and endure the heartbreak, but you couldn’t?”

“It took me a long time to get past Paul.  To sorta forgive him.  I don’t like him, still.  I pity him, I think less of him, but… I’ve forgiven him or I’m forgiving him and I’m doing that for me, and for my mom.  If it was Verona, wouldn’t I feel like I was betraying myself, if I found a way to be okay with her being that sort of person?”

“That’s an entirely different conversation, isn’t it?” John asked.

Lucy frowned, watching Musser.

The glyph wasn’t doing so hot.  Rabbit Killer was wandering this way and that, and every time he came closer, the connection-block glyph got chipped at.

Nothing stable, everything at risk of breaking.  Even best friendships felt wobbly at times.  Her dad dying, Paul, Guilherme.

“We already had that conversation, kind of,” Lucy murmured.

“Did we?”

“I talked to a version of you in a dream, or… not a dream, but a fact-finding ritual.”

“Like Musser is conducting?”

“Different.  But you had a secret.  A deal you made with the Sable?”

“With all three judges.  A long time ago,” John said.

“Yeah,” Lucy breathed the word.  Quiet, she asked, “What the frig, John?”

“I’ve been asked to keep quiet.”

“Because they think I’ll interfere if we know?”

“Something like that.  I think you’ll interfere anyway.”

“What the frig?” she asked.  “Am I going to be mad at you after?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think so.”

“But you think I’d stop you?”

“You’d try, and you might get hurt.  It’s not as bad as it sounds.  There’s work I need to do that I need the seat for.  I need their help to do it.  Work that extends back to the origins of John Stiles.”

“You killed a lot of soldiers.”

“I…” John paused.  The look in his eyes had changed- she only saw him side-on, because his focus was on Musser and the four familiars Musser had with him, but she could see something deep, dark, and sad in John’s expression.  “Yes.  I did.”

“And that’s why you have to do this?”

“A big part of why.  Old promises I made to myself.”

“I’ve been wrestling with my own promises to myself.  To fight the people who needed to be fought.  To not take being treated badly lying down.  To call out racism.  Except… it’s never that clear, is it?”

“Sometimes it is.  In my case it is.  The promise was made, I can keep it.  It means taking a risk.”

“If we can’t figure out what Maricica, Edith, and Charles had planned, there’s still a chance they spring a trap and destroy you.”

“I hope you can figure it out, then.  Or that whatever they plan is insufficient.”

“I can’t change your mind?  What you’re doing… it can’t wait?”

“If someone else takes the Carmine Throne, it could be centuries before another chance comes up.  I can’t be sure I’d last that long.”

Lucy swallowed.

Musser was talking on the phone.  The crooked, slumping Other that was four children with a long coat and a bowler hat barely managing to stay upright took pictures of the diagram with a smartphone.

“John-” she started.

“If it’s augury, we have an opportunity,” he said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I may act soon.  You should run when I do.  I’ll go after him, then cut through the building.  Augury has weaknesses.  You can see past, future, present, but when your gaze is turned to other things, you often have a blind spot.  It was how I killed Alexander.”

The mental image jumped into her mind’s eye, so vivid it could have been here in reality.  She could smell it.  The blood.  The odor of brain, or whatever it was she’d thought was the odor of brain.

Why- why did this always come up when she wanted to ask?

She pushed past it.

“John,” she said, quiet and insistent.  “Couldn’t you take another path?  Couldn’t you… please wait?  Become my familiar.  That takes priority, doesn’t it?  I can give you… I hope it’s seventy or eighty years by my side.  In and around Kennet.”

He looked at her.  She stared into those sad, heartbroken eyes, which so easily held a thousand-yard stare.  For right now, they weren’t staring at some point a thousand yards away.  They looked at her.

“I can try to help with whatever the judges were going to help you with.  If I can’t, then maybe instead of it being a couple centuries it could be a couple centuries minus seventy or eighty years.  And I- we can make sure you’re really well set up for after, protected, so you can last the next while, until you can take the seat and… make it up to the soldiers you killed.  Put them to rest or release them or… whatever it is.”

Musser’s diagram illuminated.

She went on, “I said Verona’s in my top four favorite people.  Avery, my big brother, my mom, and Verona.  But you rate pretty up there, John,” Lucy said.  “I think of who I’d want to be my partner and familiar and you… I can’t think of anyone else that I’d trust to have my back.”

The area around Musser was becoming nighttime, and that area was growing.  Lucy could see snow, and she could see the blood on the ground.  The four legged stain on the ground, that stretched three-quarters of the way around the parking lot, body across the rink, which she could make out, head against the snowbank.

If Musser were to look, he might see the people leaving the building, and he might see her and Verona among them.  He might see Avery.

Were he to follow them, he’d see them go out to get Killaloe Dough or wherever it was they’d gone, wearing snow jackets, toques, and boots, and Miss would approach them.

Starting them on this road.

She’d had no idea she’d be here, begging John not to take the risk of fighting for the Carmine throne, knowing Faerie and other forces were preparing to take it away from him moments later.

“If you hadn’t reminded me of other promises I’d made, just before you asked this, as you asked this, I might’ve jumped to saying yes,” John said.  “It’s a kind offer.”

“Is that a no?” she whispered.

“Let me think on it?  It’s a big decision.”

She nodded.

“Your glyph is breaking, he’s distracted, as is his most dangerous, blood-lusted Other.  I’d like to act while the opportunity is there.”

She nodded.

“I’ll cut through the building.  Retreat around the side. If something happens to me, tell Toadswallow and Miss.”

She reached for her cards, sorted through them, and pulled out some.  “This one, to lock a door after you, slap it on the surface.  And this one, to set a fire.  I know fire doesn’t hurt you.”

“They’re strong, I don’t think it hurts them.”

She put it in his hand.

“Go,” he said.

She turned, and she ducked away.  Past branches of pine needles, past spiderwebs.  Out toward the part of the Arena that faced Kennet, that was in view of traffic.

She used the Sight, peering past the image of the snowbank, and she saw John was hiding in the image, moving slowly, gun drawn.

Musser can catch bullets.  Or do you think he can’t while he’s doing the ritual?

He moved out of her sight.

This is reckless.

You have promises to keep.  For the soldiers you killed.  You said you’d consider being my familiar, she thought.

Her heart throbbed, too high up.

Gunshots made her jump out of her skin.

She ran- not away, but to the side.

To the door.

If he was coming through-

She flipped through her cards and she didn’t find the one she needed.  She flipped through again-

There.  Quality of earth.  She held the card around the outside of her fingers, pinky and thumb holding down the ends, and she punched the doorknob.  It hurt, but the doorknob shattered.

More gunshots.

She hauled the door open.

The rink was still there, plexiglass and boards surrounding it, the building empty and dark.  John hauled open the door, then moved to the side of it.  The four-Others-in-a-bowler-hat came tearing through, knife in hand, and stabbed at John.  He met the knife with his own, slapped the notecard against the door, and- wrong one.

It set a fire.  And the fire did seem to give the others pause.  John wrestled with the Other, who dissolved into four, a coordinated mass of eight arms and eight legs, joined together by clothing that was almost prehensile.  John made it about twenty feet of continuous movement before he hit a wall, banging against boards and plexiglass, pressed back by the Other.

“Get out of here!” John shouted, as a knife slashed him from one corner of his face to the other.  The Other pressed in, pushed by its partners, and it maneuvered, dragging knife down throat, shoulder, arm-

John kicked the Other away, fell, and rolled to his feet, stumbling as he got up.

Lucy backed out of the door.  She looked around, and there weren’t many people around.  It didn’t look like Jabber was acting, but something was up… Musser.  It had to be Musser.  Protecting this area before doing the augury.

She’d use that.  Glamour.  Lucy reached for hers, and she threw down cards at the mouth of the little path around the side of the building.

Light erupted, and in the midst of that light, she made the gestures, to draw out streaks of orange and yellow.  John had already given them the clues-

She painted fire, then she drew it out large, creeping up tree branch.

She did the same at the other side, before Musser could get in his car and drive through.  She had cards for smoke and she built smoke.

She hauled the door open, and saw John running her way, reloading his gun.

“Hold!” she shouted to him.  “Don’t shoot!”

The Other came over ice, crawled over the wall, and leaped in a way no ordinary living things could, grabbing onto the ledge of the stands that arched over the entryway.

She scribbled on partially prepared cards she’d done with Verona.  The first read Failure.

She had wind runes ready.

“One shot in three, two-”

The Other pounced on John.  He leaped, put a leg up, bracing the bottom of his foot against the Other’s chest, and pushed himself out and away.  An arc that threatened to have him land on his neck.

She released the paper.  The wind blew it.

“-One!”

The bullet fired.  The paper zipped to a position where the bullet could catch it, and the bullet drove the paper home.

A paper, marked with the epithet, nailed in with a bullet.

“Second shot in three, two-”

The Other screeched with four mouths.  One of the four threw out a chain.  It caught John by the wrist.  The gun fell out of his hand as spikes inside the manacle dug in.

She released the paper.

“One!”

He drew another gun, firing with his off hand in the same motion he drew it.

Nailing it in with a bullet, right through one’s forehead.  Inferior.

“Third in three…”

A second chain caught John by the other wrist.  Two long adult arms stretched out of the coordinated mass of four Others, and whipped out chain with unnatural strength, hooking it around a light fixture above.  It did the same with another fixture, the other chain.

Arms outstretched to either side, John was heaved ten feet off the ground.

The girl with the surgeon’s mask and a five-foot-long apron on her four foot body leaped out, landing on John, scalpels punching into the tops of his shoulders, which held all his weight.

She began carving.  Blood ran down the length of John’s body to his leg, down from toe to the mat on the floor.

At the far end, Musser, hand at his face, glasses broken, shoved the door open.  Two of his Others were there.  The women.

Lucy’s Sight started going crazy as spirits and echoes began to flow in from behind the young-old woman.

Lucy swung her bag around, grabbed her mask and cloak, and broke into a run.  Toward the most dangerous of the Others.  The two women would have to get around or through the rink.

More glamour.  She had stuff prep-prepared, on cards she’d marked out with images of overlapping foxes and smoke.

She broke herself up into three pieces, darting up walls to the chains, down chains to John.

With teeth she seized the Other that held the scalpels.  Against an Other of four coordinated bodies, five foxes made of smoke became just solid enough to pick her up and push.

All instinct.  All frustrated fury and protective urges.  She wanted John to be her familiar to have someone reliable to protect her, but she also wanted- she wanted to protect that look of heartbreak in his eyes, to make it better, like she could maybe never do for her mom, because that image would stay with her.

The various arms were ready, holding tools.

She knew she had to make these count, delivering the curse wasn’t just about saying something mean three times.  It had to be nailed in with something physical.  It had to escalate, each time.

She couldn’t escalate from a gunshot.  Not really.  But she could kick.  The paper found her foot as her foot became the point by which she expressed her aggression.  The mars sign inside the aggressive connection knot.

And it stuck to her aggressor because the connection sign that made it stick was bigger.  The paper was branded with a curse: A disappointment to yourself and others.

Lucy fell.  She tried to use a rune to break the fall, throwing paper down, but she only sent herself sideways.  It was less than great as runework and practice went, and made her think she’d gainsaid herself in a small way very recently.

Her sideways roll dragged her against prickly rubber mats with gaps for the moisture to drop through, and across grit on the floor.  But it was a landing from a high fall that she’d survived and she’d live with that.

The Other, holding the chains that held John up, advanced, and in the process, pulled on John’s arms.  John kicked at it, but the Other rearranged itself, four coordinated bodies, one insensate with a bullet in its head, and two long muscular arms.

And one paper she’d stuck to it.

The paper hadn’t been nailed in in a way that would bring the curse home, but… she’d put a rune on it to make the words burn.

The letters glowed orange-yellow, and smoke erupted from beneath the paper.  The Other snarled, shaking its head, but it couldn’t shake off the paper.

It tore, scrabbling with fingers, and it let go of John, letting him drop to the ground.

Chains broke like glass.

Muscular hands pulled away the paper, but they couldn’t pull away the mark.  Three papers, three epithets, three means of nailing it in.  Hot lead, hot lead, and hot fire.

The scribbled ‘disappointment’ was burned into the side of one of the four faces, as if she’d used a hot wire pressed against skin.

John picked himself up, and reached for her.  He grabbed a fallen gun, and he shot, bullets punching through glass.  He didn’t aim for Musser, but he aimed for two of the Others.

They fled through the front door.  She slapped a paper against the door.  Maybe Musser could break it, but Musser wouldn’t move as fast as his Others did.

They crossed the street and in the time it took them to do that, the door remained closed.

“Too risky,” she told John.

“There’s no way to face him that isn’t,” John said, one hand at his wounded shoulder, the other holding the gun.  “You should have left me.”

“Sacrificing yourself again?  We’re going to have to work on that,” she told him.

He didn’t reply to that.

They crossed the street and reached trees that would let them safely get to water and shore under the cover of woods.  Her last glance back showed the door opening, Musser emerging.

Weakening one of his better Others, breaking his glasses, that would cost Self to repair.  Or whatever he used to repair implements that weren’t his by right.  Disrupting a ritual that had taken time and energy to put together.  She knew from Alexander and the way Jessica’s ritual had been broken up that these things didn’t tend to allow for redos.

She just wished it hadn’t been so risky.

They escaped, and she set up some more connection block stuff to hamper the pursuit.  Crossing the river would help a lot, especially if that fourfold Abyssal Other she’d just cursed tracked blood, the running water would hopefully block its ability to track John.

John trudged through the water, just to be safe, one hand over his wounded shoulder.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes.  Harm through medical tools takes longer to heal than harm through weapons of War, but… I’ll be fine.”

“I’m- we’re worried about the goblins, John,” she told him.  “We think Bluntmunch and possibly Gashwad are in on the conspiracy.  Playing along, playing distraction, being muscle.”

John turned a sad look her way.

“I’m sorry.  I know you’re friends.”

“We knew from the beginning of this, when we set you to the task, there was a chance our friends could be part of it.  We readied ourselves.”

“Yeah,” she replied, quiet.

“I thought I’d been lucky so far.  I knew Edith but she wasn’t a close friend.  Just… acquaintance and ally.  I didn’t care much for Maricica.  It was always Guilherme I traded war stories with.”

“Yeah.”

“Charles… I didn’t mind.  That one hurt most of the three.  But… the goblins matter more to me than Charles.  We’ve had fun times,” he said.  His voice was a bit hoarse, quiet.  “Bluntmunch?  It wouldn’t surprise me.  Gashwad… I don’t think so.”

“Even for power?  The ability to fight?”

“I don’t think so,” John said.  “If Bluntmunch is in, I don’t think Gashwad is, and if they wanted distraction and muscle… Bluntmunch would be better.”

“And Bluntmunch’s goblins, maybe.  We think Biscuit exonerated herself by accident, and Ramjam is… Ramjam.”

“They do what he says.”

“That fits.  So it’s just Bluntmunch, you think?”

“If I had to guess?  Going by what I know?  Him and those that follow him, varying degrees of complicity.  Some are too dumb or distractable.”

“Why?” Lucy asked.  “Is he that mercenary?”

“It’s not greed, it’s fear.  He’s afraid of Toadswallow and what Toadswallow represents.  He’s used to big meaning better and Toadswallow doesn’t fit with that.  It’s jealousy, worse since Toadswallow became our council leader.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Be careful.  Bluntmunch is big, but he’s not stupid either.  Different kind of intelligence than Toadswallow.”

“Yeah.”

“I think… let me heal, we’ll talk to Toadswallow.  I think his reaction will be similar to mine.”

“Hurt?”

“Hurt, but not overly surprised.  Ah, what a mess,” John grunted.  “There aren’t enough people on our side, and the ones who decide to be our enemies are so hard to budge.”

“Yeah,” she said.

He decided he’d traveled far enough down the water that the blood-tracking Other wouldn’t be able to pursue, and ventured onto shore.  His wound had stopped bleeding and was clotting over.

He sighed, bent down, and washed blood off his hands in the shallow river.

She hung back, giving him space to get sorted out.  When he straightened, there was a look of sadness in his eyes.  He didn’t have many friends, and he’d just found out at least one was willing to sell them all out.  If Bluntmunch was willing to work against Kennet for… greed or fear, or whatever it was, for hatred of Toadswallow or the fact Toadswallow stood against some goblin status quo, it meant Bluntmunch was willing to let John fall victim to whatever the conspirators wanted to do.  Letting him take the throne and then taking it away.

“I can stick around, if you need company, a friend, or-”

“No,” John said, and it was firm, leaving no room for doubt.  “Go, do what you need to do.”

“I want to be your ally and friend here, especially after-”

He shook his head.

She’d offered the familiar bond.  She’d made her argument, planned ahead of time, most of it, anyway.

Him saying no to her assistance and company now felt like it was basically an answer to that question, even if he’d pledged to think about it.

“Yeah,” she said, feeling a bit of that heartbreak she’d been talking about.  “Thanks for… talking, and working things out regarding the tricky goblin stuff, and, heh, for tolerating the boy talk.”

She gave him a small smile.

“Anytime,” he said, smiling back, giving his shoulder a rub with a hand and then an experimental rolling movement, as if to check the severity of the damage.  “Even after this week, if we can make it through.”

There were two ways to interpret that.  That she’d have seventy years with him.  Or that he’d be there to talk to, even sitting on the Carmine Throne.

Seeing him realize what he’d said and seem to almost regret it, she knew which it was.

“Sure,” she told him.

Next Chapter