Summer Break – 13.12
Author: Wildbow

Summer Break – 13.12 | Pale

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“Gotta cover both entrances,” Avery said.

The Witch Hunters moved around them.

“Go,” Verona said.  “You two.  Trust me.”

Lucy gave Verona a long look.  Weeks of feeling beaten down, on edge, feeling lesser, guest in someone else’s house like some stray cat brought inside just long enough to get patched up… the fights, it made it really hard to tell herself that the look wasn’t mistrust.

She knew it wasn’t mistrust, not fully.  It was concern.  But it was really hard to tell herself that.

“Back her up?” Lucy asked Zed.

“We’ll try,” Brie answered.

“Goblins?  Some of you with us.”

“Freak and Squeak with me,” Avery said.  “Nibble and Chloe with Verona?”

“Heck yeah,” Verona said.  She put out a hand for a high-five.  Chloe high-fived her, long sleeves draped over most of her hand, thumb sticking out of a hole in the side.

The other two moved toward the front of the building.  Verona motioned for her group to stay down.  Not that any of the goblins that were around were tall enough to peer over the roof’s edge without first climbing it.  “Watch they aren’t climbing up over the edge.  Grappling hooks and crap.”

“Yeh,” Nat replied.

The scare with Lucy almost getting her head taken off at the front end of the rooftop was fresh in Verona’s mind.  She ducked low, approaching the side of the rooftop instead.  To the right of the rooftop was trees, curving slightly inward like wacky trees in some children’s book.  To the left was the road to the back parking lot, and then more trees.

The Arena was the biggest deal in Kennet after the ski hills themselves.  Five rows of seating.  That necessitated parking, and the back lot had most of that, along with space for an outdoor skating rink as well, currently dismantled.  The Witch Hunters were back there, organized and very, very dangerous.

Rune for wood… she hadn’t used that much.  Connection… markings for distance…

“They’re at the back door,” Zed said.  “Checking.”

She looked back and Zed had a phone out.  He was aiming it in the direction of the door, looking past or through the roof.

“If there’s trouble, come to me,” Musser said.

Verona raised an eyebrow, then saw he was talking to Raquel.  Apparently giving her orders without explicit orders.  Raquel remained behind while Musser and his familiars followed Lucy and Avery, to observe.

Verona finished making the necessary marks, paused, then added a bit of a lopsided ‘earth’ inscription to the connection indicators.  She didn’t want to land it too close, and she didn’t want to hit the branches.

She cast the papers over the roof’s edge.

Connection blockers drew papers to trees.  The papers swooped down and touched where wood and earth connected.  She peeked over the side, saw a Witch Hunter- but he was more focused on the papers, shouting a warning.

Runes detonated.  Chunks were taken out of trees, and trees fell.  She’d have to make this up to nature spirits, like the one she’d befriended while on vacation with her mom.  Plant trees and shit.

Wood creaked and some trees began to tip.  A smaller one fell, and that was enough to scare some Witch Hunters away from the back door.

The appearance of the first Hungry Choir children at the upper end of the rooftop helped in that regard.  Brie.  There was a gunshot, and one was knocked onto his ass: a kid wearing baggy clothes, dressed up like a tough guy with a mangled gold grille in his mouth, sawing at one corner of his lip as he pulled lips back to snarl.

The kid got back up.  Others appeared.  A gun was apparently aimed and fired at someone on the ground.

She hadn’t knocked over as many trees as she’d hoped.  Had she hit the same tree too many times?  Or-

She looked and she saw the branches.  The trees were so close together, branches mingled, that the other trees nearby were helping to hold the damaged ones upright.  They sagged but didn’t fall.

Verona grabbed a shingle with nails in it, and pulled chalk out of her pocket.  A rune for wood… spikes pointing inward…

“You’re really going up against this many Witch Hunters, huh?” Raquel asked.  “No hesitation?”

“What’s happening is major,” Verona said.  “I don’t know how you guys don’t get this.  Affects the whole region.”

“We get it,” Raquel said.  “But these things normalize after a while, you know?  Like the Blue Heron thing.  Sure, really shitty, but things settle down after, new is mostly same as the old.”

“Yeah?  That’s working out okay for you?  Friendships intact, everything cool?” Verona asked.

Goblins sniggered.

“How’s being a bitch working out for you?” Raquel asked.

“I’m just saying-”

“It’s the reality, Hayward.  I don’t always like it but it’s the way things are.  Things settle, things return to the norm, and if you’re paying attention and watching for opportunity, you can end up on top of things after.”

Wood was creaking.

“Just make sure you aren’t missing the forest for your opportuni-trees,” Verona said, touching the rune.  She winced as a goblin threw a fast food wrapper at her head, presumably for the pun.  Then she tossed the shingle with the rune on it over the rooftop’s edge.  Trees groaned, branches snapped.  She shouted after it, “For Kennet!”

A gun fired.

The trees relaxed.

“Did they just-”

“Shot the rune,” Zed said.

“Are you kidding me!?”

“I don’t think you realize how dangerous Witch Hunters are,” Raquel said.

“I’ve been hunted by the Witch Hunters, on several occasions so shut your yap!” Verona retorted, scrambling to find another suitably heavy thing to drop over the roof’s edge.  “You’re the ones who’re really not getting just how bad this goes if we don’t win tonight.  I don’t think things settle like you want, and you’re just going to observe with thumbs stuck up your asses?”

“Ew, and I think my uncle wants to re-establish contracts with the Witch Hunters later.  Which is magnanimous of him considering Reid and everything.  Fighting them would make things worse.”

“Oh my god.  Do you even understand what’s happening down there?” Verona asked.  She scribbled on a bit of plastic left over from the roof’s ledge as best as she could.   “Do you understand what the seat is?”

“A stopgap measure until a proper lord eventually gets set up in an area.  I’m impressed you can draw runes and talk at the same time.  Takes concentration.”

“Raquel,” Zed said.  “Ease up.  Let us focus.  Verona-”

“What?”

“In the interest of keeping our focus on what’s happening, someone just touched the ladder and collapsed.  Witch Hunter.  I kept it nonlethal.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Electricity isn’t usually bright and loud.”

“So they’re there already?”

“Yeah.”

If they were there already there was a chance they could slip around behind Lucy and Avery, catching them off guard.  Verona’s teeth clenched, her tongue like lead at the floor of her mouth, her hands not cooperating fully as she hurried to get stuff.  Any stuff.

Blank notecards, pens, the plastic- papers, torn from her notebook, scrap illustrations.  She crumpled some in her hands.

“For Kennet,” she said, touching the rune with thumbs while her hands clutched the other stuff.  Then she tossed it all, plastic included, over the roof’s edge, above where the doors were.

“Heads up!” a Witch Hunter shouted.

There was another gunshot.  This time it didn’t stop things.

The rune activated.  The plastic was a less-good surface for drawing on, probably had less affinity with the wood than a shingle, and she’d rushed it more.

But it worked to pull on the wood, drawing it in.  Trees tangled up in one another pulled free, and they toppled, landing across the parking lot, aimed for the doors.  Some clipped the edge of the building.

Looking back, she could see smoke.

“They’ve started shooting at the Choir with bullets that are keeping them down longer,” Brie said.

“We’ve delayed, door’s blocked, hopefully the side path and road are blocked…”

“Yes,” Zed said.  “Well, like, I wouldn’t drive over that.  You maybe could.  Lucy filled the road with smoke, looks like.”

“Hopefully now we can scare ’em off?” Verona said.  “Or frustrate ’em?”

“They’re Witch Hunters,” Raquel noted.  “They run at the things they’re scared of.”

“Just hold back,” Zed said.  “Delaying them works for now.”

“This contest could run for hours, according to Lucy.  She saw one of the old rituals in the Alcazar.”

“Yeah,” Zed replied, looking up.  “Hopefully your guy John hurries things along.”

Verona turned her head.  The Witch Hunters had gone quiet.  No gunshots, no real fuss…

She pointed at the phone.  Zed looked down, then shouted, “Get back!”

It came sailing over the back edge of the rooftop.  A mote of fire, flipping end over end, attached to- a bottle.

Verona scrambled back, feet skidding on the gravel of the roof as she tried to get to her feet, remembered she didn’t want her head to stick over the edge-

Raquel reached out, a hand-mirror held out.

The bottle bounced off of an invisible wall, clinking, and reversed course, sailing back at the sender.  There was a shout.

“Thank you,” Verona said.  She would’ve gotten out of the way, but she wasn’t positive she would’ve gotten all the way out of the way.

“Don’t interfere, Raquel!” Musser called out.

“Yes sir,” Raquel replied.  “I thought a molotov cocktail and a bigger fire would be inconvenient.”

The man didn’t reply.

“Yes sir,” Raquel repeated, like he’d said something in the middle of that silence.

Verona crouch-walked over to Zed, straightening up a bit as she got further from any point the Witch Hunters might be at.  She looked over his shoulder at the screen.

The wood near the door was on fire now.  That worked, even if it might get out of control.  She was pretty sure there wasn’t anything directly flammable there.  It was more likely the fire would spread along the fallen tree to the trees around the Arena, now.

That worked.

She sat down by him and began drawing runes, using her leg as a surface.

Another gunshot from the front of the building made her nearly jump out of her skin.  Her pen drew a ragged line across the work, in the process.  She threw the notecard aside and started over.

“That mirror a magic item?  Or something that used to belong to someone else?  I had the sense you weren’t in on the family secret,” Verona said.

“Magic item.  But I’ve got some instrumental incidentals.”

“Some what nows?”

“They were implements, owner died, item was left behind, took on incidental power… you left before that class, right.”

“Right right.  Guess an implement is nicely primed to become an accidental magic item.”

“Yeah.  Pretty good ones, a lot of the time.”

Verona paused.  She was good with words, but not so good with people.  Even with her closest friends, sometimes, apparently.  She wasn’t sure how to deal with Raquel, but the Witch Hunters were staying put, they weren’t lobbing anything else up onto the roof, and things seemed to have stabilized.  Verona looked at Zed’s screen, and saw them trying to deal with the wood blockage.  Some were climbing through, dealing with the collection of members of the Choir in the process.

She could manage that.  Gosh, how though?  Wood connecting to people.  She’d want it to bridge the gap…

Figuring out what to say to Raquel was another thing.  She wrote the rune down.

“I don’t know your family politics, exactly,” Verona mused aloud.

“You don’t, you’re right.  So butt out.”

“You’re butting into our local politics so I reserve the right,” Verona said, still writing down the rune.  “You want power in your family?”

Raquel didn’t respond.

“I think making a good call here might help you stand out and climb the ranks.  If that’s even doable.”

“I think it’s doable,” Raquel replied.  “Avery said something similar.  I don’t think you’re right, though.  Either of you.”

“You’re stuck following behind, Raquel.  You’re obediently doing as you’re told and him?  What he’s doing?  He wants you there, following, behind.  So you can obey every order and do everything right and I don’t think you’ll ever get ahead that way.  By definition.”

“Weren’t you just saying you don’t know my family’s politics?”

“You have to do something bigger.  Make a big call, make a big move.  And right now?  Knowing everything I know?  If this goes topsy turvy and you were there saying you should get involved, or getting involved and helping, like you just did with the mirror?  Maybe that counts, maybe that means he has to listen to you and respect the calls you want to make.  Get out from behind that way.”

“Or it goes topsy turvy and I get blamed for making the situation messier.”

“Maybe.”

“What happens if it doesn’t go badly for your side?”

“I mean, if John wins I think your uncle is gainsaid, right?”

“Yeah,” Zed said.

“And I might get blamed for that.”

“I- I don’t know.  Is he that petty?”

“No.  I don’t know.  Petty’s the wrong word- I shouldn’t be telling you stuff.  I keep saying more than I should.  Just… go save your town or whatever.”

“It’s more than the town, you get that?  It’s-”

Verona heard something shatter below, and it was big, in a way that made her think of liquid nitrogen freezing a truck and a wrecking ball hit it.  No explosion, no sound but the cracking-

Verona Julette Hayward.

She felt the contact as it was made, and then she felt that contact become something that seized her.

And she was on the ground, fire to the right of her, black spikes to the left.  The Sable Prince stood above her, and the trees that laid across the parking lot had been partially turned into those black, cthonic spikes that the Sable Prince had used near Edith, standing out on the lawn.  A path had been cleared to the door.

“Heya,” Verona said.  She wondered if this was what it felt like to be an Other, called by summoning.

“Potential contestants shall not be barred passage to the building.”

“It was not my intention to stop any contestants.  If it was, I would’ve gone after the front door.”

“Keep the way clear.  This is your warning.”

“Right,” Verona said, eyes wide.  The burning wood was close enough she could have put her arm out and burned her fingertips, and it felt like it was getting closer.  The night was cool but the heat of the fire was making her skin prickle.  There was a lot of it.  “Got it.”

“Do any of you wish to participate?” the Sable Prince asked.  “If so, that changes the nature of my conversation with Miss Hayward.”

“Participate in what?” a Witch Hunter asked.  He pointed the gun at the Sable.  The gun turned black and crystalline.  Bits fell free as growing spikes of black onyx ran up against one another and added stress to the construction.  The Witch Hunter dropped the weapon.

“The contest for the Carmine Throne.”

“Would I get to be queen?”  Verona recognized Cleo’s very French accent.  So Cleo had showed.  “And what does it have to do with her?”

“You could call yourself queen if you desired.  Were you to say you wished to take the Carmine Throne and that Miss Hayward’s action barred you, I would deal with her.”

“Tempting,” Cleo said.

“I was stopping Witch Hunters, not barring contestants, there’s a distinction,” Verona said.

The Sable didn’t flinch or acknowledge her.

“This contest idea feels like a trap,” a male Witch Hunter said.

“It is,” the Sable Prince said.  “But it’s a trap many welcome.  You may enter if you wish to participate.  Now, I have other affairs to see to.”

He opened the door, going back inside.

“Uhhh, hey?” Verona asked.

The Sable paused, looking at her.

“You brought me down here, mind sending me back up?”

“One way or another, you won’t bar the way again,” he told her.

The metal and glass door closed behind him.  With the closing, a connection was cut off or an impact delivered.  Obsidian spikes shattered into dust.  The fire remained.

Leaving Verona with about six feet of tree trunk and some branches protecting her, her back to the wood, a branch poking into the skin of her back between the bottom of her top and her shorts.  Leaves tickled her right arm, while nearby fire made that arm prickle.

Running to the left meant running directly across the doors, in full view of armed Witch Hunters.  Running to her right meant crossing the little road leading around the building.

“Huh,” Verona murmured.  “Point very taken.”

A Witch Hunter whistled behind her.

On the camera, she’d seen that some Witch Hunters had been at the side of the building, getting past some of the trees.

“I don’t know how to help!” Nibble called out.

“My right side, your left!” Verona called up.  “Some guys coming!  If you or the goblins could slow ’em down…!”

There were boots shuffling around.

If they walked up another five or ten feet, they’d have a clear shot at her.

Someone fired a gun.  A bit of bark exploded off the tree into a spray of splinters.

She went through pre-drawn spell cards.  There.  She slapped one down on the ground, marked it to close the circuit of the magical diagram, then slid it forward, toward the road and fire.

Interconnected runes, two water, one fire, surrounding architecture to indicate a cloud shape.  Cloud of hot steam.  To make Witch Hunters hesitate to move into the cloud, and to dampen the flames.

“Witch Hunters!” Verona called out.

“Witch!” Cleo called out.  “It’s rude to talk without making eye contact, oui?”

“Ruder to demand eye contact and shoot the other person!  Listen!  You guys are all over the map here!  I don’t suppose you’d be willing to negotiate a bit here?”

“You worked with Lawrence Bristow to get the Aware for the Lighthouse, apparently!”

“Past tense.  The man seems very dead, funny how that works, is it not?”

“Yeah, uh, hi!  He’s not dead but I don’t think he’s coming back.  Got dragged off to the magical kitchens to wash dishes for eternity or something.  And that’s me, I was responsible for that, in a way.  Feels shitty but here we are…  I guess that impacted your business…”

“Come on out and I’ll shake your hand for it.”

“And shoot me while you’re at it?  No thanks.  But seriously, guys, can we… there’s gotta be a way to coexist or something?”

“One’s coming right at you!” Nibble shouted.

Verona grabbed her bag, opened the front pouch, and pulled out the stick arrangement with a cluster of doll’s legs dangling from it.  “Legs!  For Kennet, in accordance with oaths sworn!”

Feet skidded as she slapped it against the tree.  Legs reached inside the wood, and found purchase in the branches.  They began to expand, ‘kicking’.  Each limb of the tree multi-jointed.  It fended off the approach of the Witch Hunter that had been sneaking up on her.

One Witch Hunter was shielding his face, walking into the steam, but as much as he seemed able to endure the pain, he couldn’t see.

“Verona!”  Another shout.

She turned her head.

Francis.  The kid who’d come with the first group.  Nearly silent, holding a knife.

She twisted back, throwing herself back out of the way, kicking up as he reached- the knife scraped the underside of her shoe.

“Legs!” she called out, touching the wood.

The branches reversed direction.  They kicked at Francis, hard, and knocked him into the glass and metal door, hard enough that cracks spiderwebbed out.

She didn’t have long.  She reached into a pocket-

Francis, in the midst of slumping down, perked up and lunged away.

Didn’t have long.  She hated to do this, using up so many resources, but-

She tossed out a card with feathers attached to it.  A bird- she didn’t wear it, but sent it out as a distraction, to draw fire.  Then another.  Then another.

And finally, the cat card.  She used it.

Forming a cat, small, shadowy… leaping forward.

Mid-leap, getting shot three times.

And Verona, following behind the cat, slipped into literal shadow, painting herself in it, dipping into it.  She wore the shape of the shadow cast by the cat.  A question of lighting on the ground, shielded from the flash of gunfire by the cat’s form, as the cat died.  She paused long enough to give the cat a death scene.

She made it past the door and to the length of fallen tree on the other side, which provided cover to let her get to the deeper woods and the narrower space between the building and the trees.

Gonna have to rinse off again.  Ugh.

She scaled the unlit side of the building, to make it back up to the roof, then shucked off the glamour.  She held the spirit-charm.  “Legs, out of the tree.”

“Geez,” Zed said.  “I thought they had you.  I was making a door.”

“It’s cool.  Thanks though.”

Goblins were at the edge of the roof, throwing goblin trinkets and things over the edge.

“Back off, guys.  No more interfering, or the Sable might get mad.”

“Aww!”

“I know, but there’ll be a lot more going on tonight.  Save some shit to throw at Charles, kay?”

“And they’re in,” Zed said.

“What?” Verona asked.

Zed showed her.

There was an image on the phone of the parking lot, as if a security camera was mounted on one of the lights at the far end.

The Witch Hunters entered the building.

So they’ll interfere after all.

“Can I go in after?” she asked.  “The Sable Prince implied entering meant applying to the contest.”

“I really don’t think so.”

“So that’s a thing, then?”

“That’s a thing.  Maybe not for the Witch Hunters, they can sorta ignore a lot of our rules.”

“Are my friends okay?”

Zed checked.  “Yeah, looks like.”

They were standing by a car, the local Others around them.  Talking to a Witch Hunter.

Verona felt simultaneously hopeful that they’d figure this out and work out a deal, and she hated the idea that they’d succeed in working out a deal where she’d failed.  Being clever with words had been her thing.  She’d picked it up fastest… but it was like one of the driving games Avery had given to John, from her brother’s collection.  Some cars had fast acceleration but a low top speed.  Fast out of the gates but weak in a longer race.

Bittersweet.  She wanted her friends to do well, but…

“How’s her mom?”

Zed switched ‘channels’.

It was a very, very dark scene, illuminated by hand-held electric lanterns.  Zed tapped a square in the corner, and the scene distorted, gaining a lot of old person television type snow and the scene changed, highlighting the people involved.

“They went out for a walk out by the water, away from the noise of the party.  Miss is close.  I think- see this line?” Zed asked, quiet.  “Connects to Miss.  He knows she’s there.”

“What’s with the super late night party?  Is he doing that?”

“Nah,” Zed said, quiet.  “I think that’s the distortion Ken and the contest are doing.  Keeping people busy.  The party’s going strong, people are losing track of time, so… no issues, nobody coming out and wondering why the city is weird.”

“Right,” Verona said.  “And Jasmine’s still a hostage?”

“I’ve got a fifty-fifty shot at setting the Beautiful Man’s phone on fire if things get hairy, fifty-fifty on a second trick, trying to draw a lot of attention to him.”

“Does that add up to a hundred or-?”

“No.  Two coin flips.”

“Right.”

“If I’m paying attention to that scene when things kick off, if Miss tries something, or if he does something, signal comes in from Maricica or Charles?  I’ll set those off, maybe it slows him down or distracts him enough.”

“Okay,” Verona replied, quiet.  “She’s one of the most important people to me.  To Lucy, for sure, but me too.”

“After dinner with you guys I kinda got why,” Zed replied.

Brie rubbed his shoulder.

“I’ll do what I can,” Zed told her.

“Can you give that your focus?  Brie, can you watch Zed?  Nibble, Chloe?”

“If it gets bad, we’ll leave with Musser.  But I’ll do my best to stay on that.”

Verona nodded.  “Gonna go check on the others.”

“Good luck,” Brie said.

“You too.”

She hurried across the roof.  As she got to the edge, a bullet clipped the roof’s edge, a foot from her face.

“Shit, Jesus, shit!” Lucy swore.  “What happened?”

“Hiii!” Verona called out.

“No surprises,” a Witch Hunter said.

“Don’t want any either,” Lucy said.

“Can I come down?” Verona asked.

“Yeah.”

Verona circled back, pointed at the ladder.  Zed held up a finger, typed something on his phone, then pointed.

She hurried down the ladder, experimenting with sliding down, but deciding she wasn’t brave enough to do that.  She moved carefully around the unconscious Witch Hunter that lay against the base, stooped down, and snatched up the gun he’d dropped.

She tried to find the safety, couldn’t see in the dark, and she didn’t feel safe enough to drop it into her bag if it might misfire.  Especially if she was going to be dealing with Maricica.

She tossed it into the woods.

She touched a card to the side of her throat to keep her breath clear as she waded through Lucy’s rune-generated smoke.  “Coming through.”

“Hands up!”

She pulled the card away from her throat at the last second.  It made smoke tickle her nostrils, forcing her to blink.

She walked past Squeak and Freak, Ramjam, Snow, and Cherry, who were hanging back.

“Charles is here,” Lucy said.  Lucy and Avery had pulled off masks and Lucy was no longer smoking, but that faint circle was on the ground near her.

“How are we doing with these guys?”

“Trading a few answers for a bit of… them not shooting us?” Avery said, stumbling through the sentence, glancing at the nearest Witch Hunter.

“This time,” the man replied.

Avery nodded.

“You think they’re in it?” the man asked.

“Zed isn’t sure,” Verona said, walking over to the others.  “A friend who knows more than us about a buncha stuff.  Uhh, Witch Hunters get to ignore a lot of the rules the rest of us abide by.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s good,” Lucy said.  “Because they’re on the wrong side of a collection of dangerous Others, and they’re on the wrong side of the three judges.  If they’re part of the competition they’ve got to beat a gauntlet of really strong Others who want to rule over the region.  If not, they’re intruders and that’s a… tough fight.  Sorry.”

“And if they win the contest they become important Others,” Verona added.  “Was just trying to tell some other people… this is pretty major.”

The Witch Hunter winced.

“Okay,” the older Witch Hunter said.  “Good to know, if we end up having to report back to the main office.”

“Thanks for talking,” Verona said.

“Get out of my sight before my trigger finger gets itchy,” the man said.  “You’re minor, this is major, I get that, it’s the only reason I’m letting you go.”

Lucy jerked her head to one side.

They hurried down the parking lot, and around the corner, before stopping.

“Almost got us shot, popping up like that,” Lucy said.  “Almost got yourself shot.”

“Sorry.”

“He’s here,” Lucy reiterated.  “Alabaster told us.  With Lis and Maricica.”

“Where?”

Lucy shook her head.

“Frig.”

“Bit tricky,” Avery said.  “Remember what Ray said about the dam?”

“All of Kennet is a pretty huge space to dam,” Verona replied.  “What do we do?  If we stay close then they’re free to do whatever in the rest of Kennet, that’s bad.  If we go too far, then they could waltz in.  They’d just have to deal with the Witch Hunters, Zed, Brie, and the others.”

“How’s your nose, Squeak?” Avery asked.

Squeak put a claw to his nose, then blew, pulling claw away with strings of snot connecting nose to claw.

“So gross!  So useless, you have a snout and you can’t even smell!?  You went and got a cold!?” Freak exclaimed, kicking Squeak in the shin.

“Snow?” Avery asked.

“It’s good enough to do some serious tracking,” Snow said.

“Even with me in tow?”

“Might hurt more than it helps, but I’m confident we can do it,” Snow said.

“What else?” Lucy asked quiet.  “Options, how do we get a bead on them?”

“Nicolette?” Avery asked.

“Wye,” Verona added.

“I- sure.  Get Wye. Get Nicolette.  You two handle that.  I’m going to call Guilherme.  Faerie to deal with a Faerie.”

Verona nodded.

They walked a few steps away from one another, each with their phones.

Verona searched the school directory, then called Wye.

“Hello?  Bit busy.”

“Verona Hayward here.  I want to call in that favor you owe.”

“No can do.”

“Why not, you butthole?  I was even trying to be nice to Raquel just a bit ago.”

“You rubbing her recent lost friendships in her face and telling her to shut her yap isn’t nice in my books, but I got the general sense of it.  Yeah, but I’m under contract right now, and that means giving my full attention to Musser.  We’re recording everything, so we can let the various Lords in this area of Canada and the nearby U.S. know what’s up after the contest resolves.  Bit of money in that.”

“Okay.  You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.”

“I do.  I hope Nicolette will be more helpful.  Tell her to watch out for those damn needle flowers.”

Lucy walked over, motioning.

“One sec.”

“I’m watching through the phone connection, I see.”

“Hi, Wye,” Lucy said, as she took the phone from Verona.  “You said you owed us one.  That if we went out on a limb to try to help Raquel, it’d count.”

Wye said something Verona didn’t hear.

Lucy replied, “Yeah, okay, but this is strike one, Wye.  We go ahead on good faith, we’ll keep being fair to Raquel, Avery’s got her email.  But if we ask a total of three times in good faith, and you happen to be busy or happen to have reasons not to listen…”

She trailed off, presumably because he was saying something.

“Okay,” she said, hanging up.

“Well?” Verona asked.

“He owes us interest, and he’ll give us the favor next time or the time after, or we’re right to call him out for welshing.”

“Nicolette’s on the job but she’s pretty nervous about the Nettlewisps,” Avery said.  “Ray almost lost an eye to one when they went after Charles at the Blue Heron.”

“Stark reminder,” Lucy said.

“She’s putting everything behind layers, one step removed from herself.  Slows her down.”

Verona nodded.

“Interest?” Avery asked.  “Wye?”

“Wye can’t help,” Verona explained.

“He’ll owe us a bit more.  I’m not sure how we do that.  Maybe we force him to play nice to Nicolette.  Pay her back for helping us out, by getting him to pay her some,” Lucy said.

“I really like that,” Avery said.

“She’ll have to be careful,” Guilherme said, as he stepped out of the trees.  “Wye’s crafty enough he could give her a poisoned apple.”

Guilherme was in the guise of an older man, hair long and white, tied into a ponytail, but features still strong, muscle definition on his hairless chest and stomach, with his shirt unbuttoned, a light brown and well-worn leather jacket worn over it.  Like a bodybuilder and health nut who’d gotten old but hadn’t dropped the routine.  The signs of age there, but all really, really favorable.

“Thanks for coming,” Lucy told him.

“I can help you find her.  I can’t go with you, so you’ll have to continue alone,” Guilherme told them.

“Why the hell can’t you come with us?” Lucy asked.

“She’s so inexperienced, but nimble. I’m too experienced, the nimbleness gone,” he replied.  “No.”

“Guilherme… come.  Back us up,” Lucy told him.

“I can do more here.  You go, Jord- Lucy.  Keep an eye out for bone, for hair, for shed feathers and shed skins.  For carcasses with essential pieces missing, and for dolls and other children’s things that are made of macabre materials.”

“Right,” Avery said.  “I remember that.”

“It’s a trap, and your noticing is part of the trap.”

“We’re supposed to find her trail, but not… notice it?”

“Yes,” Guilherme replied.  “I’ll tell you this.  Chase your own light, Avery Kelly.”

Avery’s eyebrows knit together.

“Snowdrop?  It’s not your first choice of meal, but it’ll help you find the way.”

Snowdrop reached out, taking a moth from Guilherme.  It flapped and tried to escape before she managed to secure it in her hands.  Guilherme touched his nose.

She opened her hands enough to sniff deep, then popped it into her mouth, chewing.

“Focus on what needs to be focused on, Lucy.  Don’t ignore your instincts.  They’re better than most.”

“Yeah.”

“And for you, Verona, a belated gift.  The last one I have to give out.”

Verona hesitated, then reached out.  She took a fragment of glass.  “It’s not cheating?”

“Cheating?” Avery asked.

“Taking another gift.”

Guilherme told her, “Be careful of how much you use.  It is, in itself, a lesson in moderation.  I think that’s important for you.”

“Okay,” Verona said.

He took her hand and he held up the glass.  Letting it catch the light.  By twisting it and moving it, the light focused and split apart.

She found an angle.  Emerald green light magnified in the glass, bright enough the rest of the glass darkened.  There.  That specific direction.

“Her glamour, at its most concentrated.  Mine is a bold gleam, as warm as summer.  Hers is this emerald that darkens the surroundings rather than gleam.  You have three uses.  On the third, the glass will break and cut you deeply enough you have to stop whatever you’re doing for long enough you’ll miss an important event.”

“Not going to use the third use then, I guess?” Verona asked.

“That is your choice,” Guilherme told her.

Verona pointed the direction the glass had indicated.  Nearly directly south, a bit west.  It pointed in the direction of Verona’s house, maybe Lucy’s, but Lucy’s mom wasn’t home.  No… as she took a few steps to the side, she could get the angle.  Closer to her own house.

She looked back at Guilherme.  “So that’s a trap?  If that’s the trail?”

“Yes.”

She looked the opposite direction.  Trees blocked the way and Kennet was distorted in shape, especially around the Arena.  She had to use her mental picture of Kennet…

“Downtown?  The town center?” Avery asked.

“It’s as good a direction to start as any,” Guilherme said.

“Want me to get us there faster?” Avery asked.  “Worst we can do is overshoot.”

“And the hangover?” Lucy asked.

“I can deal.  That’s a tomorrow problem.”

Verona nodded.  “My house, or close to it?”

“On it,” Avery said.

She had three coins she’d borrowed Verona’s paints to prime and paint over.  Well, she’d painted one, but the rest had started to pop up here and there.  Avery collected them when they did.

It was a Finder practice, from Avery’s big batch of new things.  Each coin was metaphorically ‘bought’ by turning down a journey, a trip, or an experience.  Each coin could then be spent to accelerate travel through other realms.  There was a chance for things to be livened up, for Lost to turn up, for the experience to be intensified in a variety of ways.  They’d done it with the Ruins to get to the Blue Heron faster.

Here, Avery laid one coin down.  “Three coins, open the way three times as easy, get us there three times as fast, and make our aim three times as true.”

“What important trips have you been turning down, Ave?” Verona asked.

“Mom was in town, remember?  She asked if I wanted to go… places.”

“Sucks you had to do that.  Skipping out on mom time.”

“All of this is more important,” Avery said.  She touched chalk to the ground.  “By way of Ruins, paid in Lost coins.  Three of us.”

“Be safe, help Guilherme,” Lucy told the Others.

The runework wrote itself from the point where the chalk touched road.

It came fast and it hit hard, water erupting around them, covering them.  Echoes and forces tore past them.

“Reminds me, I used glamour, I should rinse off,” Verona said.

“We’re maybe about to face Maricica, you tit!” Lucy exclaimed.

“You haven’t either, so you’re more of a tit than I am!” Verona retorted.

“Well yeah, but I had to use that, Avery was about to get tazed.”

“I had to too!” Verona retorted.  The emotions ripped past.  Tense ones, hard ones.  Scared.  She bit back the words she might’ve said.  “Give me the benefit of a doubt, kay?”

“Remember what Guilherme said!” Avery raised her voice.  “Lucy, stay focused.  Verona-”

Moderation.

More echoes.  She recognized Brie in them.

“Don’t overshoot!” she exclaimed.

Avery clapped hands together.

The initial eruption of water hadn’t even stopped, and now it fell away.  They were- Verona got her bearings.

The town center loomed, the clock glowing a faint orange-red, the rooftop a green copper.

Snowdrop lifted her nose to the air and sniffed.

She got so much more power.  Would I have that, if I’d committed?  If I’d just jumped into the Halflight stuff, screw second guessing?  Ask Matthew to sponsor me, get him more involved?  He knows about hosting.

She looked at Lucy.  Lucy was strong, too, just in different ways.

“Zed’s watching your mom,” Verona said.

Lucy nodded quickly.

Downtown Kennet with no people was eerie.  It was two-forty in the morning, going by the town clock, but most nights, as they’d found out while patrolling and dealing with Wraiths, there were often people up and about.  Some were addicts or troublemakers, others just hit the bar until closing, then drank into the middling hours of the night.  They’d even learned to recognize some regular faces.  People would walk this way and that, laughing and talking at normal volumes at three, four, even five o’clock at night.  It was apparently worse during winter, with all the people in town to use the ski hills, but she hadn’t been a practitioner last winter, hadn’t had cause to see.  There were apartments and businesses that sometimes had lights on until stupidly early hours, or always.

Nothing now.

Kennet slept and when it woke up everything would be different, in a way they couldn’t recognize or pin down.  Maybe it would be John managing the violent forces of the world.  Maybe Reid Musser.  Or the ear thing.

While Avery roamed, Snowdrop sniffed, and Lucy walked across the street to get a better perspective.

Verona took a moment to clear her pockets of things, holding them out of the way as she doused herself in water, rubbing vigorously as best as she could.  She put papers and stuff on the ground and pinned them there while she got rid of glamour, soaking herself.

When she was done, she gathered it up again.  The last of it, papers she’d folded up that she was keeping in a pocket for reference- various fliers.

She unfolded them.

“Lucy.”

Lucy looked over.

Verona showed Lucy the papers.  Ken-derived stuff.

“What is it?” Avery asked.  She was coming back from her roaming.

She was too far away to have noticed, but Snowdrop had noticed and passed it on, apparently.

“Fliers with the contestants.  They’ve changed.”

“Don’t tell me one’s of Charles now,” Avery said, hurrying over now.

“No, and no Witch Hunters, either,” Verona said.  “Got three of Ondvarg’s, they’re faded out and tattered.  Face thing is too.”

“Go John,” Lucy said, quiet.

“Check it,” Avery said.  She pulled a paper from a post.  “Lauren Snyder.  We saw her.”

“Are there any others?  The Witch Hunters?” Verona asked.  “Charles?”

Avery shook her head and shrugged.  “Don’t see any.”

“The fact it’s reporting on the contest as it’s happening is… not right,” Lucy said.  “That’s not what I saw in the Alcazar.  It’s supposed to be insulated better than that.”

“So why does it matter?” Verona asked.

“I don’t know.”

Verona got her phone, and she dialed.  She’d just been thinking about Matthew, too.

When Lucy gave her a quizzical look, Verona showed her the face of the phone.

“Verona?” Matthew asked.

“You’re watching Ken.  We had questions.”

“Ask.”

“Fliers are changing.  We’re getting updated ones.  Is there any way he can tap into that, give us some info?”

“I’ll ask.”

“We’re not far from them,” Avery said.

“That’s part of what worries me,” Verona said.

“Follow your instincts.  Go,” Lucy said.

She hated go.  She didn’t like running, especially the uneven running that ended up happening when she wasn’t using one arm, because she held a phone to her ear, when she had the weight of a full bag at her back.  When she had a rising feel of sick in her guts.  Like things were out of control, she felt uneasy about the outcomes, uneasy about the current situation with the three of them, uneasy that they didn’t know where the hell the invaders were.  Were they running around like chickens with their heads cut off?  Chasing wild geese?

They ran down the empty, lightless block of downtown Kennet.  The Arena was more a source of light than the moon above them, and it was a full moon.  Slanted shadows cast by red light beat out the white of the moon.  The distortion of Kennet made the streets seem wider, the buildings taller, the distance between important places and corners shorter.  Was Ken helping?

“Ken doesn’t know.  Knowing these things isn’t a strength of his.  He’s still young, relatively speaking,” Matthew said.

“Okay.”

“I was going to- something may be wrong,” Matthew said.

“With?  You can’t just say that,” Verona said, stopping in her tracks, huffing out a breath.  “What’s wrong?”

“I was going to wait.  You have enough to deal with, Ken wasn’t sure, then Lucy texted to say they might be here, I asked Ken to try to narrow down the feeling-”

“Spit it out!”

“Ken feels weaker.”

“Ken feels weaker,” Verona said, for Avery’s benefit.  Lucy’s eyes went wider.

“I was asking how, how he could place it-”

They ran with a touch more intensity now.

“-said if it kept up another few minutes without us being able to diagnose or without it getting better, we’d contact you guys.”

Another wild goose chase?  A subtle hint at something to produce a big action, something that dragged them off course, pulled them further from where they needed to be?

Where was that glamour supposed to lead them?  If they’d used the glass, if they hadn’t had Guilherme’s advice, where might they have ended up?  What was at her house or past it?

The awakening site?  Where they’d started on this journey?

What would that matter?

If they’d gone there, would Maricica have led them astray?  Or was that where they were meant to go?

It felt like being at school, end of the year, knowing she’d fucked around more than she should, the last set of tests, knowing report cards were coming at the end of the week, worrying no matter what she did, the wrong decisions had been made already.

They reached the entryway to Ken’s domain.  Or at least, the last one they’d used.

“Matthew?” Verona asked.  “Can you get-”

“Wait,” Lucy said.

Verona paused.

“My mom watches these shows with my aunt Heather, even when they’re not in the same town, they’ll watch and then talk about it on the phone.  I hear a lot of this stuff.  I can’t help but think of one thing in a show I watched.  Guy breaking into a prison to kill someone, convinces everyone something’s wrong, poison or something, so they’ll open the way, move the guy, and the hero can get at the target.”

“Pretty dark hero if he’s killing people,” Avery said.

“You think this might be the trap?  Ken’s locked up all tight, they mislead us, get us to open the door, and give them the means of getting inside?” Verona asked.

“Like how we didn’t want to move the furs.”

“Get more info from Matthew,” Lucy said.

Verona put the phone to her ear.  “Matthew?”

The response was a crackle.

The call disconnected abruptly.

Verona licked dry lips, still breathing hard from the run.

She changed targets.

“Ronnie?”

She hit the call to connect to Zed.

The phone didn’t even try.  No connection.

“Phones are dead,” she said.  “Last we got was Ken was feeling weaker…”

“What the hell are they doing?” Lucy asked.  “Do we break in?”

“Can we?” Avery asked.  “Maybe if we took a shortcut to the spirit world, we could get to Ken’s place from there.  But we did protect the crap out of it.”

Snowdrop grabbed Avery’s arm.  “You don’t have anything from Ken.”

“The pin?” Avery asked.

Snowdrop shook her head.

Avery pulled the pin from her backpack strap.  She paused as she looked at it, then pressed it into Snowdrop’s hand.

Snowdrop sniffed it.

“You think that can help us find the shortest path to Ken’s little domain?”

They followed Snowdrop, who used the scent trail as best as she could.  She wasn’t a bloodhound, but she was an opossum spirit, albeit a Lost one, tied to the Paths.  That helped.

Trying to find a way to the spirit, or to get to Ken enough to ask and figure out what was wrong.

They reached the park, two blocks from downtown.  Where Lucy had caught one of the invading body snatchers.  Bridge.

“That’s what I was trying to find,” Snowdrop murmured.

Ken was there, sitting on a bench, staring up at the sky, hands between his thighs, presumably for warmth.

An expanding pool of blood sat below him.

If they’d gone the other direction, they’d be far, far away from this.  From seeing him here, a little out of it.  Bleeding?

“Ken?” Avery asked, quiet.

His head turned.  His eyes widened.

“Didn’t expect to see you,” he said, quiet.

“What did you do?” Lucy asked.  “Or what did they do to you?”

He smiled, shrugging.

“Ken, this isn’t the time to be coy.”

Frustration wormed in Verona’s gut.  Ken resembled her dad.  He did, and it sucked, and it sucked because she worried that would affect things here.

Sucked that Ken and her dad could be so stubborn, so unwilling to help themselves.

“Answer us!” Verona raised her voice.

“Red stars in the sky, city with a red tint, you know?  Getting redder as things move along.”

“Answer us!” Verona told him, hands clenched, voice forceful.  “I’ve asked twice.”

“Ah,” Ken said.  “You’re doing that?  A lesser binding, to take away my liberty?  Ask three times, force the answer?”

“What the fuck do you expect us to do?” Verona asked.  “Answer us!  Three times I’ve asked-!”

“And I’ll answer,” he replied.  He stood, and he was holding a goblet.  The liquid that pooled at his feet came from the goblet, more liquid than the cup should have been able to hold.

“What is that?” Verona asked.

“Which question do you want answered first?” he asked.

She stared at him.  She thought about that connection to her dad.

In Ken’s eyes she saw something that wasn’t there in her dad’s eyes.  Wasn’t properly there in Kennet’s eyes.

“Lis,” Verona said.

“And power,” Lis replied.  He held up the cup, then drank from it.  “Courtesy of Maricica.”

“It isn’t blood,” Snowdrop said.

Lis nodded.

“That’s Lis?” Avery asked.

“Lis… spending power and extending her reach, like she did when we went after her.  She didn’t want us to see she could do that.  She can reach further than just the people immediately around her.  More groups, more numbers.”

Lis nodded.

“Extending her reach so she’s an approximation of every single resident of Kennet.  Just like Ken.  Edging him out of the role,” Verona concluded.

Lis smiled a bit with Ken’s face.  “He doesn’t really hold onto it.  He’s too young to know how, and his personality… I think you probably know.  He doesn’t really fight.  Charles helped arrange the calling of Ken, and they didn’t arrange for him to be strong or tenacious, as far as Others go.  I have power with this cup here, I’m a solid spirit, like John, like Ken.  I’m experienced, I’m ambitious, I can be a representation of Kennet’s people, Ken folds like a house of cards.  It’s enough for me to take the position.”

“Reading the emails about you guys back to back, it did feel like you guys were a bit similar in concept,” Verona said.

Lis nodded.  “Was it Edith who wrote them?  That would make sense, she had an idea of the plan.  She might have done that without thinking.  Dumb, but not unexpected.”

“Matthew,” Lucy said, terse.

“Influenced by her.  Or maybe he realized the link, subconsciously,” Lis said.  “Yes.  Similar enough in concept.  Ken can stay where he is, cloistered away, withering, surrounded by the traps you set, guards you put in place.  The barriers you put up might even be helping him along.”

Lucy shook her head in a tight little motion.  “We were pretty careful.”

“But if you hadn’t done that, we might’ve gone after him.  Or if you’d made him stronger, we’d have other ways.  We could gut him.  We talked about fires at major buildings and landmarks.  Kennet would try to wake up, Ken would have to spend power to keep them asleep and out of the way… or I could come to terms with a sundered and shocked Kennet before he could adjust himself.  I’m faster.  Would’ve taken another ten minutes or so to set up and activate, as part of the bigger plan.  Maricica has alternative plans like that, you know.”

The gap they were trying to dam was too wide and the floodwaters had come.

Verona reached for a spell card as Lucy reached for her bag.

“Didn’t expect you to come here.  Thought Maricica would give you the runaround.”

“Bit of luck, bit of intentional avoiding of the runaround.”

“You hid Jabber away, that was a wrinkle… we had to figure out other options.”

“Power?” Avery asked.

Lis held up the goblet.

Lucy drew a hand along a soda bottle.  It became a gun.

“I had no idea if Maricica would manage it.  Whose blood do you think this is?  It’s gross to drink, but standing in it works too.  Soaks into Kennet, and it’s clearly mine.”

Lis took a step to one side.  The background shifted, skyline sawing against sky.  A railing from one side of the steps moved between them and Lis, marring their view of her.  All three of them scrambled to get to different vantage points.  Verona held out a spell card.  Lucy finished making her gun.

“No,” Avery said.  “The only other power source we figured was big enough-”

They’d discussed it when they’d talked about the options they’d use to try to overwhelm what Maricica might try to do, if she used Jabber.

“The Choir,” Verona whispered.  “Brie.”

“I hate that I have to spend power on getting away,” Lis said.  “Slows things down.”

“Do you really think you’re getting away?” Lucy asked.

The footing of the park shifted slightly, the perspective changing, as if Verona had vertigo.  Lis, streaked in the blood that splashed from the goblet, turned to walk away, holding the goblet so blood slopped down.  They gave chase, but the footing didn’t favor them.

Verona threw the spell card, not at Lis, but at the path Lis wanted to take to get away.

Fire erupted.  The last card of that sort Verona had.  She’d spent the others on John.  She’d wanted a wider variety of options, rather than a huge arsenal of the same.

Lucy stumbled, path through the park uneven, as if every bad or cracked or old bit of path and sidewalk around Kennet had gathered here.  Her gun banged against the top of the railing as she tried to bring it down to aim at Lis.  The landscape around them was sliding into different positions, a labyrinth unfolding.

“Lucy!” Avery shouted.  “To me!”

They hurried to meet.  But it was a bit like a bad dream.  Running as hard as you can and not getting as far as you wanted.

Avery grabbed Lucy by the waist and boosted her, a two-handed thrust to add to Lucy’s jump, giving Lucy the height to step up onto the railing.  Lucy adopted a bit of a pose, like something she’d practiced with Guilherme- and Lucy shot the soda gun.

Dropping Lis.

Lucy half-stepped, half-fell down from the railing, but the ground on the far side was steep.  She skidded, trying to stop herself with her heels on grass, until she reached the base of it, a bit of a ditch.  “How much power does that cost you!?”

Lis moved, blood spreading across the plaid shirt she wore.  Finding her feet.

Verona threw another card, aiming to put Lis down on the ground again.

The sidewalk lifted up, becoming a concrete wall.  A building- the public bathroom that had been at the edge of the park, that always had police coming by to clear out the local homeless.

Encircling her, ensuring her escape.

“Enough, I hope,” Avery said.  “I hope that cost her enough power that it matters.”

Lucy tried her phone, swore.  “No connection.”

Phones would be in Kennet’s domain.

Verona looked around.  She could see the adjustments being made to Kennet.  To slow them down.  To facilitate the other side.  Phones and footpaths.  They’d set Ken up to be supplanted.  Lis, soaked in Brie’s blood, transferred by some goblet or something, was that painting the town red?

They’d been planning to use Jabber, though.  Lis had made it sound like they’d tried to get to him and hit the stumbling block of the shell game of locked boxes.

“They’re going to do more, to paint the town red somehow,” Verona concluded.  “Right now we need to worry about-”

“Brie,” Avery said.  “If they have Brie’s blood, they might’ve gotten to Brie just after we left.”

“The furs,” Verona finished.  “Ken locked them up, but if Lis could take over for Ken, she could unlock it, and that’s why they never really had to worry.”

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