Summer Break
Author: Wildbow

Summer Break | Pale

Next Chapter

Lucy’s phone rang.  Her shaking hands nearly dropped it as she lifted it to her ear, holding it two-handed to keep it in place.  An ugly, empty feeling swelled in the middle of her chest, preparing her for the worst.

“Nicolette?”

“No word on your mom.  Phones are working again.  Avery dashed off.  Why did she go?  Fill me in.”

“A bird.  It stole Yalda’s ring.  John needs it, or-”

“Yalda?  From the Choir?”

“Yes.  They unbound the Choir from Brie.  Charles is inside.  We can’t go, not um- without getting pulled into the contest.”

“Is she okay?”

“Some-” Lucy paused, not wanting to lie, especially when she knew she wasn’t at her best.  “Some blood loss.  Zed’s got her.”

“What can I do that helps the most?”

“The bird,” Lucy said.  “We’ve gotta- we can’t let Charles have a claim to the Choir.  If we get the ring to John-”

“Careful,” Toadswallow interjected.  “Witch Hunter got turned to coinage, just by that hole in the wall.  I think that’s something like the Brownies at the school.  Looked when we all know we shouldn’t.  I think they’ve made it clear, interfering from the outside will be punished.”

Lucy looked and saw a black stain on the crack in the wall.  She frowned as she saw it swirl and move.

“What is that?”

“Smoke,” Toadswallow told them.  “Compressed.”

“Lucy, Lucy-!” Nicolette raised her voice.

Verona hurried over and pressed her ear in close to Lucy’s, sharing the phone.

“-I need more.”

“About the bird?” Lucy asked.

“Ephemeral,” Verona cut in.  “Faerie beast bird, stole a ring inscribed with Songbird, on a- I think it’s a metal bead necklace.”

“On it.  Chase is better at this sort of thing.  Going to see if I can barter.  Hanging up.”

“Luck,” Lucy breathed the word.  Nicolette hung up partway through it.  “Guilherme!  That glass glamour compass you gave Verona.  Is it three uses total, ever, or is it three uses by each user?”

Guilherme made himself sit up.  He was slumped against the building, nonlethal wounds at one arm and his calf staunched by leaves and moss.  “Both.  You can’t cheat it by handing it to everyone here for one use each.  But primarily, it’s by each user, but I would be careful.  You’re a trio, you’re linked.”

“I think if we were more linked, we would’ve done better,” Verona said, looking at Lucy.  “Can we use it?”

“Once.  Twice would be a risk.  Thrice a certainty.”

Verona drew the glass from her pocket and gave it to Lucy.

Lucy held it up, and squinted as the lights shining through flared.  Maricica’s recent presence had laced the area.  Verona practically glowed, and Lucy had traces on her too.  She turned, refocusing the light, and found the thread of the bird, a thin tracing of amber cutting through the treeline.

“That’s our starting point!  Go, go!”

“There’s music!” Zed called out.

They paused just as they were about to run off.

“John gave Brie some music.  We can use that for claim, right?”

“Two things,” Toadswallow said, toddling over.  “There’s restrictions on interference, and that smoke’s an issue.”

“Got you,” Verona said.  She opened her bag, reaching inside.  She checked the labels on two jars she had with her.

She seems so calm.  I’m freaking out and she’s just the same as usual.

Verona passed Toadswallow a jug.  “Vaccuums up smoke.  Made something like it for Cig.”

“That gets the hole open.”

“We can play the sound, right?” Zed asked.  “If we make it loud, but it’s not direct interference, not using the crack, just…”

“Try it, please,” Lucy said.

“Which do you want me to-” Zed started.  A nearly-passed-out Brie squeezed his arm.  “I’ll figure it out.”

Verona ducked down, getting hands dusty on the road.

“You’re using glamour?” Lucy asked.

“I think she knows if she’s still around, we’re going to demolish her.  We need to move fast.”

Lucy hesitated, then nodded.

They became birds and took flight, in the direction the bird had gone.

Black, Explosives!
Ribs!  We need more fire!
Horseman, Angel!  With me!  All we need is one bullet in that asshole!

“I feel like I’ve been talking about myself too much,” Jasmine admitted.

“That’s on purpose.  For one thing, I’m interested.”

“That goes both ways.  I’m interested in you.”

“That’s the other thing.  First thing, I am interested in you.  Second is that I work hard to cultivate a facade.  If I start talking too much about myself, I might let the mask slip.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea that I’m talking to a mask.”

“Aren’t we all?  Every single one of us pretending on some level?  Wearing masks and talking to masks?”

“That’s cynical.”

“And my mask slips a bit.”

“Hmm.”

Steven sighed.  “I’ve been on a few dates, I don’t know if you’ve run into this-”

“I barely date.”

“-the baggage talk?  That part of a first date where you say, we’re in our late thirties, early forties?  You know what I’m talking about?”

“No comment on the age front.”

“That right there’s a mask you know,” he said, with a one-note chuckle.  She smiled and ducked her head in a bit of an acknowledgement.  “But when you hit a certain age, you don’t want to waste time, you know who you are and you know what your limits are.  Some women don’t want to move on to a second date with the clock ticking.”

“I haven’t had those talks, and I’m glad.  Is this what’s waiting for me as I start dating again?”

He laughed.  “Nearly everyone at our age is divorced, or they have one, two, or three children.  The crazy ex, the medical condition, the need for an open relationship, the hard no on open relationships, being trans, any number of other things.  Some dealbreakers, or complications, or things that need to be disclosed.”

“Do you date a lot, Steven?”

“I do.  I travel a lot, which gives me opportunities, and people interest me more than any television show or movie.  There’s my big disclosure.  I go on a date or two every weekend, couple during the week if I can manage it, rarely with the same woman for more than two months.  Is that a dealbreaker for you?”

“No.  There might be questions I’d ask about that if-  no.  But I think we might be more different as people than you were hinting at earlier tonight.  Family’s important to me-”

He sniffed, like he’d found something funny.

“What?”

“Nothing.  I’ve loved hearing about your children.  Vicarious enjoyment.  But yeah.  Family’s a safe bet, I think we’re different there.”

“Do you play up the mysterious thing on purpose, or is it-?” she paused.

“Necessity,” he finished the sentence.

“Not the word I expected.”

“I brought up the baggage because I’m leaving tomorrow- later today, as a matter of fact.”

“Is it that late already?”

“We could talk it out, bring things up, break them down.  Lay out the baggage, have a heart-to-heart.  I’m okay with that, Jasmine.  But it’s just as nice, I think, if we enjoy the night, enjoy each other’s company.  Go our separate ways- or I go, you stay.  Let the mystery linger, an almost perfect evening.  It’s your choice.”

She didn’t give her answer right away.

They walked around the large pond on the property.  Trails led way to parkland and threaded into hills.  Some lanterns by the path provided scant light, but mostly it was the moon.  Kennet was visible in the distance.  Other couples were taking some time on their own, and a healthy respect for privacy meant they walked very slowly, so they wouldn’t walk up to anyone or intrude, and they walked a winding route, circling around those stationary couples and groups of men with beer bottles that were standing or sitting by the pond’s edge.

She remembered how upset Lucy had sounded on the phone.  As they reached a spot where the moon shone on the water and the resulting light wasn’t blocked by reeds or fence, she glanced over at Steven.  He had an unusual but strong jawline that drew the eye, long eyelashes, and long hair tied back into a partial ponytail.  He was tanned, with light blue eyes that stood out in the gloom, wearing a suit with a button-up and no tie.  The light blue of the button-up complemented his skin and eyes.  The scent he wore had cedarwood in it.  It smelled nice enough she’d unconsciously leaned in toward him, earlier.  She’d caught herself before overstepping.

It made her feel like she was in high school again.  Attraction pulled her in, but doubts and uncertainties made her feel anxious about what happened if she followed her heart in that respect.  Lucy’s face and the sound of her anxiousness lingered in her mind’s eye, and that hadn’t been a factor in high school.  A sense of responsibility to someone else.

“I think…” she trailed off.

He looked at her.

“…I think you talked about wearing a mask and I’m worried about what’s beneath.  A nice night with no baggage sounds tempting, but I really do think that when someone tells you who they are, it’s important to listen.  It’s something I’ve tried to impart on Booker on Lucy.”

“You want to know?”

She nodded.

“My father was like frost.  Cold, there in the mornings and late at night, not there at all in the warmer times.  Fragile, attractive.  My mother was more… vines.  Flowers, ensnaring, choking, creeping in.  Frost and vines don’t coexist well, even if they share a lot in common.  What helps one grow and reach out kills the other.”

“Very poetic.  And worrying.”

“I’ve thought about it enough I think it would count against me if I couldn’t find the poetry in it.  I had to exist in the middle of that.  Bound in my mother’s expectations, my father a fleeting, bewildering presence at the edges of my life.  If I tried to reach out for what any kid would want, it’d either be such coldness it hurt, or I’d find the thorns.”

“I’m sorry, Steven.”

“I am too.”

Jasmine wondered if the serial dating tied into that kind of childhood.

“Were they wealthy?”

“She was.  He was… talented.  Resourceful.  And handsome enough nobody questioned why she was dating him.  They saved the questions for after they were married.  I think you would’ve struggled to find one person who could find one point of compatibility.”

“Hard for a child.  Heartbreaking.”

“I played along.  Got away, reinvented myself.”

“Went to med school?  Did getting away mean you did it on your own?”

“Yup.  I got my credentials myself.  Found the right people, really helped.  What about you?  Nursing?  Parents?”

“My mom was a nurse.  I was just at the cusp of that era, they were telling us we could be anything, but if you asked my parents, they didn’t really mean it.  A woman could be a teacher or a nurse.  My parents were terrors.  Bad grade, out past curfew?  Bend me over the knee and give me a whupping.  I guess I didn’t want to test things, so I took my mom’s cue.  It helped me get away, I met the man who’d be my husband, delayed the last part of nursing school to raise the kids, and then my husband passed.”

“Can I ask how?”

“Hepatitis, from close work with a coworker who was doing some dirty jobs.  The doctors didn’t listen to him, didn’t see the signs.  Booker found him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.  Baggage, right?”

“Are you still in contact with your parents?”

“Some.  Phone calls twice a year.  Christmas cards and birthday cards for the kids.  Or Lucy, anyway.  They stopped sending the card to Booker when he turned eighteen.  You?”

“Killed them, weighed them down with rocks, threw them into a quarry.”

Jasmine felt a chill.

She swallowed hard.

“Baggage, am I right?” Steven asked, chuckling.  “I kid, I kid.”

If someone tells you who they are, listen.

“Did the joke not land?” he asked.  “I forget sometimes, working with a lot of the same doctors as I travel, they have dark senses of humor.  They need them.”

I know about gallows humor, Jasmine thought.

Goosebumps prickled her skin, whole-body, as she found herself hyper-aware of the environment.  Steven.

“I’m a bit chilly, and I’m worried about how late it is,” she said.  “Thank you for a nice night, Steven.”

“Don’t go,” he said.

“No need to walk me back.  Enjoy your evening, good luck with your work.”

“I said don’t go.”

He grabbed her upper arm.

“Let go of me, doctor.”

“There is a woman in the dark over there.  To your left, by the large tree.  I’ve been keeping an eye out, but it’s very clear she’s trying to hide.  And her focus is on you, not me.”

Jasmine looked.

There was a woman.  The woman raised a hand, and it was hard to tell whether she was waving or touching a branch, because of leaves blocking the view.

“Jilted ex?” Jasmine asked, wry.  She didn’t feel wry.  She felt painfully lacking in confidence.  A lot of the people at this event were coworkers, the bulk of them from the evening and night shifts, and as much as Jasmine had tried, there was a bad clique among her fellow nurses that she had found impenetrable.  She’d found a few friends to eat meals with and touch base with when things were thrown out of kilter, but only one of those friends was here and she might have already gone home.

She wasn’t sure she had a lot of allies here, if something happened.

“Have I already become such a bad guy in your eyes?  After a bad joke?” Steven asked.

He hadn’t let go of her arm.

She glanced back at the woman who stood in the trees.  “I’ll take my chances walking back alone.  You stay.”

He didn’t even flinch, didn’t say anything, his expression didn’t change, and neither did his grip.

The light around them was pretty meager.  Who was looking?  Who would see, if something happened?  Who was the last person to see her with Steven?  They’d been hobnobbing earlier, but that was earlier.

It was hard to hold her composure and take stock of everything.  Steven had gathered a lot of attention among the nurses, as they’d fawned over him, even a few married nurses aggressively flirting.  But did they really know him?

He’d come in as a pharmaceuticals rep and lobbyist with a medical degree, paying the local government and hospital for the chance to refresh himself on current procedures and medical practice, so he could make a better sales pitch on behalf of his employer come fall.  Jasmine had been assigned as his guide and someone to sit down and meet with him on the regular and answer questions.  She wasn’t sure if it was because she so fresh off the back of a job which had prompted her to do her own research, which would be nice, being recognized, if it was because the nursing clique was so used to working together that the bosses didn’t want to disrupt their flow, or if they’d wanted her out of the way.

But who, besides her, really knew the details about this guy?  Maybe some of the bosses.

“If you don’t let go, I’m going to raise my voice.”

“I wouldn’t try that, knowing where this could go,” he murmured.

Something in his tone was very convincing.

There was a sound of something scuffing the rocks that helped frame and border the pond.  Jasmine looked, and saw an old woman walking with a cane, straight-backed.  She wore a black dress, which might have been severe, except she also had a purple silk shawl with what looked like a dramatic sunset, soldiers, and other fantastical things on it.  The shawl was extensive, and surrounded shoulders, twisted at one side, and then formed a sash at the waist.  A birdcage pin secured it.

“Mrs. Rook,” Steven said.  “What a pleasure to meet-”

The old woman approached, lifting the cane, and aimed it for the center of his chest.  With the angle she approached, it looked like she might push him into the water.

He let go of Jasmine and caught the cane, his eyebrows raised.

Jasmine thought about running, but with the old woman close, she didn’t want to leave someone else at Steven’s mercy.

Whatever that meant.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Steven told Jasmine.  “Mrs. Rook, ma’am.  It’s late, I forgot myself.”

“Unhand my cane, please?” Mrs. Rook asked.

Reluctantly, he did.

She jabbed him in the chest, driving him back a step.  He dropped about a foot, stepping into the shallow water at the edge of the pond.

He frowned at her.

“My dear, would you walk me back?” Mrs. Rook asked Jasmine.

“I’d love to.  You know each other then?”

“Know of,” Mrs. Rook said, offering her arm.  Jasmine took it, supporting her, even though the woman seemed like she needed even less support than Jasmine did.

“Mrs. Ellingson?” Steven raised his voice a touch.

“Ignore him.  The only power a bully like him has is the power you give him,” Mrs. Rook advised.

“I’m well aware of how bullies act.  Who brought you to this party?”

“A friend.  Someone I knew a long time.  I wouldn’t call it a pre-approved invite.”

“Jasmine,” Steven called out.  “You should know what happens if you walk away here.”

She glanced back over her shoulder.  Mrs. Rook placed a hand over the hand Jasmine was using to hold her arm.

“If we part ways on a poor note, it may reflect poorly on me, but it could easily reflect worse on you.  If I go to them a few hours from now, just before leaving, and let them know the deal is off because the assigned staff weren’t hospitable, what do you think happens?”

“See?  A bully and a coward,” Mrs. Rook said.  “Trust and it should work out.  If it’s so easy to worm out of the contract, then I don’t think he ever intended to pay the hospital.  I know his type.”

“You know a lot about him and what’s happening.”

“Part of my job.”

Steven had to walk around the rocks.  He hurried forward, faster than Jasmine could help the elderly woman walk.

He blocked their path.  As Rook lifted her cane to jab him again, he caught the end.

Security floodlights kicked on.  Jasmine blinked, squinting against the brightness of it.

The sole person in the beam of the floodlights was the woman who’d been watching from the trees.  She walked away, back turned, hands in her pockets.

“I’m sorry!  I think someone flipped the switch I taped down.  The neighbors are going to hate me.  I told them it would be quiet!” the hostess apologized as she hurried down from the porch, around to the side of the building where there were some switches and a boxed in area for hiding garbage cans.

She spotted Steven, who was in the process of releasing the cane, as well as Jasmine and Mrs. Rook.  “Is everything okay?”

The spotlight was literally on them.  People on the porch with drinks and light jazz playing in the background were looking at them.

“I’d like to take a seat, if I could?  I was out for a late night stroll, as I’m never able to properly sleep, I’m a bit worn out.  I hate to intrude, but Mrs…”

“Jasmine.  Jasmine Ellingson.  Registered Nurse.”

“Nurse Ellingson was kind enough to walk with me.  This man here is being obnoxious.”

“Come on up to the porch and sit.  I’m afraid I don’t have much else to offer besides water-”

“Tea, thank you.  Something herbal, non-caffeinated.”

“I’ll see what I can do.  Are you okay, Jasmine?”

“I’m-” Jasmine paused.  She met Steven’s very light blue eyes.

I’m not sure.

“Don’t walk away from me,” Steven whispered.

“Is this what’s behind your mask, Steven?” Jasmine asked.  “Threats?”

“Jasmine?” the hostess asked.

“Excuse me, Steven,” she said, loudly enough that people heard.

Steven stepped back out of the way.

Mrs. Rook, who had just been walking with no difficulty, seemed to feign being older and more off balance than she was as they got to the stairs, leaving Steven behind.

Ida met her at the stairs.  She was indigenous, short, and wide, wearing a beautiful off-the-shoulder dress.  Ida was one of Jasmine’s new work friends, a new mom at forty-three, displaced in more ways than one.  Too old for the various local mom groups, not included into the clique of nurses, Ida lived out of town, spending much of her time doing the cooking and cleaning for an overworked and underpaid husband who tended cabins and did boat repairs for the sort of people who had cabins and boats.  She spent her time split between work in Kennet, her baby and husband, and family on the reserve, and for all her effort she’d had no support, nobody.

Ida had remarked before about how she’d been on the cusp of quitting or snapping at someone she couldn’t afford to when Jasmine had, in Ida’s words, ‘saved her’, by asking her to lunch and giving some mom-to-mom advice.  It was now a regular thing that almost always included a very young nurse who’d been shut out of the clique, and a handful of others.

Whatever Ida had been trying to express, Jasmine suspected the giddy relief and fondness she felt at seeing a friendly and familiar face in a strange and uncomfortable situation resembled Ida’s.

“Be careful,” Mrs. Rook murmured, as Jasmine helped her sit on a bench.  “A man like him strikes me as someone who gets the benefit of a doubt more often than he should.”

“What happened?” Ida whispered.

“He made a joke about killing his parents, I didn’t think it was funny.”

“Very wise,” Mrs. Rook said, both hands on her cane at her eye level.  The way the crowd formed around them, and the way the host looked at her, she seemed very out of place, somehow.

“When I tried to leave he wouldn’t let me.  Grabbed me.”

“Asshole,” Ida murmured.  “I never liked him.  The way the clique glommed onto the man, it rubbed me the wrong way.”

“I liked him,” Jasmine murmured.  “Is Bernice around?”

“Went home.”

That was one friend gone, then.

Steven had followed them up the stairs but had avoided approaching them, taking a hard left on the length of porch that spanned two sides of the very large house.  He walked over to the man who was head of patient care, Lucy’s boss’s boss, shaking the man’s hand and leaning in to say something.

“If the newbie screwed up that deal, that impacts all of us.  That’s money for the hospital.”

A whisper, past the open door and inside the house.  Jasmine could place the voice as Kaycee Lewis.  One of the clique.

The head of patient care said something to Craig Buchannan, head of nurse management.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Rook said.

Kaycee Lewis left the house, seemed startled to see Jasmine as close to the door as she was, pausing for a full second to look at Jasmine and Mrs. Rook, then went to some of her friends and their husbands at the far end of the porch.

Someone was quietly saying something to the hostess.  Jasmine had made a point of keeping track of these things but in her current state, frazzled, tired, she wasn’t positive- Lindsay Lance was wife of Calvin Lance, who was in charge of Support Services, who was both the person Connor Kelly had talked to about hiring Jasmine, and the person who had tasked Jasmine with working with Steven.

Lindsay Lance was hosting this party, and everything had been going great, and now it very much wasn’t.  Someone was talking to the Lances about how it must feel so intrusive to have a guest of the party bring a stranger in without asking in private.  Jasmine wasn’t sure if they were bad at whispering or intending her to hear.  Either way, when Steven passed by, glancing at Jasmine, Calvin Lance stopped him to murmur a quiet apology.

“Who are you?” Jasmine asked the elderly woman.  “Are you a neighbor?”

“Don’t worry.  Don’t concern yourself with me.  Keep your eyes open, be brave.”

Lindsay Lance’s adult daughter brought a cup of tea through, pausing so her mom could say something to her.  She brought it to Mrs. Rook.  “Here you go.  As soon as you’re done and your legs aren’t tired, let us know and I can walk you back home, okay?  Or drive, if you need it?  I think we’re getting ready to wrap it up for the night.”

“Thank you, dear.”

The look the daughter gave Jasmine wasn’t distressed or critical, but it lingered, like the daughter was trying to figure something out or assess the situation.  She hadn’t talked to her mother long enough, and hadn’t glanced at Jasmine when her mom had been giving her instructions, which made Jasmine feel like there had been talk inside.

It was like that one jarring ‘joke’ from Steven had thrown everything off, and now it was all just… sliding off a cliff.  How far did this reach?  Was it going to be a stern talk tomorrow night, at work?  A ruined deal where the hospital was supposed to get money?  Did it extend further?  Blackballing her, career-wise?  Did it affect Booker and Lucy?

Ida said something in Ojibwe.

Mrs. Rook replied in the same language.

Ida looked surprised, then her posture changed a touch.

“What was that?” Jasmine asked, quiet.  Confused.

“Be strong,” Ida murmured.

Calvin Lance approached, smiling, hands out to the side, disarmed and disarming.  “Jasmine.”

“Mr. Lance.”

“This is tricky, isn’t it?  I asked Steven and he explained that he made an off-color joke.  It seemed to have gotten out of hand.  We’ve got the meeting first thing tomorrow, and this really seems like the sort of thing where if we had more time, it would easily be smoothed over.  But it’s late, we’ve all had a few drinks, personalities can clash…”

“It would have been fine and amicable if he’d let me leave.  The so-called joke was uncomfortable, but I was polite, I said I was cold, I have to get back to my family before too long, and he wouldn’t let me leave.”

“I can confirm,” Mrs. Rook said.

“I beg your pardon- do I know you?  Who are you?”

“A concerned individual who was past your property line when I first became aware something was happening.  I came over to offer help.”

“I’m told you battered him with your cane?  And that’s why he grabbed it?”

“I prodded twice after he wouldn’t let go of nurse Ellingson.”

“He grabbed you?” Calvin asked.

Jasmine nodded.

“Christ.  Are there marks?  Any proof?  I- I believe you, but…”

She checked as best as she could in the dim porch light.  Ida shook her head.

“I was going to say, Marcy’s pis-ticked.  Steven said he was bothered and worried that any overreaction- I, again, I understand it’s not that black and white, it changes the situation dramatically that he put hands on you, but when it comes to the hospital, the contract-”

“I’m not following, I’m sorry,” Jasmine replied.

“He said if you apologized and did him the favor of driving him to his rental, he’d consider it water under the bridge.  But obviously- I said this was tricky before but it’s even more tricky now.”

She looked at Jasmine.  She could read Calvin’s expression, saw the war ongoing on his face and general demeanor.  She knew he wanted her to cave, to agree to it, to make nice, even if he maybe understood why she wouldn’t want to.

“I’m not going to drive him back,” Jasmine replied.

“Maybe if Ida rode along with you, I can talk to people, I can make it clear you’re doing us a big favor.”

“Steven is not who he appears, the contract was a sham from the start and if you revisit it you may see that,” Mrs. Rook said, holding her tea in one hand, her other hand on the cane she’d laid across her knees.  “If these two women drive back with him I would not rule out the possibility they would not survive the trip.”

Jasmine’s skin prickled again with goosebumps, more intense than before.

Why did she give so much credit to this old woman?

“That’s- that sounds like nonsense.  He’s done good work with us for two weeks now.   I’m sorry, I have to ask again, who are you?  Can I get your name, address?  Mrs…?”

“Rook,” Jasmine said.  She looked down the length of the porch at Steven.  He was watching this exchange.  Members of the clique had gathered around him.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.  You weren’t invited, and this is an affair for coworkers and friends.  I hope you understand.”

“Shortly,” Mrs. Rook said.

A phone went off, and it was an abrasive, uncomfortable sound.  Not an alarm, but a ringtone, if something had gone wrong with the speakers.

All eyes searched, until they found the culprit.  Steven.

First the lights, now this?

“I’ll be on my way,” Mrs. Rook said, rising to her feet.  Ida and Jasmine helped.  “Thank you for your hospitality, for the tea, sir, and the support, Mrs. Ellingson.”

“Thank you,” Jasmine said, her attention split between Steven, who was trying to stop the misbehaving phone, which was playing frightened and angry voices amid the noises, and Mrs. Rook, who was getting ready to go.

Steven opened the phone case and grabbed for the battery, but pulled his hand back as if shocked.  The voices were getting louder- louder than it seemed a phone should be able to be.

He dropped the case-less phone into a glass of wine that wasn’t his.

“Everything okay?” Calvin called out.

“I’m going to be on my way.  Any word on that ride I asked about?” Steven asked, pointed.

Jasmine was shaking her head even before Calvin Lance looked at her.

Steven went to walk into the house, and as he did, stopped in his tracks.  A few women shrieked and a man yelped.  Some of the clique members continued to kick up their feet, shrieking, hurrying out of the room.

“What’s the problem?”

“Longest centipede I’ve seen in my life,” Calvin’s daughter said, “darted across the living room.”

“Are we haunted?” Lindsay asked, joking.  “What on earth…?”

“I think it’s Steven being haunted,” a doctor joked.

There was some nervous laughter that seemed hesitant until Steven smiled and laughed with it.  Waiting for his permission.

“We live by water and nature.  I guess this sort of thing is inevitable,” Lindsay said.  Some people agreed, backing her up, reinforcing that statement.  Lines like how there was no reason to be embarrassed, everything was fine, it was such a nice party…

Steven changed direction, walking over.  Jasmine tensed.

“Mr. Lance, I’m going to leave.  I’m feeling like I’m being bullied at this point.”

“Not the intention at all, Steven.”

“Jasmine, I wish things had gone a different way.  Mr. Lance, I suppose we’ll talk about what comes of the contract fulfillment tomorrow?”

“I suppose so.”

Jasmine glanced back at Rook, and startled a bit.  The older woman wasn’t there anymore.  She couldn’t even see her in the back of the property, or in the shadows.

Ida gave her a half-smile, expression worried, but trying to be reassuring.

It took a few minutes for Steven to say his goodbyes.

After he left, one of the clique members who’d been shrieking over the centipede whispered to another, calling him creepy.

“I have no idea what’s happened,” Jasmine told Ida.

“If you believed in angels or spirits, I’d tell you to thank them.  It seems they were on your side tonight,” Ida said.  “But you don’t, I remember?”

Jasmine shook her head.

“Perhaps Steven is the sort of person who makes enemies, and… tonight he gave them the excuse to put the spotlight on him?  Either way, I’d count yourself lucky.”

“I’m not sure my job is going to survive this,” Jasmine admitted, quiet.

Ida nodded.  “Sorry.  You know if you go, I’m probably leaving too.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“So do I.”

Jasmine stayed long enough to give Steven a head start, then said the necessary goodbyes to be polite.

Jasmine went to the upstairs bedroom where those guests with coats and bags had left their things, collected her coat, and walked downstairs, pulling it on and digging through pockets.

She was outside, on the front steps, searching her pockets, when she saw the woman who’d been in the trees.  The car was parked far enough down the street that there was no light, so Jasmine couldn’t see her face- only dark hair.

The woman walked past Jasmine’s car and with a clatter, dropped Jasmine’s keys on the hood.  They slid down the sloped surface.

“Ma’am!?” Jasmine called out, hurrying over.  “Miss!?  Would you stop?”

She caught the keys before they fell into dark grass.  When she looked up, the woman was gone.

“Why did you have my keys?” Jasmine asked the darkness.

There was a roll of paper wedged into the loop the keys were connected to.  Jasmine pulled it out and read it.

Her eyes went to her car, searching the darkness within.

She backed away.

“Help!” she called out.

People on the front porch looked her way.

“Help!  Call the police!  He’s in my back seat!”

As people hurried down the stairs, perplexed, many of them not privy to the drama at the back porch, Steven acted, hauling on the car handle, once, twice- many times.  It was a violent rattle, then a thud, as he kicked the door.

Jasmine hadn’t put the kid locks on the back doors since Lucy was little.  Openable from the outside but not the inside.

As she saw Steven try to work his way between the driver’s seat and the passenger seats, she reached for the keychain, and held down the button.

The car alarm went off, lights on inside and outside the car.  Steven in plain sight.

And then, because nobody was calling police, she did it instead.

More people came at the commotion, realizing what was wrong, gathering and looking.

“I think he has a knife,” Jasmine said, to the group.

One of the clique members came to her side, supporting her, followed by Ida.  At the doorway, Lindsay Lance put a hand to her mouth.

Steven kicked again at the inside of her car door.  People murmured and exclaimed.

She crumpled the paper in her hand.  It wouldn’t do to explain that part, when it defied explanation.  She’d leave it out.  She looked back at Ida.

Angels and spirits?

She couldn’t go that far.  She shook her head, then pressed the phone to her ear as the dispatcher asked something.

We can’t get through them, Stiles!
Try!  We-
Stiles, Grandfather is right!
Agh!  Fucking shitfucking biters!
Need help over here!

The test.  Test us.  Test us, damn it!
So be it.

They found Avery before they found the bird.  Verona flew in a tight circle around her before flying on.

The physical fatigue from running around translated to fatigue while flying.  Something that was normally easy was far from it now.

“There!” Avery shouted.

Lucy and Verona flew in formation.  Avery skipped around using the black rope.

The bird flew through an open window.

Verona was closest.  She swooped-

And hit a screen the ephemeral bird had slipped right through.  Wing-bones crunched awkwardly, shoulder strained, the screen rattled in the window’s housing, and the glamour fell apart.  She grabbed the windowsill before she could fall.

“Got you!” Avery shouted.  “Fall!”

She dropped, trusting.

And an insulated cushion of wind formed below her.  Clothes and hair pried away from from the sweat-sticky, glamour-dusted skin they’d been plastered to.

“We lost him?” Avery asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Damn it!”

Snowdrop hissed.

Lucy landed, dropping the bird form.  She held the glass up and out toward Avery.

“Safe to use?”  Avery asked, taking it.

“I don’t know, I think you can squeeze out one use.  Depends how much it’s- Guilherme said if we’re a trio, what one of us does might count as all of us.  But we’re…”

“We weren’t much of a trio when it counted,” Avery said.  “Is that ironic?  That we need… not to be a trio, to use this?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said.

“I’d guess fifty fifty odds,” Verona told Avery.  “That explodes in your hand in a bad way, or it gives us a direction.  Nicolette’s supposedly asking Chase and Wye.”

“Which means we’ve gotta figure, do we want to gamble on those two, or do we want to gamble on the glamour finding glass?” Lucy asked.

“I trust Nicolette more than I trust that.”

“But this is what we have right now,” Verona said.  She picked up the glass from Avery’s outstretched hand.  “I won’t make you, but I’m- I’m tired, I’m sore, I’m not sure how fast I can be.  If I use this, you guys can go ahead.  It knocks me out, might mean a hospital visit, but- I trust you to handle the rest of this.”

“I don’t want you to maim yourself,” Avery said.

“If I fuck up the one hand, I’ve got a spare.  Works better, even,” Verona said, waggling her left and right hands.

“Yeah, no, let’s not-”

Their phones rang, out of sync.  Two different calls, within seconds of one another.

Lucy answered hers.  Avery did the same.

“Nicolette,” Lucy said.

“Zed,” Avery added, putting the phone to her ear.

Verona stood there, glass in hand, tense.

“Nicolette’s got a bead,” Lucy said.  She pulled out glamour.  Verona did the same.  “Gotta- Avery, you okay taking directions?  Shout.”

“Okay,” Avery said, taking Lucy’s phone, still holding her own.  “Hey Zed, is Brie okay?”

Verona and Lucy slipped into the glamoured forms.  Crows.

“Lucy!” Avery called out.

Lucy swooped, turning, looping past Avery.

“Your mom’s okay!  They got the beautiful man!  Zed, Eloise, Rook, and Miss!  They caught him, police have him!”

Lucy dipped low, then went high.

“Toward the trees!  Nicolette says there’s a trap he wants to bait you in, vague!”

Avery burst into motion, running, black rope in hand, Snowdrop at her shoulder.  The pair of them flew in the direction Avery had indicated.

They found it.  The bird had arranged the chain so it looped several times around the neck, ring laid against its breast.  It still glinted in the right light.

Swag bird, Verona thought, going high, waiting and watching, while Lucy was more direct in the chase.

Needed a plan.

“Rook is coming to help!  Miss too, but that’ll be a bit longer!”

Avery moved unpredictably, keeping tabs on the bird, or maybe on Lucy, while weaving in and out of trees, using the black rope to appear on the left, right, up ahead-

The bird couldn’t ascend above the treeline or Lucy would have a clear shot, but while it was in the trees, Avery was appearing at the flanks, cutting it off, forcing it to be more unpredictable.

“Nicolette says trap!” Avery shouted.

The ‘trap’ was an owl that took flight, wings pounding air, nearly silent in its flight as it went after the songbird, only to then find Lucy more immediately in its sights.

Verona formulated a maneuver, then dismissed it.  It would take too long.

Avery had it.

Lucy flew to Avery, Avery caught her, hugging Lucy to her chest, and the owl had to fly on.

Verona did her best to keep the songbird in view.

Stop, take stock, stay calm.  Situation is bad, but Lucy’s mom is okay and-

The feathers all down Verona’s body trembled, threatening to uproot themselves and turn her human, a hundred feet in the air as she circled, watching the songbird, looking for the telltale glint.

A jab of emotion, relief and pent up anxiety flooding out of her, enough to nearly break the glamour.

-she’s okay, Verona told herself, calmer, swooping, circling.  Gotta get the ring to John, somehow.  Not sure how that works if we can’t interfere without being turned to coins.  Already on thin ice with the Sable.

Are we missing an angle?

What can we even do?

She had no idea.

So she focused on doing what she had to.  Tracking-

Tracking the glint.  The bird had gone one way, it had sent a spot of glamour another, glinting like the ring did when it caught the light.

She landed on the corner of a building with enough force that the glamour fell away.  She watched Avery and Lucy search for the songbird.  Fruitlessly.

“Fuck!” she swore.  “Fuck it!  Fuck!”

She could see Rook, darting through trees.

But Rook couldn’t find the elusive songbird either.

Verona clutched the glass.

“Verona!  Nicolette’s looking!” Avery shouted.

“We don’t have time!” Verona shouted.  “By the time she reads the direction, gets back to us, and we find the bird, it’s gone again!”

Avery didn’t disagree, saving breath to run, darting behind a light pole, appearing on a tree branch.

Inhaling slowly, exhaling, she brought it to her eye, and she let herself see through it.  Focusing- narrowing her gaze.

There.  A spark of amber, leaving a clear trail behind it.  A haze that might’ve been why they had such a hard time keeping tabs on it.  She turned, tracking it, clarifying-

The glass shattered.  Shards slid between fingers, along palm, stabbed deep- deep enough that when she moved her hand in reaction to the pain, she felt something crunch and crack between finger bones.

Rook had paused, looking at her.  She nodded.

Verona used the last of her saved-up glamour, slipping one arm free of her bag.

The shards stabbed at her wing.  The glamour nearly shredded itself as she took flight.  Straight line, while it thought it was clear.

Rook saw Verona move and followed.  So did the others.

Lucy-the-crow cawed noisily.

Didn’t matter.  Verona had felt weak all night, no tricks, no arena.  She had some illusions, a bit of a trick for John, but none of it had mattered enough.

She needed to help here.  To hold up her end of the triangle that they’d first stood in when they’d awoken.

It was painful, now, not just tiring, to fly.

She found the songbird, pausing for a breather.

Verona swooped past it, violently enough that it was knocked from the branch.

But the swag bird was a nimble flier.  It immediately reoriented, flying the other way.  Rook was there, but the bird was out here to tease, to taunt, to thrive on fucking with them.

Verona landed, shucked off the glamour for the last time.  She hunched over, one bleeding claw of a hand held against her chest, and leaned over, letting her bag slip from her shoulder, catching on the crook of her elbow.  She reached inside with her good hand, got the second bottle, and hurled it.

She inhaled while it was in the air.

She’d made one alchemical concoction to suck in smoke, something she’d worked out for Cig.

But this was something else.  She’d hoped to use it on Maricica in case of a fight, but there hadn’t been one.

The jar shattered, and all air in the immediate region was sucked away.  There was a ‘whump’ sound, a hum as air that tried to explode back into the void was drawn back in in a steady and controlled way, and a shimmer at the boundary of the effect.

The bird, no longer with air under its wings, couldn’t maneuver.  It carried forward on its course by momentum alone, a forward arc that slowly curved downward.

Rook pulled a small wooden box from her pocket, opened it, and held it up.

The bird slammed into the interior, the lid closing right after it, slapping closed.

Verona nodded.

Rook collapsed the box flat, and feathers squirted out the coin-slots on two opposing faces.  As did the chain, which dangled.

“Got it!” Verona hollered.

“Let me!” Avery shouted.  “I’m faster running than you are flying.”

Rook threw the chain to Avery, ring on the end.  Avery bit it, nodded, then sprinted.

“Go!” Lucy shouted.

They stopped where they were, as Avery disappeared from view.  Verona swayed a little, then dropped to her knees.

Lucy ran over to her, then dropped down to her own knees, looking at the injury.  She slapped Verona across the head, once- twice.

“Stop!  I’m already wounded!”

“Idiot!”  Lucy shouted. “Why!?  Idiot!  I just wanted the people I cared about to get away safe and sound, and I just– just heard my mom was okay, and you do this!?  Why!?  It might not even make a difference!”

“I worry it won’t.”

It wasn’t Rook’s voice.  Or Maricica’s.  Verona looked up, cradling her injured, bleeding hand, which had too much fragmented glass in it for her to even put proper pressure on the wound.

“I believe the contest is drawing to a close.  We’re not in a position for the ring to decide this, or to get it to John.”

“Idiot,” Lucy hissed, before hugging Verona.

“Worth trying,” Verona said.  “Had to do something.”

Lucy shook her head.  “Let’s get you to Tashlit.  See what she can do.  Sooner the better.”

“It’s part of a price, I don’t think it’s that easy.”

“Let’s at least try?”

Verona nodded.

The contest is almost over?  It’ll be over before Avery gets back?

She got to her feet and she was surprised at how shaky she was.

Lucy had tears streaming down her face.  Rather than start walking, Verona butted her head into Lucy’s shoulder.

Lucy hugged her, and she hugged her friend back, using her one good arm and hand, fingernails digging into shirt.

Your mom’s okay.  That’s one of the most important things.

Now all we can do is trust and hope.

Many more oaths remain outstanding.  Of fidelity, of support, repayment.

Weak.  That’s no justification.

Nonetheless.  For the purposes of this test, the three girls you’re so fond of have slipped.  They have failed enough in one or all of these things that they warrant your attention.
Stiles.  If it’s only pretend-
It’s not.  It’s more.  It asks me if I want this throne enough to forfeit who I am.  What I want.  What I value.

Your decision?
That that isn’t the kind of Carmine I would be.  They saw the trial through.  Gainsaying isn’t a broken oath.  They have long lives ahead of them to attend to fidelity, oaths, and repayment.
Do you refuse the test, then?

Not in the slightest.  That is my answer.  I won’t reach for forswearance, or imagine it where there isn’t any.  Not with friends, not with enemies.  Set the test before me again if you wish.  Justify it better, paint them as oathbreakers, and I’ll judge them accordingly.  I’ve passed your tests, over and over, now.  Yalda, this contest.  I’ve proven I’ll do what I must.  But I won’t act without good reason.

So be it.
Tell me.  Were you as unkind to Charles when you delivered his test?  Did you set him something as impossible?  A test of how badly we want it, where passing it would mean we’d have to forfeit wanting anything at all?
Charles Abrams bears the furs.
He is closest to the throne.  His test was a different one.

Avery clutched the ring and chain in both hands, tense, waiting.

She hadn’t had the opportunity to give it to John.  The Alabaster now stood by the door, guarding it.  The light that shone from inside barred entry, as impossible as walking through glass.

Lucy and Verona finally arrived.  Verona flapped weakly, landed, shrugged out of the glamour, and went straight to Tashlit.

“Don’t say anything, Guilherme,” Lucy warned.

“I’ve nothing to say.  We wait all of us.  Words are being said, affairs looked after.  We wait.”

“We fucking wait,” Toadswallow growled.

They were all present.  Even Alpeana, who wasn’t a fighter, who had been at the border.  Miss and Rook had beat Lucy and Verona back.  The ghouls, goblins, Guilherme, Tashlit.  Montague occupied the box Jabber had been in, walking around with spider legs, while Jabber sat, uncharacteristically quiet.  Matthew hung back, arms folded, expression dark, foot tapping.

No Ken.  Ken had been extinguished.  No Lis, of course.  She had left in the chaos.  No Maricica.  No Edith.  She was still jailed.  Freak and Squeak hung out with the goblins.  Avery wondered if they’d stay local.

Whatever that meant.

Tashlit removed her hand from Verona’s.  Blood remained, but glass was gone.  Verona winced and rubbed at her hand, which seemed inclined to draw closed into an almost-fist, instead of relaxing flat.

Verona and Tashlit wandered over.  Snowdrop wandered a bit away, checking on goblins.

“Guys?” Avery asked, nervous.  “Lucy, Verona?  Can we talk?  There’s been something I wanted to bring up.  And I don’t- I don’t know if this is the right time, but…”

“We can talk,” Lucy told her.

Avery thought about asking them to take a break, to walk away.

But then she felt like maybe that was unfair to the local Others.

It wasn’t like it’d be much harder, because this was… this was about as hard as it got.

“I’m…” she paused, eyes dropping to the bloody pavement.

Was the blood dissipating?  Leaking into the cracks?

“…Whatever happens, however this turns out, I don’t think my decision will necessarily change.  Might depend, who wins, if it’s John and things are hunky-dory, or if it’s one of the weird ones, or Reid.”

“Or Charles?” Lucy asked.

“What are you on about?” Verona asked.

“I’m… you should know before things happen, so you don’t think it’s because of the outcome.  I don’t think I’m sticking around.”

She saw Verona’s expression change.  Saw Lucy’s eyebrows draw together, that angry frown that didn’t necessarily mean Lucy was angry.

“Plan is, I’m moving in with my mom.  Thunder bay.  Idea is I stick around for a short bit, for cleanup, make sure Verona’s okay moving back with her dad…”

“You’re bailing?” Verona asked, whisper quiet.

Avery tried to look away- and found herself looking at goblins, who were staring up at her.  When she looked in another direction, she saw Matthew.  Her expression screwed up for a second or two, while she did her best to fight it, and to avoid crying, because if she cried, she worried it would mean open sobbing.

She regained her composure.

“Home isn’t great for me.  You know that.  I’ve told you that.  And I can at least go to my mom’s, you know?  I can… I dunno.  But I do know I don’t think I can stick it out here, with Declan and Grumble and Grumble’s TV, and my dad being slow to catch on to stuff, and the house being really big and empty.  Relatively empty.”

Lucy stepped forward and Avery flinched a bit.  Lucy wrapped arms around her in a hug.

Avery’s breath shuddered on its way in, as she did her best to not let the moisture in her eyes leak out.  She hugged Lucy back hard, as if that aggressive squeeze could help her not tip over into crying.

“Do what you need to do,” Lucy told her.

“I’ll come by.  I- a part of me thought this would happen, somewhere down the line, all the way back at Awakening.  I asked then.”

“I remember,” Lucy told her.

“I’m still a Kennet practitioner.  But two years, I’ll be away, I’ll learn, I’ll make connections, I’ll visit when I can.  Holidays, at the very least.  More if I can use practice to teleport or something.”

“Sounds good,” Lucy whispered, squeezing.

Avery looked at Verona, saw Verona rubbing at her left hand, eyes on the ground.

“Ronnie?” Avery whispered.

Lucy broke the hug, taking a step back.

“I had a nightmare about this.  Maybe Maricica told Alpeana what to put in there-”

Alpeana, a distance away, lurking in the trees, shook her head.  Grungy hair swayed with the motion.

“‘Twas a deep seated fear, lassie,” Alpeana replied.

“That you’d pull away.  That you wouldn’t be here,” Verona finished, meeting Avery’s eyes.  Forlorn.  Scared.

“Are you going to tell me I shouldn’t go?” Avery asked her friend.

“I told me I shouldn’t go,” Verona replied.

“Does that mean you don’t want me to go?  Because if you ask…”

“I don’t know,” Verona told her.  She blinked rapidly a few times, sighed, and turned her back to Avery.

“Ronnie?”

“I’m still here.  I’m not, like, rejecting you.  Just… give me a second.”

Avery waited.

“It’s pretty fucking miserable, you know?” Verona asked, looking over her shoulder at Avery, her eyes wet.  “Staying.”

Avery nodded.

“I don’t want that for you.”

“I don’t want that for you either, you know?”

“Go, then.  But come back.”

Avery nodded.

“Gotta- step away,” Verona said.  “Nothing meant by it, it’s not-”

“Not a jab at you,” Lucy filled in.  “Verona process.”

Verona nodded, sighed, and walked away a bit.  Tashlit and Peckersnot followed a short distance behind, giving her space but staying close enough to be company.

Avery swallowed hard.

“Frig,” Lucy muttered.  “I was wondering what the fuck was going on with you.  Why you were trying to prove something…”

Avery swallowed hard again, and then coughed because of it, the lump too big.

“Frig.  You didn’t tell us?”

“I thought- thought it’d distract.  It’d be too much.  More of a divide.”

“Might’ve been.  The way Verona and I were fighting?”

“Don’t go telling me stuff just to make me feel better or make this more okay, okay?” Avery asked.

“Okay.  Then I won’t.  You do what you need to do.  We back you up.  All of us, I hope,” Lucy said.

A few nearby goblins grunted.

Avery smiled a bit.  Snowdrop headbutted her, and nuzzled her with messy blonde head, and Avery mussed up her hair, before hooking an arm around her neck in a sorta-kinda-hug.

Every last one of them was waiting, tense.

Musser was at the end of the parking lot, arms folded.  Wye and Raquel were with him.

No Witch Hunters left.  Guilherme had trashed their car and given them a hard enough time they’d fled through the trees.  Apparently leaving Kennet.  For now.

Who knew what the future held?

So much hinged on-

The Alabaster moved out of the way.  The doors opened.

Everyone who was huddled, or hanging back, Alpeana in the trees, goblins sitting facing one another, Raquel sitting on the trunk of the car, Verona, wandering away- they all turned.  Looking.

The Aurum Coil flowed out, the centipede gleaming.  It looped, as if clearing the way of something indistinct or abstract, knotted in around itself, then flowed aside, the centipede anchoring itself in and on trees, while the head and its rider extended twenty feet out over the parking lot, watching.

The Sable Prince followed, hair long and coarse, beard much the same, eyes dark, suit as black as charcoal.

The Sable Prince’s departure was followed by a breaking of whatever barrier had been holding the building together, keeping the ritual within.  The entire structure groaned, adjusting, and smoke poured out in a violent way, leaking out of doors, the crack near the roof, and the back door.  Windows broke, and orange flames glowed.

The smoke hid those that followed.

John’s soldiers stepped out, not seeming to care much about the smoke.  Their uniforms were mixed and matched, drawn from multiple groups, multiple styles.  Some improvised, some belonging to one nationality or another.  All scavenged from battlefields.  They were armed in a similar way.  Hunting rifles, guns, machetes.  Many were injured, missing flesh on arms, necks, and faces.  Some had pulled on masks or goggles to hide the worst of the damage.

And the Carmine followed.  A silhouette in smoke, chased by papers that had been close to the door, by pieces of a hockey banner that had been on the wall, celebrating a win of a team from before Avery had been in middle school.  Fire licked the corner of the banner as air pressure helped blow it across the parking lot.  Lucy stepped on it, extinguishing it.

The soldiers flanked him, standing still, stoic.

He had hair, and a red coat.

The smoke took some time to clear.  Something inside the building settled, crashing.

And one of the soldiers standing near the door horked and spat.  Onto the Carmine’s face.  A female soldier standing next to him grabbed him.

The Carmine didn’t care.  He used the sleeve of his coat to wipe it away, and advanced forward out of the smoke.

His hair had regrown enough, and his scraggly beard had grown in.  He was no longer draped in a blanket, but wore a coat with fur on it, blood red.  Hair, coat, and beard were blood red, his eyes dark.  He’d de-aged, the wear and tear of being Forsworn gone, but the deep lines and the deep-set glower that had settled in around the eyes was worse, not better.  He was still skinny, shirtless.

“No, no no no,” Lucy whispered.  “John.”

Avery clutched Lucy’s hand.

“What?” Lucy asked.  Her eyes welled with tears.

“What the fuck?” Avery asked.

“I’d tell you, but we’re sworn to silence,” the oldest of the soldiers said, tense, neck and jaw tight, like he was holding himself back.

“I’ll tell you,” the Carmine said.  Charles said.  “It’s a rigged contest.  Knowing how to rig in your favor is more important than any ability to earn it by strength, by right, by any great sense of justice.  The fact I can take it like this only proves me right.  That this needs to change.”

“Can’t bring myself to say you’re right, Charles,” Matthew said.  “I don’t think this proved anything.”

“I don’t think you understand.  I’m Right, now, Matthew,” the Carmine told him, growling the words.  “You don’t like that?  Get in fucking line to kill me and take my spot, throw up a lordship so my reach doesn’t extend to you-”

“You know that’s not something we’re in a position to do.  It invites challengers,” Miss said.

“-or hurry up and fucking fix it.  Until you figure that out?  I’m going to do it my way.”

“Fuck you,” Lucy said.  “You killed John?  Fuck you.”

“In the end, I wanted it in a way he didn’t,” the Carmine replied.  “So yeah, I killed him, yeah, fuck me.  But at least I’ve forced the issue.  No more complacency.”

“What now?” Miss asked.  “Retaliation against us?”

“No.  I’m not so petty, my focus lies elsewhere.  For now, things must be settled and arranged.  Edith James.  Let’s revisit the forswearing of her, her holding to oaths.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Matthew asked.

“Binding isn’t sufficient.  I’ll give you the choice.  Consider her forsworn, let her be unmade, or revoke the forswearance, at no penalty to yourself, and let her be free.”

“Destroy her or free her?” Matthew asked.

“I’ll give you time to decide.”

Matthew shook his head, bewildered.

“Further… to secure Kennet, keeping to oaths I made before I was forsworn, and to show you I’m not as cruel as you’d paint me… I’ll make Kennet the seat of my throne.  Let it continue to be bloody in its way.  The perimeter will be secure, and for Other and for practitioners, let Kennet be a day’s travel away.”

“What?” Verona asked, as she joined Avery and Lucy.  “Why?”

“Sentiment, and because the forces Musser has arranged against you would wipe you off the face of the Earth in short order.  They may still, but it’ll take them more time to organize.”

“You’d kill Kennet,” Lucy said.

“Or knot it,” Avery whispered.  “If it takes a day to get in for spirits… that disrupts the flows, doesn’t it?”

The Carmine nodded.  He raised a hand to push hair back away from his face, and opened and closed his hand, as if it was a new sensation.  After being forsworn for so long, and then finding himself on the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe even the movement of a hand was really that new.

Rook set hands on Lucy’s shoulders.  Tears were rolling down Lucy’s cheeks.  Because of John.  Someone that had mattered to her.

“I’ll tell you now, I’ve done away with the Choir.  There are other things to see to, dangerous in their own ways.  I don’t intend to be complacent or quiet.  I don’t know how long I have, how coordinated people like Musser will be in opposing me.  So I’ll work hard in the meantime.”

His head turned.

“Already, Others want permission to be made.  Small disputes need attention.”

“The work is Always,” the Aurum Coil said.

“Then let’s get to work.  I’ll be close and far away, Kennet.  You know where to find me if you want audience.  A day’s journey away.”

“Title yourself,” the Sable Prince said.

“The Carmine Exile,” Charles declared.  “Once forsworn, still partially removed from all of this.  I don’t doubt I’m unwanted.  I’ve long ceased to care.”

The red of sky and ground flared, and then he was gone.  So was the red in the sky, the blood on ground.  The pavement remained wet, even though it hadn’t rained hard at all.

Avery shivered, still taking it all in.  She and Verona each had one of Lucy’s hands, and Rook stood behind her.

The lights brightened, and the Alabaster Doe disappeared.

The Aurum Coil flowed into the trees.

The Sable Prince remained.  He turned to the building, and the various Dog Tags moved out of the way, scattering a bit.

“I suppose these things need to be administered to,” the Sable Prince said.

The ground became even more reflective, a shimmer on the pavement.

The shimmer reached the burning, broken Arena.

And then it was restored.  In an eyeblink, back to the same state it was in before tonight.

“I’m sorry for the passing of your friend,” the Sable Prince said.

The shadows swelled, reflections shimmering, and he stepped away.  Out of Kennet.  To a place a day’s travel away, as was the rule for reaching the various Judges.

With all that done, everyone reacted, swaying, sitting down, moving because sitting still was impossible.

Avery stepped away from them, arms folded, glancing back and up at Rook-  Avery looked too.

Rook nodded.  Entirely unsurprised.

Avery looked over at Miss.

“Excuse me.  I have things to tend to,” Miss said, before walking away.  Into the trees.

“A first loss, and an important one,” Rook said.

“Is it?” Avery asked.  “Is it a loss, just like that?  Can’t we- could we start now?  Take the fight to Charles, before…”

“How?” Lucy asked her.

“I don’t know!  But… but I can stay, right?  I can stay, I was careful not to swear anything or make anything absolutely for sure.  If you need, me, if we’re going to fight this…”

“Go,” Lucy told her.

“But-”

“But it takes something like the Choir to kill a Carmine.  We don’t have something like the Choir,” Lucy said.

Avery turned to Verona.

“We’ve got Kennet to look after,” Verona said, as she walked a few parking spots down the parking lot, bent down and picked up a brochure.

As she picked it up, the paper peeled away, the image distorted.  A map of Kennet distorted already.

Verona held up the brochure, then crumpled it.  “A knotted Kennet to look after.  And you- you work best from the flanks, right?”

“Do I?”

“Staying in contact with the right people?” Verona asked.  She rubbed at her left hand.  “You go… you do what you gotta do, and you come in hard from the sidelines, with great timing.  When we’re working together like we need to work together.  And we-”

Verona was a bit choked up, the words not coming.

“-need to find a way to work together, with this.  Around this.  With everything.  But stay in touch.  Don’t you dare lose touch.  If you can stay in touch with Liberty after she nearly threw you off a bridge, you stay in touch with us.”

Avery nodded.  “For sure.”

“We’ll try and manage here,” Lucy said, rubbing at her eyes with sleeves over her hands.  “Somehow.  You… we’ll need allies.  Help.”

Avery nodded again.

“Don’t stick around for me, if you can help it,” Verona said.  “If you stay, it’ll get harder to leave.  I know that’s not how this particular knot looks like it’ll work, but it’s-”

“It will be.  Yeah,” Avery answered.

She looked left, at Matthew, who was staring off into space.

At Toadswallow, who ducked his head in a sharp motion.

It felt wrong, not to immediately fight this.  But the others were right.

She hesitated for a moment, looked over at Snowdrop, and the opossum nodded.

She walked over to where Zed, Brie, Musser, and Raquel were.  Raquel looked very hard like she was trying not to cry.

Lucy had lost John.  Raquel had lost her cousin.

“We’ll be leaving,” Musser said.  “We’ll see how the protection of a Carmine holds up.”

“I’d worry more about you guys than about us,” Avery said.  “You- you allowed this, you know.  You sided with Charles.  Whatever comes next…”

“Don’t condescend to me,” Musser told her.  “Let come what will come.”

Snowdrop sneezed.

“I guess I won’t be going back to my place with Brie,” Zed said.  “Back to the Blue Heron, battening down the hatches.”

“I’m sorry.  I’m sorry we weren’t able to- to stop him.  To protect Brie.”

“It’s fine.”

“Lucy’s a bit- emotionally exhausted,” Avery said.  She wasn’t sure how she felt, as she said that.  Bewildered?  A deer in very big headlights?  “Devastated.  But I know she’s grateful to you for helping with her mom.”

“It wasn’t much.  Keeping eyes on things.  A carefully timed, carefully skewed alarm.”

“It helped,” Avery said.  “I’ll be in touch.”

Zed nodded.  Brie leaned into him, and he whispered something to her that looked private enough that Avery stepped back and away, leaving them to it.  Zed opened the car door.  Getting ready to go.

She backed away further as the oldest of the Dog Tags approached Musser.   Wanting to talk to Raquel.  Just the two of them.  Alone.

Avery backed off.

The distortion of time and place around Kennet was relaxing.  Moments that had all been pressed in together now eased up.  The night had ended, symbolically if nothing else.

No blood in the sky, no blood on the ground.  No more than there’d been all summer.  Light on the horizon.  It felt a bit insulting, after everything.

She used her Sight.  The bloody handprints remained.

Avery walked away.  It felt wrong, but she walked away.  Everyone she hadn’t talked to, she’d see to before packing up and leaving.  Freak and Squeak, goblins… she’d say some final goodbyes.  But she had to start the process of leaving now or it would get harder.

Hands were raised, waving.  She raised her own.

As she walked, Snowdrop fast-walking to keep pace beside her, Avery got far enough away that angles were right, she could see what the Sable had done.  How, viewed in the right way, with the parking lot wet, the reflection of the Arena didn’t match what she saw.

The knotting already at work.

She had to tear her eyes away.  Had to keep moving.  Because stopping at this point would hurt, would just mean she’d see more reasons to keep stopping, to turn and help.

She had to trust.

Next Chapter