Fall Out – 14.z | Pale

For Basil, coming back to the Blue Heron institute felt more like coming home than returning to his apartment or visiting his parent’s house.  Even the drive in and the smell of the air helped him to relax.  The rattling of the various equipment and records in the back of his coupé didn’t get to him like it usually did.

He’d quietly resigned himself to the idea he’d never come back.  He wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t a trick.  He’d left on good terms, picking up a good, well-rounded education from teachers that were among the best in their field in the world.  Raymond Sunshine, Marie Durocher, Luisa Crowe.  He’d attended not as part of the first wave, but the wave immediately after.  Perhaps that had been the golden period.  The early years had been raw, rough, and even the people who took to teaching naturally still had a lot to learn.  That wasn’t entirely a bad thing- it meant they could get away with more, learn things that Basil suspected would be kept out of student’s hands, at least until they were seniors.  For a brief and glorious period of time, being a student at the Blue Heron had meant having access to ten, then fifteen, then twenty full libraries of texts.  Most practitioners only had what their families put together.  Somewhere along the line, people had started to get defensive about people edging in on their niche, seeing students graduate and become competitors, and it had started to get more restrictive in the last year Basil had attended.

But, as Basil’s mother liked to say, there was more to school than education.  Basil was a good student, but he’d been bad at the other half of things; part of the reasoning for attending a school like this was to make vital connections.  A few years back, Alexander had recommended Basil as an apprentice for Raymond Sunshine.  A single miscommunication had soiled things, burning not only the bridge back to Raymond Sunshine, but to many others.

Today he hoped to build new bridges.

He pulled in the long driveway, narrow tires squeaking with the amount of dust the treads had picked up on dirt roads.  The core of the school was much like he remembered, but they’d added new workshops and buildings around front, and there was a new building at the back, probably near the field, taller than the school was.

The rattling of the things in the back had been so omnipresent that when the car pulled to a stop, shedding dust from the sides, phantom sounds chased his ears.

He opened his door, collected his implement, stood, and felt for one prolonged moment that he might get shot.  Or lasered.  Or attacked by a technomancy Other.

Raymond hadn’t been happy, the last Basil had heard from him.  It was hard to believe there wasn’t some special security measure waiting for him.

He eyed the cars around the parking lot- there weren’t many.  He thought maybe he could identify a family by the license plate, some were from distant provinces or even states, but no locations jumped out at him.  No cars screamed a particular brand of practice- he wasn’t sure what would.  A hearse for necromancers?

Basil kept a small tome with sheet metal covers as his implement, and held it over his heart for a second as he took it all in.  He closed his door and touched one corner of the metal to the lock of his car.  He relaxed the bindings that held the book tightly closed, rifled through the pages by instinct alone, and found one of his go-tos worming its way through the pages.  A stroke of his thumb gave it the cue to exit.

A line scrawled its way out, cutting into the paint as if someone had keyed a signature into the car.  It coiled there near the lock, then darted off toward the trunk, exploring its new environment, scratching the paint and letting the paint heal in its wake.

The front door opened, and Abraham Musser stepped outside, clapping his hands in a slow, exaggerated fashion.  He smiled, showing off capped teeth.  “You’ve made it, Basil.  It’s been a while.”

“You asked me to come, I said I’d come,” Basil said.

He somehow seemed more intimidating than he’d been when Basil was sixteen.  As if Basil the teenager had thought there was still time to grow, to meet the man in height, and Basil the adult had to realize he wouldn’t ever be as tall as this man was, as broad-shouldered, or as casually dangerous.  Abraham was six-foot-five, dressed in clothes that had probably been specifically made for him instead of pulled off a rack. Those clothes included leather ankle-high riding boots with a pattern inset into the toes and sides, black dress slacks, a white button-up with sleeves he’d rolled up to the elbows, and a black vest with a faint black-gold pattern on it.  He had a chip in the corner of one of the lenses of his gold-wire framed glasses.

The man was the type to shell out hundreds to a hair stylist, but it had been a little while since he’d been back to civilization.  Wavy brown hair was still styled, but now it was looser around the bounds of that style, and longer.  Abraham Musser had changed, to become this.  He was precise in how he styled himself, picking white and black with light gold accents in a way that that drew the eye to those accents.

There was a way to venture this far into nature and either dress for the environment or hold up a standard of dress that implied a sort of ownership over that wilderness.  Abraham Musser managed the latter with ease, helped by the fact that he essentially owned the Blue Heron Institute and surrounding territory, now.

“How’s your practice?” the man asked, as he approached.

“The practice is fine.  I get by, splintered off from the family, started managing a group.  Dad says he’s proud.”

“The man’s a practitioner, Basil,” Abraham said.  He was now close enough to slap a hand down onto Basil’s shoulder.  “He can’t lie.  He’s proud.  Say that.”

“He’s proud.  I’m doing okay.”

“You’re not gainsaid?”

Basil shook his head.  “I heard things have been bad around here.”

“More on that later. What’s your preferred drink for a longer sit-down?  Beer?  Wine?  Whiskey?”

It’s two in the afternoon.  “If there’s a chance I might be driving-”

“You won’t.  We have too much to discuss.  Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee,” Basil answered.

“Who are you still in touch with these days?” the man asked.

“Not that many people.  I’ve got my team, I keep them in the dark, they’re my blackguards.  But after things went south with my introduction to Raymond, I stepped back.”

“It’s good you stepped back in.  Raymond’s absent.  He may not come back, depending on the shape things take, so what better time for you to reconnect?  Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to make it worth your while, coming this far.”

“I’m only interested in the one way we discussed.  I don’t care about money, I have money-”

“You can always use more.”

“-or anything else, really.  Just pass on my message to Raymond, and so long as I’m not putting my life on the line, I’m happy to help with your problem.  I don’t like bad blood.”

“I like you being assertive, knowing what you want.  I’ll put in a good word.  We’ll get you sorted out.”

“Alright.”

“Come on in.  You’re one of the first to arrive that weren’t already here.”

“Should I bring anything from the car?” Basil asked, even as Abraham touched his shoulder and guided him toward the steps and front door.

“Only yourself.  We’ll get you your coffee, we’ll talk.  I’m sure we’ll take a moment to sort ourselves out partway through.  Someone’s always running off to find a book or make a phone call.  It’s good to make that a moment, clear our heads.  You can look after your things then.  Or we can send someone.”

“Is there a class in session?” Basil asked, just as they reached the door.

Abraham nodded, and pressed a finger to his lips before opening the doors.

The opening of the doors produced a wave of experiences.  Foremost among them was the faint feeling of majesty, the big classroom, right there as the doors opened, great blue-tinted windows on either side, the circular window with the heron in it looming above the stage.

That stab of fear when he realized Durocher was teaching was familiar too.  She stood on the stage in the midst of what looked like the exploded-out corpse of something huge, torn flesh painting ground and walls, ribs reaching up on either side of her, twitching as muscles contracted and moved.  The students stood back about as far as they could without actually leaving the classroom.

Basil remembered that Durocher had a bit of a pet peeve about people leaving mid-class.  Mostly because it happened often.  Of course, to ensure it was suitably complicated, she also made it the point of some lessons.  The dilemma made her loom large in your mind, which was what she wanted.  Or how she existed by default.

She made eye contact with Basil and smiled as she recognized him.

She addressed the class, “At the upper bounds of visceral power, as you see, the flesh will not die.  Principles about the conservation of energy hold.  We can use this if we’re brave.  Eat the flesh, keep the trophy, the power is yours…”

The class was paying keen attention.  Had to.  They all looked so young, Basil noted.  More colorful.  Back in the earlier years, they’d dressed seriously.  As if every day they were going to a job interview.  Here it looked like they wore everyday clothing.

Things changed.  It made his heart hurt.

But it was disorienting in other ways.  The students- there were only twelve of them.

Abraham led the way through the students.  He stopped at one, put a hand on her shoulder, and leaned over her other shoulder, murmuring something.  Brown hair, around the middle of the age group here, wearing a yellow sweater and black riding pants with her hair tied back tight.

Oh.  His?  No, did he have a daughter?

Basil watched as the girl started to part from the group, pausing for only a half second as the girl next to her leaned in to say something quick in her ear.  She nodded and then hurried to catch up, leaving the class in session.

She fell into step beside Basil, glancing up at him with a hard to read expression.

They took a left into the senior student’s dormitory and the offices.  Basil had never actually gotten to stay in these dorms, because they’d been reserved for direct help and apprentices.  The people who’d come to this school as if they were applying for a job and then got the job.  It held a trace of the reverence it had back then.

“My niece, Raquel Musser, one of our designated collectors and handlers of minor magic items, now,” Abraham said.  “You may remember her.  Raquel?  Basil Winters.  One of our first students, a scrivener.  You can learn things from him.”

Abraham said that as if he’d omitted the ‘you can’.

“A lot of commonalities between capturing dangerous words and glyphs and handling an unknown magic item,” Basil told her.

“I’ve read some texts.  I’m happy to have any opportunity to learn more,” she said, eyes forward.

They walked to the head office.  It had been Headmaster Larry Bristow’s, then Alexander’s not long after.  It had stayed Alexander’s for a good few years.

There were some large doors, and Raquel quick-walked forward to open them for Abraham and Basil.

“Raquel?  Leave the doors open, open the back door, and crack the windows.  It’s a nice enough day we should let some of the daylight in.”

“Yes sir.”

“And if you’d go to the kitchen for our guest?  Did you want something besides coffee, Basil?”

“A Frenchman’s black eye,” Basil told Raquel, as she opened windows.  When she raised her eyebrow, he clarified, “for the coffee.  And some of Granny Winters’ lonely pecan cookies.  We used to go to great efforts to ask for obscure things and things that didn’t sound like food.”

“They still do that.  Last spring Alexander had to forbid those gas station snacks that come loaded with preservatives and wrapped in plastic.  They gave the kitchen staff grief.”

“I would’ve liked to see that,” Basil said, smiling.  “We do like to break systems, don’t we?”

“Only the good students have that instinct.  I do remember those cookies, by the by.  I’ll have some as well.  We should have some other things to snack on.  Raquel.”

He made the calling of her name an order, given with a little nod.

“I’ll bring a tray.”

Musser indicated a hand, directing Basil’s attention to Raquel as she left.  With the front doors of the office left open, he could see her walk out and past Raymond’s office.  Or old office, as the case might be.

“Obedient.  She definitely looks like a relative of yours.”

“Your mother mentioned you’re interested in marrying.”

A bunch of little incongruities clicked into place.  Basil didn’t blink.  “Ah.  I wish she would have warned me.”

“Are you?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

“This year?  Next?  In a handful of years?”

“Not this year or next.  In a little while.  It’s about time.  Hard, when I keep the company I do.”

“I like your family, Basil, and my instincts tell me you’re a good man.  I also like the idea of expanding the Musser family’s reach.  When we all started teaching here, we fell into a set of roles.  Each of the head staff with areas we were comfortable navigating.  Ray was starting to talk to various world powers, Alexander was well-networked with various families, Lawrence knew both witch hunters and the movers and shakers of the innocent world, and Durocher was prepared to walk into a meeting with any greater powers that would normally not leave room for conversation.  Potentially diplomacy with a god, sometimes the killing of god-tier entities who didn’t like that the Blue Heron was where it was.  As for me…”

“Organized crime?” Basil asked.

“Money.  Which includes business of all sorts.”

A slight misstep there.  Abraham had changed a little bit since Basil had last talked to him.  He should have read what the clothing signaled.

Abraham went on, “And I do know you do business of sorts.  I would like to cooperate with you in that, and have influence in London through you.”

“I’m open to the idea.”

It was only London, Ontario, not the actual London, but Basil could weigh that prize and the future potential it carried and then compare it to what Musser was offering.  London’s Lord was a bit persnickety, and it was very easy to believe that the Mussers were being frustrated by that fact.  It had taken nearly a decade for Basil to get established there.  Abraham probably didn’t want to wait that long or jump through the same hoops.

“In four years Raquel will be eighteen.  You’d be just over thirty.  She’s educated, in good health.  She has class, relevant expertise to your trade, and she’s loyal.”

“Loyal to the Mussers or to a potential husband?” Basil asked.

“I’d hope those things would be one and the same, but I do mean loyal in all respects.  She’s loyal to friends.  She’d extend the same to you.  Basil, if I were a man your age, in your position, sitting across from a family patriarch comparable to myself, it would be a good arrangement.”

“Is this why you brought me here?  I noticed that you have far too few students for a fall semester.  Even back in the day, it would have been a small class.  Unless you have a bigger classroom elsewhere?  Are you looking to solidify alliances and draw in more students?  Rebuild?”

“It’s not why I brought you here.  We can do more than one thing at a time, and we’ll talk about the state of things shortly.  This is separate and distinct.  What are your thoughts?”

“I- admit I’m caught a little off guard.  I thought my first offer like this would come with some advance warning, so I could be in the right frame of mind.”

“Then you’re not ready.  We’ll do this, then.  On the pretext of learning from you, relating to what we talked about in the hallway, I’ll contrive to send her to London.  Do you have a spare room?”

“I have rooms.  My apartment is less a home and more a headquarters.”

“That’s fine.  You can stay in touch.  If you need anything- or want something, ask.  It’ll be an excuse for me to send her, you can host her for the days or weeks necessary.  She’ll bring you an Other, a text, or a magic item on loan, or simply her skills as a practitioner of my bloodline.  A taste of what you’d get with a partnership with the Mussers.  You would also come to me, perhaps for a few holidays, and she’d stay for a short time as part of her errand, to learn what you have to teach.  Both your business and your practice.”

“I can envision that.  Are you alright with her learning the trade of a thief?”

“I am.  It’s a set of skills much like any other.  So long as she’s safe.  Arrest is fine, a bullet is not.  Arrest may even be necessary, if we want her to get the full picture of who you are, what you do, and what she’s marrying into.”

“Okay.”

“We can increase the frequency and lengths of her visits as she gets older.  Only a few before she’s sixteen, more when she can drive herself.  See if you can find a comfort zone with her.  But not too comfortable.  She sleeps in her own room.”

“I’m not a barbarian, Abraham,” Basil said, affronted.

“She looks a fair bit older than she is, and carries herself better than many adults.  Do you want her to know the reason for the errands?”

Still upset at the implication, uncomfortable in general, Basil answered, “Let’s hold off?  Just for a few years, I don’t want to risk getting her hopes up if I’m still uncertain.”

“She might realize regardless, and she might even try to win you over or leverage the position she’s in.  She’s no halfwit.  I could see a man, given time, opportunity, if a young lady were to make an advance…”

“I’m not a barbarian,” Basil answered, heated now.

“Good.  I have to note, you associate with scoundrels and thieves.  You’d protect her.  Nobody lays a finger on her until she’s married.”

“Yes.  I’d have done that regardless.”

“Good man.  Your mother raised you well.”

“I was raised here, too.  You could say Alexander, Lawrence, Durocher, Raymond and you raised me well.”

Abraham Musser smiled.  “I suppose so.  Raquel needs more out of life, I think.  More than the Musser household and this.  She wilts more than she grows strong.  That’s more true lately than it was before.”

Before?  What had changed, or what was going on?  In the midst of that thought, Basil remembered.

“I’m sorry.  I’ve been rude, I didn’t connect the rumors I heard in the midst of this whirlwind of local events, the practice being upended-”

Musser waved him off.

“I’m sorry about your loss.  Reid was a good kid.”

“I suppose Reid’s passing is part of it,” Abraham replied.  “He and Raquel weren’t close, but it’s not the sort of thing that would help matters.  I only mention that she’s eager for more because you strike me as the type who would find appeal in rescuing the girl.”

“Rescuing her from you?”

“From the Musser family.”

Another slight misstep.  He wondered if it was purposeful, where a whole list of possible answers could lead to this feeling, putting him slightly off balance.

Musser changed his tone.  “What are your feelings right this moment?  On the topic?”

“I honestly don’t know.  By which I mean I don’t know if I’d accept.”

“We’ll try it.  There’s no obligation to accept Raquel if your interests fall elsewhere or if you have doubts, but we’ll all benefit from her visiting London, I think.  You get trinkets and whatever minor to moderate help you request, we get to learn what you know, she gets a brief escape with some independence… under your watchful eye.”

“And if I say no, I think the Winters would like to pursue some arrangement regarding giving you access to London, in exchange for resources.  If you’ll extend my apology to Raymond and do what you can to get me back to neutral ground with him, as you said.”

“Good man,” Musser said, smiling.  “Let me know what you’re thinking, as things move along.  If you’re up for it, we can talk about seeing the marriage through the week she turns eighteen.”

Basil hesitated as he thought about that, then changed to a related subject, “When did you marry?  I noticed the ring.”

“Which time?  The first marriage was about three years after Lawrence and Alexander founded the Blue Heron.  The second was only a few years ago.  More peaceful.  Carolyn, my second wife, was nineteen, but she’s risen nicely to the occasion.  Manages the house and finances, sets up events, sometimes with her sister’s help.  I can send her to meetings to speak in my place, and trust that if the subject turns to things she doesn’t have the power to answer, she’ll end things without breeding any bad blood.”

“How did you manage the divorce, with oaths and all?”

“Forethought, Basil.  You can think of the prenuptial contract as the true vows.  Then you make the marriage service about accepting the contract.  You’re not the only one looking, you know.  Hart is here, I think he had hope in his eyes that America Tedd would be around.”

“Isn’t she?”

“She was expelled, then took a leave of absence after.  The events this past summer hit her hard.  Her instincts might be good.  She managed to avoid the worst of the… I’ve called it the current climate of practice.”

“Where is he now?”

“Out back,” Abraham said.  He indicated with a hand.  “You can have a look.  Don’t feel compelled to stay sitting with this middle aged man.”

Basil stood from his seat, then walked to the back door of the office, which Raquel had left open.  Curtains billowed.

In the back, a girl was sitting in the grass with the younger cohort of students.  The dyed streaks of hair, nose ring, and the nails pushed through her bra cup and out her shirt made it pretty clear she was a goblin princess or a weirdo of the tenth caliber.  If America was gone, who was the other one?  Liberty.

It looked like she was teaching the younger students to make or use goblin weapons.  A whole assortment was lying between her and them.

Some of the younger ones were playing and shoving.  A little girl with severe bangs and a life-sized doll with the same haircut was throwing torn-up grass at another girl with exaggerated eyeliner and doodles she’d done with pen all up her arms and legs.

“The doll.  Graubard’s daughter is attending?”

“Yes.  Talia.  She’d be with Jorja Leos right now, if nothing’s gone wrong.”

“I feel old.  Gosh, she’d be-”

“Graubard was younger than you are now, when she had Talia.”

Braxton Hart was one of the older students lingering near the back of the crowd.  Big, shaved head, beard, big tattoo across one bicep.  He had been and still did look like the stereotypical bully from movies.  It was a contrast to the younger guy Basil pegged as one of the Hennigars, who looked like a different sort of bully.  If the Hennigars looked like the classic rich kids who punched down, with the addition of casually worn swords and other weapons, Braxton looked like the kind of kid who’d been born on the wrong side of the tracks and who’d been punched down at until he’d grown big enough to start punching back, and he’d never stopped swinging after.  A young man largely defined by a lifetime of lumps, bumps, and bruises.

“I remember you and the older Hart brother didn’t get along.”

“Bygones, if they’ll let them be bygones,” Basil replied.

“There is no they.  The older one’s dead.  Braxton there is just out of jail.  He’s quieter now than he was before.”

Basil nodded.  Hart had been the class clown on the best of days and the school bully on the worst of them.  Which was very ‘Goblin’.  Fitting for a young goblin king.

“Raquel,” Abraham said.  “At the back door.”

Raquel set a platter down, picked up a cup and a saucer of cookies, and brought them to Basil.  He took them, setting the saucer on a windowsill.  Raquel remained in the doorway, watching with him.

“Do you get along with Liberty?” he asked.

“She looks like she leaned hard into the goblin part of her father’s practice.”

“Both sisters did.”

“Can lead to difficult personalities.”

“They’re sweethearts.  Liberty more than America.  But we have little to nothing in common.”

He nodded to himself, taking a mental note for later, now looking at Liberty in the light of being a contrast to Raquel.

They watched the children play, Liberty doing her best to engage them.  A small goblin with a fur mohawk was miming everything Liberty did, which the kids seemed to like.  Raquel spoke without looking at him, “I remember standing in a doorway much like this one, when you were visiting Donovan.  Watching.”

“Mmm,” he replied.  “You didn’t enter?”

“I wasn’t allowed.  I studied you very carefully, as much as a child of five or six could.”

Basil sipped at the black eye coffee to judge the temperature.  A cup of black coffee, with a daub of cream, and a double shot of espresso.  It frankly hurt to drink, but with the Blue Heron, a metaphorical slap to the face helped him come to his senses.

Talia and Jorja were swatting and jabbing at one another with rusty swords and spears.  A boy roughly their age joined in.

That was the part he’d missed.  The sun, the grass, the river just past the trees.  But back when he’d been attending, that was a part that had been reserved for the quiet hours, when teachers had gone back to their study, and maybe one or two senior students were around to keep the peace.  Having friends with no ulterior motives.  Playing, fooling around, experimenting with rudimentary practice.  Occasionally a catastrophic injury that would get all the kids talking, usually promptly healed by someone on staff.

“May I try it?” Raquel asked.

She was looking at the cup.

“You don’t want to.”

“I’m interested,” she said.

He carefully handed her the cup, grabbing it around the rim so she could take the handle.  It was blistering, but decorum had to be observed.

“Excuse me,” Abraham said.  “Others have arrived.  Watch my office for me while I’m out?”

Basil nodded.

Raquel sputtered, coughing, and Basil carefully took the cup back

Abraham Musser left.

“What do you think is happening, Raquel?”

“Here?  The, ah, climate of the practice?  Did he use that term?”

“He did.”

“He wants to take steps to fix it.  So he’s calling on allies, people he trusts, and people he respects.”

“Hm.  That’s not-”

“You’re all three, I think.  Ally, trusted, respected.  Whatever happened with you and Raymond.”

“Perhaps.  I think you know or can guess what we talked about, when you were away.  Did you listen in?”

“I wouldn’t dare.  But I can guess.  He doesn’t have me serve everyone to walk into his office.  Would the idea be that we marry soon?  Later?  Or is it not yet decided, negotiations pending?”

“Not yet decided, little to do with negotiations.”

“I won’t take that personally,” she told him, smiling a bit.

“What do you want, Raquel?”

“Does what I want matter?”

“To me.  If you ever indicated you weren’t interested in following through, I’d like to think we could break it off without upsetting your uncle.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have something you want?  Your uncle wants access to London.  However he might act, you have leverage.  With me and with him.”

“With him, I suspect it would only be through you.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’d like to not get pulled out of class to serve drinks and pick up food from the kitchen, simply because it’s indecorous to put a note at the door and wait five seconds, then to bend down and pick up the serving tray.  I’d like more time with my friends, instead of time spent as his assistant.  I don’t get enough time with them as it is.”

“Okay.  If I’m honest-”

“Don’t be,” she interrupted.  “Because if he asks me, I’ll tell him what you said.  We’re not married yet, I don’t know you, I have no reason to keep your secrets.”

He digested that.  “Then I’ll keep to things he won’t mind.  Non-secrets.”

“Okay.”

“I’m doing this more to maintain graces with my family than out of anything personal driving it.  I want this to be something where we both walk away satisfied with the outcome, whatever we end up doing when you turn eighteen.  Maybe that’s me asking him to ease up on you and let you make more connections, and if we break it off in a few years, that keeps?  You at least got that for your trouble?”

“Or maybe we marry?” she asked.  She didn’t ask it like it was what she wanted.

Of course she didn’t, really.

He didn’t want it either.  He wanted the things that came with it, but he was ninety percent sure he wouldn’t go through with it.  The problem was that he couldn’t tell her or even hint at that to her because then she’d tell her uncle.

Asinine ancient customs, political alliances, and the barbarism that came with those things.  How would he even pretend to avoid grooming her for marriage when she might well try to cleave herself to that position on her own?

Maybe only by giving her opportunities and expanding her world.

“We’ll talk more about that when you’re seventeen or so,” he decided, postponing the question.

Musser entered the office, followed by a babble of conversation. “Basil!”

At least he sounded like he was in good spirits.

“You’re kind about this,” Raquel said, quiet.

Basil held up a finger for Abraham, which he was reasonably sure he could get away with, given the context.

She went on, still quiet, “I hear most are, at the start.  But as engagements grow long, so does any sense of entitlement.”

“I’d like to think I’m made of better stuff.”

“Most do.  I guess we’ll see how things stand when I’m seventeen?”

“I guess we will.  Sorry, yes, Abraham?”

“Would you call Hart in?  We’re about ready to begin.”

Basil nodded.  He didn’t have to go far, because Hart had already risen to a standing position.  The young goblin king said something to Liberty, who nodded back at him, then started walking toward Basil even before Basil had beckoned.

“And Raquel?  I believe Nicolette’s in her workshop, with Elizabeth.  Bring both, knock on Tanner’s door on the way back.  I told him we’d call him in, though he won’t necessarily stay.”

“Yes sir,” Raquel answered.

Basil stepped out of the way of the door before Hart could fill the doorway.  Hart ducked his head a bit to let himself in.  He had small eyes, cauliflower ears, a misshapen head laid bare, and a full beard.  He didn’t dress up or add color like Liberty Tedd had.  A white t-shirt, jeans, boots, scars, tattoos, and patches of skin where the scars didn’t stand out or catch shadows, but the color slipped from sun-tanned to pink or near-white all the same, producing a faintly mottled effect.

“Basil.”

“Hart,” Basil answered, holding his ‘black eye’ coffee and the saucer of cookies.

“Been a while.  We good, Bas?”

“Sure.  Bygones.”

“Good.  I thought you’d end up taller.”

“I’m tall enough I can get my feet down to my shoes when I want to put them on.”

Hart stared at him for a few seconds, then cracked a smile, bad teeth in the midst of unwashed beard.

Mr. Anthem Tedd entered the room.  Of a type with Abraham, but more relaxed in his clothing, he had stubble on his cheeks and blond hair, and he was more willing to smile.  He clapped an arm around Hart’s shoulders.

There were other greetings, with Mr. Tedd and Mr. Grayson Hennigar, who was followed by his daughter Hadley, who looked to be in her early twenties.  A young lady slipped past them to get inside, with ‘slip’ being the operative word.  She moved like she was lighter than air, weaving past a group of people who were, by and large, very powerful and intimidating.

“Ah, Basil, I forgot to mention-” Abraham called out.

“Marlen,” Basil said.

“Bas,” she answered.  Her dark hair was tied back into a loose ponytail, she wore a tight jacket, and her jeans were low cut.  It frankly looked like an uncomfortable choice of things to wear, but Marlen wasn’t one to care.  She looked him up and down.  “You grew up.”

“So did you,” he told her.  He remembered a near-literal wisp of a girl with wild hair and bad skin.  A spacey little weirdo.

Her eyes darted around, taking everything in.  He could see the little signs he’d once learned to look for.  How her eyes dilated and contracted too quickly, how hairs on her arm actively lifted up and fell flat within the span of a second or two.  Her lips were slightly parted, like she wanted to drink in the surroundings.

Most notable was how she stood.  She was awkward, footing shifting, but if he watched for it, there were moments her center of balance was off, the entirety of her weight resting on the left edge of her left shoe, tilted so the right edge was lifted off the ground, other foot planted on top, and she didn’t fall or even waver much.

She locked her eyes to his, pupils large.  Her feet planted firmly on the ground.  “Can we pick up where we left off?”

“I think I’d like that.”

She stepped forward, hopped up, and threw herself at him, hands at his shoulders, lifting herself up to plant a kiss on his cheek.

With all of her weight at his shoulders so she could raise herself up, it didn’t feel like she weighed more than five pounds.  As if she were a living echo.  He’d worn coats that weighed more than her.

“I remember I gave you a kiss on the cheek as a goodbye,” she told him.

“I remember that too,” he told her.

“Sorry if you tried to get in touch.”

“It’s fine.”

Marlen was a drifter.  Some practitioners tried to tie themselves to a place and its power.  She’d done the opposite.  She’d ritually disconnected herself from Earth and the earthly at a young age, with the consequence that getting in touch with her was hard.  Which was largely the point.

They’d been friends who’d flirted with being more when they were teenagers.  A reality made all the more confusing because she liked to cling to him to anchor herself in reality.  That had been the source of some teasing- a girl a little smaller than him climbing all over him, sitting on his shoulders, hugging his arm, even standing on his head.

She latched onto his arm, again evoking that sense of nostalgia.  More by surprise than any jostling, he nearly lost the cookies on the saucer, and she took the saucer from him, without a second thought.

“Sit,” Abraham said, ushering them toward the main area of the office, a large room that might’ve been the living room of the living quarters, before walls had been rearranged.  He was already making the space his own.  “Introductions will follow, though I believe everyone has met everyone at least once.”

Basil found a chair only large enough for one person to sit, with a chair beside it, and seated himself.  He expected Marlen to sit beside him, but instead, she sat in his lap.  Calling her a featherweight was closer to being a literal label than it was for any other people who got saddled with the term.

“Marlen?  Get real.”

“We aren’t picking up where we left off?” she asked, the picture of innocence.

“This is a bit much.”

“It’s fun.”

Before he could lift her up and seat her next to him, Braxton Hart took the chair to Basil’s right, smiling.

Basil sighed.

Abraham Musser had a tendency to get on well with a certain class of people.  Basil’s mother liked to say that a clever man surrounded himself with people smarter than him, then tried to rise to their level.  Musser wasn’t necessarily going against the grain with that idea, but more than half the people in the room now were bigger and stronger than average.  Most were practitioners with some form of clout.  Only those with particular skills fell outside that norm.  Basil, Marlen.

Now Raquel entered, followed by an older teenage girl wearing a style that reminded him of Alexander, with a decoration pinned in her hair, so it was above and behind one ear; two goat horns that swept back, some onyx, and black feathers.  She wore glasses, a blue button-up, and a skirt.

Nicolette Belanger, he deduced.  Behind her, he saw Elizabeth Driscoll, prim, proper, dressed a little plain.  As if she wanted to fly under the radar.  It looked like they were friends.

Tanner would be the other member of the Belanger clan, dressed much like Nicolette, hands in pockets, suit jacket draped over one wrist, at one side of him.

There had been a thing with Bristow and Alexander fighting over Tanner, if Basil remembered right.

The dizzying list of names, of parents, of children, alliances, and rivalries was one thing he’d almost forgotten about.

Raquel glanced at Basil, sitting with a strange girl in his lap, but she didn’t betray any thought or expression.

Raquel’s attention shifted from Basil to the back door.  Her uncle noticed and turned.  “Liberty.”

“I wanted to say hi to my daddy.”

“I was going to see you on my way out,” Anthem told her.  “Maybe sit down to dinner, catch up.”

She bounced on the spot, head peering around the doorframe.

“You can come in.  Just for a moment,” Abraham said.

Liberty bounced, ran in, and ran up to her dad.  He stopped her before she could embrace him.  “What on earth are you wearing?  You can’t hug me like that.”

“Fashion pushes boundaries.”

“And nails like that puncture innards.  What are you doing wearing those shorts?  You wore shorts with more fabric when you were half your age.”

“What am I doing? I’m unofficially teaching the youngest students.  I can hug you like this,” she said, turning around, pressing her back to him, head lolling back as she reached up and around to wrap her arms around him.

He hugged her carefully, avoiding various spikes, nails, and strapped on weapons.  “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Sorry to intrude!” she called out, before running outside.  “I left some children heavily armed, I’m going to get back to supervising!”

“Dinner after,” her dad said.

“Woo!”

Anthem sighed.

“She’s a character,” Abraham said.

“We can’t get her over the goblin thing?” Anthem asked.

“It’s a work in progress.”

Anthem folded his arms.  “I’ve thought about having her favorites among the goblins killed.  It’d sober her up, wouldn’t it?”

“It might destroy her,” Elizabeth said.

“And she’d stop seeing me as daddy, and I’d be father instead, wouldn’t I?” Anthem asked.

“If she talked to you again,” Elizabeth noted.

“An alternative would be to have someone else handle the problem.  Hugh?”

“Could do,” Hugh said.

Anthem stared in the direction of the door.  “It’s too narrow a practice, it doesn’t equip her with everything she needs to survive in this world.  And I’ve heard rumors about the goblins lately.”

“I know things.  We can talk about that over drinks.  Perhaps before you leave?” Hugh asked.

Anthem nodded.

“Anthem,” the one Basil was assuming was Nicolette said.  “I’m an augur.  I’m advising you not to do this.”

“I know you, Nicolette,” Tanner said.  “I didn’t see you do any augury.  That’s a nice little trick of words.”

“I could,” Nicolette said.  “I’m fairly certain the results would line up with my prediction, as someone who’s seen her and worked with her.”

Anthem sniffed his amusement.  He smiled a bit.  “Let her have this for now.”

“Alright, I think that’s everyone,” Abraham said.  “Introductions.”

Basil nodded a bit, joining others.  He took a sip of his coffee and managed to avoid grimacing.

“Hugh Legendre, from Thunder Bay.  Sealer and binder, also an expert in dealing with goblins, and one of our liaisons with Thunder Bay,” Abraham addressed the room. “Parent to two students here.”

Hugh was one of the big guys, albeit more big around the middle than muscular.  Not that clout-y, but he ran a family and had for a while, and he was still here when a lot of weaker families got stamped out.

“He’s joined by Florin Pesch, Puppeteer and contract worker, our second liaison with Thunder Bay, and a friend of mine.”

Florin doffed a bow from a sitting position, smiling.  He wasn’t big like some of the others, but he affected a lot of Abraham’s style.  That same assertive, expensive fashion, with a slightly different tilt, suiting a narrower frame.  He wore a half-smile like it was a default expression.

“Anthem Woodward Tedd, dabbler in various battle practices, trophy hunter, weapons dealer, occasional teacher here, his goblins are goblin princesses.  I have to admit you’re hard to pin down for location.  Wisconsin?”

“Among other places,” Anthem replied.  “Some in Canada.”

“Here as a friend and concerned parent, as I understand it.  Grayson Hennigar, close friend of mine, blood-streaked warmonger, with his daughter Hadley, sport hunter of witch hunters.  Someone has to keep them on their toes.”

Grayson, Anthem, and Musser weren’t cut from the same cloth so much as they were different fabrics used to fill in the same general outline.  Where they differed was in particulars of style.  Anthem looked more like the classic good looking dad of television, with the blond hair and intentional messiness of stubble, a plaid-printed shirt he’d left unbuttoned at the top, and face that seemed to have two modes- easy smile and concern.  He looked concerned right now.  Grayson looked more like the father on television who a savvy viewer could immediately clock as both vaguely familiar and vaguely sinister, in a way that gave him away as the bad guy for the movie’s climax.  Dark hair in a ponytail, muscles, and a dangerous look in his eyes that slipped out now and then against the mask of a smile he wore.

“Braxton Hart, a student, currently renting one workshop.  Braxton does masterwork goblin weaponsmithing, gives us some occasional innocent bodies to throw at a problem, and maintains connections throughout the Warrens.”

Braxton nodded.

“Tanner Gilpin, Aware picked up and made an apprentice of Alexander, currently working under Wye as part of the Belanger circle.  Eminent augurs and problem solvers, currently working with the Blue Heron Institute as a base of operations.  Wye would be here but he’s currently on a project.”

Tanner was a good looking guy with parted brown hair, a square face and the same mode of dress Alexander had liked for young Wye, back when Basil had crossed paths with him.  It was hard to imagine Wye now being old enough to manage the Belanger Circle after Alexander’s passing.

“Basil Winters, scrivener, professional thief.  Based in London, Ontario.  He steals primarily from innocents who own the sort of things that they can’t claim for insurance, with means that baffle authorities.  Which is how I found him.”

“Did this sap try to steal from you, Musser?” Grayson Hennigar asked.

“I found him and hired him to steal from others.  He did a fine job.  Once I realized he practiced I had Alexander find out who his mother was, and from there, we established a working relationship.”

Basil took a drink of his coffee.

“Marlen Roy, drifter.  To call her elusive is understating things.  Ritually enabled situational awareness, environmental awareness, danger sense, enhanced mobility.  Courier, sometimes an assassin, sometimes a spy.  Fairly detached from the world of innocents.”

Marlen bit into one of Granny Winters’ cookies, relatively plain with frosting dusting the top, a single pecan fixed to the center.   She twisted around to show Basil her expression of delight.

“Elizabeth Driscoll, Blue Heron graduate and historian by practice, deciphering places by way of their history and the diagrams formed by their layout.  Currently rooming here while working on a special project.  I’ve paid her and Nicolette to come.  Nicolette is another student of Alexander’s.  More of a scrapper.  She came to the practice the hard way.”

Abraham paused.  He looked through the room.

“You’re my allies and friends, or skilled professionals I trust with my money.”

He glanced at Nicolette and Elizabeth as he said that last part.

“The practice in this wider area is under threat, it’s put a great deal into jeopardy.  With those of you here either sworn to secrecy or close enough to me that I can trust you, I can tell you I had a hand in this.”

“And here I sit, convinced you were about to say you wanted to plan a heist, Abe,” Anthem said.

“I am.  But we’ll get to that.”

“I wondered if you’d tell them,” Nicolette said.

“Let me explain,” Abraham said.  “Charles Abrams was a summoner who helped us defeat the Blue Heron God, taking a smaller share as he didn’t actually take the risk of venturing into the nascent deity’s domain.  The man was forsworn roughly ten years ago, and at the tail end of summer, just a matter of weeks ago, he contrived to take a seat of power.  He is the one interfering with the practice, adjudicating forswearance and gainsaying.”

“I don’t see much judgment in this adjudication,” Grayson said.

“If he has the sense to take the seat while being forsworn, he might have a greater plan in mind,” Florin Pesch said.

“You helped him?” Basil asked, looking at Abraham.

Abraham nodded.

Basil exhaled.

“You’re likely to find out through other channels eventually.  A part of me expected it to be leaked out of spite, to throw a wrench into my plans,” Abraham said.  “They’ve held off.  And here we stand.”

“The school mostly empty, practice in the area in upheaval,” Hugh said.  “Lords are battening down the hatches, there have been some deaths.  Practitioners finding themselves gainsaid after waking up, with their enemies at their door shortly after, no defenses or protections.”

“It’s disastrous,” Abraham said.  “It’s also an opportunity.  Raquel?  The rolled up paper from my desk.”

Raquel went to go fetch the paper.  Musser motioned, and people lifted things off the coffee table.

Raquel unrolled the map of Ontario, marked out in large blocks of territory.

“You asked if I wanted to plan a heist, Anthem.  Here it is.”

“The province of Ontario?” Anthem asked, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

“And eastern Manitoba.  With the exception of the places already managed by other Lords.  Every inch of it that hasn’t been claimed, sliced up, brought under the sway of Lords.  Us.  Our sons, nephews, brothers, and cousins.  Fiefs.”

“Bristow’s plan,” Grayson Hennigar said.

“With some modifications, some new context.”

“You asked the Lord of Thunder Bay for permission to have a family member settle a tract of land.  A buffer against incursions from the north,” Florin deduced.

Abraham tapped one of the marked out territories.

“Toronto and Greater Sudbury have agreed as well,” Abraham noted, tapping two more.  “There is no obligation to keep what we secure in the coming weeks and months.  Other major rituals are permanent decisions.  Familiar, Implement, Demesne.  The seat Charles took was a ritual of a permanent sort too.  But a Lordship?  There’s nothing saying the one who takes the seat ruling over a particular area can’t abdicate.”

“Take and then sell?” Anthem asked.

“Take, ensure there isn’t a single inch of land that Charles Abrams and the Judges can control, then sell if we so desire.  So long as those who buy are willing to abide by certain systems.”

“Systems?” Hadley asked.

“One of the biggest problems with any Lordship is the amount of infighting that goes into it,” Basil replied.  “There would have to be something to keep people from fighting over the territories until we’re so weak that the next guy can wipe us out.”

“So we make a collective deal?” Grayson asked.

Abraham Musser nodded.

Hugh Legendre leaned over to whisper something in Florin Pesch’s ear.  Pesch nodded.

“Do you mind if Tanner and I do some readings?” Nicolette asked.

“Please.  It’s part of why you’re here.  Is there a problem, Hugh?  Florin?”

“You approached the Lord of Thunder Bay with a deal.  Offering support in exchange for one territory.  Presumably you reached a similar deal with the other major cities?” Florin asked.  “And you intend to make similar deals with southern Ontario as you get there?”

“I did and I do.”

“Does our Lord know your full plan?  Or is this a trick?”

“It’s a trick, and I’m confident I can reward you with enough here that it’s worth helping me to carry it out,” Abraham said.

Florin nodded, glancing at Hugh, seeming to consider.

Florin reminded Basil of several people he’d had in his inner circle at different times.  Cunning people who could smile and sound like everything was okay when the opposite was true.

But Hugh didn’t seem like that good a liar.  The man was a glorified janitor.

Would Florin turn on Hugh, letting him go along with this scheme, only to turn back and sell him and everyone else out to the Lord of Thunder Bay?

What would even motivate that?

“We’re strong enough as a group,” Abraham said.

“There is an awful lot of territory with nothing substantial in it,” Anthem Tedd told him.

“We can leave those to lesser sons and nephews.  They won’t have to hold it for long.  I’ll pay, making it worth their while.  They can build cottages and put the ambient power that comes with ruling a realm into sprucing things up.  There’ll be some surprises.  The deep wilderness tends to have a few slumbering Others that a lordship stake would wake up, but like I said, we’re strong.”

“I assume the Blue Heron would be first?” the brutish Braxton Hart asked.

“The Blue Heron has too many enemies who are watching out for just such a thing.  The caliber of enemies who would show up on our doorstep is not to be trifled with,” Abraham said.  “By the plan I worked out with Elizabeth here, the Blue Heron would be one of the last pieces of the puzzle we click into place.  There are a few territories that would be hard to take, or ones where we would want to unseat minor Lords.  Those would also come late in the greater plan.”

Nicolette laid some cards out on the map.  “Honest answer?”

“Please.”

“You can do this.  But it won’t be pretty.”

“Nothing about what is happening is pretty,” Abraham said.

“True.”

“You’ll have to do it without me,” Florin Pesch said.  “I won’t be a warlord.  Especially in a town of two hundred people, worrying about reprisal from an upset Lord who’s strong enough she has held her spot for a long time.”

“Seconded,” Hugh Legendre said.  “I don’t like the idea of my sons and daughters split up where they can be picked off by people who resent what we’re doing.”

“I can’t change your mind?” Abraham asked.  “Much of the middle to late stages of the plan would be organizing so attacking one of us would draw reprisal from all of us.  We’d join power.  This elevates everyone who participates.”

“I won’t say a word unless I’m asked by my Lord,” Florin Pesch said, smiling.  “She won’t ask.  She’s an Other of few words.”

“I can hold to that,” Hugh said.

“Then I’ll reward you for that silence.  Perhaps keep out of her way, beyond what’s necessary to maintain appearances?” Abraham asked.

Both men nodded.

“We’d need to talk terms,” Grayson Hennigar said.  He leaned back in his seat.  “You want to be a Lord, Hadley?”

“Sure.”

“Even if it’s a stain of a small town staged off the side of a hard to find rural road?” Grayson asked.

“I’d be a little queen, right?”

“Seems you have one little warlord,” Grayson said.  “I can convince the others who are of age.  I’d have to sit out.  Manage things at home.  I can set aside projects, lend them my strength.  This is an investment play, hm?”

“In effect.”

Anthem looked over the map.  “America might be interested, but she bucks at rules.  I don’t know that you want her.”

“I want you.  I can’t think of many who are better suited to win a Lordship contest.  Take a lordship, then give the crown to someone we trust.”

“The practice loves its patterns,” Anthem replied.  “What sort of pattern would we be establishing?  That the crown slips easily from the heads of new Lords?”

“We could space it out.  Only when necessary, or when we expect more than the most basic kind of resistance.”

Anthem nodded.  “There’s a lot to work out in terms of compensation, support, and what the rules you want are.  But sure.  Feels like a natural place to take my practice.”

“The end of your old story, the beginning of a new one,” Abraham said.  “We can talk about the compensation, support and rules tonight.”

“I’m thinking I’m interested,” Braxton said.  “Lord of my own little domain?”

“At one of the later stages.  We’d want you around,” Abraham said.  “Arm our contestants.”

“I have things.”

Abraham smiled.

“Me becoming a warlord would conflict with what you wanted from me,” Basil said.  An initial foray into London.

“It would,” Abraham said.

“Why am I here, then?”

“For your talents.  As a scrivener, you work with fancies, memeisthais, bugges, buggane, and a variety of Others who confound and poison information.”

“This all works best if they can’t organize against you or warn others.”

Abraham nodded.

“That’s going to require all I have and then some.  I’d need to know the plan.”

“You can talk to Elizabeth Driscoll about that.  She’s worked out a pattern and layout that should be ideal.  There’s an order to the territories we’d take.  Figure out what you need.  You have access to my resources and the Blue Heron’s resources to get whatever you might need that you don’t yet have.”

“And me?” Marlen asked.

“You’re our guarantee against others trying to steal our communication.  A messenger and spy.  It’s a lot of work, but you’ll be compensated enough.  You could retire by the time you’re thirty-five, live comfortably.”

Marlen twisted around to look at Basil.  “You’re considering this?”

“Dependent on a few things, yeah.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Do you mind if I go out to my car?” Basil asked.  “There are books I want to reference.”

“I’ll make a phone call,” Braxton Hart said.  “My ability to help is going to depend on whether the storage lockers of my work got sold off while I was away.”

“This is the time in the meeting I think we should call for a break,” Abraham said, smiling while glancing at Basil.  He’d called it.  “I’ll be available if anyone wants private words.  But go find your books, make your calls, talk amongst yourselves.  We have an opportunity here.  Yes, the Lords of Thunder Bay, Toronto, or Sudbury might take issue with what we’re doing, but as long as we’re not a danger to them, they’ll be glad enough at having the practice back to normal that I think their issues won’t hold for all that long.”

“Provided you’re not going to wage war against them?” Florin asked.

“No intention.”

Basil lifted Marlen off his lap, stood, and set her down in the chair.  He got some cookies.  While he did, he glanced at Tanner Gilpin, of the Belanger Circle.

He had done a ritual a while ago, to better prepare himself for the handling of Others who might take the form of words, glyphs, or images.  It had the side benefit of making it very easy to read coded words, distorted text, or, in this case, the note that Tanner was writing to himself when he thought nobody was looking.  Tanner had what looked like a book with a hollowed out interior, and took his time murmuring to himself, then casting handfuls of tiles with letters on each side into the space within, using the cover to shield what he found.  He didn’t put as much effort into shielding the scribbles he put on the page.

We need Florin Pesch in the early stages.

Grayson Hennigar will lose a son or you’ll lose the Blue Heron.

Basil can save-

Tanner stopped writing and met Basil’s eyes.

Basil took a bite of cookie, licking the frosted sugar off his lips, and left the room, where conversations were still abuzz.

Florin Pesch was necessary?  What use did they have for people turned into puppets by possessing Others?  Was that to manage enemies?

Or to manage the less manageable people back in that room?

Yeah, this would be a long afternoon and evening.

He walked down the hallway, noting that students were out and about.  Durocher’s class had ended.  She walked the far hallway, where the smaller dorm rooms were, keeping the peace by intimidation alone.

The coast was more or less clear.  Basil noted the stuffed heron that was mounted above one of the reading nooks.  With his Sight, he could see fingerprints, a maker’s mark, and he could see the eye outlined in a bright blue scribble that left a circle in the center dark.

Raymond had the means to turn things like that into cameras.  To keep an eye on things.

Basil unchained the sheet metal cover of his little tome of scrawlings, and held the chain firmly wrapped around his fist while paging through.  Words shifted, moved, and images wriggled.  Some two page spreads had Others raging against their confines.

He glanced back to check the coast was clear, then released one.

If a Bugge was a bug in the system, in addition to its middle-English meaning, a glyph or little piece of story reinforced by a chorus of voices independently reinforcing it, then a Buggane was the advanced type.  Buggane latched onto independently reinforced stories, conspiracies, and warnings, and they came out bigger and fiercer, with more of an agenda, and very often a mounting deadline.

When a Bugge got strong, it could rewrite and capture an entire area.  A slice of city or a town that was painted in slightly off colors, where the sunsets lingered too long, or where it rained incessantly.  Reality warped, innocents warped with it, it had more of those innocents to spread the story of the Bugge, and the loop continued until broken.  Most Bugge were often dumb, distractable, or self-defeating, and the one in a thousand that wasn’t was a problem for someone like Basil or his family to deal with.  Or for Hugh Legendre, the sealer, who would do a worse job but probably manage something in the end.

When a Buggane got strong, it could create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which in turn validated everyone involved and brought others on board, and often led straight into a subsequent prophecy and a second impending doom.  They weren’t distractable or stupid.  They were focused and fierce.

Here, a group of people had independently noticed parallels in the deaths of certain leaks of medical records and deaths of the leakers, positing that they’d been killed by a shadow agency trying to hide medical trials for shady mind control drugs.

He let it loose from the page.  A sexless figure wearing black with a surgical mask on, eyes hidden by lenses, hair slicked back and parted.  The figure distorted briefly as Basil set naked eyes on it.

The figure distorted more fiercely as it met Basil’s eyes, a scream in the form of static and flickering images, rather than sound.  A scream that promised, in images reflected on glass, that he would drug Basil into a stupor, drag him off to a secluded location, and do a living autopsy.  As he’d done to others.

“You should know from our last run-in.  You can’t get me,” Basil told the Buggane.  “But up there?”

The figure turned to look at the heron.

“You should be able to trace a route to the computer systems of Raymond Sunshine.  It’ll be faint, but that’s been a camera more than once, the traces should be there.  Gather the information, bring it to me.  If he has Others in there protecting his system, corrupt them, vivisect them, or drug them and turn them against him.  But bring-”

“Basil.”

Basil didn’t startle or jump.  He turned, closing the little tome of scrawlings and holding it at his side.

Not close enough to have heard.

“I paused to take stock.  Sorry, did you need me for something?” Basil asked.

“Yes, and I know you paused to take other things,” Abraham Musser told him.  “I know what you are, Basil.  It hasn’t changed.  Put that away.”

Basil glanced to his left, where the Buggane lurked in the nook.  He opened his book and bid it to return.  The cover slammed shut, and Basil chained it secure.

“Join me in this, and I think you have a much greater chance of getting what you want,” Abraham said.  “Leave Raymond be.  We need him.  I’ll give him your apology and do what I can to convince him, as I promised.  All that requires is a touch of patience.”

Basil glanced out the window.  He turned to Abraham Musser and smiled a thin smile.

“Go get your book.  We’ll talk more.”

“Before I do, while I have your attention?”

“Yes?”

“It’s bad form to ask now, but… Raquel.  I noticed you pulled her away from friends and classes.  I’d like to ask you not to do that.  If she’s to be a rich and capable person… surely you could find an Other to serve you?”

“I could.  I have a few.  Is it so important to you?”

“Important enough.  She should have friends, time to grow as a person.  I don’t want an automaton or a servant.”

Abraham smiled.  “Then I’ll see to it, provided you leave Raymond alone.”

Basil hid the disdain he had for that idea.  He thought for a second, then decided it was worth it.  “Agreed.”

“You remind me of myself when I was young,” Abraham Musser said.  “How hungry I was.  How convinced I was that I could be kind.”

“Couldn’t you?”

“I thought that with my first wife.  I’d done many unkind things, but a pretty girl can bring out what we think of as the best in us.  I regretted that.  I think it made Susan and I unhappier in the long time.”

“Susan?  Your-”

“First wife.  I much prefer the second.  She actually listens when talked to.”

“I’d still rather Raquel have what I just mentioned.”

“Friends and time.  Absolutely,” Abraham Musser said.  “I would’ve said much the same thing back then.”

Basil frowned.

“Go get your books, if that wasn’t a complete ruse.  There’s much to discuss.”

“Alright.”

Basil walked back to the main classroom, where Durocher was talking to two students.

“Come talk, Basil,” she told him.

“If it’s alright, can we postpone that?  I’m needed.”

“Of course,” she said.

He stepped outside, squinting at the late-afternoon sunlight.

Damn.  He’d really hoped this would be his shot at Ray’s information.  Easily several millions were available in that.  He’d slipped up years ago, trying for much the same thing, with a bad turn of phrase tipping Raymond off that the entity in his systems was something Basil knew a little bit about.  The man had dogged that little detail relentlessly, not taking anything vague as an answer until Basil had been forced to confess.

He was a thief, after all.  It was the worst part of him, but the best part of him didn’t earn him enough to live off of.

He walked out to his coupé, watching a few boys oohing and ahhing over the old-fashioned car, when a lot of others simply didn’t seem to care.  He used his tome to collect the scrawled guard dog that was creeping across the paint, then popped the trunk.

He’d need to secure the tapes, records, books, and other things so they wouldn’t rattle when he next set off.  Maybe he could enlist Raquel for that.

As he sorted things out, standing by the open trunk, he saw kids playing, squawking, and running around in broad daylight, delighted.

A quick check with his Sight confirmed- many of them had been cut off from their usual power sources.  Many were gainsaid.

Little boys and girls are being tormented by the fact they’ve been unshackled from family and practice.  They’re left to play and laugh with nary a care in the world.  What a horrible force this is we’re about to work so hard to defeat.

A tiny part of him wanted to stop and digest that joke of a thought that passed through his mind.  The part of him that envied the kids their ability to throw grass at each other, to play, to admire cars.  A part of him that got smaller as the thief got bigger.

Was this how he followed in Musser’s footsteps?

He set the guard dog over the car again, with the fleeting, hypocritical thought of how it probably wasn’t necessary, but he really couldn’t abide thieves.

Everyone’s here.

Basil climbed out of his car, looking around.

Everyone that had been at Musser’s office at the Blue Heron had come here tonight.  Even Florin and Hugh.

It was evening, and clouds rolled across the sky, not visible themselves, but their shapes were easy to see where they erased the stars.

“I thought we were staggering this out.  Partial groups for each event, multiple territories taken at once,” Basil said.

“We will eventually,” Abraham told him.  “But the first territories should be less eventful, and we need to make sure there are no wrinkles.”

“Alright.”

Marlen smiled as she saw Basil, but she remained where she was.

It looked like Anthem was the first contender.  Making this more of a sure thing.

“We shouldn’t need you,” Abraham told Basil.  “But we could view this as an inaugural event.”

Basil nodded.

It felt like a lot of pomp and ceremony for this.  Nipigon was a town of a thousand five hundred people, frozen in time, with storefronts that looked like they were out of the nineteen forties, but with the occasional fast food place.  The old storefronts with modern logos made Basil feel like it was a little slice of alternate reality.  Most buildings were boxes, low to the ground, and there was as much dirt as grass.

The pledge to Thunder Bay was that they would be a filter.  They would hold the territory and confront any who were passing through to enter the city.  They’d be a guard against what Florin Pesch had described as a kind of suicide bomber, an innocent that had been awakened and brought into the practice, given something they couldn’t handle, to go along with their desire to enter the city.  One practitioner, set up to pull off something dangerous and perhaps catch some key people in the process.  Abraham Musser’s colleagues.  They had yet to figure out just who the target was.

What they hadn’t clearly broadcast to Thunder Bay was that this barrier went two ways.  When they took a territory to the north, this territory would be a stopping point for those coming from the south.  If Thunder Bay took issue, then Thunder Bay would have to deal with those stationed in Nipigon, as well as this little town’s Lord.

It would be a delay, a chance to weaken, a chance to warn.

And so it went.  Territories securing one another like links in a chain.

They took their time, preparing.  They had a variety of skills, and to begin with, they turned their attention to finding any and all threats, checking for local Others, and driving them away.  Fighting them in advance, as a group.

To make this all that much more of a sure thing.

Anthem Tedd held up a piece of paper.

“I, Anthem Woodward Tedd, sorcerer of fighting practices, warmonger, first son of a first son of a first son, hereby make my claim,” he pronounced.

Grayson Hennigar, Hadley Hennigar, and Abraham Musser led animals from trucks.  The animals weren’t strictly necessary.

“Set here a throne of the Kingdom, as allowed and ordered by the compacts of Solomon Bin Daoud, sorcerer and binder of things above, things below, and things unearthly.  Binder of architect and destroyer.  Binder of man, beast, and the oldest of Others.”

He let the paper fall.

The diagram, blood red, spilled out from the point of contact on the ground.  It stopped as it reached the front hooves of a sheep.  A red glowing mark in the middle of a parking lot where the paint had long since washed away.

“With one of Solomon’s marks, I lay my stake.  With my words, I state my borders.  Let this be the center of my territory.  I claim everything within a day and a half of walking in every direction, except that which is claimed already, and I claim the water, out until it is too deep for a man to reach the bottom by a single breath.”

The diagram pulsed.

Anthem’s eyes widened.

He could See the extent of the territory, now.

“Let this be a throne of the kingdom, with reign over binding, practice, word, oath, and spirit.  Let the reign be mine own, until I should relinquish it to another, or until someone should take the crown from my head.  If anyone should challenge my claim, then by the accords, I give them three days and three nights to make their case.”

Anthem walked over to the first animal, the sheep, and slit its throat.  By sheer strength alone, he dragged it.  A bloody streak traced the edge of the diagram, about a third of the way before it got thinner.

He’d reached the calf.

He slit its throat.  The process that followed was the same.  He dragged it.

To the ox.

A little bigger.

The animal didn’t resist as he drew the blade through its throat.

Abraham Musser and Grayson Hennigar helped to drag the massive animal.

Closing the circle.

“Let this be my domain, let the necessary tools for the rule of this domain cross my palm, and let all things spiritual and Other be under my order, unless they would usurp me as king.  I make my challenge.”

“What of the innocents?” Marlen asked Basil, quiet.  “Us all here, one bloody man calling himself king, three dead animals, and a giant diagram?”

Basil shook his head.

The stars moved across the sky like they were falling, and the moon traveled at an accelerated pace.

This was outside the realm of innocents.

The Lord of Thunder Bay stood near the water, a massive figure, almost a giantess, but she was elemental more than she was anything that old.  People gathered around her.  Her council.

She provided support, not aggression.

If they did this again, anywhere near her, then that would change.

The first tentative figures approached, and with their arrival, the stars stopped streaking across the sky, and the moon stopped with a suddenness that made the distant water roar, slosh, and crash, as if the tides were protesting the abuse.

A woman, a practitioner, who seemed to be some form of hedge witch.  She didn’t take up the challenge, and instead moved to the side to watch.

Then Others.  Bogeymen.  The first of them crossed the circle’s boundaries, stepping over blood.

Anthem drew a paper from one pocket, glanced at it, then held a sword with palm flat under the blade, at roughly eye level.  When he pulled his hand away, it suspended there for a moment, then dropped down about two feet to the waiting hand.  At set intervals, it duplicated itself.  Five swords horizontally suspended in the air.

He tapped the butt end of one blade, and it flew forward, the others chasing it.

Too fast to dodge, moving with enough force that the blade pierced chest and sank down to the handle.  Right through the heart.  The other blades caught throat, leg, shoulder, and belly.

The bogeyman staggered, then started forward, hauling one blade out of its throat to attack with.

Anthem turned his back to the bogeyman, took one step to the side to reach over to the back of his car, and picked up a shotgun.

The bogeyman reared back to throw the blade, and caught the brunt of the shotgun’s blast before it could follow through.  It fell, then climbed to its feet, still impaled with four swords, now with flesh shredded and torn away in the upper chest.

The second blast from the shotgun bowled it over again.  Anthem used a fourth, fifth, and sixth before setting the gun aside.

“I know guns are ineffectual against Others,” he said.  “But they’re so fun.”

The bogeyman ran toward him.

“There’s nothing Lordly about you,” Anthem told it.

The Other had a sword.  Anthem had paper.  He threw the paper into the air, then leaned back sharply to avoid having his head cut from his shoulders.

The rune on the paper glowed.

And so did the shotgun pellets, those buried in flesh and those that had missed the target, scattering to road and wall behind the Other.

Every single pellet darted toward the rune, leaving a streak of light and smoke behind it.  Nearly every single one did more damage to the Other on the return.

Anthem caught the Other before it could fall, gripping one sword handle.  He ripped it away with a sideways swipe, taking a good-sized chunk of flesh out of the Other, then brought it down to behead his opponent.

The second bogeyman chose not to fight.

The sun cut across the night sky without brightening anything.  Red and orange, white, shrinking, growing.  Too brilliant to look at, it reflected most brightly in blood.

And just before it set, the accelerated timetable stopped.

Another set of contestants.  Three female ghouls.  Old.

“I challenge you not to combat, Anthem Woodward Tedd,” the oldest of the three ghouls said.  “But to questions of history.”

“And I challenge you to combat,” he answered.  “You can ask your questions, I’ll hack at you with blades and shoot you with guns.  We’ll see who comes out ahead.”

“You weaken your claim.”

“I fight well enough I don’t need to worry about that.  Do you accept my challenge of combat?”

All three shook their heads.

“Will you stand down, then?”

“Will you allow us our hunting grounds?”

“If you’ll work my council and the council of any who succeed me.”

All three nodded.

Five more came.  Four were young men who’d heard the challenge but didn’t know enough to know what to make of it.  The sorts who’d never be accepted at the Blue Heron.  They’d been taught rudimentary practice, awakened, but they knew nothing of the bigger picture or of things like this.  They watched.  One was a man with a spirit inside him, twisting his flesh up.  He chose to fight, and he lasted a shorter time than even the bogeyman.

The sun streaked across the sky one final time, bringing night and the moon, which reached its apex before settling.

The diagram went quiet.

Anthem Woodward Tedd became Lord of a tiny, quaint town above Thunder Bay, and Anthem Tedd immediately abdicated his seat, giving it to the eldest son of Hugh Legendre.  The Lord of Thunder Bay didn’t seem to like that he abdicated, or that they’d functionally cheated the contest, but she didn’t intervene.

If someone didn’t like the Lords they chose, they were free to contest it.

In the meantime, the reach of Charles Abrams had shrunk.

It felt anticlimactic, but that was the danger of securing things as well as they’d done before.

What followed would be harder.

They prepared another ritual.  It felt like it was less than twelve hours after the most recent, but the time had technically passed.  It did Basil’s head in, the rituals with their accelerated passage of time, the import, where the staking of a Lordship was meant to be something seen once a generation.

They’d done nine now in what felt like nine days, guided by augurs and the Driscoll historians.  Nine Lordships staked, with the backing of some of the most powerful and dangerous practitioners in the area, and a handful of those not even from this area.

There’d been some pushback, but the territories had been minor.  Some practitioners had asked questions, and they’d declined to answer.  Curious as they were, people had decided they wouldn’t take issue.  Many of the nine territories were distant, disconnected, and unimportant.

Marlen sat astride her motorcycle, not helping with the preparations, but instead kept herself ready to bring any message of complications to other groups.

Tonight, they claimed territories adjacent to the ones they’d taken in the first three nights.  Anyone with any sense of these proceedings would realize that they were taking consecutive territories, and that these claims would continue.

Forces were arranged at the shore of the water, in anticipation of Thunder Bay’s Lord making her move.  More were in Nipigon, protecting a tract of territory that would be time consuming to go around.  If someone tried, then Milly here would get some notice.  Hugh Legendre’s oldest son was a skilled sealer and binder, and he could set up a barrier that would resist penetration.

Then Milly would also have a territory, also bear the ability to turn her territory into one extended barrier.

Making it even harder to mount challenges to other claimed territories.

And so it went.

Basil did his part, transferring Bugges from his tome of scrawlings to the phone.  He’d attended to a cell tower already, and there were workings on the internet.

Workings Raymond Sunshine had learned.

Three Legendres, one Hennigar, Basil, Braxton Hart, and Marlen waited, tense.  People guarding the territory between their largest concentration of enemies and here were fathers, uncles, and teachers.

He walked over to Marlen, leaning in to murmur, “Is Florin Pesch at any of the locations?”

She shook her head.

“One of the augurs thought we needed him for the early phase.  That it’d be disastrous if we didn’t have him.”

“Why would we need puppets?” Marlen asked.

“I don’t think even the augurs know.”

“Abraham Musser knows.  He seems fine to continue.”

Basil nodded.

Milly Legendre was an older teen, wearing a tank top with runework in white on tan skin.  Beads helped tie her hair and encircled her neck, and more beads were wrapped around her fists.  She held the paper with the diagram.

She breathed hard, anxious.

“Relax,” Basil called out.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yeah, but it’s still good advice,” he told her.

Marlen answered her phone, holding it to her ear.

“Start,” Marlen told Milly.

“What?  But we were going to wait an hour-”

“Start.  Thunder Bay knows.”

“Damn,” Milly said.

She went to lift up the paper.  A hand stopped her.

All of them stopped in their tracks.

Milly Legendre stood in the cleared space they’d marked out for the ritual.  Three sheep remained ready for slaughter, quiet at the sidelines.  And within that space was the man who could only be the Carmine Exile.  Charles Abrams, red haired, red bearded, wearing red fur.

Braxton drew a blade and moved forward, only to be rebuffed as a barrier appeared, a circle around the Carmine and Milly.

“Milly Legendre,” he said.  “I set four-hundred-and-thirty-six small falsehoods at your feet.”

“What the fuck?” Milly asked.

“I would gainsay you for one day for every falsehood.  This is a modest punishment for a serious series of acts, when you’ve made the oaths you have to truth.”

“You’re not allowed to interfere with the Lordship,” she told him.

“I’m not.  Let the challenge commence, if you wish it.  You’ll need help to start the ritual, for I am allowed to arbitrate whether you should be allowed to practice.  If you wish to contest, we can answer the four-hundred-and-thirty-six falsehoods.”

“One by one, Carmine Judge?” Basil asked.

“Anything else would be irresponsible.”

“You’re turning the practice into a farce,” Hart challenged him.

“I am holding it to standards codified in our oaths and laws for centuries.”

“With this timing?” Basil asked.

“Yes.  What good would it do to lay penalties at your feet when nothing’s at stake?”

“What good does it do to lay penalties at our feet anytime anything’s at stake?” Basil asked.  “I assume that’s your intent?”

“It would make people think long and hard about where they stand and who they stand with,” the Carmine told him.

Basil turned to Marlen.  “Go.”

Marlen revved her bike.

She made it about ten feet before wobbling, pulling her leg up to save it as the bike tilted badly, side scraping.

“Marlen Roy, I lay eighty-six falsehoods at your feet, and declare you gainsaid.  You may appeal if you desire.”

“How are you that much more truthful than me?” Milly asked.

“I don’t talk as much,” Marlen said.  “I’ve lost protections.”

“Go anyway!” Basil told her.  “Be safe!”

She picked the bike up.

“It would be a shame if any Others were to manifest between here and your destination, while you’re that unarmed,” the Carmine said.

She stared at him, set her jaw, then revved, speeding off, tires squealing.

“We’ll see, then,” the Carmine said.

“Milly,” Basil said.  “I think you have to do the ritual anyway.”

“Without practice?”

“Braxton?  I think Abraham anticipated this,” Basil said.  “Weapons.  We can use magic items while gainsaid.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Milly said.  She glanced up at the Carmine.  “No way am I going up against however many people show up in the next three days and three nights if I can’t practice.”

“If we lose this, your relatives might die.”

She looked at the Carmine Exile.

“There are two other locations that need my attention.  I may return.”

The Judge walked away.  Milly looked like she was ready to lash out, then thought twice about it.

He walked to the edge of the barrier he’d erected, that faint wall of shimmering red light, and walked into and through it.

Disappearing.

Leaving them with less people, their chosen candidate and one of their better all-around combatants now unable to practice.

Many of them had been left intact, but the danger was there now.  That they might start the ritual and have the practice ripped from them.

He could have done this with the first ritual.  But he chose to let us overextend ourselves.

Basil remained where he was, tense.

“I’m out,” Milly said.  “I can’t practice for four-hundred and thirty-six days?”

“How many of your white barriers stand?” one of the other Legendres asked her.

“Shit,” she said.

“We’re going to be screwed if we can’t set something up here,” the Hennigar asked.

“Then step up!”

“And be gainsaid?  Die?”

“I still don’t think he can interfere,” Basil said.  “I think if we get underway, he can’t step in.”

“If that’s true, why didn’t he gainsay you all?” Milly asked.

“I don’t know,” Basil admitted.

“I’m not willing to take that gamble, based on your instinct,” the Hennigar boy said.

Basil hesitated, then turned to Braxton Hart.  The young goblin king, just released from prison.

Braxton shook his head.  “I’m supposed to wait.”

“Arm me.”

Braxton looked surprised.

He passed Basil a blade and goblin-made gun.

Basil took other things.  The paper from Milly.  There wasn’t much time.  If the Carmine arrived, cutting him off-

“Three white wardings?” a Legendre asked.

“Tell me what this means?” Basil asked.

“We layer protections.  When we put a big monster away under a binding or cage it in wards, if it’s one practitioner doing it, the warding is white.  Then we have grades.  Best case scenario, so a warding won’t fall if one of us dies-”

“Or is gainsaid,” Milly interrupted.

“-we coordinate, layer them.  Successive protections.  Milly’s got three Others she locked away recently.”

“Near here?  Potential challengers?” Basil asked.

She shook her head.  “But near one of the other rituals we’re doing simultaneously tonight.”

“Then I guess they’re going to have to deal with that,” Basil said.  “We’ve got to deal with this, or Thunder Bay is going to wipe us out.”

“Then deal with it,” Milly said.

The area was more remote than Nipigon.  There was a campground nearby, and a lake, but the number of people in this territory numbered in the low hundreds.  What was important was that it was connected.

“I, Basil Zacharias Winters, scrivener, keeper of fancies and bugges, gentleman thief, hereby make my claim.”

He pointed at the three sheep.  Milly was one of the people to hop to getting the animals into position.

“Set here a throne of the Kingdom, as allowed and ordered by the compacts of Solomon Bin Daoud, sorcerer and binder of things above, things below, and things unearthly.  Binder of architect and destroyer.  Binder of man, beast, and the oldest of Others.”

Basil released the paper.

The diagram flowed from the paper and marked out the dirt, ink black.  One of Solomon’s marks.  Each part of Solomon’s accords had a mark, and this was the one dictating Lordship.

“With one of Solomon’s marks, I lay my stake.  With my words, I state my borders.  Let this be the center of my territory.  I claim everything within a day of walking in every direction, except that which is claimed already.  Join my borders to my brother and sister Lords, those who call themselves my allies, and who have sworn to oblige the contracts outlined by Abraham Musser.

“Let this be a throne of the kingdom, with reign over binding, practice, word, oath, and spirit.  Let the reign be mine own, until I should relinquish it to another, or until someone should take the title and metaphorical crown from my head.  If anyone should challenge my claim, then, in accordance with the Seals, I give them three days and three nights to make their case.”

He used the blade Braxton had given him to kill the first sheep.

He wasn’t as strong as Anthem Tedd was.  He accepted help from Braxton, dragging the sheep around.

“Good man,” Braxton muttered.

One sheep for the stars.  One for the moon.  one for the sun.

The ritual set apart from everything else.

Only a few seconds seemed to pass before the universe ground to a halt.  The sky seemed to tear as stars were forced to an abrupt stop, as if they’d dragged against paper.

The first Others came.  Animals infused with spirit, from deep in the woods, where humans almost never passed.

Basil was not a fighter.  His last proper fights had been a desperate escape from a security guard two years ago, and sparring at the Blue Heron, back when he’d been a teenager.

But he had weapons, and he had Others.

So he released Bugges, and let them illuminate the surroundings.  Living words and scrawled images that had found footholds in the public unconscious and taken on a life of their own.  Amorphous, slippery, sometimes fragile, but easy to underestimate and very hard for many to even wrap their heads around.  How did one fight living graffiti?  Or a stylized figure of an old man listening to music who filled one’s head with deafening music that couldn’t actually render anyone deaf while he was looked at?

Most weren’t fighters.  He held back his best.

Three days and three nights was a long time, and he hadn’t come prepared.

There was no time to breathe.  When he had the opportunity, he checked what he had, in the way of weapons.

Time stopped, and the sun blistered the night sky like a hot flame held to plastic.  Damage that would heal as soon as time started moving again.

Time stopped again.  Late evening.  Stars shattered as they halted, casting fine dust across the cosmos.  Goblins.  The ensuing fight was short but left him a nasty cut on one forearm.

The next was an echo, so weak it was banished in one backhand swing of the goblin sword, using his injured arm.  The cut on his arm had festered badly in the meantime.

He could only hope that there were people out there holding the fort.  Holding back the advance, or frustrating the practitioners who might step in.

Sweating, dizzy, he saw the celestial movements above grind to a pained halt once again.

She was an Oni, purple skinned, wearing black, a birdcage at her back, one hand holding her mask, the other hand holding chains, connected to three small cages.  She looked like an old woman, and the mask matched that.

Oni were trouble.  Oni could often foil practice.

He felt sick, for reasons that had little to do with the infected wound on one arm, white pus leaking out.

“You can’t fight me in that condition,” the old woman said.  “I’d suggest another contest.”

His brain pounded in his skull, sweat stinging his eyes.  Breathing hurt.  Simple passing strikes to his arm from what felt like minutes ago had become aching bruises.

Milly shouted something.  It might have been a warning about Oni traps.

“What contest?” he asked.

She wasn’t wrong.  He couldn’t fight.  Not like this.

“Call your Others back.  We’ll compete on another front.  A shell game.”

“What?”

“Three cages,” she said.  She set down the cages in front of her.  “In one, an Other.  In another, a healing poultice.  It will mend your arm.  In the third, a trick.  You can open as many as you like.  Once you’ve decided you’re done, say it’s so, I’ll pack up my things, poultice excepted, and you can deal with your next challenger.”

“What Other?”

“Depends on which door you want to open,” she told him.  She used her cane to turn one of the cube-shaped cages of dark iron ninety degrees, so a different face was pointed forward.  “In one, there are four Others in here, captured, bound.  They agreed to my terms.  This one has the healing poultice.  If you turn it, you might hear the difference of the sounds within and deduce it’s the medicine you need.  And the trick?  Four tricks again.  One small, one moderate, one large, and one that will harm me.”

He shook his head.

She’d said this one has the healing poultice?

As soon as he’d had the thought, she used her cane, sliding boxes around.

Dizzy, hurting, ready for the contest to be over so he could claim the lordship and promptly abdicate, he tracked the movements of the boxes.

His eyes momentarily unfocused.

She stopped.

The middle one had the medicine.  He was almost certain.

He started forward.

And he heard the voices of the others.  Pointing.

At the rightmost one.

A chance of mischief, a chance of another fight he might not be ready for, or a cure?

One in three, with everything on the line?

He smiled, opened his tome, and let Bugges out.

The old woman shifted position.

“You said to put them away.  You didn’t say I couldn’t call them out again.”

Basil aimed his Bugges at the rightmost cage, bidding them to open it.  Scrawled hands worked, hauling on the door.

But Bugges were fragile, and the thing that came out wasn’t.

It snarled, slavered, and it had multiple eyes crammed into each eye socket.  Naked, mad, it tore past Bugges.

He fought, one-handed, because his other arm was so weak he couldn’t lift it.  Cutting- and doing so little.

It grabbed him, lifted him, and smashed him into the ground.  He was momentarily dazed.  Fingers dug into flesh and tore.  The Bugges he’d summoned fought it, pulling it back and away.

These things had rules.  An Other asked for permission or gave a warning before it could hunt.  A contest like this, it could be turned around.  If it couldn’t, there were things he could do.

He suspected it would be too easy for this to be an impossible contest.

There had to be a trick.

Fighting the snarling Other off, he found the excuse to lunge toward the boxes.

One in two chance.

He was bowled over, fell, and landed near the little crates with the impenetrable darkness within.

The Other scratched deep.  More injuries that would possibly get infected.

But Basil reached up, and opened a cage, eyes crushed shut, entire body braced, his legs fighting to kick the slavering Other away.  He hoped in part for a trick, a blast of fire that would destroy this Other.

But it was the poultice.  Moist herbs and cloth.

He grabbed it with his good hand, slapped it onto his arm, and shouted-

Couldn’t shout.

Too tired, too sick.

“I’m done with you, Oni.”

“Then I’ll go,” she said.

She whistled.

And the slavering Other backed off.  Retreating into a cage smaller than its occupant was.  Barely big enough to hold a head, let alone a head, torso, arms, and legs.

The cage door slid shut.

“What poison is in this?” he asked.

“No poison.”

“What trap?  What trickery?”

“None.  I’ve done what I said I’d do, and nothing else.  I’m no deceiver at heart as a Fae may be, nor a liar.  My focus is on position.  I made my challenge, I positioned my boxes.  You were clever.”

She picked up the three crates and then she walked away.

“The fuck?” Basil asked.

He sat down on a log, staring out at the nature around them.

Time passed, and the herbal poultice worked its magic in that accelerated timeframe.

He felt better.  More able to breathe, less hot.

“How are you holding up, Bas?” Braxton asked.

Basil shook his head.  “Ready for this to be over.”

Time stopped again, moon heavy overhead.

Basil rose to his feet, not entirely ready for the next challenger.  But he had to be.

Time resumed.

He sat, sighing.

“You’ve done us proud, Basil,” Abraham Musser declared.

“What became of the other locations?”

“Two fallen.  You were the sole holdout.  It should have been Milly, but you stepped up.”

“And what next?” he asked, looking up at Musser.

“Next, you heal.  And we keep going, but it’s going to have to be me making the claims.  The Carmine swore not to interfere with me directly, I can do it.”

“Did you know it would come to this?”

“I worried it might.  The timing was… vicious.  But we can keep going,” Abraham said.  “Slight change of focus.  I claim, the rest of you keep.”

With a grunt, he stood.  Musser helped him.

“Heal,” Musser said.  “The Legendres can help erect a barrier.  Hold out as Lord a little longer.”

“Not exactly what I hoped to do with my life.”

“This will matter to our children and our children’s children,” Musser said.  “We’ll take more ground from the Carmine that’s putting us in this position.  Putting you in the position you were in for three days and three nights.  I’ve got to go.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Please.”

Musser walked back to the car, leaving others to fawn over him, to check he was okay.

He was okay.  He was Lord, in Musser’s new system.  Battered, wounded, but ready.

Rook had left things for the next challenger, but she’d set the table nicely.  She’d asked the goblins to deliver the wound to one specific spot.  Then she’d appeared.  The next step had been a challenger that had come in secret.  Before Basil could react, the next challenger had slipped beneath the cloth with the herbal pack.  Hidden in the wrapping over the wound, a watch.  Under blood on hands were little scars.  And the Dog Meat had provided cover for the broken nose, thrashing him enough that a broken nose wouldn’t be amiss.

Hiding the telltale signs that the jockey had taken possession.

Bridge the body snatcher had negotiated for release, swearing necessary oaths in exchange for what would be a position of authority unlike any he’d dreamed of.  Basil Winters’ body was his, thanks to Crooked Rook’s ploy, and the chain of Lordship supporting lordship that Musser sought to weave now had a weak link in it.

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