Playing a Part – 15.4
Author: Wildbow

Playing a Part – 15.4 | Pale

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Avery’s exposure to Thunder Bay thus far had really shaken her of the notion of the ‘city’ being very city-like.  Even with her limited visits to Thunder Bay, she’d harbored a bit of a sense that there’d be more tall buildings, and that important fixtures would get care, attention, and a level of detail.  Skyscrapers, architecture.

The bus station was little more than a gas station.  Just slightly longer, without the pumps, lineups, or bright signs.  It was a dingy overhanging roof mounted on posts that kept the weather at bay, and a long, brown brick building that might’ve been a garage, with patches of brick in a different brown where repairs had been done.  Glowing lettering was mounted atop the brown brick building, but a third of the letters had gone out.

The surrounding area was effectively a vast parking lot with a little road leading in for pickups and departures, and a bus stop at the edge for those using public transit to come and go.  Even the pavement looked like it was as much patchwork as actual road.

It felt like a place that would be haunted by Others in the nighttime, because there was so little humanity in it.

“The lights aren’t on inside.  I can’t believe there’s no staff.”

“I guess if there’s no departures later today, there’s no reason to have the booth open?” Avery asked.  She fished in her pocket and found some of the painted coins.  One was for having to ditch Nora to go do surveillance.  There was a character painted on it, like a jack or a queen from a deck of cards, but circular, holding a small curved branch.

Avery glanced around, spotted a drain, and murmured, “A wish for fast and easy travel for Verona.”

She tossed the coin into the drain.

“No fountains nearby to toss a coin into, huh?” her mom asked.

“Nope.  No idea if that’ll work,” Avery said, putting the rest of the coins back in her pocket.

Verona was using magic to arrive, and had employed fuzzy messaging with her parents to get past that, leading each to believe the other would handle it.  Which was fine for Verona, since her parents didn’t talk, but for Avery, it meant she had to handle her mom, who was doing the picking-up part.

“I was trying to find the bus schedule,” Avery’s mom said, flipping through her phone again.

“Last I heard she’s fine, no delays, don’t sweat it,” Avery told her, gently pushing her mom’s hand and phone down.  “A lot of stuff’s a mess, so if she says it’s fine, it’s probably fine.”

“If she’s coming to us, she’s in our care, and the last thing I want is for her to be on her way to Winnipeg or Vancouver because of a mistake or because she didn’t get off.”

“She’s not dumb, mom.”

Her mom stroked her head, and Avery rolled her eyes a bit, taking a half step away.

“It’ll be a lot easier if and when you invite other friends to the house.”

“Well, Liberty’s coming by, we think,” Avery said.  “Inviting her over would be kind of weird, though.”

“Weirder than Kerry, Declan, Sheridan, Rowan, and Grumble all at the table together?”

“Hmmm,” Avery hummed for a second, considering.

“Close to, huh?”

“No, not really.  I’m trying to think of a good way to phrase this that doesn’t make you stop me from hanging out with her.”

“I’d never.”

“I’m something like ninety percent sure she’d be good but in that other ten percent I’m thinking, like, our entire family in trouble with the landlord downstairs type of stuff,” Avery said.  She glanced up and saw the concerned frown on her mom’s face, and she quickly protested, “She’s a super nice person!  She’s great with kids, and animals.  She just goes full tilt sometimes…”

“How exactly?”

“Hmm,” Avery paused, thinking.

“You’re leaving me with a big question mark and all my mom instincts are screaming at me, telling me to worry about what could fill that void.”

“It’s like… oh!  I said she’s good with kids, right?”

“Yes.  She’s immature?”

“She’s way more mature than some people in some ways.  The adults in charge trusted her to look after the youngest kids.  But I thought of a good way to give you a mostly-accurate mental picture.  Imagine if you had Kerry describe her perfect babysitter.  Not your ideal babysitter for Kerry, but what Kerry would love.”

“I’m picturing fireworks, a mud pit in the backyard that means the grass has to be re-seeded, an indoor ball pit that takes far too long to clean up, and complaints about the playful screaming from the landlord.”

That might have worked too well.  Avery kept her expression carefully neutral, but she might not have done a good job.

“How did you two meet, at that camp?”

“It’s a school, and-” Avery paused.  She nearly threw me off a bridge once, onto spears, spikes and rocks, then her sister got violent… she felt bad… “-we met doing activities.”

The answer with the accompanying pause was obviously not enough, getting another concerned frown from her mom, but Avery was spared by the arrival of Verona, who emerged from around a bus, spotted them, and waved.  Avery waved back.

The painted lines on the roads indicated where people could go or pass through the bus lanes, and a big yellow sign facing Avery and her mom said ‘minimize foot traffic’, so they let Verona come to them.

Verona had to wait for a bus to crawl through the lane to its spot, which was hampered by the people who were ignoring the painted markings on frankenstein-tier pavement.

“When Liberty comes, I’d like to meet her and ideally her parents before you go off to do whatever.”

“Hmm.  Her dad is- I haven’t met him, but I’ve heard from people I trust that he’s not a super great guy, and, hmmm… Liberty has stars in her eyes for him.  You know?”

“Too common.”

“It’d be better if it’s just her.  I don’t think he’d even agree.  The vibe I’d get is he’d resent the idea of having to come and make nice.”

“Okay,” her mom said, frowning.  “Your instincts on these things have been good so far.  I trust you.”

Avery smiled.

“Never easy, is it?  Could we meet some of your other friends here in Thunder Bay?  It was a lot easier with Rowan.  He’d invite a group of guys over and they’d eat virtually everything in the fridge and cupboards.”

“I remember,” Avery said.  “They’d completely empty boxes of cereal and stick them back in the cupboard.  Even the bad cereal, they’d just load it with sugar.  If you want that, I could invite the team over from practice.  They’d do a pretty good job.”

“If you want to, we can deal with that if it happens.  Any individuals?”

“Maybe,” Avery replied.  That was harder to visualize, and more complicated.  What would Jeanine be like?  Nora?  What would the vibe even be?

“Verona looks so tired,” her mom whispered.

Verona did look tired.  The realization hit Avery hard.  It wasn’t a tired today sort of tired.  It was a weariness that made Avery feel like whatever had happened at the end of Summer, it hadn’t really stopped for Verona.  Or things might have calmed down, but they hadn’t relaxed.

“Yo!” Verona greeted them.

Avery looked both ways, then hurried over, hugging Verona fiercely enough that Verona dropped the bag she was dragging behind her.

“Save the hugs for when you’re not standing in the road,” Avery’s mom said, bending down to pick up the bag.

“How are you?  How’s Lucy?” Avery asked, breaking the hug, walking back to the sidewalk.

“About as you’d expect, I guess?” Verona asked.  She looked for her bag, realized Avery’s mom had it, and refocused on Avery.  “Here I am, huh?”

“This isn’t what I would’ve wanted your impression of the city to be,” Avery said, looking around.

“I mean, I’ve been to Thunder Bay.  And this is pretty much my vibe, recently,” Verona said.  “Hi, Mrs. Kelly.”

“Call me Kelsey.  Hi, Verona.  This is almost our first meeting, isn’t it?  We haven’t really talked.”

“Not really,” Verona said.  “Guess we’ll get a chance, huh?”

Avery’s mom smiled.  “That would be nice.  Let’s get ourselves back to the apartment, get some food in you, hm?”

“Sounds good,” Verona replied.  She smiled briefly at Avery.

“Car is this way.”

Verona rubbed at her hand, looking around, and there was a weariness and a focus in how she did the looking that had changed from just a month ago.

“Has your mom talked to you about her schedule?”

“Bit of a conflict,” Verona said.  “It’s fine, though, right?”

“We are pretty much fine with anything, so long as it happens on the weekend,” Avery’s mom said.  “We’ll have a quiet night tonight, you guys choose dinner, you can hang out.  Your mom is over for lunch, then we can figure out what we’re doing that evening.”

“Or what we’re doing,” Avery said.  “We’re old enough to entertain ourselves.”

“I just want to know who is around my daughter, helping shape her into the lovely young woman she’s becoming.”

Avery rolled her eyes for Verona’s benefit, who acted like the eye rolling was contagious and carried it on, looking off into the distance.

Verona’s mom had a scheduling conflict, and given the choice between Verona coming sooner or Verona coming in two weeks to make it a dinner with their moms and them, they’d decided on lunch.

“…Then Sunday afternoon and-or evening with your mom, depending on what works, and the drive back.  Yes?”

“Sounds good,” Verona replied.

Avery had a weird feeling, with the energy that came off her friend.  She couldn’t put her finger on it.  But Verona looked at her and seemed bouncy and happy and normal when interacting with Avery, but it seemed like she was really quick to shift her focus elsewhere.

Which wasn’t not Verona, exactly.  Verona was a daydreamer, someone who got lost in her own head.  But this didn’t feel like daydreaming.

“Lots of bags,” Avery’s mom commented.  “When I traveled for work I’d usually make do with only a carry-on.”

“Art stuff, other stuff, some clothes for all weather, some homework, snacks for the bus…”

“I want to travel,” Avery said.  “I’d rather have a big backpack.”

“That could be a Christmas present, somewhere down the line,” her mom said.  “I don’t think you should be traveling on your own when you’re fourteen.”

“You could make the traveling the present,” Verona said.  “Go somewhere, make a weekend of it.”

“March break?” Avery’s mom asked.

“Maybe, yeah.  That’d be cool.”

“Just gotta cross your ‘Q’s and dot your ‘j’s, right?” Verona asked Avery, giving her a look.

“Yeahhh,” Avery replied.  “Your letters are crossed and dotted, pretty much.”

“You two are losing me.”

“Good!” Avery exclaimed.  “I love you but I want good Verona time.”

“We gotta have our secrets, teenage independence,” Verona added.

“Right, well, not too many secrets, I hope.”

They got to the car.  Avery’s mom put the bigger luggage case in the back, and Avery and Verona circled around to their respective doors of the back seat.  As Avery reached for the handle, the various bracelets, charms, and cords at her left arm slipped down a bit.

She saw the ribbon she’d added to the mix, saw through the tinted glass to Verona, and realized what it was.

Lucy had talked about being concerned for Verona, but hadn’t really expanded on the thought, except to talk about concrete actions, what Verona was doing, the distance between them, and the danger of what Verona was doing.

Verona looked like Avery had felt, after her overlong stay on the Forest Ribbon Trail.  Weary in a way sleep wouldn’t help.  Changed.

Avery settled into the seat, buckling up, while Verona put her backpack in the middle portion.  As if by unspoken agreement, with no coordination, Avery went for her bag, which she’d left in the back, and pulled out the opossum plushie, and Verona reached into her bag for a certain rusty fork.

Keeping a secret from a familiar who had a direct line to Avery’s heart and general sense of being was hard, but she’d managed it.  Snowdrop could barely sit still as she was positioned with the bag blocking Avery’s mom’s view of her, the fork laid across plush legs.  Cherrypop did a better job of remaining still.

Avery could feel the excitement brimming and overflowing from Snowdrop.  It brought a smile to her face, and seemed to do the same for Verona.

The idea had been for Verona to come to lend Avery a bit of a hand.  There was also the whole part where she’d do stuff with her mom, hang out, sure, but the emphasis had been on that first part.  Thunder Bay.  Avery’s part of their greater plan was to establish connections and it looked a bit too hard and a bit too delicate a task on her own.

Gotta do this, Avery thought.  Get set up here, get things handled to maximize alliances and minimize enemies, and then I can be the one supporting you two from the flanks.

That was the idea, anyway.

Lucy had also voiced concerns about Verona, and had hinted that she wanted Avery to keep an eye out, maybe to handle what Lucy couldn’t.  Verona was enmeshed in the underside of Kennet and wanted that to be her ‘thing’, and any involvement or help got complicated.  Solution?  Get her away from there for a bit, let Avery take a look…

Avery watched Verona smile while looking like she’d just been in three brawls back to back.  Brawls that hadn’t left any obvious bruises or marks, except maybe the hand, but still managed to batter, exhaust, and test resolve.

She’d have to put a little more effort into keeping Verona smiling, she suspected.  Keeping her present, here, now.

Avery moved Snowdrop from behind the bag, passing her to Verona.  She felt a note of protest, dampened only for a second as Verona cuddled the plush opossum, and passed the fork over as well.

A bit of opossum therapy would be a start.

They stepped out onto the patio, and as soon as the door was closed, connection blocker set in place, and the coast confirmed clear, Avery set down Snowdrop and Verona dropped the fork to clatter to the little concrete paving stones.

Snowdrop became a girl, and Cherrypop transformed from fork shape to goblin shape, wrong way around, her back to Snowdrop.  She looked around, frantic, without turning all the way around to see Snow.

“Aaaa!” Snowdrop cheered, arms raised.

“Volume, don’t let my mom hear!” Avery warned.

“Aaa!” Cherrypop cheered, eyes wide, still bewildered.  She started to turn, only for Snowdrop to become an opossum and approach from behind, closing her mouth over Cherry’s head and shoulders.

Verona cackled.

Snow let Cherrypop go, and the little goblin fought her way free, flopping over, then broke out into laughter, “bahahaha!”

Laughing almost too hard to walk straight, Cherry tackle-hugged Snow, arms out wide to the sides, burying herself in Snowdrop’s front, pulling on fur.

“I was waiting!”

Snowdrop became human again.  “I don’t want you here, what are you doing?”

“Want to sit?” Avery offered.  “This has sort of become my spot.  Are you cold?”

“I am sweatered and cozy.  All good.  Knew this was your spot from the fact you make most of your video calls from out here.  And a lot of opossum pictures.  What are you going to do in winter?”

“I dunno,” Avery sighed, seating herself in one chair, and extending legs under the table to move another seat closer so she could put her feet up.

Verona put her bag on the table and seated herself by Avery.

“You’re awful, it’s annoying you’re here, but at least you taste good.”

“So I know I asked before, but how’s Lucy?” Avery asked.

“She’s good.  She’s got Wallace, or she had Wallace.  Up until lunchtime earlier today.  I hope he’s okay.  Good lad.”

“Lad?” Avery asked.  “You wrote that in the collaborative notes.  What a lad.”

Verona nodded.  “Boy is too young, man too much, guy just feels wrong.  Gentleman?  Loaded, ruined.  So lad.  Lad has an air.”

“Why does guy feel wrong?”

Verona got out books and papers.  Practice notes.  “Feels like you’re saying something bad if you’re saying he’s such a guy.  Those guys.  But him?  He’s a lad.”

Avery shook her head, bewildered.  “I think that’s only in your head, Ronnie.”

“Speaking of those collab notes… you should do your non-collab collab stuff.  We need the info.  I need the info.”

“Yeah.  Right, no, you’re right,” Avery said.  “I’ve just been catching up on… a whole lot.  The Finder practices, and research for paths, and getting set up locally.  Errands.”

“We should talk about those errands.”

“Later,” Avery said.  “I want updates.  How’s Kennet?”

Verona got out a map of Kennet that looked printed out, with stripes where the ink had run thin.  The shrines were marked out along the perimeter.  “So this is the big task Lucy and I are doing jointly.”

“Right.”

“Gotta stabilize things somehow.  We’ve been exploring the options, and some of this gets into the sort of practice you’ve been looking at.”

“Sounds good.  Focus on realms, spaces, travel, places?”

“Right.  So the issue is we have Kennet,” Verona said.  “And we have the shrines…”

Verona emptied coins from her pocket onto the table, then spread them out.  Sixteen coins for sixteen shrines.  “So this is what we had, obviously with stuff horribly out of position, coins inaccurately representing various shrines.”

“Right,” Avery said.  She switched the placement of a quarter and a toonie, using the larger, higher-value two dollar coin for Engine Head’s position.

“But it’s not what we have now,” Verona said.  “Snowdrop, we need your hands.”

Snowdrop became human and walked over, a roughhousing, naked little red-skinned creature gnawing at the side of her neck.  Snow looked happy.  Felt happy, through the bond.

“What for?” Snow asked.

“If you’ll just lift up the map, carefully, with Avery… let me put books here…”

Avery took two corners and Snow took another two.  They lifted the map a short distance off the table, then let Verona arrange some books beneath, leaving a space in the middle.  It remained rigid lying across the various notebooks for practice and school.

“There,” Verona said, frowning a bit.  “This won’t be very effective if I got it wrong, but… shrines…”

Avery fixed some of the locations again.

“…and courtesy of Cherrypop, borrowing this.”

“A weight.”

Verona gently set the rock in the middle of the map.  With the empty space beneath, the map crumpled at the center, rock settling in.

“That’s my rock!”

“Thank you very much, Snowdrop.  I’ll give your rock back later with interest, Cherrypop,” Verona said.

“Screw your interest, I want my rock!  It’s mine!  I brought it to show Snowdrop!”

“Come on,” Snow said, before dropping to opossum form.  She mock-fought Cherrypop, who seemed to more or less forget about the rock.

“I assume the rock is Charles?” Avery asked.

Verona nodded.  “A big fat presence in the middle, screwing up the weighting.  And you notice the creases that happen as the rock weighs it down?”

“Yep.”  Creases and lines stretched out from the center because the map was meant to lie flat.  Humps and valleys formed.

“And it’s upset our shrines,” Verona noted.  She moved some of the coins around, but with the way the paper was distorted, they slid.  Many slowly toward the middle, others to the sides.

“Yep.  Yep, for sure, that’s the basics of depression.  There’s other complicating stuff happening, too.  Like the rule about entering.  And the fact outsiders sorta have a harder time getting in.”

“Hm, how to represent that?” Verona asked.  She took hold of the corners of the paper and then folded them up, so they were sticking up at angles, blocking the view of what was within.

“Works.”

“So what do we do?” Verona asked.  “Because I’ve got some ideas but they’re all tricky.”

“If it was easy it’d be fixed by now, right?  What are your ideas?”

As much as Avery had worried about how distant and weary Verona seemed to be, this stuff really did get Verona’s mental motors going.  She was alert, happy to be making something, wrapping her head around a problem.

“Let’s start with what may be the worst options,” Verona said.  “Option one is to just say screw it.”

“This is a bad option.”

“Let this get worse, let the depression become more of a pit, let Kennet fall into that, no real outside supports.  The Undercity becomes the dominant entity, with Kennet as we knew it obliterated, Kennet and the Undercity blend together-”

“Or equilibrium.”

“Which takes work and time to maintain and assumes nobody’s actively trying to upset the equilibrium.  Either way, tough way to go.”

“Right, makes sense.”

“Option two is we get help from someone able to handle this crap.  Someone with specific and powerful skills.”

“Musser?  Are you thinking about the Lordship thing?”

“No.  Screw Musser.  I’m thinking about Lis.”

“Ohhhh.”

“We ask the new city spirit that discorporeated Ken and took over the position to please keep things stable,” Verona said.

“I’m pretty sure Lis would say no, or she’d ask for something.”

“I think she’d ask,” Verona said.  “I don’t think they want us to lose Kennet, from what Charles said that night.  He seemed to think he was doing us a favor.”

“Protecting us against Musser’s hit squad, who would’ve stormed in to wipe out the local Others, seize control, and whatever.  That squad might’ve included some locals here,” Avery said.

“And we have a pretty good idea of what she’d ask for,” Verona said.

“Ceasefire?  Truce?  An agreement not to interfere with her or Charles?” Avery asked.  “Sparing Kennet, but at the cost of, well… surrender?”

“We’re not in a position to deal with Charles anyway,” Verona replied, folding her arms on the table and resting her chin on her wrists, the raised edges of the map making it so only one of Verona’s eyes could look at Avery.

We’re not in a position to deal with Charles anyway.  It was true and so was the fact that they were damn well going to try.  They’d started to make plans in dreams and this was one of the plans.

Saying it out loud meant it might reach Charles, if he was listening.  Maybe it meant he’d let his guard down just a little.

Avery had taken on the job of establishing connections.  Making sure that people like the Witch Hunters and Musser wouldn’t interfere for the next go-around.  Other things were a priority, issues they’d identified from that night that they’d need to fix for the next time.

All three of them were still working on a broader goal, of recuperating and getting to a better position.  They needed to remove the most immediate obstacles to getting stuff done, which was why Verona was working so hard to make sure the underside of Kennet was an asset, not a liability.

Besides that, Lucy and Verona were working on a secondary goal here.  Fixing the Kennet problem.  The distorted map, the creases.

This wasn’t a major goal in the plan to defeat Charles, but it was a major issue all the same.

“Are there other options?” Avery asked.

“Got a few,” Verona said.  She scraped more coinage off the table, didn’t raise her head, but stretched an arm out, around, and pressed a finger down, stabbing twice until she found a shrine.  Opening the rest of that hand, she let more coins fall.

“More shrines?”

“Nope,” Verona replied.  She scooped up the coins, sitting up when she found it more obnoxious to keep her head down and reach up.  She formed them into two irregular stacks, then stacked them with other coins.

“Bigger shrines.”

“More effective shrines, yeah,” Verona said.  “If I had a nail I could drive it through this coin and into my…”

She checked.

“…Math book.  Yeah.  Definitely the math book.  To demonstrate.”

“So you’re thinking that if we take these sixteen shrines and make them solid enough they don’t budge, then the rest of the map between them wouldn’t crumple down?”

Verona put her hands on two sides of the map and spread them out.  The rock was just small enough she could do it, straightening out the paper.  Reducing wrinkles.

“Like this.  Sorta.  Thoughts?” Verona asked.

“If we can use your metaphor here…”

“Please do. I thought it was clever.”

Avery reached over, then picked up the two towers of coins, leaving just one behind.  She nudged Verona to let the map go back to its crumpled state.

“We don’t have a great way to add a ton of power to all sixteen shrines, right?” Avery asked.

“Not currently.”

“If you think about how the Blue Heron got founded, all the teachers there captured the energies of some god inside a machine and they got all this power, right?  I don’t think even that amount of power would be enough,” Avery said.

“We might be underestimating it, right?  Like, once they got that power, look at how they all ended up.  Compare to any other practitioners we know…”

“Not that we know a ton outside of Kennet’s ex-practitioners and the Blue Heron,” Avery said.  “But I think of the council here and sure.  Yeah.  I get you.  But we’d need some power that’s ridiculously huge to feed into the shrines to counter the weight that is Charles.”

Verona nodded.

They looked down at the map.  Avery bit her lower lip, frowning a bit, then shook her head.  “And if we put in power bit by bit, spreading it to various shrines…”

She reached over, and dropped coins from above.  They hit the angle of the paper and while some stopped, others only continued downward, into the center, to join the rock that was causing the paper to bend.

“Looks like we could risk losing some.  It’s precarious,” Verona concluded.

“That’s my vibe, from what I’ve read about the depressions.  Part of why some big threats can’t be removed with death by a thousand cuts.  A lot of what you put into it ends up feeding into the system.”

“And Charles is all about combat, contest, struggle, and if we’re struggling to get Kennet right again…?”

“Or if it’s territory and territories are part of his deal?  It’s like trying to manage a flood with water.  Unless you’re super careful some of what you do might end up adding to the problem.”

Verona nodded to herself, looking down at the map.  She rubbed her chin.  “Other ideas might run into that, depending.”

“Share?”

“Well, if instead of it being shrines… what about demesnes?”

“Those are much less likely to slip or leak,” Avery said.  “But if we set it up, we might have Charles taking issue.  Or Lis.  Which gets us right back to the issue of just asking Lis for permission.  Or provoking them.”

Verona, still rubbing her chin, kept her hand there, but set her elbow on the table.  A moment later she sat up, instead rubbing at the palm of her other hand.

“How’s that doing?” Avery asked.  She pointed at the hand.

“Sucks but it’s doable.  Sounds a lot like how I figured the Lordship thing would go,” Verona said, very obviously making a deliberate change back to the subject at hand.

“Lordship?  Besides the fact Musser has crapped up the pond?”

Verona grinned.

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “A lot of the same issues.”

“I’ll keep at it,” Verona said.  “Shrines seem like a thing we could at least do in the meanwhile.  Can’t hurt, even if it’s possibly inefficient.”

A thought struck Avery.  She dropped a hand to the table in a four finger, hard tap.  “There was something in a book.”

“A book you have?”

“A book I read way back.  Around the time we first did shrines.  Crap, what was it?”

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Verona said.  “Hurry!  Think of it!”

“I’m try-”

“Think!” Verona interrupted, mocking, playful.

Avery leaned over to lightly push Verona in the shoulder.  Verona stopped messing with her.

Avery drummed her fingers on the table for a second.  “I don’t remember the book, but I remember the concept.  Setting up shrines in multiple spaces.  I was thinking back then of going into the spirit world to do it.  Except we didn’t have a problem with the spirit world being unstable and leaking into our reality.  We had a problem with the spirits and echoes Edith had set up.”

“So…” Verona said.  “Shrines on the Undercity side, to correspond to shrines on your side?”

“And maybe shrines in the spirit world?  If you think city magic is interfering?” Avery asked.

“Okay,” Verona said.  Her eyes were on the map, but they weren’t fixed on the map.  They looked around, as if she was studying the situation.  “Okay, that’s a thought.”

“No guarantees,” Avery said.  “A lot depends on how bad the pull is.  If the fabric of reality is more like… this?”

She lifted up two sides of the paper.  The coinage started sliding down toward the middle in an uneven, inconsistent way.

“Then it’s harder,” Verona concluded.

“You might want to get the shrines back where they’re meant to be first.  Or you’d be locking them to a distorted position.  I can look into stuff.  There’s a lot of, hmmm, anchoring to reality type stuff in Finder practice.”

“Like your down-to-earth baseball.”

Avery gave Verona a vigorous nod.

“Okay,” Verona said.  “In the meantime, gotta get some stuff fixed up.  Every single solution or just about every solution I’ve brought up here gets easier if I don’t have the Foreman or the Family Man stomping around screwing crap up.  Tearing down shrines, even, potentially.  If any of them decide they don’t like me the shrines would be an easy, possibly obvious target.”

There it was.  That weariness.  Verona had been present for this whole conversation, but as she thought on that, she looked older.  She rubbed at her hand.

Avery saw that and went back to what she’d done in the car.  Opossum therapy.  She checked, looked, and saw Snowdrop sitting with her back to the hedge-like arrangement of patio-grown bushes and potted plants.  She held onto a branch bristling with leaves, while Cherrypop held the far end, tugging fiercely in an attempt to take the branch from her.  Cherrypop’s teeth and two hands giving her her grip, her entire body working to tug, while Snow held the branch with one hand, putting in no effort to hold onto it.

Both looked happy in their way.  Snowdrop had been lonely.

Avery looked back at Verona, who was looking over now, smiling a bit.

Verona looked up, frowning.  A moment later, Avery felt the droplet.

Avery dropped her feet from the chair she was using as a footrest, then stood.  “That’s our signal.  We’re being summoned.  Council.”

“Huh,” Verona said.  She moved books and papers around like she wanted to protect them from the rain, then looked up, stopping.  “It’s at a time like this that I wish you’d done your solo-collaborative effort.”

“It’s collab enough.  I do my practice notes with Snowdrop.”

“I do most of the work,” Snowdrop said.  “I’m the brains of this operation.”

“You are still a contributor,” Avery said.  “C’mon.  There’s no expectation we rush to the point we hurt ourselves but we shouldn’t dally.”

“I think this would drive me up the wall,” Verona said.  She got her stuff together.  “Being summoned.  We were about to eat.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t really say no.”

Avery snatched the connection block off the door, paused to check that Snow was retreating into the greenery with Cherrypop, from which point she’d head down to ground level.  She paused to edit the connection block with more lines.

Avery’s mom answered a phone call as they entered the lower of the two conjoined apartments.

“You might want a jacket,” Avery whispered to Verona, grabbing one for herself.  A corduroy nightmare inspired choice of jacket to go with the nightmare sweatshirt.  “It’s windier down by the water.”

“My stuff’s in my bag upstairs.  I don’t have anything great.”

“Take one of my mom’s.  It’s a bit big, but…”

“Bit big is my style,” Verona said.  She took a draping black coat with four big brassy buckles gathered around the stomach.

Avery scooped up her bag, waited until her mom was facing the wrong way, then slipped outside, with Verona following, leaving the family-targeted connection block in the mailbox.

“You’ve got this down to a system,” Verona said.

“Gotta.  It’s harder to get away.”

“Aww, that’s kinda nice.  She cares, she’s paying attention?”

“Yeah.”

Avery got Snowdrop, lifting her up to her shoulder, and passed Cherrypop to Verona.  The opossum stuck her nose out toward Cherrypop and then tried sticking her tail out, readjusting and moving enough it threw Avery off.

“Are we thinking Cherrypop might want to stay?” Verona asked.

“Dangerous, with the local climate and how they treat goblins,” Avery said.  “But maybe?”

Snowdrop sneezed.

“I’ve got a business!” Cherrypop proclaimed.  “I find cool rocks!  I sell rocks!  And sometimes razors, and corks, and cigarette butts, and used syringes!”

“Are you still giving Gashwad a dollar and fifty cents for every dollar you earn?”

“Dunno!” Cherrypop proclaimed.  “Can I sell things here?  The opossum can help!”

“I don’t know, I don’t think it works quite like that, Cherrypop,” Avery said.

Someone appeared around the corner, walking their dog, and Cherrypop hid.

“Your practice at sneaking out might help you get away to any girlfriends, hm?” Verona asked, giving that last ‘hm’ a playful lilt.

“Not something I’m doing just yet.”

“No midnight trysts?”

“I’ve been here about a month.  How fast do you think I’m going with this?  Have you had midnight trysts?”

“No midnight meetings with my friend-boy, no.  Or any meetings if you mean him moving in downstairs, if you know what I mean.”

“Are things at least going okay?  With the… friendship?”

“I dunno.  Are you changing the subject?  You’re not going to show me photos you took in secret?  Or scraped from social media?”

“Do people do that?  Keep those sorts of photos on their phone?”

“Does that mean you’ve got those photos but you didn’t keep them on your phone?”

“Do you have those photos of Jeremy?”

Answering questions with questions in a series of parrying shots.

“Are you being evasive?  Hiding a worse truth?  Do you have a shrine, Avery?  A little temple to some girl in your closet?”

“Did you save that picture of Jeremy in a swimsuit, that you were looking at at the Blue Heron-?”

“Are you aware that’s a low blow and you’re actually making me annoyed by reminding me of that?”

Avery stopped.  “Sorry.”

“I win,” Verona said, quiet.

“Yeah.  But I walked right into that.”

Verona sighed.  “No shrine, no photos, nothing major except some sketches we did of each other which no living soul besides him and me ought to see.”

“Hmm.  Fair.”

“That was a nice moment though,” Verona said.  “I like his eyes.  I like his hands.  I like a lot about him.”

“You just don’t want to date or go any further down a road with him?”

“Yeah.  Heck, I’ve been told on two big occasions that I’ve done him dirty, being distracted like I am.  I’m worried a third one will matter more, in some practice-y way, screw this up.  I can’t manage the friendship right now.  Getting into a relationship would need this freaking reckoning, you know?  Because I’ve thought about it a lot and I don’t think I’ve ever felt even the slightest glimmer of wanting more.  I don’t know if that means something about me or if I’m broken or if I’m supposed to have this big epiphany but I’m so not in a place to have that epiphany if I am.”

“Yeah.  Wasn’t trying to prod, I wanted to just give you the chance to-”

“Nah,” Verona interrupted.  “You’re fine.  Just like… I’m barely able to be a friend.  Whatever it is, wrangling that and figuring it out for sure isn’t something I’ve got the energy for.  Fixing myself if I’m broken isn’t something I’ve got the energy for.  Getting to where I can have some epiphany… nah.”

Avery tried to think of what to say.  “I don’t think you’re broken.”

“Whatever it is, if there was any way my mind was going to change, wouldn’t there be at least a glimmer?  One dream where my subconscious mind reached out desperately and I was marrying him?  Or moving in with him in a non-euphemistic way?”

“Not even as a roommate?”

“Blegh.”

“Well.” Avery groped again for what to say.  “If you’re worried about a three-beat on the whole Jeremy sitch… let me-”

“Are you going to finish it off?  Because if you’re going to deliver the death knell, at least make it sound fancy.”

“Let me deliver unto you,” Avery said, exaggerated.  “My pronouncement, in the opinion of Avery Kelly…”

“RIP, Jeremy.”

“A non-death knell take.  You do what you need to.  He’s cool, he’ll probably understand.”

Verona sighed heavily.

“Okay?  There.  Breaking the potential chain of three.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  “Thanks.  Means a lot.  Where the heck are we going, by the way?  The water?  Where by the water?”

“In,” Avery said.  She pointed.  “If he’s just a friend you gotta at least tend to that friendship.  You came all this way for me.  Cherry came all this way for Snow.”

“Gonna make her drink milk,” Cherrypop said, from her hiding space in Verona’s bag.  She chuckled, a low sinister sound.

“I’m tired a lot,” Verona said.  “Don’t got a lot of places that don’t wear me out.  Home, school, Undercity.  I did this stupid, stupid thing and asked Tashlit to be my familiar and now when I’m at her place, I’m with her and that’s hanging over my head and I don’t want to pressure her for an answer in the slightest, or that betrays so much about who I am, you know?  All that stuff I hate the idea of.”

“My mom said you looked tired.  Not long after you showed up.”

“Shit.”

“There’s nothing?  To recharge?”

“A bunch of things from different places.  It’s like home, I get food and sleep and clean clothes and it’s my room.  When I was at Lucy’s it wasn’t my room and I did actually miss that, even as much as I dreaded going home.  But home is this thing that tires out three-quarters of me and partially restores another quarter, you know?  And school is like that and Tashlit’s a bit better, Lucy’s cool but tiring too, and the Undercity is… extreme.  Nourishes a big part of me but it’s super tiring in other ways.”

“What about me?” Avery asked.  “Do I want to know?”

“You’re great.  You’re a lovely friend and it’s like you warm me from the inside out just being around, and you’re fun and easy to be around but you’re also easy to let my guard down around.”

“That’s fair, and I’m glad it’s not something horrible, but is that so bad?”

“It is if I do what I just did and I end up feeling like my dad, moaning and groaning and dumping shit on you when I’m supposed to be helping.”

“I really don’t mind.”

“But I really do.”

They reached the shore.  The beach stretched out a short distance.  A few people were out.  Avery navigated them toward a grassy peninsula where they’d have some visual cover and could disappear from sight.

“And Jeremy?  Tiring too?”

“Do I really gotta keep going?  Because I’m…” Verona trailed off.

“You don’t gotta.”

“Yeah.  Jeremy’s super great.  Doesn’t tire me out.  But if I went back to… it’s like I’ve got all these poisoned cups in front of me.  And in this scenario I gotta drink a bit from each without getting too much of one type of poison… and there’s this one cup of Jeremy-stuff.”

Cherrypop sniggered.  Avery rolled her eyes.

Verona paused, then cackled.  “Nice, Cherry.  No, seriously though.  It’s all good.  I like that cup of Jeremy stuff.  Cleans some of the poison out, nice to drink.  But if I drink from that metaphorical cup too often, I risk giving the wrong idea and then it just keeps getting served when I don’t want to drink it, and I make him feel bad for refusing, and the table gets crowded with cups I can’t bring myself to drink, and I drown in it.”

Cherry sniggered again.

“Painted that mental image for you, Cherry,” Verona said.  She looked at Avery.  “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.  I’ve spent enough time around goblins.”

“What do I do?”

“Tell him all that?”

Verona wrinkled her nose.  “Too much.”

“Hm.  Just stay in touch more?  What’s stopping you?”

“Overthinking.  Being with him isn’t tiring but getting there is.  Gotta watch I don’t approach wrong.  And if I’m tired, there’s a bigger chance I do that, y’know?”

“Send him a message now.”

Verona reached for her phone, then paused.  “While I’m here?”

“Do it.  Keep it simple, friendly, light, and honest.  I don’t think something like that’s going to ruin anything.”

“Jeremy,” Verona said, as she navigated her contact menu.  Avery steered Verona around clumps of grass that were deceptively high, and holes dug by what were probably groundhogs or something.  “I like our friendship.  I like your face.”

“Huh.”

“Is that dumb?  That’s dumb.”

“Dude’s missing his friend, apparently.  I think he’s happy to get any message.  Even a dumb one.”

Verona sent it.

A message came back shortly after.

“Cat on a vacuum robot.”  Verona showed Avery.

Want, Snowdrop sent.

“Snowdrop wants one to ride, I think.”

Cherry, peeking over Verona’s shoulder, laughed.

Verona exhaled, a sigh of what might’ve been relief.

“Come on,” Avery said.  “We shouldn’t dally, and we’re walking a bit slow.”

Verona nodded.

“How about you?  Your girl?  Girls?  Do you have a harem?  Five girls chasing after you?” Verona asked.

There was a noticeably lighter tone in her voice.

“No harem.  I’m not even sure how interested anyone is, but… I’ll show you a picture later.”

“Show me show me.  How have you not sent it already?  When did you take it?” Verona asked.  She grabbed onto Avery’s arm and Cherrypop seized the opportunity to leap the gap, grabbing onto Snowdrop’s fur at her rump.  Avery ducked, adopting a semi-defensive posture at the shift of weight, trying to walk straight while three lifeforms scrabbled for some degree of purchase on her.

“Take Snow and Cherry, I’ll show you.  Or Snow, you can become-”

Snowdrop became human, reading the spark of realization that had preceded the question before the sentence was half out.  She scooped up Cherrypop.

Avery quickly flipped through to a photo she’d taken while with Nora.  A second meeting with Snowdrop, because Nora’s mom hadn’t believed an opossum would be this far north, they’d gotten photo evidence.  Avery and Nora with silly faces, Snowdrop in the background, high in the photo with the angle it had been taken.

“I like her already.”

“Come on.  See the moon on the water?”

“You seemed to know right where that photo was.  How many times a day do you look at it?”

“Gods and spirits,” Avery whispered under her breath.  She checked the literal coast was clear, then hopped out across to one instance of the moon being reflected on the water.  She hopped across to the next, then looked back.

“That’s a long distance to jump.”

“It’s really not.  You’re more athletic than you pretend to be, I think.”

Verona backed up a step, looked around, then made the jump at a running start.

She missed the reflection of the moon and instead of landing in shallows, was promptly swallowed up by the water, legs pulled out from under her.  It churned violently, and then Verona was gone.

“Fuck.”

Avery hurried, running down the series of moon reflections.  Each one brought her and the moon-shaped lily pads lower, sinking under her weight, walls of water looming higher on either side of her.  By the time she was far enough out that she might’ve been seen, she had descended enough that she was out of view.  Snowdrop followed behind, carrying a cheery Cherrypop.

“Be good, Cherry!  No joke!”

“I’m not taking responsibility for this little jerk,” Snowdrop said.

The last one plunged deeper.

The Lord was kind enough to bring them in together.  Avery and Verona passed through the wall of water, entering the venue beneath the water, walls of water on all sides.  Avery held up a finger to her lips.

Most of the council was already arranged.  It looked like they were a mite late.  A few pointed glances indicated a few people weren’t impressed.  Whatever.

“…some tax wouldn’t be out of hand,” Ann Wint said.

“I know for a fact you tap outside sources of power and have them delivered.  How is this different?” Nicole asked.

“The danger,” Deb said, while Ann nodded along.  “Get your power where you want.  I tap into outside power and pay money for packages with a lot of power.  But I handle what gets delivered.”

“Is this about the Abyssal Mother?”

“That’s a part of it,” Ann told her.  “Suck on whatever teats you wish, you-”

Cherrypop laughed.  Avery hurried to cover her mouth.

“Sorry,” Avery said.

Hugh was on the sidelines, and he frowned, turning his attention to Cherrypop.

“As I was saying, take your power where you will, but if you’re trying to wield power you can’t manage, because you’re not strong or educated enough-”

“I beg your pardon, but go fuck yourself, Ann.”

Cherrypop clapped.  Avery had to let go of Cherry’s mouth to stop it.  Nicole was glaring at them now.

“Let’s not let this get out of hand,” Pesch said, stepping forward so he was between Ann and Nicole.

Deb carried on with the tag-team alongside Ann, the two of them easily picking up where the other left off.  She stepped forward, and Florin couldn’t stand between Ann and Nicole and Deb and Nicole at the same time.  “The reason we’re even debating this is Nicole’s habit for letting things get out of hand.  We’ve had three occasions where we’ve mounted sudden council meetings to clean up her messes.”

“Two of those were for show, to shame me more than out of any real emergency,” Nicole replied.  “Tell me they weren’t.”

“Even small indiscretions should be shamed,” Ann said.  “You should be ashamed, instead of standing here, telling us you’re taking another risk with practices you simply don’t know enough about.”

“If I may interrupt,” Florin said, “you three have held the floor for a while.  May we please interrupt so someone else may voice their opinions?  Would anyone else like to chime in?”

He glanced back at Avery.

“I don’t know enough about what’s going on,” Avery said.

“What a shame,” he said.

“I think a tax seems fair,” a man Avery didn’t immediately know said.  Justin Childs, she guessed.

“Of course you think a tax seems fair.  I’m the one paying it, when none of you have had to do the same in similar circumstances.”

“We haven’t had the same circumstances.  You’ve had three emergency meetings called-” Ann said.

“This is going in circles,” Florin said.

Verona’s head seemed to almost be spinning, as people talked.

Avery took out a piece of card and wrote out a sound-deadening rune.

She cleared her throat a second, and the rune glowed briefly, like she’d blown on white hot metal, making the color change.  Nobody reacted.

“Okay,” Avery said, as another small test.

Seemed to be working.  Verona turned to look at her.

“That’s our Lord of Thunder Bay.  She Who Drowns in Moonlight.  Elemental with a bit of spirit stabilizing her.”

Verona nodded.

“Ann Wint, Destroyer,” Avery remarked, murmuring, her voice kept quiet and private to herself and Verona.  Ann had the look of a PTA mom who was an evil stepmother on the side, severe while still being mom-ish.

“Right.  You said to be ready for her.”

“Deb Cloutier, Storm Chaser.”  Deb had a fresh burn on her hand to join the various burn scars and damage to her nose and ears from frostbite.  The scar on her hand looked like it was from lightning.  It resembled a branch from a pine tree, forking, each fork with dense narrow lines spreading out but not touching one another.

“Yep, yep.”

“Florin Pesch.  Those three are almost always at meetings.  Like the council is their full time job.”  Florin wore a navy blue turtleneck with a pin at the breast, white slacks, and soft leather shoes, blond hair like a cresting wave off to the front.

Verona nodded.

“Nicole Scobie.  Mom of Natasha Scobie.”  A ‘tired mom’ simple haircut that was just blond hair cut straight across at the back, a light blouse for the cold weather, a thin dress that went down just past the knees, and a perpetual look on her face like someone near her had stepped in dog doo and she really wanted to make an offended remark.

“Elementalists,” Verona confirmed.

“Tomas Whitt.  You know that last name.  Chase and Fernanda’s brother-in-law.”

Verona nodded.

Tomas didn’t look like a dangerous alchemist or emotion manipulator.  He looked like someone trying to dress up as a lawyer like the fancy ones that were on TV, and missing the mark slightly on account of trying too hard.  He was skinny, with unfortunate bad skin that made him look younger than he was, and a haircut that’d probably looked really good in the mirror when he’d gelled it up, but this late in the day with no upkeep, it sorta ended up being way too high on one half of his head and too short on the other.

But he was one of her surveillance targets, one she’d left mostly to Snowdrop because he was on the lookout for people.  Cops in particular.

“Hugh Legendre… goblin exterminator and sealer.  You know them.  They’re why there are no local goblins for Snowdrop.”

Hugh was a big guy and hadn’t dressed up to attend, wearing stained pants that might’ve been worn by a construction worker or someone in a garage.  A heavy jacket only added to his apparent size.

Cherrypop began to curse, crawling forward on Verona’s shoulder.  “Asssshole!”

Nobody even reacted or responded.  The silence rune held.

Verona scribbled down another silence rune on a spell card and pressed it to Cherrypop’s face.  The small goblin couldn’t remove it.

Good.  That made Avery feel better.  Better than trying to fight Cherry’s worst impulses in the middle of things, later.

“Pretty sure that one to Hugh’s right is Justin Childs.  I haven’t seen him but I know there’s three who are local and I’ve met the other two.  Incarnate Contacts.”

“Got it.”

The Childs were a point of contact between the practitioner community and a lot of incarnations that wandered around making contact with Aware and innocents in the capacity of being whatever they were.  Destruction, Annoyance, Boredom, and so on.  So if someone needed to find an incarnation of Grief the Childs were supposed to be able to hook that someone up with one that was wandering around causing grief or feeding on ambient grief.  They got cash from practitioners and a collection of omen-like agents of various incarnations from the other side, by doing favors for the incarnations.  Like pointing that incarnation of Grief in the direction of a very special tragedy that it might otherwise miss out on.

“Got it.”

Justin, like his sister and cousin, had a pretty peculiar face shape, with a high, broad forehead and a very triangular chin, hair clipped to the point of near-baldness on the sides, left as short black curls on top.  The face shape and narrow silhouettes were so peculiar and consistent across the family members that Avery privately suspected inbreeding.

Justin wore a blue pinstriped business top that might’ve been normal on someone else but because he was so skinny, upright in posture, and peculiar looking, it looked like he’d dressed up.  The cut and pattern played into the features, more than anything.  It was like a person with red hair wearing all red and orange, but instead of color it was shape and lines.

“And that’s Nadine.  She’s one of two apprentices working for a guy who never shows.  They’re a team of gleaners.  They mainly drain practices that were put into effect and aren’t needed or being attended anymore, and so on.  Store that power in batteries, sell it.  They’ll take apart some Others too.”

Nadine wore a black t-shirt under a denim jacket and fiddled with a vape it looked like she desperately wanted to use.

“For our Others, Gilkey’s in the back.  Shows up a bit.  Distillation.  If you overdo it with some alchemy your inner balances can tilt the wrong way the way a diagram can.  Apparently someone dosed him to try to get him to do something stupid.  The human bits of him, memories, Self, all sloughed away.  Leaving a human-shaped silhouette filled in with cruel poison.”

“I like him.”

“I do too.  Behind the Lord is Aze.  Constituent.”

Aze was tall, gaunt, and snow white in color.  The proportions were wrong, and her neck was almost a foot long, shins and upper arms short, forearms and calves long.  She was naked, but long, straight white hair draped down and covered her chest, and she had no pelvis.  She had no elbow or lower jaw, either.  Instead, there were bright spots of light that seemed to connect the body parts.  The very ends of her hair had that same quality, like it had started out white but the tips had been heated to a glow by some chemistry.

Constituents were a regular concern of elementalists, those practitioners who dealt with elementals.  They appeared most commonly with a Storm, but an elementalist or more powerful elemental could make them more lasting, or they could occasionally find some human-shaped vessel to occupy for a little while.  The majority of non-stable Others seemed to exist as patterns or shapes that needed some outside source of power to keep going, like ghouls needed some proportion of life and death, or incarnations encouraged whatever their universal human constant was and then drank of that idea.  Constituents, by contrast, were power, and fought constantly to find that form and pattern.

Elementals tended to be fleeting, existing as points where more abstract energies met reality.  Fire springing to life, earth moving, water surging, wind blowing where there’d been nothing before.  They could mark the leap from spirit to real, and had a long history of interacting with man, especially in those dangerous domains like natural disasters or poorly understood technology.  Constituents weren’t the most common kind of elemental, but they were the most common kind a practitioner would deal with, because the usual elemental would burn themselves out in however long it took to freeze a car and its inhabitants in winter or give more direction to a rockslide that was hitting a town.  Constituents at least stuck around for a few hours, instead of minutes.

Aze was an elemental of blinding flash, with loose alliance to Deb, the Scobies, and the Lord, who each did some share of giving Aze her form, which was currently a mannequin.  Over time, the power in Aze would damage her vessel, and she’d need to replace it.  Others like her fed on echoes for the pattern more than what the echo represented, staggering forward through traumas and strong emotions, frequently to explode into an unexpected excuse, a faulty appliance or a freak floodstorm dragging a house from its foundations, when the outer pattern no longer held.

“This isn’t everyone?” Verona murmured.

“This is half, about,” Avery remarked.  Verona’s eyebrows went up.

Avery held up the paper, and Verona nodded.

Avery tore the paper with the silence rune.

The conversation about trade that had been quiet in the background continued.

“…your trade with the Rowsomes shouldn’t be a problem.  As long as they don’t bring their messes into our lap,” Pesch said.

“I will handle it if they do,” Nicole said, sounding tired.  “I’ll pay the damages as outlined.”

“Treble damages, if you let this get out of hand,” Ann said.

“And the rest of you do the same, now?”

“The rest of us don’t get sloppy, Nicole.  Stick to the elemental work instead of mingling it with the Abyssal.  What you were doing was small but you were halfways competent at it,” Ann said.

“Then you should have no problem agreeing.  If any of you get sloppy in the future, will you pay the treble damages to the council?”

“We’ll discuss and debate that when the time comes,” Ann said.

“That’s ridiculous.  You’re ridiculous.  You’re a petty, power hungry bitch without anything good left in you.  Most of this council laughs at you behind your back, at how hard you fight to be in charge, at how your husband sleeps around with girls young enough to be his daughter.  You’re a joke, Ann.”

“Maybe you’re right about my character.  I know you’re right about what my husband does but in our conversation here you’ve expressed more concern about that than I ever have.  I really don’t care what he does in his free time.  He does a fine job fucking me and taking care of the children.  Let him think he’s getting away with something.”

“That’s sad, Ann.  You’re sad,” Nicole told her.

“But,” Ann replied, talking over the end of Nicole’s sentence, her voice sharp.  “If I’m supposed to be a petty, power hungry bitch, you’re a petty, power hungry incompetent.  Stop getting your mud on our shoes, Nicole, or I will get permission from this council to end you and cripple the power base of those family of yours who remain.”

Nicole stood there like she’d just had a strong wind blow past her, nearly making her take a step back from the force of it.

“Fuck you,” Nicole said.

Ann’s expression twisted into something that might’ve been trying to look sympathetic but let a condescending smile through, or might’ve tried to be a taunting smile but faltered in the face of abject pity.

“I’ll pay the treble damages if it comes to that.  Fuck off,” Nicole said, before storming away, through the water.

Cherry fought fiercely to pull the paper from her face.  Snowdrop held her.

“And so we conclude our first order of business, I gather,” Florin said.  “Nicole bought herself an Abyss tainted cow and agrees to pay treble damages if disaster unfolds.  On to our second order of business…”

“Musser,” Ann said, returning to her spot.  “Any news?”

“Two more claims in the last week,” Deb said.  “Hugh?”

“None of the claims are anywhere near here.”

“You’re involved.” Deb said.

“Presently?  No.  Initially?  Yes, but so were many here.  The plan sounded good initially, and many of us were on board.  But things have escalated since then.  Musser changed the plan and approach.”

“Will you disavow him?”  Ann asked.

“Will you?” Hugh replied.  “He’s strong, and whether you like it or not, what he’s doing now is something many of us have been anticipating for some time now.  The Carmine event has only accelerated the timetable a few generations.  We knew someone would try to take power and territory across the board, and for generations the most cunning and powerful of us have been nudging, making alliances, and keeping the possibility in the back of our minds.  It’s happened in other places.”

“Overseas more than here,” Florin said.

“But it’s happened.  We had the sense it would come from the Blue Heron.  The seeds were there,” Hugh said.  “We made our gambles, the dice have fallen.  Now we see if our interpretation of the odds had any validity.”

“You say that as if things are decided,” Justin Childs said.  “Musser is only in the opening stages.”

“He’s strong, he has backing, he has money, power, connections, and fortitude of character.  Do any of us have any illusions that this will end with him and those under him not having some significant stake of territory?  You ask if I will disavow him.  No.  I’m not helping him now, but I won’t stand in his way.  He likes me.  He’s taken the early help I gave him, and he’s done a lot with it.”

“Your children, your nephews,” Ann told him.

“And other resources.  I made my bid, I didn’t anticipate this current direction, but if he succeeds, I stand to reap rewards.  Again, I’m not helping him now, but I won’t stand in his way.”

“You have responsibilities to this council,” Deb said.

“Do you have evidence I’ve betrayed them?”

“Will you swear to the fact you haven’t?”

“In this climate of gainsaying and forswearance?  When Musser opposes the Carmine?  No.”

“That’s certainly fair,” Florin Pesch said.

“Shut up, Florin,” Ann said.  “We could evict you from Thunder Bay, Hugh.”

Please, Avery thought.

“If you intend to, hurry up about it.  I’ll undo the bindings my family maintains.”

“By deals struck you can’t-”

“I can.  If I’m removed without just cause.  If you have issues with me, bring them forth.  Otherwise?  Worry about dirt on your shoes.”

“Anything else about Musser?” Florin asked.

“I worry about smaller practitioners and practices,” Nadine the Gleaner said.  “I won’t lie.  We’ve discussed leaving.  I know some of the other small families and groups have.  Alone, maybe we don’t have an impact, but if there’s a larger exodus to places where we can practice freely without being beholden to a greater organization of families, that could change things.”

“We respect the work you do,” Ann said.  It didn’t suit her, saying that.

“Thank you, but that doesn’t change the reality.  We serve small but vital functions, we occasionally handle problems that even greater families like the Mussers can’t.”

“Hugh might be right that the current state of things is no surprise.  It’ll eventually happen elsewhere,” Florin told her.  “Isn’t it better to stay, use the connections you’ve forged, and find a niche in the new landscape?”

“Eventually is a word you’ve glossed over.  Generations.”

“Would you make your sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters deal with consequences and realities you weren’t willing to face today?  With less?  Less connection, less establishment?”

Nadine shook her head a bit, folding her arms.  The plastic of her vape creaked as she worked it in her hand, thinking.

“Meet with me after.  Talk to me,” Florin told her.

“I’d be betraying some people I’m speaking for.”

“It won’t be a betrayal,” he assured her.  “I’ll call you.”

Nadine shook her head again, as if to herself, eyes unfocused, then nodded.

“It was always going to happen,” Hugh said, filling the silence after.  “He’s done it in a dirty way, I won’t deny that.  But the area will be paved in Lordships.  The Carmine, at least, will be weakened.”

“Easy, Hugh,” Florin said.  “Anyone else?  Any input?  News to share?”

He glanced back at Avery and Verona, who had remained quiet.

“From your neck of the woods?” he asked.  “Yes?  No?”

“Nothing for the council,” Avery said.

“What peculiar wording.  Not a no.”

Avery remained silent.

Pesch smiled, then turned away.  “Anyone else?  News?  Thoughts on Musser and his ongoing, one-man effort to claim a large slice of nearly uninhabited Ontario?”

“He won’t keep to the more remote areas,” Deb said.

“And we can revisit the subject if he approaches civilized areas again,” Pesch said.  “Can I suggest we move on to the third order of business?”

“No objection,” Ann said.

There were no protests.

“You,” Pesch said, looking at Avery and Verona.  “We’d like to meet your guest.  Just so we know who is here.”

“Avery Kelly, witch of Kennet, finder and seeker of paths, partner to Snowdrop,” Avery said.  “Many of you I’ve met.  Some of you I haven’t.  When I came I made offerings on behalf of my partners, to ask for their easy access.”

The Lord beckoned Verona.

Verona stepped forward.

She hates public speaking, Avery thought.

“Verona Hayward, witch of Kennet.  Dabbler in Half-light, in Shadow, and Shape.  Wild practitioner.”

“Here for the weekend,” Avery added.  “Because of certain geographical concerns, she might end up stuck here a bit into Monday.  Travel back home is complicated.”

“Yeah.  That,” Verona said.

“Why aren’t you a finder if she is?” Tomas asked.

“Not my thing?” Verona asked, shrugging.

“Would that we all had such flexibility,” Hugh said.  “You brought vermin.”

“Cherrypop?” Verona asked.

Cherrypop, who had been tugging on the paper, went still.

“Whatever it calls itself.”

“Cherrypop’s an ally,” Avery said.

“She’s a champ,” Verona added.  “We had a Bathos attack, you guys know what a Bathos is?”

“An Abyss beast,” Ann answered.

“She helped bring it down.  I won’t forget her smacking it in the face at the end.”

Cherrypop, paper still stuck to her face, thrust her fists into the air.  Snowdrop held her high.

“You could find a insect that originated from Abyss-stuff and it would technically qualify as a Bathos,” Ann said.  “I’m Ann Wint, Destroyer, I’ve studied the Abyss.”

“I’ve read one of your family’s books,” Verona said.

“Did you?”

“Inner Void Beneath?  It was intense.”

“It was trash,” Ann said.  “My father is not a good writer.  He wrote it because he thought he should, not because he could.”

“There was interesting stuff in there,” Verona said.

“If you think so then you’re in a very small group.  The intent of your words is still appreciated.  All the same, if you’re conniving to portray the defeat of a Bathos of the lowest tier as an accomplishment…?”

She trailed off, making it a question.

“The one we’re talking about tore a fire escape off the side of a building,” Avery said.

“She didn’t play a huge role but she helped,” Avery said.

Verona gave her a glance that was like ‘why say that?’

“She also played a pivotal role in stopping a goblin attack.  Little bit of trickery with weeks of lead-in and a lot of dumb courage and they called it off,” Verona added.

Liberty at the bridge.

“She’s an ally,” Avery asserted.  “Please don’t call my allies vermin, Mr. Legendre.”

“We’ve met them, we know the company they keep,” Hugh said.  “Is there anything else?”

“I’d like permission to practice while I’m here,” Verona said.

The Lord extended a hand.

“Granted, apparently,” Deb replied, sounding unimpressed.

“Your deeds here are your partner witch’s deeds,” Ann told Verona.

“Kinda?” Verona replied.

“For our purposes, they are.”

“Right, yes.”

Ann nodded, apparently satisfied.

“Is that all, then?” Ann asked.  “Scobie’s foray into animal husbandry took up time.  I think some of us haven’t eaten yet.”

There were no objections.  Ann looked at the Lord.

The walls drew in closer.  People all around the space turned and walked into the wall of water.

“I do like that,” Verona said.  “Dinner, then?”

Avery glanced back and around, then nodded.

She led Verona and Snowdrop into the water.  They were picked up, carried by the current, holding their breath-

And not put onto the shore.

The water swirled, Avery’s stomach did a flip flop, and they were returned right back where they’d come.

Moving them away to apparently indicate they’d left, only to call them back to a more clandestine meet.

Gilkey remained.

Avery drew in a breath, then nodded.

“I believe the Lord of Thunder Bay would like an update,” Gilkey said.

“Okay,” Avery said.  She looked around.  The others having been near so recently made her nervous.  “Are we safe from surveillance?  Augury, any listening devices?”

The Lord nodded.

The water around them caught the late afternoon sun, shifting in colors.

“I’ve brought Verona here to help, as I indicated.”

The Lord didn’t move.

“We’re still doing the surveillance thing.  The puppeteer-”

“You can use the full name,” Gilkey interrupted.  “If she says it’s secure, it’s secure.  Clarity is important.”

“Florin.  Florin Pesch has contacts with several businesses, the Mayor, clergy, and someone prominent at Lakehead U.  Two local celebrities, one a musician, and one an ex-television actor, are working closely with him.  To be totally honest, he’s taking a lot of power and prestige that I think another Lord would keep for themselves.  He’s got a handle on levers of government, money, entertainment, education… all under the radar.”

“He’s not using practice for that, apparently,” Verona added.

“Which is why it’s under the radar,” Avery explained.

“What does this mean?” Gilkey asked.

“That because of where our elemental Lord has put her focus, and what she’s chosen to ignore and leave to the rest of us, he’s quietly managed to capture a lot of local power.  He has connections to data tracking to find people-”

“Just so I know,” Verona interrupted.  “Do you know what data tracking is?”

The Lord of Thunder Bay shook her head.

“I don’t know myself,” Gilkey said.  “Except that it might mean people can be tracked.”

“Good call,” Avery said, under her breath.

“Basically,” Verona said.  “Because we carry phones and other tech around, and because of the places we go for information or how we contact one another online, records get kept of our preferences, tastes, where we go, what we’ve done.  Massive amounts of details.”

“And,” Avery said.  “I’ve talked about this with Snowdrop, I’m not an expert, there’s still more info to get, but I think… I’m not sure, but I think Florin is either planning to take the Lordship from you or to time pulling the rug out from under you when someone else is poised to.”

The Lord sat up a little straighter.

“Can you explain?” Gilkey asked Avery.

“There are a lot of important people that are either already friendly with him or working with him, and there are others he watches.  He doesn’t act on it, but he’s definitely keeping tabs on them.  Without practice.  Where you guys can’t necessarily see or notice.  I think Ann and Deb know some of his connections, but he changes things up so he’ll meet some at the club at the Marina, some at his home, some at other places.  I don’t think they know the entire story.”

“Have you focused your surveillance on him?” Gilkey asked.

“Him and Tomas.  Tomas is working with Florin.  Florin bought emotion-altering drugs and gave them out to people with instructions I wasn’t able to read.  If I kept going, I’d try to find those instructions and figure out the plan.”

“Avery and I messaged about it,” Verona said.  “It’d be like… one night there’s a Lordship challenge, and at the same time, anyone who isn’t on his side gets dopplegangered or stuck with a parasite, or something, or drugged with the emotion cocktails.  Big coup.  He controls almost everyone that matters.”

“Followed by a powerful claim over Thunder Bay, possibly,” Avery added.  “Then Florin gets Thunder Bay.  Or someone else takes it and Florin gets a huge payday from Musser.”

“I personally think he’s going to help the shit out of you,” Snowdrop said.  “He’ll be your hero.”

“They would have to go through Ann, Deb, and the rest of the council,” Gilkey said.  “Florin isn’t that strong.”

“Someone else?” Avery asked, shrugging one shoulder.

“Possibly.  My instinct is you don’t have the full picture.”

“We haven’t worked out everyone.  Hugh only just showed up.”

“Hugh will be wary, after the tone of tonight’s discussion and Ann raising allegations against him,” Gilkey said.

“Yeahhh,” Avery replied.  She glanced at Verona.  “I don’t know how much pressure you want to put on me, miss Lord, if you want me to try to dig into Hugh’s loyalties and stuff while he’s here, I can try but I wouldn’t be super confident.”

“You’d rather wait?”

“I’d rather wait until the next time he’s in town.  I’ll keep an ear out, see if there’s anything obvious, but… he’s already tough,” Avery said.

The Lord nodded.

“Next time, then.”

“In the meantime?” Verona cut in.  “Maybe ask Ann quietly to not devote so much focus to Hugh?”

“If the Lord agrees I’ll find a quiet way to pass that on,” Gilkey said.

The Lord of Thunder Bay moved her hand.

“Good,” Gilkey said.  “And in the meantime?”

“I’d like permission to bend certain rules,” Avery said.  “We’ve been told Lordships tend to have certain etiquette and policies.  One being it’s really bad manners to summon an Other that is going to stick around long enough to be considered a resident of any duration.”

“It is,” Gilkey said.  “Distinctions get complicated, as do the individual preference of Lords.  What do you want to do?”

“I want to call in some Lost I have the information on.  It gets tricky, it might get sloppy, like they complained about with Nicole Scobie and her cow thing.  A lot of these Lost, I don’t have the full info on.”

“Which is why I’m here, kinda,” Verona added.  “She summons, I try to keep everything in bounds.”

“Why these?” Gilkey asked.

“Because they’ve been bound for a while, many of them unfairly, and I have a responsibility,” Avery said.  “And because I think some of these guys would really help with the surveillance.  Lost can be tricky, with the rules they follow and the ones they don’t.  Which I’m going to need if I’m going to deal with Thea, Odis’ apprentice.  Our fourth surveillance target.”

The Lord of Thunder Bay held up a hand.  Three fingers extended.

“Three summons.  Keep it in bounds.”

“Can-” Avery started, then hesitated a second.  “Can we make it three I keep local?  Because some of these guys might not be as useful as expected.  I’d like to summon some and release them into the territories past Thunder Bay.”

“Extract oaths,” the Lord of Thunder Bay said.  “They don’t cause us trouble.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “If I can’t, I’ll return them to the original binding.  Or I’ll try.”

Gilkey replied, “That should be fine.  Three you keep.”

The Lord moved her hand.

“Carry on,” Gilkey said, as the water closed in.  “Good luck.”

“I’m not much for television, I have to admit,” Verona’s mom said.

“It’s the best show ever,” Sheridan said.  “It’s got everything.”

“Sheridan is, uh, quite enamored,” Avery’s mom said.

“That’s good, though!” Verona’s mom said.  “Follow your passions, am I right?  Would you get into TV or movies, Sheridan?”

“In what sense?”

“Acting?  Writing?”

“Yeah, no.  I can’t write a fifteen-hundred word essay for school, and actresses have to be pretty.”

“I just think that if everyone followed their passions and really gave their all, the world would be so much brighter and better,” Verona’s mom said.

“And bloodier,” Verona added.  “Terrorists give their all.”

“That’s true.  But is the alternative better?  A gray world where nobody cares and everyone hates what they do?”

“Oh hey,” Sheridan said.  “You’re talking about me, huh?  I’m your arch nemesis?”

“I think you care about something,” Verona’s mom said.

“Yep, it’s a show where hot guys take their shirts off a lot.  And find excuses to oil up their hairless chests.”

“Let’s keep the topic polite for a lunch with guests over, please?” Avery’s mom asked.  “Please, Sheridan?”

“I’m just saying.”

Verona’s mom looked a little lost for words.

“The unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” Avery whispered to Verona, as they got a platter of bread, meat, and cheeses and brought it to the table.

“Cattle prod vs. immovable object,” Verona whispered back.

“I confess, I watch some television,” Avery’s mom said.

“Oh no, don’t get me wrong.  Enjoy what you want, Sheridan should enjoy her-”

“Borderline pornography?” Verona asked.

Sheridan stuck out her tongue at Verona.

Avery’s mom sighed.

“Verona,” Verona’s mom said.  “We’re guests.”

“It is what it is.  Even Sheridan said!”

“I don’t judge.  I just can’t find the time,” Verona’s mom said.

“After work and kids I collapse,” Avery’s mom replied.  “I video call my husband, we use an app to coordinate timing, we watch something together.  One of us usually falls asleep halfway through, or gets called away by screaming children.”

“We don’t scream that much,” Avery said.

“We’re not children,” Sheridan added.

“You’ll always be my child,” Avery’s mom replied.  “Children in my heart.”

“Gag me.”

“Are there any subjects you like at school?” Verona’s mom asked Sheridan.

“Nope.  Not a one.”

“Or types of people you find that drive you?”

Sheridan scoffed.

“Nobody interesting?”

“People suck.”

“Manners, please,” Avery’s mom protested.  She turned to Avery and Verona. “You girls.  How are you today?  You slept in.”

“We stayed up late,” Avery replied.  She bit into a bit of bread with cheese.

“Well, that’s what weekends and sleepovers are for,” Verona’s mom said.  “Staying up and sleeping in.”

“A reality I hope to keep going until I’m my mom’s age,” Verona said.

“You say that like it’s a long time in the future,” her mom replied.

“Isn’t it?”

“If you have a sleepover as an adult it’s called a one night stand,” Sheridan said.

Verona clicked her tongue and winked.  “I’m down for those too.”

“Can we keep the subject matter away from sex for five minutes?” their mom asked.

“You’re fourteen,” Verona’s mom said.  “You can’t have one night stands.”

“Well I mean eventually.  When I have my own place.”

“It’s only sensible,” Sheridan said.

“Right!?” Verona asked.

Avery’s mom clinked a glass with her spoon.  All heads turned to her.

“Stop that.  Keep it clean, thank you.”

“Please,” Verona’s mom said.

Verona sighed.

“There goes all the fun I was having,” Sheridan groused.  “Should we go back to the subject of how I suck and there’s no future for me?”

“That’s not it at all,” Verona’s mom said.  “I think you’re witty, you seem lovely-”

“Now I know you’re lying to my face.”

“Sheridan!”

Avery laughed, which got a smirk out of Sheridan.

“I don’t think you win this, Mom,” Verona said.

“I’m not trying to win.  I think I’m being misunderstood-”

Verona raised her fists like she was ready to box.  “This is her turf.”

“I’m a pig in mud,” Sheridan added.

“I’m really not trying to win anything,” Verona’s mom said.

“Sheridan brought up her lack of passion and it became a discussion,” Avery’s mom said.

“Yes.  I was the same.  Then I found out my passion is people.  I work with people every day now to make the impossible happen.”

“What if my passion is being passionless?” Sheridan asked.  “If I aspire to be boring?”

“Nobody aspires to be boring,” Verona’s mom said.

“They’re just egging each other on.  You’ve got to let them get it out of their system,” Avery’s mom said.

“What’s the highest point of that path of boringness?” Verona asked.

“Documentary series.  A wasted life?” Avery asked.

“Shown at two in the afternoon on a crappy channel in the middle of the week,” Sheridan said.  “Filler show.”

“Nobody watches,” Verona added.

“They’re having fun,” Avery’s mom told Verona’s mom.  “That’s all they need to do right now.  And as for us… wine?  It helps sometimes, especially when they’re in a mood.”

“I should keep it to a minimum if I’m driving.  I would love to oblige you otherwise.  Another time?”

“Of course.  I’d love to.”

Verona’s mom looked a bit out of place in the middle of the apartment, sitting at the table.

“You were talking about a theory about that show,” Avery said.

“That show?  Blasphemy Girls.”

“Yes.  That.  Why not do, like, a video series?  Put it out there?”

“Engh.”

“Or a podcast?”

“It’d be one drop in a sea of commentary.”

“You watch and listen to alll that commentary, don’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

“So there’s people who want it!”

“I think with your voice and your wit you’d do a great job on a podcast,” Verona’s mom said.

Sheridan made a face and looked indecisive, which seemed mostly to come from the fact she couldn’t find a good angle for protest.

“Yes?” Avery nagged Sheridan.

“You’re annoying.”

“Yessss?”

“Yes?” Verona asked.

“Oh my god, Mom.  Don’t let them do this.”

“Don’t nag Sheridan.  If she’s interested she’ll see it through.”

Verona’s mom smiled, like she’d figured out Sheridan.  Maybe she’d been telling the truth about wanting a win, but she seemed pleased that Sheridan was maybe no longer a passionless lump.

Verona got up to go to the bathroom.  “Don’t talk about me while I’m gone.”

“No promises!” Sheridan called after her.

“You said you were looking to make local connections?” Verona’s mom asked Avery’s.

“Yeah.  Friends, mainly.  But business too, sure, wouldn’t rule it out.”

“Any hobbies?  Interests?”

“I- I’m still figuring that out.  Work, kids, husband, the occasional crisis, sleep.”

“Oh my god, are we related?” Sheridan asked.  “Are you boring, Mom?  Did I inherit that?”

“You’re not boring!” Verona’s mom exclaimed.  “Neither of you.  Believe me.”

“I’m open to new things.”

“That’s great.”

The conversation went on.

Avery glanced back at the bathroom door, and used her Sight.

Then, not because she’d seen anything blatant, but because she had a faint feeling, she got up, walking over to the bathroom.  She knocked.

“Ronnie?”

The door opened.  Avery peeked inside.

Verona sat on the edge of the tub, within arm’s reach of the door, hand pressed into her armpit.  Arm and shoulder shook with the force she was compressing her hand.  A wet track on her cheek suggested she’d cried or been crying.

“Close the door,” Verona said.

“But- your mom, I can-”

Verona pushed on the door, squishing Avery a bit where she stood.  Avery slipped inside, then closed the door.  After a second, she locked it, then went to Verona, hugging her around the shoulders.

“Hey, hey.  What do I do?  What do you need?”

“Just a thing,” Verona whispered.

“You don’t want me to get help?  I can-”

Verona shook her head, small and fierce.  “Talk to me.  Distract me.”

Avery squeezed her in a tighter hug.  “It’s glamour, right?  That’s a thing?  It’s perception.  If you dwell on it-”

“It’s fate,” Verona replied.  “Not glamour.”

“What?”

“It’s fate.  I was warned, I ignored the warning.  I got hurt.”

“It’s Faerie based-”

“It’s winter Faerie based,” Verona replied, in a strained whisper.  “Winter is about the ending.  I looked it up.  I asked Guilherme.  If Maricica pulls something on us, sure.  Maybe it sticks.  Maybe it doesn’t.  But if Guilherme or another Winter Fae pulls something… that’s it.”

“Ronnie…”

“This is it.  That’s the danger.  That’s why he’s scared to interact with us, or do stuff.  It lasts, like other glamour from other courts doesn’t.”

“There’s got to be solutions.  If the goblins are an eighth court-  Ramjam?  Spit and nails?”

“I don’t want it to be made ugly, either,” Verona said, squeezing eyes shut.  “Especially if it might not work.  Ramjam’s a minor goblin, Guilherme’s royalty.”

“There’s got to be a fix.”

“Stuff’s broke,” Verona whispered.  “Kennet’s broke.  I’m-”

Avery squeezed her harder, the two of them sitting on the edge of the tub.

“Distract me.”

“Right now, through my familiar link, I can feel Cherrypop pouring milk into Snowdrop’s open opossum mouth.  It’s getting everywhere.”

Verona smiled.  “What are we doing this afternoon?”

“Covert ops.”

“Cool as shit, right?” Verona asked.

“It is.”

“Except we’ve got Cherry with.  She’s pretty loud for a little goblin.  She doesn’t follow orders very well either.  Like being quiet at the council meeting.”

“She’s great at being an inanimate, useless fork.  Just gotta convince her.”

Verona smiled.  “True.”

“We’ll do a bit of Lost summoning later.  See who works, what jobs we can give them.  I’ve got a man who slips away from being any place you look, kind of like how Miss’s face gets covered up, he’s never there when you look, but he can listen in.”

“That’s cool.”

“Four men crammed in an old car, singing.  The men and the car aren’t the Other.  The song is.  If it reaches wherever our target is, it can keep tabs on them.”

“Short term.  Too much singing for too long would draw attention.”

“It’s a way to figure out where they’re at, as a starting point.  Or check on things.”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “Gotta figure out how to contain a song while we work out ”

“That’s what you’re here for.”

“I can figure it out,” Verona replied.  “Okay.”

“And a spider who weaves paintings.”

“What does that do?”

“Don’t know for sure, but I’m hoping she can spy and then paint what she sees.  I’m hoping we find a good way to do this.  Because this woman we’re spying on?  She sounds pretty intimidating.  Went to another world, killed her friends because she wanted to stay.  Learned to be some crazy capable dark knight.  Now she’s making her own mini-universe, managing others.”

Verona pulled her hand out of her armpit.  It didn’t look great, still twitching a bit.  “We’re pretty intimidating.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  She wiped at Verona’s cheek where tears had tracked their way down.  “For sure.”

Next Chapter