Playing a Part – 15.9
Author: Wildbow

Playing a Part – 15.9 | Pale

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Friday, Afternoon

Lucy approached, moving closer to Matthew and Rook.  Reggie and Bracken followed.

“One of our notorious local witches?” the Family Man asked.

“Of what town?” Marlen asked.

The Family Man turned.  Again, his neck did the bulging thing, muscles swelling, twisting, rearranging, then smoothing out.  “Hm?”

“Local witches of…?” Marlen asked.

“Kennet.”

“The signs said Kennet was fifty kilometers back east.  Trickery?”

“Yes,” the Family Man replied.

“I was told to avoid it if I could.  That it was a bad place to stop for gas, even if it was the only place for a short while.”

“That it is.”  The Family Man smiled, and it was a smile that should have been attractive, did everything a smile was meant to do on paper, corners turned up, white teeth bared, but it came off more as a grimace.

“We couldn’t pin her down,” Lucy told Matthew and Rook, her voice quiet.  “Tried.  Limited practice to some conflict type stuff, like Liberty’s family would use.  Some goblin stuff on the side can often go with that.  But we couldn’t get her.  I hoped the long way into Kennet would stall her, but she found a way around that.”

“It’s what she does,” Rook murmured.

Matthew, arms folded, dropped chin to collarbone, his body turned sideways so he could keep the Family Man and Marlen in the corner of his vision.  “That’s a problem, but we can’t really condemn you when we couldn’t keep this managed.”

“This was inevitable,” Rook replied.  She remained ramrod straight in posture, cane in one hand, mask in the other.  “What we manage comes next.  Negotiations are still pending.  It’s good Lucy is here.”

“Should I-?” Matthew asked.  He extended a hand.

“Yes.  Leave room for us to interject.”

Matthew nodded.

“Are you interfering in our business, Family Man?” Matthew called out.  With the ‘battle lines’ being what they were, each of the two Undercity groups having their forces with them, it didn’t seem like Matthew wanted to approach.

“Are you interfering in ours?” the Family Man asked.  He tilted his head and his neck distended out at the side, as if he had a leech as long and wide as Lucy’s forearm under the skin.

The Witch of Bitter Street was seated on the sidewalk, the opposite of Rook in many ways.  Rook was decorated.  The Witch was underdressed, wearing the sort of old clothes Lucy would reserve for sleeping in.  Rook’s hair was tied back tight.  The Witch was messy, hair pushed to one side of her head more than it was brushed.  Lucy’s hair was dense and she imagined she’d have an easier time getting a brush through it on her worst hair day of the last year than the Witch could on her best day.  But most of all, Rook was straight-backed and prim and the Witch bent, almost as if her bones and back had all been broken and had healed wrong.  She seemed to only sit upright and hunched over because she could hold onto her staff with both hands.  She banged her stick twice, and two of her brothers reached down to hold her under the armpits, one brother to each armpit, helping her to stand.  As she rose, her eyes seemed to take on an intensity, whites showing.  She waited until she was upright and her brothers had stepped back to make the statement she’d apparently had before deciding to stand.  “You outlined your rules.”

“We did,” Lucy answered her.

“We can have our factions if we keep things from spilling over.  We leave the white sheep alone, which means no going to your side of things, and protecting them if they come here.”

“That’s ideal,” Lucy addressed her.

The Bitter Street Witch was almost wrapped around her staff, a walking stick as tall as she was, in her effort to use it for balance.  She leaned forward a bit.  “Then why are you interfering now?  If the Family Man and I would join forces to have our faction, isn’t that allowed?  If the rules are maintained, what business is it of yours?”

“The rules were a starting point,” Rook answered.  “Improvised when things were new and we were discerning the lay of the land.”

“Can you understand why that would be…” the Bitter Street Witch trailed off, the ‘be’ a little breathy.  She turned her head forcefully to one side, then another, hair lifting up slightly.  She identified the brother of hers that seemed most hostile and quickly hobble-walked over to him, hugging the walking staff more than she held it, using it as a third leg between the other two, almost.  Another brother supported her to keep her from falling.  She stood by the pissed-off looking guy, then turned, whites of her eyes showing.  “…frustrating?”

‘Frustrating’ was not the word that Lucy would have expected to go with the look in the Witch’s eyes or the expression on the brother’s face.

“Our present reality is barely a month old now,” Rook told her.  “The dust has not yet settled, the full picture of how the two sides of Kennet would stand was unclear.  The initial policies were for your immediate benefit as much as ours.  What comes next is a period where we negotiate what our equilibrium will look like.  We’d have you involved in our council, debating and deciding things with us.”

“And if I don’t want to play your games by your rules?” the Witch asked.  She glanced at the Family Man, then added,  “If we don’t?”

“That too can be negotiated, but I would choose to participate in your positions.”

“The people prefer lawlessness.  They find their own way.  It’s easy for you to ask for rules, and it’s costly for us to enforce them.  The rules about the white sheep and keeping things contained already have some of my brothers and people chafing.  Do you know how easy it is to go from that kind of dissatisfaction to a knife in my back?”

“It will happen more easily if you remind your people about the possibility,” Rook told her.

“I know about the possibility.  I see things sometimes.  I know who’s been thinking about it and I keep that in mind constantly.  I talk to some of them on a daily basis.  If we’re going to negotiate, strangers, it should start with you relaxing your control and making concessions.  We’ve given you so much help in these early, formative stages.  Pay us back.”

She’s saying that in front of her people, Lucy thought.  It felt like a do-or-die thing.  Putting it all on the table, making a demand that, if refused, would weaken her position.

Which sucks, Lucy thought to herself.  Because the Bitter Street Witch is one of the two power holders over here who we can actually work with, who stays reasonably fair and keeps to the rules.

“We can discuss.  Would you like to take it to another venue?” Rook asked.  “You two and us?”

“No,” the Witch of Bitter Street replied, voice hard.  “I’m frail.  I admit that.  Despite my youth, I’m easily broken, I can’t fight to defend myself.  I’ll stay with my brothers and the people who work for them.  You can dismiss your company, if you wish.”

“There are ways to secure your safety,” Matthew said.  “Deals-”

The Bitter Street Witch spat.

“Let’s stay like this,” the Family Man decided.  “We’ll see what comes of the initial negotiations.”

“Yes,” the Witch of Bitter Street said.  She leaned on and almost hung off her staff, one arm wrapped around it, hand bent backwards and gripping the top.  “Sorry, but I don’t trust you all.  You could kill me on a whim, if you decided you didn’t like the deals we were coming to.”

“That’s not how we do things,” Lucy told her.

“It’s how one of you does things.  The third witch of Kennet?  Verona.  The most active one in our territories.”

“No,” Lucy replied.  “I know her, I know that’s not how she does things either.  She’d offer to negotiate, she’d-”

“She’d make demands and take action if not listened to.”

“In keeping with the rules,” Matthew called out.  He had a frustrated look on his face.

“That she imposed?” the Witch asked.  “Should we call it extortion instead of law, then?  I don’t mind.  I employ extortion.  Some people won’t listen to much else.  But let’s at least be honest about what we’re doing.”

“We’re getting sidetracked,” Rook replied.

And we’re airing dirty laundry in front of Marlen, Musser’s agent.

“This is the track,” the Witch of Bitter Street answered, taking a step forward, lurching, lifting her stick up and then slamming the end down before she could fall onto her face.  “For the last month this has been the track.  Now I’ve made initial forays into an alliance with the southwestern quarter of Kennet-”

“The southwestern third,” the Family Man interjected.  “At a minimum.”

“-And you’re concerned, now.  To me that says I have leverage, I have some power, simply through the threat of an alliance to this man and group you clearly don’t like, to make my demands.”

“We also have a guest, under our protection,” the Family Man added.  “Leverage.”

Marlen barely moved, eyes darting this way and that as people spoke.

“What do you-” Lucy started.  Rook touched her shoulder as she moved past.  Lucy stopped.

“The mask,” Rook whispered.  “Your presence and words will have more power if you have it off.  Though you will be more of a child.  It’ll be better in the long run.”

Lucy paused, then removed her guise as the bloody Hennigar-ish, Tedd-ish practitioner.  She put her bag down.

“What do you want?” Lucy asked.

“A virginial whelp.”  The Family Man sniffed.  “Send forth someone who matters.”

Lucy rankled.  “I’ve drawn blood.  By the practice’s definition of ‘virgin’, I no longer qualify.  Want to try that again?”

“I want you to send forth someone that matters,” he told them.

“Conquerors her age have taken whole tracts of the human world,” Rook spoke up.  “Or have otherwise changed the course of history.  Queens and Kings younger than her have ruled.  Not every youth is capable of such things, but the three practitioners of Kennet are of that caliber and character.”

Lucy wasn’t sure what to say or do in reaction to that.  Just… wow.

It felt a lot like she’d needed to hear it.

“No.  I won’t lower myself talking to a child,” he told them.

Maybe I should have left the mask on.

“Petulant.”  Rook’s voice was pitched to be loud enough it wasn’t really addressing him, but it still was audible to people around them.

“I’ll remind you that the Witch of Bitter Street and I were meeting when you interrupted,” the Family Man told them.  “Now you impose your rules, this ridiculousness?”

Lucy bristled.

“No,” he added, like it was a final punctuation mark.

Lucy glanced back at Matthew and Rook.  “Can I?”

“I’m not sure-” Matthew started.

“Yes,” Rook told her.

Lucy drew in a deep breath.

“What kind of idiot are you?” she asked the Family Man.

“I see the caliber of discussion you’re bringing.”

“Is this what you bring?” Lucy asked.  “Because if I was in charge of a group down here, trying to negotiate, I’d relish the chance to come to the table with opposition I thought was incapable of handling it.  The only real way your attitude makes sense to me is if you’re scared.  Scared you can’t deal with a girl half your age?”

“Do you want to deal?” he asked.  He did the grimace-smile again.  “You set your rules about having white sheep returned.  Let’s have parity.  You have three of my residents on your side of things.  One of them is behind you right now.  Return them to me.”

Bracken, Bag, and Doyle.  Bracken had emerged from the car Montague inhabited and leaned against the hood, glowering.

“You were discussing castrating them-”

“My business, not yours.”

“If you don’t want them, you should be happy to be rid of them.”

“You’re so very concerned with how I should feel about things.  I should be happy to debate an inferior, I should be happy to be rid of them.  No.  In the interest of parity… return them.  Send him over, march the others to a waypoint between the two sides of Kennet and deliver them to me, as white sheep have been escorted to your side.  Or my lieutenants and I can come to your side and walk them back.”

“They’re not yours to have.  They left you.”

“Your white sheep left your side.”

“So-called white sheep have found their way to this side of things and decided to stay.  Allowances are being made for those who can find their way here, compared to those who lost their way.  The same can go the other way.  Those three left you and they’re happy, healthy, free, and comfortable, as far as I can tell.”

The Family Man reached down, putting a hand on the shoulder of one of the pregnant women standing around him.

“I’m happy,” the woman recited.  “I’m very happy.”

It was like his touch had given her permission.  More like he was using her as a mouthpiece than like she was saying anything of her own volition.  The words had no inflection, barely any meaning.

“I’m doing loads better than I was with you.  I know your people are miserable.  You’re doing a shit job,” Bracken raised his voice.

“Was I?  Or were you incapable of taking advantage of all I offered?” the Family Man asked, but he didn’t look happy.  He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t scowling, but the lines of his face were almost a held neutrality, now.

“They’re happier and they don’t need to go to any effort to stay happy.  I’m confident in that,” Lucy told the Family Man, loud enough for others to hear.  “What I heard was that you could barely manage your people, and someone else in your group had to make the suggestion to mutilate and eat the men, just so you could manage.  Gotta say, that doesn’t seem like good leadership.”

“That negotiation lasted all of twenty seconds before devolving into insults.  Whyever did I think I could talk to children?” the Family Man asked.

“If you call that negotiation.  You’re trying to lay claim to people you don’t own.”

“Then I’ll change my request.  Return them.  Not to me.  But to this side.  If you’ll enforce the boundary, so must I.  Have them stay to this side.  I’ll even eject those people who were born in your world who settled in ours.”

“Why?” Lucy asked.  “Who or what does that serve?”

“It serves parity.  If we must make an effort, so should you.  If you can make rules, so will we.  Return the boys and the man who helped shepherd them out.  I asked about them after I was told they left.  They’re not comfortable going back to the school.  They fled the Foreman, he’s sharp enough he’ll remember their faces, he won’t welcome them back.  But they can still go elsewhere.”

Where to?  The town is mostly controlled on this side.  Exclude those two and two are left: you and the Witch of Bitter Street.  Who you’re negotiating with.  You’d make it a requirement that she release them.  And she might even agree, to have that hassle off her hands.

“Ejecting people who’ve settled from this side or our side doesn’t make sense.  It would screw too many things up.”

“If you can make rules, so can I.”

“Witch?” Lucy asked.  “Any comments from the representative of Downtown?  I know you make good use of people who moved in from our side.”

“I’m surprised you know that.  It’s your counterpart who is most active here.”

“We do talk,” Lucy replied.  Even if it’s sometimes like pulling teeth.

The Witch of Bitter Street looked back at her group.  Were there some ex-Kennet people in there?  “I wouldn’t want to evict them.”

“You handle your area as you wish, I’ll handle mine,” the Family Man told her.

Lucy shook her head.  “In the same way the three black sheep that fled your neighborhood would be free to go anywhere they wanted?  Her place or yours?  We really know you mean they’d end up at your neighborhood.  How much would the Witch’s neighborhood actually be hers to run?”

“Is that your goal?  To set us against each other?” the Family Man asked.

“Our goal is a stable and safe Kennet and workable undercity.  Rook wasn’t lying.  She can’t lie any more than I can.  We’re willing to bring you in as equals.  You could negotiate and make requests.  I presume we’d skip the probationary period for the council?”

“Yeah,” Matthew answered.

“We could host half the meetings here, invite you over there for the other half,” Lucy told them.

“Where we’d be cut off from our people?”

Matthew leaned in to murmur something to Rook, who nodded.  Matthew told her, “We could swear to protect you.  Provided you keep the peace.  As long as you kept to the terms we swore to, we’d be unable.”

“So you get someone else to,” the Witch replied.

“The swearing could include an oath to fight to defend you wholeheartedly, and to avoid any conspiracy to get around the oath.”

“Comprehensive.  It gets complicated so quickly.”

“You have no idea,” Lucy said.

“It still requires we expose ourselves, leave areas without leadership for however long we’re gone.  For what?  To play your games?” the Witch asked.

“You’d be leaving your areas to be leaders,” Rook told her.

“It’s pointless and it’s a pretending at respect and hearing us out,” the Family Man said, sounding annoyed.  “But it doesn’t mean anything.”

“So tell us what you really want, when you put aside the showboating,” Lucy told the Family Man.  She turned to the Witch.  “What do you need?”

“These oaths.  Tell me more about them.”

“For Other and practitioner, a promise is binding,” Lucy said.  “The penalties for breaking one are steep.  A lot of Kennet’s problems have stemmed from one man’s broken oath.”

“How do we know if it’s bound?  Crack of thunder?  A flash of the eyes?” the Witch asked.

“It’s binding.  That’s it.”

“You may have an instinct of these things.  Many at the halfway point between humanity and Otherness do,” Rook told her.

“I want to talk to you.  Just me and you,” the Witch said.  “But I’ll need something.”

“An oath?” Lucy asked.

The Witch nodded, hanging off her staff in much the same way that someone might hang onto a pole suspended thirty feet above the ground, if they had nothing else to grip, the whites of her eyes showing.

She motioned to one of her younger brothers.  He looked like he was in his middle-late teens, had hair cut close enough it was shading on his scalp more than it was hair, he had small eyes and had a broad, smashed nose, cauliflower ears that stuck out, and a broken tooth that all suggested he’d been in a lot of fights.  A scar on his lip looked like a cleft lip but the fact there was a match on his lower lip extending down to his chin suggested it was a battle wound.  His mouth hung open in a way that suggested he couldn’t breathe through his nose.  He wasn’t big, but he did have some muscle, under clothes that looked like he’d worn them through a building project, landscaping, and twenty fights without a wash.  Dusty, dirty, bloody, wrinkled, the colors washed out.

He brought her a cage, reached in, and handed her a small gray bird.

Clutching the bird in her fist, fighting its struggles as it got one wing partially free and wiggle-flapped it, the Witch of Bitter Street bit into the bird’s neck, the head firmly in her mouth.  It took her a second to reassert her grip, twist, and tear to firmly remove the head.  A string of something thin and ropy slapped her chin, leaving a line of blood with splatter around it.

She squinted one eye while chewing, and shook the bird firmly, squeezing it as she did.  Blood and tiny internals splattered out.  She extended a toe and scraped the toe of her shoe through the viscera.

The Witch of Bitter Street had to take a few seconds to choke down the head of the bird, feathers, beak and all.  She wiped the blood from her chin with her sleeve, then pressed the headless, squeezed corpse into the upper chest of the guy who’d delivered the bird until he took it from her.  “Alright.  Let’s talk.”

“Should I leave?” the Family Man asked, eyebrows raised.

“You stay,” the Witch told him.

“Keep her here,” Lucy said, indicating Marlen.

“What’s my incentive?” he asked.

“You wanted to talk to me?  We’ll talk,” the Witch told him.  “Exercise patience.  If you walk away, we won’t be allies.”

The man smile-grimaced.

The Witch hobbled over, and the guy who’d brought the bird helped her, still carrying the bird corpse in one hand.  “Swear.”

“We won’t do you harm, and if anyone tries you’ll be protected, provided you don’t provoke harm or ask us to act in self defense.”

“Hmph,” the Witch said, walking by.

They followed.  Lucy glanced back at the Family Man and Marlen.

“I’ll watch them,” Matthew told her.

“I’m worried all of Kennet could watch them and it wouldn’t do anything.  He’s scary, she’s slippery.”

“The proposed deal with the Witch seems to have him staying put,” Matthew said.

Rook nodded, detoured over to Reggie and Montague on her way to catch up with the Witch, and said a few things.  It didn’t look like strategy so much as it was a check-up.

Lucy hurried to follow.  Walking around to a derelict store patio where the furniture had been left in a piled up jumble at the side of the building, a lot of it chained together.

The Witch tapped a chair with her stick, her other hand on the railing that bounded in the outdoor patio for balance, and her little brother picked it up.

“You wanted to talk?” Lucy asked.

“I know what you’ll tell me,” the Witch said, staggering backwards into the seat more than she sat.  She pulled both feet up onto the chair seat.

“Because of your ability to see things?”

“Because I’m not an idiot.  He’s dangerous, he can’t be trusted.  He’s maniacal, he’s power hungry, he’ll castrate the men and boys and if he doesn’t butcher the bulk of them they’ll at least have a one night feast on whatever it is they’ve cut off.”

“Eugh,” Lucy replied.

“Not that the women have it any better.  So let’s pretend you’ve told me this and I’ve nodded and taken it into account, as if I didn’t know it already.”

“Let’s,” Rook told her, as she joined the conversation from behind Lucy.

“My position is the weakest.  My second oldest brother has had so many concussions he’ll forget to breathe while eating or entertaining himself, pass out, and sometimes he’ll give himself another concussion.  Giblet here is dumber than most dogs.”

Giblet’s eyebrows drew a fraction together.

“But he’s a good boy, he’s handsome.  I give him games and pocket money.”

Giblet, who was not handsome, smiled.

“They’re dumb, but they can fight, they’re good at hurting people, they listen, they can follow orders if I keep it simple.  I have others in my crew but they’re not lieutenants.  They’d stop serving me if someone stronger came along.  A lot of them are white sheep who’ve been dyed black.”

“The Family Man is not a path to strength,” Rook told her.

“Do you think I don’t know?” the Witch asked.

“Then why?” Lucy asked.

“I thought I’d listen.  Listening buys me a few days, while I pretend to entertain his offer.”

“You’re-”

Lucy had started talking as she moved closer, but as she did, the Witch flinched.  Her brother did too.

Lucy waited until they relaxed, pointed at a chair, and then picked it up.

“You’re tired,” Lucy said.

“I thought that taking power would be a way to be able to rest.  But power has to be held and holding it means holding onto a weight, holding it up until your arm feels like it’ll break from the strain.”

The Witch held out a crooked arm, closed her fist, then withdrew it.

“I have a talent and someone found out.  In my first day here I was bartering for a fortune.  Biting off bird heads until there were more feathers and bone in my shit than there was brown.”

“There’s no other way?”

“It’s what I’ve found that works.  Taking the time to try another way means I might not make anything that day.  I feed my brothers and they protect me.  No food or entertainment, and even their loyalty might falter, and their protection with it.  No protection and I’m nothing more than an easy target who can dispense fortunes for whoever grabs me up.”

“If you wanted, we could deal,” Lucy said.  “A few days of protection in exchange for three fortunes at a later date?  Or favors?  A better rate.”

“We want her downtown,” Rook murmured, quiet.

“Yeah,” the Witch replied, smiling.  “Someone asked me to do a fortune about a fight.  I did, I didn’t like what I saw in the distance, past that moment.  What he’d do with me after.  I had my brothers shove broken bottles into his armpits and the backs of his knees.  Took over.”

“We’re tired too,” Lucy told her, leaning over the table.  “We’ve been at this for… since spring.”

“I know,” the Witch told her, meeting her eyes.  “I saw it in your friend.  It’s why I’m telling you this now.  You need me downtown, and I need more.  More that isn’t me giving a name, location, and excuse to your friend.  I need something that isn’t the removal of people inconvenient to both our sides, something that gives more than a moment’s reprieve.”

“It’s why we want stability,” Lucy told her.  “It makes everything easier.”

“It’s why we want you on the council,” Rook added.

“The council.  Tell me it won’t be bullshit.”

“It-” Rook started, but Lucy was quicker.  “It will.”

The Witch of Bitter Street sneered.

“It’ll be bullshit sometimes.  These things always are,” Lucy told her.

“Giblet, go fetch me a bird and something to drink.”

Giblet paused, then walked off.

“Hurry!”

He broke into a run.

“You shouldn’t have accepted the meeting with the Family Man,” Rook told the Witch.

“I know.  Birds said it was a bad idea.  That I’d have to worry about knives in my back more, I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“Then why?” Lucy asked.

“Sometimes the birds are wrong, and the other options had more birds telling me they were also bad ideas, or else I was supposed to sit back and wait, let things keep sliding into shit.”

“It’ll cost,” Rook murmured.

“Yeah?  Can you see things?”

“No, I suspect I resemble the birds you decapitate, who’ve seen enough things enough times to be able to see where things are going, even if your birds can’t realize that ability without help.  You don’t have to bite my head off to get that sort of knowledge out of my head.”

“Hmm.  Convenient,” the Witch said.  “So it’ll cost.  Alright.  But I was in the right place at the right time to talk to you, at least.  And here we are.  You’re offering me a seat on the council, among other things, I hope.  I need more.”

“You’ll join the local council?” Lucy asked, clasping her hands together on the table.

The Bitter Street Witch extended a broken, crooked arm her way, laying long fingers that looked like they’d been broken and set that way over Lucy’s hand.  She gave it a pat, then withdrew her hands and arms.

“No?” Rook asked.

The Bitter Street Witch shook her head.  “Not like this.”

“Then how?” Lucy asked.

“You have a number of seats.  I won’t be one vote among twenty, or whatever the number is.  We’re our own group, and for the things that matter, both sides must have their own consensus.  Anything that affects both sides.  War, changes to the arrangement, changes to rules, trade… that includes changing the barrier to control who gets in and who doesn’t.   A sharing of information about what Kennet is and what it’s becoming.  If you get power, we get a share.”

“When we approach the Vice Principal, she’ll make her own demands.  So will the Foreman.  It’s their nature.  They won’t feel they had a proper hand in the formation of this deal if they can’t set their own terms,” Rook told her.  She didn’t lean on anything or sit, and stood with her ‘old woman’ mask held sideways over her lower face, her black lacquered stick vertical beneath her hand, extending to the ground.

“Let them.”

“If you draw up your terms and bring things straight to the line of our ability to meet them, then the demands of the others will exceed the line.”

“That’s your business.  These are my terms.”

Lucy looked up at Rook.  “It seems mostly fair.”

“It is,” Rook murmured.

“We’re also protected.  If we’re removed, you treat it as an attack on your own.”

“You want the benefits of being a member of our council while holding the status as a separate, mirror one?”

“Yeah, and there’s more…”  The Witch extended a finger, wagging.  “…I think you know.  From what you said before.”

Rook nodded.

“Know what?” Lucy asked, looking between them.

“You’re already thinking it, little witch.  Or the glimmer of doubt is in there.  I hope it’s in there,” the Witch said.  Her eyes met Lucy’s, whites showing above and below the irises.  “This deal sounds so much worse, untenable, so long as he’s part of it.  The Family Man.”

Lucy nodded.

“Any concession you’d give me, every term, he’d ask for the same and you can’t agree to that.  I wouldn’t want to join you if you’d agree to that.  I can deal with evil.  I can deal with criminal.  I can deal with unstable, shit, stupid-”

She turned her head, hair sliding off her shoulder.

Giblet hurried back, carrying a can of canned vegetables with the label half torn off and a small bird.

“-I can deal with a lot,” the Witch told them.  “I won’t deal with him.  Remove him.”

“That was the plan,” Lucy told her.

“Accelerate it.  I’ll tell him I need to discuss and to wait.  He won’t wait long.  If he decides it’s time for a decision and you haven’t taken action, I’ll have to take other courses of action and I don’t think you’ll like what happens.”

Giblet handed her the can of tinned vegetables.  She frowned as she looked at the can, set it down on the patio table, and then drew a knife.  She stabbed the can a few times, then tipped it back, drinking the juice that the vegetables were canned in.  She tossed it down onto the table, then motioned for the bird.

“Were they fighting?” the Witch asked.

Giblet shook his head.

The Witch bit the head off the bird, shaking her head for a second as a dog might, to get connective tissue to break and snap.  It was slightly larger than the last, and the contents of the skull snapped and cracked between teeth as she chewed.

She held the neck-stump over the patio table and squeezed the bird hard enough to crumple bones.  Blood oozed out onto the surface, and white bird crap oozed out the other end.  She tossed the corpse aside when she’d wrung out every fluid she could, which included some pulped organs.  With a hand, she smeared the guck across the table, staring down at it.

“How much of the augury is a parlor trick?” Rook asked.

The Witch of Bitter Street continued chewing, staring down at the blood smeared on the textured, grime-fogged glass.  She smiled.

“Be honest,” Rook said.

“If you’d asked me weeks ago my answer would be different.  Then?  Most of it.  But I could see enough to build on.  Now?  I see more clearly, but my body gets more bent.  Because I have power, power flows through me.”

“What are you looking for?” Lucy asked.  “In the blood?”

“By the highway, on the way that leads west out of the town, there’s a house that used to be a barn, white roof, white walls, abandoned.  Or red roof, red walls, it’s hard to tell with the blood tinting things.  Near his headquarters, he’ll corner his guest, she’ll get nervous.  He’s good at making people nervous, especially when they’re closer to the heart of his power.”

“You’re filling in blanks with what you know from means that aren’t bird blood and brains,” Rook noted.

“Yeah.  It’s pretty accurate, though.  She’ll get skittish, she’ll negotiate for release.  He’ll extract an oath, now that he knows he can.  She… drives things?  Trucks?”

“She runs drugs, guns, and carries information,” Lucy replied.

“He’ll work that out, she’ll offer to deal to him.  He’ll accept, and he’ll also ask for bodies…”

The Witch smeared the blood around.

“Not dead bodies.  Women.  The able bodied.  She doesn’t deal directly in that, but she knows people who do and she refers some who ask to those people.  The Family Man will secure a deal.  She’ll make an exception this once, in exchange for freedom and him providing information to her and her colleagues.  He tells his people to keep her put, so they can extract more, she slips out.”

There’s a deal with the devil if I ever heard one.

“The white house is too far out of his reach for him to easily keep tabs on, and too west for my territory.  The girl with the motorcycle will go there to fix what’s broken.  He’ll have one of his women jam something into the lock and break it off while he has the guest’s attention.”

“That’s helpful,” Lucy replied.

“She’ll be in the garage, looking for tools to fix her ignition.  She can repair the rest with a circle of chalk, scribbling some things down, but the object wedged in there has to be removed first.  There’s one exit to the garage.  Don’t go to the house before the rabbits sit on the peak of the ski hill.  You can start looking for it at sunset, and you’ll have until they scatter.  That’s your window of opportunity.”

“That’s amazing,” Lucy told her.

“I know.”

“Can I ask?  What rabbits?  Do we need people stationed up there?”

“With these things, it’s often best not to pry,” Rook told Lucy.  “If she kept it vague, it’s for a reason.”

“Okay, well, we owe you one for that, Witch.  Er- you don’t have a name?” Lucy asked.

“The Witch works, and you owe me three.  One for taking the vision I’ve offered, one for sitting down to entertain you, one for giving you a chance to make things right with the council offer.  I’ll remind you, if he gives me time to consider his offer and that time runs out, so does yours.  I don’t take moral stands.  If it comes down to me or downtown, he can have downtown.”

Lucy nodded.

The Witch of Bitter Street motioned to her little brother.  He hurried over and lifted her by one armpit.  The stick clacked as she repositioned it.

“I’ve got to get home soon,” Lucy told Rook.

“Do you want me to handle the courier?” Rook asked.

“No.  Just… give me a chance to go home, I’ll be back out before sunset, unless something happens.”

“I’ll make arrangements, but we’ll wait for you.”

Lucy nodded.

They walked back with the Witch of Bitter Street.

“You’ll need to bathe.  Or something,” Rook told Lucy.  “Or your mother will suspect.”

“Oh crap.  From being in the car with Montague?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” the Witch said.  She smiled.  “I squeeze birds to death every day, and I won’t deny there’s a smell about you.  Bird shit, bird blood, decaying birds filling trash bins… it’s faint, but you smell as if you’ve been around worse.”

“Ugh.”

“Mm hmm.”

They rejoined the others.

“Well?” Matthew asked.

“No deal on the council thing,” Lucy told him.  “Yet.”

“I’ll tell you after.  Lucy has to go soon, she’ll need to wash and talk to her mother.  I’ll inform you in the meantime.  We’ll eat and plan,” Rook told him.

“I told Louise I’d bring food.”

“Then we’ll plan while you see to that and we’ll eat separately, but we’ll eat and plan regardless,” she murmured.

He nodded.

“There may be a way past the one-day-into-Kennet rule,” Lucy murmured.  “Marlen found it.”

“That would help a great deal in retrieving Doe, Toadswallow, and Miss.  Though I do think Miss can slip through by her own mechanisms.”

“Good,” Lucy said.  “Monty and Reggie might be able to show you.”

“He was talking to the girl from Musser’s group,” Matthew murmured, arms folded.  “If she knows things, he might as well.”

“Hopefully we can deal with her soon,” Rook replied.

Lucy looked at Marlen, who was glancing around.  She was surprisingly calm for someone who’d just been attacked, and very curious.

Is she sticking around and talking to the Family Man to get information to take to Musser?

If so, we really, really need to make sure she doesn’t slip away.

The Witch returned to her group.  Giblet made sure she was stable, then drank from the can of vegetables, syrupy liquid running down chin and neck

“I should look after my guest.  She’s restless,” the Family Man said.  “And my women need to start cooking if food is to be done on time.  Appetites need to be sated.”

“You won’t make an offer?” the Witch asked.

“Would you take it?”

She shrugged.

“It’s fine,” the Family Man replied.  He did that grimace-smile thing again.  “The offer won’t take long.  I wanted to wait until we were done to give it to you, so you could let it sit.”

“Okay,” the Witch of Bitter Street told him.  “Then if we’re done…?”

“Three girls to each of your brothers.  Young, pretty enough.  They cook, they clean, they listen.  You advise me, join our territories together.  Let your lieutenants be my lieutenants, each girl will keep them happy.”

Giblet lowered the can from his mouth, looking over at the Family Man.

“We’re done,” the Witch of Bitter Street said.

“Think about it,” the Family Man called after her.

She used her stick to walk away, and she did so without the support of her eight brothers, who lingered behind, looking back.  A scowl crossed her face.

“Boys,” she called out.

And they obeyed, following, but not without more glances back at the Family Man and the various soldiers and women who encircled him.

Friday, Evening

“She can lie, right?” Lucy asked.

“The denizens of this side of Kennet aren’t bound by oaths to Solomon,” Miss replied.

“They may have a sense of these things.  That it’s easier to fall into power if you keep your word,” Rook added.

Lucy nodded.

She’d gone home, quickly showered, then eaten with her mom, before escaping again.

It felt bad.  The evasion.  Lying.

That bad feeling settled into her gut and mingled with anxiety.  The stakes were so high and-

She thought briefly of John before pulling her mind away from that thought as if it burned her.

-they had such a bad track record with the high stakes stuff, recently.

“Are you sure we don’t need someone stationed on the hill with a light?” Lucy asked.

“No,” Rook said.  “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Doesn’t it make a lot of sense?”

The sky was turning colors, but because of the smoke from the southeastern end of Kennet, it had a dingy quality to it.  Less a pink-purple, more a dusty rose, meeting a ‘this wallpaper was royal purple before someone smoked in this room every day for a decade’ sort of color.  The hints of the sun that peeked over the ski hill stabbed through, taking on a radiant quality.

“Cloud,” Grandfather pointed out, finger extended.

“Yes,” Rook replied.

They all looked up- Lucy, Miss, Rook, Grandfather, Doe, Matthew, Nibble, and Tashlit. They kept on the north side of the bridge that led down toward the red house with the red roof, using the concrete barriers on either side of the bridge as cover to keep from being seen.  Montague occupied a radio that Matthew carried.

Nibble sat in the shadows cast by a tree, hood up over his beanie hat, even though the light was diffuse and things were well on their way to evening.  He turned to look at the cloud.

The cloud met the ski hill.

“I guess that could be rabbits,” Grandfather said.

“What sort of fucked up rabbits do they have where you’re from?” Matthew asked.

Grandfather chuckled.  “No idea, then.”

“I smell trouble,” Nibble said.

“Cover,” Rook told them.

They’d been taking cover already, but they went out of their way to duck down further, hiding.

They were men in that homespun white linen, with some borrowed clothing on top of it.  Eleven men, with the lead one being a burly guy with a bald head and an Abraham Lincoln type beard without a mustache, wearing a leather jacket with the picket fence sign painted across the shoulder blades in bright red.

She looked with her Sight.  He had the appearance of someone from the underside of Kennet, stained more than was usual, bearing the ‘swords’ in him that a lot of people who’d been through violence or hell had been through, just… way more than she tended to see back in Kennet.  But he was a step above even here.

One of the Family Man’s go-to guys.

“He’s a lieutenant or enforcer,” Lucy whispered.

“Spread out, go around.  Cover the exits, don’t forget the windows.  She went out a second floor window like it was nothing when she wanted to run for it.”

“They’re splitting up,” Lucy added.  “Surrounding the place.”

“Won’t work, from what we saw,” Doe said.

“Was this part of what the Witch of Bitter Street saw?” Lucy asked, turning.

“No,” Rook said.

“You sound confident.”

“Because she wasn’t confident,” Rook replied.  “If she wanted us to get ambushed, she’d have asked us to go in sooner.  If she wanted us to be safe, she would have told us about them.”

Lucy watched as the lead guy cracked open his double-barrel shotgun, jerking it to toss the shells out back over his shoulder.

She still had the Sight active, and she could see the watercolor heavy around those shells, trailing behind-

And they took on a phantom image, a trick of the eyes.  Around the top of the ski hill.  Trails behind them were cut through by the spinning of the casing.

“Rabbits,” Lucy said.  “The shells.”

“Are you sure-”

Grandfather tapped Doe’s shoulder.  The two of them ducked down low, keeping by the barrier, and charged in first.  Matthew, Nibble, and Tashlit followed.

Lucy started to go with, but Rook stabbed out with the lacquered stick, blocking her.

“I can help.  We don’t have long, only until the rabbits-”

The ‘watercolor’ image in bloody crimson against the sunset was fading.

Had they really only had a matter of seconds?

“There are guns.”

“I have protections.”

“Activate them first.”

Lucy got out the papers, slapped them on, and let the diagram images slip from paper to skin.  Something to let metal turn away from her.

Rook let her pass.

Lucy followed after the others.  Grandfather and Doe went after the people who were surrounding the house, while Matthew, Nibble, and Tashlit went for the garage.

Grandfather opened fire with the rifle he carried.  Lucy covered her ears.

Doe wasn’t the same way, picking shots.  She waded right into things, a handgun in each hand, and she was relentless, so fast with how she reloaded, despite having both hands full, that she barely seemed to stop.  She really only paused when there was nobody to shoot.

She got a view of the scene.   Matthew and Grandfather ducking down at the left corner of the building, Doe going around the right side.  Nibble and Tashlit followed Doe.

The garage door was closed.  One of the Family Man’s people was leaning against it.

To Lucy’s Sight, he looked like someone who’d hurt an awful lot of people.  Now he had a gunshot in his lower chest, and drew in forced, painful looking breaths, a shotgun lying by his feet.

He roused enough to fumble for his gun, but well before he could aim at Lucy, she ducked her head down below a fence, and he didn’t fire.  She heard the gun clatter to the ground.

There’s only one exit?  And this guy had it covered?

“Matthew, watch the garage door, be careful of the guy with the shotgun, he’s not dead!”

“Right!” was Matthew’s response.

Lucy got out her glamour packet, instructions pre-written on it.  Movements of her thumb traced the end of the packet and the instructions that were somewhere between musical notes and cursive, and brought the contents to life.  With residual High Summer glamour mixed in with a bit of Dark Fall, she couldn’t really do shadows.  She instead wreathed herself in radiant smoke, dividing herself into the shape of three foxes fashioned out of a smokey vapor like the clouds that caught the last bits of sunset as the rest of the sky turned dark.

Slipping through fence, over fence, around, one left back to keep an eye on the gunman at the garage door and on Matthew.

At the same time one of her fox-selves saw Marlen’s bike parked around back, surrounded by tools and parts, another that had gone the long way around the property saw through the window in the back door to the inside of the big house with the broad, arching roof.  The garage was attached to the house and there was a door leading from the kitchen to the garage interior.

One exit?  If so, it’s not the main door of the garage.

She realized how much stock she was putting in the words of someone who could lie.

Inside, she could see things were worse than the exterior of the house, stained, broken, water damaged.  It was like the weather had been contained inside the house while the outside had managed it without an issue.

Outside the house, on what had been the left side, someone who’d been pinned down between Grandfather and Doe charged at Doe, holding what looked like a metal door for a shack.  Half the bullets went through it, but he barely slowed down, charged into her, and shot her as soon as he had something to aim for that the door wasn’t blocking.  He drove the door into her and pushed her into the fence, then he turned, keeping the door between himself and her, an improvised, shitty shield.

If he kept going the way he was, toward the back door, then he’d end up right behind Nibble and Tashlit.

One of Lucy’s selves pounced on him, setting teeth on flesh, and he spun, striking out, dashing the glamoured fox form to pieces.

Taking his attention off Doe long enough for her to raise a gun and shoot him dead.

Just like that.  Murder.  Execution, even, it felt so cold and efficient.

People were dying.  Again.

Lucy felt the glamour slip away from the two remaining bodies, as if the emotions that were surfacing were pushing it off her.  She had to fight to stay calm and get it back in order.

There was no time to absorb it, or to realize just how easily Doe had done that, not even batting an eyelash or adjusting her breathing- Lucy’s earring could hear that breathing.

“Careful!” Nibble shouted.  “Guy just came downstairs!”

She had to go inside.  Staying low to the ground meant one guy Nibble had warned about who’d taken cover behind the overturned dining room table didn’t get a good look at her- didn’t shoot.  She slipped into the kitchen, toward the door to the garage.  Her other fox self hurried around back.  Matthew and the guy with the shotgun and the hole in his chest were the only ones out front.

“Doe!” Lucy called out, using the fox self that was circling around the corner.  “Guy in the dining room, he’ll shoot you!”

Doe didn’t even hesitate, striding around into the doorway.  She got shot, but she managed to unload a just-reloaded handgun into the table.  The wood wasn’t sufficient cover against her bullets.

Both Doe and the man fell.  Only one would stand up again.

Just like that.  So easily.  Without emotion.

That fox that Lucy had used to talk hung back while the other followed Nibble and Tashlit into the garage.  It had moldy drywall with the plaster still showing where it had been slathered between individual panels, a badly cracked concrete floor that looked like it had been through an earthquake, and a lock securing the garage door shut, worked through a metal buckle in the concrete.  It looked like it had already been looted.

She turned her head, looking for Marlen.

Had the margins for acting really been that razor thin?  What had the Witch of Bitter Street expected?

She looked up.  There were boards kept up in the rafters, but those boards were home to some nesting for some raccoons or large rodents.  If Marlen had gone up there to hide, wouldn’t there be some more scattered leaves or fallen things on the floor?

One Lucy stood in the doorway, glancing around, while the other fox-Lucy hung back, watching the rear of the building.  Doe rose to her feet, hand to the gunshot wound, turning her head as Grandfather approached.

“Just the head guy left,” Grandfather said.  “Leather jacket, shotgun.”

“He’s not on the ground floor,” Doe replied.

Lucy looked down at the man who’d been shot.  Who she’d helped shoot, distracting him.

Maybe Doe would’ve gotten him anyway.

“Grandfather,” Lucy said.

“Well, aren’t you a sight,” he told her, drawling a bit on purpose.

Even he didn’t seem to pay much mind to the death.

She thought of Alexander lying in the dirt with his head cracked open, how easily John had taken that in stride.

“If he needs a bullet, I don’t want you to do it,” Lucy told Grandfather.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s ugly inside, he’s hurt people, he’s evil.  I don’t want that in you.”

“Hmmm,” Grandfather made a noise, almost a sigh.

“We can choose what we get,” Doe said.  “Takes effort, a shot that means something.  Shot in the heart, shot in the eye, shot in the forehead.  Different implications.”

“Let’s not dwell on that,” Grandfather said.  “Why does it matter that much?”

“Because I need you to stay good,” Lucy told him.

“I’m not good.  I’m a man who’s good for very little except war.  A very tired man.”

“Please,” she told him.  “It’s important.”

“Let’s focus on what we need to focus on.  Did the rabbits you saw scatter?”

“The watercolor did.”

“Watercolor?”

“It’s how I See.  I see violence, or the effects of it, or negativity, sickness, badness.  I see swords to represent wounds, with things tied to the handles, like ribbons, for the connections those wounds draw out.”

“That’s a whole lot of bad to be seeing.  Let’s save that for a talk another day.  Can you see our man?”

Lucy shook her head.

“I think he went up to the second floor,” Doe said.  “Boost me.”

Grandfather nodded.  And like they’d practiced it a dozen times, he caught Doe’s boot and tossed her up.  She jumped at the same time, catching the windowsill.  She pulled herself up enough to peek inside.

“Any sightings of our target?”

Lucy shook her head.  Inside the garage, Nibble pulled open a tool cabinet too small to hold a fully grown woman, even a skinny one.  Tashlit stood in the doorway.  Lucy’s other fox self was inside the garage, by the door, peering between Tashlit’s legs.  Tashlit’s eyes roved.

Tashlit’s eyes all focused on one point.  Looking up and at an angle.

The rafters.  The boards.

You think?  Lucy thought.

“Do you want me to stay good too?” Doe asked, outside.

The divide in Lucy’s attention made it hard to hold onto her shape.

Doe had climbed up the window and now crouched in the frame of it, feet on the windowsill, shoulder up against the top of the frame, hand pushing something between the two movable panels to try to slip the lock.

“Ideally,” Lucy replied, voice soft.  “But Grandfather is someone you guys listen to, and if he stays good and you guys take his advice on stuff, that trickles down, right?”

“Horseman’s more of a leader than I am, but we’ll talk later,” Grandfather told her.  He looked up at Doe.  Doe nodded.

He moved his hand.

The gunshot came without any more warning than that.  She shot through the window.

Doe smashed out the glass.  While smashing, she communicated, “He was on the other side of the upstairs.  Clipped him.  Dropped his weapon.  Go around!”

Grandfather sprinted.

And at that same moment, Marlen dropped out of the rafters of the garage, onto Nibble.

Then threw herself at Tashlit, only to duck into a kind of slide, between Tashlit’s legs.  Right for Lucy’s fox self.

Lucy threw off the glamour, revealing her real self, letting the one at the back of the property disintegrate.  She crashed into Marlen, Marlen into her, and Lucy’s fingers scrabbled, digging for a fold of clothing, the belt, the top of Marlen’s jeans, a pocket even.  Her fingers found nothing, by sheer bad luck or enchantment.

Marlen got her feet under her, then sprinted for the back door.

“Doe!” Lucy shouted.  “Back door!”

As Doe dropped down from above, into the back entryway, Marlen reversed course.  A turn on the spot, a sprint for cover, back into the kitchen and back toward Lucy, out of Doe’s sight and out of the way of the gun.

Lucy slipped on the weapon ring, grabbed the pen she kept clipped to the rightmost side of her right pocket, and thrust it out.

The resulting spear grazed Marlen at the upper arm and punctured a cabinet, a solid line that threatened to clothesline her if she charged forward.  It forced Marlen to duck under it, a break in momentum.

Lucy saw the watercolor, dark and dangerous, flooding the doorway.  She withdrew the spear, turning it into something more like a knife, then she thrust it out at Tashlit, who stood in the doorway to the garage.  It became something more like a croquet mallet type of warhammer that a horse rider might use; long-handled, blunt-ended, small-headed, and capable of bashing Tashlit back and out of the way at the same time it thrust Lucy away from Tashlit.

With Marlen free to move between them.

Without them getting in the way of Doe, who stepped into the doorway and shot Marlen in the leg.

“Grandfather!” Doe shouted.  “We got the target!”

“Got our guy!” Grandfather reported.

“That’s all of them!?”

“Miss says there’s still one by the garage door!”

“With a shotgun,” Lucy panted.  She offered a hand to Tashlit, suppressing a shiver at the spongy feeling of Tashlit’s loose skin.

Marlen scowled, panting for breath, sprawled on a kitchen floor that had as many broken tiles as intact ones.  Her lower leg bled, not far from the ankle.  It looked like her shin had shattered, from the white flakes in the blood.

“Let’s hurry,” Lucy said.  “I think I know how the rabbits the Bitter Street Witch described might scatter.”

Tashlit scooped Marlen up.

“We can heal you after.  But we’re not releasing you to Musser just yet,” Lucy told the woman.

“Shit,” Marlen said.  “If you keep me- I swore oaths.”

“Stupid, dangerous oaths that hurt people.”

“He told you?”

“The Witch we talked to earlier sees the future.  She told us what you swore.”

“I was threatened.”

“Yeah, but the fact you even know that many human traffickers is kinda pretty awful on its own, isn’t it?” Lucy asked.

“It’s business,” Marlen grunted, her head hanging back.  “Can you not shake me so much while you run?  Please, miss Other?”

“It’s evil,” Lucy told her.

“I just said it was business, so yeah,” Marlen replied.

They slipped out to the back, passing the bike.  Marlen reached out for it, almost forlorn.

Shadows shifted.  Matthew had let out the Doom, and it surged.  The shot guy who’d been by the garage ran full-tilt back toward the residential part of Kennet’s undercity.  With what might’ve been a hole in one lung.

“Run, run, run!” Lucy called out.  “Back to the bridge!”

They ran.  Even Matthew, who let the Doom do its work.

Doe shot the fleeing man.  He staggered, slowing.  The Doom closed in-

And, mid-stagger, he managed to kick the two shells the shotgun had ejected.  Scattering them.

They were already safely onto the bridge, fleeing the scene now.

Tashlit clapped a hand on Lucy’s shoulder.  She clapped a hand to her heart, then mimed a gun.

“You’re welcome, if that’s what you’re saying.  You’re too important to Verona for me to let you be in the way of any bullets.”

Tashlit laid a hand over her heart.

Lucy smiled, feeling awkward.

“I wouldn’t have shot her,” Doe grunted.  “I wouldn’t have shot.  So it was good you got her out of the way.”

“Good,” Lucy said.

She wasn’t ignoring that they’d left a lot of dead people behind them.  They caught up with Rook, who stood back, and Lucy saw Matthew nod.

The men had been awful people, even by the caliber of Kennet’s underside, if Lucy’s Sight wasn’t lying, but death?  She had a strong suspicion that Rook was confirming with Matthew that they’d left no witnesses.

They’d had a strategy meeting while Lucy ate with her mom.

As they rounded a corner, Lucy looked back again.

Reinforcements for the Family Man’s people.  They ran onto the scene, slowing as they reached the first body.

They didn’t see Lucy’s group.

We really need the Witch on our side.  Which means we need to get rid of this guy soon.

Saturday, Afternoon

Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.

Lucy Ellingson, Lucy Ellingson, Lucy Ellingson.

She felt momentarily sick.  The pressure of it all.  The sheer number of things that the calls could be about.

It felt like Matthew.  She’d told him not to call her phone, because her mom sometimes checked stuff.

She grabbed her bag, then left the house.  Her mom was at work.  There was nobody.

Booker was busy with school.  Their last exchange had been about how they really should call and talk soon, but that had been eight days ago.

She had no appointment with Dr. Mona until Thursday.

Mia wasn’t- she wasn’t a friend for stuff like this.

Wallace hadn’t replied and Lucy couldn’t help but go over her last messages to him, worrying she’d been too cloying, or she’d overstepped in making assumptions.

She’d finished her last string of messages with a heart and maybe that had scared him off?  Fuck all of this.

Verona was in Thunder Bay.  They’d sent an action report.  Lucy hadn’t told them about the gunfight or broader negotiation because she didn’t need to distract them.  Their report had been that they were going to be summoning some more Lost to help with surveillance.  Verona had sent a short status update.  Avery had sent a message about how tired Verona seemed.

And Lucy had wanted to cry and type out something about how tired she was, but what was the use of that?  Making Avery feel like shit?

She biked in the direction she’d felt the call come from.

Avery had been through shit.  Lonely shit.  Lucy hadn’t helped Avery when Verona had been away.  They’d disconnected.  Now Avery was on her way to something better.  She had a possible friend, possible girlfriend.

Maybe what they needed was for one of them to be okay.  One of them to be in a position to support the other two later.

That didn’t feel right but like with the Witch of Bitter Street and what she’d done meeting the Family Man, there weren’t any great options.

So maybe the next best thing was taking a bad option and lying to herself a lot.

She found Matthew.  With a bunch of people.  Mostly girls, all young.  They were dressed in that homespun linen.

“Miss is getting Grandfather and Doe,” Matthew said.

“Yeah?” Lucy asked.

“But we need people who can pass for human while we figure this out.”

“What is this?”

“Can I stay with you?” one girl asked Lucy.  She was about Lucy’s age, her expression guileless, eager.

There were nine of them.  Two boys, seven girls.  Homespun linen, the occasional sweater worn over a dress or a dress worn with jeans, or a jacket worn over a linen tunic and pants.  They all looked cold but they weren’t complaining.

“No, I don’t think you can,” Lucy told her.  “How did you get here?  Are you lost?”

“No,” the girl told Lucy, that same expression on her face, almost peaceful.  “Not lost.”

“They came like Bracken did,” Matthew told Lucy.

“Like-”

“To stay.  Somehow.”

She grabbed Matthew’s arm, leading him a short distance away.

“Is it a trick?  Is he playing games, sending them off?” she hissed.

“It’s almost certainly a trick, a game, or he’s trying to make a point.”  Matthew turned his head, and his eyes turned dark.  “Shit.”

Lucy looked, and her first thought echoed Matthew’s.  Shit.

Grandfather approached, holding a fifteen-ish year old boy by the upper arm, marching him over.  Doe was behind him, one girl slung over her shoulder, another dragged behind by the wrist.

“We can’t trust them,” Lucy murmured.  She looked over the group with Sight and saw the characteristic staining of denizens of the underside of Kennet.  She saw the signs of wounds, even abuse, in the form of swords.  She turned off the Sight, because it felt invasive to look in any more detail.  No weapons concealed on them, she was pretty sure.  She added, “He could have told them to start trouble, or to occupy us.  No weapons, at least.”

“We can drag them back,” Matthew muttered, shaking his head.

“Can we?  They might just come right back.  And-”

The oldest of the girls, about nineteen or twenty, looked at Grandfather and Doe.  “Will you shelter us?”

“Will we?” Grandfather asked, voice rough.  He gave Lucy a lingering look.

“Protect us from the Family Man?” a boy asked.

“Some of them that are mixed in might genuinely need or want that escape,” Lucy murmured to Matthew.

“Fuck me,” Matthew swore.

Grandfather kept looking at her.

He’d been thinking about that raid.  What she’d said.  She knew he wanted to ask.

And I can’t tell you right now, she thought.

Each of the three practitioners of Kennet had a mission.

Avery’s was to make contact with outside groups, and secure the situation with outsiders like Musser or the Witch Hunters possibly screwing everything up at the last moment.  Like what had happened at the end of summer.

Verona’s was to find solutions, any weaknesses in Charles, any practices that might help.  It was something suited to Verona, an excuse to dive into research.  They’d set that goal for Verona when Verona’s spirits had been low and the idea was it would help her some, maybe.

And Lucy had her own task.

If and when they succeeded, they needed a contender.

She really had no idea if Grandfather was that.  Maybe it was her lying to herself.  That he was the closest approximation to John she could find, that he had some gentleness to him, some wisdom, even if it wasn’t the full richness of character John had had.

If they dealt with the Carmine Exile, whatever that looked like, they had to have someone suited to take the seat after.  Or this entire thing could be a messy, endless cycle.

Grandfather wasn’t the best choice, or even close to it.  Bias was definitely in play, but until she had something better, she needed to hold onto that as a possibility.  She need to be able to tell herself that if Musser managed to kill Charles or if someone else rebelled against the situation Charles was stirring up, they’d have someone to put forward as a possibility.

So she needed him well.  She needed him healthy.

But that was all secondary.  All coming from a place that felt like a wide open hole in her that wondered if she wasn’t losing Verona and Avery because she’d let the stress get to her in the approach to Summer.  As if this was all some dark prank she or they had subconsciously played on her.

Bitter girl who can’t even maintain your oldest friendship, you’ve gotta find that someone and hold onto them so you can make them the next Carmine.

She broke eye contact with Grandfather, then looked over the group.

What a mess.

A probable trap.  One she couldn’t fault them for.  Lashing out at them or rejecting them in a time of need could be its own trap, that would discourage future Brackens from helping.

“We should get Bracken,” she told Matthew.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.  Guy doesn’t have a phone though, and I can’t call him by repeating his name.’

“Want to go get him?  Grandfather, Doe and I can hold down the fort, I think,” Lucy said.

Matthew nodded.  “Miss is talking to Rook.  Whatever else is going on here, it’ll require all hands.”

We don’t have all hands.  Verona’s away.

Lucy let Matthew go without expressing her doubts.  She turned to the group.  More than a few of them did that look.  Too long, glancing away when they noticed Lucy looking.  At skin, at hair.

“We’ll find a place,” Lucy addressed the group.  “Let’s focus on getting you warm, getting you settled.  Is everyone healthy?  Who’s hungry?”

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