Author: Wildbow

Left in the Dust – 16.1 | Pale

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Monday, October 5th – Earlier

Verona put the power battery she’d taken from Thea’s vault onto the table.

The local Others were gathered- at least, the top council members were gathered.  Miss, Toadswallow, Matthew, Rook, and Grandfather were the usual people to attend these things.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  The rest were out there, doing damage control, handling the scattered members of the Family Man’s gang, and covering other bases.

Miss didn’t look great, sitting slightly askew in the chair Rook had provided, masks hanging from the chains that were strung along the roof, three close together.  One was half made up of tiny bricks, the ‘wall’ only partially completed, crossing at a diagonal, one eye peering past, sculpted hair wild around the edges.  One a woman’s face with sculpted black hair, a bulging cluster of black, orblike eyes all curled up with a large head, knees to the chest.  The last had pearl-like, narrow eyes peering through a gap in a swaddling of real chains and knotted ropes.  Many of the chains and ropes were broken or frayed to the point of uselessness, respectively, but the arrangement pinned the broken ends down so it didn’t come unraveled.

Rook picked up the battery from the wrought-iron table and slid a large wooden coaster beneath it before setting it back down.

“Thought I should get this out of the way,” Verona said.  “Lucy and I talked briefly about what we’d cover in this meeting, how to handle the Family Man, how to handle a lot of stuff, I don’t know if there’ll be tensions or issues.  So might as well discuss before we get started on that.”

“What is it?” Grandfather asked.  The battery was a case of glass panels framed with ornate metal, filled with a liquid that shone with a dull light.  Like milk if milk radiated like a lightbulb.

“Power,” Toadswallow croaked.  The ‘croak’ in the voice seemed to come from the strain of leaning forward to peer at it with his monocle-eye, the glass catching the light.  “A not-insignificant container of power.  Whose?”

“Lady in Thunder Bay was spiriting away kids to pocket worlds and stuff.  Avery was asked to investigate her, we sorta did that, we also sorta robbed her.  I took measures to keep her from tracking this.”

She turned the battery so Toadswallow could see what she’d written in marker on the glass of the outer face.

“Perhaps some adjustments are in order,” Miss said, without moving.  “That rune will strain the vessel, much as it will strain a diagram to be too biased to one side without a grounding on the others.”

“If I scrub that off, won’t she get a glimpse?” Verona asked.

“If she were looking at the same time you happened to remove the mark, yes,” Miss replied.

“Let’s be safe,” Lucy said.  “And we’ll assume she is.”

“I could do runes on every piece of glass, right?”

“Which would help, but you would still face the risk that it breaks across the middle.  You could imagine an egg tapped across the midsection, creating miniature cracks at even intervals.  It would take little for top to break from bottom.”

“So… more all around it?” Verona asked.  She looked at the decorative metal connecting the panes of glass and capping off the ends.  “The material doesn’t lend itself to that.”

“Then place it in a circle?” Lucy asked.  “Until we have a use?”

“Right.  Might have to do that.  I think it’ll ping her if we aren’t careful.”

“We’ll be careful,” Lucy said.  “We’ll have to decide what to do with it.”

Verona nodded with enthusiasm.  “Avery and I were talking about supporting things so we don’t lose the Kennet we know to the Undercity.  Maybe extending or restructuring the shrine system, to have proper shrines in the Undercity and maybe the spirit world.  A jolt of power could be good.”

“Whichever areas you chose would become part of Kennet’s character.  Pick the overcity, undercity, and the spirit world, and the spirits would gain far more clout,” Miss explained.  “We don’t have many strong spirits or managers of spirits in our council at the moment.”

“The Warrens?” Toadswallow asked, before chuckling, raising a hand.  “I know.  I can dream about the possibilities, but I know that would be…”

“Complete and utter chaos,” Matthew filled in.

“…Noisome,” Toadswallow told him, before smiling wide.

“Let’s wait until our guests arrive,” Rook told them.  She stopped beside Lucy.  “Tea?  We’re approaching the tail end of the nights we can comfortably sit on a rooftop on a night like this.  Soon it will have to be a gathering around a fire.  Then it will be indoors only.”

“Yes please,” Lucy said.  Rook poured for her.

“My-” Matthew started.  He stopped, shaking his head.  “I was about to suggest my place.”

“If you could evict the woman living inside it, that would be fine,” Miss told him.

“The only reason we have the setup for nice fires is for her.  But don’t let this become a pity party.  We should focus on immediate problems.”

“Unfortunately, we seem to have more times when we have immediate problems than ones where we don’t,” Rook noted.  “Verona?”

“Thank you,” Verona said, taking a mug and putting it where Rook could pour.

“I should tell you guys… actually, let me get Avery on the phone,” Lucy said.  “So she’s included.  I told her we’d be calling.  I think she’s camping out on her outside porch.  From what I’ve seen, it’s a space like this one.”

Lucy dialed.

“We talked to her about some of it on the phone, figuring out how to pitch this,” Verona explained.  “But she’ll want to hear responses.”

“You seem nervous,” Matthew told them.

“A bit,” Lucy replied.  She put the phone to her ear.  “Hey Avery.  We’re here with Toadswallow, Miss, Matthew, Rook, Grandfather, me, and Verona.  Reggie’s in the background.  Putting you on speaker.  There.”

“Hi?” Avery tried.

“Heya,” Verona replied.

“We have roughly five or ten minutes before our guests arrive,” Miss explained.  “Knowing the personalities involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if some arrived earlier, or if they were intentionally late.”

“Earlier,” Rook noted.  “To answer insecurities they no doubt feel.  Insecurities we must quell, if we don’t weaponize them.  They may arrive late on future occasions, to make their arrival more of an occasion.”

“Sounds involved,” Avery said.

“What were you three wanting to ask us?” Matthew asked.  “I’m a bit afraid to ask.  The last time you were this serious in approaching us about something, I think it was the topic of learning binding.  Is this a rehash of that?”

“It’s the opposite,” Lucy said.

“Letting a captive go?” Toadswallow asked.

Lucy shook her head.  “Getting you guys to let go of what you’ve been holding onto.”

“I do believe I’m in the process of doing just that, Lucy,” Miss replied.  “As much as I’d rather it was not the case.”

“Not that.  Frig, five minutes might not be enough for this,” Lucy told her.  “Look, we need help.  I know Avery’s doing her thing, she’s keeping an eye out for anyone cool, stable, willing to join or support us.  She’s staying in touch with some of the contacts we made at the Blue Heron, and before.”

“Trying,” Avery joined in.

“But we need help.  Some of the best stuff we’ve done since Sharon the Skeptic tore down the perimeter has been with outside help.”

“What is the reversal of binding?” Rook asked.  “You mentioned it earlier.”

“Just… I know you guys have your own individual goals.  Things you want to happen.  Miss’s dream for what Kennet could become.  Rook, I get the impression you want to win a war.”

“And I want my market,” Toadswallow said.  “Most here already know.”

“You-” Lucy started.  She paused as she tried to find the words.

“It feels more like you want the perfect market,” Verona said.  “So you’re postponing it.”

“Ah,” Toadswallow grunted the word.  He settled back a bit, chin sinking into neck fat.

“We might have to let go of individual ideas and plans.  Stuff that we might not be able to salvage,” Lucy told them.  She glanced at Toadswallow.  “Or do perfectly.”

“Means we’ll probably have to rework what Kennet will be and look like,” Verona added.  “Especially if we want to make sure we have a plan for dealing with the Family Man, and for possibly dealing with Musser.”

“You’re right,” Rook told them.  “That’s a much bigger conversation than our time here would allow.”

“We were hoping to bring up some ideas to these guys,” Verona said.  “Bringing Nicolette and Zed in as allies, or guests.  Letting Liberty stop in to make contact with the goblins.  Maybe rally some support while she’s here.”

“Ah, she’s a good girl,” Toadswallow said.

“A good enough girl to hype up your market some?  I know she’s a bit of a rock star in the goblin world.”

“Goblins in this wider territory, with niches here and there.  It’s crossed my mind, but I wouldn’t want to use her.”

“I think we would,” Lucy told him, dead serious.  “Want to use her.  Or at least, find some deal that makes her happy.  A lot of goblins might have a prejudice against markets, and the right pitch from someone with a good relationship to goblins…?”

“It’s more complicated than you make it sound.”  Toadswallow was almost ‘hrmmmm’ing as he thought and grumbled to himself as he talked.  “There are goblins and goblin practitioners we wouldn’t want to draw the attention of.  The same ones Bluntmunch was worried about.  But yes.”

Lucy nodded.  “It’d mean starting soon.  Without waiting two years for Snowdrop to be your goblin sage.  At least starting with something preliminary.”

“Unh.”  Toadswallow let out an unhappy grunt.

“To bring in allies?” Rook asked.

“To become essential,” Avery’s voice came through the phone.  “And yeah.  If we’re this cool place that’s worthwhile for goblins and practitioners, that’s a way to get help, and they may want to help defend it if things get hairy.”

“And we’d want to bring in others,” Lucy said.  “Open the doors.  Focus on keeping the worst out, instead of letting only the best in for short visits.”

“That costs us some minor protections, when we’re dangerously unprotected as it is,” Miss said.

“But those protections really aren’t doing much now anyway, are they?” Lucy asked.  “Musser came in.  Witch Hunters came in.”

“Things will mend.  The shrine spirits grow steadily stronger.”

“Mend in years?  Decades?” Lucy asked.

“Less time if you devote resources like the battery,” Matthew said, leaning over the edge of the table.

“I don’t think we can take years, like this,” Verona told him.  “I don’t think you guys can either.  Miss is hurt-”

“Miss is hurt?” Avery asked.  “You left that out.”

“I’ll mend,” Miss reassured.

“And Musser might get to Kennet before those years are up,” Verona finished.

Miss shifted position.  The ruined-wall mask sat in front of her face now.  Rook laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t have a stake in this like you all do,” Grandfather said.

“You know what John wanted,” Lucy pointed out.  “For you guys.  In general.”

“He wanted to protect you.  Protect Kennet.  The Dog Tags will back what you all agree is best, with exceptions for the really crazy shit.  So that’s what we’ll do.”

“They’re here,” Reggie said.

“Invite them up.  Once we’re done, if there’s nothing pressing, go to the house with the refugees, and help Tashlit there.”

Reggie went down the fire escape.

There were some voices below.

“Petty squabbling,” Lucy murmured.  “Who gets to enter first.”

“Can we raise some ideas with these guys?  Nothing set in stone yet?” Verona asked.  “Offer some incentives and deals?”

“I think you should be able to bring outsiders in,” Miss said.  She straightened as she said it.  Her head lined up with the woman-mask with the altered eye.

“Yeah?” Verona asked.

While they talked, Rook adjusted the table they were sitting around, drawing out a sliding section of densely-knit wrought iron, with legs that naturally unfurled to touch the ground.  A click secured the end of the new section of table to the existing section.  Adding a full third to the length.

“You’re right.  My hope for Kennet becoming a sanctuary as I envisioned it is a faint one.  Solomon’s writ was something that should have been given a time limit, something that could be designed to be reinvented and revised each time it was signed and signed again.  But that was not the intent.  It was a trap.  I thought Kennet could become something that would stand mostly free of that trap.  Not so.”

Lucy had to lean forward a bit to see Miss, with Grandfather betwen them.  “It can still be a sanctuary.”

“Built with and within the bounds of the system I thought to distance us from.  It’s fine.  Do what you must.  I will support.”

“Pending a vote,” Matthew said.  “We should put it to the entirety of Kennet’s Others.”

“Thank you,” Miss replied.  “I let myself lapse back to the early days, when I was the sole voice and we didn’t vote.”

“Speaking of voices,” Verona said, leaning forward.  “Let us tackle this?  Me, Lucy, um, Toadswallow do most of the talking?  Maybe Miss too.  Don’t hide that you’re injured.”

“Why?” Matthew asked.

“Strategy,” Verona hurried to say.  The stairs banged with heavy approaching footsteps.

The Foreman was the first to come up.  He was huge, wearing some homemade armor with sheet metal bent and welded together, most of it focused on covering things from the front, leaving the back of the legs exposed.  At his left was something that looked like a nailgun, except if regular nailguns were pistols, this was a cannon loaded with a row of railroad spikes.

Rook brought out a heavy chair, putting it at the end of the table, because there wasn’t room for the chair at the sides of the newly extended table.

He waited, blocking the way for the Witch of Bitter Street, who was behind him, small canny eyes amid blunt features, surveying everyone present.

He moved out of the way, but pulled the chair back, almost shoving it into the Witch, who was a step behind him, then pulled it in with just as much force as he sat.  Even if it was a chair meant for giants, it creaked with his weight, which would have already been considerable even if he wasn’t wearing armor.

The Witch of Bitter Street followed, supported by her eldest brother, who gripped her upper arm.  She almost lunged for the table as soon as it was in reach, to have something to grab, then sat awkwardly in the seat Rook provided next to Lucy, bringing her feet up onto the seat.  Her long, arching back had her hunched over her knees.

“Wait downstairs,” she ordered her brother.

The Vice Principal was next.  She’d chosen to wear a princess costume, with a weird glossy material that seemed to turn dark gray in spots where it caught the light, was hot pink normally, and dipped into dark pink or magenta in the creases and folds.  She’d donned a crown that Verona was pretty sure had been forged out of silver kitchen utensils.  The seat she was provided was like Toadswallow’s, if less extreme, raising her up to a level that put her more or less at eye level with most at the table.  Freak and Squeak followed behind her, her bodyguards, and with no place at the table to retreat to, they occupied a space on the rooftop behind the Vice Principal, Freak sitting on the lip of the roof, the monstrous Squeak sitting by her feet.

“If I may take the liberty, I’ll offer tea to you,” Rook told the Bitter Street Witch, “an overlarge glass of dark lager to you, Foreman, and honeyed tea to you, Vice Principal.”

“That’ll do,” the Witch said.

“What service!  You wouldn’t believe how hard it can be to get some of the tits working for me to handle this stuff,” the Vice Principal said.

The Foreman looked like a man who’d expected to find an excuse to complain, but couldn’t.  Verona never really knew for sure how much she was using her dad as a mental shorthand for the Foreman- there were a lot of differences, but they were similar shapes.  The difference was the Foreman was big and strong enough to force a bunch of younger, smaller people to do what he wanted, and he was more angry than miserable.  “Yeah.  I’ll have that drink.”

“I offered to supply a goblin-created beverage,” Toadswallow purred.  “Rook told me it was best I avoid risking poisoning you.”

“Goblin beverage?”  the Foreman asked.

“Foul alchemy, brewed by those with no care for safety or standards.  Hairs will curl, your nose will cave in from the smell of it, your belly button will protrude, innie becoming outie, in a brutal effort by your flesh to distance itself from the liquid that reaches your midsection.”

The Foreman smiled, showing off metal teeth.

“Perhaps I’ll bring you some later.  As a sampler before business properly opens,” Toadswallow told him.

“Business?” the Foreman asked.

Toadswallow smiled.

Business?  Verona thought.  Toadswallow hadn’t directly agreed to the idea of opening the market sooner than later, but he seemed to be talking about it here.

“I’ll make introductions,” Lucy said.  “If that’s okay?”

“We’ve seen some of these people around already,” the Witch noted, eyes tracking everyone at the table.

“At the head of the table is Sir Toadswallow.  Goblin, self-styled aristocrat, businessman, trickster, manages most of the goblins you see around Kennet.  He currently leads Kennet as our council head.”

“Fuckin’ charmed,” Toadswallow greeted them.

“Matthew Moss, the last person to hold Toadswallow’s position.  You know him or know of him,” Verona explained this one.  “Host of the Doom of Edith James.  Big, oily black, dangerous.  Besides me, he’s been one of the Others most active in the undercity.”

Freak cleared her throat loudly.

Lucy took the next one.  “Miss.  Founder of a lot of what we’re doing here.  She brought some Others to Kennet.  She brought us in, as practitioners.  She arranged the protections at the perimeter that are meant to keep Kennet safer, and she’s deterred many of our possible enemies with distraction and disruption.”

“Thank you for coming,” Miss told the three members of the undercity who sat at one end of the table, each just out of arm’s reach of the others.  She sat askew again.

Lucy went on, “Rook, our host, Oni, tactician, veteran warrior.  She’s relatively new, and represents other new members.  Frankly, she’s too good at what she does to leave her on the sidelines, so she’s basically leadership.”

“I’ll insist on bread with the drinks,” Rook said, as she served.  “Traditions are to break bread and drink.  No violence or weapons are to be raised by those at my table.”

Reggie brought the bread, half the loaf pre-cut.  Rook gave him a nod, and he departed down the fire escape.

“Butter?” the Vice Principal asked.

Rook set a butter dish beside her.  The Vice Principal dug fingers into the butter and smeared enough for four pieces of bread onto the one piece.

The Bitter Street Witch used one of the provided butter knives, caught the lip of the butter dish, and dragged it across the table to her.  She cut from the part that had finger-shaped indents in it, not seeming to care.  A more modest amount.

The Foreman ate it raw.

“Grandfather is the de-facto head of the Dogs of War,” Lucy told their guests.

“I’d say Horseman is,” Grandfather told her.

“You’re here, he’s not.  De-facto,” Lucy told him.  Then to the guests, she said, “They’re newer, but they’re some of our most reliable forces.  And you know Verona.”

Verona nodded.  She’d met each of these guys separately.  It was a different experience being here in a group.  Alone, she could talk to them in ways that were tailored to each.  Subtle manipulations and tweaks in body language.  With them together, she couldn’t do that.

“On the speaker phone we have the second Witch of Kennet, Avery,” Lucy said.

“I wondered if you were two pigs loosed in a school,” the Vice Principal said.  “Labeled pig one and pig three, with no pig two.  Just to screw with people.”

“Nope, there’s a pig two,” Avery said.  “Handling other stuff.”

Verona handled the next leg, since Lucy had handled a lot of the topside.  “The Vice Principal of the Undercity.  Manages the school and surrounding territories.  You left your pet behind?”

“Just a bit too big.  I should get another, so I have one for polite company,” the Vice Principal said.  “Doesn’t matter.  I don’t need my pets to defend myself.”

“That’s yet to be proven,” the Foreman told her.

The little girl smiled.

“Then to Lucy’s left we have the Witch of Bitter Street.  An augur, herbalist, dealer, crime lord, and enforcer, manages Downtown Beneath.”

The Witch of Bitter Street nodded.

“And last, we have the Foreman.  Supplies many of the other Kennet’s goods.  Armors and arms soldiers, holds the factories,” Verona finished.

“And we’re here because?” the Witch of Bitter Street asked.  “Showing off your council?”

“To make deals,” Lucy told them.

“Part of that deal is the same as what I gave you guys at the start,” Verona added.  “You help us, we help you.”

“Except let’s make a firmer deal than that,” Lucy said, sitting forward some.  “We want the Family Man dealt with.  We’ll do our share of the legwork.  You do your share.”

“We want stability,” Toadswallow told them.  “We’ll deal with you to get it, if you’ll let us.”

“We had a conversation before,” the Bitter Street Witch said, glancing at Lucy.

“This is a continuation of that,” Lucy told her.  “What I want to know is… can you guys agree to work with one another, and present a unified front against the Family Man?”

“Over the long term,” Toadswallow purred.  “The powers of the undercity, borders drawn, no pushing, no shoving, no murdering, no interference in one another’s business.”

The three people at the end of the table looked at one another.

“Meh,” the Vice Principal said, with a dismissive snort.  “You’d be asking me to put up with the smallest territory.  I’m just getting started.”

“No.  It’s too early for that,” the Foreman replied.

“Maybe,” the Witch of Bitter Street murmured.  “War never interested me.  Territory either.  It’s a distraction from the things I’d rather work on.  I think it’s closer to being the same for the Foreman than he pretends.”

She’d looked up, eye wide, whites showing, turning her attention to the Foreman as she said that.

“Okay, let’s talk incentives,” Lucy said, leaning forward.  “Maybe we can turn that maybe into a yes.  Your augury is getting stronger.  But it’s raw, unshaped.  We can put you in touch with a teacher.”

“An apprenticeship?  Servitude?”

“Let me pitch this at you,” Verona said, “undercity style.  She was like any kid until her brother cracked her head open.  Left her like that, she survived.  Brain infection?  Survived.  And that big crack in her head?  It let all sorts of bad spirits and mojo in.  Visions, prophetic nightmares, knowing things she shouldn’t, glimpses from ghosts.  A lot of people in that situation?  They go around the bend and they never come home.  She survived, and she figured stuff out the way you have so far.  Not biting the heads off birds, but figuring out how to manage the visions and stuff, stay sane, ward off bad things, and get the clearer visions she needed.  Raw stuff.”

The Witch of Bitter Street didn’t take her intense stare off Verona.

Verona grinned.  “Yeah.  She learned from some of the best, but she spent too many critical years on the streets with only half her wits and a whole lotta grit.  Which is probably why she made sure to pack a whole lot of curses and badass crap with her while she was getting really good at future seeing.  She was a girl in a group of preppy, rich, smug asshole guys, other students and relatives of the same teacher, people who couldn’t help but to dismiss girls, and even they had to admit she was dangerous when it counted.”

“Was in the same group?” the Witch asked.

“The head of that group died,” Lucy answered.  Her expression had fallen a bit.  “Shot by one of his acquaintances.”

She’d indicated Grandfather.

Verona smiled, because she wanted to keep up the right energy.  “The other guys have mostly banded together, resuming the old business.  But she’s now a competitor of theirs.  She’s not huge, but doing the same sort of business.  Investigating, supporting people like… well, like you three, who want to know what moves to make.  And she gets paid.”

Avery spoke up.  “We owe her favors, and this is a bit of a favor paid back to her, if it works, so you’d have to play nice.  Because this could be a win-win-win.  She’s still in the opening stages of starting her own business, she wants partners, contacts, resources.  Depending on how you grow, she could use someone who can give a high-powered, what did Verona say?  Raw?”

“Yeh,” Verona answered, a quick, abbreviated affirmative.

The Foreman shifted his seating, impatient.  But he was paying attention.

Avery continued, “A raw, powerful sort of reading, once in a while.  Or smaller, scattered ones to support whatever she’s doing.  Or something.  You could give her that, she pays you, she also teaches you, takes you up to the next level, and we get stability in the undercity.”

“With you on the council,” Miss said.

“Also also,” Verona jumped in, not wanting to interrupt but wanting to add something, “just gonna say, if you ever decide you want out, and you work it out with us, so you don’t leave us without someone acceptable in charge of Downtown?  You could go to her to work for her.  That’s part of what we’d be offering her, a student who wouldn’t be tied down to Kennet.  But you have to agree to set up a replacement before you go.”

The Bitter Street Witch nodded, as if to herself, eyes not focused on anything in particular.  Then she met Verona’s eyes and kept nodding.

“Contingent on me accepting her.  I’d want to meet her.”

“Contingent on her accepting you, too,” Avery added, over the phone.

“And on you stabilizing downtown,” Lucy said.  “If someone takes, you retake, we’d support you.  But you don’t expand any further.  Your borders now are your borders hereafter.  Unless you negotiate through the council.”

She doesn’t even want to expand, Verona thought.

“Make the meeting happen,” the Witch said.

“Well I want stuff now too,” the Vice Principal said, sitting up.

“And we want stability,” Toadswallow said.

“I want to expand my borders, but I still want stuff,” she said.

“I’m planning to open a market in the not-too-distant future,” Toadswallow told her.  His chair was closer to a stool, to put him close to eye level with everyone present, but his squat body and short legs meant that the stool’s height let him put a foot up against the edge of the table.  “Weapons, tricks, and other sorts of things.”

“I’ve used some,” Verona remarked.  “You’ve seen or heard about some.  The rubber duck.”

“I love the rubber duck.”

“The box of dicks, the giant rotten tooth, assblaster fireworks.”

The little kid’s eyes lit up, hands clasped together.

“From this guy, or goblins under this guy, mostly,” Verona said, jerking a thumb toward Toadswallow.

“I could give you an early buyer’s discount,” Toadswallow purred.  “Early selection of items, before they hit the shelves.”

“Heck yes,” Freak said, behind the Vice Principal.  Rook had served her tea and the excited Freak was spilling the hot liquid onto Squeak, who was curled up by her feet.  The large Other writhed and tried unsuccessfully to block the dribbles and splashes from landing on him.  “As your guidance counselor my guidance is yes.”

“But what’s the point?” the Vice Principal asked.  “I’d be agreeing not to even use it.  No.  I want more territory.”

This dang kid is way too smart sometimes.  I hoped fear of missing out would drive an impulse decision.

“The Arena,” the Witch of Bitter Street said.

“Huh?” the Vice Principal asked.

“We’re in a tug of war over the old, burned out, broken down Arena.  I could give you the Arena.  Everything between it and the school.  And the movie theater.  Similar deal.  It’s a hangout for my guys, you’ll crash their lazy day, then a few days later we push you out.  But I heard that every time we push you out, you’ve got games up and running, there are movies to put on.”

“What about it?”

“Arena, Cinema.  Some of the ground between.  It’s yours.  But it’s a bit mine too.  My guys get to come in and watch movies, trade for concessions, on orders to be good, respect the space, respect you.  You order your guys to let mine in.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

The Witch shrugged one bent shoulder.  “A whole wide border I don’t have to worry about.  And what I sell to you by the mile, I get back from them by the inch.”

A finger that looked like it had been broken twice pointed down the length of the table.  At Lucy, Grandfather, Matthew, Toadswallow, Miss, and Verona.

“I’m not so good at conversions,” the Vice Principal told the Witch.

“They want this.  And what they’re going to end up giving me is going to be worth a lot more than this territory.  I think I like the sorts of things they offer me…”  The Bitter Street Witch turned her head, looking down the table.  Bent arm attached to bent wrist settled on the table, and, almost coy, she rested her chin on the back of her hand, elbow on the table.  “Right?  For helping this along?  You’d owe me.”

“Yes.  We can deal,” Toadswallow said.

The Witch smiled.

And you give up something you didn’t really want that was annoying to manage and put resources into.  Contested territory.  You get a way to keep your people occupied and happy, a safe border…

“We’d need rules,” the Vice Principal said.

“Yes,” the Witch told her, moving arm and elbow to face her, holding a similar posture, the Vice Principal now her focus.

“There’s going to be scraps.  Beefs,” the Vice Principal said.  “If it happens around the cinema, game it out.  Air hockey, foosball, pool, ball pit jousting, bike race down the rocky part of the ski slopes.”

“That gives you a home field advantage.  Your guys are more likely to win and get more practice.”

“Yeah, so?”

“My guys pick the game if the feud happens on your turf.  Which it will, mostly.  You can pick if it happens on my turf.”

“Okay.  Humiliation to the losers!  That’ll make the games intense.  People will love it!  It’s gotta be bad enough it’ll make some people think twice before going through with a beef.  I’m talking running home naked with feathers hot glued all over you or getting dunked in a kiddy pool filled with pee until you stop breathing.  Only get to live if you’ve got a friend willing to give you the stale piss kiss and breathe some air back into your lungs.”

“On my turf, my guys decide the consequence.”

“Enh,” the Vice Principal made a displeased sound.

“If I may suggest?” Toadswallow asked.  “Neutral referees.  I have some goblins who would rather enjoy that process, the power of getting to make the rules, brainstorming humiliation.”

“Tatty?” Verona asked at the same time Avery said, “Tatty.”

“Oh yeah, I can see that,” Lucy murmured.

“Maybe,” the Vice Principal said.

“Territory was your concern,” Lucy said.  “This helps that, doesn’t it?  And you could take the Family Man’s territory.  That’s still up for grabs.”

“Hard to get to, bridges are in their territories.”

“Build one?” Verona asked.  “You told me once you liked building.”

“I do.  But I’d have to build first or they’d have to let me through.”

“I’ll let you through,” the Witch said.  She glanced at Toadswallow.

That’s another favor or payment she’s expecting from us, for smoothing this process over.

The kid narrowed her eyes, like she didn’t trust this.  She didn’t understand that the Bitter Street Witch wasn’t like her, had different priorities, and wanted fundamentally different things.

“I feel like you’re tricking me.”

The Witch shook her head.

“What is it that’s holding you back, if not territory?” Verona asked.

“The fighting keeps my guys engaged.  They like it.  Having rivalries.  Stuff to do.  Coming up with plans and asking the faculty.  What do we do when that’s all over with?  They’ll get bored.”

“Build more,” Verona told her.  “Projects, games, tournaments.  Maybe the goblin market opens soon.  You could buy something once in a while, then make it the prize for winning.”

“I could give you something once in a while, that’d be a good prize,” Toadswallow said.  “If you’d follow rules.  Protecting my goblins, respecting the market… you’d have to enforce that.”

“Rules, rules, rules.  You know my people hate rules, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s free crap, dear princess Vice Principal.”

“I don’t have to decide now, right?”

“It’d be nice if you did,” Miss said.

“At the very least… we want you guys to go with an agreement to stop fighting between yourselves and help us crush the Family Man,” Lucy said.  “We’ll handle some of it.”

“I gotta talk to my guys, but sure,” the Vice Principal said.  “That part?  Yeah.  He’s annoying and boring.”

“And you?” Verona asked the Foreman.  “Deal with us?”

He shook his head.

“These two have the right idea.  They get benefits, cool stuff…”

Okay.  That was not only expected, but it was halfway to the desired result.  Verona had known this jerkwad wouldn’t follow easily after the other two.  The fact they’d agreed first made him less likely to follow.

Now if they could only work out the other half of the desired result…

“What about crushing the Family Man?” Lucy asked.

“We’ll give you first crack,” Verona said.  “Once we’re through with him.”

“You want my soldiers?  Pay me.”

“I can arrange a little something,” Toadswallow said.  “Talk to me after this meeting, while the others get themselves ready.”

The Foreman nodded.

There they had it.  The other half of the desired result.  They didn’t want him on board, because that would mean they had a member of the Undercity on their council who they didn’t want sticking around.  A man who made children into slaves to work his factories, a homophobic, racist, misogynistic asswad.

But if they’d refused or been unfair, that’d be a red flag for the Vice Principal and Witch.  It’d be saying they were only in because they were playing ball, and it would feel like a threat.  Or it would make them buck at the idea of being too easy to work with or too complacent.

The trick was to let them get their wins, but also let the big guy screw himself over.  His intolerances were a weakness.  Talking to girls, and to a woman and a little girl who were his peers, he wanted to rise above it, somehow.  Show his strength.

Now, if he continued to refuse to get on board, they could remove and replace him.  But that was a thing for after they dealt with the Family Man.

There were some minor points of discussion that followed, but things like hammering out the exact rules for how the Witch would join the council, with the Vice Principal maybe following after her were raised and then put off- mostly they wanted to get ready to go after the Family Man.

Tea got cold, they finished the bread.  Some meat and cheese was served, cups refilled, and those cups were finished or partially refinished when they finished.  The Foreman rose to his feet, chair scraping.

“I’ll see you at the bridge,” he said.  “I don’t think you should let him live.  He will come back, stronger.”

“We’ll deal with it,” Lucy said.

The Vice Principal linked arms with Freak, following after Squeak, who led the way.  From the loud sound, it seemed like he’d fallen down the last half of the staircase, or he’d been kicked down.  Probably the latter.

The Witch was slower to move.  Her brother arrived, carrying her cane, and helped her to stand.

“Rebuilding, restructuring,” the Witch said, idly.

“That’s the idea,” Lucy said.

“Growing something,” Verona added.

The Witch stopped on the top stair, supported by her brother.  “Ate a few birds before coming.  To make sure.”

“Sensible,” Verona told her.

“Choked it down, some of it was vague.  Filled in most of the blanks.  But there’s one that’s nagging at me… I think it’s your business, not mine.”

“What’s that?” Lucy asked.

“You all won’t be able to grow what you need to grow until you get something out of the way.”

Friday, October 9th, Four Days Later

“You,” Toadswallow called out.  “I see you.  Don’t run if you know what’s good for you, chap.  There were rules, you broke the rules.  You get up on that roof.  You’re on watch.  That’s the punishment.  Except now you’re on double shift.  Cheat again and you’re out.”

The goblin gabbled something unintelligible, backing off and trying to hide in the crowd.

“Come on, dude!” Verona called out to the goblin.  “Don’t be a suck-hole!”

The goblin gabbled more, poked its head up, and looked her in the eyes as it made a rude gesture with a hand wrapped around its very long nose, giving away its position.

Nat caught the goblin by surprise, piercing-laden fist clutching it by the back of the neck.  She marched it off toward the rooftop in question.

“Anyone else?” Toadswallow asked.  “Pick a fight, try to cheat on entry fees?  You participate from a distance.”

“There’s a lot of goblins,” Lucy observed.

“Yeah.  Part of the plan, I think.”

They were in the undercity, afternoon sun low in the sky.  About thirty goblins milled around.  A small crowd of people stood off to the south, lined up along a crosswalk, with the Vice Principal in attendance, standing atop the back of a man who might have been five hundred pounds if he was normal height- except he was twice the usual size.  She’d upgraded from her cast iron wand-slash-mace to a staff with the old head of the wand on the top.  The man’s head was locked into a cage, a bloodshot eye peering out through a gap in the uneven bars.  Freak and Squeak and the school nurse were with her.

The School Nurse’s ride was off to one side, an eight foot tall woman with arms bound into a straightjacket position with ropes and bandages, blinded by a blindfold of more bandages.  The woman was struggling to drink from the sort of jug that went into an office water cooler, which was made more difficult by the lack of hands.  The School Nurse watched everything while leaning against the wall, arms folded, ankles crossed, a bored look on her face.  She was the oldest of the Vice Principal’s staff, a teenager, and very image conscious.  Pretending to be ‘cool’ was a lot of that.  She’d taken over the hospital after Verona had raided it, but was still technically subordinate to the Vice Principal.

Mal was there too, waving as she saw Verona.  Verona waved back.  Mal had tattooed some shaky stars across her own cheek.

Off to the other side was the Bitter Street Witch.  Five of her brothers were with her.  Two were dead, and a third was being punished.  Others were in her company, including an assortment of ‘grey sheep’.  People who’d crossed into the undercity, who frequently had developed in subtle ways, like those in positions of power and increased attention did.  The butcher, the bookstore owner, the video rental guy.

They’re so interesting.  Wish I could connect to them better.

But a lot of them were especially grumpy people, too.  They kept to themselves, many of them bigger, or creepier, or slightly Aware.

If she was going to figure out how to connect to people, she’d wanted to start with people closer to her.

It all felt so hard, and then she’d get exhausted, she’d back off for a bit to recharge, and when she came back to things to keep trying at that hard stuff, she’d find it was even harder.  Things changed when she wasn’t looking.  Or she changed.

Part of the reason for having this crowd around was to have guards.  The Family Man was down but not out, and he’d had a big enough chunk of this side of Kennet that he’d had a lot of people.  That meant a lot of soldiers.  Some crossed the river, causing trouble, others appeared in Kennet above, and others tried to infiltrate, slipping through and blending in until they could cause trouble, steal things, or set fires.

But, at least, the effect that had been accelerating pregnancies had stopped.  Pregnant women were still pregnant, but women that had looked eight months pregnant, with only a few days until they’d ‘pop’ were now a month away from giving birth.  Women that had a couple had already given birth outside the coordinated childbirth schedule they’d expected.

If they didn’t coincide and if they could keep things positioned so there could be no mass-butchery, mass-cannibalism event, then the ‘ritual’ that had been planned wouldn’t work.

Verona hoped.

For right now, as much as she didn’t want to jinx it by thinking it… things were okay. Things with Lucy were like, seventy five percent back to normal.  She could kinda tolerate school and she could skip when she wasn’t in the mood, her grades were still passing.  The Jeremy situation was okay.

Most of all, they had plans.  She wished she’d been able to do more for Avery, but they’d hashed stuff out, worked out ideas for the shrine perimeter, she’d got power and was still thinking about how to use the rest of that battery, and they’d given the local Others a light kick in the ass.

For too long it had felt like things were constantly in the way, and they still sort of were, but now they could make moves to do a little building.  Growing.  Preparing.

It made her nervous.

The car came down the road.  A black sedan.

“Good job, Reggie,” Lucy said.

“We can get people in now,” Verona noted.  Marlen’s special senses had let them identify a way in past the ‘one day’ rule.  Reggie had been stationed out there to guide them in.  Other cars that tried might find a construction vehicle that had been left parked near the highway would suddenly disengage its parking break, pinning the vehicle against a tree.  Then when they tried to walk through the woods, they’d get lost.

All thirty of the goblins, which included the Kennet group, were waiting, perched here and there, some on cars for the extra height.  Others had been made into additional guards, some as punishment.  Some talked, some played, some roughhoused.

An attack now, especially one that hurt a guest, would ruin a whole lot of stuff.

The car pulled into a parking space, the engine turned off, and the door opened.

Nicolette stepped out, eyebrows raised above her glasses.

“Boooooo!” goblins jeered.

They bounced on the spot.  Some threw crumpled paper, trash, and harder objects.  Some banged off the car.  The booing continued throughout, goblins getting more and more irate.

Lucy hurried to stop a goblin from throwing a brick at the car.  Or at Nicolette.

“This is a welcome!” Nicolette raised her voice, one arm shielding the side of her head from thrown debris.

“Sorry, sorry!” Lucy apologized.  “You!  Stop that!”

“Nico!” Verona called out.  “Fight back!  It’s allowed!”

Even preferred.  We have an audience.

The Bitter Street Witch watched.

Nicolette pulled a black stick out from within her jacket.  Some goblins didn’t care.  Others went still.

Nicolette pointed it like a wand at one of the ones who didn’t care, who wore a backpack and who was getting ready to throw a ball of soggy paper.

“Crack the Foundation, let gathered riches fall through,” Nicolette intoned.

The stick fractured.  Dark shadows swarmed the goblin.  The ball of paper was marked with dark lines like a crack on the ground, then exploded into wet clumps that showered the goblin.

“Let what you own, what you possess, what you keep in your home fall to ruin, piece by piece,” Nicolette told the goblin.  “Spare what you most cherish by kissing it and asking it to be well, let the ruin cease when you’ve nothing left to lose or when you’ve apologized three times from the heart.”

The goblin shrieked, then jumped about a foot in the air as its pants split up the backside with a whipcrack sound.

If he has to kiss everything he wants to keep and ask it to stay intact, that’ll suck for a goblin.  It’ll probably take him a while to get the point and start feeling it enough he starts apologizing like he means it.

“Go home,” Nicolette told it.  “So you can save what you need to save.  A kiss and a request for it to stay in one piece, for each and every thing you value.  Or three apologies.”

The goblin hesitated, looking like it wanted to stay, but the shoulder of the infant-size children’s top it wore ripped abruptly, and it decided to go.

The effective curse gave some of the protesting goblins pause.  Or, just as likely, it had distracted them and they’d forgotten momentarily how mad they were, and with momentum broken, they had a hard time starting up again.

Reducing the number of protesting goblins to four or five.

Natty, Butty, Ramjam, and Doglick went after the ones who weren’t chilling out, securing them.

The back door of the car opened.  Liberty got out, with what looked like terminal bedhead, the sides of her head shaved, the top and back left long and streaked with dye.  She wore a mesh top over a sports bra, a short skirt with fishnets, and a jacket.

The goblins all took a moment to recognize her, then broke into cheers.  Liberty, still apparently half-asleep from a car nap, took her own time to realize what was going on.  She pumped her hands into the air.

“Puppy pile!” Liberty screamed.  She threw herself into the crowd of waiting goblins.

The ones who’d misbehaved most were still restrained, kept from joining in as Liberty rolled on the ground, hugging armfuls of cheering, happy goblins.  Verona saw Biscuit get a kiss on the cheek.  Liberty placed Biscuit on another goblin’s head, then gave him a bit of a head rub, and he didn’t really fight to get Biscuit off her perch after.

“Uncle Toady!” Liberty called out, as she spotted him.  “Off, off, guys, lemme go.”

There were more goblins in the car, working their way to the ground, with difficulty very dependent on size.  Verona recognized Flopsy, the goblin who looked like a rabbit had had a child with a brick covered in skin.  Dense, morose in appearance, and fast for his weight.  He plowed into the crowd, enforcing good Liberty handling habits.  A gremlin came tearing through with shock prods.

Liberty escaped the thickest bit of the crowd and ran up to Toadswallow, hugging him.

“Ah, you’re a good girl,” Toadswallow said, expression warm, giving her a pat on the back.

Lucy nudged Verona, and Verona nodded.

They moved around the perimeter of the crowd to Nicolette.

“Wasn’t expecting that.”

“Aren’t you an augur?” Verona asked.

Lucy elbowed her.

“Come on,” Verona said.

They led Nicolette around to the one end of the crowd.

“The goblins in attendance gave small gifts and tokens for the chance to see you,” Toadswallow told Liberty.  “It’s yours more than it’s mine.  Some little goblin tricks, some bits and bobs.”

“I just want a chance to hang with you,” Liberty told him.  “Save it for that you-know-what you’re wanting to set up.”

“The market is an open secret now,” Toadswallow told her.  “No need to play coy.  I could use help.”

“Heck yeah!  This is cool!”

They moved past that scene, where Toadswallow’s relationship with Liberty had goblins probably a bit jealous but also respecting him more.

“Nicolette, I’d like to introduce you to the Bitter Street Witch,” Lucy said.  “Bitter Street Witch, meet Nicolette Belanger.”

“Wye was getting on my case about changing that.  Confuses the clients,” Nicolette said.  “I’m not really adopted into the family again.”

“Fuck him,” the Bitter Street Witch said.

“Yeah, well… maybe,” Nicolette said.  She glanced over the woman, who wore a long coat, obscuring some of her form.  “The girls say you have talent.”

“I do.  Self-taught.”

“I was too.”

“So I heard.”

“I brought some books, some resources, other things,” Nicolette said.  “If you’ll excuse me, I can go grab them from the car.”

“If you need excuses, if you have to apologize, if you want to be polite, it’s wasting time,” the Bitter Street Witch told her.  “I really don’t care and it’s more annoying than anything.”

“That’s going to be a real change from the Blue Heron,” Nicolette said.  “I’ll bring stuff from the car.”

“Sure.”

Verona glanced at Lucy.  She was really, really hoping this went okay.

“Cherry!” Liberty cheered, sparing the small goblin from getting trampled.  She was addressing the crowd again.  “Where’s your awesome opossum friend and the cute girl with freckles who hangs out with her!?”

“I don’t know!” Cherry cried out.

“Why aren’t you with them!?”

“I don’t know!  Goblin exterminators!”

“Boo!” Liberty jeered.  The other goblins joined in.

“Boo!” Cherrypop cried out, joining in, with Liberty a half second behind her, face close to Cherry.

To Cherry, it was like the crowd of booing goblins were booing alongside her.  She looked terrifically happy.

Nicolette set a small stack of texts and a birdcage on the table by the Bitter Street Witch.

“We can figure out what you’ve got, how you got there, and the bounds of your talent,” Nicolette said.  “Either here or inside, if you want privacy or need calm.”

“I don’t need calm,” the Bitter Street Witch said.  She reached for the birdcage, popped the door open, and grabbed a bird with a long-fingered hand.  She closed the door after pulling it free, leaving three more birds inside the cage, hopping from rung to rung.

She bit the bird’s head off.

“The girls said your approach was raw.”

“It’s a good word,” Verona said.

The Bitter Street Witch chewed, swallowed, then squeezed out the contents of the bird onto the sidewalk.

With one bent leg, she scraped her shoe through the blood, paused, and went to scrape again.

Nicolette, glasses flashing, put a foot out, stopping the Bitter Street Witch.  She did her own little drag-through, peering down.

“You can see?” the Witch asked.  “Without eating the head?”

Nicolette nodded.  She looked up at the Witch.  “You’re checking up on me?”

“Bird was around you.  Do the girls know you’re working with one of their enemies?  One of the big ones?”

“Musser,” Nicolette replied.  “I guess they know now.”

Verona glanced at Lucy.

“How long?” Verona asked.

“It’s past tense, was a few days.  He outlined his initial plan.  I did what the contract demanded, gave him some critical advice, some of which he ignored, then I didn’t accept the offer for a follow-up contract.”

“Can we ask?” Lucy asked.  “For details?  About that advice you gave?”

“No.  I signed deals.  To not sign contracts with his enemies for a year.  To not aid and abet his enemies.  Tell me, are you actively engaged in the fight against him right now?”

“No,” Lucy said.

“Then I’m going to interpret that as you not being his enemies at this time.”

“Dangerous game, with the gainsayings apparently flying around,” Verona said.

“I’ll deal with it.  In the meantime, we’ll keep things neutral, and I won’t help you directly against him.”

“Okay,” Lucy replied.  “I wish you hadn’t signed that initial deal with him.”

“I thought it would be a move directly against the Carmine Exile.  And as much as I hate to admit it, the Blue Heron’s waters are waters I have to swim in for the rest of my career, if I don’t want to move somewhere else and start from scratch.”

“Don’t apologize,” the Bitter Street Witch said.

“I’m not.”

“Don’t make excuses then.”

“It paid for the car, which I needed after insurance wouldn’t cover my last car, and it got me six months closer to having an office of my own, apart from the Blue Heron.  Good money, good politics, thought it was a good shot at the Carmine.”

“I hope you can get away from Musser,” Verona told her.

“That’s the plan.  I could have told him things I saw that went beyond the immediate contract,” Nicolette told them.  She touched the slim watch she wore at her wrist.  “I didn’t.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said, with emphasis.

“His fault for not knowing how good I can be.  Which is a good pivoting point for turning the conversation back to us,” Nicolette said, turning to the Witch.  “Let’s skip past the… I’d call it a quick test on fundamentals.  I’ll spare you the textbooks, at least until it speeds things up to point to a picture or passage.  You work raw, let’s go raw.  Augury like it was done in the old days.  Are you awakened?”

“You have clear vision for someone who doesn’t have the help of spirits.  Okay.  Do you want to be?”

“Do I?” the Witch asked.  “That lets me cast spells?”

“Curses,” Verona said, making a gun with her hand and pointing it at the Witch.

“Like what I did with the stick.”

“I’ve done something like that,” the Witch said.

“You have?  How?  What did you do?”

“Saw someone in a vision.  Nudged things, there was… ah, what’s it called?  Driving a car offroad, bumpy.”

“In an airplane it’s called turbulence,” Verona volunteered.

“Yeah.  There was turbulence.  But the guy pissed me off.  So I pushed through it.  Handled the vision like you can handle a dream if you realize you’re sleeping but manage not to wake up.  Felt like it bit me on the way back out.”

“Bit?” Nicolette asked.

“Hurt.  Pushed images into my head, when I tried to pull my head out of the scene.  Guy with a bloody nose, dragging against my brain like long fingernails.  Totaled cars.  Left me with a bad feeling, I woke up, then vomited up the twenty bird heads and bits of bird, bird bone, feathers, I’d had the day before.”

“I think I know what that was,” Nicolette said.

“So do I.  Had Giblet smash the right guy’s nose.  Had Wishbone drive a car into the parked cars I pointed out to him.”

“Others?” Nicolette asked Verona.

“Brothers.”

“My brothers.  And it happened.  Came true, just like I saw it.  But it messed me up too.  My wrist never fully straightened out after that.”

“I am very glad I’ve been introduced to you before the Belangers found you,” Nicolette said.  “Except I’m not sure how they would’ve handled it.”

“Repeat of the Kevin Noone situation?” Lucy asked.  Kevin had been one of Bristow’s aware, a contender for the Belanger circle who hadn’t qualified.

“Could be.  Guess we’ll see,” Nicolette said, glancing at the Witch.

“Can you do that, deciding the future?” Verona asked.  Lucy elbowed her.

“Yeah.  Some, with a ritual, prepped omens, some setup.  Probably safer that way.  I think- do you have a name?”

“Don’t need one.  I have a title.”

“Right,” Nicolette replied, a little nonplussed.  She turned to Verona.  “Well, I think the Bitter Street Witch did something similar, gathering power by, I don’t know, taking in the blood, or the lives.  Omens, somehow.  Confluence of factors.”

“It was at the end of a busy day.  I had more readings to do, nodded off.”

Nicolette nodded.  “Gets dangerous, you know.  If you hadn’t put things together right, then-”

“Something bad.  Had a bad feeling, I said.”

“Yeah.  That’s probably karma telling you to watch out.  When you pull something like that, trying to write it down or tell someone about it can be enough to make things snap back at you.  Either you put the scene right and the vision was wrong, or the universe comes after you and you get obliterated, with no record of the vision.  That’s dangerous, especially when the things you have to arrange or sort out can be really out there.”

“I can handle that sort of thing.  Or I send my brothers.  They follow orders.”

“Yeah,” Nicolette said.  She sighed.  “I can teach you how to do that more consistently.”

The Witch’s eyes opened a bit wider.  Maybe the first actual respect for Nicolette since the curse had been used on the goblin.  “I’d like that.”

“We can revisit the subject of awakening later.  Puts things in an awkward spot.  You’re protected by innocence.  It kind of sands off the sharp edges of a lot of stuff you’re doing.  If we gave you an awakening, you’d get a lot more options, things would get more predictable, but less easy, less of the built in protection.  It’s a very easy leap to go from being Aware, like you are now, to being Awake, then doing what you’re used to doing, and getting obliterated.”

“Do special talents like hers or Kevin’s carry over?” Verona asked.

“Some.  Again, more predictable, but less easy.  Practice flows naturally that way, you’d understand things in that department more easily, improvise in that area more freely.  Like me and handling omens and other negative forces.”

“Can you do other stuff?” Lucy asked.

“Some.  Hang a body on display where everyone can see it, sort things out the right ways… I think it screws with people.”

“Ambient curse?” Nicolette asked, glancing at Verona and Lucy.

Verona shrugged, but Lucy said, “I got a few little vibes from one of the, uh, display pieces.”

“We should have dinner together,” Nicolette told the Witch.  “Talk in more depth.  Figure out if we can tolerate each other.”

“I can tolerate a lot.”

“If we can work together, if you wanted to be awakened, I’m willing to walk you through that and take responsibility,” Nicolette told her.  “If not, I still want you in my corner.  We could do this a few ways.  Again, contingent on a lot.”

“Ways?”

“Way one, I decide I like you enough to have you around a lot, you and I get along okay, you sign on full time.  Become a member of my circle.  Helps if you’re awakened.  I’d supply a decent wage, clothes, car, apartment if you wanted it.”

“These girls want me to stick around.”

“Or find a replacement,” Verona clarified.

“I could help with that,” Nicolette said.  “I did learn some things with Chase, about finding people who met certain criteria.  What about part time?  Someone to watch things while you’re gone?  An enforcer?”

“I have enforcers.  My brothers.  I need someone with a brain.  Who won’t try to take over or stab me in the back.”

“Okay,” Nicolette said.  “You could come with me part time, apprentice at first, then partner.  I’d supply the, let’s call them an interim manager.  You could come back here.  Or you could leave altogether.  We’d put someone in place.  If you and I and the Kennet practitioners are okay with that.”

“Or?” the Witch asked.

“Or you keep doing what you’re doing, and every now and then I’d reach out to these guys, they’d ask you.  Subcontracting.  You get seven to fifteen thousand dollars for an afternoon’s work.”

“How often?”

“I’d guess… three to seven times a year.  You’d have to agree to not work for my competition.  I’d continue to teach you, either way.”

“Let’s have that business dinner,” the Witch said.  “We can talk about it then.  For now… you were going to show me things.”

“Basic augury.  You’ve been using the head, but the gut is something else entirely, and lines up neatly with people’s own gut feelings.  If you’re doing instinctive practice-like augury, like some of the first augurs did, then that helps a ton.  You actually leaped into the advanced technique.”

“Hmm.”

“Did you notice you got better results if you crushed the bird enough to get guts in the mix?”

“Mm.  I thought that was because there was more blood.”

Lucy walked away from the conversation, then eyed Verona, motioning for her to follow.

But I want to listen!

Toadswallow and Liberty were talking.  Goblins were hanging around, all in a good mood.

“I asked if I could borrow Cherrypop,” Liberty said.  “I’ll drop her off?  Nicolette’s driving me over, but my dad’s picking me up.  I don’t know if that’s too complicated.  I’d have him stop so I can drop her off.”

“That might be complicated,” Verona said.

“I’d make you an offer, Liberty my girl, tell you to chuck her out the window-”

“Ey!” Cherrypop exclaimed.

“-and I’d go pick her up, make sure she made it back safely.  Or I’d send someone.  But I don’t trust your father as well as you do.”

“Daddy’s a sucker for the ol’ puppy dog eyes.  You wouldn’t even have to go that far.”

“I’ve heard and seen enough of him to know that’s true.  But I also know he’s a busy man who lets other priorities take hold, letting you down in occasions big and small.  If you want to trust him and it’s just you and your joy on the line, I’ll accept that,” Toadswallow said.  “But not if it’s a goblin I’ve said I’ll protect.  The little nubwit is apprenticed under me.  If he disappoints you, that’s one thing, but if, in the process of disappointing you, he puts her at risk, or if she gets lost and can’t find Kennet again, or if she gets hurt or bound-”

“I really think you’re wrong about Daddy.”

“-I can’t let that happen,” Toadswallow finished.

“I know my daddy better than you do, Uncle Toad.  I’m saying it’s okay.”

“And I won’t gainsay you.  I still won’t let you borrow Cherrypop either, as happy as it would make her and Snowdrop.”

“Ey, no!  What are you saying!?” Cherrypop cried out.

“I love you, Uncle Toadie.  You were cuddly and sweet and gentlemanly when everything else felt hard and unkind, back when I was littler.  You made me want to be who I am today.  America too.”

“I’m glad.”

“But you sure can be a real saggy butthole sometimes, you know that?”

“I do,” Toadswallow replied.

“You abandoned us.  You got us to love you and then you abandoned us, and that’s a way meaner prank to pull than, like, a fire ant douche or brain damage.”

Verona glanced at Lucy, who had dropped her eyes to the ground.

“I did.  Had to.  I hope you understand there were good reasons.”

“Maybe, um, do you want to call it quits here?” Verona asked.

Liberty shook her head.

“For the sake of the market?  If goblins see you two arguing…”

Cherrypop had started wailing.

“Easy there, little one,” Liberty soothed.  “It was only a week ago you went, right?”

“I’m too dumb to understand how long a week is!  I don’t understand time!  It feels like forever!”

“Come on.  You can tell me about the path you and Snowdrop were making.”

“Liberty,” Toadswallow said.

“I don’t want to mess up your trial run at the market, so yeah, let’s not fight.  I’ll give you some hype, and I won’t steal Cherrypop.”

“Steal me!” Cherry exclaimed.

“Get us started?” Liberty asked him.

“Alright,” Toadswallow grunted out the word.

I used to be her, Verona thought.  It took me way too long to catch onto the fact that things weren’t right.

I think I was happier when I didn’t know.  Bit of self blame, sure, but it’s a whole lot easier than resenting someone and then blaming myself on top of that.

Maybe that was why Toadswallow wasn’t pushing harder.

Toadswallow climbed up onto a car.  He had to work to climb up the rear window and onto the roof.  He straightened, then pulled a bell from his vest, waving it by the handle.

The dainty sound of the bell was jarring amid the hubbub of conversations, partying goblins, and general noise.

“Today, I present to you a small sample of what the future will bring.  In the months and years to come, we’ll have weekly markets, and eventually, if all goes to plan, we’ll have a market open every day.  Bangnut.”

Bangnut opened a van door.  Three creatures were inside containers- one in an fishtank, one in a kennel, and one inside a laundry basket, trying to reach over the lip, fingers straining.

“From the depths of the Warrens, it’s our first mystery beast.  Is it a robust sewer rat?  An ugly dog?  Who knows?  But it’s a special kind of mean, a special kind of rabid, and it’s so steeped in Warrenstuff there’s few poisons or sicknesses that can touch it.  It’s the opposite of house trained!  Goes to the individual making the best offer by day’s end!”

“Ooh, a guard animal for my little alchemist workshop.”

“The opposite of house trained, Ronnie.”

“Our second mystery-thing.  Why have a dog you can cuddle when you can have a vaguely sentient tumor-lump?  It oozes, it sometimes makes sad noises, it subsumes evidence.  Keep it in your lair and it’ll intimidate everyone who sees it.  Why does this person have a thirty pound lump of diseased flesh in their lair?  Because they’re fierce.  They’re weird!”

“It’s cute.”

“It is not cute, Ronnie.”

“And then we have this fella!” Toadswallow proclaimed.  Nat pulled on the lip of the laundry basket, and grabbed the arm that was inside.  It was jaundiced and bruised with flesh that looked Frankenstein-y.  “Some poor soul lost their limb, but their limb went on a journey in the Warrens and found itself.  Crawling around, through filth and muck, brave stray limb, it found deep inner strength… and knives!”

The part of the arm that would connect to a shoulder was raw, bristling with serrated objects and weaponry that scar tissue held in place.  Nat winced as the arm tried to bat at the side of her face with the weaponized end.

“I like it,” Verona said.

“Your dad would freak.”

“That’s a bonus.”

“Does tricks!  Stands guard!  Surprisingly good listener, considering it doesn’t have ears.  Real gem, this one.  Put a gun in the hand and you have a double threat.  It’s a passable shot!”

The joy from Toadswallow felt forced.

“Make your offers to me, Nat, or Bangnut if you’re interested in one of our beasties.  Moving on, Ramjam, make your pitch!”

“Shivs, swords, daggers, hammers!” Ramjam called out.  “Hold ’em, stick ’em in healthy flesh, it turns all bloody and gross!  It’s great!”

“A good weapon is truly great,” Toadswallow declared.

“Some are magic!” Ramjam told the various goblins and members of the Witch’s and Vice Principal’s crowds.  “Real funky stuff, I even remember most of them!  This one’ll make the mom of whoever you stab jump a foot in the air!  Passes on the pain.  This hammer is fun, one swat and they’ll cry!  That’s what it does!  Hit ’em and even a tough jerk will start getting weepy!  What a wimp!  And the fact they’re crying means they won’t be able to see you while you use this one!  This one gives them scars with funny faces!  Imagine!  They’ll get all mad they have a scar, then they look closer in the mirror and it’s a scrunched up face sticking out a tongue at them!  For the rest of their lives!  It’s so great!”

“Those are the crap ones,” Toadswallow pointed out.

“Oh yeah!  I like this one!  You gotta prep it, put it with an egg overnight.  Then you hit someone and they’ll heal, none the wiser.  Then they’ll swell and swell and swell and blammo!  Chicken trying to get free!  Or a snake!  Anything that lays eggs!  You can even do bugs if you’re patient!  How cool is that!?  They usually come out without skin or scales or feathers.  Sitting there watching cartoons, abscess chicken hatches out of them!”

“Ooh,” Verona cooed.

“Tell them about the special selection,” Toadswallow directed him.

“Oh yeah!  Three items, from the crossroads of the Warrens and the Abyss,” Ramjam declared.  “So great.  Look at them.  You can hang this cleaver on your wall and people will be all ‘why do you have a nasty rusty cleaver on your wall?’  Then you slam it into their neck or something!  Because if you like Abyss stuff, you’re one mean, irrational mother-diddler, right?  So cool.  This is the kind of stuff a slasher villain carries as signature weapons, and it can be yours!  Stuck being a minor gang member?  Some jerkass who thinks they’re a hero is crashing your place of work?  Are you going to be one of the guys who goes in one by one with stupid dinky fists or baseball bats?  Or are you going to be the guy who walks up there with a freaking abyssal axe, the crowd parting to let you in?  Don’t mess with that guy!”

“What does it do, Ramjam?” Toadswallow asked.

“It lets you go up in front of anyone, hold it high, and call your weapon Morogorath or something!  It’s so great!  Who’s going to laugh or call you lame?  Nobody, because they’ll be Morogorathed to pieces already!”

“Function, Ram!” Toadswallow barked.

“Smack anything for quick access to the Abyss, smack anything in the Abyss for quick access back!  Whoosh!  Or smack someone, and it’ll slow ’em down.  Get ’em enough, they’ll get dragged into the Abyss!  What a way to take out the trash!  All for the low, low price of making you a real mean asshole.  It’s cursed!”

“And the actual price,” Toadswallow added.

“Oh yeah!  The low, low price of paying us lots of money, too!  It’s great!”

“Can I?” Verona asked Lucy.

“This one makes you stronger for every life you take with it.  Even if you kill ants, you can get a teeny bit stronger!  I tried it!  A whole day of killing bugs is like an hour at the gym!”

“That is a weakness we’re trying to cover,” Verona noted in another aside to Lucy.  “We’re tiny and weak compared to most people we fight.”

“We are.  But I’d rather do the workout.”

“I’d rather have the rusty slasher cleaver.”

“And this one!  I wanted to try it but my hand’s too small.  Gauntlet with spikes on the inside!  How badass is that?  If you’re wearing it and you die, you come right back, as a slasher movie villain!  Bogeyman version of you!  And if you’re already that sorta guy, first of all, badass, second of all, you get to come back way faster!”

“Christmas present to you?” Lucy asked Verona.

“Yes, oh man.”

“No.  I was joking.”

“I’m totally not.”

“Tatty!” Toadswallow ordered.

Tatty’s screechy voice was really not what Verona would have picked for a salesman.  “I got stuff!  Charms and stuff!  Trinkets!  Lots of stuff you use only once then throw away.  Cheap, so everyone can leave with something!  This dismembered eye lets you see what people have on them.  Know what’s in their pockets, except sometimes it’s wrong.  This one is a ketchup packet, but it’s got blood in it!  This one’s a piece of glass, anyone who picks it up will get cut.  Except you.  This one is a bottlecap, makes stuff frothy.  This is just a really cool little skull.  This is a dead roach, slip it into someone’s stuff, they’ll have lots of bugs to deal with!”

“Don’t go through all of them, Tatty,” Toadswallow told her.

“But I want to!  I get a share of the money from selling it!”

“No.  There’s fifty things on that counter.”

“This one’s a spoon.  Makes people near you way messier eaters.  Just don’t ever eat with it.  Ever ever ever.”

“Enough, Tatty.  Everyone, Tatty’s selection-”

“This one’s a plastic cow, it makes your farts twice as loud and twice as long!”

“Tatty’s selection contains many items very useful if you’re making anything fancy.  Got a favorite baseball bat for fighting with?  Stick that bit of glass on the end of a string, dangling from the handle.  Make ’em bleed a bit more.  Or tie on the cow and beat the farts out of them.  I’ll give a tutorial on the knotwork later.”

“I can think of a bunch of uses for a few of those things,” Verona pointed out.

“I bet you could.  You have money?”

“Some.  Money from my mom.”

“Go for it.”

The crowd was already looming in, investigating.

“And we have another assortment over here!” Toadswallow announced to the crowd.  “Largely nonmagic, they’re shiny baubles and cool things the goblins in our audience brought in as payment to attend.”

Verona tried to find a way in.  But the kids and adults of the Undercity were pretty brutal, and when she thought she had found a gap, she came face to face with a goblin instead.

“Maybe wait until things thin out?” Lucy asked.

Verona sighed, backing off.

Nicolette approached her.

“Oh hey, done?”

“She had to use the ladies’ room, she said.  We’ll eat soon.  Anything I need to watch out for?”

“Not really.  Maybe you could get fast food in Kennet proper?  She’d probably like that.”

“Yeah,” Nicolette said.

“Is it going okay?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah.  It’s good.  Thanks.”

“We owed you.”

“I thought I should mention.  I did my own read of the bird guts.  Gave me a feeling.”

“Yeah?”

“About Kennet.  What you’re doing.  This market, the ties to the undercity, about everything else.  You’re thinking about a demesne?”

Verona nodded.  “Some.  It’s one way we could try and keep the Undercity from growing while Kennet slides into oblivion.”

“You’ve got an obstacle in your way.”

“Did she tell you to say that?” Lucy asked.

“Who?”

“The Bitter Street Witch.  She told us to watch out, basically the same thing, half a week ago.”

“Then you should get on that.  Don’t let someone tell you a third time.”

Verona sighed.

“She won’t be alone,” Nicolette warned them.

“Frig,” Lucy muttered.

“Lis won’t?” Verona asked.

Nicolette shook her head.

“But we gotta?  There’s no way to do this without-?”

“No.  There’s no way.  You can’t build up Kennet, grow something like this market, or set up a Demesne without first finding some compromise with the city spirit governing it.”

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