Author: Wildbow

Left in the Dust – 16.6 | Pale

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Booker followed Lucy into the house, and Lucy threw her schoolbag off to the side, black and covered in red hearts.  She kicked off her boots and stumbled as she left them behind.

“Come on, baby sis.  I know you’re in a bad mood, but don’t make life harder for mom and me.”  He used the side of his foot to push her boots out of the middle of the hallway and off onto the drying mat.

Lucy stood at the foot of the stairs, hands balled up, emotions filling up every part of her that was supposed to be calm, still, or empty, until it felt like she had to do something. She wanted to shout, or lash out, or- get him angry, maybe.  Angry so she wouldn’t be alone in being angry.

But Booker had that look he sometimes got.  He’d been standing here or somewhere near here when he’d found their dad collapsed.  Dead.  Not that she’d seen.  He could be so bright and funny and cheerful and nice but in the times he wasn’t being one of those things he could look so sad.  Like now.

Which only made her feel bad.  Worse.

She turned and stormed up the stairs, wanting to stomp on the stairs in the process, even though she wasn’t big enough.

Lucy slammed her bedroom door behind her.

She could hear them in the hallway outside.

“Something happened at school.”

“You don’t know what?”

“Okay.  Don’t worry about it, okay?  Go get a snack.”

There was a pause.  Then the door opened.  Paul crossed over to Lucy’s bed.  It creaked as he sat down next to where she was lying, facedown in a pillow.  There was one spring that tended to go sproing ever since she’d jumped on her bed too much, and it reacted to the added weight.  She didn’t smile.

Paul rubbed her back.  “Tough day?”

She shifted her position on the pillow, forehead pressing down harder, chin tucked to chest, so she could talk without it being muffled.  “Tough everything.”

“That’s a lot of tough stuff.”

She sat up all at once, twisting to face him, and grabbed her pillow, pressing it down into her lap.  “Mr. Rush got mad at me because I colored in the map of provinces wrong and I didn’t.”

“He got mad?  Why would he get mad over that?”

“I don’t know!” she replied, plaintive, pushing her fists down into the pillow.  “I used the map in the book as a guide and he was all no that’s wrong, that’s not accurate and you should be looking at other maps to make sure but he didn’t say that before!”

“That’s a pretty old book, I think.  Older than Booker.”

“But he brought them in!  He didn’t say I should look at other books before and he got mad and he called me out in front of everyone.  Everyone was looking!”

Her face got hot with shame just recalling about it.  She punched both fists together into the pillow.

“That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“It wasn’t.”  She punched again, huffing air out through her nose, as if she was actually steamed, like a bull on TV.  “Other people got their maps wrong and he didn’t get mad at them!  That wasn’t even the worst part.”

“What was the worst part?” he asked.

She didn’t know how to explain the worst part.  She punched the pillow again, frowning.

“Lucy?” he asked.  He reached out and rubbed her shoulder, then when she didn’t respond, he touched her other shoulder and wiggled her.  She shrugged her way out of his hands.

“Later that day, different subject, he said George did a good job.  For something else, it wasn’t maps.  It was a quiz.”

“Wasn’t maps.  Got it.”

“It was like that show, ‘What’s the Question?’ and he had students go up in pairs to give the answers about stuff we’ve been studying.”

“Give the questions for what you’ve been studying.”

She glared at Paul.

“Go on,” he said.  “As your dad, I have to make the dad joke.  It’s a law.”

“George was part of one pair.  Mr. Rush was so pleased with how he did, he complimented him in front of everyone.  But George got the maps wrong earlier!”

“I don’t think I understand.”

She balled up her hands into fists, which were already pushed hard enough into the pillow that she couldn’t see them.

“I don’t know when the last time was that anyone said I did a good job.  That wasn’t mom.  I’m not good at anything.”

“Oh, that’s not true at all.”

“Then what am I good at?” she asked him, looking up from her hands to Paul’s eyes.

“Uhhh,” Paul hesitated.

“You’re good with your homework and chores,” Booker said, from the doorway.

“Ugggggghhh!” Lucy flopped backwards onto her bed, arms spread out.

“And you’re a good sister to me and a good daughter to mom and Paul.  You go all-out for holidays.”

“That’s so boring!”

“It’s nice though.  It’s better than being crappy at that stuff.”

“Taking care of people is a good skill.  You get that from your mom,” Paul said.

“But that’s not like… Verona’s good at art.  Caroline rides horses.  Melissa and Hailey are great in gym.  Mr. Rush thinks George is good at quizzes even though he’s not that good.  I didn’t even get a turn.”

“You’re good at debating.  Your outfits are always great,” Paul said.  “You’re good at being upside-down.”

“What?”

He scooped her up and held her, feet over his head, head dangling.  “So good at being upside-down!”

She shrieked, and the shriek became a scream, just to let the rest of the feelings out and get them out of the way, before she could squeal, shriek, and fight back in a more normal way.

The gun’s tip pressed against the soft skin where neck became chin, and she was forced to keep her chin raised.  An arm wrapped around her, hooked under her armpit, holding her.  She might have been able to wriggle free or fight him off, but not with the gun where it was.

She kept her hands out where he could see them, fingers splayed.  She barely breathed, she barely moved.

As small as each inhalation was, her nostrils were flooded with his smell.  He didn’t smell as much like a person as he did like… she guessed the smell was gunpowder.  And trees.  Like the Bethlehem campsite where they’d just spent the night with Matthew and Edith- pine trees.

“Hands out, fingers splayed,” he ordered.  Not to her, but to Verona, who he held at knifepoint, a short distance away.

He looked over to double check that she was cooperating, and she had a glimpse of his eyes.  He didn’t look dead, or empty, or angry.  He looked sad.

She didn’t want to die but she especially didn’t want to die while meeting the eyes of someone who looked like that.

The class was filled with whispers and quiet words.

She checked her phone.  There was a notification from the Class_RankR app.  She pressed the button.

“Huh,” Hailey said, behind her.

“Hey,” Mia said, voice bright.  “Go Avery.  And Verona-”

Hailey elbowed her.  “Let’s go sit.”

Lucy looked over the list, toggling to the girls, thumbed her way down it.

Most of the kids who’d been out in the hall stayed out in the hall, with some filtering in.  Others already sat at their desks around the classroom.  She could feel their eyes on her.

Her face flushed.

Last place.

Smoke rolled out around her, billowing from the rune on the inside of her cape, and mist crept in, seizing the scene before them.  Two fallen, probably dead contestants, and Gabe, on his hands and knees, trying desperately to find the piece of meat in his own vomit.

The look in his eyes-

The mist passed over him.  She saw only the shadows, as the children descended on him, tearing.

Tearing something out of him.  Small and child-sized.

“Come moons eight, they’ll be surfeit…” the children sang.

She pushed past the staring children with blood around their mouths.  Children with teeth missing.  Children with chewed up lips and tongues.

That shadow of Gabriel faded to nothing by the time she reached the spot where Gabriel had been.

“Full even when they’re emp-ty…”

She clenched her fists.

“Or else they’ll be forever a waif…”

The children began to dissipate, walking away.  Disappearing with the mist.  Never when she looked at them, but rarely there when she looked away and looked back.

“Barred from the horn of plen-ty.”

She stepped through the trees, picking her footing carefully.  She was reminded of spy games with Verona when they were younger.  Not that she’d get in trouble here if she made noise.

There’d been a gunshot.  A sick feeling in her gut told her something had happened.

She peered past the trees, revealing only a sliver of the scene.

It was enough.  Alexander’s clothes, Alexander’s shape… except the head.  That was a piece of the image she couldn’t understand at first glance, or second.

“Which one of you is out there?” John Stiles called out.  He took a few steps forward and in the doing, he blocked the view and broke the spell.  He looked her way and she saw a bit of his face, which made her take a step back.

She steeled herself, even though she didn’t feel the least bit like she was steel.

Then she took a step forward, towards John, towards that scene.

She watched as the door closed.  It was glass framed by metal, but it gave no glimpse of the scene inside.

John was gone.  Inside the Arena.

Whatever they could have had or whatever they could have done, it was gone now.  Either it was the last time she’d ever see him, or it was the last time he’d be him.

She looked up at a blood red moon, tracks of tears wet on her cheeks, and she waited for her friends to come back.

Lucy stared hard into her reflection, slightly distorted by the surface of the sword she was staring at.  Dust mottled the surface but that dust altered the colors and the shadows, instead of dulling everything.

“What the fuck?” Melissa was asking.  “But I want to see.”

“No,” Guilherme replied.  “If you’re to remain useful to Lucy, Verona, and Avery as a blackguard, you should avoid becoming too embroiled in these details.”

Bracken pulled his sweater and shirt off, tossing them to one side.  They landed in the dust on the cave floor.  Bracken looked like he’d been sweating slightly under the layers.  He wasn’t muscular in the classic TV muscleman sense, and a lot of the usual lines that defined individuals muscles weren’t there, but his biceps and upper chest were broad.

He’d worked for the Foreman not all that long ago.  Manual labor.

“I’m staying,” Melissa said.

“Let her stay, Guilherme,” Lucy said.  Guilherme was already steering Melissa toward the cave entrance.

“Let me stay,” Melissa said.

“Just for a bit,” Lucy added.

Guilherme paused, then let go of Melissa.  He reached over to the side of the cave entrance, where light shone through and highlighted a slice of rock, and in one motion, he covered Melissa’s eyes with one hand, picked up that light, a sliver of it in the form of a narrow sword.  He threw it at Lucy.

She knew she had to act with confidence.  She grabbed for one end of it, snatching it out of the air.  The residual blur of light and shadow fell away, and she was holding a sword that was about three feet long, and very narrow.  She had to hold the handle with both hands.

Melissa pushed Guilherme’s hands away, then blinked.  “What?”

He reached up to the space over the cave entrance, and pulled away another slice of light, while keeping Melissa from entering and getting to where she could see what he was doing.  He threw it to Bracken, while standing between Bracken and Melissa.

Bracken was a little rougher in catching it.  The light and dust fell away from it, leaving him with a sword that was a little shorter than Lucy’s.  But he was strong enough to hold it with one hand.  He seemed a bit more comfortable holding it with two hands, though, but she knew she’d have to keep it in mind.  That was the sort of thing she’d kick herself for if she noticed it now but then forgot it in the heat of the moment.

“Stop blocking me!” Melissa told Guilherme.

“You are to stay there,” he told her, “and if you move forward from where you stand without my permission, I’ll remove you from this spot, and not only will you not be privy to today’s event, but you’ll not be privy to any of my lessons henceforth.”

“Melissa,” Lucy cut in, before Melissa could say or do anything.  “He means that.  It’ll be like a curse.  He won’t even have to try.”

“Right,” Melissa said.  She tapped the slate floor with her cane.  “Got it, I guess.”

“My instructions shouldn’t need to be repeated by my student to be heard,” Guilherme said, as he walked between Bracken and Lucy.  “Spar.”

She knew he hated delays.  If he said go, she had to go.  That had been true when he’d been of High Summer.  It had to be more true now.  She moved forward, knowing that this fight wasn’t just about beating Bracken and proving herself as a student.

She thrust experimentally at Bracken, knowing she was just out of reach and her arms, fully extended, plus the sword’s length, wouldn’t do more than nick him.  Those lessons from Guilherme were firm enough in her mind.  Treating a weapon as an extension of herself.

It wasn’t even about what she’d thought about as she looked into the mirror.  That process of wanting to prove herself and be better, becoming someone who’d seen enough violence the things that had traumatized her were almost forgotten now, six months later.  Not being sure how those two things lined up.

Guilherme was extending a favor to her, bringing Bracken in.  Giving her a lesson.  It was dangerous and he was Winter and she was pretty sure the lessons would be scarier, or harsher, or more dangerous.  Like, she wasn’t even sure this sword she’d been handed was fake.  But if she questioned or she doubted, that might be the end of it.

Blade crossed blade and edge dragged against edge as they stepped a bit closer to one another.  Bracken lunged, abrupt, keeping the guard of his sword positioned so she couldn’t bring the blade into contact with her.  He came at her physically, his shoulder driving toward her, like he wanted to tackle or body check her, using size and weight.   She stepped back, out of the way of the worst of it, turned, to separate her weapon from his, and used the fact he wanted to keep facing her with the fact his weapon was on one side of him; she stepped to one side, blade’s tip dragging on the floor behind and beside her, keeping Bracken’s body between her and his blade.

She knew he’d get his sword around to her before she got hers around to connect with him, and she didn’t want to cut him yet anyway, so she drove the pommel of her sword into his ribs, instead.  He’d had a similar thought, elbowing out toward her face, but she connected, leaning her head back and away, and he missed.

The spot where pommel had hit rib glowed like sunlight on frost in winter.  She thought she could see the blur of bruise against pale flesh, and how even bones had bruised slightly.  Then it faded.

Illusory wounds.  Okay.

The swords weren’t light, even if they were thin, and the length made them slightly unwieldy.  Lucy knew she had to look good in more ways than one as her teacher watched, so she stepped back and away,  Her feet dragged through a pile of dust and kicked up a low cloud as she stepped back, crouching.  She kept the blade in the dust cloud where it was harder to see.

Guilherme would take issue with her hesitating, but if there was a reason for the hesitation…

Bracken was wary, and his instincts were good like that.  He edged closer, moving to one side, then the other, judging how she adjusted, looking for the blade.  He took another step forward, and she feinted- seeing if she could provoke a reaction.  He stopped mid-step and reasserted himself.

She adjusted her footing slightly, then adjusted again…

He saw an opening, and it wasn’t a trick.  It was a legitimate opening.

Except she wasn’t just using the cloud to hide the sword.  The cave floor was slightly uneven, and there was a one to two inch drop between the shelf he was on and where she was.  He stepped too far down, momentum and coordination briefly disturbed, and she took advantage.  She’d adjusted her grip too, holding onto the flat of the blade with one hand.  Now she slid her hand up the length, careful not to slice her palm open, and used the greater control to manipulate the tip.  It wasn’t as graceful as it had seemed in her head, but it let her catch him across the lower jaw.  Melissa shrieked at the sidelines.

He elbowed her, driving her back, and brought his sword between them.

“Fuck,” he swore, rubbing his hand around where her sword had made contact.  The wound glittered like the glare of strong, pale sunlight, and it flaked off, leaving him intact.

She used the moment where his hand was occupied, and she lunged.  And she expected him to be pretty good with the sword even one-handed.  She hadn’t forgotten that lesson.  But she didn’t expect him to be as strong as he was.  He brought the sword up in time, their blades clashing, then brought his other hand over to add its strength to it.  Before she could disengage, he forced both swords down.  The tip of her sword met ground and it was momentarily locked there.

He stepped on the flat of her sword, trapping it, making the long, narrow blade bow.  Freeing his sword.

She stepped back, trying to turn her blade to cut the underside of his foot, but the tip barely moved where it was pressed down hard onto the cave floor.  She tried again- a partial turn-

Bracken swung his sword hard into hers.  Both blades shattered.  Her sword handle flew from her hand.  He continued to hold his, broken blade stabbing out from it.  He closed the distance.

Weapon ring.

She caught his wrist and delayed his strike long enough for her other hand to put the point of a knife to his midsection.  Bracken froze.

“Enough,” Guilherme intoned.  His voice echoed hollow.  “Bracken Fry, I hope this is a lesson you’ve taken to heart.  Your enemies can always have another trick, or another weapon.  You fell into this trap for the same reason you made an error earlier.  You could have cut her instead of striking the sword.”

Bracken looked back to where they’d been standing when the swords had broken.  Bits of silvery steel caught the sunlight from the cave entrance where they sat on the floor.  “Maybe.  Hitting the sword was faster.  Figured I’d either break it or knock it out of her hand.”

“You like using your fists and your strength too much.  We’ll amend that.  For the next lesson, we’ll have the injuries stay with you longer.”

“Great,” Bracken muttered.

“That moment when you disarmed her and lunged in.  We’ll repeat that.”

They repositioned slightly.

“Again.  That same moment.”

Bracken lunged.  Lucy had the weapon ring-

She saw Guilherme a step behind Bracken, one finger out, lifting Bracken’s elbow, pushing it-

The blade came in at a different angle.  Her attempt to grab at his wrist was slower, because the same angle would have put her hand in the way of the angled blade.

She pricked Bracken at the same time Bracken plunged the sunlight-bright blade into her shoulder.

She hissed in, then coughed out her next breath, pain making the entire left side of her body feel wobbly.

“You,” Guilherme told her.  It sounded like a condemnation.

She coughed more, and fumbled for the guard of the sword so she could pry it out.  The slight shift of the blade inside her shoulder made her feel more wobbly.

“Holy shit,” Melissa’s voice could be heard.  “Is that for real?”

Bracken put a hand out, bidding Melissa to stay where she was.

“You’re meant to be my student, but you’re making choices that depend on your opponent failing.  You’re not finding your strengths, you’re letting him find his weaknesses.  That strategy falls well short if your opponents don’t make any mistakes.”

“It was the right strategy for this fight,” she replied, voice strained.  “I won.”

This hurt a lot.

“No, you must do better.”

Guilherme held the broken sword that Bracken had plunged in, and she was forced to follow a step or two before it sucked free of the illusory wound.  Guilherme seized her shoulders and adjusted her posture, while she was still reeling a bit, and with a hand at her shoulder, thumbed hard at her chin, forcing her head to turn ninety degrees.  His hand was large and broad enough to let him do that.

He positioned Bracken more gently.  Lucy breathed hard, her body still getting over the pain and the injury that were no longer there.

“He moved faster and with more strength than you anticipated here.”

He bent down and picked up the other sword, no longer broken.  He passed both full-length swords to Lucy and Bracken, handle first.

“As you did before,” he told Bracken.

She swung at Bracken, Bracken repeated the same parry as before.  Stepped for the sword again.  She turned it this time, so he’d be stepping on the blade, only for Guilherme to move one foot, turning it back.  Bracken stepped on the flat of the blade, and Guilherme stopped him mid-swing.

“Here, Bracken, you could have cut her instead of striking the sword.”

“You said.”

“Cut her.”

Bracken paused, meeting Lucy’s eyes.

Guilherme struck out.  The blade raked from one of Lucy’s shoulders, across collarbone, to the other.  She stumbled back, losing her grip on her sword, and stopped when her back met cold, damp cave wall.  She had to struggle for a second to find her breath, eyes wide.  The necklace with the dog tag and ring on it was severed, and slid down past her stomach, maybe to fall to the floor.

“If you’re fighting with swords, you’re undoubtedly fighting for something, or you shouldn’t have a weapon at all.  A delay in sparring can be a delay that costs you someone dear in reality.  Your little brother.”

Bracken scowled.

Guilherme turned toward Lucy.  His eyes were icy in a way that wasn’t consistent with how shadowed the rest of his face was, his back to the cave entrance.

“And you.  The pain is a material lesson that I hope will drive the point home.”

She grunted.  Fear fluttered in her chest.  The wound wasn’t going away.

“Come,” Guilherme told her.  “Another instruction, from a few moments earlier.”

She didn’t move, breathing hard.  Scared, she had to admit.

“If you don’t carry on, this may be our last lesson.”

Would that be so bad?  This hurts.  This isn’t reasonable or sane.

“I wouldn’t teach him any further.  It would be disappointing.  You’re a good student, usually.”

Usually you aren’t cutting me open, you lunatic.

I’m not good at anything.  It was her own voice, from years past.  From Paul years.

It echoed through corridors of memory touched by those she couldn’t save or help.  By failures and disappointments.

She stepped away from the wall.  Guilherme clapped a hand on her shoulder, and the wound across her shoulders disintegrated, along with the tear in her hoodie and the t-shirt underneath.  The necklace with the dog tag settled back where it should be.

“Resume position.”

Fuck she was scared.  Her hand shook a bit as she grabbed the sword off the floor.

He’d put Bracken back where he’d been up on the ledge.

“You delayed.  You let him make the move,” Guilherme’s voice came from the shadows of the cave.

“With a plan in mind.”

“It still hands him the initiative to act and make decisions.  It trusts he won’t remember the layout of the cave.  Repeat the exchange.”

There was the sound of a foot dragging.  The dust once again rolled across the ground, obscuring the footing and everything from elbow down.  Including the blades she and Bracken held.

Bracken stepped off the ledge, but this time, he remembered the gap.  He ducked low, plunging into the rolling dust, mostly hidden.

She parried the thrust, backing away, but he didn’t hold back.  A kick- that wasn’t illusory.  A slice- borrowing her trick of holding the midpoint of the blade to control the tip. She barely fended him off.

He threw dust into her eyes.  Blinding her.

Fear stabbed through her before any blade did, making it feel like her heart had stopped altogether.

She threw herself down into the rolling dust before he could act.  He kicked her as she ducked down, making her spin to an unknown angle, throwing off her orientation of where everything was.  She reached for and found the lip of that short two-inch ledge, brought knees to chest, and kicked at it, to help her roll off to one side.  As much as anyone could roll while holding a sword as long as the one she had.

Bracken stepped on her, stopping her mid-roll.  She could only make out the blurriest shape of him-

The sword swept a hair over the ground as it came for the side of her head.  She jerked hand, elbow, and arm over her head and brought the sword with them, so the incoming sweep would crash into the sword.  The tip of her own sword was jarred, and nicked at her hip.

He pulled back and away- a plunging stab.  She met it, grabbing her own sword by the flat of the blade and bringing it up, the foot of blade between her hands intercepting the plunge.  The descending point was knocked up and to the side, stabbing stone just a short distance from the top of her head.  She remembered the lip was near there, and shoved- driving that point toward the crack where the one upper slab of stone had broken from the lower one.

It seemed to get it momentarily stuck.  On instincts picked up from a dozen lessons with Guilherme, she swiped for belly with the sword she was awkwardly holding- she didn’t hit anything.  He’d leaned back, away, and was prying his sword free.

She scrambled to her feet, moving away from him.

This wasn’t Bracken she was fighting.  It was Guilherme, wearing Bracken’s appearance.  Imparting a lesson that would be driven home as painfully as the last two if she expected Bracken to act like Bracken.

Still partially blind, dusted from rolling around on the cave floor, she marked her arm, digging fingers through the dust to make an eye shape, a twist here, for a streak of black, a twist there, counter-clockwise, for a blur of white, to mark the reflection from the cave entrance.

The glamoured eye she’d drawn opened and she could see through it.  Kind of.

Verona was better at drawing the glamour.

He thrust, she parried, then she pressed with three three quick jabs, correcting each time he batted one aside.  The third time, he knocked it far enough to one side that she had to take four rushed steps to the side to keep the blade more or less between them and get it pointed at him again.

He caught the fourth stab with a bare hand.

“Next time, and every time thereafter, seize the initiative, instead of going through something like this,” Guilherme told her.

“Yeah,” she replied.

He dropped his sword and released hers.  “That’s enough for you for today.  Your head is elsewhere, and you’re rusty.  We can return to this tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she replied.

“Why did you come?  I told you that lessons would be hard.  Feeling that kind of pain you felt earlier will settle in the Self and soul.  It changes you.”

“Have to get ready and we’re waiting for certain things to fall into place.  I thought being stronger would be good.  I don’t want…” she shook her head.

“Hmm?” he made a noise.

For that brief moment, making that noise, it was like he was the old Guilherme.  A bit gentler and warmer, but always in a way that made her wonder if it was fake or feigned.

Except she didn’t feel like he could do fake or feigned in the same way.  Too much of what he was now was too serious.

“There’s a look in people’s eyes.  Sometimes sad, sometimes devastated, I don’t want to see that look.  I don’t want to imagine there’s people all over Kennet who might look like that, as they say goodbye to their homes or whatever.  So I’ve got to do something to save Kennet.”

“Alright.  Tomorrow, circumstance allowing.  Keep in mind, as our supplies of High Summer glamour run lower, we’ll use more Winter in the training.  The painful lessons will be longer lasting.  Eventually they will be permanent.  If you wish to walk away at any point you may, but it will be a total severance of our relationship as mentor and student.”

She nodded, frowning.

He turned.

“Bracken.  I’ll teach you some of what I taught her in her first lesson.  Posture, poise, presentation.”

“What the fuck do I care about presentation?”

“You should care that your enemies care.  The removal of the shirt was a good beginning, but it extends beyond mere state of dress.”

“Wait, being shirtless is a plus in Faerie-taught fighting?” Lucy asked.

“This is Bracken’s lesson,” Guilherme told her.

Lucy threw up her hands, gathered some of her things, including some shards of the broken sword- prompting a nod from Guilherme.

“I took off my shirt because it’s secondhand crap, and it was digging into my armpits,” Bracken said.

“Whatever your reasoning, you found your way partway down the right path.  Posture, come.”

Lucy joined Melissa at the entrance.

“Did you actually get stabbed and sliced?” Melissa asked.  “I couldn’t tell.  I thought no, but the look on your face…”

Lucy rubbed at her upper chest.  “Having fun?”

“Heck the fuck yes I am,” Melissa said.  “Do you think the huge creepy cave muscleman would give me diet tips?”

“Diet tips?”

“Being in that dream last night, my old body.  Reminded me what it was like.  I might have a janky-ass ankle for the rest of my life, but… yeah.  Was nice not hating myself for five minutes there.”

Lucy sighed.  “You shouldn’t hate yourself anyway, right?”

“Yeah, you can say that, and I can say that to myself, but I’m really bad at listening.  Cute guy’s a good motivator.”

Lucy sighed.  “I feel like I should tell you no, love yourself, and don’t change for a guy, but if it’s positive…”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t ask Guilherme for diet tips.  He’d give you some crazy harsh diet or something like that training session was harsh.”

“I can do harsh.  I like harsh.  Anything softer or easier would be too easy, but if you make it hard, maybe I can be more stubborn about it.”

“You and Bracken, huh?”

“Hm?” Melissa asked, perking up.

“You’re similar like that.”

“Cool.”

They watched as Guilherme helped Bracken with form a bit.  He’d said it would be similar to what he taught Lucy, but it looked like he was giving Bracken entirely different fundamentals.  Customized to who and what each student was?  Bracken had raw strength Lucy wouldn’t have until she was an adult, probably.  Maybe ever.

“Jeremy was saying Wallace hadn’t been in touch,” Melissa said.  “Same for you?”

Lucy nodded.

“Can’t you just magic up a solution?”

“Not sure what that would look like, but I probably could, if there was an option.  Bit of a fix for whatever’s upsetting him, cure if it went bad, or a way of magicking someone to not be a butthead.”

Melissa exhaled heavily through her nose.

“But even if I knew what I’d need to do, and even if I could do it, I shouldn’t.”

“Boring.”

“You know, if we ever… if we needed people to replace us, we probably wouldn’t want to pick the girl who’d abuse the practice.  Saying that stuff counts against you.”

“It’s still boring.”

“You think like that a lot?  Needing replacements?”

Lucy thought back to Alexander.  And Gabe.  To John.  Meeting John and seeing him go.  How many other fights, with smoke rolling out around her?

Scenes tinted in crimson in her mind.

Bracken was standing a little taller than before.  The scene inside the cave was tinted white, the colors washed out, despite the late afternoon sun shining in past the Greensey ski hills.

“Yeah,” she belatedly answered.

“Listen, depending on what happens… we might need to duck out for a while, put some bigger magics into motion.”

“Yeah?” Melissa quirked an eyebrow.

We talked about this in the dream.  But we also said not to mention the dream or let on that there’s a greater strategy.

“I’ve got a fetch ready.  So does Verona.  Ideally we do it on the weekend.  But it might not work out that way.  We’d need you to get the fetches through the school day.  It’d be three days, three nights.  That’s longer than they usually go without maintenance.  They’re set up to accept any invitations from you.”

“Invitations?”

“Yeah.  So if you thought they were falling apart or stuff was getting weird… maybe a sleepover at your place.  Or you ask if they’ll go on a walk… maybe say it’s for your physio.  Bring them here.  Guilherme could do something to fix them up, probably.  Or just… ask these guys for help.  Guilherme, or any of the locals.  Maybe if it goes really wrong, Verona and I disappear for the extra few days.”

“That’s a lot.”

“What we’re doing is a lot.”

“Sounds like,” Melissa replied, quirking her eyebrow again.

Lucy frowned, both eyebrows drawn all the way down, and Melissa stopped the eyebrow quirk.

Bracken picked up his shirt and sweater off the ground, brushing off the dust.

“You may bring him next time,” Guilherme said, stopping at the cave entrance, one arm going up to rest against the rock above the ‘doorway’.  Bracken walked over, working his arms into the sleeves before he pulled on the body portion.

“Okay,” Lucy said.

“The next lesson would be harsher.  Decide if it’s worth it.”

Lucy nodded.

Guilherme turned.  He moved like something that should creak, walking off to the side.  Dust stirred as he trudged across the cave.

They walked away, down the shore, matching Melissa’s pace.  The cane clicked on the rocks with every other step.

“Good?” Lucy asked Bracken.

“Was okay.  Interesting.  Little too focused on looking good while fighting.”

“That’s what you’ll get.  Maybe you’re more of a bogeyman or a goblin type fighter.”

“I think the way he explained it to me, if you can make it look easy, effortless, or like you don’t care, that gets into their heads.”

“Yeah that’s a thing, sure.  But one of the first things you teach?  That’s weird.”

“He’s got a point,” Melissa said.

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Lucy agreed.  “You guys good if we split up here?  I’ve got stuff to do to get ready.  Checking on Verona.”

“We’re good,” Melissa said.

“I’ll go to the refugee house?” Bracken asked.

“You okay doing that?”

“It’s a thing to do.  Keeps Bag occupied.  Easier with a bunch of them gone.”

“Cool.  Okay.  Maybe we’ll come back here tomorrow?”

Bracken nodded.

Lucy picked up the pace a bit, and it was sort of awkward to walk faster and break from Melissa but also like… Melissa was only a bit slower than her usual walking speed, so she had to stress her legs out a bit walking unnaturally fast.  Else it would take a minute to separate and actually leave.

She detoured up the slope a bit into the trees around the southernmost houses overlooking the river, then used a bit of the dust that had gathered on her to do feathers.

She became a cardinal, flying high over the town.

It looked more vivid in its colors, after how stark the interior of the cave had been.

She descended onto the House on Half Street.  No longer locked away, unfortunately.  It had been released back to them, title and ownership to come as soon as Lis adjusted the paperwork, which created an awkward period of time they were smack in the middle of.

Lucy checked the coast was clear, then shrugged off the feathers.

The steps they took to make a third, Lost Kennet would probably upset Lis, Charles, and Edith.  Maybe Maricica too.  So they had to make those steps in the right moments, in the right order.

“Knock knock,” she called out, as she let herself in.

“Here!” Verona called back.  “Me and Peckersnot!”

Lucy closed the door behind her.  She ventured into the kitchen, where Verona had the alchemy stuff set out.  Steam plumed out of a few beakers, went up to the ceiling, and stayed there, not really dissipating or being absorbed.

Peckersnot was on hands and knees on a piece of paper with a bunch of checkboxes.

“That’s one more for a retort of sulphur,” Verona told Peckersnot.

He checked off a box, then tapped the page.

“Yep,” Verona replied.  She turned a few key-tabs, letting fluids flow through.  “On it.”

“Making up for lost time, now that we’re no longer gainsaid?”

“Trying.  Guess we’ll see if these brews work out or if the time’s wasted anyway.”

“Cool.  Any word from Miss?” Lucy asked.  “I was distracted.”

“Not yet.  Probably a good thing.  There’s a lot to do.  I want to have a few answers to anyone who throws out a challenge.  I’d hate to have her come to us, saying Musser’s busy, the time is now, and then have to say no, we’re not ready, go back out there, Miss.  That’d be shitty.”

“Okay.  Makes sense.”

“You’re one.”

“Of the answers I’d want to give.  If that’s okay?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“I’ve got to break into the summoning stuff later, so I have more stuff I can do, but that’s pretty scary, you know?  For right now, did spell cards until my hand cramped, then started on this.”

“Alchemy?”

“Yeah!  Okay, so… got some elemental canisters, pretty basic.  Smoke on demand, air vacuum, I like that one.  Bit of cold, big fire if I need one…”

“Makes sense.”

“Remember the heart?  Had to do my own diagnostics.”

Nibble and Chloe had remarked on the pipes and things.  The various bits of alchemy setup had filtered their way to Verona through a raid on two alchemists who’d been scared off, a month ago, and apparently from the corpse of one Other who Edith had dispatched, before giving the residual flesh to Nibble and Chloe to eat.  The heart had been part of that second setup.  A realistic heart in stained brass, with screw-on attachments for pipes.

Verona had placed papers beneath the heart and those papers looked familiar.  “Can I look at these?”

“Go for it.  Double check my work.  Watch the steam, and the drips.  Might be a vector.”

Lucy took the papers, being careful of the moisture.  They were the diagnostics.  Nicolette had walked them through some of that while they’d been waiting for Avery and Snowdrop’s familiar ritual.

Prices, longevity, breath.  Alchemy centric, that’s obvious.  Verona’s cards suggest madness, fetters, the hanged man.

Verona moved Lucy a few steps back, like she was in the way, which she wasn’t.  “Best if you’re not breathing that in or getting too close.”

“What does it do, Ronnie?”

“Amps up alchemy, at a cost.  Casts out this radiation, right?”

Lucy took another step back.

“…And pumps this influence into whatever it’s hooked up to.  Makes it so alchemy works better near it, that’s the radiation, and any alchemy it’s hooked up to, but the price is other, non-practice chemistry you might try to do gets shaky.  And it’ll throw a bit of hallucinations your way, but so far they’re really minor.”

“Hallucinations?”

“Yeahhh.  There’s a thing of bleach in the bathroom, it was whispering at me to drink it.  Or mix it into stuff, to make potions.”

“Let’s uhhh…”  Lucy paused, frowning.  “Uhhhh… no?  This seems like a bad idea.”

“It’s cool,” Verona said.  “Really.  Only makes the regular chemistry of day to day life weird.  It’s letting me get good work done.”

“Be careful?”

“Will do.  I’ll only use it a bit longer.  Don’t take any meds for a few hours, okay?  I think that counts.”

Lucy frowned more.

“I’ll have to take a break anyway, in about fifteen minutes.  Then I’ll give the heart a week off, keep it out of the way, let myself recover.  Let the room recover.  If I started on something else I’d need to watch over it for another few hours, and I sorta want to do other things instead of making more potions and emergency things.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t make dinner, though.  The drawback includes cooking and baking, apparently, so I might need you to get takeout.”

“Can do.”

“The brass heart is helping me pull together some other little things.  Stuff to screw with people’s heads, I’ve got this one thing that if it works out, might give me a homunculus for a few days.”

Peckersnot made a noise.

“But I’ve got him.  He’s a help.”

“Nice job, Peck,” Lucy said.  She put her bag down, dug inside, and got a bit of pepperoni stick, giving some over to the little goblin.

Verona looked over everything, comparing notes that spanned two notebook pages to the readings on old timey dials, gauges, and thermometers.

Verona set the book down and rubbed at the one hand.  It didn’t look like she was even aware she was doing it at this point.

The image of that same hand on the last night of Summer darted through Lucy’s mind, crimson tinted.  Bloody, glass embedded in it.

For a last ditch effort that hadn’t ended up mattering.  It didn’t feel fair.

“You get the email from Avery?” Verona asked, turning to lean against the counter, still rubbing unconsciously at her palm.

“No.  Turned off my phone, then I flew over as a bird.  Anything major?”

“No.  But she was reading up on what we’re wanting to do, and there’s a finder thing that secures a place.  Seventy-seven mundane items.”

“Seventy-seven?”

“Bit of a scavenger hunt.  They’re all common things, like, glass marble with a gold or yellow bit at the center, child’s left shoe, glasses for a farsighted person with the left lens missing.”

“What is this for, exactly?”

“It’s like her down-to-earth practice.  Secures reality.  There’s apparently a whole system, she linked to the text in the Atheneum Arrangement.”

“It takes so long to log in and it times you out so easily.  And you can’t copy-paste.”

“It’s a pain, yeah.  Anyway, Finders will use seven items to protect themselves against certain Lost who’re active on earth, or they’ll pick one of the eleven sets of seven and use that for a binding.  Pecker and I were thinking we’d put the goblins on the job.  Make it a competition.”

“Want me to pass the list to them?”

“Yeah, actually.  The moment I heard you at the door, I was thinking about that.  If it’s no hassle?”

“I’m going that way anyway.”

Verona, still leaning back against the counter, still rubbing at her hand, bounced her leg.  Anxiety and nervousness.

“You okay?”

Verona nodded.

“Nervous?”

Verona nodded again.  “But it’s good to have a spot to come back to.  The under-Kennet is a nice escape from things, but it’s got its own stresses.  Needing to keep up appearances, y’know?”

“Yeah.  I know.”

“Everything’s on the line, kinda, don’t you think?” Verona asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Gotta wait until the right moment, establish my demesnes when we know Musser won’t send anyone major in to challenge my claim.  Then we rig it so we can create Lost Kennet, and for that we need… a lot.  A lot of prep, a lot of security.  It’ll get attention.  You did your training with Guilherme?”

“Yeah.  Bracken too.”

“How was it?”

“Good.  Scary.  Short.  Phantasmal wounds that might not stay phantasmal if I keep going for more training sessions.”

“We might need that.  People who can fight, fight well.”

“Melissa will help look after the fetches while we’re away.”

“Cool.  Okay,” Verona said.

She sounded reassured but the rubbing of her palm and the jitter in her leg gave a lot away.  Lucy knew better than to remark on that, though.

“She’s a funny girl, Melissa.”

Verona nodded, but it looked a lot like her head was elsewhere.

“I think I’ll go, unless you need me for something.  But I gotta say, you soaking in that brass heart radiation has me worried.”

“Give me fifteen minutes, finishing this.  Then I’ll put it away.”

“What about the homunculus thing?  If it gets to a certain point, you won’t want to see if you can get it alive?  Does that fifteen minutes become thirty?”

“It…” Verona turned, moving along the counter until she could crouch by a pear-shaped glass vessel.  It had what looked like overdone hamburger sitting in the bottom.  “Didn’t take.  I think.”

“Ah, too bad.”

“Yeah.  Another time!” Verona said, perking up a bit.

“I’ll go check our other arrangements.  I’ll pass on the list to goblins, if I can, it’s in the email?”

“Yeah.”

“And Avery?”

“Nervous but ready to move to distract Musser.”

Lucy nodded.

“Don’t forget to bring food when you swing back.  I’m ravenous but I’m worried I’d hallucinate and screw up somehow if I tried to mix peanut butter and jam for sandwich.”

“I’ll try not to forget, yeah.  Pepperoni stick for now?”

Verona nodded, and took the offered pepperoni stick in her teeth before turning back to the work.  Talking around the stick, she said something like, “we have complete quittance from the ambix.”

Peckersnot darted over to the ink jar Verona had put off to the side and held a black-stained hand high overhead as he looked over the page, ink running down to armpit.  The page was bigger than he was, so he had to scamper up and down to read the various lines.  Verona tapped one of the checkboxes, and he rubbed an inky black hand inside the box.  She looked back at Lucy and winked.  Lucy found herself smiling.

Verona was having fun, at least.  That was good.

It didn’t shake the feeling that they were on a precipice, about to take a massive leap.  Every preparation inched them closer to the edge.

It felt less like a thing they were going to be able to say, yeah, they were ready, it was time.  Instead, Miss would probably show up, say that everyone they needed to be looking the other way was looking the other way, and they’d decide they were ready enough.

Ready enough to leap into a situation that would be crimson-tinted in her recollection, maybe.

“Toadswallow!  My lord, my sir!”

The goblins came through the opening in the Warrens that Toadswallow had brewed.  Another canister of the same sort of thing he’d had them use at the Blue Heron, but this one boiled road and sidewalk, creating a pit surrounded by blistering, boiling dreck.

The Bitter Street Witch crouched on a patio chair with her assembled forces behind her, watching silently.  Lucy, meanwhile, had Pipes and Grandfather with her, Rook a short distance away.

The goblins ranged from Cherrypop’s size to bigger than Bluntmunch.  Many carried containers.  Paper bags, crates, totes, a goldfish bowl.

The lead goblin was female, a half-head taller than Toadswallow, though height was hard to determine.  Pink hair with white streaks in it was done up in an ‘up’ hairdo, and she wore a nice dress.  Toadswallow caught her in his arms as she threw her arms around his neck.

“It’s been too long,” he told her.

“My practitioner won’t do us the service of dying, my sir,” the goblin told him.  “But it’s alright.  I’ve got some time to see to our mutual affairs.  We’ll see what we can do for you, hm?  What affairs can we get in order?”

“They’re such dorks.”  The comment came from a female goblin that was somewhere between Lucy’s height and her mom’s height.  She had razor blades embedded into the lower edges of her long, pointed ears, and a dramatic sort of bat nose.

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed.  “You know ’em?”

“Oh yeah.  You a student of our Sir Toadswallow?”

“Uhhh, no?  Kind of?  Sort of.”

“I was thinking you were a bit old.  He likes working with kids.  He’s real good at it and shit.  Big ol softie!” the female goblin pitched her voice at him.

“You take that back!  I might have the constitution of a trash bag filled with sopping wet diapers, but-”

“Sexiest trash bag of sopping wet diapers I ever met,” the pink haired goblin cooed, leaning around him to kiss his neck, leaving a pink lipstick mark there.

“-but I can do what I gotta.”

“Yeh, I know, I’m just teasing and shit.  Speaking of shit, I brought you stuff!”

“I hope so.  Otherwise you’re just mooching.”

The goblin put down the black garbage bag she had slung over her shoulder.  She pulled out a stuffed animal that was very clearly modified by a goblin.  Barbed wire collar, one eye was a button, the other looked like it had been taken from a taxidermy set, and was disturbingly realistic.  She squished it down, and a knife blade poked out of the head.  “It’s got a knife inside.  You can always use another knife.”

“That you can,” Toadswallow said.  He moved surprisingly well with the pink haired goblin clinging to him.  He poked at the bag, peering inside.  “Your things from your stint as a bump in the night?”

“Yeh.  What do you think?” the goblin asked.

“I think that’ll go over well with the kids from the school.  Even teenagers like stuffed animals, but they get too self conscious.  Isn’t that right, Lucy dear?  You like stuffed animals?”

“I don’t have many anymore, but… I guess if it’s the right one.”

“See?  Self conscious,” Toadswallow said.  He looked happy, surrounded by peers.  “This is good, Dee.  You sticking around until the next market day to sell?”

“Nah.  Got places to be, person to do, I trust you.  Jus’ give me my cut.”

“Yeh,” Toadswallow said.  He looked up at Lucy, monocle catching the light.  “Lady who did the stunning job of wrangling all the rest of this lot is my girl, hanging off my back right now.  You can call her Lady Bubbleyum.”

“Charmed,” Lady Bubbleyum said, doing as much of a curtsy as she could without letting go of Toadswallow.

“Tall one’s Dee.  Be warned, there’s something wrong with her.”

“You’re a goblin who wears a monocle, Sir Toadswallow,” Dee told him.  “What’s wrong with who?”

“She’s got a thing about people.  Humans.  Keeps getting attached to them, then goes around calling me a softie.  Speaking of, you didn’t bring the munchkin.”

Dee shook her head.  “Nah.  She’s in a mood.  Doin’ her thing.”

“Hmm.  Big one’s Sockgnash.  Don’t know him as well, but we’ve talked.”

The big one was a hulking goblin that put Bluntmunch to shame.  A chainsaw had embedded into his shoulder and back, the chain coming undone, and it looked like flesh had grown up and around it like a tree might grow around a fence post, scar tissue thick there.  His voice was a mournful sort of deep.  “Seriously, Sir?”

“From my old neighborhood, this lot,” Toadswallow said.  “Lot, this is Lucy Ellingson, local practitioner.  Treat her kindly.  Over there we’ve got Rook, don’t test her patience, and the Dog Tags.  Over there, curled up in the chair?  That’s the Bitter Street Witch.  This is her neighborhood, she’s letting us set up the market.  She says to do something?  Listen or talk to me, but don’t talk back, and don’t ignore her.”

The goblins seemed willing to listen.  They nodded.

“Her brother will show you where to put the stuff for next market day.  Now, you want to stick around, you should abide by rules.  Bubble should have told you all.”

There were more nods.

“Mostly, we need security.  Extra hands on deck, while we get some things underway.  Listen, help out, and you’ve got the run of this side of town.  Keep to the knotted place, listen, don’t cause a fuss, there’s games, there’s shopping, there’s kindergartener fight clubs.  You can mingle with the locals here.  Just keep in mind, you represent me.”

“And if you cross Sir Toadswallow, you cross me,” Bubbleyum chimed in.

“Go.  Be good,” Toadswallow said.

A lot of the riffraff that hadn’t been introduced went about their business.  Bubbleyum peeled away to direct them, managing the flow of goods.

“What about our acquaintances?” Toadswallow asked.

“Two bogeymen, Milkmaid and Killwagon.  One guy from the deep warrens,” Dee reported.  “Deep warrens human is running late.  As for the bogeymen, we held ’em back for while we get sorted.  Kinda thought if we came in and the reception wasn’t super warm, they’d kick up a fuss and shit, y’know?  Which you might not want.”

“Good thinking,” Toadswallow said.

“Was Bubble’s thinking.”

Toadswallow nodded.

“Milkmaid wants to sell.  Killwagon’s going to bring a load of stuff with.”

“Good.  Bit of security, bit more for the market?”

“Yeh.”

‘Security’.  Toadswallow meant they were bringing in more soldiers.

The establishment of the demesne was supposed to be a big, once-in-a-lifetime thing, but the work they were doing now was barely about that.  The goblins might help with the demesne, screening out outsiders, or helping with the prep work, but the real reason they had soldiers was for what came after.  The demesne was one step in a much bigger process.  That was daunting.

At what point would Charles notice that what they were doing wasn’t about Musser?  Or at least, it wasn’t really about Musser.  It was about being ready in case Charles or one of the other co-conspirators took issue.  Or being able to apply pressure so that if they did take issue, they’d be less likely to do something about it.

“Toad?” Lucy asked.  “The list?”

“Right!  Listen up, you lot!  There’s a scavenger hunt going while you’re here.  The stuff we need has to stay mundane, no magic, no cheating, no modifications.  And the hunt has to stay in bounds.  No going to the city above, no causing trouble in neighboring towns, no causing any real trouble here.  Ask, barter, don’t steal, don’t start fires.  If you can dig any of this up without bringing hell down on our heads, you get store credit, or you get tickets for use at the cinema.”

Lucy nodded.  That should work.

“Does that apply to us too?” The Bitter Street Witch asked.

Toadswallow looked up at Lucy, who nodded.

“Gives some of my people something to do,” the Witch said.

“Glad to collaborate.  We could even make it a competition, if you think your people won’t get too upset when they lose.”

“Alright.”

Lucy.  Lucy.  Lucy.

The whisper pulled at deep-seated connections.  Verona’s.

“I’m being called.  I should go.”

“Check in later?” Toadswallow asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Bye!” Dee called after her.

It felt like it was all getting so much bigger.  Unwieldy.

Rook joined Lucy on her walk over to the Arena.  She didn’t say anything, and Lucy had enough whirling around in her head that she couldn’t really summon up anything in particular to say.

As they got closer, though, Lucy had a view of the residential area past the river.  The western half of Kennet where her house was, in Kennet above.

“Are you ready?” Rook asked.

“I think I’d be lying if I said yes.  I could work on this for another month and I’m not sure we’d feel ready then.”

“I don’t believe you have a month.”

“It’s a good thing that you have a realistic perspective of where you stand, at the very least.  I could see younger or more brash personalities taking a different stance.”

“Have you heard from Miss?” Lucy asked.

“No, I haven’t, not in the last day or so.”

“Because that’s a bit of a thing, you know?  She’s such a major part of this, but she hasn’t done much more than signal that she wants to do it.”

“She’s one of the few among our number who can get close enough to Musser’s groups to reliably track what they are doing.”

“I get that, but… it feels iffy.  Like, we raised an idea as a maybe, and then that became a thing we were doing, and she’s on board, but we don’t know why, or what went into that call, if her mind will change…”

“I don’t believe it will change.”

Lucy heaved out a sigh, then let it become a groan.  “Ugggggh.”

They crossed the Arena’s parking lot, walking over to the usual spot for the diagram.  Rook did a better job of keeping a normal walking pace than Melissa had, earlier.

Lucy pulled the chalk out of her pocket in advance.  “Has anyone else done anything like this?  In your experience with past… war efforts, I guess?  Or should I ask?  Do I want to know?”

“Things like it?  Depends where you define the line for ‘like’.  I’ve known Oni who created walled cities in pocket realities, to stage their offenses from.  I’ve known powers who led forces, who were potent enough to have a realm with them wherever they went.”

“Depressions.”

“If you wish to call it that.”

“And it didn’t work?”

“Those were different things.  We still don’t know the shape this will take, or how well it may work.  Those things were like this endeavor of ours, but it would be hard to draw direct parallel.”

Lucy quickly drew out the square.  It didn’t take much to travel between the Kennet above and the Kennet below, not here, where the line was thinner.

Rook stepped into the square.  Lucy bent down and pushed power into the square.  She could see the Arena, partially collapsed, the wood that grew out of it growing, with feeble leaves still clinging to branches, despite the chill of autumn.

The world flipped around them.

“Are you optimistic?” Lucy asked.  “No, stupid question.”

“Not stupid.  But no, I’m not.  I think that says a great deal more about me and my experience than the plan.”

Things settled into place.  Lucy straightened up, now in Kennet above.

Her phone buzzed with incoming messages as the cell service resumed.  She pulled it out.  Verona?

She hoped it wasn’t Verona saying Miss had turned up.  That the time was now.

The name came up.  Another, completely different sort of issue to wrestle with.

“Wallace,” she said, aloud.

Or, more specifically, it was Verona saying that Jeremy had said Wallace was back.  Briefly.

He hadn’t called.  He hadn’t texted.

“Your boyfriend?” Rook asked.  She wore a human guise, now.  A straight-backed older woman with a black dress.

“Yeah.”

“I think, to give you unsolicited advice, if you went to him and gave him your time, and then all was lost, you might regret the decision, telling yourself you could have used those minutes or hours to be better prepared.  But if you didn’t go to him now, and you found victory, you might regret he wasn’t with you after that victory.”

“Things are kind of weird.  He wasn’t in contact while he was away.  He still isn’t.  I had to hear from a mutual friend.”

“That does change the weighting on the scales, doesn’t it?”

Lucy frowned.

“You have our continued support, whatever the plan might be.  I’m going to go see Matthew and inform him how things went with the market, and Toadswallow’s newest guests.  I’ll return there shortly after.  Two bogeymen and a human of the deep Warrens, even if they are friends or acquaintances of our council leader, may require a closer eye.”

“Thanks, Rook.”

“Good luck to you, with the boyfriend.  I hope it works out.”

“So do I.”

They split off from one another.  Rook heading toward Louise’s.  Lucy toward home.  Toward Wallace.

Still have to get Verona her dinner.  Hope she’ll understand.

She could have flown, but she didn’t.

Instead, she stewed over thoughts, second guessed a dozen different things.

Down past the school, hospital, St. Victor’s, to the bridge.  Over, past Ronnie’s house.  Verona’s dad wasn’t home.

Further down the block, to Wallace’s.

Was this a distraction?

She’d been thinking back to bloody memories and deep disappointments and maybe a bit of her had been convincing herself that those things had been carrying her to where she was now.  As someone who could talk to goblins and think seriously about preparing to upset Musser.  Or Charles.

Would the Lucy of a year ago even recognize her as she was now?

Would the Lucy of a month from now regret, like Rook had suggested, reaching out to Wallace, misusing this time?  Especially if-

If what?  Wallace broke up with her?  If she’d been lying to herself about how interested he was?

It felt like the knife argument all over again, except this time, it was about how willing she was to be the knife.  How willing she was to lean into those violent moments and memories, if the situation called for it.

She stood at the end of his driveway, summoned up the courage, and then the anklet she wore ticked with the attention from inside.

She’d been seen.

Wallace emerged a few moments later.  Both arms were in braces.  He couldn’t pull on a coat easily, so he seemed underdressed for the cold weather.  Just a long-sleeved shirt with a speech bubble and exclamation point graphic on the front, like graffiti.

“Hi,” he said.

“Are we done?” she asked.

“Done?  Are we?” he asked.  “Do you want to be done?”

“Are you leaving?  Are you not okay?”

“I don’t know if I’m okay.  It takes time.  A few weeks before I can take the braces off, start proper physio.  I’ve got to go back,” he said.  “I’ll leave but I’ll come back after.  I’m getting stuff and we’re checking in with the rest of the family.”

“Okay,” she told him.  She wasn’t sure how to respond.

“I know I screwed up.  I don’t even know if I can explain it.  There was a lot going on.  My mom got intense, and you sent messages, Jeremy sent messages, couple of others from class did too, and I wasn’t sure how to respond, then I put it off, and I dunno.  Putting it off made it even harder to respond.  I thought about fibbing about why, like saying my phone broke-”

“Glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah.  Talked about this stuff with my mom.  She said to be honest.”

“Because,” she said, and she wasn’t sure what the word choice ‘because’ was about, or what exactly she was responding to.  She stumbled through it anyway.  “I don’t want to add to stresses, I know you had stuff to deal with, I get that, and I don’t want stressing over messages to be one more thing you have to worry about.  I don’t want to be me me me when this is a you moment, but-”

“Yeah,” he interrupted, in his haste to agree.  “Yeah.”

“I feel like I deserved better.”

“Yeah.”

“I worried a lot.  Was really hoping for an update after the surgery.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been ignored or looked over a lot, you know?  By teachers, family members, sometimes friends.”

He looked appropriately guilty.  She wasn’t sure what to add that wasn’t adding to the ‘me me me’ of this.

It would be fitting, even sensible, to walk away here.  Leave him feeling guilty, with instructions to stay in touch this time.  She could devote her time to things that desperately needed that time.  Preparation, training, getting herself sorted, and researching what they were about to do.

“Guess that’s it, then,” she said.

“That’s it?” he asked, more surprised and hurt than she’d expected.

“Of what I was going to say,” she clarified.  “I could go on, but what’s the point?  You screwed up, right?”

“For sure.”

She shrugged.  “Lot going on.  You get a pass, this once.  Make it up to me later, when things aren’t so busy, okay?”

He nodded.  “For sure.  I mean, yeah.  Yeah, happily.”

“Can I hug you?” she asked.

He nodded.  “Carefully?  And I’m not sure I can hug back very well.”

She hurried down the driveway, and she carefully hugged him, feeling very awkward now that she was doing it.  The plastic encasements around his arms  settled at her sides.

“You leaving tonight?” she asked.

“No.  Tomorrow morning.”

“You free tonight?  To spend time together?”

“Some.”

“Okay,” she said.  “Then let’s do that.  I’ve got to bring Verona food, but we can hang out after that.  If you want to.”

“I want to, yeah.”

“And you’ll stay in touch while you’re gone, this next time?”

He nodded vigorously.

“Okay.”

It went against Rook’s gentle advice.  It wasn’t honing herself into a sharper blade, it wasn’t taking pain and hardship as an excuse or driving force to become stronger or fiercer.  It wasn’t even taking the steps to protect the whole of Kennet from being gutted, from having a devastated or wounded look in its eyes.

There wasn’t even justice in this.  Wallace deserved way worse than she was giving him, for the radio silence.

This was for something else, done in respect to the version of herself that had once had a backpack with hearts on it, who had once played with Paul and Booker.  Who could scream and punch pillows and let every last bit of it out.

However this ended up unfolding, she felt like she’d need it more.

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