Left in the Dust – 16.y | Pale

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“She’s only just eleven.”

“She’s going to awaken in five months.  This is the world she’s awakening to.  She needs to understand.”

Milly’s mother’s voice and her father’s reply were so vivid in her memory it sounded like she was back there, at home, having this conversation.

“Are you up for it, Milly-on?”

She even glanced at her dad, to verify he wasn’t actually saying it.

“Yeah.”

She’d replied so earnestly before.  Trying to be brave.

Now it was just them.  Almost a full day in the car, to get here.  Even with the doors closed, she could smell smoke.  Her dad sat in the car, a dark look on his face, while men in black raincoats milled around a house.

“Come on,” he growled the words.

But Milly didn’t know where she was supposed to ‘come on’ to, because he didn’t move.  She undid her seatbelt, and it clicked out.  The straps slid across her waist and front, traction keeping it from zipping back until the last few inches, where it zooped into the side of the car and the buckle knocked against the plastic.  Her dad startled, reaching over, and she shrank back.

“Be good,” he told her, leaving her unsure what she’d done that was bad.  “Do exactly what you’re told.”

She nodded.

A rap of a knock on the window made her dad’s react nearly as fast.  But he didn’t reach out like he was going to hurt- hurt her?  Something else?  He just hauled the door open, making the person get out of the way.

“You brought a kid?” the voice asked.

Her dad slammed the door, motioning for her to get out.

She opened her door.

“Bait?” the man asked.

“Not funny,” her father said.  “The house is clear?”

“We did a sweep.”

“Then show me.  Milly, follow and stay close.”

Milly, her dad, and the grim looking man in the black raincoat walked up to the front door, where another scary looking guy in a black raincoat stood.  This one had a beard and looked a bit older, she guessed.

“Hugh Legendre.  Knight of Seals, side business of exterminating goblins.”

“You’re able to take on a side job, huh?” the man with the beard asked.  “Not enough big, unkillable stuff that needs to be locked away behind Wards?”

“There’s plenty.  But once the job’s done, all it needs is a regular check-in, to make sure nothing’s fraying.  There’s always goblins.”

“Sadly true,” the man with the beard replied.  “It’s messy.  You sure you want her in there?”

“There’s always goblins.  She needs to know.”

The man with the beard opened the front door.  Her father touched her shoulder and guided her in.

The front hall was in two parts.  One was tiled, the rest was half a step up and carpeted, and on the carpeted bit was a plastic-ish white cloth covering a dead body.  The plastic didn’t soak up the blood, but the carpet below did.  The white cloth covered enough that she couldn’t really see the blood or whatever soaking into carpet, but she could see the shadow of it.

Bits stuck up from the body.  Like the person had been stabbed, and the knife was still sticking up and out, making the cloth tent into peaks.  Except there were about twenty of those, all over.

She was pretty sure that was the first dead thing she’d ever seen that wasn’t, like… a bug.

Her father looked like everything in the world was heavier, even the skin on his face, his head, the clothes he wore.  Like Bee from UFO Chasers on the high gravity planet.  Except this wasn’t another planet.  It was a scene like the ones in the shows she’d get sneak peeks of her parents watching after they sent her to bed, where there’d be a murder and cops and people in small towns would act all gloomy and things seemed to take forever to happen.

“How many?” her father asked.

“Six.  Husband, wife, baby, two girls, neighbor.”

Her father looked even heavier.

“Where’s the baby?”

“End of the hall upstairs.”

“Milly,” her dad said.

Her voice didn’t come out on the first try.  “Yes?”

“Don’t go to the end of the hall upstairs.  Your mother would be upset with me if I allowed that.”

“Okay,” she replied.

“Follow,” he ordered.

She followed him.  Into the middle of the house, glancing into rooms.

In the very back of the house, past the kitchen, was a huge living room.  Two couches and an armchair were arranged in a square around a TV, and a big glass door looked out onto the backyard.  Bad words had been scratched into the glass- she saw that first.  And there was so much blood on the furniture and carpet that her brain defaulted to thinking it was a red carpet and couches, and something like bleach had been used at the edges of the room.

The coffee table and some of the cushions on the couch were littered with an arrangement of weapons.  Bone and meat and stuff that looked like it belonged in a butcher’s shop, but bloody.

The television was on, playing ads.  Something had been scrawled onto the screen.

“We think the kids were upstairs for a nap or quiet playtime.  Parents down here, taking it easy.  They snuck up, got the father.  Mother made a run for it.  Through the kitchen.  They grabbed everything sharp they could and caught up to her at the door.  Put those knives and kitchen tools in her.  Neighbor came to see what the commotion was.  They got him.  But by then, the door was open, some bystanders were looking in.  So they couldn’t do anything more to the mother.”

The words were a jumble that Milly couldn’t really order in her head.

“Police?” her dad asked.

“Got called.  It routed through to us.  This is messy.  Hard to keep contained.”

“Yeah,” her father said, gruff.  “The tools back there.  They weren’t just the dad.  The neighbor too?”

“Dragged through to the backyard.  Taken to pieces.  Pieces turned into weapons.  We don’t know if they were greedy or arrogant, but they were still here when we turned up.  They’d normally run.”

“Yeah,” her father said.

The loop around the house had taken them back to the front hall.

“Any idea why?”

“I have suspicions.  Any traps?”

“No.  We covered that in the sweep.”

Her father bumped into her, and for a moment, he looked confused at the fact she was there.  Like he’d forgotten.  He put a hand on her shoulder and she wasn’t sure if it was meant to reassure her or control her movement, steering her to follow.

Blood streaked the wall, like something had been dragged along it.  Here and there it started and stopped, because the wall wasn’t just wall- there were closet doors and slight bulges where the vents went up.

Everything was messy.  Things had been pulled from the closet, and in the bathroom, cabinets had been emptied onto the floor.  Bloody handprints that weren’t human handprints were stamped all over the white tile, surrounded by pills, scattered razors, and spooled out floss.

“Stay,” her father ordered, as he went into the room she wasn’t supposed to go inside.

Leaving her standing in the hallway, that smelled so bad.

The lavender paint on the wall in one room she hadn’t seen yet made her take a half-step forward.  While her dad went into the room at the end of the hall, she peered into the side room.

A girl’s room.  Two beds, one with a princess canopy, studded with pins and strung with beads.

There was a pocket dollhouse on the floor that Milly had back home.  Clothes.  Books.  The Good Simon books.  She’d had those as a kid.  Still had them.  Even though she was way too old for them.  Things were scattered all over, and some of the books had been defaced, with things scrawled on the front.

It hit her like a smack to the face, that this was a house where people had lived.  This was a house where girls just like her had lived and now they weren’t alive anymore?

Tears welled in her eyes and when they did, they made the light from the windows all have a halo.

And four inhuman eyes in the shadows under the bed that reflected the light from the windows got their own little light show.

Milly pressed her lips together, and edged closer to her dad, who stood in the doorway.  He was looking back at the room with the crib, and not looking at her, and when he walked into her reaching hand it was like she’d jammed her fingers on a basketball.

“I told you to stay-”

Her fingers, even with the pain, clutched shirt and dug past fabric to skin.

She held up two fingers, then pointed the fingers in the direction of the girls’ room.

“They were supposed to have fucking swept the place,” her father growled.  “Stay.  You did good.”

She nodded, quick and small, before shrinking back against the railing.

Her dad walked into the girls’ bedroom, and he pulled bracelets off his wrist.  She’d seen one magic circle once in her life, when she hadn’t been supposed to, and now she watched as ten or twelve surrounded the air around her father.

“Under the bed,” she whispered.

He moved his hand and the bed flew to one side.

“Not anymore,” her father said.

A moment later, something jumped onto his head, like an ugly combination of a frog and a dog, and he staggered to one side, hitting the door.  It bounced off the wall and mostly closed.

Something crashed, loud, and Milly backed off a few steps, breathing fast.

He was going to be okay.  He was magic and he was amazing.

He had to be okay.

Hand over her mouth-

A hand that wasn’t hers over her mouth.  Long fingers touching her cheek, one after the other.  Thumb on the other cheek, tipped with a nail that scraped skin.

It changed the angle of her face, and she found herself looking up.  At the attic hatch, which was open.  The ladder wasn’t lowered, but a slender figure with reddish skin hung upside-down, arms reaching down with one hand at her mouth, and one at her neck.  She could only barely see a mouth filled with yellow teeth and narrow eyes.  Most of what she could see was the slender arm that went down to her neck, and how much texture it had.  Like real skin.  Like her skin.  There were veins.  There was a bracelet, with what looked like red hair, or regular hair caked in so much blood it had gone bloody.

If ever a stranger tries to take you somewhere, fight.  Fight, scream, puke, pee, do whatever you can to make them not want to take you.  Because wherever they take you will be worse, and your chance of dying there is higher.

Her mom had been so mad when her dad had given her and her brothers that advice.

She fought, reaching up and grabbing hair, scratching-

Nails dug into her neck and she thrashed, pulling away- lifting her feet off the ground until she belly-flopped onto carpet, the slender figure falling after her.

Her mouth was free, and she screamed, top of her lungs.

Her father didn’t even open the door.  It swung inward, toward him and away from her, and instead of opening it he knocked it off the hinges in a huge, deafening explosion with no fire or heat to it.  It broke against the railing above the stairs.

“Down!” he barked.

She put her head down.

Another explosion with no fire or heat, a magic circle extending above and past her, carrying that push with it.  Tearing up carpet, tearing away the railing that kept people in the upstairs hallway from falling down onto the stairs, tearing away paint from walls.

Lifting her up, away from the ground.

She shielded her head as she drifted, weightless for a moment, before gravity gripped her and she smacked against the ground hard enough that the air was squeezed out of her lungs.

He’d hurt her.  But he’d hurt the goblin far more.

This is the world she’s awakening to.  She needs to understand.

When Milly knocked on the ajar door of Alexander’s demesne, her Sight warned her of the breach in security.  Even though it was his security.  She could see the world in borders, boxes, territories, connections running along the walls in bands that got thicker as the claim got greater.  Here, the space was uniquely and entirely Alexander’s.

“Come in,” Alexander told her.  “You’re right on time, but I’m a little behind.  If you’ll allow me a minute?”

“Sure,” Milly replied.

“Take a seat.  I’m trying to juggle a high-end contract the Belangers are managing with the work that always comes with a new cohort of students.”

“New?  Isn’t that in a few months?”

“The older you get the faster a few months will fly by,” Alexander told her, bringing papers from one end of his demesne to the other.  He shelved some, gestured, and had them sort themselves. “There are hands to shake, promises to make.  Wye is visiting a couple to be the model student and convince them that this school elevates us all.  Practitioner houses have been so insular these past centuries, it makes for a tough pattern to break.”

Milly thought of her own house.  Her dad, her brothers, her uncles.  “Yeah.”

“It’s so odd that we can often See connections, but we make so few.”

“Uhh, is this a sit-down to talk to me about arranging a marriage for me?”

Alexander laughed.  “No.  Your father would never forgive me.  Maybe one day, a few decades from now, parents will be able to extend that kind of trust to me, that I could grow your fortunes and theirs both with the deals I could make.  But we’re not yet there.”

“Okay,” she replied.

He paused as he looked at her.  “You drink coffee.  When I look in on the lounge in the morning I’ve seen you first in line to the coffee pot.  Would you like some?”

Milly nodded.  “Please.”

Alexander had a way of getting two things done every time he crossed the room.  Collecting papers and throwing something out, setting papers down and organizing while getting the coffee from the pot he kept in the little kitchen nook.  It was one of the things her dad nagged her about doing.  If you’re leaving the room and there’s dishes in arm’s length, take them to the kitchen while you go.

A goblin could burrow out of the trash you’ve got under this bed, Millicent.  You’re a Knight of Seals, Millicent.  Be tidy.  Mess creates more mess, Millicent.

Seeing Alexander do it so easily and efficiently did a lot more to sell her on the appeal of it than any amount of nagging.

When he sat down in front of her, holding the handles of two mugs in one hand, and a small tray of cream and other things in the other, it really felt like he was giving her his full attention.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked, to fill the pause.  She poured her cream while she did it.

“You’re of an age where you can graduate.”

“Yeah.  I mean, yes, sir.  I appreciate everything up to this point.”

“But you want to stay?”

She hesitated.  “I thought I could help out, in exchange for the room and board.  I know some of your senior students manage their family business, they come and go.”

“The Belangers, Raymond’s apprentice Judah, Braxton, Omarion.”

“Yeah.  You know I’m rock solid on protective wardings, diagrams, seals, bindings.”

“You are.  I should hope you are.”

“I could do the prep for classes, help organize.”

“It’s a rare practitioner of the caliber of Raymond, Durocher, or myself, even most of our guest teachers- we prefer to do our own diagrams, than to trust even an exceptional student with it.”

“Okay,” she replied.

“You’re a good student, Milly.”

Something in his tone- her heart sank.

“There are politics to this.”

She nodded, even as her stomach felt a bit hollow.

“I may be biased, but I think the Blue Heron is important.  Too many other magic schools are monoliths.  Students in uniforms, churned out as near-copies of one another.  Each with a wand implement, each tested and verified in core categories- summoning, duels, wards, alchemy…”

Milly nodded.

“We’re doing something different.  We don’t have exams.  The goal isn’t to mold the practitioner, but to break free of that culture of isolation so the practitioner can flourish.  Families will insulate themselves against everything else, sometimes so much that they marry brothers and sisters, or first cousin to first cousin.  Could you imagine marrying Eugene?”

Her brother.  Milly resisted the urge to make a disgusted face and shook her head, sipping her coffee so she wouldn’t say anything.  Alexander put a lot of stock into presentation.

At home the coffee was sometimes brewed with tar from past pots at the bottom.  Bitter.  This was really, really good.

“I know for a fact that your father and his parents had a conversation about him marrying his cousin.  He took it on himself to find your mother and woo her and her parents, because if he hadn’t, his parents might have insisted.  He did a fine job in that.  Your mother is a lovely person.”

“Thanks,” Milly replied, a bit awkwardly.

“That was only a generation ago, Milly, that it was a serious consideration.”

She’d taken enough classes with Alexander to know how much he liked students to follow his ideas to their conclusion.  She took the safe bet, tying the threads of what he was putting out there together.  “The Blue Heron is the sort of place that’s changing those things, even in the span of that generation.  Giving us more options.”

“I hope so,” he said, sitting back.  He winced.  “I’ve been bending over my papers for so long I’ve got a kink in my back.  The problem with isolation and insulation is that humans as individuals and humans as groups will lose perspective if they don’t regularly get inoculated with outside perspectives.  The Blue Heron, I’d like to think, goes a step beyond inoculation and becomes something beautiful.”

Milly nodded.  She felt a bit awkward as she tried to match his pace and narrative.  “I count myself really lucky.”

Alexander smiled.  Then the smile shifted a bit.  “You have your heart set on a private room in the western wing?”

No dancing around this subject.

“Yes.”

“Twelve rooms.  There’s politics to the decision of who we invite to stay, and appearances.  Apprentices stay close. I hope that’s understandable.  If we need them to run errands, it’s best to have them at hand.  I won’t say anything that would be catastrophic if repeated, but if you repeat it I’ll be disappointed all the same.  Are you willing to talk this out with me?”

“Yes.”

“Wye, Chase, Tanner, Seth.  Four of the twelve.”

“Seth gets a room?”

“Starting this fall.  The sentiment was that we’d need to keep him where we could manage him.  He has a tendency to get himself into trouble.  He is an apprentice, still.”

Milly frowned.  “And Nicolette?”

“Still in the east wing.  But if we don’t get more students she’ll have a room to herself over there.  We’re still filing off some of the rough edges.  Again, this is about politics, about appearances.  Guest teachers come through the western wing.”

“Right.”

“Judah is leaving.  Going overseas.  He’s spent more time away than helping Raymond, either way.  Zed will move from the east wing and take the room.”

Milly raised her eyebrows, but nodded.

“And Amine and Ulysse.  Durocher’s apprentices.  I don’t think you could argue about their inclusion.”

“That leaves us with five rooms.  Estrella frankly needs the sanctuary.  She’s sixteen, nearly seventeen.  We can protect her and her family through her.  We get a great deal of power and political currency just through that act.  Come a time when she’s a bit older and her family becomes great again, that little bit of sanctuary and a cozy room in the western wing of the Blue Heron will pay its dividends a hundredfold.  She can keep track of more Fae plots than I could make myself aware of if I devoted a month to the task, I have little doubt she can see right through me and what I’m doing here.  She acknowledges it.”

“Four rooms, then.”

“Reid Musser, Braxton Hart, and Hadley Hennigar.  Your father travels in those circles.  You know nearly as well as I do that it’s a circle best kept placated.  A token offering of a room and a bit of support for key family members, and it maintains some alliances.  Those are people who come to teach.  Or their friends come to teach because their children are positioned as esteemed students.”

Milly nodded.

One room left.

“Eloise is from an old family we want to maintain ties to.  Through her family, we get connections to so many more.  Smaller practitioners, to be sure, scattered here and there, but if the Blue Heron is to grow in reach, we need to start making the inroads now.  I would argue it’s especially important when those families they intermarry into are often desperate, mean, and petty.”

“Changing the culture.”

“Indeed.  Now, on that topic of marriage, I’ll tell you there is one engagement between a pair of the students I just mentioned that’s already happened but hasn’t yet been announced.  I’ll trust you to keep that private until it’s made clear, and not spread rumors?”

Milly nodded.

“You’re not that type anyway.  So one room will open up…”

She sat up a little straighter.

“…But not soon.  And I have suspicions that others are in line to take it.  One student who we’re trying to woo, because we want to know what she knows.  She wouldn’t fit in with the hustle and bustle of younger students in the east wing.”

Frustration gnawed at her.

Alexander leaned forward.  “Milly.”

She met his eyes.

“I truly mean it when I say this.  I want you to convince me.  I want this.  Make your case.  Argue you deserve a room in the western wing.  Shared bathroom adjacent.  No rent- we avoid setting that precedent.  Immediate access to the head teachers and guest teachers.”

“But to argue that, I have to argue that someone else doesn’t deserve the seat.”

“Yes.  Let’s ignore the hypothetical student and focus on the others.”

“A lot of them come from powerful or notable families.  But… so do I, you know?  The Legendres, we do important work.  We may not summon monsters like Mrs. Durocher does but we’ve secured a lot that are nearly that strong.  We keep them secure.”

“You do.”

“If we were more evil, we could threaten to open the cages.  It wouldn’t be all that different from what Mrs. Durocher does when she summons her creatures.  If what she summons is a handful of nines out of ten on the danger scale, we could let loose a whole lot of six, sevens, and one or two eights.”

“If you were more evil.  But you won’t.  Your family values the reputation it maintains by keeping certain dangers penned in.”

“We have that power,” she told him.  “We don’t use it but we have it.  And because of that, it feels like we get treated as second class.  It’s like- it’s like you’re not paying the police because you know they’ll keep working without pay out of civic duty, and instead you pay the arms dealers.  Literally, you’re rewarding actual arms dealers.”

“You and I know very different police, it seems.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I know.”

“We do good, Alexander.  There’s some dark, messed up stuff out there.  Nicolette taps into that.  Omens and curses.  Braxton Hart?  Goblin king, which says a lot, but- damn it, don’t get me started on Braxton.  What about Seth?”

“Seth is a petty criminal at worst.”

“The way Seth is with the girls in the little town just down the road?  The innocents?   Maybe he’s a petty criminal right now, but don’t tell me you can’t see it.  Not when you’re an Augur.”

Alexander smiled.

“The Legendres are the good guys.  That’s really, really rare in this world, Mr. Belanger.  If you want to change things up, if you really want to make a difference, you can’t take us for granted.  You can’t reward evil like Braxton or sketchy fuckups like Seth, and ignore the good guys, or I think you’ll get to that point, decades from now, where you talked about wanting to be trusted to make marriage arrangements and stuff… and your only options will be monsters.”

“You’re exactly what I want to see in our Blue Heron graduates, Milly.  Fair argument.  I could take vocal issue with minor points, but I won’t.  You know you need to kick somebody else out of their room to take one.”

“I’d say Seth, but… he’s your family.”

“And, as obnoxious as it might be, I have to play politics even with the wider Belanger family.  My siblings currently accept my position at the head, because I’m supporting the Belanger circle as a whole.  If they started moaning and groaning about me forgetting to look after family, or getting ideas about alternate leadership in their heads… it’s not worth it.”

“Nepotism.”

“Or pragmatism,” Alexander replied, smiling.

“Braxton.  He’s not around all that often.  He’s a bad look in the western wing, when guest professors come in.  If you’re keeping Nicolette out for her rough edges… why keep him?”

“Because Braxton has charmed Anthem Tedd, and Anthem Tedd is particular about influences on his daughters.  Remove Braxton and you must consider the effects that ripple out.  The Tedd sisters straddle a razor’s edge.  I know you’re not especially fond of them.”

“But I think you’d agree they’d be better off here than in the sole, insulated company of a man who thinks of Braxton as a stepson and fellow in arms.”

“That’s-” Milly shook her head.  “That’s not-”

“Because if we removed Braxton, who is acting as Anthem’s second set of eyes on the girls, he’d withdraw them.  I think they’d suffer for that.  Is what you’re offering worth that suffering?  Especially when we’ve just talked about how important it is to branch out and inoculate?”

She couldn’t really bring herself to one hundred percent agree but she couldn’t say no either.

“Your family circumstances- what you’ve described in the unfairness of it,” Alexander noted.  “It’s familiar.  I hope you don’t mind me changing the subject some.  I didn’t have the impression you had a strong follow-up argument.”

Milly was silent, frustrated.

“The current standing of your family is what mine was, growing up.  Not to say we were ‘good guys’, mind.  But in terms of size, the degree of respect we held or didn’t hold, finances, influence… the Belangers then and the Legendres now aren’t so different.  Even the shape of the family is the same.  Your father handles the business of it, your… aunt Ursanne?  Family affairs, if I remember right.  She’d insist on attending any meeting about arranged marriages, mediates disputes?”

“Yes.”

“My cousin.  Ten years my senior.  You have someone to sort out and keep track of the family’s collection of magic items?  But it’s not a full time job?”

“Bodie.  He looks after that, but he’ll do patrols and check-ups on the various bindings.  Injured a little while ago.”

“My sister had that duty.  Along with the I.T. parts of things.  My association with Raymond gave her a lot of free time.  Which is good.  It gave her time to be a mother.  We’re not so different, Milly.  When I said I wanted you to make a good argument, that was why.”

“I made a good argument.  You said it was fair, you were proud?”

“I did.  I am.  Except it wasn’t a complete argument.  I can’t justify the political side of it.  I’ll offer you the back room in Workshop C.  There’s room for a bed, the staff will arrange it, same way they did your room in the east wing.  Adjoining bathroom, no shower I’m afraid.  You’d have to use the one in the east wing.  I’ll give you a considerable cut on the rent.  In exchange, you help oversee the projects.”

“Okay.  I’ll take that offer,” she replied.  She set the coffee cup down, doing her best to fight back her disappointment.  “Thank you.”

“Good.  You aren’t happy.  Are you hurrying to accept the deal before you voice your concerns?”

“I feel like a second class citizen.”

Alexander nodded.  “Then become a first class practitioner.  It isn’t enough to be good, Milly, if that’s what you are…”

She frowned at him.

“…You must do good.  Surpass those who take alternative paths.”

“You’re actually telling me that within minutes of saying, no, sorry, you can’t give me a room in the western wing of the school itself-”

“Politics.”

“But you’ll rent one to me.  For-?”

“Two hundred a month.  Access to facilities and the staff kitchen.  Tuition waived.”

“That’s still two hundred dollars a month I’m paying that they aren’t.  As modest a handicap as that is, you’re telling me to surpass them while handicapping me?”

“I surpassed my betters while paying four times that, in addition to food costs and other bills, buying my own practical texts, with other obligations besides.  And here I sit.”

Something slight in his tone had changed.

She sensed she couldn’t push further without him potentially withdrawing the offer for the room in the workshop.  Even if he threatened it, it would put cracks in their relationship and potentially lead to him kicking her out of the workshop a little further down the road.

“Thank you for your generosity.  I suppose I’ll have to try to live up to that example,” she said.  She stood.  “Thank you for your time as well.  I know you’re busy.”

“Good luck,” Alexander told her.

“I don’t think we’ve had a conversation like this,” her father told her.

“A conversation like what?” she asked.

“Let me get your mom in the room.”

She walked across the sports field.  There weren’t many people outside, with the weather threatening rain.  She kicked a ball that had been left lying around over in the direction of the shed.

“Dad?”

“One moment.  She’s here,” he said.  His voice changed, like he’d switched to speaker phone and she was catching the faint echo.

“What’s this about?” Milly asked.

“You’re old enough to have input.  We had a conversation last fall about what you’re doing at the Blue Heron, but up until now, when it comes to family and when it comes to practice, I’ve said you have to do as I say.”

“Sometimes we know details you don’t,” her mother clarified.

Getting the marching orders.

“Is this a marriage thing?” she asked.

“No,” her father replied.  “Are you alone?”

“Yes.  I think so.  But there are some who are always watching over us.”

“A circle, then.”

Milly nodded.  She walked off the field and a bit into the woods, until she found a crossing point in the paths.

She used the pouch she kept attached to her belt, dribbling out chalk to draw a circle.  She annotated it.  “There.  I don’t think anyone here can listen in now.”

Her father went on, saying, “There’s a conflict brewing.  You’re closest to the center of it.  You know who our allies are.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“But it would be understandable if you thought more of Alexander, and what he could do for the Legendres,” her father told her.

“Or for you,” her mother added.  “For Howie, for Eugene.  For your cousins, if they ever attend.”

“What do you think?” her father asked.

Milly turned, looking past the trees at the school.  “Big question.”

“One that could change the direction of our family’s fortunes.”

Frustration had turned to anger and anger had turned into a quiet bitterness.  It didn’t help that she hadn’t found a good angle to take if she wanted to ‘surpass’ the others.  It didn’t help that the people who’d moved into the western wing of the school could sit in the chairs in the hallway or in the study nook, and talk with Ray, Alexander, or Durocher in the earliest and latest hours of the day… while Milly was closer to the parking lot than the school.

“The funny thing is…” Milly started.  “Mr. Belanger would probably forgive me for siding with Mr. Bristow.  Mr. Bristow would hold a gruge.”

“He would,” her father said.

Milly smiled to herself, but it was a bitter smile.  “But if I factor that into the- the calculations, the strategy of all of this, then I’m punishing him for being good and decent and fair.  Rewarding Mr. Bristow for being more of a problem.”

“Is that the most important thing?” her father asked.  His tone suggested he really didn’t think it was.

“We should side with Mr. Bristow.  They’re our friends and allies.  Even if their friends aren’t always.  If there’s a confrontation.”

“There will be.”

Just like that?  “Okay.”

“I’ll let Bristow and Musser know.  The sooner, the better, I think.  Do you girls want to stay on the line here?  I’ll use the other phone.”

“We can talk,” Milly said.

“You’re doing a good job, Milly,” her dad said.  “Keep it up.”

She could hear his heavy footsteps in the background, presumably as he walked over to his office.

“We don’t stay in touch enough.  It’s been so long since we’ve talked,” her mother said.

“It’s been a little while.  Christmas?  No, march break.”

“March break.”

“Dad’s okay?”

“Yeah.  A council down just over the border asked us to look after something.  It’s good money.  They’ll pay upfront and then pay monthly.  He’s trying to get it done quick so he can be available if the conflict demands it.  He might not be able to manage it.  The stress is bad for his heart.”

“Howie, ‘Gene and I will handle things.”

“Good.  I know you will.  How are you feeling about all of that?”

What a question.

She stepped out of the circle before she answered.

“It’s… just politics,” Milly replied.

The storm was picking up.  Milly drove slowly, the windshield wipers buying her half a second of clear view before the patter of rain stole it away.

Wind drove a bird off course.  It hit a signpost and bounced off the road, and Milly steered to make sure the tires didn’t hit it.  The sharp movement of the car combined with the wind made the car lurch momentarily, hanging for a fraction of a second longer before all four tires were touching road again.

She pulled off onto a dirt road.  Her Sight let her see the boundary as she drove up to it.  Even if it wasn’t for that, the car had another tiny delay as she drove up to it.  The ward might have needed to verify, or the various bacteria and lower lifeforms on the car might have been screened out.

She was Lord of this territory, and that responsibility came with power.  She could sense the Others here and there.  The people who entered, and the people who didn’t.  Her claim over the area was extensive, and it came very close to a default assumption that anything that wasn’t already claimed was hers.

It helped her navigate down this way.  The last time she’d come, she’d been the passenger in her uncle’s car, and she always did a better job of finding her way when she’d been in the driver’s seat.

Down a dirt road, into deep woods.  Past a burned house.  A church.  One that had served a community well over a century ago.  The entire church was smaller than the living room back home.  Stone set atop stone.  A wooden roof that had rotted many years ago.  Moss grew on the planks and stones that had fallen inside the four walls of the church.  Enough dirt layered the floor that it looked like a dirt floor, but there were floorboards underneath.

The only reason Milly’s hair and clothes weren’t blown every which way was that she was soaked through before she was even at the doorway of that ruined church.

Even the driest wood of the little stage at the end of the room had a texture and smoothness to it like it had been underwater for a long time.  It was smooth to the point of feeling slimy, edges rounded off, but kept from being uniform because the knots in the wood took longer to erode.

Rain pattered down through the opening of the almost nonexistent roof, puddling on the thick dirt of the floor.  She stood on her toes, straining, and hung an old fashioned lantern on one of the intact beams.  She flicked a lighter, and ignited it.

The light whooshed out with a note that could’ve come from a tuning fork, bright, halogen white, and clear, making the vertical slashes of falling raindrops very apparent.

With the Lordship she held, Milly could sense the stray goblins and spirits of the woods clearing away.  Pests.  The storm meant that a lot of normal wildlife was scared off, and the magic of the warding lantern meant that other observers would be driven off, and augurs would have to peer past blinding light.

She was completely and utterly alone now.  No rat, crow, or goblin was watching.  Even moths were driven off.  Only the smallest forms of insect life remained, and only because they were slow to travel.

With a grunt, Milly hauled on the stage, lifting it, and hidden hinges let her open it up to clear the way to a cellar area beneath.  She held it up as she climbed down the ladder, and then lowered it above her.  Rain gunned down from the sky above and it came through the slats in the hidden hatch in sheets.

There were old wine bottles down here.  Her family had claimed some.  Most had been sour.  They’d left the others as prizes for anyone who came exploring and who might somehow make it past the general wards.

She locked the hatch with a slip of paper, then walked to the one wall where stones struggled to shore up the wall and keep dirt from pouring into the cellar.  She touched one.

Stones turned, moved, and adjusted, to form a square shape.  The stones within the square retreated.

A doorway.

She ducked through.

The space behind wasn’t large.  Two paces by three paces.  The little light in this place came through the slats in the wood of the stage, down to the cellar, and rebounded through to pass through cracks in the stone.  At least, when the wall was closed.

Her activation of her lighter made the man within jump.  Not because it was bright in the dark, but because it was loud.

He was emaciated.  Her brother’s height, less than a third of the weight.  Skin sucked in between ribs to the extent she could have laid a finger inside one of the divots and been level with the ribs.  A man, dressed in scant rags, but the rags had gone stiff long ago.

He embraced a clay pot, legs and arms wrapped around it.  He’d been down here for so long that tree roots had grown into him, draining away moisture and leaving flesh stone-like.  Those same roots bound arms and legs in place.  A curl of root filled one eye socket, and in the other, dust and grit had caked it to the point that it was impossible to tell where the eye was meant to open.  The roots bound legs to the flat stone of the floor, extended beneath the rags of his pelvis.  Rooting him to the floor in more than one sense.

“Hello again, Talbot.  It’s been another month,” she greeted him.

He opened his mouth, tendons popping and earthy skin cracking, but only a creaking sound came out when he tried to speak.

“I’m Lord of this area now.  Someone took the Lordship and handed me the crown to expedite matters.  I suppose you and I will become acquainted.”

Another creak of a response.

She wet a cloth with a water bottle, then wiped his forehead.  She rinsed it twice, then daubed at the eye that wasn’t covered in root.  The moisture turned caked on dust into something muddy.  She gently pulled it away, pulling eyelashes out with it, knowing the skin had to feel raw, after being exposed to the elements again.

He opened the eye and looked through her.  His eye was very blue, the gaze very sad.

He made another creaking response.  A lip bled as it cracked.

“Here,” she offered.  She wet his lips with the cloth.  He kissed the cloth and sucked away dirty moisture.  “Don’t drink that just yet.  I’ll give you clean water in a moment, if you’ll wait.”

Long, long ago, around a time of early settlers, someone had tried to make a Gu jar.  They’d captured venomous beasts, goblins, and evil spirits, and they’d stored them in a jar, with the expectation they’d devour one another, concentrating ugliness and poison into a single survivor.  Or that they’d dissolve and something else would rise within.

As the story went, the maker of the jar had realized that what he’d made was too great and terrible to be let loose.  He’d taken measure after measure to keep it contained, but the jar would knock and the lid would shake, threatening to come free.  So he’d placed it inside another jar with a cork and he’d sealed it with practice.  Then inside another jar, this jar, giving it no opening or exit at all, except being broken.

And the first jar inside had broken with a crack that had woken everyone in the area out of their slumber.  Then the second jar had broken and the creator had gone running about, carrying the jar, desperately afraid of dropping it, but needing help all the same.

Back then, a lot of practitioners had been tied to the Church.  The man in charge of the church had agreed to handle the problem.

A selfless man.  He’d warded the area, and hid himself away, embracing the jar to seal it within his grasp.  Then, to the stunned and relieved culprit, he’d asked that the creator of the jar turn away from evil and live a life as virtuous as the one the reverend would now never be able to leave.

And then he’d remained.  Sitting in the dark, hidden from sight and interference, holding the four foot tall clay jar carefully with limbs marked with wards, so it couldn’t throw itself to one side or hatch from the jar that was now egg-fragile.  Prayers and power meant he didn’t starve, though he got hungry, and he didn’t dehydrate.  He didn’t need sleep, and he didn’t age.  People would visit from time to time.  The caretaker of the church would be his caretaker, visiting every evening.

Until the church had been abandoned.  A man with dreams of chasing a higher position moved on from the little stone church and the reverend in the cellar, and he left nobody in his stead.  Roots had grown in, securing him, skin became like stone, etched with the wards, and the means of entering the hidden room was forgotten.

While scanning the region for any latent dangers, Milly’s dad had found the reverend here.  Keeping eternal vigil.

Talbot had been Sealer, much like her.  Now he was Other.

“Here, drink,” she told him.  She put the cloth to his lips.

“No,” he answered, his voice still a creak of a sound.  “Would rather- would rather be thirsty.  Better to stay thirstier than anything than to be reminded, then be thirsty again.  Bitch.”

“I don’t think that’s you talking,” Milly told him.  “That’s the poison and goblin-ness in the jar, leeching out to you.”

“Bitch,” he repeated, that one eye looking at her in the gloom.  “Why would you say it’s been a month?  Let me forget time.”

“I’ll remember that for next time.  I can make the visits irregular.”

“Don’t come.  Don’t give me water.  Don’t mention time.  You bitch.  A slit-shaped hole for cocks to spit into.”

“Talbot, I know you’re a better man than this.”

“A hole.  A whore.  A hole.  A whore.  A hole-”

He rocked as much as he could with the roots that bound him to wall and floor, cradling the jar, a mad look in his eye.

“Talbot, as your Lord-”

She stopped herself.

He snickered to himself.  “You’re a Lord?  Did they run out of boys?  Oh, but you wear trousers.  I know your type, whore bitch.  Don’t got a willy and you feel the lack.  Two ways a woman like that can go.  They go to a man to fill the hole or they act the part of a man.”

“Women wear pants now.  You’re behind the times, Talbot.”

“Don’t talk to me about time!” he spat dust as he shouted.  Flecks of broken, stone-crusted lips and blood from the split in his lips flew out with the spit.  “Don’t talk to me about time!  Don’t!  Bitch!”

“You were a good man.  You’ve been poisoned and maddened,” she told him.  “You made such a sacrifice.”

“Bitch,” he spat the word, not even looking at her, or anything, anymore.

“Tell me, Talbot.  Please, when’s the last- when’s the last time you felt movement from within the jar?”

His eye moved this way and that, as if he was trying to navigate a maze of memory.  “Don’t talk to me about time.  It’s trying to trick me.  It’s waiting for me to let my guard down.  But I can’t.  I won’t.  I keep my vigil and I hold on because I’ve done it for this long already.  I can’t let it be for nothing.”

“Talbot,” she told him.  “It’s possible that whatever was in that jar has withered, died, or burned out.  If I’m right, you’ve triumphed.  You’ve won.  you could let go.”

“How long.  How long could it be dead for?” he asked, eye wide, staring into the dark.

“I don’t know.  Do you remember meeting my father?  A big man?  Before my last visit?  Has it moved or whispered since then?”

“No.  I can’t let it be for nothing,” he repeated.

“If it’s dead, I could free you.  To something gentler, easier, maybe out in the sun, out of the damp and the dark.  Or if you wanted purpose, I could set another task for you.  You’ve become living protective magics.  And if it’s not dead, I can help.  I can alleviate the burdens.”

“Bitch!  No.  No, this is trickery.  A game my mind is playing with itself.  I’ve been down this road.”

“I swear to you, it is no trick.  Know this to be truth, by practitioner and by the Lord of this region.  That kind of truth cuts past any games.  You have to know it in the core of your being.”

“I don’t want to know it,” his voice creaked as he dropped into a lower, quieter register.  “Bitch.  Ditch-hole for men’s seed to rot and go black in.”

“Alright,” she replied.  “One last thing, then.  As an Other of wards and seals, you’re attuned to forces.  By the knighting ritual as a keeper of groves, sanctuaries, and holds, I’m in my rights to ask for secret knowledge.”

His hand creaked and cracked as he pulled it away from the jar.

She pulled out a notebook, turning it to an empty page.

His finger scraped the paper, leaving a smudge of clay-like white-brown.  He marked the page, the movements almost mechanical.

Possibly a new ward.  Or something that could contribute to greater knowledge about wards.

She waited until he was done drawing out a maze-like arrangement of lines with a simpler rune at the center, his hand returning to its spot on the clay jar, then she closed the book.

The summer before last, Alexander had told her to surpass.  Now she was a Lord, but she didn’t feel like that counted.

She wasn’t sure what being a great warden or knight of seals might look like, but a part of her was terrified that it looked like this.

The heroic sacrifice.  Holding an evil back for so long that she became a part of the door, of wall, of floor.

Until now, and until tonight, she’d imagined there was a resigned nobility in it.

But Talbot was no longer noble.

She shut the way behind her, closing up the wall, and she removed the ward from the hatch before climbing up.  That done, she collected her warding lantern, extinguishing it.

The light died, and the darkness came rushing in.  With it was the danger and interference she’d pushed away.  The storm came pressing in once again, with torrential rain that even her raincoat didn’t keep at bay.  It found its way in through the collar, or down her sleeve to drench her to the elbow as she lifted the lantern down from where she’d mounted it.

The first of them reached her as she reached the car.

There’s always goblins.

“I gave the order.  By my order as Lord of this region, you’re all to clear out.”

“Lord lady mistress whatsyourname,” one goblin pronounced, bowing until piglike nose scraped mud.  “If I may make a plea, a begging, a request most meager and humble…”

The other goblins snickered in a mean, mocking way.

“…how about not doing that?” he asked, flashing fangs at her.

“I’ve made my decision.  Abide by it.”

“If you’ll allow me, I’ve prepared music.  Guys, come here.”

Cold rain was soaking down her legs to her socks, inside her shoes.  “The answer was and is no.”

“This is the best, though!” the goblin called up to her.  Six lesser goblins arranged themselves in front of him.  “They’ve each worked out an annoying sound.  They’ll make the sound when I touch their heads…”

He touched one short goblin’s head.

“Eeee-urrrrrr-uuuuuuggggh”

Then a female goblin’s.

The female goblin sucked air through her teeth at the side of her mouth, producing a grating slurping sound.

“And with them, I’ve crafted annnoyonica, and I can make anyone do anything!  Let’s start!”

He touched a goblin’s head.

“Eee-urrr – Eee-urr – eee-urr-”

The second goblin began actually puking in time with the head contact.

She pulled bracelets away from her wrist, unleashing practices she’d started and then bound back.

Most of the goblins scattered.  The one who’d been making the ‘pitch’ remained.

There were more in the woods, watching.  She saw the reflections of their eyes as magic circles illuminated around her. hovering behind hands and behind her head, or hula-hooping around her arms as she pointed-

A practice handed down by wardens of old.  A magic circle could be a wall, but it could also be made to do other things when tested.  Some shocked the Other that touched it, draining the weakest of them.  Others pushed or pushed back.  Some cursed those who tested it.

By adding a mark to every major ward she had active, she could collect power.  She’d drain one, three, seven percent of each ward’s strength, remotely, gather up all those retaliations, and strike out, translating a share of the stored power of the defenses she’d set up into an offensive strike.  One percent wouldn’t break the wards or let anything free- not unless something had gone terribly wrong.  But it would let her send the goblin flying.  Into her car, head denting the side door and leaving blood in the indent.  The stunned goblin scrambled for cover-

-Slashing her tire as it passed by-

-and she blasted again.  Catching two of them.

One hit a tree and didn’t get up again.  The rest zig-zagged through the trees and shrubbery off to the side.

“As Lord, as is my right and prerogative, this is my domain to safeguard and secure,” she announced.  “Let my power reach those I require it to reach.”

She could feel the spirits aligning and cooperating.

She used the offensive strike yet again. It flowed between the trees, tore up branches and weeds, and stripped bark from trees.

Flattening the entire group of goblins.  Those that weren’t sent careening into trees were smashed into ground, digging divots with their bodies, limbs breaking.

Bracelets dangled from cords and she slipped them back on.  The magic circles fell away.

With her Sight, she surveyed her domain.  She checked she was secure, and that no goblins were circling around, or preparing to grab her from above.

Then she turned back to her car.

One tire slashed.

There was so much to do, still.  Rain drummed down on the exterior of the vehicle.

She opened the door, sat in the driver’s seat, and, double-checking nobody could see and that no goblins were creeping near, she leaned into the wheel and cried.  For Talbot.  For the fact Talbot wasn’t noble.  Because it wasn’t even noon and it felt like midnight because the sky was so dark and it was so wet and cold.  Because she didn’t want to change a tire in this weather.  And at the idea there were always goblins.

Intrusion.

Her realm as a Lord covered a tract of towns smaller than her neighborhood back home, wilderness, and a lot of truck stops.  It wasn’t a realm many would want to be Lord of, but here she was.

Her authority gave her the right to know who had trespassed, in a general sense, and there were a few of them.  Musser’s.

Her grasp of travel practices was limited to what she’d learned at the Blue Heron Institute, but the fact she was Lord and the spirits at least obeyed her as such really went a long way.  She arrived at the village about a minute before they did.  Which gave her time to take off her jacket and put a pot of coffee on.

“Are you being mean to the local goblins, Milly?” America Tedd called out.

Milly sighed.  “I have things to do, America.”

“Storm’s blown out a lot of the cell towers.  Looks unnatural.”

“I know.  But there’s a barrier.  One I have to take down and put back up when you pass through.  Don’t you have your own petty Lordship to manage?”

“I passed it off to some goblin, he’ll give it back.  It’s fine.  There are three other territories they’d have to take and pass through before they got to me.”

“Establishment is important.  If you keep changing things up, it’ll be less strong than if you just held it like you’re meant to.”

“But then I wouldn’t be able to annoy you,” America told her, as she entered.  She was soaking wet.  “I liked Alexander’s whole deal with reaching out and staying connected.  Even if it’s you.”

“If you need supplies, you may shop,” Milly answered.  She poured a cup of coffee.  “Coffee.  I made cookies.  Who’s with you?”

“Some younger Musser kid, he’s not important enough to remember his name, and some girl called Fernanda.”

“The Fernanda we went to school with?”

“Did we?”

“I wasn’t sure if I should take my shoes off, so I left them by the door,” Fernanda said.  She paused at the door.  “Lord of the Nipigon region, apologies for the intrusion.  I, Fernanda Whitt, ask to pause here on our passage through, and to seek shelter from the storm, and I’d request permission to practice.”

“So granted.  Practice as you will, provided it isn’t used on me.”

The boy that followed behind was a few years younger than Fernanda, but he had that styled brown hair and preppy look that was common to Mussers.  “Sullivan Fletcher, of House Musser.  Nephew to Abraham Musser.  I’m here to learn from my peers and take shelter.  We’re only passing through.

“Good boy,” Milly told him.  “Sit.  Hot chocolate?”

He nodded.

“Fernanda?”

Fernanda paused.

“If you want hot chocolate say yes.  I won’t judge you if you want it.”

“Fine.  Thank you.”

“If you gave me advance notice, I would’ve had towels in the dryer to warm up,” Milly told them.  Her home here was little more than a trailer in a trailer park.  The only distinction from that was really that it was a touch larger than most trailers and it was a permanent fixture.  The walls were wood paneled, and everything felt cheap.  She opened a cabinet she’d gotten because she didn’t really have closets here, and got towels for each of the guests.

She held back before giving one to America.

“Oh, you’re the Lord, blah blah, gimme permission.”

She reluctantly handed it over.

“Don’t let us interrupt your routine.  You can go, I’ll leave you a prank for when you get back.”

“Don’t.”

“Do you even get TV here?  How do you spend the time?  Because this is depression central, as far as I can tell.”

“There’s a TV and a cable box.  I keep it on in the background.  There’s enough other things to do.  The barrier I’ve set up at the perimeter, three sets of protective warding that need to be monitored- it’s part of why I’m stationed here.  My dad trusts me to handle that.  I checked on one an hour ago.  There’s some research I’ve been doing on the side.  Taxonomy of seals and natural wards.”

“You should want to do things that make you less bored,” America said.

“It sounded like people were worried about the storm being unnatural.  It might be a Storm at the center,” Fernanda cut in.

“Would fit the Lord of Thunder Bay and a couple people there,” Milly replied.  To America, she added, “I research and keep track of the opposition, too.”

“You’re so good at this.  Are you making me hot chocolate as well?”

“No.  Thank you, Fernanda.  Any other news?”

“No.  We’re getting sorted.  I think they’re sending you backup, and because we don’t have a lot of adults who qualify as Lords, and we expect to pick up a lot of territories tonight, Mr. Musser wants us kids to support the weaker and younger Lords.  Mixing practices and knowledge.”

“Guaranteeing loyalty,” America added.  “Sullivan here goes somewhere as a show of trust to someone else.  If Musser screws up or betrays them, they get to at least off his nephew.”

“I’m prepared to contribute to the family,” the little boy announced.

“Good.”  Milly put the two mugs of hot chocolate down on the table, in front of Fernanda and Sullivan.  America immediately scooped one up from in front of Sullivan, slurping from it.

“I hope that burned your tongue,” Milly told her.

“Did.  But I heal fast.  Did a ritual a few years back.”

“I’ll get you another,” Milly told Sullivan.

“I’ve been telling him he needs to loosen up some.  Break free from the mold, figure out an angle,” America said.

“Newly awakened?” Milly asked him.

He nodded.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

She prepared the third hot chocolate, using practice to speed up the process of heating up the milk.  She poured her own coffee as well.

“I have an obligation.  It’s a twenty-minute drive, a ward I’d rather keep an eye on, especially with the storm pressing in.  It’s up to you.  We can go as soon as you’re dry and done your hot chocolates, or you can move on to the next territory.  Normally I’d offer to let you make yourselves at home, but I don’t trust America.”

“You’re no fun.”

“If it helps, we could bring the hot chocolate with,” Fernanda said.  “Get that done sooner?”

Sullivan nodded.

They’re such good kids, Milly thought.  Fernanda could be a brat, but the brattiness was quick to fall away when it needed to.  Like now, and when Alexander and Lawrence Bristow had been at war.

“Let’s,” she decided.

She didn’t want to admit it out loud, but she felt anxious.  It was too dark for the early afternoon, it had been too dark for too long, and there wasn’t any communication coming in.  They were cut off.

Fernanda and Sullivan barely asked if they could ride with Milly, before climbing into her car.  She could have chalked that up to the rain, but-

She looked at America, who stood beside her heavily modified car.  It looked like a vehicle from Carpocalypse Max, with added rubber chickens and gremlin-made attachments.

Poor Fernanda and Sullivan, riding this far in that thing.  Probably with goblins here and there.  Like riding in a junker with methed-up rats and poisonous snakes here and there.

The conversation was mostly polite small talk on the drive out to the woods.  While Milly kept the conversation going, there was a sentiment that popped up and then stuck with her.  That Alexander had been talking about what it took for an individual from a small practice to surpass.

Fernanda probably resembled what he had in mind.  The Whitts were in no way a major family, and if they’d had any advantage, it was that Chase had been tied to Alexander.  Now they weren’t.  Fernanda had that eye for opportunity that Milly didn’t.  There was a good chance she’d thrive and succeed.

Even the way Sullivan looked at the girl who was two or so years his senior made it clear that Fernanda had some leverage if she wanted to use it to get married, somewhere along the line.  And she was the type that probably would keep that in mind throughout the dating process.

“Rules,” Milly said.  She put her hood up and stepped outside.  She gave serious consideration to warding off some of the weather, as she braced against the wind and rain.  She got America’s attention.  “Group up!  Rules!”

America walked over, not seeming to care about the weather as much as the rest of them.  Fernanda walked over and stood beside Milly, turning to face the same direction Milly was to not have the wind and rain hitting her face.

“Don’t cross the barrier under any circumstance.  In fact, stay ten or twenty paces back from the barrier.  Don’t invite it.  Don’t entreat it.  This is a solid eight out of ten on the danger scale.  If this storm acts up and lightning starts striking every second?  Deal with the lightning, don’t go running up to that barrier.”

“How many scary Others have you dealt with, Sully?”

“Sullivan, and not many.”

“This is an Other, right?” America asked.

“Yeah.”

There was no good path to get to the location.  They had to work their way past trees.  As they got close, Milly hung her lantern on a tree.

Bit of extra security.  She didn’t want a goblin or an echo coming in and distracting her when she was doing sensitive work.  Plus it helped to keep the denizen at bay.

Cords were tied between trees, cordoning off an area.  At set intervals, bells had been tied, and charms hung.  She reached out and touched the cord, then laid a hand over top of it, so the cord was between her palms.

The cord began to move, knotted rope sliding along and around trees, so the full length of the cordon ran between her hands and beneath her Sight.

There.  A bit frayed.  She applied clay as a sealing agent, then brushed on lacquer.  Examination with Sight suggested echoes had run up against the barrier enough times to test it.  And it wasn’t a barrier meant for echoes.

It startled her every damn time.  The Beorgmann.

Its long legged body was covered in short black fur, making it disappear into the gloom, but its face was white-skinned, and- it was really hard to describe, and really hard to remember.  It looked like the face of a gaunt, horrible man who’d play the villain in every movie.  A face like a gravestone mixed with a skull, mixed with a bald drill sergeant.

But its eyes, as it drew closer- it had no eyes, only shadow, and its expression around the lack of eyes was gentle enough to tug at her heartstrings.

It moved fluidly, silently, and very fast.  Like a wild animal springing out of underbrush, but it was ten feet tall.  It held pieces of wood, strips of bark, and branches in one hand.

While she worked, keeping one careful eye on it, another eye on the cordon, the Beorgmann set about building something.  It collected fallen branches and wove branch into branch.  Bark became rope, ropes became a rope ladder.

A lattice of fine twigs and branches for a platform, with longer sticks interlaid over one another for uneven floorboards.

“What is it?” America asked.

“Beorgmann.  Person of the mounds.  It’s an old Other.  Probably from the era of the Seal,” Milly explained.  “Lures children in.  This one used to make gardens and hiding places, but it started to make treehouses and that seemed to work for it.”

“Treehouses?”

“And toys, trinkets, trickster lights.  Or it would snatch up the kids from their rooms.  They put the kids in these little contained zones.  Walled gardens without exits, burrows in hillsides, or treehouses.  Gets kids inside, then removes the ladder.  Magic keeps them from leaving.  We think this one got enough kids that it’s why this area never developed more.  If you venture inside the territory, there’s about forty treehouses across four acres.  Most of them are lit by candlelight at night.  Kids peering out through the windows.  That’s just from the era where treehouses have been a thing.  There’s more in the mounds, and gardens, other hideaway spots, around here.”

“Why not mount a rescue mission?” Sullivan asked.

“Because the kids are the Beorgmann’s.  Its grip on them is too strong, and it can’t die, doesn’t relinquish them even if we hurt it.  And it is apparently really strong- it always eventually breaks free of confinement.  So we lock him away and keep him from getting more, and we postpone the time until it breaks free with care and attention like this.”

Another frayed spot.  More echoes.  She applied clay and lacquer.

Intrusion.

Milly’s head turned.

Marlen.  The messenger girl Musser liked to use.  Last she’d heard, Marlen was attending to personal business.  It meant there were more people like America, Fernanda, and Sullivan here passing through.

She lowered the barrier.  The storm pressed in hard–

Definitely a Storm.

And it kept the way open.

Immediately, there were more intrusions.  A small group charging in.  At a different location than Marlen had entered from.

Milly turned her attention back to the cordon, figuring out what to do with her guests here, when she startled.  The Beorgmann was there, lit up by the lantern, hanging upside-down from high branches, his face a few inches away.  He’d twisted his neck around so the head was almost right-side-up, while the rest of him was upside-down.  He maintained that gentle expression on a gaunt and horrible face that seemed to float in the gloom and darkness.  Even with the illumination of the lantern.

Biting back her anxiety, she continued the work, hurrying now, trying to ignore the distraction that was his proximity.  The lantern would glow brighter if the Beorgmann tried reaching out toward her.  It would slow it down, weaken it.  It wouldn’t be able to act against her, this close to the lantern.

“Someone just broke past the barrier, into my territory,” she informed the other three.  “You may want to leave.  Go east.”

“How big of an attack is it?”

“It’s big.  I’ve got options, they’ll buy time.  I may end up following after you.”

The storm picked up.

She tested a bell, jangling it, and the Beorgmann lurched, disappearing deeper into the woods.

“Can’t you pick that up where you left off?”

“No.  It’s like they teach you when you’re drawing a circle for a diagram.  Don’t stop and start, the breaks are noticeable.  This is the sort of Other that inevitably gets free again.  If I don’t finish the full job once, that could be the difference between it getting free again in fifteen years instead of thirty.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have started that tonight, when there’s a freak storm.”

“And if this fraying becomes the weak point and the entire cordon snaps in the face of a worsening storm?” Milly replied.  “Then we’re dealing with an attack and a creature like this that’s running wild.  This is what I do, America.  Keeping bad stuff at bay.”

The Beorgmann was halfway up a tree, and it had finished building the crude tree house.

“Feels like you should have help,” America added.

“Well I don’t!  Except you, maybe!  We’re stretched across a lot of territories and I guess Musser decided that if we lose any then this is an acceptable territory to lose.  You should go.  If I get taken prisoner or something… that’s fine.”

“You could get killed,” Fernanda commented.

Milly spent a bit checking the cordon.

“Is that fine?” Fernanda asked.

“I’ve earned good karma, doing this.  Serving natural order, peace, innocence.  I guess I’ll hope that that counts for something in a pinch and that the spirits want to keep me alive so I can keep doing that.  I think they’re coming straight for me.”

“You guys have a strong opinion?” America asked Fernanda and Sullivan.

“Avery’s in Thunder Bay, right?” Fernanda asked.

“Phones are down, so no use trying to call.”

“What’s Thunder Bay like?” Fernanda asked.  “I’ve only passed through, to see family.  Do they kill kids?”

“I think you’d live,” America said.  “But Milly’s the one who researched them.  And she’s almost a next door neighbor to them.”

“I’m trying to concentrate.”

A bell that didn’t ring.  A butterfly had set up a cocoon inside it and the cold had killed it.  Milly cleaned it out with a scrub brush, then jangled it.

A candle flared to life in the treehouse that had just been built.

“Lord of the Nipigon region,” a child called down.  “The burier and hanger of children would barter.”

“Nope!” Milly called back.

“Undo this binding, set it free.  It will act in your service, defeat your enemies, and steal one child from them to keep.  Then it will return, stay and allow you to reset the binding.  You could have another fifty years of security with fresh cordage and charms.”

“No.  I’ve sworn oaths.”

“This contravenes none of your oaths,” the child said.  It was eerie to hear a child use a word that long.  “Is it not better to have an enemy be a victim now and make this a thing that is predictable and certain, than to wait less than twenty years and then wonder what will happen?  Your father said it would be a fifty-fifty chance that a child would get taken whenever the barrier goes down.  His numbers are off.”

The argument was being made to distract her.  At least a little.  She’d reached a section of the cordage where damage was more constant.  Clay, lacquer.  Next length.  Clay, lacquer.  Next length.  No issues.  Next length, slight fraying on the backend.

“They trespass against you.  It could be a pattern.  One of your enemy’s children every fifty years or so.  Or more, if you request it.”

They were coming, and there were hundreds of feet of this cordage.

“Your father accepted the deal, once.  Twenty years ago.”

Milly stopped, gripping the cord.  She had clay on one hand and flecks of laquer on the other.

“There is no guarantee an Other like you is bound to the Seal, and I’m not strong enough to compel you to it, or to force you to admit you’re not bound to your word.”

“He accepted.  The barrier went down.  Hugh Legendre called for reinforcements, but they struck a deal before the reinforcements came.  He named a child and kept the reinforcements from attacking.  In exchange, the child-stealer went, took only the one, and returned, allowing itself to be bound.  It was cleaner.  The mess was contained.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

“The child was Cabe Legendre,” the child in the treehouse said.

Milly stopped.

“Who’s Cabe?” America Tedd asked.

“Nobody.”

“Nobody’s nobody, are they?”

“Cabe was nobody.”

“Can’t help but notice you’re not talking about this like you don’t believe them anymore.”

“Let it go, America.  Don’t dig into it.  Don’t bring it up, don’t mention it.”

“Millicent Legendre,” the child in the treehouse called down.  “If you ever want to make the deal, you need only ask.  This is not a one-time offer.  Give the black-furred man one child and a task to do, and he will return to be bound anew.”

“You three,” Milly said.  She worked her way across the cord.  One healthy section.  She used a flashlight on a charm that was dangling from the cord.  “They’re coming.  Last chance.  It’s better if one of you gets out, to tell Musser the territory is lost.  The one to the south as well.  Has to be.”

“Uh, what do you kids think?” America asked.

“Millicent Legendre, Lord of the Nipigon region, he’ll make another kind of deal,” the child called down.

Milly shook her head and checked more of the cordage.

“Deal with us, Lord of the Nipigon region,” the child called down.  “Let us out and let us serve.  For this one time, we’ll make you an offer you must accept.”

“There is no offer I must accept,” Milly replied.  Fucking hell.  Between America being here, the rain and cold, the incoming attackers and this– she was ready to lose her mind.

“Three children, returned in better condition than they left.  They’ll remember nothing and they’ll be given over to you, healthy, whole, innocent, human, and sane.”

“You never release what you’ve taken.”

“This time he will.  All he asks is you put him to work and remember that you did so.  This once, he will take nothing and nobody, and harm none but those who you dictate.  He’ll do as asked, and then he’ll return here to be bound again.”

They were here.  In the parking lot.

“Why do that?”

“Because he thinks you’re of weak character.  That you’ll release him more times, paying the price, once you realize what he can do when let loose.”

I’m a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m of weak character.

It bothered her a lot.

Milly examined more cord.  She turned her head, then bid America to move off to the side.

Lightning flickered.

She could see a figure in the darkness.  Young, wearing a witch’s hat and cloak.  A deer mask.

“Which one was the deer?” she asked.

“Avery Kelly.  The Finder,” America said.  “We’ve had issues.”

“So I heard.  Avery!”

There was a noise to her left.

A fissure raced across the ground, and chains erupted out, each tipped with hooks.  They caught on branches and trees, the fissure tearing its way toward Milly.

Milly pulled off bracelets.  Right arm this side.  Her ‘shield’ arm.

A personal barrier opened up around her.

An object -a ball- glanced off the fissure’s edge.  Time seemed to slow down to a tenth of the speed in the moment it made impact, the spirits reacted, and Milly’s Sight flashed into her regular vision as she could see the override.

The chains flopped over, going limp.  The fissure stopped cracking its way along the ground.

There was a woman in the darkness of the trees, middle-aged, wearing a black coat, letting the rain run through her hair.  She was giving Avery an ugly look.

“This is the ward, right?  You’re doing something?”

“Keeping a real monster contained.”

“Then I think we should let you,” Avery said.  “Truce?  For…?”

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“I think you’re on the wrong side, Milly,” Avery said.  “I don’t think you’re a good person.”

“You have no idea who I am.”

“You hurt and kill a lot of goblins.  You judge the many by the actions of the few.  But if you’re keeping a real monster at bay…”

“I am.  A child-stealer.”

“Ann?” Avery called out.

The woman didn’t respond.

“If I were a worse person, I could have named- a daughter of yours, or a sibling.  I could have let this thing free.  And your family would have one less person in it.”

“If I were a worse person, I could have come after you right now, while your hands are tied up with this job,” Avery said.  Her opossum was on her shoulder.  “Let’s just agree we’re both not completely awful people, you finish that, and then we’ll figure this out.  I think a surrender with no violence is the best way to do this.”

“Only if you’re the one surrendering, Kelly,” America jeered.

America was calling in goblins.  Milly had no idea how, but she could sense the intrusion.

She hadn’t technically granted America Tedd permission to practice here.

“Permission granted to America Tedd, for practice,” Milly murmured to herself, hating it.  But if she viewed it as a dangerous practice in someone unpredictable… like a lesser, less refined Mrs. Durocher- lots of practices were dark.  This was one she’d bite her tongue for.  “Permission revoked to the intruders, Ann and Avery.”

“Don’t try anything!” Avery called out.  “No muttering!”

It wouldn’t stop them from practicing entirely.  But the practice would not be on their side.  The spirits might confound, fluster, fight, or conflict.  Diagrams that were left open to interpretation would take the worst possible interpretation.

“Avery,” Fernanda called out.

“Hey, Fernanda.”

“I hope this doesn’t screw up how we’ve been chatting.”

“Kinda probably does,” Avery replied.  “I don’t want to hold grudges but I have a hard time imagining it not being awkward.”

“I’m only looking after Sullivan here, running messages, giving advice.  I’m not doing anything major.  I don’t know if that matters.”

“It helps.”

“Maybe you could do me a favor and ask your scary lady with the spiked chains to not do whatever it is that’s making my sight freak out?”

“Chainer practices,” Milly replied.  “You haven’t had that class yet?”

“Not really.”

“Drag you to the Abyss or Ruins, or somewhere.  I think there are Faerie Chainers.  I can’t tell if that’s Abyss or Ruins.”

“It’s both,” Ann replied.  “Whichever the situation calls for.  Custom practice.”

“Badass,” America said.

“I think so,” Ann answered.  “Maybe you’ll get to see how badass it is up close?”

“Easy, Ann,” Avery said.

“Don’t tell me to go easy.”

Milly turned back to her work, and the face of the Beorgmann was right there in front of her when she did.  Within arm’s reach- if she was dumb enough to reach past the cordon.  Even having fingers past its edges was dangerous, but the lantern helped there.

Even up close, close to the lantern, its eye sockets were filled with shadow.

It didn’t move, and it didn’t breathe.  Black fur at the edges of its face was slick against skin and muscle as the rain soaked through it.  Water ran off the Beorgmann’s elbows, chin, and bent knees.

Fray.  That meant more clay and lacquer.

Plant life had grown around the cordon here.  Into it.

She extracted it with care.

“We’ll get hypothermia like this,” ‘Ann’ said.

“They’ve been out in the rain and the cold longer than us.”

Milly fought to stay focused, knowing this was a standoff.  That the moment she was confirmed as done, the truce was over, and all sides would make their moves.  The woman with the chains- that looked like Chainer practices.  Dragging people to the Abyss or Ruins.  It had looked pretty vicious.  She could remember enough of it from the Blue Heron.

Avery could have any number of tricks.  That trio had been brimming with raw power.  There’d been some talk about it.

And there were others out there.  One was playing to the storm.  Elementalist was likely, but there were a lot of practice that could do something to storms.  Even an astrologer or calendar mage.

But Thunder Bay had two elementalists and one elemental, so… elementalist made sense.

And an old man.

By her car.  Near America’s.

Meaning that if we want to get away, it won’t be by driving.

America had her goblins, but it was hard to imagine goblins making this better.

“You okay, Fernanda?” Milly asked.

“I’m okay.  I’m not very strong, you know.”

“I know.”

Fernanda had picked up on what she was thinking.

Fernanda was a Whitt and the Whitts were emotion manipulators.  Chase Whitt worked with Alexander and he used the emotion sensing combined with Augury to track people.

But Fernanda was right.  Her family wasn’t especially strong.  And Fernanda was small and slight of frame, which, if Milly was honest, wasn’t super great for practice.  Bigger, burlier, and tougher at least meant there was more of a well of Self to draw on.

And Sullivan?

Sullivan was eleven, probably of equal or slightly greater status to Raquel, with less raw power or education.

Milly worked on the cord, the overlarge, dark-eyed face a couple of feet from her own, wearing a gentle expression, lips slightly parted in a smile to show white teeth.

He’s been hammering at this ward.

The light in the treehouse had gone out.

Eight years ago was the last time the Beorgmann had escaped.  Some jackass Aware had come into this region of about two hundred people, meddling.  A man who’d lost a brother.  Time and time again, he’d run into Others who would know things about the brother.  Or who stole children.  Dark Fall Fae.  The Beorgmann.  He was uniquely equipped to defeat them, to free children, and to surround himself with surrogates.  Fate was on his side.

But the Beorgmann had sidestepped that, and made a deal instead.  It had let the man search among the stolen children for his brother, and it had slipped free.  Taking two to a treehouse.  They’d had to call in outside help, and extend the cordon to include the treehouse.  Practically doubling the time that it took to maintain.

Which brought her here.

“Eilee Avila,” Milly whispered to the Beorgmann.  “Betty Fricks.  Gus Riley.”

The Beorgman tilted his head.

Looking past him, Milly could see them amid the trees.  Three children in modern clothing.  They hadn’t aged.

The last three to be taken.

“There’s a proviso.  That you-”

The Beorgman left.  He grabbed a tree branch, and climbed into the trees above.

Still within the cordon.

There was no saying if he could lie.  Yes, he’d known things.  About her cousin Cabe.  The facts lined up too well.  But that didn’t mean he was obliged to tell truth.

But if she did nothing, then what?

“As Lord, I bind you to this deal.  If you would betray it-”

“Millie!” Avery called out.  “No muttering!  I’m trying to be fair here.”

“-then you forfeit your claim to all in my territory.  To every child, to every mound, every garden, every treehouse.”

“You’re being played,” Ann said.

Milly heard the noise.

“Do nothing but what you’re told to do!” Milly called out.

The practice Ann used wasn’t Chainer practice.  It was a blade, with Abyss taint pouring off it.  Used to maim.  Something else that came from that same direction, but that blade wasn’t dragging anyone anywhere.

Double-specializes in Abyss and Ruins, but also in chaining and destroying.  Got it.

“Don’t cut the cord!” Avery called out.

The blade stopped inches shy of the cordon.

“Stall them, do no lasting harm!” Milly called out.  “Take no children, release the three I named, in the condition you promised!  Return when done, and wait to be bound again.”

“The child-stealer will wait for one month, no longer,” Eilee Avila said.  She was right beside the Beorgmann.

“No!” Avery shouted.

“Fine.”  Milly’s hand brushed the cordon.  Pushing it down.

It went slack, dropping to the ground.

The blade turned, and it carried forward until it hit a tree.  Chains erupted from the furrow that had been left by the blade’s passage.  Each tipped with hooks.  They were next to impossible to see in the gloom.

One caught Milly by the jacket lapel.  Another dug into the sleeve of her raincoat, went past her sweater, and pierced flesh beneath.

The Beorgmann reached out, and unhooked her easily as he passed.

And the three children screamed in fear and alarm.

Innocents.  They limited the movements of goblins, and the movements of Avery, who liked to use practice to move around.

They maybe had a fleeting glimpse of the Beorgmann, but…

Milly grabbed them, and hurried them away from the scene.

Goblins milled around, and it was hard to not reflexively see them as dangers.  They were bound, at least, serving under America.  They had to be, to be summoned like they’d been.  She could keep telling herself that.

The Beorgman grabbed Ann, and was caught in a dozen chains, each tipped with hooks.  She tried and failed to break his grip.

The weather picked up, and their backup came through the woods.  A figure surrounded by the mist of wind and rain.  She carried a flashlight, and the refracting light on moisture droplets illuminated the entire area around her.

A little localized storm.

Elementalists tended to have a lot of power for very short times, and sometimes a little bit of side stuff if they had a storm or power source to draw on.

Milly pushed a bracelet down her arm, uncovering a new diagram.

They ran.  Milly saw the Beorgmann, still wrapped in chains, work his way up a tree, carrying Ann with him.

Lightning came at them like a punch out of nowhere.  There was no prelude, no warning, no ability to dodge, or any of that.  It hit hard, Milly’s warding at the one arm fended it off and shielded the others, and the air was flooded with a chlorine, chemical, metallic smell.  Ozone.

“Don’t kill them!” Avery shouted.  She was running through the trees, ducking and weaving, disappearing and reappearing.  Disappearing-

“Heads up!” America called out.

Appearing further up, ready to intercept.

The Beorgmann plunged down, right in Avery’s path, reached for her, and only narrowly missed.  Avery backed off, the Beorgmann chased.

Milly, Fernanda, America, and Sullivan all ran past that little skirmish, with the three freed children.

Milly pulled off her raincoat and threw it over one of the kids.  The overlarge hood helped keep them from seeing things.  That was the sort of thing that earned karma, and they really needed Karma.  Fernanda took care of the second, and Sullivan the third.

Twin-strikes of lightning this time, with barely any flash.  Milly looked at her arm where the bracelet had left glowing diagrams behind it after being moved, and the skin was burning around the edges of the lines.

The defenses were wearing out.

“Don’t hurt them!” Avery shouted, top of her lungs.

The goblins came tearing through, running the opposite direction they were making Milly flinch as they leaped from branches at eye level, to points behind her.

A small horde of distractions, and the Beorgmann itself, a heavy hitter.

Avery Kelly’s pursuit slowed, the disappearances and reappearances becoming more and more intermittent as the goblins closed in.  They pulled away, leaving that scene behind, as they escaped the woods and reached a road that cut through the wilderness.

They were heading down the road for several minutes when a yellow cab came down the road.  Fernanda waved it down.

“You guys stuck?” the cab driver asked.

“We can’t get to our cars.  Is there any chance we could share the ride?” Fernanda asked.  “I can sit on someone’s lap.  I know there’s a lot of us, but I think we can squeeze.”

Milly looked around, using the Sight.

The cab was- too clearly and totally owned by one individual, for something that was borrowed and used by so many.

The old man.  What had his name been?  Salisbury?

She put a hand on Fernanda’s shoulder.  Pulling her back and away from the cab.

“You can,” the driver said.  “Get in.”

“No, actually,” Milly said.

Had to be the adult here.  America wouldn’t be.

“You sure?” the cab driver asked.  The picture of innocence.

“I’m sure.”

“Alright,” he said.

Then he drove on.

Milly wasn’t sure, but as she looked down the road, she imagined she could see that old man in the distance, hunched over some, illuminated by a streetlight.

“What was wrong with the cab?” Sullivan asked.

“Pretty sure that would’ve taken us to the equivalent of Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house.  Or it would’ve been a little gingerbread house of its own.”

“Darn.  I’ve never been in a cab,” Sullivan said.  “I wanted to try it.”

“Another day.”

“Hitchhike?” America asked.

“Let’s get off the road.  I’m not entirely sure, but I think it might belong to the old man.”

Into the woods, taking the long way, just to be safe.

Abandoning her territory as Lord.

They’d gotten so cold that Milly felt nauseous an hour after warming up.  She wasn’t sure, but she wondered if maybe giving up her Lordship was a factor.

“They took seven territories tonight,” Milly’s uncle said.

“The important thing is that the territories are there.  They can be retaken.”

“Have we heard from Marlen?” Milly asked.

“We stretched ourselves too thin,” her uncle said.

“Musser is being too greedy.  He’s so fixated on the big targets he’s forgotten what we’re doing, and the risks we’re facing.”

“What was lost can be retaken,” the guy from earlier repeated himself, insistent.

“Don’t ignore me!” Milly raised her voice.  She felt hollow and sick as she sat up, but she sat up.  “Marlen.  Someone fill me in.”

“We don’t know where she is.  She left on family business, showed up tonight, according to you-”

“With convenient timing.  Got me to lower my guard and the invaders came sweeping right in.”

“It’s possible she’s compromised,” someone said.

“Or it wasn’t her in the first place,” someone butted in.

“I sensed her,” Milly said.

“If they have her hair or blood?”

“Maybe,” Milly conceded.  “That’s annoying.”

“We’d need a system.  Passcodes.  Something secure against dopplegangers and glamour.”

“The issue is we’re spread too thin,” someone else repeated.  “We need to fix that.”

And so it went.

Circular arguments.

Milly felt like she could hurl, her body aching from head to toe, as she rose to her feet, throw blanket around her shoulders like a shawl.  She navigated the crush of people gathered in the house.

Over to the back.  The house had a sitting room and a living room.  And with intervening doors closed, the living room was reasonably quiet.

Three kids slept, watched over by others.

“They didn’t age,” Milly said.

“No.  I don’t think their parents will care,” her Aunt Ursanne replied.  A gray haired matron type.

“They’ll have to upend their lives.  Leave everything behind.  They’ll be a bit Aware.”

“Probably.  I think they’ll be alright with that, so long as they get their children back.”

Milly nodded.

“Your dad wants you to call.”

“About the Beorgmann?”

“About that.  The lordship.”

Milly nodded.  She felt a different kind of sick, now.  That she’d dealt with the Beorgmann and she wasn’t entirely sure what the outcome of that would be.  It wasn’t impossible that she’d end up regretting this more than anything else she’d done in her life.  If more kids got hurt?  Or if it was unbound and it eluded binding for the next few years?  Or decades?”

The multiple kinds of sick piled up around one another.

“Stay warm and drink water.”

Milly nodded.

She walked over to the living room, and asked, “Can I use the phone?”

“There’s a landline in the kitchen, if you don’t mind being overheard.”

“Private?”

“There’s an office.  Back room.  Feel free.”

It was a nice little office, and it had recently been done up in a way she wished she’d done up her little lordship trailer-sized shack.  Leather tomes on shelves, a globe, some instruments for drawing diagrams.  A little desk had been brought in.  Not the full size writing desks some used, but nice.

She dialed, and she sat in the big chair, putting the blanket over her lap.  She picked up the phone, pulling it closer.

As she did, she saw a warding mark, on a bit of metal.  She poked at it, and she pulled it free.

It looked like a diary, but the covers were stainless steel.  A metal strap connected front to back, with a lock securing it, and the entirety of it had been etched with warding marks.

The strap wasn’t connected.  It was open.

She hadn’t even dialed.  Her focus was on the book.

She poked at the cover, hoping to see some hint of what had been contained within.  But the pages were blank.

She went looking for the associated connections, and she followed one to a painting.

Which had been vandalized with scratches.

Scratches that animated, and slipped into a hiding place behind the frame.

Other things moved.  A scribbling on the wall, animating in leaps and fits.

Movement at the door made her jump.

The home’s owner and the local Lord.

We didn’t get sanctuary here.  We were pushed toward a bigger trap.

“I hoped to draw a couple more in before I closed the net,” Basil Winters said, confirming the thought.

And the little book’s worth of released Bugges, Mimeisthais, urban legends, Fancies, and other bound, information-infecting Others flowed out from around him, to seize the house.

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