Author: Wildbow

Left in the Dust – 16.z | Pale

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2009, A Bugge

In the year 2009, a student of John Cabot high school successfully makes it through treatment for bone cancer, returns to school, and when mention was made of his love for art, he gets permission to do a mural in the eastern stairwell.  In keeping with the school mascot, he outlines a frog prince.

Shortly after the work begins, a high school student with a hobby of designing her own clothes draws, prints, and applies iron-on graphics for her t-shirts, including one with a turtle shell adorned with piercings.

While the images themselves differ in terms of subject, the composition, jewelry and colors of black, green, and gold are nearly identical.  Having already started selling her shirts online, the fashion designer sees the mural while on the way down the stairs to the guidance counselors office and internally curses, convinced now that she’d seen the mural before and subconsciously stolen the design.  How could she not?  Seeing the shirts out in the wild, the mural artist has a similar thought, and was quietly upset with himself.

All normal.  A coincidence of creativity.

Until a local photographer three blocks away captures a picture of an African American model, emphasizing gold jewelry and bangles on her hair against a dark green backdrop.  The tones of yellow light on dark skin and the placement of the gold match.

Those who do not practice do not have words that matter or hold great enough truth to bring much to pass, but patterns emerge and a web of the unconscious unfolded, where many people saw at least two of the three.  Mural and photo, mural and t-shirt, t-shirt and photo.  No thoughts are fully realized, but the similarities and familiarity catch on hundreds of brains like clothing on thornbushes.  In the midst of that, a glimmer of a thing appears; a bug in the fabric of reality, a glitch, a tiny, accidental ritual.

Those who do not practice do not have words that matter, but most Others are human-created, were once humans, or were inspired by humans and human culture.  This is little different.  Hundreds of people who contribute tiny amounts of power to an image that has nothing to anchor it can create something.  In this case, it is a smear of black, green, and gold that was neither reptile, amphibian, nor human.

Practitioners call these things a Bugge.

Many Bugges exist for seconds at a time.  An innocent may glimpse one out of the corner of their eye, and destroy it in the process, or it may carry sentiment, act on that sentiment, and try to spread out, only to burn itself of the meager amount of energy it holds.  A candle-flame in strong wind, where the wind is subconscious and the fuel for the flame is attention.

This one holds on.  An unspoken sentiment holds among the students at the school, unspoken and half-formed in thoughts, that the colors and shapes relate to school colors and mascot.  But the school has no official team.  It’s enough to provide fuel to a smudge of charcoal shades, emerald green, and gold.

Then Andy Culpepper, guidance counselor, open-face slaps sixteen year old Lori Wyrick in the face while they stand in the stairwell.  A student who was recording Lori’s taunts and jibes catches the moment on video.  The mural is in the background.  The slap becomes the topic du jour for the week, playing on local news over and over again.  It’s a high-impact moment, evoking sympathy and outrage.  People are split, with some in the community claiming she deserved it, she was baiting him.  A subset argue teachers should be allowed to physically discipline again.  This is that sort of area, where thirty percent of people would accept a teacher slapping a student.  The remainder see it as a breach of conduct and argue accordingly.

But the mural is there in the background of the video.  It is there, it is seen, it draws unconscious attention and the people who give it that attention start to draw comparisons between it and other things.  It is there, it is seen, it has fuel and the flame is not a candle and it is no longer flickering.

A boy called Cormac in the kindergarten class down the road smears finger paint on a page.  He has not ever seen the mural, the t-shirt, the photograph, or the news reports, but the composition and colors are there, same as the bugge that is no longer like a flickering candle flame.  He calls it the turtle queen and when asked why he chose that name, he can’t explain why.

When another student turns in their own art, the teacher asks her if she copied Cormac and says it is admirable if she did, because it takes skill to copy so well.  The child points out that she was sitting on the opposite end of the room.

Bugge are not known for their intelligence.  Very often, a Bugge will squander its existence, chasing the equivalent of its own tail, even after growing to this size.  The Turtle Queen has the benefit of there being a clear line of outrage drawn to the video of the guidance counselor.

A short while later, downtown, not too far from the school, two drunk seventeen year olds set off fireworks at two in the morning.  People are angry and annoyed, but nobody is yet to the point of calling authorities or stepping outside.

The Turtle Queen approaches from an angle they cannot see, while they are preparing to set off another firework.  She then touches the chin of one of the two teenagers, then slaps the sixteen year old girl across the side of the head with enough force that she ruptures an eardrum.  The follow-up strike to the same spot causes ear damage that leaves the teenager suffering vertigo and nausea for five months.  The hearing damage and tinnitus squeal in her ear never recovers.  She intends to slap a third time, but the male teenager stops her.

Her backhand strike breaks his jaw.

The event is witnessed from windows, albeit in the dark and through trees.  An ambulance is called and police are contacted.  In the police interview, the injured girl mis-speaks, saying at first that the attacker’s skin was a dark green, before correcting themselves.  She meant to say black.  She makes the same error when talking to a reporter.  In writing, the young man does the same thing, writing ‘gre-‘ before scratching it out.

The Turtle Queen becomes something of an urban legend.  Practitioners often confuse urban legends and bugges, and they were once classified as the same thing, before distinctions were drawn.  An urban legend is simply a story that gets powerful enough, until it becomes reality.  The Bugge is a symbol, not a story, that finds traction without having the roots to anything concrete or identifiable.  A static charge without a means of being grounded, building up in intensity.  The Turtle Queen is the latter at heart, but being an urban legend too doesn’t hurt matters.

Or, to be more clear, it doesn’t hurt the Bugge.  People get hurt.  People get inspired.  Someone has put Turtle Queen graffiti on a disused billboard and nobody is taking it down.  When asked, that artist isn’t able to recall where they first saw the mark.  They certainly didn’t use reference, even though the image was very detailed.  Vigilantes have started to wear the colors with the gold jewelry and are roving around looking for people who are being nuisances- not necessarily criminals, but those who push buttons or upset others without breaking laws or doing more than misdemeanors.  Slaps are the preferred weapon, but baseball bats do come out and get used.  Police are called, they arrive to break up the group, and one is slapped once by a hundred pound girl and is knocked out.  Their gun is taken and the police car stolen.

Sightings of the elegant Turtle Queen become more frequent.  There is now graffiti in places that are next to impossible to reach, or with no clear source- no human hand.  The mascot of the high school where the Bugge originated is now a gold turtle, but there is no agreement about what sport the team plays.  Diehard athletic types now mingle with nerds as members of the ‘Turtles’, jackets bought and paid for by the school.  The only common ground appears to be frustration.  Thirty students in matching jackets descend on the home of one student’s stepfather.  They hold him down and take turns slapping him until he’s insensate, then dislocate his jaw with the swing of a baseball bat.

Lori Wyrick, the girl who was slapped by the guidance counselor, follows soon after.  Terrified, she recently retreated to her home and hasn’t left to attend school.  The terror is justified.  The flock of students invade her home and on an internet stream, record the process of each of the thirty students slapping her until their arms get too tired to continue, her arms held behind her back.  They stop when she passes out and resume when she wakes.  Police are called but due to a miscommunication, they visit the wrong address and do not follow up.

At the end, as a virtually unrecognizable Lori Wyrick is propped up, the Turtle Queen approaches, and is treated with reverence.  Those watching the internet stream dismiss things as a hoax and the connection hangs so long with the Turtle Queen’s appearance that most close the browser tab.

Innocence is protected.  Those who do not convince themselves that the Other is a lie are given reasons to disbelieve, by way of coincidence and distraction.  But some continue watching.  The Turtle Queen imagery soon appears in their area.  Many of these instances are weakly established and flicker out and die, but some will remain.

This is the point the practitioner community takes notice.  They contact Opal Winters, matriarch of the Winters family, who have a long history of dealing with these sorts of matters.  The Winters family established itself as researchers of Urban Legends, but in Opal’s era the climate of Others was different, with symbols holding less immediate traction.  Under her leadership, the Winters family became burglars and thieves as a side business, utilizing their study of information to track evidence, gather data on targets, and obfuscate their trail.  Under that same leadership, they are a step behind, focused on that other side of the business, when it comes to seizing on the upsurgence of symbolic others like the Bugge.  Other practitioners have too often gotten there first, and they are being edged out of their own field of specialty by technomancers and other lore-rooted families like the Driscolls, Chants, and even the Belangers.

For Opal and Basil, the fact the news of this Bugge reaches them early is exciting.  They band together to handle this situation.

For Lori Wyrick, however, the only thing that matters is that the Turtle Queen has arrived and the woman delivers the final strike.  Lori’s neck is broken

The firmest parts of reality and society remain and some still go to work but others don’t- routines are broken and people are scared even if they can’t articulate why.  Many stay home or don’t go to school, but without conscious decision.  It is as if it is a holiday without celebration, or a weekend in the middle of the week.  For those who carry on, things become a grind, reality no longer feels as real as it should be.  The days grow unseasonably short, night lingers, the streets are always wet despite a lack of rain, and the process has been so slow and subtle that those living in the region haven’t noticed they are living in something of a painting.  Nobody voices the questions like how everyone is wearing the gold jewelry and piercings, how they afforded it, and where it came from.

Opal and Basil arrive three days later and find the area caught in sunny twilight.  The sun burns gold above them and the sky is black, and the only people functioning in any capacity outside of the general grip and influence of the Turtle Queen Bugge are those so bent and broken by work and routine that they scarcely notice the passing of days.  Innocence and distortions in reality massage away any concerns, protests, and calls for help.

Iconography has slipped its way into everything, and the Turtle Queen has enough wherewithal by now that she actively pursues means of spreading her influence, and actively works against those who would trap and bind her.  Familiar Others are invited to work in her domain and act as guards and layers of protection, to slow down the investigating Winters pair.

A race to the finish.  Basil and his mother Opal are investigating to track down the core of the Bugge, dismantling the Bugge’s handholds in reality as they go.  They find cultish ‘slap clubs’ where people are slapping one another to purge their wrongs and naked, malnourished people body-painted in the Bugge’s colors, skin pierced with the specific arrangements of gold jewelry, the key lines carved into flesh and left to scar.  Lesser Others are magnified and augmented by the Bugge’s affect, with even Echoes falling prey to the Bugge’s influence.  The area is isolated and begins to knot, and every delay now only lets the Bugge grow in power and do more damage.  Others arrive on the scene but because of their early arrival, Opal Winters and Basil Winters are able to establish themselves as experts and navigators of this Bugge’s domain.  They agree to collaborate, and the new arrivals take measures to curtail the spread.

The Turtle Queen moves rapidly between her marks, extending influence.  She is no puppeteer, but can inject herself into the environment, causing her motifs and traits to boil forth.  It costs her power, but if she makes the right investments, she gains more than she lost.

Her goal is an internet server.  Her key pieces that she needs to move into position are people who know technology, and artists.  The fashion designer who originally created the t-shirts is entirely under her sway and is her sometimes host, when the model isn’t.  A body that she can invade and take over when she needs to do more tangible, tactile things, or if she needs to interact directly with people without doing the psychological equivalent of melting their faces off.  The model of the photograph is another common host, and she moves between the two as she prepares.

The stakes are set.  If the Winters can reach her they can bind her.  If she takes too long, then the group at the fringes will cut off her contact to the outside world and this area will be the only area she can ever control.  On the other hand, if she can get her pieces into play and launch her online presence fast enough, a site will go online with stylish t-shirts, coats, pants, athletic wear and hoodies available for sale, with an apparent glitch- available for free to anyone who orders.  A lot of people will order.  A lot of people will get Turtle Queen shirts.

She spends most of her power, knotting the area around the server hub, her minions guard the ways in, her Bugged-out tech team monitors the security.  The clock is set for her to go online- less than an hour.

Against most other practitioners, this would have been enough.  The usual teams and technomancers likely would have failed.

But Basil Winters, even in his teenage years, has worked with thieves and he knows how to get into places, and he knows how to stay undetected.  Avoiding security cameras is the least of it.  He walks up to the Turtle Queen, with forty minutes remaining on the clock, and uses his practice.

He and his mother earn the attention of better practitioners, with the start of an apprenticeship with Raymond Sunshine and invitations to a party with the Raymond’s colleagues, the Mussers.  The Winters family is elevated.

The Turtle Queen is bound.

Now, The Turtle Queen, the Bugge

The Turtle Queen was free.  Temporarily.  This was a different kind of temporary and a different kind of free than the other times Basil had brought her out of his little metal book.

Basil Winters stood with his back to the door, metal book in hand.  Rose-shaped lights stood out from the wall on either side of him, casting two half-shadows.  Things lurked in those shadows.  From behind Basil, even though there was little room, a little girl with the red numbers of a digital clock reflected in her eyes peered out from one side, and a cat with stray pixels and jpeg artifacting sat by his foot on the other side.

Paintings on the wall of the study slowly took on the colors and imagery of the Turtle Queen as she passed near them.  The letters on the spine of books on the bookshelf shuffled as if they were being run through ciphers, while pages inside those books did the same.  She smiled.

She looked at the window.

“Locked and sealed,” a woman told her.  “Don’t try to escape that way.”

If the books and paintings were something she could make hers very easily, the woman who had been hidden in the shadows at the back corner of the room was the opposite.  Purple-skinned, dressed in black, carrying a mask.  It felt as if trying to influence the woman would require translations into languages the Turtle Queen did not yet understand.

“What are you?” she asked.

“I go by Crooked Rook.  I’m Oni.”

“I only know of Oni from anime.”

“We were rewriting our own stories before your kind became common.”

The Turtle Queen yearned for material to use to latch onto that.  The internet- there was no line in the room.  No phones, either.  If she had something like that, she could start deciphering the Oni, working out angles…

The lack of contact with the outside world, and Basil guarding the door meant she was trapped.  She realized she was still bound, after a fashion.

Her grip on the parts of the room she could control intensified.  The words on the spines of the books stopped shifting, settling on words that suited her- Tortoise, Gold.  Windows creaked, glass cracking as it flexed, then uncracking as it resolved into faint new shapes.  The white trim around the glass flaked away, revealing gold.  On either side of her, the images in the paintings twisted, human faces with reptilian eyes from one angle, amphibious faces with human eyes from another, turning to face this captured version of Basil Winters and the purple Oni.

There was a growing storm on the horizon, and some cloud cover above, making the sky gray- which was probably why the lights were on here.  The world beyond the window started to grow darker.  The lighting flickered and when it resolved, the lightbulbs closest to her were dim, as if struggling to life again.  The lighting transitioned from yellow-white to yellow to orange, darkening the blacks on her side of the room, highlighting golds.  Shadows moved slightly as the shadows deepened, as if all sources of light had been pushed a few inches over to her right.

“Rest easy,” Crooked Rook told her.  “There is a time and a place for nearly everything.  I wish to talk.”

“And him?”

“Bridge is a body snatcher.  He’s helping me for the time being.  He was bound, deservedly, he interfered with things he shouldn’t have.  But as I said, there is a time and a place for everything and this was a nice moment and place for Bridge.  I would like to find one for you, that does not involve being bound indefinitely.”

“I want more than a moment and a single place.”

“Then help us launch an attack against our enemies.  To trap, not necessarily kill.  After that, we’re considering having you be a part of something we’re building.  Something extensive.”

“Why would you trust something like me?  You barely know me.”

“But Basil did.  He wrote extensively on the subject of you.  It’s a way of disarming you, removing mystique.  I’m talking to you now to get your measure.”

“Yeah?  What are you building?”

“A town.  But you would have to abide by rules, and you wouldn’t be able to reach out.”

“Basil-” Bridge started.  He looked like he didn’t want to interrupt.  He didn’t sound like Basil at all, even if he had Basil’s voice.  “He described you as being akin to a forest fire, but you don’t burn, consume, and grow by wood, leaf, and oxygen, you burn through word, graphics, and ideas.”

“What a flatterer,” the Turtle Queen replied.  She approached Bridge and gave him three sharp pats on the cheek, then looked down at the girl with the digital numbers reflected in her eyes.  The digital numbers had turned from red to green as the Turtle Queen drew closer.

The little cat with eyes and no nose or mouth stood tense, back arched, hair standing straight up, and shivers danced through the air around it.

It abruptly shed, depositing a carpet of pixelated hairs on the ground.  No longer black, it had a tortoiseshell pattern to it, its eyes gold.

“I can’t reach out?” she asked, looking between the cat and Rook.

“If you spread your influence too much you draw attention.  If you draw attention you draw enemies,” Rook told her.

“I like the attention part.”

“Some of the reaching out is instinct.  That can be suppressed and managed.  We all suppress our instincts every day.  Some of it is your fear.  Extending your influence sustains you.  I want to put you into a position where you don’t need to worry about being extinguished if you can’t grow.”

“If I say no, I’ll be bound once again into that little book with metal covers?”

“We would let you find your own time and moment, if that’s even possible.  Basil Winters will eventually be freed, but it’s hard to say what condition he might be in when he is.  If he dies or cannot or will not unbind you and give you opportunities to turn the tables on him, because of lost confidence, gainsaying, or other problems, obviously, you would be in dire straits.”

“Or you’ll bind me into the book?  And I’m back to where I started.”

“Your situation would most likely be worse.  He’ll mature, learn, adjust, and adapt.  I expect he’ll be a more subdued and careful human after we release him, and a keener practitioner.”

“Shattered individuals make bad jailers.”

“He watches us even now.  Bridge controls him but he observes all of this.  Yes, shattered people make bad jailers.  They also make for jailers who will walk away and leave their prisoners to rot.”

“Then I suppose I have no choice,” the Turtle Queen replied.  She looked down at the little girl with the green numbers in her eyes, and she smiled.  The little girl smiled back.

“You have a choice, but it’s a lopsided one.  Our enemies are an assortment.  This grouping likes to mix practitioner types.  Sealers, gore-streaked, combat practitioners, historians, Oni practitioners, collectors…”

The numbers reflected in the girl’s eyes- they were a countdown.  Five three nine.  Five three eight.

“The time to strike is five hours and thirty eight minutes from now?”

“Yes.”

She was also aware, now, that Basil had shrunken as a person while caught like this.  The body snatcher Bridge could control Basil and manage his practice, but that was hard.  He didn’t have the same claim, with everything being secondhand.

There was a chance he didn’t have enough claim to get her back in the book.  A good chance if she fought him over it.

She didn’t fight.  “Let’s talk.”

Now, the Countdown Cassandra, Urban Legend

“I hoped to draw a couple more in before I closed the net,” Bridge told Millicent Legendre.

They emerged from hiding places, to fill the room and cut off the natural flow of connections.  Milly Legendre’s practice drew heavily on her ties to the wardings she set up.

It helped she’d just temporarily abandoned one.  It weakened others, just a little.

Milly’s hand went to her arm, pulling off a bracelet.  Magic circles appeared and lifted away from her arm, circle touching circle and rotating like gears, across three dimensions.  She drew her arm back, ready to unleash some magic-

And the letters and words on magic circles changed.  The circles tinted gold.

The girl who had been called the Countdown Cassandra watched as the Turtle Queen stepped away from the books on the wall, reaching, asserting influence.

Milly Legendre wasted little time in pulling off bracelets on her left arm, avoiding the use of her right arm with its subverted practices.  She created a magic circle around herself, which swelled in size and forced the Others in the room to back away to the very corners of the room, while she took the middle of the room for herself.  A warding circle.

Bridge peeled away from Basil, even, but because the circle established a half sphere of protection above it, he managed to keep his head above and away, maintaining control over the head and brain.  He stumbled back and away, and reasserted control.

“Help!” Milly called out, top of her lungs.

The Countdown Cassandra was among those who worked to strangle the connection.  She was an urban legend, a story passed around by way of word of mouth.  She could track that and encourage or strangle it.

Only a few in the house heard anything amiss, and none acted on it.

“Auntie Ursanne!”

That one cut through.  The assembled practitioners were from varied families, but this was a stronger, firmer connection to someone nearby.  The older woman stood up, concerned, and started navigating her way across the house.  She said something that drew the attention of others.

Countdown Cassandra’s eyes flickered.  She took in that information about the connections and the people who’d taken notice and displayed it in her eyes.  “Two minutes thirteen.”

“Handle it,” Bridge said.

“Don’t-!” Milly shouted.  The gold sheen had faded from her one arm.  She had to drop the warding circle to use it.  A repelling blast, with a bit of a curse laced through it.

Countdown Cassandra was sent flying.  Drywall caved in as her head struck wall.  Others were sent sprawling, or hit the door and wall with similar intensity.  The Typetap Kitty was among them, and the Countdown Cassandra caught it by the tail before it could hit the ground face-first.

The collision barely hurt.  It didn’t hurt her, at least.  She wasn’t the sort of force or entity that cared about injury.  She was tied into inevitable forces and into stories.  It didn’t serve the story to have any bullet or attack practice stop her and it didn’t serve Disaster or mother Fate, either.

They could work against the noise and commotion, but the amount of practice being used was another kind of story and another kind of information.  There were twenty three other people in the house.  Some were using Sight at any given moment.  Some saw the results of Milly using her attack practice on them, then using it again on Bridge and Basil, hammering him.  She brought her warding circle back up.

It was slightly gold-tinted.  The light within the circle was darker.  Milly looked at the Turtle Queen, who smiled.

“I serve the forces of karma, I have undertaken nine quests in the last nine years, at the behest of higher powers, to bind, forestall, restrain-”

“What are you doing?” Bridge asked.

The Turtle Queen stepped closer.  The warding circle shrank back away from her.

“-I have sworn and done duties as a Knight of Seals-”

The gold that showed the Turtle Queen’s influence over the warding practice was being purged and pushed out.

“-I call on all of this as I use practice with less pattern, practice I have not yet established.  I pray to gods unspecific, though I am not a believer, and I would strengthen connections to reach those outside-”

Countdown Cassandra saw the connections shift, taking on an inner light.

“You let an Other free.  One that many wanted bound,” Bridge called out.

That glow faltered.

Millicent Legendre hesitated.  “There was cause.”

“You failed in your responsibilities, didn’t you?” Bridge asked.

The glow grew weaker.

Before Milly could make a counterargument, the Turtle Queen stepped in closer.

Milly’s warding circle shrank down and then broke away into nothing.  She immediately retaliated, striking out blindly at the Turtle Queen and Basil- and a lesser Bugge that had snuck around the room leaped onto her back.  Milly, cold from a long walk in the rain, had been wearing a blanket, which she’d discarded, and a coat, sweatshirt, jeans, and shoes meant for hiking in.  The coat, sweatshirt, jeans, and shoes had logos, symbols, and branding.

The logos all turned a deep purple.  The remainder of the clothes swiftly turned a matte, monochrome black, and purple eyes opened across much of what she was wearing.

Milly’s shoes ceased to have traction on the floor.

Countdown Cassandra opened the door and stepped partway into the hall, pausing to peer past the door at Milly.

Milly said words under her breath, empowering practice, then lashed out, in what she meant to be a final strike against Bridge.  An attempt to free Basil by bludgeoning the Other that had a grip on him.

But Bridge was reaching out.  She didn’t finish gesturing or swinging her arm before he caught her hand, in a sudden, violent clasp of hands.

The watch he wore slid from his right wrist, down his hand, to her wrist.  Milly’s nose broke, and cuts marked her fingers.

The Turtle Queen caught the practitioner Basil Winters as he was freed from the body snatcher’s grasp.

Bridge, now possessing Millicent Legendre, picked up a dropped bracelet.  The Bugge that had taken hold of her clothing slipped away, as a jellyfish-like cluster of purple eyes trailed by inky black lines.  Some of the lesser Bugges helped to put the room back into order, picking things up and moving them back into position.  Bridge looked to the door and saw Countdown Cassandra.  “You’re still here?”

Countdown Cassandra stopped watching and stepped out into the hallway, bringing the Typetap Kitty with her.  The Kitty became an image on her shirt.

The big room at the back of the house was occupied by people who were sleeping off travel, injuries from the raids on their territory, or otherwise finding private moments- boyfriend and girlfriend sitting together, having a conversation while keeping an eye on things.  The three children Milly had rescued were back there, resting.  None were inclined to come track down any odd or loud sounds in a noisy, crowded house, and none were using Sight much.  Though the house was crowded, people mostly left the back room alone, condensing elsewhere.

“Hello there,” a girl said.  She looked like she was having trouble sleeping.

“The weather outside is frightful,” Countdown Cassandra replied.

The numbers in her eyes glowed brighter.

“It is.  But there are rainbows after a rain, and the sun always rises in the morning.  Are you anxious?  Do you want to sit and talk?”

Countdown Cassandra didn’t.  She moved on.  She hadn’t gotten much traction here.

Just down the hallway, past that big room, was the kitchen.  Quieter conversations were being had there, while the louder main discussion happened in the living room, closer to the front of the house.  Ursanne Legendre had paused at a doorway, asking people in the kitchen questions.  A tall, square-jawed woman with gray hair.

Being tied into Fate and Disaster made it easier to see how events flowed together.  Countdown Cassandra didn’t see the future, but she could follow threads.  People in the kitchen had heard some of the commotion.

“Whose familiar are you?” Ursanne asked, as she saw Countdown Cassandra.

“Nobody’s.”

“Who has unsecured summons on the property?” Ursanne asked, raising her voice, her head turning toward the kitchen.  “The house is crowded as it is.”

“The storm is intensifying.”

Ursanne frowned as she looked down at Countdown Cassandra.  There was a chance that the aunt had seen the intensity of the numbers in her eyes before, and the intensity change now.

“There are two timers in your eyes.”  Ursanne said.  Because the numbers appeared backwards in Countdown Cassandra’s eyes, and because they were bright, the numbers appeared right-way-around in Ursanne’s eyes.

“One is going to be when you get to that room back there.  The other has been counting down all day.  For the meeting in the living room.”

“The meeting in the living room already started.”

“It will end.”

“Connections?” a woman in the kitchen asked.

Ursanne frowned at Countdown Cassandra.

But her focus was on Millicent, her niece.

She pushed Countdown Cassandra out of the way, and told the kitchen, “Someone manage this Other, get it out of the way.  I don’t like that countdown.”

In that moment of contact, the woman’s hand at her shoulder, Countdown Cassandra could see the threads of connections more clearly.  She could see Millicent through her aunt, controlled by Bridge.  On the phone, talking to someone else.

“Millicent is talking to her father,” she said.

Ursanne slowed slightly.

Bridge seemed to think that if Milly was on the phone, it would be easier to field questions.  He might be right.  The question would be what Basil might do.  If the aunt would see him.

“Who has free hands?” a woman asked.  She was making food.

While her head was turned, Countdown Cassandra stepped past the door, a bit out of sight, touched her chest, then pointed.

The Typetap Kitty dropped to the ground, then slipped through the gap between door and hinge, into the kitchen.

Something toppled, falling.  It hit the ground with a crack and a wet sound.

“Oh shit, no, it’s everywhere!”

She moved on while they were distracted.

Six different Others moved through vents and crossed the house, moving into position.  Countdown Cassandra made seven.  Typetap Kitty made eight.

Already, suspicions had been raised and people were on guard.  She walked around the edge of the living room, as people engaged in heated discussion.  Her story needed more traction.  She needed the attention of the room, but if she screamed or did anything too unusual, she would risk being hit with practices that would be far more serious than what Milly had struck her with.  Or binding.

A foot went out, between the arm of a chair and the wall.  Blocking her way.  She stopped short, leaning against the leg.

Wrapped in a blanket, America Tedd was sitting across an armchair, head over one arm of it and knees over the other.  Her partially shaved hair was still faintly damp, and her feet stuck out of the end of the blanket.  “Wasn’t someone from the kitchen supposed to stop you?”

Telling this girl alone wouldn’t be enough.

Typetap Kitty came back, an image on the wall, too crisp to be a child’s scribble.  It kept to the shadows, which were heavy, with only the overhead light and a few lamps around the room.  Tall men and people standing shoulder to shoulder walled out a lot of the light.  Only little yellow eyes a few inches above the carpet truly stood out.

“There it is,” a woman said.  She was drying her hands with a dishcloth.  “The countdown Other?”

The woman’s approach gave more shadowy cover for Typetap Kitty to move along the base of the wall, crouching low.  It leaped, jumping up the surface of the wall to where America’s foot was propped up, barring Countdown Cassandra’s way.

America Tedd jumped.  “What did you do?”

“Problem?” a man asked.

America Tedd stood up, putting herself in Countdown Cassandra’s way.  The woman from the kitchen put a hand on her shoulder.

Hemmed in.  America Tedd in front of her, chair to her right, woman from the kitchen behind, wall to her left.

“Something crawled up my pants leg,” America complained.

There wasn’t much time on the countdown.

There were other Bugges, Boggarts, Fancies, and Mimesthais in the house, that had been released from Basil’s book.

“Something’s off,” a woman announced.  A woman from the Hennigar family, she’d married in.  Her talents lay in skinchanging and going berserk.  She had animal senses.  “The house itself is muffled.”

The conversation died in the room.

“I never thought I’d say this but I need some girls to come to the bathroom with me,” America said.  “Feels like something really did crawl up my pants leg.  The more practices on deck the better.”

“Come,” a woman said.

“You!” America told a teenage girl.  A Driscoll.  “Watch that Other.  Or bind it.  Something.”

Countdown Cassandra stared at the Driscoll girl.

The girl took up America’s responsibility, but didn’t take her position.  The way wasn’t barred.

“Yeah,” a man said.  More than half of those present were using Sight.  “This is an attack.  They’ve already got Others inside.”

Hennigars went to the windows, standing beside to peek through.  Others picked up their things, or hurried to the front hall.

The Turtle Queen walked into the room.  Immediately, subtler practices and Sights started to be affected.  Some people had their eyes turn gold, and quickly shut off their Sights, shaking their heads or wiping at their eyes.

“Identify yourself, Other.”

Her appearance turned heads and drew everyone’s focus.  The woman that had been holding onto Countdown Cassandra’s shoulder let go.

“For the second time, we ask you, identify yourself.  By the Seal, and with sufficient authority, we can demand an answer.”

Fate, Time, Death, War, and other incarnate forces were sometimes called inevitable forces.  Countdown Cassandra had the benefit of being tied heavily into Fate.  It let her see connections, and it meant that she had a way of bringing things to pass, both through the inevitability and the Fate aspect of things.

“For the third time, identify yourself.  You are-”

“The Turtle Queen.”

“Wait.  That was Basil’s,” a woman said.

Distractions helped.  If they faced her directly with their full attention, they could thwart her.  But they weren’t facing her directly and they weren’t giving her their full attention.  As it was, only one person really focused on her.  The Driscoll girl.

“There is always one who comes out unscathed, because they heard me, they listened, and they took action,” Countdown Cassandra whispered to the girl.

“What?”

“Cover your ears and shut your eyes.  Do not move,” Countdown Cassandra told her.

The girl reached out to stop her as she took a step forward.

Through that contact, she could see connections.

Through that contact, she could provide connections.  Flash-forwards, glimpses of what was to come.

Sarah Driscoll stepped back and away in shock.  She was not a fighter, and she wasn’t confrontational.  She was from the less wealthy leg of a family that was not overly wealthy, especially compared to a handful of people present.  She hadn’t attended the Blue Heron like many of the young people here had.  She hoped to for one year or one summer, but that dream was on uneven footing since the Blue Heron had temporarily shuttered its doors.

She hadn’t been given much of a voice.

Which let Countdown Cassandra step forward to reach for the television, and Sarah Driscoll turned her head and couldn’t quite bring herself to shout and pull everyone’s attention away.

The vast majority of the room was focused on the Turtle Queen, and the Others that slithered across walls and around furniture.  Lesser Bugges who hadn’t achieved as much traction.  Fancies that were living symbols.  Other Urban Legends.

But the blue light from the television turned a few heads.  Then others.

The weather report glowed on the screen.

“Uh.  She said something to Ursanne about the weather earlier,” the woman from the kitchen said.

“Don’t say that!”

Countdown Cassandra turned her head and let them see her eyes, as the number reached zero.

As her urban legend went, she appeared to people.  Sometimes she was alone and lost.  Other times, she appeared as a specter, a person by the side of the road.  Always, the numbers in her eyes were noticed.  A countdown.

Always, there were warnings.  Usually three.  Tied to that countdown.

Often, because she chose her targets with care, people were tired, disheveled, and distracted.

One person would listen.  They would heed the warning, they would frequently try to warn others, or to figure out what the warning was about.

Such was the tale that Fate spun.

Disaster wrote the rest.

Lightning hit the house, very close to the television set.  A segment of wall came down, but did not break or do much damage.

Normally her efforts would have more of a lead-up.  The warnings would be more substantial and ominous.  The disaster could kill dozens.

This was a single lightning strike.  No casualties.  The people who’d been closest to the screen and to her were bowled over.  Brief chaos and disruption followed.  Too many were packed into a tight area.

Lightbulbs shattered at the same time Countdown Cassandra faded from the foreground.  Message delivered, she ceased to be, remaining mostly as a haunting reminder of the warnings she’d given.

Ears were set to ringing, senses were rattled, and rattled senses in the dark made it hard to remember and operate based on direction.  For those who had been closest to the blast, it was hard to even tell which way was up.

Except for Sarah Driscoll, who had done as instructed and shut her eyes, covering her ears.

Taking the form of a shadow on the wall with eyes that glowed the same green as the numerals, Countdown Cassandra caught the Typetap Kitty as it ran along the wall and leaped into her arms.

In the dark, the assembled practitioners fought to make sense of things, while other Fancies and Bugges descended on them.

Attempts at light came first and the Turtle Queen was quick to subvert them.  Simple practice, simple subversion.

Warding practices exploded into existence around the room.  Some came with more confidence than others.  There were Legendres in the room who hadn’t put up a proper ward in years, even if they carried the equipment for it.  Many of those present were tertiary family members.

Those were slower for the Turtle Queen to subvert.

The reaction was staggered.  The initial response was uneven, but it felt as though the people who hadn’t practiced in a long time were remembering words and finding their stride.

Coordination with their fellow family members followed soon after.

Crooked Rook had said the Legendres were there to hold up barriers and slow things, so that the remainder could cluster up and organize a response.  But the storm had done a lot to cut off communication, Bridge and the other Bugges had helped with that, and the organization hadn’t happened.

Had it worked like it was intended to, they would have used numbers more than a particular quality or stature of practitioners to defend the territories and retake what was lost.  They didn’t get that chance.  They gathered here, thinking they could finally coordinate, and here they were cornered in the dark.

And, step by step, they fought their way free of the darkness.  They established warding circles and when one started to be subverted they would collapse it, trusting the cousin or brother next to them to already be putting something else up in the way of protections.

The non-Legendres were preparing.  Attack practices.  Bindings.

Sarah Driscoll among them.  Her focus was on the Countdown Cassandra.  Her eyes glowed with Sight.  The Driscolls were historians, students of patterns that extended across cities and events.  They were among those who were better at dealing with urban legends and Bugges.

Countdown Cassandra ran.  Metal spikes were flung from somewhere in the middle of the room and one punched into the wall, wounding her.  They barred her way, and she had to duck past to continue running, two dimensional on the wall’s surface.

This was, after all, a houseful of practitioners.  She could lean on fate, distraction, and the fact they were disoriented and frustrated by the recent evacuation of their territories.  That could get her far enough that her urban legend could carry on.  Three warnings and then disaster.

But it was a houseful of practitioners.  They could never claim a full and total victory.

America Tedd kicked the bathroom door open, just ahead of Countdown Cassandra.  She’d gotten the Typetap Kitty out of her pants leg and was back, drawing two goblin-style wands from the back of her jeans.  Barbed wire wrapped around branches.

She had the ability to see in the dark that many present didn’t.

She was backed by a Legendre, who had followed her into the bathroom in case the thing in her pants was a big enough problem to warrant help.

A wand stabbed into the wall.  Barbed wire ripped out of another point further down the wall.  It snagged Countdown Cassandra.

The goal, through darkness, chaos, and confusion, was to allow mistakes to happen.

“Don’t use your phone!” Sarah Driscoll called out.  She’d realized.

Someone had realized that service had been restored to phones.

Sarah’s warning came too late.  Fingers fumbled to get to the screen where they could activate airplane mode.

But Typetap Kitty was ready, and leaped.

A finger slid across the surface of the phone and found the Typetap Kitty’s head there.  Glass broke, miming the shape of fangs, and teeth bit deep into thumb, with slivers of broken phone screen.  Punching through the place where the airplane mode button was.

The call went out.  Someone, in their panic, thought others needed to know what was happening and that territories were falling.

Bugges extended power through it.

And with that done, the Turtle Queen no longer held back.  She took the house.

Countdown Cassandra, bound in barbed wire, waited patiently.

Being bound was fine, if the one binding her was bound as well.

The people inside the house were trapped now.

She would be allowed to go free eventually.

Now, Typetap Kitty, Technomancy Fancy

“Toronto wasn’t the plan,” Grayson Hennigar commented, as he sat, holding an artisan beer.  He looked out the window at the greater city.  They were at the top floor of a high-rise, and clouds swam around them, illuminated by city lights below.  The sky was dark.

“Toronto was always going to be a long-term consideration,” Abraham replied.  “It’s too major an area to have immediately next door.  Even if the current Lord was willing to leave us be, the next one might not be.  The situation is similar for Thunder Bay, and Winnipeg.  We did our reconnaissance and saw an opportunity.  It’s one flank we no longer have to worry about minding.”

“Except Ottawa is six hours drive away.”

“Six hours of distance between us and our potential enemies is manageable.”

“And there are other territories between there and here.”

“Which are manageable.  Grayson, good friend, what is this?” Abraham asked.  He had his own beer, and leaned forward, one elbow on one knee.  “Shying away?”

“No,” Grayson replied.  “I’m voicing the concerns of others, on their behalf.  They know I have your ear.”

“How upset are they?”

“Not upset, not in the sense they’re angry.  But they’re worried.  They support you, and most think you’ll succeed.  They want a piece of that success.”

“Of course.”

“But how far have we strayed from the original goal?  It’s hard to lend you full support when we don’t know what the larger goal is.  Some think you’re gradually revealing what you intended from the start.  That’s only marginally worse than a plan with a half-dozen last-minute alterations.  To give up the original plan of everyone establishing Lordships.  The original positions of key players, the side projects you were going to pursue concurrently…”

“I know.  I do.  Basil was going to help with London, but he had to take a spot, and it was awkward to remove him.  I hear you, Grayson.  People are like spirits.  They like for us to announce what we’ll do well in advance and then keep to that.”

“Managing people is my least favorite part of warmongering,” Grayson replied, agreeing with a weariness in his voice.

Abraham chuckled, and he leaned back.  The smile dropped from his face.  “How worried should I be about them?”

“They won’t overthrow you.  It’s limited to mutterings.  There were quite a few, spread across phone calls, internet messages, texts… different wording of the same anxieties.  Less in the last few hours.”

“I was only just thinking about it.  Either the western territories were attacked, or they’re meeting and we’re not invited to the meeting.  A prelude to certain demands.  Perhaps oaths, or putting some of their people in your immediate proximity, so those people can report back and tell them what is going on.”

“If they establish a body of observers to watch my every move, that body will feel they have to justify their own existence.  I’d never be rid of them.  Oaths are little better.  Let’s get on top of that.  Assume an attack, send some of ours back west.”

“Long trip.  The back and forth is its own annoyance for many.”

“One of many hassles that we’ll hopefully be rid of when things stabilize.  Let’s follow up on that.  And gifts to the key players, to win them over.  Monetary?”

“Money rings hollow.  Your wife keeps track of the various relationships, doesn’t she?  Meets with Adelade, Ursanne, Richard…?”

“Yes.  You’re thinking of marriages?”

“They’re putting a lot at stake to help bring this to pass.  Let’s let them feel a part of the success.  What better way than to bring them into the family?”

“If only it was that easy.  There are only so many bachelors and bachelorettes.  I was talking to Duchamps the other week, and we talked about arranging for a ten year old to marry a ten year old, six years from now.  That’s thin, even with oaths, but we’ve still exhausted most of our youth in that manner.  How much further am I to go?  I insinuated to Wye Belanger that if he got a girlfriend pregnant, there’s a Musser child on the way.  Children not even born yet.  What chips do I have?”

“Your father banished members from the family.  You have as well.  Donovan?  Billie?  Bring them back in?”

“There would be angry mutterings when I wasn’t in the room, in the various Musser properties.  And I would have to mind the mutterings of those who were banished and brought back.  They wouldn’t necessarily repay me with gratitude.”

“A knife in the back, instead?  I could see it.”

The discussion continued.  Musser finished his drink and stood, stretching.

The Typetap Kitty navigated around the room to Musser’s desk.  It shied away as it felt a warding protection.  The desk itself was secured, so practices conducted on the top of it wouldn’t damage the expensive wood.

But the phone was plugged into an outlet near the foot of the desk.

Pawing at the socket, the Typetap Kitty dislodged it.  Then, suckling and gnawing on the prongs, it pulled power out of the phone.

It took rolling onto its back, using two forepaws and one rear one, last leg extended straight out, to manage the plug and set it back into the ground.  There was a faint sparking, and the outlet died.

Manipulation of the cord made the phone slip from the desk.  It landed on the chair with a clatter, and the startled Typetap Kitty darted away, slipping beneath the bookshelves, with only a credit card’s thickness of space beneath.  Yellow eyes peered out from beneath, two dimensional and flat against the floor.

Abraham Musser approached, and the Typetap Kitty watched as his eyes started glowing.

It retreated.  To avoid being seen, it did a circuit around the apartment.

Once it had been one of Basil Winters favored summonings.  It had learned tricks, learned what to watch for.

Basil was gone.  Cats weren’t especially loyal, but the Typetap Kitty might have done something to help, regardless.  But it had been touched by the gold light from the greater Bugge, the Turtle Queen, and she extended herself through it, by way of a tortoiseshell pattern on fur and gold tint to eyes.

It stalked the staff of the penthouse apartment, which took up the entire upper floor, and it found Abraham Musser’s twenty-one year old wife Carolyn, sitting at the counter in the kitchen, a drink next to her.  It looked like she was cooking a meal with a recipe on the laptop as reference, the meal on the stove and steaming.

It settled down and it waited.

After fifteen minutes, Carolyn turned off the burners, moved the pot off the hot part of the stove, and left.  She closed the bathroom door after her.

Typetap Kitty leaped down from its space above the cabinets, and landed on the keyboard.  It began to type out full messages, walking this way and that across the keyboard, reporting in.

Now, Bridge, Bodysnatcher

“Eerie,” Avery Kelly said, looking at Bridge, who controlled Milly Legendre.

“This is more comfortable than Basil Winters.”

“Because it’s a girl?” Avery asked.

“Because she has an air of authority around her.  Basil was a weasel.”

“A real life one,” Snowdrop commented.

“Well, aside from the fit, it’s pretty uncomfortable from a moral standpoint,” Avery told him.  “For me, anyway.”

“Will it be better if I leave her to possess her father?  If I can work my way up-”

“You shouldn’t try,” Rook interrupted.

She had the Turtle Queen with her.

“Too much scrutiny,” Rook elaborated.

“How long does this go on?” Avery asked.

“Until we win or lose, I suspect.”

“What if we never win or lose, and this becomes a conflict that goes way past when I get old and die?”

“Then it becomes a constant and ongoing consideration about whether we should use those like Bridge.”

Avery sighed.  “I don’t like this.”

“You’d like another serious loss even less.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Perhaps not.”

“You don’t want me to go for the head of the family, then?” Bridge asked.

“Stay with Milly Legendre for now.  Go get that barrier in her territory working again.  Avery may be able to help you.”

“I’ll already be in huge trouble for being out this late.  My mom sent me some worried messages.  I told her it was okay.”

“If not tonight, then another time.  A Fancy infiltrated Musser’s roost.  He’s holding territory as Lord of Toronto and enjoying that stature for the time being.  We’re privy to some communications and messages, until he finds the Fancy.  We’re also in a position to send messages.  It’ll most likely be through his wife.  Musser is more careful about leaving his computers and phone unattended.”

“Can’t we use that?” Avery asked.

“We can.  We will.  But it’s best to wait.”

“You didn’t have to come.  Especially if your mother is worried,” Rook said.

“I kind of did.  To make sure things were okay.  That nobody was being hurt,” Avery said, and she turned her eyes to Bridge once again.  “Is anyone being hurt?”

“No, but there’s some discomfort.  We hoped to keep them trapped for longer, but as it happens, there were three children on the premises.  A stronger entity had a firm grip on all three, to the point that our attempt to surround and contain the house couldn’t succeed.”

“I can’t even latch onto them,” Bridge admitted.  “No grip.”

“So the gig is up.  People know.”

“And they’ll come.  They’ll rescue the trapped.  But things will be in disarray.  There’s a chance Bridge can hold Milly’s territory.  Who claimed it?”

“Ann Wint.”

“Will she relinquish it?”

“Yeah.”

“Relatively few visit Milly.  If we can leave her where she is, there’s a chance we could get Anthem Tedd or Musser.”

“Okay, maybe.  But to change the very uncomfortable subject- if people already know-” Avery started.  She frowned.  “Can I make a request?”

“You can.”

“America Tedd.  Her dad was pretty fair to us, when he showed up at Verona’s ritual.  I’d like to let her go.  Maybe with an oath.”

Bridge noted, “from what I’ve seen of her, she’d walk ten feet out the door and then turn around and attack us in a fury.  Oaths are a good idea.

“Our ability to eavesdrop on Abraham Musser means we’re privy to certain details.  We know something about Anthem Tedd that may recolor your opinion of how he acted.”

“Yeah?”

“He was gainsaid at the time.  He crossed into territory the Carmine Exile was active in.  The Carmine Exile gainsaid him for thirty days.  He argued it down to five.  He arrived at the ritual unable to practice.”

“So he would’ve lost?”

“No.  He was fairly confident he could have won with magic items and pure skill.  But he wasn’t wholly certain.”

“You’re a bad practitioner if you think anything’s wholly certain,” Avery replied.

“It may have played a part in his willingness to walk away.”

Avery sighed, and looked down at Snowdrop.

“Let her rot.  She deals with goblins, and who likes goblins?” Snowdrop asked.

“As a favor to Liberty, and because America did help us a little bit, even if she told me to do things with a hairbrush… see what we can do?”

Avery raised her eyebrows.

“I’m loathe to give up captured pieces-”

“People.”

“Or people.  And our position is good.  Tenuous but good.  America Tedd is volatile.  She can go free when others do, and that won’t be too long.  Reinforcements will come to break the Bugge’s hold on this house.  Milly will be in the shuffle, Basil will not.  With luck, Milly can use up their resources, take things from Ann-”

“I get the plan, I just don’t like the body snatching or prisoner-taking.”

“Would you rather we secure the doors and windows and set it on fire with everyone inside?”

“Yes,” Snowdrop said.

“No!” Avery exclaimed.  “What the heck?”

Rook crouched and looked up a bit at Avery, her expression serious.  “I’ve been in those wars.  I’m trying to be gentle, but I will not sacrifice a real chance at victory.”

“This hurts us diplomatically.  There are people in there who we could possibly win over.”

“You can’t engage in diplomacy with the likes of this group.  You struggled with Milly, according to Basil.  You fought America.  Anthem only did what he did because he takes his own counsel and, to a much lesser degree, his daughters’.  You’ve failed with Musser.  You cannot do diplomacy with those who will not engage back.”

“I might end up taking this to the council.”

“Do.  While you’re at it, let us know if you’ll be attending the forging of third Kennet.”

“I’d like to.”

“The margins for the moves we can make are now very, very narrow.  The taking of Toronto gave Musser a lot of territory.  Lords are giving up without a fight.”

“I want to be there.  I’ll try.”

“It’ll be in the next few days.  Timing will be crucial.  This?”

Rook indicated the house.

“It upsets their timing.”

“It upsets a lot more than that.  Those kids who ran-?  They were released from the woods?”

Rook looked at Bridge.

“Yes,” Bridge replied.  “From the clutches of an Other who hasn’t fully released his grip.”

“Does that mean that if they’re out there on their own, and if they wander, they might end up veering right back into that place they were captured from?”

“Yes,” Rook replied.

“I can call Queen Sootsleeves, work out a favor.  Her minions would be able to cover a lot of ground.  Steer them to safety.”

“We can devote a few.”

“I’ll come too.  I’ll- I’ll apologize to my mom later.  Okay.  I’m not happy, for the record.”

“We can discuss with the council and work out the best decision.”

“We at least know what Musser is doing?”

“For now.”

“And Anthem isn’t an immediate threat?”

“Not to his full ability.  He’s still dangerous.”

“Okay…” Avery replied.  “And Charles?”

“What about him?”

“What’s he doing?”

“Pursuing a grudge.  But nothing overt that I can identify.”

“Gainsaying people.”

“Yes.”

Bridge shifted his feet.

Rook glanced at him.

“I’m not a veteran Other, nor am I a fancy practitioner,” Bridge told them.  “But I have a sense of what he’s doing.  It comes through in the reports.  It fits with what I’ve heard tonight, as Basil.”

“What?” Avery asked.

“He targeted Blue Heron students.  He’s targeting Lieutenants.  People at the top, who aren’t Musser.”

“Are Blue Heron students at the top?” Avery asked.

“Compared to the average practitioner?  Close to,” Bridge replied.  “Musser stands on the top of a very high pedestal, and the middle of it is being chipped and and broken.  How long before that topples?”

Rook adjusted her grip on her mask, turning her head, a thoughtful expression in her eyes.  “If it does, how long will the people on the ground struggle and strain to hold him upright?”

“I consider myself one of the- not humans, but one of those at the bottom.  I didn’t have much patience,” Bridge replied.  “Musser falling like this isn’t a good thing for us.”

“No,” Rook agreed.

“Isn’t it?” Avery asked.

“We’d rather he was secure, predictable, and arrogant,” Rook answered.  “We don’t want to deal with a Musser with something to prove, who holds what he currently holds.  Go get started on finding those children.  But let’s not waste any time.  We should begin the third facet of Kennet.”

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