Author: Wildbow

Gone and Done It – 17.12 | Pale

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“What the fuck, Verona?”

That was a lot of intensity, coming from Avery.  Verona turned her head to check with Lucy, but Lucy’s attention was captivated by a conversation well out of Verona’s earshot, her arms folded, her expression serious and sad.

The hallway they were in was only partially lit.  The hospital wasn’t that large to begin with, and was pretty empty, but then the fact it was night was a whole other factor.  Avery’s dad had come to get treated, and her mom had driven over shortly after.  While they’d been handling that and talking, Verona and Lucy had found Avery.

Avery touched Verona’s arm.  Verona turned back to Avery.

“You took down the diagram that’s meant to catch Miss?”

“I didn’t take it down.  I obliterated it.”

“We moved the mundane items too,” Lucy said, without taking her eyes off the end of the hallway.

“Why?”

“Because they were going to seize it.  When I finalized the changes the Garricks gave me, I threw in some stuff that would let me scrap it if I had to.  We don’t want them peering too closely or getting a clue about what we’re doing.  They might interfere or twist it.”

“But when are you setting up the replacement?  Are you setting up the replacement?” Avery asked.

Verona shot Avery a look.  “Well yeah, obviously.  But like, if you look at the timing?  Matthew made his claim Friday night, that wraps up tomorrow night.  Monday night.  Then Miss did hers the next day, earlyish.  That wraps up Tuesday morning, if it’s taking three days?”

“Yeah,” Avery replied.

“And Musser wraps up very first thing on Wednesday,” Verona finished.  “We have a gap.  All we have to do is draw up the diagram again before Miss arrives.  We’ve got all day and all night tomorrow, before early Tuesday.  Better to draw that up just before and concentrate our forces on defending it.”

“We have teams from the Undercity each handling one of the diagrams of mundane items,” Lucy added, glancing back at Verona and Avery.  “At our signal, they deploy, put the items down.  I’ll tell you the details in case I’m incapacitated, Ave”

“The diagram is like, the size of the floor of the school gymnasium, though.  You’re going to draw all that?”

“Already drew it once, so I have practice,” Verona replied.  “Give ourselves an hour or two of lead-in, time some distractions, Dog Tags, maybe a summoned Other like I used for the Demesne ritual.”

“An hour or two of lead-in to what, though?” Avery asked.

Verona scrunched her eyebrows together.  “To… Miss’s arrival?”

“Okay, hmmmm, so I think we miscommunicated here,” Avery said, the ‘hmmmm’ taking on a fractured, uneven quality.  “Maybe we tricked ourselves a bit, thinking okay, well, all the big rituals take three days, you know?”

“I don’t actually know,” Lucy said.  She wasn’t distracted by what was going on down the hall now.  “What are you talking about?”

Avery put her hands to the side of her head, fingers running back through her hair eyes wide.  “Time is weird in the Paths.  For me it felt like a handful of hours, and I was gone basically a day and a bit.  I think Miss has a decent handle on that, she can land in between Matthew and Musser, but if you’re expecting her to arrive at, what, eleven oh three in the morning or whatever?”

“We might be too late?” Verona asked.

“Or so early the other side can catch on and mess with us,” Avery said.  “I thought we had a handle on this.  I thought we had Kennet below, a bunch of other stuff.”

“We have something like seventy hostile practitioners in town,” Lucy told her.

“We seriously haven’t slowed that down, stemmed the tide, anything?” Avery asked.

“We made it expensive and awkward.  The Turtle Queen has them forced to clump around the people who can fend her off,” Lucy said.  “But yeah, seventy.”

“Meaning we don’t get to have things, in the sense you mean,” Verona replied.  “We don’t get a big fat ritual sitting around waiting two days to be used, we don’t get to hold a position.  You don’t get dinner with your dad, I guess.  I’m sorry.”

“Seventy.”

“Something like, yeah,” Verona told her.  “That was a number that got thrown around.”

“I’m starting to see more of what Rook meant.”

“How’s the situation going with Avery’s dad?” Verona asked Lucy.

“His nose is being taken care of, apparently no signs of any concussion.  Mrs. Kelly asked for my mom,” Lucy said.  “My mom took a break and they just spent a while talking about if they should bring Ronnie’s dad into the conversation.”

“Aw hell no,” Verona groaned.  “No.”

“They decided to wait, get the, I quote, lay of the land first.  They want to talk to us.  They’re going to try to call your mom.”

“And say what?” Verona asked.

“That something’s up.”

A phone rang.  They all checked.  It was Avery’s.

“Hi mom,” Avery answered, putting it to her ear.  “Yeah.  I’m not far.”

Lucy’s phone rang.  Lucy hurried to stop it, while Avery winced.

“Yeah, it was.  Lucy’s here,” Avery replied.  She covered the mouthpiece.  “She heard the ring.”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.

Verona glanced at her friend.

“Is Verona here too?” Avery asked out loud.

Verona shrugged.   Either way worked, really.

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.

“Yeah,” Avery added.

“You’re best at wording stuff.  Just take it seriously,” Lucy replied, while Avery took a step away, listening.

“What makes you think I wouldn’t take this seriously?”

“You being you?”

“Okay.  You want us to come?” Avery asked out loud.

If Musser wanted to tie them up in other concerns, this sure was a way to do it.

“Let’s go,” Lucy said.

“Like, deal with the parents?” Verona asked.  “Or bail?  Because I’m keen on the latter.”

“Parents, somehow.  I don’t know.”

“Because like, we could go to my place, the House on Half Street, find a way in?  I know they’re keeping an eye on the area, but it’s tucked away.”

“We need to protect them.  Our families, our homes,” Lucy said, quiet.  “And if we leave things like they are, what happens?  I don’t want to lose my mom.  I don’t want to lose contact with my mom.”

“I don’t want you to lose that either,” Verona whispered.  “But I don’t want to lose everything else while we’re trying to hold onto that.”

Avery hung up.  “We should go.”

Verona went on, gesturing at Avery.  “And I don’t want Avery to lose her family or have her situation get any more complicated, and she’s got that really cute cousin she ought to keep in her life-”

“Fuck off, Ronnie,” Avery said.

“Be serious, please.  I’m begging you,” Lucy said, intense now.

“I am being serious.  This is how I’m serious- by not being totally serious.  I joke some.  I get it. This is big.  But if we’re being smart about this, if we’re taking emotion out of it-”

“It’s family.  It’s our lives,” Lucy said.

“I know.  But like… what are we meant to say?  Every answer we can give them is going to be deceptive, or it’s going to create more questions.  Make them more confused, more concerned.  Are we telling them about the practice?  How do you think that goes?  You don’t see that blowing our lives all the way up?”

“I don’t know, Ronnie.”

“I’m just saying, like, breaking this down, right?  If it’s between us going to the parents and us, like, not, and they’re going to be stressed and confused and in danger either way?  Why not go?  Try a connection block, fuzz things up, I dunno.”

“Because- I don’t know,” Lucy said.  “But we should go to our parents.”

“Why?”

“I agree with Lucy,” Avery said.

“Just give me a reason.  Give me logic.  Give me any good reason for doing that, that isn’t better served by waiting or doesn’t cause as many problems as leaving, then maybe I can go along with it.”

“Gotta look them in the eye,” Avery said.  “If we bail, if we put all this off, then I think things get poisoned a bit in the meantime.”

“Connection blocks can stall things, though.”

“It’s not just about them and how they’re handling it.  It’s about us.  We’re-” Avery stopped mid sentence, grasping for a way of putting things.  “-How many times can we lie to our parents, break contact, live entirely separate lives, without- I don’t know.  Without getting to where we want to reconnect and finding we can’t?”

“The time to handle that is way before this whole shit caboodle, or after,” Verona replied.

“For you, maybe,” Lucy said.  “But for me, at least, I think it’s in the moment.”

“Kinda, yeah,” Avery agreed.

Verona tensed a bit.  “Because I don’t have a great thing going with my family?”

“No,” Lucy said, “or I don’t know.  I dunno.  I was just phrasing it that way because I don’t- I don’t agree, and I didn’t want to gainsay you.”

Verona looked aside, down the dim hallway, with only some of its lights on.  Weird that she knew her way around here because she’d cleared out the hospital in Kennet below.

“If you want to go, you can go,” Lucy said.  “But it sure would help if you could help us navigate this.  You’re quicker on your mental feet, with the wording.  It sounds more natural from you.”

“Feels like every time I think I’m doing okay with that stuff, I realize I set myself up in a bad way,” Avery added.

Verona nodded, letting them know with expression and a half step in the direction they wanted to go that she was going to play along.  She couldn’t really bring herself to use words.  Felt wrong.

She walked with them through the dark hallway of the hospital, away from the little cafeteria, toward the main area, where a stretch of window showed an outdoor dining area that was surrounded on three sides by hospital, with simple wooden tables and benches littered with fall leaves.

Also in that direction was the lobby, with the reception desk, that also acted a bit like Kennet’s emergency department, and then a hallway of doctor’s offices, for regular appointments.  That was where Avery’s dad was, along with her mom and Jasmine.

“You’re together,” Jasmine noted.  She was wearing burgundy nurse’s scrubs, her laminated ID card on a lanyard around her neck.

“Yeah.  We heard, we came,” Lucy replied.

“Whatever’s going on, you should absolutely not be out on your own,” Jasmine said.

“Technically, we’re together,” Verona pointed out.

“Not funny.”

Okay.  No-nonsense mode.

“What is going on.  You knew these people?” Avery’s mom asked.  “It sounds like organized crime.  How on earth are you involved in that?”

“We’re not,” Avery said.  “We’re not with them, that’s not-”

She looked to Verona for help.

“Is this why you wanted to leave Kennet?”

“No,” Avery said.

“Are you okay, by the way, your dad said you got cornered at one point?’

“Not cornered,” Avery’s dad said, a bit nasal.  He had a bandage at his nose, and the bruising and redness had extended out to give him two partial black eyes.

“Not exactly, no,” Avery said.  “I’m bruised, but-”

“Show me?” Jasmine asked.  “While you explain, please.”

“I- agh,” Avery said, frustrated.  She motioned to the raised bed that was in the little doctor’s room, and Jasmine nodded.  Avery hopped up, wincing as she turned around.

“Saw that,” Jasmine said.  “And please, please fill us in, sooner than later, because all I can think of is that group Lucy was going to go hang out with.”

“The car ride, right,” Lucy said.

Avery started to lift up her shirt.

“Do you need privacy?” Jasmine asked, stopping her.

“Don’t think,” Avery said.  She tucked the shirt into the underside of her bra band.  Her stomach was haphazardly bandaged, and she had a nasty bruise at her ribs.

“So, uh,” Verona said.

“We couldn’t get ahold of your mom, something’s wrong with the phones, but we’ll try later,” Avery’s mom said.

“Let them talk,” Jasmine said.

You were interrupting just as much.

It was such a mess of a situation.  Nobody was at their best.

“So, long story short-”

“Long story long, please.  We want all the details,” Jasmine said.

“Or just go on,” Avery’s dad said, voice nasal.  “We’ll ask questions after, for the full story.”

“Just- remember the summer thing?” Verona asked.  “First month of summer?”

“What was that thing, so I’m clear?” Avery’s dad asked.

Weird that he’s asking, thought we secured that, but ok.  “Fancy summer program with lots of wealthy kids, families with power, supplementary education, weird, interesting topics.  Tech stuff, like Zed’s thing, and theology junk, swordfighting with ample safeguards,” Verona told him.

“Theology?  I’m suddenly very worried if we let you go to some unaccredited system with a possible agenda to push.”

Slight misstep.

“Non-agenda.  The only agenda was the powerful, rich, special education culture they’re all part of.  If they pushed any ideology beyond that, they’d get in big trouble, I think,” Verona stressed.  “Anyway, I- I found out about a loophole, that would let us enroll for free, I thought it would be cool.  And it was.”

“What does that have to do with what happened tonight?” Jasmine asked.  Then to Avery, “And who bandaged this?”

“I did.”

“Why are you bandaging your own cuts and scrapes?” Avery’s mom asked.

“I was way off in the middle of nowhere.  It’s shallow.”

Avery’s mom let out a nervous laugh that went on about one second too long for comfort.  She looked at Jasmine.  “Our kids are feral.  I feel sick to my stomach.”

Avery’s dad, meanwhile, was gently daubing at the mustache portion of his beard with a wet paper towel, to get the crusted-on blood out of the hairs, but his gaze was locked onto Verona.

“All of this has to do with tonight because those are the people involved,” Verona pressed on.  “Um, so we’ve mentioned a few of these things.  That there was a disagreement over who got to run the place, with all its juicy contacts, kids of important people from here and there, y’know?”

“And?” her mom asked, over the phone.

“And what we kinda left out was that toward the end one of the guys who wanted to run the place ended up working in the kitchens and the other one kind of walked into the woods and…”

Verona mimed a gun to the head.

“Blam.”

“Oh Jesus,” Lucy’s mom said. She looked at Lucy, who had looked away, arms folded, shoulders drawing together.

“One of the students got kind of intense with me after,” Avery said.

“We were the odd ones out, they wanted someone to blame, so those things might’ve played a factor,” Verona said.

“Intense how?” Avery’s mom asked.  “Who?”

“America Tedd,” Avery said.

“Picked a fight,” Lucy said.

“Tedd?  This is the sister of Liberty, who came over?”

“Yeahhhh,” Avery drew out the word.  “So we left.”

“Good,” Jasmine said.

“Not so good you didn’t fill me in on all of this before Liberty came,” Avery’s mom said.

“She needs a friend!”

Avery’s mom did that really obnoxious little nervous laugh again.  “That is very admirable but not if it’s putting you anywhere near someone who picked a fight with you, and felt strongly enough to attack you and your father here in town!”

“Liberty,” Avery’s dad said, nasal.

“What?” Avery asked.  “Hm?”

“You made her cry.  The girl who attacked me, she said that.”

There was a moment of silence.

“She came by for a short stay, to hang,” Avery said.  “And she liked me and I didn’t realize it until right at the end, because she’s flirty with everyone, kind of?  And because I’m such a ditz, sometimes.  Really finding that out now.  That was the same weekend, uh, I started dating Nora.  I really screwed up on that one.  But Liberty’s okay.  We still talk.”

“You’re dating Nora?” Avery’s mom asked.

Avery turned to Lucy and Verona.  “Help.”

“Wait,” Avery’s dad said.  “Who is their dad?  He came up too.”

“He’s-” Avery started, stopped, and looked over.

“Anthem Tedd,” Verona replied.  “I think America takes after him, so you can imagine that girl you dealt with, but like, way less vulgar, and also built like he belongs in an action movie, decades of training…”

“You’ve met him?” Jasmine asked.

“Very briefly.”

“What does he do?” Avery’s dad asked.

“For a living?”

“For a living.”

“Uhhh, the sort of things you do if you can kick ass and then you go looking for excuses to use that in your work.  Bounty hunting, being a bodyguard,” Verona replied.

“Survivalist stuff,” Avery said.  “Hunting.  Had his daughters hunt and forage for their own food for a while before they came to the summer thing.”

“I’m picturing a militia guy, living out of a trailer,” Avery’s dad said.

“So… more like a millionaire,” Verona replied.  “All that stuff?  He does it for and with people with power.”

“That doesn’t mean all that much,” Avery’s mom said.  “A lot of homeowners in the cities became accidental millionaires when housing prices became what they are.”

“Pretty sure he’s a millionaire in a way that matters much,” Verona said.  “But that’s beside the point.  Point is, uh, America’s sorta unhinged and if you have the opportunity to meet her dad?”

“Don’t,” Lucy said.

“Jeanie!” Jasmine called out.  She interrupted someone who was walking down the hall.  “Can you call Chuck?  Have him come in, take over for me?  I’ll make it up to him.  I’ve got a family situation.”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,” Lucy said, behind her.  “Family situation.”

“Someone has to take you home.  Verona, you come with me, okay?  We’ll talk to your mother and father, fill them in on what you’ve told us.  I’ll finish checking on Avery, possibly have the GP on call come in to take a look.”

This is so dumb.

“Wait.”

They paused.

Avery’s dad was still sitting on the stool that was normally for the doctor, pink paper towel in hand.  “Is that the full story?”

“No.  But the full story would take a while, and it’s late,” Verona replied.

“It’s eight-thirty, nobody has to go anywhere,” Jasmine said.

“I keep wanting to ask-” he started, he shook his head, then winced, gingerly touching his nose, as if the act of shaking his head had made it hurt.  “No.  My head’s a jumble, the scene’s messy, I’m not sure if I remember right.”

“It’s okay,” his wife said, standing by him, hugging him, giving him a kiss on the head.  “Sounds like it was a mess of a situation.”

“It was,” Avery said.  “Big mess.”

She glanced at Verona and Lucy as she said that last part.

“She mentioned money.  Thirteen thousand?  To- what?”

“I dunno.  Wasn’t there for that.”

“She’s unhinged, right?” Avery asked.

“It sounded specific and clear.  Not something that was part of the ramble, but something concrete she could seize on and find stability in.  Like the talk about murder.  She looked me in the eye as she said that.  Like she’d planned to say it, she wanted to see my reaction.”

“She wanted to hurt Avery,” Verona said.

“Murder?” Avery’s mom asked.

“The woods guy,” Verona said.  She motioned at her head.  “Blam.  The blame thing I talked about.”

“And the three missing teenagers?”

“She was guessing.  I think to make things sound worse,” Avery threw in.

“Who was her mentor?  He showed up out of nowhere.  Toads, she called him?”

Verona nodded.  “That’s a fake name he goes by, because his real one sounds gross.  He was at the summer school.  He was cool to us.  But he was a tutor for America and Liberty when they were little.  So you figure in America’s eyes, we stole her childhood mentor, we’re linked to Alexander’s passing, and then Avery broke her sister’s heart a little.”

“He was odd,” Avery’s dad said.  “The look in his eyes.  The woman with him.  One was weird, offputting, but the other was…”

“What’s this?” Avery’s mom asked.

The nurse who’d walked by before poked her head in.  “Chuck’s coming.”

“Thanks,” Jasmine replied.

“I keep wanting to ask about- no.  I don’t believe in auras,” Avery’s dad said.  “Or any of that mumbo jumbo.  But he had a feeling about him.  Mean, almost?  Grimy?  Imagine if you picked someone out of a homeless camp, somewhere really vicious, where you have to fight to keep your things, and then had them dress up without washing up.  Shave, sure, but no shower-?”

“What are you talking about, Connor?” Avery’s mom asked.  “You’re rambling, are you sure you’re not concussed?”

“Being attacked like that is traumatic, I would imagine that’s a big part of it,” Jasmine said.  “But I can have the GP come in to check if you want.”

“Avery said she thought they were professionals.  The people with the girl.  America,” he said.

“It would fit,” Avery said, subdued.  She glanced at Verona.

Jasmine seemed to notice the glance.  Crap.

“They knew what they were doing, but they were intimidated by him.  The woman with him especially.  And I don’t know why.”

“We should try calling the police.  Or visiting in person,” Avery’s mom said.  “This is the sort of thing they should sort out.”

“Paint me in as very reluctant to do that,” Jasmine replied.

“Then how do we resolve this?  This is so clearly out of our scope, our reach, our ability to handle it as parents.  Do we wait for another attack to come?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe.”

“Some of the people from the school have enough money to buy the police,” Lucy noted.

Jasmine turned to her daughter.  “This summer school, everything tied to it?  It’s something you should have clearly explained your plans for and run by us.”

“It’s not like we knew this was going to be like this.”

“That’s why you have parents.  I know you’re insistent you’re a teenager and not a child, but this our job.  To know and look into some of this stuff with a level of experience you don’t have.”

“Police, yes or no?” Avery’s mom asked.

“No,” Jasmine said.  “I don’t know.  It’s never been my experience that police make anything better.  If things escalate, then fine.  If you want to, I will cooperate, provide information when they come to me, fine.  But I believe Lucy when she says they have money, that the system can’t be trusted.  I want to believe her.  I can’t help but notice we have Verona providing most of the story, with the others letting her do the talking, looking to her for the answers, and Verona’s…”

“…especially creative.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Verona said, stung.  Which was stupid because she was telling a whole lot of lies by omission.

“I want to believe you.  I adore you, Verona.  I want to believe you wouldn’t look me in the eye and manipulate me.”

The feeling of being stung turned sour in Verona’s stomach.  She held her poker face.

“Lucy, we’ll talk when we get home.  Just you and me.  Verona, before I turn you over to your dad, and after you and your mom and I have a conversation, we’ll talk.  You guys talk to Avery.  Then we compare notes.”

Jasmine opened a drawer and got a tiny bottle of pills.  “Profen.  Take one every eight hours.  If you need something stronger that isn’t sold in stores, come in with your dad tomorrow morning, when he’s getting the X-ray for his ribs and getting a second look at that nose.”

“Profen doesn’t work for me.  I usually take Napxall Sport if I’ve sprained or pulled something.”

“It’s the same for me,” Avery’s mom said.  “Napxall is the family standard.”

Lucy’s mom took the bottle back, dug in the drawer.  “Here.  It’s the same thing.”

She provided a paper cup with water for Avery to drink.

“Do you know why the moon is bleeding?” Avery’s dad asked.

Verona felt a shiver crawl up her back.

“It’s a question- I kept wanting to ask it.  I know how it sounds.”

“Isn’t that an optical illusion, Connor?  We were talking about it before your dinner with Avery.”

Jasmine looked over.  “I’ve been working night shift.  While the sky was changing over to sunset, it did look odd, but I thought it was an exhaust trail from a plane.”

“It doesn’t look like smoke.  I told Avery that earlier,” Avery’s dad said.  “It’s one of a lot of strange and unexpected things happening today.  Even the search engine results.  I know I sound crazy.”

Man, he keeps bringing up stuff that we should be clear on.

“No,” Avery said.

“No it’s not related or no I don’t sound crazy.”

“There’s a lot of weirdness,” Avery said.

Careful, Verona thought.  She avoided saying or doing anything in case it was spotted.

This was bad.  This was getting into Melissa territory.

“I’m going to go talk to the nurse supervisor, make sure I’m clear to go.  If you want to wait for me, we can talk on the way to the car.  Avery, make sure you breathe deep.  Same thing I told your dad, but I think he has a light break, and you only have bruising.”

Then Jasmine was off, moving at a speed halfway between a fast walk and a jog, toward a better lit area where three other nurses were congregating around a bank of computers.

Avery’s dad remained in the doctor’s office with his wife, while Verona, Lucy, and Avery gathered in the hallway just outside.

“Stay where we can see you,” Avery’s mom said.  “We’ll go straight home after.”

“Right,” Avery said.

“This was dumb,” Verona said, quiet.

“This was needed,” Lucy replied.  “What if things keep escalating?  At least they know to watch out.”

“We’ve got so much to do and we’re basically going to be grounded now,” Verona replied.  “You think your mom’s going to let you go out?”

“We’ll work something out.  Fetch, connection block,” Lucy replied, quiet.

“I’m not exactly practiced in the Fetch stuff,” Avery murmured.

“Yeah, uh,” Lucy glanced at Verona.  “Takes some trial and error.”

“Plus, you know, my Fetch might be becoming self aware, so that ties my hands a bit,” Verona said.  “Not that I care that much if I piss off my dad.”

“We need to do triage,” Lucy said, glancing in the direction of the nearly empty lobby.  Verona wasn’t sure if the one guy that was sitting in the rows of chairs actually had an issue or if he was just hanging out there.

“Triage, okay,” Verona replied.

“Like Clem told us, back before she left the Blue Heron, cleaning the house in record time,” Lucy said, quiet.  “What’s the biggest, most obvious thing we need to get worked out?”

“Catching Miss,” Avery said.

“Okay.  Ideas?  What’s the clearest, easiest solution?”

“I can try talking to Zed,” Verona replied.  “Technomancy’s pretty good for putting down big diagrams fast.  I know we wanted to wait and do more things for Zed before we asked for help, but maybe that’s a thing we can handle later.”

“Ugh,” Avery replied.  “But yeah.  Zed’s voice would be great to hear right now.”

“Yes?  Good.  Do that, report back.  Actually, while I’m thinking about it, we should find a way to communicate in case we get our phones taken away.”

“Peckersnot as a messenger,” Verona said.

“I’ve got Snowdrop.”

“I can do some sound stuff,” Lucy said.  “Easy, with the earring.  Okay.  Second priority?  Or just list issues, we sort them out.  By messenger and whispery practices.”

“A lot of this came up when I was talking to Rook and the Page of Suns,” Avery said.

“The what of what?” Verona asked.

“The Page.  He’s… think of him as a record keeper for the Paths.  Both history, knowledge, past details, but also like, world records except it’s not the world, it’s the Paths, you know?  Um, he usually shows up before the really big, unprecedented, new stuff.”

“He’s major?” Lucy asked.

“Oh yeah.  Like, Wolf major, we think.”

“And you talked to him and he said what?” Verona asked, interest piqued.

“A lot of stuff.  Poking my brain, seeing if I’d figured out some deeper cosmic truth.  But yeah.  Anyway, we’re getting sidetracked.”

“Deeper cosmic truth?” Verona asked, “Huh?”

“I didn’t have the right answer.  He threw some test questions at me and I got it wrong, apparently.  So he didn’t ask more and didn’t lead me to the construction at the midpoint, the levers and pulleys of universal law, or any of that.”

“We should focus, and not get sidetracked,” Lucy said.

“Right,” Avery said.  “I’ll put it in a document online for our scrapbooks, with what I remember.”

“Wait, let’s not get sidetracked from the levers and whatsits of universal law,” Verona told them, aghast.  “How are we not making a bigger deal of this?  Maybe this is the answer.  A way to break the thrones of Lordship across Ontario, or shake up the seal, something?”

“There’s a woman who ran the Paths for more than a hundred years, went out of her way to avoid going back to Earth, who found those pillars and was led to the construction by the Page, and that took her more than a hundred years.  We’re not going to find the answer that way, believe me.”

“You were saying?” Lucy asked.

Verona stood there, bewildered they were just moving on from this.

“Stuff came up.  Rook implied she was looking into answers and stuff, because Matthew was a priority and he needs help.  But then when I talked to the Page, he said Rook was making deals with metaphorical devils.”

“Oh no,” Lucy said.

“Right?” Avery asked.  “So.  There’s two for the list.  Helping Matthew and also checking on what the heck Rook is doing.  She sounded really despondent, which, you know, if we have seventy hostile practitioners in Kennet, that’s fair.  But also she’s the type who, if we get close to losing, might be willing to do something we might not be cool with.  Maybe not running it by the council, either.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  “So… Louise and Toadswallow, then.  Check with them, see if they’ve heard from Rook, figure out what deal she might have made.  And then for Matthew…”

“We can’t interfere in the claim, unless we’re contesting it,” Avery said.

Verona glanced over at Lucy, who was watching Avery’s mom and dad.

“What do you think?” Verona asked.

Lucy didn’t take her eyes off Avery’s parents.  “I don’t know.  We can try to stem the tide.  We’re basically worried about Matthew losing?”

“It’s a lot of practitioners,” Avery murmured.

“I had it easy, comparatively,” Verona replied.  “Thanks in part to Avery tossing them a few distractions.”

“In part,” Avery agreed.

“Your dad’s talking about the moon again.  I think he might’ve crossed the line, Ave,” Lucy said, quiet.

All three of them stopped talking.

Verona watched Avery’s dad, looking very concerned, periodically getting so agitated as he talked to his wife that his nose would hurt or he’d start coughing.

“We knew we were testing the limits, moving things closer to the line,” Verona said.

“Doesn’t make it feel better,” Avery replied.

“No,” Lucy agreed.  She looked back in the direction her mom had gone.  It looked like she was filling out charts.

Lucy’s head turned and Verona followed her gaze.

In that lobby, where the one odd guy had been sitting, three people had just entered.  The reception desk was empty, the guy had moved on when Verona wasn’t looking.

One of those three new people was McCauleigh Hennigar, who was talking to a guy who looked normal.  McCauleigh wore a nice coat but didn’t especially stand out.  The styled hair wasn’t super usual for Kennet.  The guy looked like he could fit into any crowd around here, with hair in a basic cut, a sweatshirt that would do him for the cold if he wasn’t outside for hours, and boots that didn’t match the rest of his outfit.

The third really didn’t fit in, locally.  He was a guy who wore sunglasses at night, with long arms and legs that, with the way he walked all stooped over, seemed even more ungainly.  He wore a long draping black coat worn with the clasp connected at the neck.  His arms weren’t through the sleeves, making the coat act like a cape, and the skin of the arms were tattooed with large letters in a calligraphy script.  The one arm Verona could see had ‘PHREAK’ with a P at the elbow and a K at the hand.  He was white, but had a sleeveless tunic that looked like it was Chinese, with the hard collar up against the throat, and the way the front folded over.  A scraggly ponytail was set near the nape of his neck.

“Ah geez,” Avery whispered.  “What do we do?”

“Connection block?” Verona asked.

Lucy shook her head.  “I’m not sure that’s a great idea if Avery’s dad is that sensitive.  The pushback gets way harder.”

The guy with the sunglasses turned to them.  Verona’s bracelet ticked over as they were seen.  McCauleigh stopped in her tracks and looked, putting out a hand to stop the other guy.

It might’ve been hard to see them in the gloom of the partially lit hallway, but they’d been seen.

“There they are,” Lucy whispered.  “How do you want to do this, kid?”

“Hm?” Avery grunted.

Lucy tapped her earring.

McCauleigh hadn’t spoken.

“How do we want to do this?” Avery asked.

“We can start by getting some anti-augury stuff on our to-do list,” Verona said.

“Good call for a few hours from now, but let’s focus on right now,” Lucy replied.  “You said you talked to McCauleigh?”

“Yeah,” Verona answered.

“How did that go?”

“Besides it ending with us getting ambushed by Eloise?”

“You think this might be a trap?  If Eloise told about McCauleigh hearing you out?”

“Maybe.  But I don’t think McCauleigh was lying, either.  Back me up?”

Lucy nodded.  She dropped her bag from her shoulder, pulled it around, and fished inside.

McCauleigh motioned, and the guy with the sunglasses turned around, glancing over his shoulder at them, while he faced the door.  He swept an arm out, raising the coat, and blocked their view of what he was doing.  It didn’t look like he was handing anything to McCauleigh.

“Quick important question,” Verona whispered.  “Who do you think it is that’s fending off the Turtle Queen right now?”

“Guy with the sunglasses just told them to keep their phones on and charged.  Might be it,” Lucy said.  “Now he’s leaving.  He knows he looks suspicious.”

Verona grabbed her bag, pulled it around, and got the big red button.  It was the magical tool they’d confiscated from Brie back when she’d been spying on Kennet for Zed, and they’d been allowed to keep it.  It was a jammer, a way of screwing up technomancy, and totaled technology in the wider area.

So if they were relying on their phones-

“Hospital, Ronnie.  We’re in a hospital,” Lucy said.

“Right.”

Lucy finished drawing her connection block.  It was the same one that they’d used when Verona had been staying at Lucy’s and they’d wanted to convey to the parents that they were in the room, talking.

Creating a back and forth of low-level conversation.

They only had a minute or two.

Verona hurried over.  As they approached, the guy with the sunglasses and cape-coat hurried out.

“McCauleigh,” Verona greeted the girl.

McCauleigh was tense, leveling a glare at them.

“And… normal looking guy.”

“Turner.”

“Turner.  Hi.  So do you Hennigars have a thing where you do this ritual that makes you like, cosmologically more likely to get put out there as a goon for the big bad guys?” Verona asked.

“Yeah, actually.  Not quite like you described it, but we have a ritual, and after you do it, until you undo the effect, fights find us and we find fights.  They leave that on as a forever thing.  I haven’t done it yet, though.  Do you have a thing where you invade people’s dreams and fuck with them?  Feels like there should be a registry for that.  It’s creepy.”

“Which family are you from, Turner?” Lucy asked.  “What do you do?”

Turner smirked.

McCauleigh walked away from Turner, off to the side.  Verona took a step forward, to keep her in view, with the reception desk in the way.  Avery took another five steps forward, circling around Verona, stopping only when Turner paused.

“What are you doing, McCauleigh?” Verona asked.  “It’s not like you to run away.”

“Not running.  Fucking with you.”

McCauleigh broke into a run, and ran about three paces up a wall before catching the sign that jutted out from the wall, with directions to the various departments.  She twisted around, got a foot onto the top of the doorframe to some closet, maybe some room where the chairs were stored or other things for the lobby were.  The wall jutted out there.

Avery was already jogging forward.  Verona and Lucy moved closer to Turner, cutting him off from doing anything to Avery.

He didn’t move, that look still on his face.

McCauleigh moved around the bounds of that jutting-out wall that encircled the closet or whatever.  Why?

“Security camera,” Lucy said.  She was the first to notice.  “Shit.  This way!”

She pulled on Verona’s hand, pulling Verona away from Turner.

Avery did the same thing McCauleigh had, with running up the wall, right below the security camera.

Avery grabbed McCauleigh, pulling her down, and McCauleigh grabbed the cord that fed into the security camera, yanking it out as she went down, tumbling into a heap with Avery.  It ended up with Avery on top of McCauleigh, who lay on her side.

“Sorry, don’t swing that way.”

McCauleigh kneed her, then used the space created by Avery pulling back and defending herself against a second knee to elbow Avery, before shoving her into piled up chairs.

“I’ve got a girlfriend anyway,” Avery grunted.

Lucy called out, “Avery, hurry over here, before-”

Turner turned, pulled his head back, then hurled himself face-first into the backrest of one of the stackable chairs in the lobby.  Blood gushed from around his eye socket and he screamed.

McCauleigh shot them a perplexing sort of look and then hurried on down the other hallway, on the far end of the reception desk.

We fell for this so hard, Verona thought.  She reached for a connection block, but people were already coming in response to the scream.  Avery’s dad included.  The paper with Lucy’s connection block had fallen to the ground, blank.

“They attacked me!” Turner shouted.  “Those two hit me!”

Verona had her bag in position to grab the big red button, in case Phreak with the sunglasses ended up pulling something, but she reached deeper instead.

With a motion that was practiced by now, she reversed direction, unscrewing the cap of the thermos.  She hurled the contents at the guy.  He shielded his face as best as he could.

Lucy pulled Verona back again, stopping Verona as she went to put it back, and took it instead.

“What was that?”

“Healing potion,” Verona whispered back.  “It’s meant to be drunk, not poured, and you need to chug a lot, but it’s what I had.”

“Right.”

One security camera, verified by the guy who absolutely has to be a technomancer.  Probably watching or handling things on the outside, making sure we don’t get a rescue, maybe, Verona concluded.  McCauleigh gets up to a vantage point the camera can’t see from, and tears out the wires.  Feed dies, and the last thing on the camera?  Avery running up toward the camera just before the feed stops, and Lucy and me around this one jerk who ends up injured.

The jerk being a blackguard.  Someone who could lie to help the practitioners he worked with.

“It wasn’t us, we didn’t hurt him,” Lucy insisted, as the first people reached them.

“They had their friend kill the camera,” Turner said.  “Then they hit me out of nowhere, and threw some drink at me!”

“We don’t even know you, dude,” Verona told him.

“It hurts.”

Two nurses had come.  Jasmine was right behind them.  One stooped down near Turner’s side, while the other made Verona and Lucy take a step back.  Avery was on the far end of the room.

“What is going on?” Avery’s dad asked, bewildered, eyes surrounded by bruise.

“They hit me!  I came in here with friends, and I get hit out of nowhere!?”

“Lucy, come here,” Jasmine said.  “Away from him, let’s work this out.”

“Maybe it’s best- let’s stay impartial,” an older nurse said.  “Let’s call the police-”

Jasmine shook her head a little.

“-we’ll get the full story, we can try the surveillance camera footage-”

“They hit me, I’m telling you!”

“-we’ll work this out.  But these are the friends you were talking about?” the other nurse asked.

“Connor and Kelsey Kelly.”

“Trust your daughter to them.  But it’s best if you’re not directly involved.”

“You can’t expect me to-”

“This is my recommendation as your supervisor.  It’s cleanest.  Whatever’s going on, we don’t want it to tarnish what you’re doing here.”

Verona felt the burble of indignation in her gut.  They’re screwing with Jasmine’s work?

“Jeanie?  Would you take our guest to get looked at, before he bleeds any more on the floor?  Get him calm, get the full story out of him.  Girls?  Sit here,” the supervisor said.

“What’s your name?” Jeanie asked the guy.

“Turner.”

That could be a lie, like everything else he was saying.

“Jasmine, if you want to stay, you can, but it’s best to be uninvolved.  The better thing to do would be to go finish the charting for tonight’s patients.  Then you can leave early, do whatever you need to do with answering police questions, Chuck can take over, no interruption in your work otherwise,” the supervisor said.

“Fucking thugs!  What’s wrong with the people in this town!?” Tucker shouted.  “I’ll fucking sue you!  I’ll drag you to court!

The shouts didn’t stop, but they did grow fainter as he was taken to a room on the far end of the hospital ground floor.

“What happened?” Avery’s mom asked.

“I’d love to know that,” Jasmine said, her voice hardening.

“Even if the camera was tampered with, there should be camera footage,” the supervisor said.  She walked around the reception desk, and started logging in.

And that damns us, Verona thought.

She considered using the red button.  That would scramble things.

It would also turn off any machines essential to life for anyone around here, immediately upstairs, possibly black out part of the hospital.

Connection block?  What would even work?

How much was she willing to gamble on the fact the healing potion might heal him enough it’d make the injuries look suspicious?

She had to say something.

“We were backing away from him,” Lucy said.

“The timing’s off.  The injury he’s claiming might be partially healed,” Verona said.  “I think someone’s trying to mess with us.”

“Here,” the supervisor said.  She waved one of the other nurses over.  Jasmine walked over too, arms folded.

The supervisor looked at them.  “Sit.”

There’s the security camera footage.  They’re watching now.

“That was an old-looking injury,” Verona repeated.

She wished someone would acknowledge that.

“Why was he covered in slime?”

“I don’t have anything,” Lucy said.  “We weren’t drinking anything out in the hall.  You want to look?”

“I’ve got drinks but they’re full,” Verona said.

“Search me?  Pat me down?” Lucy asked.

You got rid of the thermos?  Verona thought.  Good.

“Maybe the police can do a search,” the nurse supervisor said.  She picked up a phone.

Jasmine looked at Lucy, and Verona felt that look deep in her belly, like an emptiness that stretched out until it strained skin.  Horrible, awful emptiness.  That was with the look not even being directed at her.

“We haven’t had much luck with the phones today,” Avery’s mom said.  She’d walked over to sit by Avery, and had a hand on Avery’s shoulder, grip tight, like she couldn’t decide to be reassuring or if she was keeping Avery put.

“I’m through.  It’s ringing.”

Is that what Phreak is doing?  Verona wondered.

“Hello?  Hi, this is Andra Dunbar, Nurse supervisor at Kennet General.  We had an altercation in our lobby.  Three children and one adult man, it seems they attacked him.  I don’t know why, he doesn’t seem to know them.  There’s partial surveillance footage, I’m looking at it right now.  If you could send someone over?  Front entrance.”

“Teenagers, not children,” Lucy muttered.

Verona thought hard.  What were they missing?  What was the next angle?  The one guy would be here, telling a lie, but they couldn’t really do much to him.  Maybe if Lucy had had a quick curse on hand…

Phreak was out there.  His aesthetic screamed technomancer, but without the natural coolness Zed had.

And McCauleigh had gone around, deeper into the hospital.

Verona’s stance, going in, had been to play things cool, without hurting McCauleigh.  And now…

Verona whispered, “McCauleigh, McCauleigh, Mc-“

“Is the creepy self-injury guy gone yet?”

McCauleigh came around the corner.

Verona sat back.

“Hello?” the nursing supervisor asked.  “You’re on the video.  Your acquaintance-”

“Is a liar.  And I don’t know him.  There was a brief where are you going, what are you doing type conversation.  Finding our way around in a strange hospital, strange town,” McCauleigh said, hands in her jacket pockets, walking over.  “What happened?”

The nursing supervisor looked a little shocked.  “You saw this?  What unfolded?”

“I can put the pieces together.  They came in and were acting fishy, whispering.  Someone tried to get around to the camera there, pull the wire.”

You were that someone, Verona thought, but she was okay with this, so far.

“I tried to stop that someone,” Avery said.

“Do you know these girls?”

“Not really.  Seen them around.”

“Are you local?” the nursing supervisor asked.

“I don’t think she is,” Jasmine said.  “I know the children my daughter’s age.  You get to know them.”

“Yeah, I’m not.”  McCauleigh shook her head, reached into her pocket, and handed over her wallet.

“So you’re a bystander?”

McCauleigh shrugged.  “What I know is the guy who said he was hurt was lying.  Insurance thing, scam, do you think?”

“Someone has a grudge against us,” Lucy said.

“There you go,” McCauleigh said.

Siren off, lights on, a cop car pulled into the curved driveway in front of the hospital.

“Fast response,” Avery said.

“Phones haven’t been working, they might be eager for something to do.  Tell them the same things you told us.”

As the officers entered and went to the reception desk to talk to the head nurse and other nurses, the parents clumped up.  Avery went from sitting on the other side of the room to sitting with Lucy and Verona.

McCauleigh walked over.  “Pretty crazy, huh?”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied, dry.  “Really crazy.”

“Thanks for not blowing my cover,” McCauleigh said.

“For sure,” Verona replied.  “You good?”

McCauleigh shrugged her shoulders.  “Sorry for the knee and elbow, Kelly.”

“Really hurt, Hennigar,” Avery replied.  “I was already bruised.”

“My family’s liable to throw me to the literal wolves eventually.  Being raised by wolves is enough for Romulus and Remus, it’s good enough for me, right?” McCauleigh asked.  “Figure I might as well deserve it.  Eloise hasn’t told anyone about what I said in the dream.  So I can get away with a bit.”

“Anything helps,” Verona said.  “And anything we can do to help…”

“Sure.”

“You know augurs might be watching, right?  Any of Alexander’s old apprentices?” Lucy asked.

“They’re afraid of the Bugge, and the spike flowers you guys did before.”

“Really getting a lot of mileage out of those,” Lucy mused.  “What about the guy with the sunglasses?”

“Phreak?” Verona asked.

“He’d hate you calling him that, so keep that up, keep doing it.  Yeah.  He’s pulled certain strings with the law and the karmic pendulum relating to law enforcement is all set to knock his teeth out in the backswing, so he’s going to stay away.  Phreak flutters in and out around the edges like a butterfly that thinks he’s a nine when he barely rates.”

“Can we trust you?  Should we?  It’s a tricky question to ask.  Are you pulling anything?”  Lucy asked.

“Trust me.  I don’t really care about you except maybe I can screw with my fucked up family by backing you.  Screw with Musser, whatever.  I won’t betray you,” McCauleigh said, voice quiet.  “You want information?  The occasional unexpected win?”

“Yeah,” Verona told her.  “You’re really rising as a badass in my books, being all audacious, you know.”

“I’m not that badass.  It’s not that.  I just don’t give a shit anymore.  I’m so fucking done with it all.  So let’s see what I can get away with, huh?  Before the consequences.”

“I hope you can avoid those,” Verona said.

“Meh.”

Verona glanced over at Avery.  “Would be great if you did that without beating up Avery or doing this thing with getting us accused, y’know, but…”

“Had to sell it, and this would’ve happened with someone else if it wasn’t me.  They’re going to keep coming, keep messing with you.  Tell me, you got wards at your house?”

“Yeah, just an alarm, really.  Some connection block stuff to secure the property, people inside.  Some inactive stuff.”

“Okay.  I’ll report back, say I don’t think we should make a move there, that it’s not worth it, it’s warded, and you’re powerful.  I won’t say it’s an alarm, but maybe they don’t burn your houses down because of that.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said.

“I’m on watch tonight.  In the woods around where Anthem said your Demesne was, I’m at a spot near where the water pokes in at the back.  If you need in, I’ll let you walk by.  No trap, no scheme.  If anyone asks, you can pretend you did something fancy practice-wise at me to get through, I’ll pretend the same, you get your Demesne back.  How’s that?”

“That’d really help,” Verona replied.  It wasn’t just that it’d be really useful to be in the Demesne when Miss came down for the founding, but psychologically?  Especially with things being so parent-centric tonight?  Having an out made it easier to not feel all closed in.

“What do you need, McCauleigh?” Avery asked.  “What can we do for you?”

“Find a way through this,” McCauleigh said.  “I told Verona what I want.”

“Yeah,” Verona agreed.  She already knew.  “It’s a tall order.”

You want them to fail, to lose everything they have, to maybe even die.

“Do it or don’t.  Like I said, I’m basically past the point of giving a shit.”

The police officers walked over, and as they came up to the four of them, the parents hurried over as well.  Lucy’s and Avery’s.  McCauleigh walked away a bit, sitting on a chair a couple dozen feet away.

Not giving a shit.  Verona felt a bit jealous.

Everything done with the cops.  They left the hospital two hours later than they’d intended to, with the blackguard in trouble- at least until someone in Musser’s group pulled strings.  The bracelet ticked as they emerged, and Verona spotted the teenager who had been assigned to keep an eye on him, leaning against a post between two parked cars, in the back of the parking lot off to the side.

Realizing he’d been noticed, the guy turned around and left, disappearing into shadow.

“It really is huge,” Jasmine said, looking up at the moon and, whether she realized she was doing it or not, she put her hand to her forehead like she was trying to shield out the sun.

The moon was larger than it should be, larger than it had been when it had first stopped being a wheel and started being a moon, albeit one with a steady stream of blood running down from the edges to the base, where it poured down to a distant point on the horizon.

Avery’s dad approached them, and put hands on Avery’s shoulders.  “What are you girls caught up in?”

“You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff if I told you,” Avery said, very quiet.

“I hope you feel comfortable telling me soon.  I’ve been working hard on giving you the faith you deserve.  That weirdness around the guy trying to frame you- that was a stern reminder.”

Avery nodded.

“I’d like to surprise you by being understanding, if you give me a second shot,” he said.  He coughed in what looked like a very painful way.  “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Avery replied.

“You know something about the moon, and why the phones are turning up something odd, don’t you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Avery asked, before Verona could open her mouth and give a response that was a hundred times more convincing.

“You were never very good at being deceptive,” Avery’s dad said, stroking her hair.  “It’s a good character trait.”

Avery pursed her lips.

He looked up at the moon.  “Why doesn’t it feel as scary as it should?”

“Maybe the forces behind it are good-intentioned?” Avery asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, running fingers through her hair again, voice even more nasal while he was looking up.  “Well, I sure hope so.”

Avery’s mom finished talking to Jasmine and came over to her husband’s side, hand at his back on the side it wasn’t injured.

“Come on, Avery,” he said.  “Let’s escape this chaos and confusion, odd people and random violence, and rejoin the wider Kelly-Walsh family, hm?  That’s better, isn’t it?  Oh wait.”

“Ha ha.”

Avery gave Verona and Lucy a little wave as she went with her parents.

Triage.  There’s still stuff to figure out.

Matthew, and catching Miss, foremost among them.

They’d find a way to talk and organize.

Leaving Verona and Lucy with Jasmine.

Who looked a little less moonstruck and a bit less inclined to be good natured.

“I’m glad that worked out okay,” Jasmine said.

“I’m really sorry it happened at all,” Lucy told her.

“Yeah.  The rumor mill at work is going to be going.  Too many things have been left out, you two.  You need to let me know if you’re on the wrong side of the wrong people.  I can’t parent you otherwise.”

I wish you were my parent, Verona thought.

Jasmine looked up at the moon.  “I look up at this sight and I can’t help but think of the end of summer.  A bizarre night of strangers who knew too much, coincidences, extreme events, people willing to do horrible things.”

“What happened?”

“It’s not for you to worry about, Lucy.  But Avery and her dad shouldn’t be either.  You told me things that sounded like lies, earlier this summer, after breaking curfew, but it felt honest, and that was disconcerting.  Lucy wants to drive off with older people I don’t know shouldn’t be.  Kelsey mentioned a homeless man dying?  John something?  A soldier?  You seem so dead set on not sharing with me.”

Lucy glanced at Verona.

“And there are those things you’re communicating with glances.  I want your friendship to be a good thing.  I know you’re not telling the whole truth, but the more I think about all of this, the more a feeling of- of bone-deep horror, it sets in.  Like I’m expected to take all these puzzle pieces and put them together and nothing works.  I don’t know if the puzzle is so vast there’s no way the few pieces I’ve gotten can be put together, or if it’s all working by different rules and I’m just not sure what the rules are.”

Verona and Lucy were silent.

“Or both,” Jasmine said, looking up.

Verona felt that skin-shiver at her back again.

“If you had to tell me everything you’re not telling me, when would the story start?” Jasmine asked, not looking away from the moon.

Lucy was silent.

“Around the time we met Avery,” Verona said.

“Before Paul?” Jasmine asked, turning her head to look at Lucy.

“Yeah.”

“Did it factor in?  Was that the start of it?  Anger, getting involved in- whatever this is?”

“It’s not like that.  I would’ve- I would’ve done something similar, whenever I saw him.”

“Did I do something wrong, treating that situation as I did?  Grounding, therapy, working to ensure you didn’t face legal consequences?”

Lucy shook her head.

“That group you were going to drive off with.  Are they part of that same dynamic as the people who attacked Connor and Avery?  Or the man who tried to fake being hurt by you, presumably of that same group?”

“No.  They’re-” Lucy stopped.

“Local volunteers,” Verona filled in.  “Doing some side projects to try and revitalize Kennet, just in cool ways.  Like a special nightmare arcade that can be pitched as an urban legend, draw people into town.  And…”

She indicated the moon.

“A gimmick?  A projector beaming something onto the sky?”

Verona shrugged.

“I wish my daughter had been the one to tell me that, instead of looking to you so you could say something that sounded convincing,” Jasmine said.  “I’m tired and heartsick.  I’d love to get you two home so Lucy can be grounded, but I don’t even know what to do with you, Verona.  I’ve tried calling your mother.  I would fill in your father, but I- I met with him in the early summer and I worry things I told him might’ve been used against you.  I did some reading, after you came to me, after first talking to child services.  I realized I shouldn’t have potentially given him ammunition.”

“What ammo?” Verona asked.

“That I knew you were interested in boys.”

“Aesthetically.  Yeah.”

“Did he use it?”

“Yeah, but like, he caught me leaving the house with a boy I’d had in my room, when he came home late from work, so don’t sweat it.”

Jasmine gave Verona a serious, sad look.

“Geez, Verona,” Lucy said, quiet.

“I’m being safe.”

“I hope so.”

“Believe me, marriage scares me enough, but the idea of having a kid?  I’m being safe.  Look, you’re doing good, Jasmine.  I’m sorry this is such a crapfuck.”

“Is, not was, huh?  Ongoing?” Jasmine asked.  She looked a bit resigned.  “How bad will it be if I drop you off at home?”

“It should be fine.  Unless there’s another ambush or something waiting.”

They walked to the car and got in.

They drove in silence, down to the bridge and over to the western half of Kennet.

“I worry about telling him anything that was discussed tonight, in case it’s more ammunition, but I also know that if this all comes out, it could shatter my already tenuous relationship with him.  I want you to be safe, I want you and Lucy to be friends, but if he decides to draw a hard line and say you can’t associate, he is your parent, up until you tell child services you want to live with your mom.”

“He doesn’t have the energy or focus to even keep tabs on me, he can’t sustain a punishment like keeping me from Lucy.”

“That alone is such a massive warning sign, Verona,” Jasmine said.  “I wonder if I should push for you to go to your mother.  Even if you don’t want to.  Even knowing my own daughter could hate me for decades to come if I went that far.”

“I wouldn’t hate you,” Lucy said, slumped over in the passenger seat.

“Resent me?” Jasmine asked.

Lucy shrugged.

“I’m going to fill your mom in.  Make yourself easy for her to get in contact with.”

“Okay.”

Lucy got her phone out, and showed Verona a message, typed out in the notepad app.

Connor is a bit Aware.  It’d sure help if he took some serious painkillers and slipped back to innocence.

Verona nodded.

My mom and Avery’s mom are close.  The way my mom was looking at the moon.

Verona nodded again.

They pulled up to Verona’s house.  Verona scooped up her bag.  “Love you guys.”

“Love you!” Lucy called back.  “Be safe!”

Verona jogged over, unlocked the door, and let herself in.  The house was dark, except for a light in the kitchen, and the light upstairs that showed her dad’s television was on.  She left the door partially open, because closing it made noise.

She used the Sight to scan things.

No intruders that she could tell.

No attacks yet either.

The microwave hummed.  She walked in, then averted her eyes.  “Gross.”

Her dad was there, in tighty-whiteys that drooped at the mid-butt without exposing any crack, standing by the microwave.  The hair at the back of his head was mussed up from lying in bed.  He looked more like a ghoul there than the ghouls did.

It beeped, very loud in the dark, empty house.

“Put on clothes when you’re walking around, geez.  What if I had someone over?”

“If you don’t care enough to tell me where you’ll be, where you are, why should I care how I present myself in my house, that I pay for?” he asked.  He pulled a carton of partially melted ice cream out of the microwave, that he’d cut around the middle to be able to better reach into the lower half, then he dumped in some broken up cream fiend cookies, and stabbed a spoon into the hardest part of the mix as if that was supposed to be badass somehow, to go with the question he’d just asked.

He turned to face her.  Standing in the same spot he’d been in when he’d hurled her bag around.

It was like he’d put in an effort for child services and that had exhausted some reserve in him and now he’d just… stopped.  He was trying less than before, when people weren’t looking.

“There’s laundry in the basement, don’t just do your own.  Shake out my laundry and hang it up.  I don’t want it shrinking.”

She stared him down.

“Give me some acknowledgement?  Come on, Verona.  I’m the one who put the effort in to get you to learn your first words.  It’s not like your mother bothered.”

She didn’t want to give him what he wanted, there.  That acknowledgement, that validation.

“I don’t know why I bother buying food you like.  I don’t know why I try as much as I do, Verona.  I don’t know why I buy you clothes, or keep up with this house.  Why have I put in all these years of trying?  I devoted my life to you, Verona, and you can’t even give me a word.”

“Not much of a life, huh?” she asked.

“No.  It really isn’t.  I’m so fucking disappointed,” he said.  “In you, in this.  I hope you wake up.  I love you, I really fucking do, I wouldn’t be alive right now if I didn’t, because you’re all I’ve got.  Your mom certainly didn’t leave me with anything.  I hope you wake up, I hope you realize what you’re doing.  Because you’re on a fast track to be as fat, lonely, and disappointed in everything and everyone as I am, and as loveless, deceptive, and unfair to everyone around you as your mother is.”

If this ritual doesn’t work and I end up forsworn, I might just, Verona thought.

My friends get heartfelt speeches and parents who veer close enough to things to become almost aware and I get this.  My dad’s barely aware of Earth, let alone other realms, magic, or anything.

“Some of those dishes in the sink are yours.  It takes five minutes, Verona.  Get it done.  I work my ass off, I’m tired.”

He walked past her, making her lean hard against the wall by the door to let him by.  He stopped, just by her, crowding her against the wall.

“Move,” she told him.

Then she saw- there was someone in the door.  He’d stopped like a deer in the headlights, forgetting Verona in the moment.  For a terrible second, she thought it was Jasmine.  That Jasmine might follow through.

McCauleigh again.  McCauleigh, who could probably not blink while a hatchet was embedded in her skull, was flinching at this, eyes averted.

“Tell me when you’re having a friend over, for fuck’s sake,” her dad exclaimed, taking the ice cream carton up to his bed.

Verona shot McCauleigh a wan smile.  “Hi.”

“I’m supposed to head over to stand guard over your Demesne around now.  You can still pass through if you want.  Thought I’d stop in, tell you, one of your local Others has gone berserk, and we don’t know why.  She burned some of ours.”

“She?  Edith?”

McCauleigh shrugged.

Matthew.  Something happened to Matthew.

“Should I expect you to come by?  Might change if I shoot, stab with a sword, whatever,” McCauleigh said.

“Yeah.  I’ll check on this.  I’ll swing by, stay the night there.  It makes it easier to do work.”

McCauleigh nodded.

Verona wondered-

It wasn’t just that she wanted to share intel.

“You want to sleep over?” Verona offered.  “I’ve got spare rooms.  If you want to tell the rest of the world to fuck off, take a vacation, hole up in my demesne, hang out, I might have some cool people stopping by… just offering.”

“Yeah?” McCauleigh asked.  “Sure.”

That was easy.

“Means I’m not giving you more intel or anything though.”

“It’s fine.  I gotta ask though.  I know this must be getting old.  Is this a trap?  Deception?  Are you really McCauleigh Hennigar?  Is anything being left out?”

“It’s not a trap, not a deception, and I am she.”

“Sorry to ask.”

“Like I said.  I really don’t give a shit.”

“I get you, yeah,” Verona replied.

“I think you might actually.”  McCauleigh’s eyes flicked to the stairs where Verona’s dad had gone up.

Verona got her stuff, resupplied quickly, then locked the door behind her.  She moved at a jog, and passed McCauleigh, who was walking.  There were practitioners out on the streets, and so she took some evasive routes, pausing to use city magic to open a gap in the perimeter.

She found a vantage point to check on things.  The torched car with upholstery still on fire was a good sign she was close.

Before she even found Edith, though, the thought came to her.  A few individual dots connecting.  Seeing Edith at full blaze, surrounded by echoes that were actively on fire, it only cemented it.

Edith wasn’t angry.  She was sad.  The movements were deliberate, forceful.  She dealt with practitioners, pushing out, aggressive, then retreating.

Pausing, like she had to work hard to bring herself to the next part.

Where she set herself on fire once again.  Stoked the flame.  Burned that candle at both ends.  She made her moves only where she had cover, shelter, hidden from plain view from anyone looking out a window at eleven o’clock at night.

This is one devil that Rook might have made a deal with, Verona thought.

Matthew was a riddle – how could they help him, when gifts weren’t enough?

Verona could imagine it.  Rook going to talk to Edith.  Making the stakes clear.  There was one connection that remained in play now.  One channel that was open by which power could flow to Matthew, and allow Matthew to fight harder, defend his Demesne, and cripple those practitioners who’d challenge him.

The Doom.  Edith was putting everything on the line, hurting herself, bringing herself closer to Doom, and feeding that force that was so linked to her.  Fueling it.  Every hazard she made herself face, every time she brought herself closer to an end, the Doom would be stronger.

That was what Edith was providing in the deal.  It probably hadn’t taken much.

But it did raise the issue.  That Rook had probably given something as well.  Several somethings, if Verona made herself face the fact that Rook had a lot less reason to be angry with Charles’ faction than Miss or Matthew or Lucy or Avery did.

If it came down to loyalties, there really was no reason to expect Rook to hold to friendship when she could hold onto potential victory instead.

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