Author: Wildbow

Gone and Done It – 17.14 | Pale

Next Chapter

Kerry ran up to Avery to hug her around the middle and, in the process, tightly hugged the cut on Avery’s side and slammed her head into Avery’s ribs.

“Oof, ow, off.  No.”

“Avery, come on, I’ll race you upstairs!”

“We just ate, and you want to race?”

“You barely ate, and you only really ate that ziti thing mom made, and sides,” Sheridan commented.  “Doesn’t count.  It’s not real thanksgiving food.”

“Come!” Kerry insisted, pulling on Avery.

“Don’t get bossy, Ker!” their dad called out from the kitchen.

“Please come!” Kerry repeated.

Avery allowed herself to be dragged, and shot her dad an eye-roll, which he matched.

She followed Kerry upstairs.

The old bunk bed was still in the room, but the room was very thoroughly Kerry’s now.  It looked like something very large had eaten a toy store and the girls’ end of a kids clothing store, and then puked half of the mix into the corner while spraying the rest out the back end, scattering it around the room.  Avery was all too familiar with the loop of throwing things in the corner when they’d been worn or used, then pulling that pile apart, scattering things across the floor and the room when Kerry wanted to find things.  The distinction from before was that Sheridan and Avery had been controlling factors, fighting for their space.

Not that Avery had ever been that intense about it.  The line she’d draw would be if it got in the way of her getting her stuff out of the closet or if it got onto her bed at the top bunk.  When Sheridan had heard about that, once upon a time, she’d made an effort to chuck the occasional toy up there.

Not that it was ‘her’ bed anymore.  Her bag and Breanne’s were on the foot of what had once been Sheridan’s bed, and Sheridan was on the top bunk, so she could sleep alone.  Kerry had been moved back to the bottom bunk.

Everything turned upside-down and shuffled.

“Here, see?  I got a class award for this.”

It was a drawing of a duck.

Why is it so important she shows me this specifically?  Avery glanced at Kerry.

“The wings look really good.  I don’t think I’ve ever drawn wings and thought they looked very good.”

“That’s what the teacher said!  I had to write a story for class, that same day, and I made it a duck story to go with the picture.  Where did I put it?”

Avery watched as Kerry fished through the papers on her desk.

“Where is it!?”

“Don’t know,” Avery said.  It was a bit surreal to see Kerry putting so much value in this story when her leg was practically bouncing with her eagerness to get out and back into things.  So much was on the line, and Kerry was caught up in this.

“It’s really cool,” Kerry insisted.  “The teacher said if she hadn’t already given me a class award that day she’d give me another.  It’s really good.”

“I believe you.  Do you want to look for it and show me later?”

“No!  I can find it.”

“Okay,” Avery said.

She eased down, sitting on Kerry’s bed, where she’d moved all her stuffed animals to.  There was a row of cushions at the back, making it a bit couch-like, and Avery began rearranging the stuffed animals, pairing them up so they were kissing.

“Dad!” Kerry shrieked, making Avery nearly jump free of her skin.

“Volume, Kerry!”

“Where’s my duck story!?”

“Is that the one you were showing mom!?”

“Oh!  I know where it is!  Stay there!”

“Okay.”

Kerry went through the door, then came back, “Stay!”

“I said okay.”

Kerry ran off.

Avery paused, letting her heartbeat go back to normal.  I wonder if I could accidentally jump to a Path, making a sudden movement while surrounded by these stuffed animals.

Wasn’t as if the bed was that different from a table.

Imagine that.  Kerry captures Deer.

Shrieking sobs made Avery rise from her spot on the bed.  She watched from the doorway as Aunt Clara seated six year old Gareth on the counter.  It looked like he’d skinned his knee.

“Need help?” Avery asked.

“You should be doing the dishes,” Aunt Clara told her, stern.  “Your mom was kind enough to make a separate dish just for you, and you’re not even doing your share?”

“I was dragged away by Kerry.”

“You can play with your sister later.  You should help.  Now, don’t your parents own disinfectant?”

“The more serious first aid stuff is in the big white tupperware thing, in front of the toilet.  The toilet paper might be in the way.”

“Shouldn’t you be downstairs?” Aunt Clara asked.

Gareth sat on the counter, sobbing and rubbing at his nose.

“Stay tough, little man,” Avery said.

He nodded, running the heel of his hand against his nose, until he’d drawn a line of snot from wrist to elbow.

Hanging around goblins like I have, I shouldn’t be squicked, but hey.

Avery plucked some tissues out of a box and wiped his arm with some, before providing him with the others.  She tossed the used ones in a wastebin.

“Ignoring me?” Aunt Clara asked, as she plunked the white tupperware onto the counter.

“I told Kerry I’d wait.”

“Avery!” Kerry admonished, as she came up the stairs, a bunch of papers in her fist.  “You were supposed to stay.”

Avery ignored the glare from her aunt as she was dragged back into the room.  She sat on the bed again.

I really should be going.  Seeing if the situation is bad enough that Matthew needs me.

“Here,” Kerry showed her.  “Wait, the pages are out of order.”

“I got it.  I will figure-”

Kerry trying to help sort was making it take longer.  Avery wrapped her legs around Kerry’s middle and hooked a foot around her leg, tipping her over.  While wrestling, pinning Kerry’s upper body between her arm and her thigh, she read aloud.

“Very cute.  Deserving of a class award.”

“I didn’t get one though, because I had one already from the picture.  I said.”

“But you can think of it as getting one in spirit, right?” Avery asked, releasing Kerry.  “Did you do these after watching that goose dodgeball movie?”

“Yes!  And Samael from my class said I was a copycat, but it’s very different.”

“It’s inspired.”

“Right, yeah!  And the teacher said she likes the moral better.”

“I saw that with a friend.”

“Avery,” Kerry said, sorting herself out before giving Avery a stern look.  “You’re a teenager.  You should be watching more mature things.  With kissing and violence.”

Avery thought of watching a movie with kissing in it while lying down with Nora, and her thoughts tried to go in about five different directions at once and got nowhere.

“I- I don’t think it works like that.  I was in the mood for something easy and cozy.”

“You have standards to uphold!  I don’t know why Kinley thinks you’re cool but she does and that’s important because now other girls in class think I’m cool by association, Kinley gets listened to like that, because she’s popular and rich, so you can’t go around revealing you’re a total dork or it’ll all fall apart!”

Kinley isn’t that rich if she’s here, but sure.  “Even if I’m all the way over in Thunder Bay?”

“It’s even more important if you’re all the way over in Thunder Bay!  If you dork it up so badly we hear about it here my social life will be destroyed!  You have a responsibility!”

“I wonder what I’d have to do to destroy your social life from three hours away,” Avery said, leaning back.

“I don’t know but I know you’re capable,” Kerry said.

“Wow, and sometimes I forget you’re Sheridan’s little sister too.”

“You should stay off the internet to be safe.”

“I don’t think I’ll do that.”

Kerry gave her an exasperated sigh.  Then she noticed the stuffed animals.  “Did you move those?”

“Yeah.”

“Perpignan and Rosseau are father and daughter, so that’s weird.”

Avery leaned over some, looking back at the arrangement, and winced a bit at the pain in her ribs.  “Dads and daughters can kiss.”

“And Rouen and Dijon are both girls.”

“Seems fine to me.  Good for them.”

“I guess Rouen would like it.  She’s a rhino but she thinks she’s a unicorn like Dijon.  She looks up to Dijon a lot.”

“Rock your unicorn identity, Rouen.”

Kerry leaned forward to move some stuffed animals around, breaking up some kisses and setting up others, while leaving Rouen and Dijon there.

“Why French-sounding names?”

“Kinley does it.”

“Ah, of course.”

There were a few seconds of no conversation.  Gareth sounded like he was suffering as his knee was cleaned up.

Aunt Clara was many things, some of them even good things, but she wasn’t especially gentle.  Plus she’d had a big crush on Uncle Sean, only for him to marry Aunt Tracy instead, and ever since that had been explained Avery sort of felt like Aunt Clara’s moods during the big family gatherings made more sense.

Avery put her legs out and sort of batted Kerry’s hips back and forth between her legs as Kerry kept leaning past her to move stuffed animals around.

“It’s weird without you all around,” Kerry said.  “Really quiet.”

“Yep.  Definitely felt that after Sheridan left.  Declan treating you okay?”

“Yeah.  We play UFO SNAFU some.  He needs another player to man the guns while he does everything else.  That’s how it works, you have to run around the spaceship and there’s ten things to do but you have only two people.  It’s fun.  I like the music, and the different colors for each world.”

Avery was pretty sure that was part of Dad’s rules for Declan, that he had to do something with Kerry for a portion of his game time.  It was good Kerry enjoyed it.

“You should learn more than just the gun role, then.”

“I should.”

Gareth could be heard moaning and banging as his knee was still being handled.  Kerry rolled her eyes.

“Don’t roll those eyes.  I know when you were around Gareth’s age, you fussed at least that much when you got splinters in your finger.”

“Nuh uh.”

“You did.  That-”

A rapid-fire succession of sharp bangs interrupted them.  Avery pulled Kerry into her lap, shielding her.

“Fireworks?” Kerry asked.

Those weren’t fireworks.

All conversation in the house had either stopped or changed tone.

Avery checked with Snowdrop, getting a sense of Snow’s reactions, and judged the source of the noise to be at least a block away.  It had sounded closer.

Snow didn’t seem worried, either.

Okay.  So it wasn’t fireworks, but it wasn’t time for Matthew’s ritual to end.  Avery could sense the open claim, niggling faintly at the back of her head.  She hadn’t gotten the time wrong.

Warn me next time, Avery thought at Snow.

Snowdrop replied with a vague apologetic sensation, even though the words wouldn’t have come through that clearly to her.

“Go to Auntie C, keep your head down,” Avery told Kerry, ushering her over.

“You too,” Aunt Clara told Avery, but Avery was already heading down the stairs.  She ran into her dad there.

“Stay down,” he said.  “Is everyone okay?”

“Think so,” Avery said.  “It wasn’t that close to here.”

“Those were guns,” he said.  “And bullets travel.”

“Can you see anything?” Avery asked, past her dad, to Uncle Sean, who was peering out a front window.

“No.  Some of your neighbors are out, but they look concerned.”

“Hold on,” her dad whispered.  He hunkered down, close to her.

Her heart thudded, and it wasn’t because she really believed a bullet was going to come tearing through the wall to end her or her dad.  Snowdrop would be panicking more if that was the case.  Or she’d pick up on the worries of others.

“Do you know what’s going on?” her dad asked.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” she asked.  “About the moon, now this.”

“Because a lot of things don’t add up and they’re eating at me.  Your mom and I talked-”

There was another pop.

It wasn’t a bottle rocket.

“And I think it’s eating at her too.  Lots of little things you’ve told us and not told us.  Half finished stories.  Which you’ve told us, or been a part of.”

“Dad, is this really the time?”

“Is it?” he asked, staring at her, almost like he needed a response.  “Tell me, is it a fitting time?  Would me knowing the other half of those stories help me make sense of the weirdness this weekend?  A random attack while we’re at an ice cream place, then the hospital, now this?”

She shook her head a little, unable to tear her eyes from his.

“Your mom’s asking the same questions.  Names that came up that we didn’t follow up on enough.  It feels like a divine punishment, for missing so much earlier.”

“Dad-”

“Connor!” Uncle Sean called out.

Her dad stroked her hair at the side of her head, then cupped his hand there to pull her a bit closer and kiss her forehead.  “Go to your mom.”

Then he went over to where Uncle Sean was.  “Stay away from the windows.  Give it a few minutes to see if it-”

There was another shot.  Avery remained where she was, a bit stunned.

“Go to your mom, Avery!”

Avery went into the kitchen.  Kyle and Breanna were in there, along with Aunt Tracy and mom.  Sheridan was in the dining room with Uncle Declan.  Grumble was in the back room, already put to bed.  Moving him would be too much trouble.

Avery sidled back to the back of the dining room, checked around, and then pulled a connection block from her pocket.  It helped as she eased the door open, slipped outside, and crossed the backyard.

She had to double check the instructions from Verona’s text to find the hiding place.  The collection of sticks with brown twine looked so normal she could have lost it in the jumble of fall leaves and fallen branches between fenced-in properties.

She changed tops, gave the top to the bundle of sticks, and then opened the sealed envelope hidden in the crook of the tree.  Setting the paper inside the bundle kicked things off, and she watched as another version of herself swelled into being, adjusting to a full standing position, before stretching.  It shifted posture, matching Avery’s, then posed a bit.

“Don’t, uh, pose, for my family.”

“Yeah.  But I pose.  That’s a thing we do.  Just a bit.”

“Do we?”

“Just a bit,” the Avery Fetch replied.

“It’s weirdly not like looking in a mirror, but that’s because-”

“-we’re not mirrored, we’re flipped,” the Fetch said, at the same time Avery did.

“That’s eerie.  Okay, well, I should take it as a good sign, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Go.  Be good to my family.  I’ve got to look after stuff.  And whatever Verona programmed into you, don’t message Nora.  Please.”

“Yeah, no, she didn’t sneak anything like that in.”

Avery gave the Fetch a thumbs-up and got her mask and cloak out.

“Hey,” the Avery Fetch said.

Avery paused.

“We have a girlfriend!  Isn’t that great!?”

“Verona snuck that in, huh?”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“Yeah.  It really is.  But-”

“And she’s really cool.  And funny.  And intense.”

“She is, she is, she is.  Is it dumb I really miss her right now?”

“Nope.  Not dumb at all.”

Avery sighed.  “Kerry gave me a prescription to watch more movies with kissing, and violence, I think it was.  For teenager cred.  It’d be nice to do that with Nora.”

“Well then you’d better kick some ass, huh?  Stay alive, stay uninjured.”  The Fetch gave her a light punch in the arm.

“Yeah, bit of extra motivation to do that, huh?” Avery replied.  “But don’t, uh, don’t do that ‘I have a girlfriend’ thing with my family, okay?”

“It’s in the programming, don’t worry.  Your secrets are safe with me.”

Avery gave the Fetch a wary last look, then hurried off.

She went to Snowdrop, since she knew Snowdrop was with the others.  The perception detection bracelet was quiet.

She watched as three cars rolled by.  There was another pop of a gun firing, and the car in front braked hard, the one behind it nearly colliding with it.

The car in the rear was more controlled, though, and almost seamlessly swerved over to a spot by the side of the road.

Anthem Tedd was out of the drivers seat of his car by the time the two front cars had parked, and America was right behind him, getting out of the passenger seat.  She walked with a bounce in her step, hands in her pockets, as she went to her father’s side.

Avery waited until the coast was clear before black roping across the road.  The route she had to take meant she was out of cover for half a second, and she caught a glimpse of Anthem’s head turning to glance back over his shoulder toward her, as she went.

Avery circled a house, crossed a backyard, and hopped a hedge.

A Dog Tag turned to aim a gun at her as she hopped down- with Snowdrop reaching out to push the gun arm and gun away at nearly the same time.  She’d sensed Avery coming.

Verona and Lucy were on the back porch of a house with some goblins around them.  Four Dog Tags were at different corners of the property, with Grandfather at the one corner closest to the street.

Avery raised her hands, and the Dog Tag turned, wordless.

“We’re firing guns?” Avery asked, as she joined Verona and Lucy.  “No silence runes?”

“We want to scare them away, and the only ways to do that is with noise or with dead bodies,” Verona said.

“You’re not wrong, I guess, but you scared the crap out of my family, and most of this side of Kennet, I bet.”

“Don’t get on my case,” Verona replied.  “I argued for the dead bodies, but there weren’t any people who we could be sure we could shoot with a clean conscience.”

“The patriarch of the Tedd family showed up with his daughter, and two cars of other practitioners,” Avery told them.

Lucy turned her head.  “Wait, are you arguing we should shoot-?”

“No.  I’m just letting you know.  That thought doesn’t connect to what Verona said.”

“Okay, that’s important, and good to know.”

“How do you even know what he looks like?” Verona asked.  “You weren’t around when he showed and he wasn’t there for the big thing at the Blue Heron.”

“Pics from Liberty.  He was in the background of a few.”

“Ah.  How’s the Fetch?” Verona asked.

“Eerie.”

“Eerie is good.  Eerie means it’s close, right?”

“Yeah.  But also it was very happy to have a girlfriend?”

“I gotta scaffold.  It’s how glamour works, anchoring on the known and then elaborating.  I built it the same way.  I’m pretty proud of it.  I think you’re safe, with that around your dad.”

“If we’re safe, can we focus on what comes next?” Lucy asked.  “We’re awfully close to Matthew finishing.”

Avery nodded.

“We were hoping to scare people away, but if Papa Tedd showed up, that messes things up,” Lucy noted.

“I’m still free to check in with Matthew, give my no contest,” Avery said.  “I think I can get him out.”

“Out isn’t great though, is it?” Lucy asked.  “Because if they take the property, that messes us up some.

“Out might spare him from being targeted right after.  So long as the house is standing…”

Verona and Lucy exchanged glances.

“And if they do anything that brings the cops in… I know people can’t call, but the gunfire might have their attention.”

“It still raises the question of Elizabeth Driscoll,” Lucy said.

“Yeah,” Avery agreed.  “Let me take a shot at it?”

“If you’re sure.”

Avery nodded.

“I don’t know how you’ve managed this long with that signal in your dreams, in your head, constantly telling you there’s some open claim,” Verona said.  “I know you were away for a day and a half, basically, but seriously.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Maybe it’s that you have less claim to Kennet?” Verona asked.  She looked at Lucy.

“It’s not all that bad, though,” Lucy threw in her comment.

“Argh.  Anyway, go.  How are you doing this?”

“I go in, answering the call.  There’s not much time, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I check in with Elizabeth, see if it’s an option… and give him a gift.  I exit by Path.  Wait for him, short time, then come back here.”

“If you and Matthew aren’t there and they manage to break into the house while Liz is trapped in the basement, then they’ll know what the big ritual circles we’re doing are,” Lucy said.  “If they don’t already.  That gives them a chance to counter them.”

“Yeah.  But it’s at least an option for Matthew?  Depends how hard and heavy they come at him.”

“Or if Boss Tedd is here to answer the claim and Matthew’s not okay,” Verona added.

“Let me see what happens?”

Guns cocked.  They turned their heads.

Edith materialized.  Echo first, then the spirit glow, the spirit growing across several ‘branches’ of body until solidifying into the shape of the woman carrying a disc with wicks on both sides- a candle burnt nearly to the point of being extinguished.  Wax protected her modesty.

Flesh swirled at her feet, veins climbing up, followed by muscle, bones thrusting themselves up whenever there was enough mass that they could stand up without falling.

“Alternative plan,” the complex spirit said, in an ethereal voice.

The body erected itself from the ground up, encasing her.  A combination of spirit and wax formed her clothing.

“I try to fend them off,” Edith said, in her normal voice, as the last details sorted themselves out and became mundane again.

“You’d die,” Lucy told her.

“Possibly.”

“Boss Tedd is strong, and like, hey, I’m not all that upset you’d die,” Verona said.

Avery elbowed her.  Snowdrop threw in her elbow too, for the assist.

“But it’s death.  Probably to make a very tiny, insignificant difference.  If you’re going to die, let there be a point to it.”

“Hey,” Avery said, quiet.  “Be gentle.”

“With her?”

Avery shrugged one shoulder.

“Thank you,” Edith told her.

Avery shook her head and looked away.

“It’s frustrating.  Not being able to do anything to help him.  You’re saying there’s nothing I could do?”

“Not like that,” Lucy replied, quiet.  “Not against Boss Tedd, as Verona’s calling him.  We’ve got a battle plan and the order going out to most is stay the fuck away from him, Boss Hennigar, and stay out of any of the other key lieutenant’s ways.”

“And Matthew’s left on his own?”

“We’ve helped where we could,” Verona said.  “But you know, for someone who so callously said John knew what he was getting into…”

“Fuck you.  This is different.”

“Really?” Verona asked  “Sure isn’t as easy to say when the tables are turned and it’s someone you claim to care about, huh?”

“Easy,” Avery cut in.  She stepped forward a bit.  “Easy.”

Lucy looked like she really wanted to say something.  Her arms were folded, and she was tense.

John leaving had hit her hardest.

Avery motioned with one hand, asking Edith to take a step back.

Lucy turned around.  “What are you doing here, Edith?  Because if you think you’ll find allies or someone to share your worries over Matthew here, there’s too much crap in the way for that.  Crap you heaped on us.  While you were manipulating us, manipulating the council against us, something you’re still doing, making deals with Rook.”

Edith looked like she was going to retort, but then she glanced at Avery, who motioned again.

She stepped away, but she didn’t leave.

“You were never cool, with the crummy barbecue and crap,” Snowdrop added.  “You’ve redeemed yourself a bit.”

“Not helping, Snow,” Avery said.

“Thank you for being the most reasonable one here,” Edith said.  “We’re all on the same side, at least for now.”

“We are,” Avery agreed.

“All I want to do is help him.  That helps you.”

“I know something,” Avery said.  “A way you could help.  If you really care about him making it through this.”

“If that sentence came out of Verona, I’d think it’s a cruelly worded joke.  If it came from Lucy, I’d imagine it something cruel.”

“This is about kindness, not cruelty.  It’s real,” Avery said.  “Let me go to Matthew.  Let me tell him that you’re going.  That you won’t try to worm your way in, you won’t bother him again.  That you’re leaving Kennet, you’ll obey his wishes, you won’t ever bother him again.”

Edith’s expression turned ugly.

“It would help him.  More than a lot of things, I think.  Not having to worry about the future as much?  About you?  It’d be a relief, a recharge.  That could make the difference in him living or dying.”

“If you want to tell him that, you can,” Edith replied, voice icy cold, while her eyes burned.  Two of the nearby Dogs of War put hands on their guns.  “It would be a lie, but you could say it.”

“Then you don’t really care about him, do you?  It’s not about him, or even about love, is it?  You’re trying to hold onto something, and you’re just… hurting.”

“He can make it through,” Edith said.  She sounded dismissive now, overly casual.  “He doesn’t need that.  And we’ll end up together.”

“That’s not what you were saying before,” Lucy told her.  “You were worried.  You are worried.”

“It’s what I’m saying now.  You do what you can.  Or else.  I’m helping Kennet, risking death and doom to do that, and the moment I stop, you’ll know it.”

Then Edith was gone.  The opposite way she’d come, flesh peeling down and away, with spirit and elemental leading the way into the Ruins, with the traces of the body following after.

Avery heaved out a breath.  She’d been taking only shallow ones.

“Better get to Matthew, eh?” Verona asked.  “You sure you want to do this?”

Avery nodded.

“We’ll do what we can to protect the house,” Lucy said.  “Keep in mind, we ideally want him back and there when things kick off.  It might be hard to get him back in.”

“But they might end up more spread out, too,” Avery said.  “Different points to defend, two Demesnes, wherever they’re all sleeping, Kennet Above and Kennet Below, then the circles…”

Lucy nodded.

Verona handed Avery some spell cards and a potion.  “Healing.  For Matthew.”

Avery nodded.  She slid the eco-friendly bottle into her bag.

“Wish there was more we could do,” Lucy said.

“Okay,” Avery said.  “Coming, Snowdrop?”

“You’re on your own, as usual.”

“Cool.  Then…” Avery let out another heavy breath.  “I, Avery Kelly, intend to answer Matthew Moss’s claim to a Demesne.  Let it be known, let it be heard, I come with my familiar, my way should not be barred.”

The others nodded.

“Let’s move, in case they take Avery’s starting point as a clue about where we are,” Lucy told Grandfather.

“Sorry, didn’t think-”

“It’s okay.  Chances are they can’t track you that exactly.  But yeah.  Let’s be safe.  We’re like, ninety-nine percent certain we don’t win a fight against some of these guys.”

Avery nodded.

She walked around the side of the house, while the others hopped a fence and circled around in another direction.

Snowdrop jumped.  Anthem was there when she stepped past the house, sitting on the front stairs.  America Tedd was by the car.

“I’m answering the claim.  Making my contest.”

“Or lack thereof?” Anthem asked.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s walk.  I’ll be going in after you’re done.”

Avery frowned.

She wondered if she could stall for time, but she also wondered if time would get screwy.  She’d never really done this before.

“Is Liberty okay?”

“Liberty is fine.  According to her, you were a great host, and she’s verified your claim on the phone call, that the crying wasn’t your fault.”

“Yet you’re here.  You’re going to overturn stuff.  America attacked my family.”

Avery looked over at America, who gave her the finger.

Snowdrop gave America a thumbs up.

“She is free to do as she wishes.”

“It sure seems like you’re carrying a lot of water for Abraham Musser, metaphorically.”

“Musser can carry his own water.  I’m being a friend, and I’m securing better possibilities for my daughters.  Like it or not, someone was going to try this, or we were going to get here eventually.  A Lordship cannot be dissolved, and Lordships will eventually be claimed by the enterprising individual.  Eventually, even in centuries, alliances would form, along with a kind of government.”

“So people keep saying, but I don’t know if that’s true.  Something could happen in the meantime.  Things are still being invented, we’re still working through stuff.  You want to lock in a system now, when we could come up with something better, or something could change?”

“Yeah.  I think I do.”

“If Musser’s a representative of what the practice and its traditions and families are, or a distillation, or whatever… do you really want to back up someone like him, when that big system with him in charge would probably treat your daughters like he treats Raquel?”

“Hmm.  Yes.”

“Well I think that’s shitty.”

“I know Liberty told you I supported them against my family.”

“And you didn’t?”

“I did.  And more they don’t know about.  But I also know that Florin Pesch made an offer to you.  He said he’d put Raquel Musser in charge of Thunder Bay.”

“Talked to him, huh?  He said he wouldn’t interfere.”

“He didn’t.  We have people keeping track of people.  My point is, and I don’t know about you, Avery Kelly,” Anthem Tedd said, voice soft.  “But I think if you have problems with the system, it starts with saying yes to that kind of reasonable, fair offer.  Then, all of a sudden, if my daughters must live in a world where they might be treated as Raquel Musser gets treated, it’s a much brighter fate, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it works like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not changing the root of the problem.  Musser.”

“The problem resolved by nudges, adjustments, seizing opportunities as they arise.  Patterns form.  It’s similar to how practice works.  It is, at its heart, how we change reality.”

“Really slowly.  I was told at the Blue Heron that divorces are still tricky.  That’s, like, a century behind the times.  And I’m supposed to expect your way is going to be fast enough?”

“And now we come to another crux of the matter.  Because I’m of the understanding that your camp is divided.  You have your group, and you want more unreliable, reckless change, faster, compared to what I would push for.  Yes?”

“No comment.”

They stopped at Matthew’s front door.

“Mm hmmm.  Hold back your comments, then.  But within your own group, I believe, there’s another group that wants something even faster than that.  The current Carmine, for all his inactivity, is said to be champing at the bit for change now.  An overturning of natural order now.  He’s chewed up your little town and left it twisted and hurting.  He is not alone in his goals.  You don’t agree with them.  Three of us, similar goals, different timelines, different tolerances for risk.”

“Different tolerances for a lot of things,” Avery replied.  “Like Musser and how he treats his own son and niece.  Like a willingness to poison, betray.  And let’s not forget there’s a fourth camp.”

“There is.”

“Musser wants the power structures to stay the same.  He’s on top, basically.”

“Close to.  Even in the world sphere, his is a name that is sometimes bandied around, never totally forgotten.”

“And he’s stronger than you.”

Anthem smiled wide at that.  “Perhaps.”

“You could maybe beat him in a straight-up fight, but he’s stronger in virtually everything else, right?”

“This seems like a very a shallow attempt at baiting me.”

“It’s not.  That’s not the attempt, anyway.  I’m just saying… maybe your way isn’t that much less reckless than mine.  Because you’re hinging things on being able to maneuver around someone with more connections, more tools, more money, more whatever, than you have, aren’t you?”

“I think there are certain things that come naturally to humanity.  People will become more educated, the weapons at our disposal will become greater.  Those thoughts aren’t necessarily linked, but they aren’t entirely detached from one another either.  Populations will swell, slower as people get more educated and as the weapons get better, but it will swell.  Civilization will stretch out, and Others will dwindle.  Practice, people, and civilization will change.  Do you disagree?”

“I think Others might change instead of dwindling, but sure.  Maybe populations stop shrinking?  I know Canada doesn’t sustain its own population by the people who live here on their lonesome.”

“I will concede Musser has more connections, tools, and other things than I have.  But if it comes down to Musser hewing to old forms and traditions with all those things at his disposal and me with what I have at my disposal?  Add in the natural trends of this world, toward change instead of tradition, then add the fact that my daughters, if you’ll allow me my possible bias, are exceptional, I don’t think my way is as reckless as you’d paint it.”

“I guess we’ll see, huh?”

“What is the bleeding moon in the sky about?  Tell me and I’ll send people away.  If it’s a danger, I’ll send America away, along with innocents, the younger sons and daughters of families.”

He was studying her expression and body language.

“I think you’re an idiot, Avery Kelly,” he told her.  “I think you’re naive, I think you’re the classic fool.  Your friends are little different.  You’ve been used from the start by Others, some of which should have been put down long ago.  You were given power and not enough preparation.  You’re a danger to yourself and to others.”

“I’m fourteen.  I think a good chunk of that comes with the territory.  I’m just trying to do my best here.”

“You’re hurling yourself recklessly into situations as terrible as the Devouring Song and outright warfare.  You’re not being sensible about it.”

“She’s not really fourteen, like she said,” Snowdrop told him.  “And I’m more than half a year old.”

He looked down at the opossum.  Snowdrop bit her lip and smiled.

“I’m not going to stand down and back off here, Mr. Tedd.  You said you wanted your daughters to be more authoritative.  Well… I’m doing the same.  You’ll be a hypocrite if you don’t want it from other people’s daughters.”

“You’re not an authority.  Not really.  From your handling of Florin Pesch’s offer, you’re an ideologue, except you don’t have a clear enough vision behind that ideology.”

“It’s a really simple ideology,” Avery said.

“Be a wangbag,” Snowdrop said.

Avery gestured at Snowdrop.

“I know we talked about my way being different from Musser’s.  But he and I have talked about these things.  At the end of the day, whether his vision comes out ahead or I do, we’ll have drinks together and talk about shaping the future to come.  We won’t end up at odds because of what you’re saying here.”

“Wasn’t the goal.  Just wanted to call you out.  I don’t think what you’re saying is as set in stone as you think it is.  Like I told you, I guess we’ll see.”

“I suspect most of you will end up in tears, broken, by the end of all of this.  And if you are, and if Liberty is even vaguely peripheral to you when you find yourself there, if it leads to a single frown on her face, I’ll have violent Others drag you to deep, dark places that were once mistaken for Hell, in the hopes she might forget you sooner.  This I swear.”

Avery felt like she had a pretty good retort to that.  Anthem didn’t even know Liberty, when it came down to it.  He didn’t know his own daughters, didn’t know what they wanted.

But going that direction implied a secret and she didn’t want him digging if Liberty didn’t.

So she smiled.  “Going to go, unless you have anything else to say.”

“I don’t.”

She pushed on the door, letting herself in.  Snowdrop followed her in.

“Avery,” Matthew said.  He wasn’t in a position to see her.

“Anthem Tedd is next, I think.”

“Oh boy.  That’s a pretty rough one, isn’t it?”

She entered the room.

Matthew was slumped in a chair.  The floor around him was stained black and stained red.  Red from his blood, she assumed.  Black from the Doom’s.  He looked like he’d lost ten pounds.

“Holding on?” she asked.

“Yeah.  Holding on.”

“I think Anthem’s the last.”

“Would make sense.”

“We’re pretty worried that between the time the claim ends and the time you get any real control over the Demesne, they’ll come kicking the door in.”

“Would make sense.  Guess I’m going to have to learn how to use this Demesne fast, huh?”

“If it’s Anthem, I don’t think you’ll get much of a chance.  I’m taking the opportunity to stop in and give you some help.  Healing potion?”

“What’s the side effect?  Verona’s stuff doesn’t seem as refined as what my father used to have.”

“Uhhh, she didn’t say.”

“If the effect is me not dying, I suppose I don’t care much.”

He put his hand out.  She handed him the bottle.  He drank some, made a face, then poured some over himself.  It was clear, with a rose tint.  It seemed to give his skin more color.  Where it hit the stained floorboards, it left them clean.

“And here’s some more spell cards.  Lucy wishes she could give you more.  Tonight’s looking to be pretty rough.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to set up a way to a Path, okay?  In the next room?  And Snowdrop and I will leave that way.  So you can do your thing, and if they do kick the door in and you don’t feel up for it, you can come.”

“Hmmm.”

“Ideally, we get you back here before everything happens.”

“Sounds good.  What are we doing about the practitioner we’re keeping in the basement?”

“I think I’ll take her, if you’ll give me permission?  Then maybe I leave her on the Path until after the important stuff is done.”

“Sounds good.  Permission granted.”

Avery hurried over into the next room, motioning.

“Granted, as well.  Do your practice, set up your Path.  It’ll be my first visit to one.”

“It’s weird you’ve never been,” Avery said, keeping her voice bright.

Matthew at least looked better after the potion.  He wiped his wet face and hair, sorting himself out.  His eyes were very black and shadowy.

“Hopefully they realize the claim ended when you’re done,” Snowdrop said.  “Challenge Matthew, kick his ass.”

“I think they’ll sense it,” Avery replied.  “Maybe I should do this out of sight of anyone coming in to challenge?”

“The basement, perhaps,” Matthew said.

Avery nodded.  She collected the things for the entry onto the Shining Bridge, then took them downstairs.

Matthew lurched to his feet, grunting, and he followed her.

“Edith’s still out there.  Sorry.”

“Figured.  I did have a moment of panic when the Doom came back strong.  I thought it might be Doom for most of Kennet, not just her.”

“Pretty much just her,” Avery reported.

“Okay.”

Elizabeth was sitting on a couch, a television on some old crime show.  The barrier stretched across the halfway point of the room, glowing on the floor.

Avery began to set up the lights, arranging them so there were the appropriate shadows on at least two walls.

“Back me up when we take the barrier down?  You up for securing her?” Avery asked Matthew.

“She can’t practice without it counting as a second attempt at countering my claim, and that’s not permitted.  I’m physically alright.  I can hold her.”

“I’m taking you to a Path,” she told Elizabeth.  “I don’t advise leaving the starting point.  There’s a few traps, you’d be putting yourself at risk.  Wait, I’ll come to you when things are done.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Elizabeth said.

Avery kept setting up.  Half of the horse, diamond, peak, crown…  Every object she set down had an order she’d worked out a while ago.  Flashlights were arranged to shine through the gaps where two objects met.

She motioned to the light switch when she was nearly done.  Matthew hit it.

“I’m rigging this to stay open,” she told Matthew.

“Avery.  I’m not your enemy,” Elizabeth said.

“Just tell me what to do,” Matthew said.

“Rig something up to blow, that can move the items, and step through.  Carefully.”

She finished setting up the arrangement.  Rope, dog, ball, wheel, and finally, the last half of the horse.

The image shuddered.  The space beneath the flashlights dropped away, while leaving the light behind.  It extended backwards, overlapped, refracted, and filled the room with dancing lights.  All the shadows moved, slowly rotating around them.

“Light and shadow.  Fitting.  Feels like it’s been my life so far,” Matthew mused.  He reached out a hand and the shadow of the dog ran up the shadow of his arm and leaped off.

Avery turned toward Elizabeth.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“And?”

“I was worried for a bit.  This prison cell, it’s hard not to worry, when I’m so used to being in tune with whatever’s going on.  I got to thinking, um, what might happen if Musser or someone he’s put in a leadership position realize I’m gone.  And I thought maybe they’d call my parents.  Did they?”

“I don’t know.  I haven’t seen or heard about them.  Lucy didn’t say anything.”

“They didn’t call on Dom, did they?  Because I could see them trying.”

“Not that I know of,” Avery told her.

“Okay.  I thought they wouldn’t, but it’s hard to not let my thoughts run away with me, you know?  Maybe someone else figured out the circles…”

“We blew it up.  So we’ve got things incoming and we’ll set something up fast, later.”

“How?”

“Our business, not yours.”

“You’re playing with fire, then.  I’m trying to empathize right now.  I want to help.  Because if there’s a chance Dom is there-”

“I don’t know if he is.  But if you delay or interfere… there’s a better chance, I guess.”

“Not my goal,” Elizabeth replied.  “I just- I got to thinking.  I don’t want Dom there.  And I consoled myself by thinking my parents would take steps to help, whatever happened.  Dom’s got friends.  Even Graubard would look after him, to maintain alliances.  Ferguson would, probably.”

“What are you on about?” Avery asked.  “Sorry, but-”

“What are you on about?” Snowdrop asked, more forceful.

“I got to thinking.  You don’t have that.  You left the Blue Heron early, without as many alliances as most make.  You three are on your lonesome, like me in this prison cell.  And I get it.  What it feels like to be next to Musser, worrying that the people and things you care about might get swept up in his whole deal, without you being in a position to do anything about it.”

“Sucks, huh?”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth replied.  “I could be that someone for you.  I wouldn’t ask for much.  But if it got you to a point where you guys could chill out, even a bit, and stop beheading people, stop fighting us, and if it got me a bit of security, all I’d really want is an assurance you won’t let Dom be in the way of danger.  I’d back you.  I’d make oaths, that I and my family would try to be that security and influence against Musser.  Especially if we got into a better position.”

“You still don’t get it,” Avery replied.

“I want to.”

“It’s not about me.  Or Snowdrop.  Or my friends, or even my family, or my school friends, from last year, here, or where I’m at now.  It’s about everyone.  It’s about all the people who feel sick to their stomach imagining what might happen to their kid siblings, or their kids, or their parents, or their friends.  It’s about everyone who doesn’t have that power, who might never be able to get that power.”

“Others chief among them,” Matthew said.

“There are familiar rituals.  Ways to connect the Other to humanity,” Elizabeth said.

“Not enough practitioners who are open enough for every Other, don’t think.  Even if every practitioner had to take one, and I don’t think even half do.  Besides, I don’t think an Other should need a practitioner to save them.  It makes them like slaves, almost.  Where they have to go that route.”

“It’s just one idea.”

“You’ve gotta have a better answer than that if you’re going to make moves like Musser’s doing,” Avery replied.  “I kind of wish I could leave you in here for like, four months, with that worry about how safe Dom will be under Musser’s rule.  Maybe then you’d get it.  But we’re not going to.  Don’t worry.”

“Why four months?”

“Maybe because that’s about how long we’ve been on the edge?” Avery asked.  “Worrying about our town like you’re worrying about Dom.  Since Alexander, since Bristow, since Witch Hunters, then Musser.  And no, don’t jump straight to saying we wouldn’t need to worry under Musser.  Even if you protected us… there’d still be plenty who’d be in a bad place.”

“Hey,” Matthew said.

Elizabeth looked at him.

“You die, your parents die, extended family, first and second picks for who’d look after Dom die, what happens?”

“What?”

“Just asking. It’s not four months sitting here, but I want a serious answer.  If that happens, do you think Dom’s going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.  But is anything you’re doing going to make sure he is?  Are you thinking you’ll change the world?  You can’t possibly think you’ll change things enough that people all across Ontario will be free of this sort of thing.  It’s just… reality.  People without support fail.”

Avery didn’t respond right away, thinking.

“I’m not, um, trying to challenge you.  I’m not trying to win an argument.  If you said yes, absolutely, you had it in you to bring about change, and a theoretical Dom without the rest of us, abandoned to the world, he’d be okay?  I would be on your side, one hundred percent.  But that’s not what you’re doing, is it?  Unless there’s something special you found on the Paths…?”

Elizabeth was shaking her head, as if already confirming, no.  No there wasn’t anything that special.

“No.  We can’t change the world or change every last bit of it.  But we can at least defend this one corner of it, maybe.  Maybe if we do a good enough job, people will be inspired.”

“By putting it out of easy reach?”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“I think you’ll see how long Musser’s group’s reach is, nothing else.  And what it means to be on his bad side.”

“You say that and you’re on his side?” Avery asked, exasperated.

“No,” Matthew said. “She said it was Musser’s group.  Not ‘our’ group.  She didn’t include herself.  Consciously or unconsciously-”

“Consciously I’m undecided.  I don’t know.  I’m spooked,” Elizabeth said.

“Speaking of spooked, are you up for dealing with Anthem?” Avery asked.

“I don’t know.  No, probably not.”

“Okay.  Well, if there’s anything you can do, or anything I can do…”

“I’ll try to skew it so he can’t take the Demesne or cancel the ritual.  Might be I get hurt.”

“If you don’t think you’ll be in any shape to get to the circle, we should rig it so you can say a word and blow it to smithereens, so he can’t follow us through.  And the door closing would be a signal.”

“Let’s,” Matthew said.  “Prepare for the worst.”

They took a minute to do that, while Elizabeth stood back, half watching them, half watching the television.  She took a last drink of the water that had been provided to her, then approached the barrier.

“I won’t fight or make this harder, I swear, I’ll go and follow instructions, provided I’m free when this is all over.”

“That helps,” Avery said.  “Watch your step, Elizabeth.  You’ve got a long skirt and if it catches on anything here, it’d close the portal.”

Elizabeth hiked her skirt up to her knees, stepped over, and toward the nexus of light at the center.

“I hope you fail,” Snowdrop told Matthew.

“Thank you.”

“Good luck,” Avery told him.

“Good luck, Matthew,” Elizabeth said, “I think.”

“I might need it.”

Avery led Elizabeth through the nexus, until her feet were only halfway on the Shining Bridge.

“No contest,” Avery told him.  She felt the tension of the constant awareness of the contest in the back of her head release.  There was only Musser’s claim remaining now.

“Thanks.  Helps.”

She stepped forward, pulling Liz in after her.  The lights swirled around them, and they dropped a distance through dark void.

Their shoes and boots hit a solid surface, and the light leaking in and all around them scattered with the impact.  It fell like snow, melted into something more liquid that coated surfaces.  Here and there, bits of light overlapped, brighter in those spots, and they revealed themselves to be light sources.

It took a minute to take form.  The tightropes extended into endless void.  Some Lost revealed themselves, bouncing among the lines of light, revealing them to be elastic.

“Eloise would hate this.  She hates heights,” Liz said.  “What do I do?”

“Sit.  Wait.  Time is funny here, time is funny in Demesne rituals, I’m not sure how that interacts.”

Elizabeth took special care in dropping down to a sitting position, bent knees at the edge of the platform, feet dangling.

They didn’t say anything more.  Avery felt it was better to leave Elizabeth with the words she’d already said, and Elizabeth maybe didn’t want to test things when sitting on a ledge over apparent oblivion.

It felt like an hour and it was probably closer to five minutes.

Matthew came through.  Snowdrop and Avery together weren’t enough to catch him, but the Doom streamed out, and offered its own hands.

“How bad?” Avery asked.

“Best you don’t ask.”

“Is it?” she asked him.

“I don’t want you to worry.  I think… I think I’m going to have a sit,” he told her.  “I can watch Elizabeth-”

The doorway tore its way closed.

That’d be the timed spell card she’d arranged.

“You watch her?”

“I don’t think I’d be much use for much else.  Come get us before the time of?”

Avery nodded.

“And leave any first aid supplies you have?”

“How bad is it, Matthew?” Avery asked.

“I’ll live.  Probably.”

“Matthew!”

“I’m only saying that last bit because I don’t want to be gainsaid, while we’re on the cusp of something important.  You never know.”

She frowned at him.  It was too dark to make out blood against dark clothing.

“Can I do Heartless practice here?” he asked.

“Matthew…”

“For pain relief, primarily.  It would be nice to turn that off.”

“Yeah.  Just be careful the Doom doesn’t tear things up too much.  If you cut the tightrope this platform might drop away.  Like an old kids gag cartoon.”

“Let’s not do that.  That said, I think the Doom and I have a working understanding, after the last three days.”

“You got your Demesne?” Avery asked, walking backwards onto the tightrope.

“Yeah.  That’s one thing secure.  I hope you don’t need too much else out of me.  I’m ready to sleep for the next week.”

“Don’t let him sleep, okay?” she asked Elizabeth.  “He’s watching you, you’re watching him.  Cooperate, and if I see Dom, I’ll let him know you said to get away.”

“Okay.  Deal.”

“Wish you got what we’re doing and why.”

“I think I understand it.  I believe in it, I like the idea of it, I guess, doing enough of a job making a good place to be that it affects everything else, I just- I’m sorry, I don’t believe it’ll happen.”

“I hope to change your mind.”

“I hope you do too.”

Avery turned to Snowdrop, who nodded.

Then the two of them headed back, on their third full trip, now, down the Shining Bridge.

Lost stalked them, chasing them- light things hidden in the light too bright to look at, dark things in darkness the light didn’t come close to touching.

There were Paths that were dangerous to travel, with ways to secure them and make them easier on repeat visits, and there were Paths that were the opposite.  This was the latter.  A fun tightrope walk on elastic tightropes, safe enough for Verona and Lucy.  But it got more dangerous with each trip, and on this trip she knew she’d be questioned, with a serious chance she’d be attacked, and a guarantee if she couldn’t provide the right answer to the question.

She left Matthew and Elizabeth behind, hurrying back to the others.

The clock was counting down now.

There was no knowing the exact time of Miss’s arrival, but it was the next big hurdle.

She ran, leaped, and bounded, constantly on the lookout for ambush from the light or the shadow.  Snowdrop followed suit, less graceful, less athletic, but fully Lost.  At home in this.

The distant, shower of falling stars in the sky was blacked out by the silhouette of a head, bigger than most buildings.  It moved parallel to Avery, nose pointing in the direction she was going.

He asked the question.  His voice made the tightropes shake and move from where she thought they’d be.  She missed one, caught it with a hand, and rebounded up to a better one.

She listened carefully.

“Come dawn, will you stay, or will you run?”

She answered.

Verona’s bracelet ticked over, the beads going nuts.

Avery’s bracelet was almost unaffected.  She reached over, and shook Verona awake.

“Wha?  Huh?”

“Someone’s on you.”

“Aw, balls.  I’m trying to sleep.”

“It’s quid pro quo,” Lucy said.  “There’s a justice in them retaliating using similar techniques to what we used on them.  Empowers whatever they’re doing, at least a little.”

“Bah.”

“More worrying is that they’re fixated on you, Ronnie,” Avery said.

Verona checked.  Avery’s bracelet and Lucy’s anklet were still.

“Balls.”

“Augury?” Lucy asked.  “We could draw something.”

Verona lurched to partial wakefulness.

They’d chosen the damaged cabin that Edith had commandeered to hold the furs as their hiding spot, since at least they’d see most people coming, and there were lots of hiding spaces for Dogs of War to camp out, bearing their rifles.

On the cabin floor, they worked together to quickly put down an anti-scrying symbols, getting about ninety percent done before they had to check the reference material in their notebooks.

The moment the circle was closed, Verona’s bracelet went from having about half its beads at a nine out of ten intensity to one or two beads sort of moving.

Avery looked out with sight and Sight to see if anyone was spying with actual eyes.  She didn’t see anything.

Slowly, Verona’s bracelet was acting up more and more.

“Why me?”

“Maybe you left some hair or something behind?” Lucy asked.

“How are you supposed to control for that!?”

“Or maybe it’s the Demesne,” Avery said.

“My Demesne is safe.  I feel it.”

Avery shook her head.  “Okay, well… what if it’s not that they’re there and using that link to find you.  What if it’s… they devoted special resources to you because you have one?  What if they’re working out what we’re doing?”

Avery had made her way back to Kennet, and she’d reunited with the others.  They had the smallest of grace periods granted by the fact that they’d left the invaders tired on previous nights and days.  The other guys didn’t know their timeline, they didn’t know there was something imminent, so they didn’t know they needed to track the three of them down.

Or they hadn’t.

“You think they’re onto us?” Lucy asked.

“All they’d have to do is ask the right Augur to scry.  That’d give them a starting point.  Then if they realized we’re doing the Demesne rituals for a reason, rushing Matthew’s for a reason…”

“They’d target Matthew and me?” Verona asked.

“I think Matthew’s safe.  If he hasn’t bled to death.  But if they target you, do something to you, then that’s one of our three key things.”

Verona nodded.  “Frig.”

“We’re about half an hour off from when I set my alarm, when we thought we’d be starting out with the ritual,” Lucy said, checking her phone.  “I guess we’re starting sooner than later.  I’ve got the hospital.”

“Valley,” Avery said.

“School, ugh,” Verona said.  “I think I’ll go to Kennet Below.  The V.P. will back me up and slow them down.”

“Good.  I’ll send some Others your way.”

Lucy’s head turned sharply.  Verona’s followed.

Avery.  Avery.  Avery.

Avery’s head turned toward the source.

The Dog Tags.

There was a faint movement in the gloom, near the mouth of the grassy dog-walking, partially forested, cabin-riddled area south of the Bowdler Ski hill, which they termed the Valley.

A vehicle.

Verona’s bracelet was approaching a ten out of ten, all beads.

“They’re sending a freaking army after you or something,” Avery whispered.

“Or decoys.  A false signal?” Verona asked.

“I dunno,” Avery replied.

“Chase Whitt might be the one on point here.  We might need to scrape together the very last of our Dark Fall glamour to Nettlewisp him,” Lucy said.  She collected her things, getting stuff on to go outside- jeans and boots, backpack, cape, mask.

Avery followed suit.

As a group, they left the cabin.  There hadn’t been any lights on, and they didn’t turn anything on, as they circled around the building.

“If I don’t talk to you guys before we kick this off, good luck,” Verona said.

“I’ll signal our goblins, to get started on getting the mundane items set up.  Hopefully if they’re chasing Verona, the rest will be okay?”

“There’s a lot of practitioners out,” Lucy whispered.

They reached Doe, who was lurking in the woods, watching things.

“They’re after Verona.  We’ll try to scatter.”

“Signal came down,” Doe said.  “Hennigar.”

“Boss Hennigar?” Avery asked.

Doe nodded.

“Don’t fight him, okay?  None of the war mages,” Lucy said.

Doe frowned.

Lucy reached for Doe’s arm.  Doe pulled back as Lucy made contact.

“Seriously.  I know you hate them.  But they’re the ones who are best at binding and stopping you guys.  The goblins too.  Fade into the trees, disappear, maybe take a shot if you think it’ll do something.  It probably won’t.  I’m dead serious.”

Doe looked like she wasn’t listening.  Her eyes were fixed on a distant point out in the darkness of the night.

“John wouldn’t want this,” Lucy said, very quiet.

Doe made eye contact with her.

“Yeah, went there.  It’s true.  You’d be throwing it all away for pretty slim chances.”

Doe nodded once.

“So retreat.  Regroup.  Stay in earshot of Avery in case she needs help.”

“We’ll watch out.”

Doe reached into her vest jacket and pulled out a mirror.  She angled it, keeping the light away from the car, while signaling someone further in the darkness.

Avery saw the brief flash of response.

Doe broke into a run, heading uphill, further south, away from the Bowdler ski hill.  She disappeared into the woods with a scary sort of ease.  Like she was wearing more camouflage than she was.

Verona passed Avery some of her work from the afternoon.  An ancient laptop, dug out of her dad’s basement, given a treatment that made it about ten times grosser.  There were three dead mice inside, fried and melted into the machinery.  Verona hadn’t killed them, she’d just collected them from traps her dad had set in dark corners of the basement and then never went back to.  One dead alchemy experiment, gelatinous, oozed up into the number pad on the right side, making the keys bulge up and out in a vaguely spherical shape, and she’d even added pieces of her broken feather pen with the nib wedged into a socket, with wires wrapped around it.

The webcam had been melted into the housing of the screen, making it unable to close completely.

It didn’t have to be pretty.  It just had to be sufficiently divorced from real tech.

“It’s the fastest one we have, but do it early, okay?  Just in case it doesn’t work?  So you can signal us, or rush the drawing of the diagram.”

Avery nodded.  She pulled out a canvas shopping bag and slid the laptop inside, so it wouldn’t touch her other stuff.

“You’ll have to plug it in.  And aim the webcam at an open space.”

“I know, I know I know.  You need to go, Ronnie.”

There were more vehicles coming.  No less than ten, each filled with practitioners, each driving on grass that had been packed down by other vehicles- ones meant to be there, belonging to park rangers or whoever owned the ski hills, doing regular maintenance.  Headlights were off, and the only noise was the rustle of them driving through tall grass and weeds.

Verona pulled out a coin.  Elizabeth’s.

“If everything goes according to plan, Lucy and I meet you after, eh, Avery?  We set up, then collapse if we have to.”

“That’s the plan,” Lucy said.

Verona was already flipping the coin.  She caught it, slapping it against her hand.

She exhaled in relief when she saw the result, disappearing in that same moment.

“What happens if she gets the wrong side?”

“Abyss instead of Kennet Below, we think,” Lucy said.  “We had options if it came to that, but this is best.”

The first of the cars came to a hard stop.  Others did too.

Whatever tracking they’d been doing, they just realized they were in the wrong place.  Good.

Avery watched some slowly turn.  Others continued to the cabin.

“I should-” Lucy started.

“Hospital.  Go.”

Lucy went, turning into a quartet of smoke foxes.

Avery looked at Snowdrop who nodded.

Evasive maneuvers.  Black rope, tracking what everyone was doing…

She saw Grayson Hennigar and gave him a wide berth, skipping across the clearest part of the valley to a distant point at the foot of the ski hill, then dropped into a crouch.

It pretty quickly became obvious that they had the full attention of these guys.  Everyone was awake, an hour and a half before sunrise, and they had a mission.  If twenty-five people were out in this valley, with another ten Others, and another fifty were after Verona and Lucy, then that’d be pretty much everyone.

Avery dropped down to sitting on her heels, conserving her energy while staying ready to spring to action.  She got some snacks and water, and ate them, sharing with Snowdrop, who’d gone full opossum to be smaller and more portable.  Every package went back into her bag, with even crumbs pushed into the soil and covered over.  When her bracelet ticked with movement, she hurried on, and she stayed away from the person who’d spotted her from half a mile away, crouched in the trees.

She stayed productive while she was at it.  She knew she had half an hour before she really should start, which gave her leeway to try the computer for the fast diagram draw.  If that failed, she’d draw manually.  Somehow.  Maybe not the valley itself, if it came down to it.

They have to know what we’re doing.  They’re actively trying to stop us now.

Was it Elizabeth, somehow?  An Augur working things out?

It was suffocating, knowing just how important these next steps were, and how many people were out there, against her.

One gunshot, late in the night, fired out into darkness.  A Dog of War?

Avery saw someone fall.  One of the invading practitioners.

She heard the scream.  A Hennigar.

Which meant chaos.  Which meant people trying to sort out some shitty hierarchy, of who’d go get beaten up to give that Hennigar what they needed.

Avery watched it all unfold.

“It was a joint attack.”

Avery jumped a little at the voice, even though Snowdrop had sensed the presence a half-second before.

“A what?”

“When they came for Verona.”

“They went for Matthew too?”

No.  Not Matthew.  Not Miss.  Not the Demesne.  Not Rook, she was here, not her rooftop.  Not the diagrams- those weren’t done yet.

“How bad?” Avery asked, hushed.  “They went after us at home?”

Questions out of order.

“They did.  And it’s bad.”

Alarm surged through her and it felt like it lurched out ahead of her starting to run, pulling her, getting in the way of her taking a breath.  Black rope, every trick she had, to cut corners, skip past open areas.  She hurdled little things that were in the way.

To- to home, she supposed.  She’d wrestled with that idea in Thunder Bay.

Home was where her family was.

Musser’s reach, Elizabeth had said.  The extents he’d go to.

She reached the house and lights were on, limiting where she could go and how she could approach.

Windows were broken.  The smell- she knew the smell that leaked out from those rooms.  It was a familiar one.  A goblin tool she’d used too many times.

She used her Sight to look, found the trail, and chased.

She reached the bridge at the same time the car was halfway across it.  She had to stop, because she’d be too obvious following.  She checked her phone, but there was no service.  There were no immediate answers, as to how bad this was.

Past Verona’s house, which was dark, but had a broken window, smoke pouring out of the hole.  The light was on in her room.  Avery saw Brett’s silhouette.

Breathless, she finally caught up with the vehicle at Lucy’s house.  The lights were on there too, like at her house.  Windows were broken there, as well, just like her house and Verona’s.

Jasmine was up and Jasmine opened the door, to greet Avery’s parents as they got out of the car.

The gift had come from one of the goblins.  From Bluntmunch, but Avery now had to suppose that Toadswallow had been the craftsman.  And he’d taught secrets or passed things on to America Tedd.

Maybe America had done it alone.  Or Braxton Hart had helped.  Maybe she’d sent goblins out to handle the dirty deed.

Fireworks.  Fireworks meant specifically to shatter glamour, on top of everything else.

Jasmine held a bundle of sticks in her arms, Lucy’s sleep clothes wrapped around them, like she might hold a baby.  Her eyes were wide, and she looked confused.  It would have been a ludicrous sight, except Avery’s dad was doing the exact same thing, while her mom circled the car to go to his side.

They knew.  The illusions had broken.  This wasn’t a lump in the bed meant to hide that they’d snuck out.  This was probably Breanna going to bed with Avery next to her and after the sudden explosion, finding only sticks and twine there.  It was Lucy’s mom maybe talking to her just before bed, or even checking on her in the night.  She was supposed to be working night shifts, ignoring the extra shift she’d had to pull.

It didn’t matter.  They knew enough to know those bundles shouldn’t be there.

Lucy found her way to Avery’s side.  She was looking around, hand at her earring, listening to see if they were being spied on.

Their parents talked.  Lucy wore a hard, sad expression on her face as she watched the exchange.  She didn’t relay what was being said.  It didn’t matter.  The damage was done.  That much was obvious.

Verona was there a minute later.  Her dad, conversely, hadn’t come, hadn’t reached out to Jasmine like Avery’s parents had.

As if by mutual agreement, even knowing that time was short and everything was on the line, the three of them approached the parents.

Next Chapter