Author: Wildbow

Gone and Done It – 17.x | Pale

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Stall them, until we can hit them with our main forces, he remembered the order.  We’ll arrive just before dawn.

Easton looked at Verona Hayward.  A little younger than him, frazzled, clearly tired, and obviously distracted.  Her hair was uncombed and she wore a sweater with broad black and white stripes that slipped off the shoulder, leaving a black bra strap exposed against skin.  It was two pet peeves of his in one: a sweater that exposed skin seemed to defeat the point of a sweater, and the exposed bra strap had always felt…

He wasn’t sure of the word.

If he had any say, it wouldn’t be a thing, and girls would be embarrassed to dress like that.

“You should focus more on your surroundings,” Easton mused.

Verona Hayward turned her head, looking over the group.  Easton smiled as she did.  She had nothing, while he had two archetype constructions supporting him.  He’d taken the time to make them, earlier, put them away, and called them out when around the other families.  He knew the people with an eye for quality would respect what he’d put together.  Salesmanship, showmanship, and polish.  The idea of a swordsman, gathered together from ethereal air and empowered with carefully blended spirits, guidepost items, and three drops of blood, that were taken from the final drops of blood shed by noble and trained warriors.  The same had been given to the spearman to his right, albeit with three drops of blood from the same individual, a knave who had led a citizen uprising against a king.  Stronger blood, collected all at once, and divvied out.  He got ten drops every birthday, to use as he saw fit.

Easton saw fit.  Everything they were doing now had many eyes on them.  They subtly jockeyed for position and respect among the collection of families who were going to settle into positions they’d likely hold for decades and centuries to come.

Shay Graubard was wearing a Castel del Monte dress and Easton had no idea why.  It wasn’t like it was fitting for this backwater town, and it wasn’t fitting for a battlefield.  Her haircut, at least, was simple enough to be easily looked after, brushed straight, with bangs cut at a sharp diagonal angle across the brow, and hair at her back doing the same at the opposite angle.

Her doll was with her, matching her in height, wearing a layered, form-fitting dress that exploded out into carefully arranged rolls and ruffles of lace as each layer terminated around the calves.  It stood there with head tilted, hands pressed together, laid against a ceramic cheek, glossy black hair cascading down around one shoulder.

“Hi Easton,” Verona replied.  “Hi… something Graubard?”

“Yeah.  Doesn’t matter,” Shay replied.

“Right, good to know. Can you get your family’s dolls to stop harassing my friend, please? We’ve got stuff to do.”

“So this is the big diagram, huh?” Easton asked.  His eyes moved over it.  Argumentative, some celestial underpinnings.  Like a ‘hey spirits, reach out to this person or place, but in a really careful, organized way, so we’re ready when they answer.’  He couldn’t make sense of the specific thing being called out to with that argumentative aspect.  It was like with his archetype constructions, he created the shape he needed to fill in and carefully managed what went into that, making the argument to spirit and outside forces.  There were other argumentative diagrams that asked for permission to go to a space.  This looked more like the first one than the second, but it was referring to boundaries he didn’t understand.  Sixteen what?

They were doing three of those?

“Why three?  One at the school, one at the hospital, one at the factory?”

“Why the hell not?”

There was other diagram work.  Another argumentative diagram, but simple, accessing a space.  Heavy on structure, ease of use.  Given the emphasis on shorthand and the assumption of familiarity, he read it as the equivalent of a speed dial on an old phone or a friends list online… but with a place.

“Escape route?” he asked.

Verona had gone back to drawing, and paused to look up and over at him and then at the speed-dial-to-a-place diagram.  “Oh. Could be.”

“And a barrier. You didn’t take any classes on barriers, I take it?” he asked.  He flexed his hand inside his implement, confident it would protect him against the barrier.  The barrier shimmered.

More of the group were coming up behind him.  The Willans’ crossroads beasts, hulking and brutish, and Vaughn Willan behind them.  Vaughn was older, and maybe the best example of the ongoing shuffle of position and power.  The spellbinder family had been nobodies, quiet, academic, and confident, but rarely making waves.  They’d risen in status some in the past few weeks and they’d navigated the trouble that naturally followed from that.  Them rising meant others fell, in the great hierarchy, and that meant enemies.

“Not very strong,” Easton said.

Then, to demonstrate, he hit the barrier with his gauntlet.

“Not supposed to be.”

Easton watched as she stomped, and saw a patch of dark roof shatter like glass, exploding into the air, the flakes so light they seemed to move in slow motion.

He saw the lines glow, tracked the glow to the ‘escape route’, and then the diagram lifted up around him.  He met Verona Hayward’s eyes, and then the scene changed.

Same rooftop, different, darker sky.

And the rooftop was covered in kids that ranged from about half his height to chest high.

“Damn it,” he swore.

Then they shrieked.

He gestured to send his soldiers forward.  Behind him, Vaughn did the same.

The fight was nothing special.  The kids weren’t trained, and his summonings paired with Vaughn’s spellbound creatures were a solid front line to ward the horde off.  Still, the shrieking was stirring up old anxieties and stresses.  They weren’t shrieking at him, but rather for the sake of it all.  High, prepubescent voices keening, worse than nails on a chalkboard.

His parents had made him and his siblings get a classic education, as his parents put it, on alternating years, expecting them to keep up with the tutoring back home only partially supplementing things.  The idea had been to expose them to the innocent world, round out their experiences, and ensure they didn’t embarrass themselves later on.

Easton was fit, of course, and well dressed, of course.  He was educated, of course.  He even had a cultured accent.  Girls noticed, as a rule.  Last year, in his first year of high school, he’d been asked to a concert.  He’d successfully argued with his parents that this was part of that well-rounded set of experiences he needed to get.  He’d wished he hadn’t.

The screaming of a crowd that was about three-quarters teenage and prepubescent had been similar to this.  It cut past armor and skin to flay nerves raw in seconds.

This was annoying, bordering on scary, with that nerve-wracking sound and the knowledge he was in the middle of what was bound to be a long fight in unfamiliar territory, with too much unknown.

Then he felt that ‘scary’ cross the border and flood him, gut to throat, as he saw one of the beastmen fall.  A group of the older kids had impaled it in five places, with crude wooden weapons.

It lurched back to its feet to resume fighting, but the fear didn’t go away.  The constant screaming wouldn’t let it.

He focused more, now.  His swordsman wasn’t doing well, and he had to use his Sight to view the Swordsman as a series of component parts, sorted into layers, before he recognized why.

Damn nobility.  The sword as a weapon was too refined, it required training, and it required more resources to purchase, compared to the spear.  That translated to more hesitation in its bearer than the spear did for the other construct.

Or perhaps the sources of those final drops of swordsmen’s blood had come from someone who wasn’t as inclined to hit children.

But the children were realizing the construct didn’t want to hit them.

“Damn it!” Easton swore.  He reached out and pulled the swordsman apart.  The blood was a lot less effective if he put it to other uses, but blunting the refined edges of his creation would also blunt those compunctions that were showing.

He adjusted rings that were built into his gauntlet, while the children stumbled and fell over each other in their hurry to get through the gap in their ranks.  Each ring had a series of runes and symbols, and with the right arrangement he could extend his reach to spirits he had invested in.  He ran fingers along the runes, willing power into the gauntlet, held his hand out with a finger pointed to each of the components he could see floating out there, a construct de-assembled.

Trifold Steel across three fingers, wall on the last.  Lots of it.  Blunt and heavy.

The outline filled in, swelling, and an armored figure with a heavy metal mace and a shield as tall and wide as he was fell to the rooftop, slamming the shield down the second after he’d landed.

Another dialing-in of runes on the gauntlet, thumb ticking across the base of index and middle finger.  Easton gestured, two fingers extended.  “Steel Prong.”

The spikes erupted from the shieldbearer construct’s armor, decorating it, and sprouted from mace and shield.  It happened at the same time that one of Vaughn’s beastmen lurched back out of the way of kids with improvised stabbing weapons.  The beastman moved backward, slamming into the elbow and arm of the armored figure.  The spikes raked it across the back.

“Take care,” Vaughn said, quiet.

“I am.  Manage your animals better.”

The spikes were only helping to some marginal degree.  Here and there, children could see opportunities, leaning up to grab onto the shaft of that great mace, or climbing up the spikes to grip the upper edge of the shield.  They were fearless, even in the face of the beastmen.

Here and there, one would slip by, seeing a gap and darting through, then standing there for a half second to digest the scene, looking for a target.  Shay chose those moments to act.  Her doll remained there, posing, while elongated doll limbs darted out from between folds in her clothing, or from gaps- from collar, sleeve, the bottom of her dress.  They rattled as they extended and reached ten or fifteen feet, jerking, twitching, and moving at sharp zig-zag angles rather than straight lines.  Shoving one heavyset girl with a gas mask on back.  Dragging another kid toward herself, where six arms gripped him.

One was in Easton’s corner.  A nine year old girl, half Easton’s weight, with streaked mascara that had dried onto her face and chipped away, to an extent that it looked like she’d had it on her face for several days straight.  She held a box cutter.

“Our town,” the girl panted out the words, breathing hard.  “Our school.”

“It’s Mus-”

“Bernie!” a guy screeched the word.  “Bernie, you shitfuck!  It’s not our school!”

“It’s Musser’s,” Easton growled the word.

“My name is Bernadette!” the girl shrieked back, ignoring him.  “Call me Bernie again while I’ve got a cutter!  I dare you!”

“It’s Musser’s school, Musser’s town.  You just don’t know it yet,” Easton said.  He moved his thumb along the rings in the gauntlet, then raised his hand.  With a series of gestures, he spelled out the characters for ‘Axe’, while the ring was dialed into ‘keen steel’.

The boy who’d shouted couldn’t hear him over the clamor, and carried on shouting, “It’s not ours, Bernadette!”

In the same moment Easton created the axe in his hand, the boy said the next part.

“It’s her school!”

He’d had glimpses of the leadership of the Undercity.  A kid riding a man that was about ten feet tall and heavyset.

That was small compared to this.  It was barely human, distorted by the way the shoulder socket seemed to move around in the body’s mass to find a position, stomach dragging against rooftop’s surface.  The head was caged, and a single bloodshot eye peered out from a gap, while rivulets of drool caught on the scraggly hair that had worked its way free of the cage, coming down in a half-dozen dribbles at a time.

A single child rode atop it, moving with ease as flesh moved, and it crawled forward.  She wore a princess dress, with an excess of gold jewelry – gold chain necklaces strewn across and worked through the collar, more at the belt, gold piercings through lower eyelids, a thick nosering that looked like an engagement ring had been put through nose between the bridge of the nose and the tip, so the decorated part rested atop, pointing up and out, and more at her ears.

The shrieking finally stopped, but Easton’s ears rang still from the volume of it.

“I think I can get us off the roof one at a time,” Shay whispered.

“If I’m not here, I can’t effectively control the crossroad beasts,” Vaughn murmured.

“Same deal with the archetype constructs,” Easton said, quiet.

“Easton, you’re a war mage, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You think you can handle that thing?” Shay whispered.  “Because I’d worry if you’re not capable…”

“I am very capable,” Easton replied, still quiet, trying to keep his nerve level.

“Yeah, but you’re fourteen, right?”

“The kid looks nine or so,” Vaughn said.

“That thing she’s riding doesn’t look like it cares about age,” Shay said.  “I’m just saying, you might be good for fourteen, but that’s a big boy, and contrary to what they might say, size does matter.”

“I’m capable,” Easton snapped.

The crowd shifted away from the princess.  The rooftop shook slightly as the big guy lurched and threw most of his weight forward, catching it with one hand planted on the roof.

“I’ll make you a deal!” the little girl atop the massive, bloated monster called out.  Her voice was high and that played into the ringing in his ears that followed from the recent shrieking.

“You want to surrender!?” Easton called out.  His heart hammered.

She laughed.  “No.  I’ll feed all of you to my pet here, the old school administrator, except for one.  That last one gets to live.  Except they go to the cafeteria for a long-term stay.  Feedbags, chains, diet of kitchen leftovers, whatever the kids want to feed them- we need a steed for the art teacher we’re getting next semester.”

“We’d end up like that, huh?” Easton asked.  He motioned toward the big guy.  While motioning, he adjusted his settings on his gauntlet.

“If you’re lucky.”

She advanced a bit.  The crowd moved, and when they moved, they pressed in closer to that front line.  The shieldbearer construct pushed back against the mob.  A few more kids squeezed through the gaps, into that portion of the rooftop’s edge they’d cleared out for the three of them.

“Want a minute to decide?” the princess asked.

“Can’t stand kids,” Shay said.

“That’s a plus, not a minus,” the princess told them.

One unit of flame, dialed into his gauntlet, then three ‘thrusts’.  He held his thumb against the palm, feeding in power, which would be more heat, more thrust.  All he needed was one.  A mote of elemental energy moving the speed of a bullet, with a thousand degrees of heat to it.  It would burn a hole clear through.  He’d have to hit the big guy’s brain, wherever it was in that cage.

“These kids are cranky.  We woke them up early for all this.  They want blood.  Decide fast.”

“You surrender, we’ll let you walk away slightly embarrassed,” Easton said.

“Fuck, would you stop talking?” Vaughn asked.

“Please,” Shay murmured.

“I’m in charge,” Easton said.

“You thinking that explains so much,” Shay said.

“Okay!” the princess called out.  “Decide yet?”

“Can you kill this guy three times over, bring him back from the brink each time, and then do that gigantifying thing to him?” Shay asked, indicating Easton.  “Let the rest of us go?”

“Seriously?” Easton hissed.

“No, but that’s the most tempting offer I’ve heard from anyone in your position.  It would be fun to try!” the princess laughed.

“It was worth a try.”

“It was!  Gold star!  Take ’em!  Leave the woman alive.  Might let her go, after!”

The kids who’d been coming closer now went on the attack again, fiercer than before.  The shrieks came again, isolated at first, then mingling.  The shieldbearer lifted up the shield, which had four kids climbing over it, then slammed it down against the roof.  All but one of the kids leaped clear of it before they could get spiked.  The fourth got caught in the legs.  Three different kids leaped onto the back half of the shield before he could lift it back up.  Easton’s spearman was doing better, weapon whirling, the constantly moving point of it making kids back away.  It helped that the kids were older, just a bit more savvy and wary of the danger.

The girl with the mascara came for Easton, moving closer, holding a crude weapon that looked like it had been made in wood shop.  After two tentative swings, she backed off, reached behind her-

She had a strap, like one from a handbag.

Easton brought his hand around in the same moment she brought the weapon around, firing a wood shop crossbow at him.  It was badly made, imperfect, but it still worked.  The wooden bolt slammed into the palm of Easton’s gauntlet, denting the metal in a way he could feel against his hand, without penetrating.  Sparks flew off in a cascade, dancing across the roof.

It immediately drained about a third of the power he’d been building for that superheated bullet.  He willed the damage to fix, pushing out the wooden bolt and trying to save some of that power.

“Easton!” Vaughn shouted.

“What!?”

“Left flank!  Odd one out!”

Easton looked.  Past mascara girl.  The crossroads beast was fighting some colorful, scraggly looking rat thing that was about as tall as it was, winning handily, and some kids had circled around.

Odd one out?  He didn’t see until one came right at him, zero hesitation, even in the face of the ongoing sparking.  A girl with flower petals in her hair.

He blocked her punch with the gauntlet and his regular hand behind that gauntlet.  Which did next to nothing at all.

She uppercutted Easton, pushing his own hands into his gut with enough force that he would have evacuated himself if he hadn’t cleared himself out last night, with his limited bathroom time.  If he’d been full, he would’ve had fluid shooting out both ends.

In either case, internal injury.

Completely secondary to the fact he’d been standing within one step of the roof’s edge, he’d just been hit with what felt like a battering ram, and now there was no roof under his feet.  If he hadn’t evacuated himself the night before or shit himself when hit like he’d just been hit, that moment would’ve done it.

It was one of Vaughn’s beasts that caught him out of the air.  A muscled, hairy arm around his middle.  They hit the overhang over the back entrance of the school, which felt like getting hit in the stomach all over again.  Pain flooded him, darkness pressed in from the edges of his vision, narrowing his focus to the space just in front of his eyeballs, and his awareness of the scene became something unfocused, snapshots of moments separated by a confused, search-in-the-fading-light look around him.

Shay Graubard’s doll came down the side of the building with Vaughn, who managed the beast that was carrying Easton.  Good.  They needed Vaughn, if they wanted to keep the Turtle Queen at bay.  He was their insurance, on top of the phones.

Shay remained alone, with one beast and the constructs near her.

He was tempted to cancel out his constructs, leaving her on her own.  She hadn’t helped nearly enough for how snarky she’d been.

Easton nearly blacked out as the beastman leaped down from the overhang to the pavement.  There were some teenagers on the grounds, around the base of the school, but a roar from the beastman that carried Easton made them back off.

“How are you doing?” Vaughn asked.  “That hit looked like it hurt.  Little miss cutie pie nearly got me too.”

“Belt,” Easton grunted.  His stomach cramped while sending all kinds of wrong feelings through him.

“Your belt?” Vaughn asked.

Easton nodded, feeling gorge in his throat.  He coughed and it came out as a shock of red, splattering the beast’s upper arm, with shocks of black bile in it.

“Oh shit,” Vaughn said.

“Belt,” Easton said, again, though the last half of the word was barely voiced.

Vaughn lifted his shirt and jacket up, and searched.  Every movement and adjustment was agony.

“I’ve got three vials.”

“Red.”  Blackness crept in closer, narrowing his gaze to that binocular narrowness, but less focused and magnified, not more.

“Direct to the wound or drink?”

Easton motioned to his mouth.  He grunted as the beast moved him, then accepted the drink.

He almost couldn’t swallow.  He got a quarter-gulp, and felt the liquid in his throat.

“Was it the fall?” Shay asked.  She’d come down somehow.  Easton could hear the doll.

“The punch from the cutie pie with the colorful monster pet.”

“What’s the potion?”

Gagging, trying not to cough away the potion, Easton managed to get a half gulp down.  Then he got the rest.

His stomach slowly sorted itself out.

Thanks, roomie, he thought.  Myles had been one of his two roommates at the Blue Heron, and they’d gotten along okay.  Bit of healing alchemy.

“Good save,” Vaughn said.

“Figured she liked me, maybe that counted for a few seconds worth of conversation while I sent the doll down with you, dropped you off, then had it come back to me.”

“And you got someone along the way?”

Easton looked.  They’d moved away from the building.  He could sense that his constructs had been destroyed.  Which made sense.

Shay was walking backward, hands raised in surrender, while the princess and her steed and the assembled students looked down at them.  Shay had someone she’d rescued on her way down, apparently.  The guy could walk with Vaughn’s support, but was wrapped in tape and rope.  They were working to get his bindings off.

“Saw him through the window while on my way down.  Paused to have Véronique reach in and snatch him up.”

Cal Cavendar.  He was streaked in paint and bruised.

“Thank you,” Cal said.  “Really.”

“The witch get you too?” Vaughn asked.

“Yeah.  I came up through the school, with a bunch of others.  Eyeball thing caught me, shoved me right into it,” Cal said.  “Is Easton alright?”

“Looks like he’s getting there.  Got close to the brink.”

In about a minute, he was back in order enough to be put down.

“Witch really got you, Songetay,” Shay said.

“Got you too,” Easton replied.  His mouth was rancid with the taste of bile, blood, and the bitter potion, still.  “You didn’t do anything about it.”

“Mm hmm,” Shay answered him, with about as much dismissiveness as a ‘Mm hmm’ could have in it.  That told Easton she wouldn’t accept her part in their failure.

“There’s a way up from the Undercity in one of the buildings downtown.  We extracted it from one of the Undercity goons they sent to harass us.”

“We’re aware,” Vaughn said.  “We got the same briefing you did.  We’re already moving in that direction.”

It sucked.  It was really, really frustrating, that they’d been sent on a job and they’d failed in their task.  That would count, in the big game of position and status.

“Been a while, Easton,” Cal said, interrupting Easton’s thoughts.

“Yeah.  The, uh, capture the flag game with lasers?”

Cal snorted, which made Easton smile.

The last time Easton had met Cal had been at a big birthday party between families two years ago.  There had been some chest-thumping and parents had gotten weirdly obsessed with the game of capture the flag.  They’d played at night with light guns and vests that flashed in response to being shot.

“Thought one of my uncles would murder someone if we lost,” Cal said.

“You did lose.”

“Technicality.  Dead battery.”

Easton liked Cal.  The Cavendars weren’t a big family, but they were on the map.  They didn’t earn enough to send kids to the Blue Heron, nor did they have the status to get in on merit alone.  That owed mostly to the fact they scraped by as war mages with no ‘real’ job and none of the high profile clients that the Hennigars and Anthem Tedd managed.

“How are the Cavendars doing, do you think?” Easton asked.

“Dunno.  My parents don’t keep me in the loop.  Our old family head was killed by someone inside the family.  I think they think that so long as I don’t have any idea how to manage things after they’re gone, get into vaults, whatever, they don’t have to worry about me doing the same.”

“I kind of envy that.  I bet the first thing my parents will ask is how did I do?  Did I complete the mission?”

Cal snorted out a one-note laugh again.

“Fuck me, this is ass,” Easton said.  “This whole thing.  I mostly hope we come out of it better than we went in.  Especially if we’re locking into a new hierarchy, you know?”

Vaughn chimed into the conversation.  “Where do you think you started and where do you think you’re ending up, the way things stand?”

“You first.”

“Out of ten?  Stared at a five… moving to a six, I guess?”

Made sense.  Fit with the Millan spellbinder family’s slow and steady approach through this whole thing.

“Is it where I started or where the Cavendars started?” Cal asked.

“Either.  ‘Bout the same for me.”

“Cavendars, started at a two, maybe moving to a four, five?” Cal guessed.  “Me?  Started at a two, moving to a three.  I don’t think there’s many situations where someone beats their family as far as how high they climb in people’s view.”

“Chase Whitt,” Vaughn said.

“True.  Wow, that was a fast response.”

Vaughn shrugged.

“Either way, screwing up and needing a rescue here won’t help me.  My family might rise a decent way, but I won’t, not after I got captured.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Shay murmured.

Cal nodded.  “Thanks.  They’ll find out, though.”

“We were the vanguard to pave the way for the family heads and the best we had at our disposal.  They’ll arrive, see the first few groups are gone or captured, they’ll figure out we lost.”

“That sucks,” Vaughn said.  He looked at Easton.  “You?  Where do you stand?”

It didn’t feel like the Songetays had moved.  Losing Milo Songetay, who they’d gone to lengths to bring onboard?  That felt like it hurt at least as much as whatever they’d gained.

“Six to… six, I suppose,” Easton figured.  “Six to five for me, after this setback.  I’ll manage after.”

“I don’t think the Songetays are sixes, guy,” Shay said.

“What about you?”

“We have three people who go to the Blue Heron.  One to teach, two to run workshops.  Went.  Who knows when that opens up again?  But that, to me, says the Graubards are safely a seven.  If we hold position we’re fine.  Not that I care.”

“Why don’t you care?” Vaughn asked.

“I want out.  I’m here on orders, but I think I can use this as an opportunity.  Find a good husband or a decent enclave, I’ll go.  Get away.”

“Isn’t Eli super controlling?  Eliana and Adam too?”

Easton watched the exchange between Vaughn and Shay with idle interest.

“Yeah.”

“Hard to get away.  Especially if you’re in your position.  I didn’t get the impression you’re in great standing.  I don’t know how that works.”

“I’d have to convince them it’s worth it to let me go.  I can do that.  I got myself out of that situation on the roof, didn’t I?”

“Some.”

“Words and wit get you a long way.”

As they were just getting past the bottom corner of the downtown area and toward the cabin near the foot of the ski hills, a group of locals who were sleeping by the side of the road like homeless people got to their feet.

Cal, still splattered in paint, was the one who faced off against them, drawing a gun.  He stroked runes along the gun’s barrel, and a magic circle unfolded from it.  A bullet multiplier.

It was nice, Easton thought, to be free to practice here.  On the streets back in an ordinary city, they’d have to hold back and be subtle.

“You really have it in you, kid?” one of the men asked.

“Yeah.  I have it in me.”

Then the moon exploded.

The heads of everyone present turned.

It had cracked, and fragments had been thrown in every direction.  A female figure was within.

“That’s not good,” Shay observed.

Words and wit, huh?  Easton thought.

Easton used his Sight, looking around, and he could see the diagram work kicking off from the valley south of the mountain to the town’s northwestern end, linking her to this place.  To sixteen distant endpoints- and twelve groupings of objects.

The items lifted up from where they were stored, chasing their way down the connections, to points that orbited and backed the giant woman in the sky.

“Move!  To the others!”

There was no time to watch.  The group of people from the town’s Undercity tried to get in the way, and then the initial ripple extended out.

It was a pulling, a separation.

They were moved to one place, the Undercity residents left behind.

Which meant their coast was clear, but only in a sense.  It meant they were somewhere else, and that place was still being defined.

His stomach still hurt, making running a kind of torture.

The sky changed, then changed again.  The woman in the sky changed, then changed again.  To a red dress, then a blue one.

The buildings began to change.  It started beneath the woman in the sky and then rippled out in waves.

Basements became ground floors, streets rose up and fell, becoming wide walkways and staircases.  Bridges manifested where there had been none before.

It felt like it was becoming a labyrinth, but it wasn’t tightly wound or bound.  A maze of a place where getting to one building might require a detour.

The Others began to appear as well.  He was glad they weren’t hostile, because didn’t think he could bear fighting while running like this, with barely healed internal damage.

The shifting in the surroundings was only getting more exaggerated.  Buildings were taking on a blue-gray hue, to contrast sky and woman, while interior lights shone out orange-yellow.  The cabins ahead of them raised up ten feet, with a stairwell to climb to get to them, but the stairwell was on the opposite side of the street, and the street had dropped a good six feet, with the sidewalk now overlooking it.

Getting to the cabins meant having to run up stairs to cross an arching bridge, down stairs to sidewalk, and down that sidewalk to the next set of stairs.

Others stepped outside.  A girl with white skin and white hair practically shone in the gloom, wearing a black dress and a white bunny mask with black eyes.  An adult man followed by three boys on bikes rode along that sidewalk with the six foot drop beside it, with no railing.  They slowed as they saw Easton and his group.  The man and kids all wore scarves and goggles, each with something different drawn on the scarf.  Dad with a beard and frown drawn on, one boy with a smile, another with a scowl, and a third with a tongue sticking out.  The goggles caught the light from nearby houses in the gloom, taking on an orange glint.

“What kind of place is this?” Easton asked.

“Lost,” Shay replied.  “The woman in the sky, we were told about her.”

“The faceless woman?” Easton asked.  He looked at the moon woman.

“It was in the briefing.  Diverts, distracts, uses non-local Others to stave off outsiders,” Vaughn said.

“I remember the damn briefing.  They didn’t say she was this big.”

“I guess we have an idea what the ritual they were doing was about,” Cal said.

“We didn’t study Lost, except for one part of a session on realms,” Easton noted.

“Extrapolate,” Vaughn said.  “It’s a demiurgic power in their domain.  A small god shaping their realm, a trapper in their nest.  We know who the source is.”

“Kind of,” Cal said.  “Diversion, subtle.  But she’s changed.”

Easton kept an eye out.  There was a man and a woman lying on a blanket on a sloped roof, both with magazines covering faces, holding hands.  The woman sat up, holding the women’s magazine so her eyes peered over the top edge of the cover.  The face on the magazine cover lined up with the position of her head.

“Cover your faces,” Easton warned.

“What?”

“She has no face, but every Other in her realm, they’re covering-”

He glanced back, and saw the girl with the rabbit mask.  He moved his hand, drawing up a quick and dirty spike of metal to wield.  Same principle as the constructs, but a whole lot easier than something that could walk around on its own, with its own will.  Create an outline, fill it in.

He put the spike out, toward her throat.

She walked into it.  It scraped skin without penetrating.

Easton quickly backed away a few steps.  He dialed the runes into his gauntlet.

“Passes or local identification?” the girl asked.

Easton set her on fire.

Flames caught, spread, and found nothing to latch onto.  Licks of fire and sparks cascaded down to the ground around her.  She looked down, a bit surprised.  “Should I take that as a no?”

“It’s Law,” Vaughn said.  “Inevitable.  It’s like when something makes a True prophecy, you could be a major practitioner dealing with a lesser power, doesn’t matter.  Law is this is meant to happen.”

“It’s built into this place,” Shay said.

“What’s a pass?” Vaughn asked the girl.

“Provisional passes are signed permission to be here.  You may also make the claim to asylum, with stated intent to remain here for the long term, or if you have a valid local mailing address or the intent to obtain it, the need for passes is waived.”

“You’re an expert, huh?” Cal asked her.

“We all are, here.  It’s the Law.  As a citizen of Kennet found I have the authority to assign you a writ.  Let’s see, never done this before…”

“Possibly because you didn’t exist five minutes ago,” Easton said.

The girl patted herself down.  There was a sound of a voice clearing, and the girl with the bunny mask looked up.

The woman from the nearby rooftop was leaning down, boyfriend hanging onto the back of her shirt to keep her from falling, while she held the magazine over her face with one hand and held papers out with the other.  She let the papers go, and the girl with the rabbit mask caught them out of the air.  “Thanks!”

“What if we refuse the writ?” Vaughn asked.  “Can we?  Or is it Law?”

“It’s Law, but I think the rules are still being written,” the girl in the rabbit mask said.  “There’s a new one, you can be, at the discretion of the Foundling that’s issuing a citizen’s writ, penalized for walking.  You took two steps which could be construed as running away.”

Easton hurried to pull his shirt up around his lower face, so it was just below his eyes.  It exposed his stomach.  He got a marker and drew a smiley face around where his mouth was.

“The rule was made after the violation,” Shay said.

“Yeah.  So I’ll skip that.  But I can issue a writ to four of you for existing in-bounds without a pass, a writ to three of you for not wearing face coverings.  Pulling your shirt up doesn’t count, sir.”

Easton swore under his breath, tugging his shirt back down.  Then he turned.  “Wait, three of us?  There are four without masks, aren’t there?”

“Three.  Now, further violation to you, sir,” she said, to Vaughn.  “Those things you have with you need subordinate passes, permission, certification, and bonds fees, which may be waived with signed permission from four separate local council members.”

“Was that rule made after you stopped us?” Shay asked.

“Yes.”

“Then it doesn’t count.”

“Technically it’s a law for existing while in active subordination, so every second you’re here you’re violating it.  You’ll only be penalized once, with fees paid over time.  Nothing retroactive.”

“Hey,” Shay said, quiet.  “Remember what happened to Reid?”

“Heard the story,” Cal said.  “Why?”

“Vaughn’s bound Others.  The kids and locals don’t like it when Others are actively bound.”

“Miss?” the little girl asked Shay.  “Are your mother or any of your aunts or uncles present?”

“Shame.”  The girl went on, “That’s only two Others, that’s two sets of violations for not having a subordinate pass, no permission, no certification, and unpaid bonds fees.”

Is Vaughn being cornered into letting his creatures go?

“Do you need the papers?” the woman with the magazine asked, from above.

“I’ve- ooh!  They materialized.  I’ve got them,” the girl with the bunny mask exclaimed.

The woman went back to lying down, slightly propped up to watch what was going on.

“Can you unbind the crossroads beasts?” Shay asked.

“Not without them wanting to bite my head off,” Vaughn said.  “Kill them.  I’ll hold them still.”

Easton turned, and put the spike to the side of one of the creature’s necks.  He planted one hand to one side of the point he wanted, then thrust- and very nearly stabbed his own hand, when the point slid off.

The little girl explained, “Violence is only permitted when the moon is bleeding.  You can get the details on schedule for the bleeding moon, various office openings, trash pickup, and recycling pickup at the town hall, train station, or any main gate,” the girl said.  She held one knee up so she could write on the papers.  She gathered up papers and held them out.  “Two for you, sir.”

Easton hesistated before taking them.

She shook her head and tucked the papers under one arm.  “One for you, miss.”

Shay took it.

“Eight for you, sir.”

Vaughn took his.

“And two for you.”

Cal glanced at Easton, then put his hands in his pockets instead of taking the papers.

“Is that the faceless woman’s big plan then?  Bury us in paperwork?” Vaughn asked.

“She was council leader for a long time, I guess she liked the idea of organizing things like this.”

“And what happens if we ignore the instructions to… go to factory C to get an embossed pass?”

“Um,” the girl said.  She held up the papers, then let them go.

The wind caught them and carried them to Cal and Easton.  The papers shuddered in the air, pausing midway through being blown by the wind, and turned from white paper to red.  Easton caught it before it could slap him in the chest.

Stamped on the page was now ‘aggravated’, in bold black ink.

Aggravated existence without a pass or permission, no outside cases apply.
To resolve, visit the pavilion on Pine st., downtown, you may collect embossed permission paper there, have it signed by a supervisor recognizing the aggravated case.  Day passes will not be extended to you.  Keep this page and do not lose it.

Aggravated existence without face covering.
To resolve, first remedy, then visit Gate B (east), have this page stamped.

“Why does Shay get off easy again?” he asked.

“Makeup counts, maybe?” Shay asked.  “If so, I’m glad I took the time.”

He eyed Shay warily.

“And to wrap this up, stamps,” the girl with the bunny mask said.  “Hands out.”

“Why stamps?” Shay asked.

“To let others know.  The ink will disappear in about twenty minutes for you.  That is about as much time as it takes to walk to…” the girl craned her head to see Shay’s page.  “Central Kennet church to Lost gods, for your pass.”

“They’re splitting us up,” Vaughn observed.  “Same violation, different locations?”

“Yes!” the girl exclaimed.  “Different genders, different age classes.  These two boys are going to the same building for the mask violation.  But different floors.  A-M last name for that mister, N-Z last name for that one.  I do think you have to enter from different sides of the building to get there.”

Easton turned his head.  He could see one large building that had a bridge from a nearby building connecting to its upper floor, and he could imagine how there wasn’t a staircase to easily get from the first floor to the second.

“That’s what this place is, huh?  Paperwork?”

The girl shook her head.  “It’s a pretty, quiet, walk-around place, really.  You could have avoided the trouble by having permission to be here.”

“We’ll have it when Musser wins,” Easton said.

“Perhaps,” the girl said.  “Hands.  Last offer for stamps.”

Shay was first.  The rest of them obliged.  The girl signed her name by each and wrote a number.  The stamp was circular, with buildings in the foreground and the hill in the background.

Easton had fifty minutes.  Signed, Ms. Luna Hare.

“Fifty minutes.”

“To get to two buildings,” the girl said.  “You have enough time to walk, plus another twenty percent, I think.”

“If it’s too abusive it could be turned against them,” Easton concluded.  “Except this place is a maze, isn’t it?  And they know the way?  So it becomes a trap, meant to give us enough time, but with a high chance we’ll get there just a bit too late?”

“It’s a bit convoluted a way, and there might be the occasional puzzle but you should be fine.  If you aren’t confident about the directions you’re going, you might want to run,” Luna Hare said.

“And then what?”

“As part of getting the passes, you’ll be given a timeframe to leave.  You can exit by any gate.  They’ll likely require you to agree to leave this town and not return for a set period of time.”

“Making us useless to Musser,” Easton muttered.  “There has to be another way.”

“Thank you, by the way.  I won’t tell you to violate the rules but I’m a bit glad you did.  I’ll get some pocket money for issuing the writs, enough to last me a few weeks.”

Then she went on her way, happy.

“So that’s the plan, is it?” Easton asked.  “Either they force us to leave if we want out of this sub-realm, or they create rules, expect us to break them, then divide us to conquer us?  Puts us at the mercy of the Turtle Queen, leaves us undefended.”

“We can’t fight here,” Shay said.

“Yet.  We don’t know the schedule for the bleeding moon.  Should we split up?  Maybe Vaughn comes with, stays behind while we leave and mount an offensive?” Easton asked.

“I get fined every thirty minutes I’m here with the Beastmen,” Vaughn said.  “And they don’t specify the exact amount but I don’t think it’s with cash.”

“Don’t panic,” Shay said.

“I’m not panicking, I’m just very concerned and alarmed at how thoroughly screwed we are,” Vaughn replied.  “I’m supposed to go to six places in the next two hours.  Where the fuck is Sootsleeves’ Hold?”

“We can ask for directions, I’m sure.  If we don’t, it’s an unfair contest, of course.” Easton told him.

“Of course,” Vaughn replied, making a face as he said it.

Shay put a hand out for Vaughn’s shoulder.  “Don’t panic, and let’s not worry too much.  Stop, breathe, pay attention in the quiet.  Do you feel it?”

Easton took her advice, stopping for a few seconds to breathe, listen, and feel out.  He almost went to use his Sight, but then he felt something.

“I’m not hungry.  My stomach feels weird.  This might be a place where you don’t have to eat.  Maybe you don’t age either.”

“That’s a neat observation but it’s not the one I meant,” Shay said.

He felt out again.

There.  It was out there and getting stronger.

“A claim?  Another one?  It’s not Matthew Moss’s.”

“No.  Different direction.”

“Who else could be making one?  One of the other girls?”

“It’s Hayward,” Vaughn said.  “Sense the shape of it.”

Easton did.

Sure enough.  The witch who’d cast them down to the Undercity.

“She already has a claim,” Easton pointed out.

“Might be renewing or extending it.”

“Can you even do that?”

“I don’t know,” Shay said.  “But I like our chances.  Let’s meet with the main group like we planned.  We can compare notes.  Then we go there, we face her down, and we see if we can’t score a win that gets us our permission to leave.  If she has any authority or connection to this place at all, we can get back to the town above that way.”

Whether they had another escape route or not, there was a collective sense that time was tight.  They crossed over the bridge and down the sidewalk, and ran up the two flights of stairs to the upper level where the cabins overlooked the town, dark buildings with orange lights glowing out from within, backed by blue sky and the shape of the woman in the sky, who watched from the horizon.  A group of people sat on the stairs, including a man with a mask hovering about six inches in front of his face, moving as his head did, pleasant and well dressed.  When Easton saw through the gap between the front of the head and the mask, he could see two tiny Others moving amid clockwork contraptions, spinning this and moving that to make the body move and the head turn.

“You made it!” Sawyer called out, as they reached the foot of the row of cabins.  “Four more!”

It looked like a lot of people had regrouped here.

“Run into any trouble?” a woman asked.  She had Dom Driscoll with her, hanging close by.

“Bunch of writs,” Easton said.  “Vaughn got eight.  Shay got one.”

“Only one?” the Driscoll woman asked.  “How?”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“Share that luck with us.  Tell us how and why.  We’re meeting.”

“If my family permits.”

“And eight?”

“Six for having bound others.  I think they might want to corner me into letting them go,” Vaughn said.

“You’re better off than Ivan Austin.  He got twenty-two.  He’s seeing what the process looks like right now.  Come.”

The cabins had been raised up a level, and stood on stilts, making them taller still.  It looked like the edges of the town had been raised up, and the buildings at those edges raised up further.  It made for a bowl shape, albeit not smooth- it was a bowl carved out into staircases and uneven buildings, with the mountain and towers at the extremities, walls between those towers.  At the center of town, where the surface was lowest, the river gushed, water glowing as it was divided among aqueducts that fed into gutters and into other aqueducts, down waterfalls, and then down further, into some recessed area, feeding into a crack in the base of one wall.

The inside of the cabin was hot with the number of people who had gathered.  Standing room only, with important family heads toward the center.

Shay Graubard went to the side of Eliana Graubard, sitting on the floor.  Eliana reached out, like she was going to stroke Shay’s head, but identified a stray lock of hair that had come out of place and stuck out, wound a finger around it, then tore it out with one sharp motion.  Shay stiffened, shoulders drawing together from the pain of it, then bowed her head, eyes on the ground, while she took a comb from her doll and quickly did her hair.

“We’ve got a map, we can distribute that.  Phones are out, so communication will be key.”

“Freeman can help us there,” Estrella said, indicating the technomancer with the ‘Phreak’ tattoo down one arm.

“The protection from the Turtle Queen won’t last if there’s no phone connection.  She’ll adapt to the algorithm,” Freeman said.

“This is a founded location,” Mrs. Driscoll said.  “We’ll give the rundown after, but understand, these are Foundlings, not Lost, they’re citizens, they’re props that will become people.  I imagine a select few have.  Control how much you interact with them.”

“We’ve identified some rats and birds, they are Lost.”

“But subordinate,” Eliana Graubard said.  “Extensions of a greater being.  Who will show herself, I’m sure.”

Shay Graubard raised a hand.

“Shay?” Estrella asked.

Eliana Graubard said something Easton couldn’t hear or track.

“There’s a claim out.  I don’t know if you’ve already discussed, but there’s a chance we could use that as an escape route.”

“We were discussing the why and when of it, but that’s a good idea to raise,” Estrella said.  “You think Hayward is in a position to let people out and through?”

“I would guess.  I would even guess it’s a part of her plan.”

“If so, we try to foil that plan,” Estrella said.

Another three people came in from outside.  Anthem Tedd was one of them.  He walked across the room, stopping short of that inner circle, where Estrella Vanderwerf, Graubard, Driscoll, and a few others had taken up the available furniture to sit down around the coffee table in the center.  Some writs were there on the table’s surface.  Jasper Conrad was copying down one paper while sitting at the base of the fireplace.  He handed a finished seat to his daughter, Andrea Conrad, who proceeded to copy it.  Her son leaned over to capture the writing on his camera phone, which seemed to annoy her and a few others, but got a nod.

Anthem stood there, arms folded.

“Any news?” Graubard asked Anthem.

“I got paperwork.  For being unmasked, for not having some pass.”

“You and many others who went outside.  Inside seems to be safe.  Any Foundling can issue a writ.”

“The rules are still being written, I think,” Shay said.  “They were going to add one for traveling while a writ was being issued.  So don’t walk.”

“We’ll need the rules,” Jasper Conrad said, not looking up from what he was writing.  “Or we’ll walk right into a trap.”

“Agreed,” Estrella said.  “We should have a group for that task.  I’ll lead it if there are no volunteers.”

Eliana Graubard stroked Shay’s hair, then leaned in to say something.

Shay stood, and navigated around the crowd.

“Familiars and bound Others outside, please!” Graubard called out.  “It’s too crowded and we could use guards.  Keep an eye out for changes in the moon.”

Shay, still navigating the crowd, moved her hand, and Véronique, her doll of hidden limbs, was first to the door, holding it so others could go.

“Hey,” Sawyer said.  He joined Easton and Cal.

“Hey.”

It was an odd feeling to be grouped like this.  Sawyer Hennigar, Easton Songetay, and Cal Cavendar were each from separate families.  They were rivals.  But now they grouped.  Birds of a feather, of very different status, but similar life paths.  Violence and practice intersecting.

“You notice it?  The flip?” Sawyer asked.

“Yeah,” Cal said.

Easton didn’t, but he nodded, so the others wouldn’t think less of him.

“I wonder if Anthem sees it,” Sawyer murmured.

At the mention of his name, Anthem glanced over.  He nodded once, as if in answer to Sawyer’s question.

What did they all have in common?  They were all combat practitioners.  War mages.

We got bumped.  In a place with no violence, we have no clout, our practices don’t apply.  This place doesn’t allow fighting.  Musser respected strength, needed strength, but this would only create a gap where the Songetays and Cavendars were left behind, and he went back to the tried and true war mages he knew.

This was disastrous.  Graubard, Vanderwerf, Driscoll even, they were going to be the ones to solve this problem, rescue the situation.  They’d rise in the hierarchy.

“Fuck,” Easton said, under his breath.

“Yeah,” Sawyer murmured.  “Shh.”

Shay Graubard had come around, and walked past them to go to the little kitchen, which was barely more than a counter, mini-fridge, and stove.  There was a kettle, still steaming, and she went to pour tea, presumably for Eliana Graubard.

“Your head okay?” Easton asked.

“Hm?  Smarts, but it’s fine.  She’s strict.”

He wanted to sow division, but this wasn’t his skillset.  He followed her into the kitchen.  “You going to be okay?  You had the shortest time limit, right?”

“Twenty minutes,” she replied, as she got the cup out, poured in the steaming water to warm the cup, and then got the other things out- loose leaf tea, steeper, she put the kettle on to boil once again.  “It’s not like you have more time.  If you take too long here, you’ll never make it to the locations you need to be.”

“Right.”

“I’ll try to be one of the first to Hayward’s renewed claim.  I suggested it, I have less time, it makes sense.  If there’s another trap, I’ll be first into it.  I can weather the harsh consequences better than most.”

“Shh.  Let’s not talk about the traps too much,” he urged.  If there was anything good about this situation, it was that they’d avoided the issue of their group falling for Hayward’s trap, being dumped in the middle of enemy ranks.

The kettle started to whistle, and she moved it before it could really find its stride, quickly pouring multiple cups of tea, removing the hot water from the one cup, so the cup would be hot but the water no cooler, replacing with piping hot water.  She distributed the tea leaves.

Easton moved out of the way as she went to the mini-fridge.  When she bent down to get the milk, her shirt-collar drooped, and Easton had a view of, well, the goods.  She was somewhere between eighteen and twenty, Easton was a healthy, red blooded fourteen, so of course he looked.  Of course.  With her wearing a dress, he could see cleavage, clear down the length of her body to where light shone up from below.

Confusion became alarm as he looked, searched to see if she was wearing something flesh-colored and he hadn’t realized, and then alarm became a note of fear when he saw the line of blood, a slit on her chest, horizontal, with cracks around the middle of it, blood oozing out.  A bandaged had been taped there and caught much of it.  His eyes traced the outside corners of the line- and saw fainter lines extending from either side.

Shay Graubard had no nipples.  That was why he’d been confused at first.  And there was a line across her chest, that curved at the edges, traveling down the front of her torso, at the left and right sides- any further out to either side, and they’d be at the side of her body, not the front.  There was that blood in the seam at the upper center, oozed out and dried.  The rest of it was sealed.

He adjusted his gauntlet, and Shay must have seen, because she straightened abruptly.  She caught his eyes in the moment he was looking away, and her hand pressed the collar of her Castel del Monte dress, holding it tight to her collarbone.

He extended fingers toward her.  Then he whispered, “Are you a threat?”

“No.  I am of the Graubard family.  Loyal.  I am not your enemy tonight, Easton, much as you might constantly act as if I was, you arrogant little shit.”

“What manner of Other-?” he started.

Then he remembered.  The first day of class, or one of them.  Little Talia Graubard talking about her familiar, and the situation that had led to it.

“You’re a doll?” he asked, quiet.  “Organ-stuffed?”

“In essence.  Canopic doll.”

“Yet you can practice?”

“The organs are still there.  The brain.  Floating aimlessly within a soup of blood and other fluids.  I am still Shay Graubard, but as a doll, I am obliged to follow the orders of the family that jointly crafted me.”

“The Graubards?”

Shay nodded a bit.  “Would you put your hand down?  I don’t wish to serve unsatisfactory tea.”

He lowered the gauntlet.

“It’s no grand secret,” she said, as she fussed over the tea.  “A third of the people here know, I suspect.  The longer I obey and the more grace I’m granted, the more I earn my physicality.  The seams grow fainter, the signs harder to see.  I used to have ball joints instead of shoulders and elbows, hips, knees, and ankles.  Practitioners and the sensitive could once see the lines separating neck from head and neck from body, unless I wore high collars.”

“Ah.  You said you wanted out?”

“Yes.  I imagine if I could score one big victory earning my place in the family, compensating for my early… insolence, they called it, they would let the final seams disappear and I would only be hearing orders I had to follow once or twice a year.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Right now, we are trapped, and I am able to weather harsh consequences and take risks.  The situation we are in is one I am, in essence, very familiar with.  I intend to capitalize on that.”

“From what Vaugh ran into, having subordinate beings bound is against certain rules here,” he noted.

“It is.  But for me to use that fact against my keepers would be against the binding that was worked into my shell.”

“And if I were to?”

“I would imagine you’d expect something in return for tying my family in knots and putting them into a more difficult situation.”

“You don’t think I could do it altruistically?” he asked.

“No,” she said.  “I think you’re pervish, peevish little psychopath.  The only reason I’ve told you as much as I have is I think you’re stupid enough you’d embarrass yourself, me, and the Graubards if you didn’t know the facts.”

“Do you think I’m someone you can bait into freeing you, with enough insults?”

“Not at all.  If I thought such a thing, I’d have to stop.  I’m fine, Easton.  I have plans, short and long term.  I don’t need your rescue, and it would be arrogant of you to try.  We have other things to focus on.  Namely, getting out of this place with its godling Founder architect on the horizon.”

“Shay-”

“The tea has steeped,” she told him, deftly removing the tea leaves before picking up the tray.

Easton watched her go.  He saw as she served the tea.  To Graubard first, of course.  Graubard was her mistress and keeper.  Then Driscoll, then Vanderwerf.  Eloise had come in, and Shay quietly asked her a question as she held the cleared tray defensively against her front, in a position that much lined up with the aperture he’d seen the seams of.

She asked Anthem next.

How many noticed?  She’d served those at the center of the room, who sat down, and now she worked her way outward, asking who wanted tea.  But in polite society, the order that individuals were served mattered quite a bit, and there were politics to that.

It was, very intentionally, a signal about where the power currently rested.  Only a select group would take particular notice of it, but that was the same group, essentially, that would be better friends and better enemies if served advance notice of the imminent power struggle.

Here, at the very least, the Graubard family was making it known that as long as this situation lasted, and perhaps some time after, those who eliminated problems were taking a back seat and step down compared to those with the ability to solve them.

Easton passed Sawyer and Cal, who gave him knowing looks, and then went to where his parents stood.

The main group was deciding now who would go where.  One group to approach the Founder.  Anthem raised his hand.  He was counted in their number.  One group to gather more information, about rules, about locations, and how this realm worked.

“How were things with your assigned task?” Easton’s father asked.

“They were faster with the ritual than we anticipated,” Easton said, diplomatically.

“If they were fast, you should have been faster,” his mother rebuked him.

“Yes, ma’am.”  Deciding his father would find out, he conceded, “We were caught in a trap.”

“Your fault?”

“Ours.  Collective.”

“If you’d succeeded, she wouldn’t be making her Demesne claim now.  She’d be dead.”

“That’s almost a good thing,” Easton replied, “if Shay Graubard is right about it being a way out and through.”

“There is nothing good about your failure.  We’ll make the most of it, regardless.  Did you get any information we can use?”

He hesitated, glancing at Shay.  She saw and her eyes narrowed in sharp dislike.  The expression disappeared a moment later as she smiled, taking an order for tea while people debated who should go where and what the priorities should be.

“What do you think our position is?” Easton’s father asked, almost directly in Easton’s ear.

“The tables have turned.  There is no place for warriors in this dynamic.”

“There is always a place for warriors.”

“Nonetheless, if things carry on like this, other families rise in standing, and we fall comparatively,” Easton said, glad it had been so clearly pointed out for him.  “We have allies in that.”

“Then you understand how critical it is that we find leverage and power wherever it might be had.  We lost Milo, our family has lost footing, we must regain it.”

He looked at Shay Graubard’s chest and imagined the compartment there, with its little cracks at the one point.  The seams.  Was there a chance he could inform a Foundling and have the charges laid before the Graubards?  Interference at an opportune time?

The Graubards would turn on them if they saw an advantage in it.

“See if you can’t get in touch with the augurs.  A higher level view of things can only help.”

The Techmonancer called Freeman nodded.  “With your permission to leave?”

“Granted,” Estrella said.

Eliana Graubard addressed the room, “Leaving our next step.  Who will go to challenge Hayward’s Demesne claim, see if  Shay’s theory has merit?  If nothing else, we’d hope to see if we can work out why she’s renewed the Demesne claim.”

Shay Graubard raised a hand.  Of course.

And Easton did the same.  Again, he got that look of sharp dislike from Shay.

“Why?” his father asked.

He watched and counted as others were called.

“I might have something we can use,” he answered.

They wore masks provided by Graubard, as much as it nettled him.  Ceramic, but painted gold, a stroke of red paint at the brow, to mark their group.

The Foundlings of Kennet Found only stopped a few of them, who hadn’t been cited yet for not having a pass.

There was a gate with a puzzle built into the wrought iron bars.  Sliding tiles.

“We need access past, to answer Hayward’s claim!”

The portcullis was raised.

“How are you for time, on your paperwork, Shay?” Easton asked.

Shay showed him the back of her hand, with its mostly faded stamp.  Then she kept her hand there and raised the middle finger.  “We’re not friends, Easton.  Don’t act like you’re concerned for me.”

“Soft on her?” Cal asked, quiet.

Easton couldn’t say.  The sympathy he’d felt for her plight caught him off guard.  But on the other hand… if he could use it, would he?

Cracks.  The image stood out in his mind’s eye.  Cracks and oozing blood.

“I’m only interested because we need to make sense of the dynamic here.”

“She’s not overly strong.  This may be the most she can do as a Founder.  Rules and punishment,” Shay said.

She walked fast, like she could get away from Easton if she kept it up.  It was tough, because she was taller than he was.

“That’s almost gone,” Tomas Whitt noted.

The Whitts stand to gain.  They have an augur, and subtle emotion-altering drugs.

Vaughn had left, but they were accompanied by a binder, a quiet woman with a box strapped to her upper back.  Supposedly, she might be able to ensnare or bind up the Turtle Queen if she tried anything.

“Right flank,” Cal called out.  That was all he could do.  It wasn’t like they were in a good position to act on any imminent attacks.

A man walked on a rooftop above them, with long, roundabout movements in his legs before every step, but his legs were long enough he managed to keep pace with them, even get a bit ahead.  He had no shirt on, and a thick gray beard that hid his mouth, though the fog of breath gave it away, and he was preceded by a personal light source shrouded in fog and wrapped in branches.  With the branches less thick toward the bottom, and the fog reaching down, it looked like he had his own patch of dappled, foggy sunlight wherever he went.

Further down the path was an optical illusion of a woman, who seemed to be hanging down from a branch, ornate clothing with v-cuts in her sleeves draping her arms and body… except a second glance revealed she had a head between her ‘legs’, which were just another set of arms.  When his eyes fell on her lower head, she appeared to be dangling from the branch by crossed feet.

Her head was hooded, with hair peeking out, blindfolded, with a fixture on the center of the blindfold that was large enough to hide nose and mouth both.

She dropped from the branch as they drew closer, then stood straight, raising a third head that had been behind her while she hung, while the cloth draped down into a new configuration.  Two sets of hands barely visible between draping cloth and dirt.

Her head moved, tracking their hands, searching.

Multiple Foundings, eager to catch them at some violation.  Because they got paid, according to the girl with the bunny mask.

The way was convoluted, but it wasn’t obstructed.

“Your stamp is fading,” Easton said.

“Shut up,” Shay Graubard said.

But she quickened her pace.

Down the path, which broke apart, forked, overlapped itself, with dirt roads extending up dirt paths shored up by ruined walls and piled up stones, forming bridges.  There was an entire wall of flat stones that had been stacked around one another, forming a spiral.  Water bright with moonlight from a moon that wasn’t in the sky trickled down the upper edge of that wall.

And there were trees that formed their own little detours.  Rats wearing child masks, birds wearing rat masks, and children wearing bird masks spied on them.

Shay Graubard picked up her pace, running down the path to the Demesne.  They’d all run patrols by here.  It looked much the same, even if the surroundings changed a lot of the context.

“Careful!” Easton called out, as she disappeared around a bend in the path.

“Fuck you!” Shay called back.  Tomas Whitt, at least, jogged after her.

She’d reached the front door, but she hadn’t passed through.

“What’s going on?” Cal asked.

“Locked,” Tomas said.

“No.  Shit, why?  How?” Shay asked.  “It’s a Demesne claim, isn’t it?  Or is it a false signal?”

“Doesn’t feel like a trap,” Easton said, looking around.  “Too quiet.”

“What trap isn’t quiet, you jackass?” Shay asked.

“It’s the wrong vibe.  I’ve been around a lot of danger.  I’m not sensing it here.  It’s all been too quiet.  There’s so little confrontation.”

Some of the Foundlings and Lost were gathered at the very edges.

Shay tried the door again.  It was locked.

“A claim must be open to be valid,” Shay declared.  “I challenge this!  This claim appears unsound!”

“It is not,” was the response.

The woman in white stepped out of the woods.  She didn’t have the feeling of a Foundling, nor of a Lost.

Easton’s sight took her to pieces, letting him see what she was made of.  And she was grand.  Light, antlers, and a sanctuary space, and a reach that extended, patchwork, across Ontario.

To his Sight, the image was very patchwork, with the degrees to which the claims for Lordships had eaten into her.

The Alabaster.

“It’s valid?  I can’t answer.  Is this a claim?  Why is it late?”

“The claim is valid, Verona Hayward postponed her claim to this Found Kennet, a place that had not existed yet when she made her Demesne claim, but was integral to it.  Now she must defend it.”

“But she’s not present, damn it!” Shay cussed.  “Can I claim a win by default?”

“No.  You may not.  Verona Hayward petitioned us, and we agreed.  She has her rights too, to answer any claim in any fashion she may choose, within the three days.”

“She’s gone to answer Musser’s Lordship claim, and while she’s done it, she’s been allowed to hang a metaphorical ‘back in 30’ on her own claim?” Easton asked.

“Just so,” the Alabaster replied.  “Though it may be more or less than thirty minutes.  We will see.  In the meantime, you may queue for your challenges.”

Shay swore under her breath for a solid minute, at the very least, pacing.  While she was at it, the stamp on her hand burned away, and then the Foundlings came, eager to be the ones to impose the writs, and claim whatever spare change they earned by finding violators.

“I would argue I should be exempt,” Shay said.  “Had there been no interference, there would be no writ.”

“We interfere only to allow claims to be made and met.”

“You’ve barred us here!”

“Only to allow Verona Hayward to make her challenge against the Lordship.  She made an argument, it takes priority and precedence, because of its scale.  We agreed.”

“Fuck!” Shay swore.

“Don’t pace,” Cal said.  “You’ll get a writ.”

Shay swore under her breath, stopping herself just in time.

Leaving us here, stewing, anxious.

If they had to wait much longer, his own stamp would expire.  He was probably out of time as it stood, even if he ran.

“Alabaster?” he asked.

She was standing guard by the Demesne.  “Yes?”

“What happens if we leave and we have outstanding writs?”

“That is not for me to say.  If you wish my counsel on any matter, you may ask once you’ve traveled a day to reach my domain.  You may have to travel a little longer, if you start from here, as my area has become somewhat scattered.”

“So the challenge to Hayward’s claim isn’t necessarily a way out?”

“We should be able to negotiate for one, a reduction of penalties,” Shay said.

“But if we can’t?” he asked.  “Or if they’ve worked this out?”

“We should be able to,” Shay said, stubbornly.

“Leave her be,” Tomas said, a bit hostile.

“I’m going,” Easton said.  “There’s no use staying, and if I run, I might avoid getting more writs.”

“I’ll come,” Cal told him.  “We’re going to the same building.”

Easton nodded.

“You forget the Turtle Queen,” Shay said.

We’re bound in rules and little snares, Easton thought.  “We’ll take… what’s your name again?”

“Susanne Rinehart.”

“We’ll take Rinehart, if she’s willing?”

“I don’t know I should abandon this task.”

“We’ll stay.  We’re protected, right?” Shay asked the Alabaster.

“You are.  Interfering with you while you’re queued would be interfering with your attempt to answer a claim.”

“Gets you the fuck away from me,” Shay said, looking at Easton.  To Rinehart, she said, “Be back as soon as you can.  I don’t want to be caught as soon as I exit.  Can I argue the fear of that would be interference of its own?”

“To a limited degree,” the Alabaster said.

“If I intend to stay put after, and be picked up?”

“That should be fine.”

“Okay,” Shay said.  “Get the fuck out of my face, Songetay.”

Easton shook his head, then jogged off, followed by Cal and Rinehart.

“Did you literally shit in her cereal when I wasn’t looking?” Cal asked.

Worse, Easton thought.  I saw a vulnerability of hers.  To some, especially those who’ve carried a vulnerability all their life, that’s unforgivable.

But I’m going to earn that hatred, he thought.  As soon as I get the opportunity, some way to let a Foundling of this eerie little puzzle town know without tipping of Rinehart, I’m going to use that vulnerability.  Something to tie up the Graubards a bit.

His feelings were mixed.  Shay seemed to think that her personal experience, talents, and everything up to this point had led her to this specific point, where she could have an advantage, one that would raise her family up, give her status, and get herself free.

But at the same time, there wasn’t room for that many at the top.  Not the way these things were usually run.  His own family could eke their way in, but only with the right moves.  Only if some lost out.

He knew most of the others were performing this strategic calculus.  What could they afford to get away with, now, that would secure them a future, while not costing them the victory?

The writs were a constant and mounting pressure on his mind, driving him to run harder, faster.  He had to find a way to get the paperwork out of the way, because it felt like it was too much a part of the trap.

And this was a trap.  It had been, from early on.  They just couldn’t see the full shape of it.

He felt the pressure, the cracks, and a mounting, horrible feeling in his gut that got worse as he ran, that had nothing to do with his injury earlier.

We have augurs on the outside, he told himself, trying to reassure.

We have Musser.

Next Chapter