Author: Wildbow

Wild Abandon – 18.5 | Pale

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Lucy couldn’t get her head away from her fight with Logan, years ago.  It was a weird thing to dwell on, but it kept poking at her subconscious, her thoughts turning back to it.  She would have thought it was Charles’ doing, somehow, but she knew herself too well to accept that.  And she knew part of the reason for it.

The same Logan that was in her class now had been in her class most years and for whatever reason (she knew the reason) he’d picked her to pick on, her to go after, her to make jokes about, constantly.  He was the class clown, friend of the various guys that mattered for most years, like George, Amadeus, and the donkeys.

When the music teacher had been motioning for them to start and he’d blown on his recorder too early, she’d asked “What note was that?” and he’d responded “a Logan note.”  The class had laughed.  He’d joked once that Amadeus looked Asian when he laughed, with the way his eyes squinted together, which had made Amadeus laugh, which had gotten the entire class laughing in a loop that had people falling out of their seats, or pretending to.

Most recently, he’d made a big deal about getting Pam in the spin the bottle game back at the end of semester party.  That hadn’t gotten as many laughs.  Lucy had stood up for Pam, best she could, because she’d been there.

He hadn’t gotten laughs going after Lucy either, but nobody had stood up for her, except Verona, and Verona hadn’t been as on the ball back then.  Other things going on.

Who farted?  Because Lucy has a look on her face like someone farted.  Only a few laughs.  So he’d taken another tack, repeating it.  Trying to make it a running joke, to get a few more laughs each time.  Refuge in audacity.  Days later?  Still got that look on your face.  Oh, are you trying to get out ahead of the game, with she who smelt it dealt it?  Ha ha ha.

Verona was bringing water over to the parents.  She was using those damn reusable, biodegradable water bottles.  Lucy’s mom had noticed, remembering the call with Verona’s mom.

You look like shit, Logan had told Lucy, unprompted.  He’d said it a few times.  Not usually with more than a few loyal friends around, and even then he hadn’t gotten much of a laugh.  He’d tried that one on a few times.  Really fucking original there, Logan.

Lucy rubbed at her arm.  She felt so uncomfortable in the top she was wearing.  Another thrift-shop loaner from Verona.  It was nice-ish, but it felt like a skin that wasn’t her own.

She didn’t quite remember what had provoked the fight – sometimes she did, but whenever she did, it kind of got overriden in her memory space with the fight itself.  When she’d called him out on it, when she’d finally lost patience, he’d asked her if she wanted to fight, and she’d said yes.

She’d learned a few lessons in that day.  That being outraged and being right didn’t equate to some special reservoir of strength.  Not like in the cartoons and movies.  There had been nothing satisfying about it.  Both of them had just come out of it looking… worse.  It had been a hair-pulling, clothes-pulling, sniveling, awkward-grunt exchange, the occasional punch, feeling like she hurt her own hand more than she did anything to him.  They’d wrestled to the ground, and once he’d realized he could kick at her leg and get her pants to ride down, he’d tried to pants her that way, scraping her calf with the side of his shoe over and over again.

The way her head had been back then chased her.  It wasn’t even the only thing, but she remembered trying to think coherently and pull herself together in the middle of the fight, and getting panic instead.  Panic because her arms weren’t free to hike her pants back up, because she was so certain every mistake she was making would be its own source of running jokes against her, because she wanted him to stop and he wouldn’t.  All that, and, more a feeling that she’d understood thinking about things later than a thought she’d had then, but still a huge part of it: if she couldn’t stop him here, fighting with all she had, what the hell could she do against all the rest of it?

Logan existed in a space where he could pull that shit and get away with it.  But Lucy had tried being nice.  That was the thing.  When she found herself wondering if the way people treated her was because of the way she held herself, criticized things that needed criticizing, and refused to take any shit, she had a response.  She had tried.  She had put in her years, she’d worn shirts with flowers on them, she’d smiled a lot, she’d been nice, she’d been supportive, she’d gotten anxious about birthday gifts bought for classmates, back in the days when everyone got invited to a birthday, because she wanted to do well.  She’d been Pamela O’Neill, Avery’s original crush, with only nice things to say about others.

It hadn’t mattered.  The only person backing her up back then, picking her up off the ground, looking her straight in the eye, while Logan talked shit in the background?  Verona.  Even Pam hadn’t had any words of support, and Pam had- it felt like Pam really should’ve said something.  Logan had picked on Pam too.

She’d tried to change things and then it had all been worse.

Lucy felt now like she’d felt then.  She’d cried, her clothes felt wrong, she hadn’t been able to get this asshole to budge, acting from the heart.

“Done?” Charles asked.

Verona sat on the armrest, passing Lucy some water.  With friends on either side of her, Lucy put the bottle between her thighs.

“Sure.  I guess,” Verona said.

“Once you’re done hydrating, would you be open to a short walk?  It would help us both,” Charles said.  “We’ll leave, loop around after a short while, and return here so you can finish your claim, Verona.”

Verona looked over at Avery, then down at Lucy, who was in the chair.

“Why?” Lucy asked.

“Because it allows me to illustrate certain points, and it will reframe certain things in the context of Kennet and what we’ve all been doing.”

Lucy sighed.  She grabbed the bottle, took a big drink of water, and then put it down on the floor by the chair.  She remained where she was, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, glaring.

“Is that a yes?” Charles asked.

Lucy glanced at her mom, then at Avery’s parents.

“Is it dangerous?” Kelsey asked.

“I’ll protect us.  But we shouldn’t run the risk of running into many of the invaders,” Charles said.  “Verona?  Would you have the door lead us to Kennet below?”

Oh yeah.  They’d kind of skimmed Kennet below with the parents.  Broad strokes were there.

“Door’s open,” Verona said, standing up.  Avery went to the front hall, grabbing her bag as she did, stepping around the bottle Lucy had put down, putting her own down by the wall, there.

Lucy got up.  Her mom kind of intercepted her as they both reached the front hall at the same time, giving her a little hug.  They were blocking Charles and Lucy didn’t care.

Lucy remained very conscious of the necklace, and the unfamiliar black sweater.

“Why Kennet below?” Avery asked.

Charles passed through the doorway, the last of them to leave the Demesne, but where they’d stopped, he kept walking, toward Downtown.  It was night out, and the streetlights of this residential patch had a different hue, with the smoke from the factories in the air.  “Before I complimented Miss on her ability to find such exceptional young children to be Kennet’s practitioners, Avery and Verona were on the money about my intentions.  If Lucy had spoken up as well, I would have been dumbstruck.”

“You don’t deserve me speaking up about your plan,” Lucy said.  That sounded sullen.  It felt sullen.

“I was hoping you’d bring it up nonetheless.  For the benefit of everyone else here.  I know you’ve penned the question in your notes.”

“You’ve been spying on an underage girl?” Lucy’s mom asked.

“No more than you’re spying on someone’s home when you look at a satellite picture of their town.  I have a different kind of awareness, mostly around certain words and actions, as they pertain to practice.  The girls know.  They took their turns at being the Carmine, very briefly, to try to unravel the conspiracy, to try to catch me, Maricica, Edith, and the others.  The question, Lucy?”

“Would you please go fuck yourself?”

“The one you penned in your notebook.”

Lucy sighed again.  “Why make Kennet below?”

“And?”

“And it’s a symptom of the knot,” Lucy said.  “By tying the rule about travel to you to Kennet, you interrupt and turn aside spiritual flows.  But on the day you used Yalda and the hundreds of other people you murdered with the Choir to kill John, you did it really deliberately.  The Arena was trashed, and you made it- you pushed it into the reflection in the puddles.  Put the intact Arena back in Kennet above.”

They were in a position to see the Arena, though trees blocked part of the view.  It looked like there was a big party going on in the parking lot.  The building was still burning, still smoking.  Maybe it would as long as Kennet below lasted.

There was a naked man at the top of what looked like a twenty-foot wooden two-by-four, with the bottom of the wooden beam in a burning trash can that apparently had other stuff welded to it to keep it from tipping over.  He seemed to be trying to keep balanced so that the beam wouldn’t tip over or send him falling to the pavement below.  People around him were shouting, and Lucy’s earring could pick up the words.  Some had sharp sticks, and others were offering to catch him if he made deals with them.

“So what were you doing?” Verona asked.  “Why do this?”

A group of eight or nine year old kids emerged from the shadows.  The biggest girl had a white bandage across her nose, a lit cigarette in her mouth.  All had knives, and all of them looked like they wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

Lucy wasn’t sure if it was because Charles had so much presence or if it was because they recognized her and Verona, but one girl pushed on the arm of the lead girl, whispering.

“Let’s skip this one.”

The leader listened, hesitating a second, as if ego kept her rooted and she had to tear free of those roots.  One little boy lingered even longer, but when his buddies were gone, he spat on the road and then hurried after.

“You’ve written it in your notes.  Others have said it outright.  This is, in a sense, what humanity once was.  Before the Seal.  On the one hand, they are less literate, fiercer, tribalist.  But the Seal doesn’t only empower.  It constrains, limits.  Back in early history, there was more room for the exceptional to emerge on their own.  And there was room for those individuals to grapple with whatever aspects of the practice they needed.  Before it was practice.”

“Just so I can pin down a timeline, what kind of before was this?” Connor asked.

“Bronze age, I’m guessing?” Verona replied.

Lucy nodded.

“Bronze age,” Charles confirmed.  “Before even the written word was easily spread.  Information spread by way of word of mouth and by stories, and we all know how much a single message can mutate, if passed through enough mouths.  It was all mutable.”

“Okay,” Connor replied.

“This is a return to that.  Some differences.  A finger rests on the scales.  But… let’s take someone for example, like Suze,” he said, indicating a young woman sitting in the doorway of an apartment building, pulled in tight against the door, knees to her chest, arms folded, head leaning sideways against the wood.  She had long brown hair.  The woman didn’t seem to notice they were talking about her.

“What about her?” Avery asked.

“Her mother spent nearly every waking minute of the day fawning over Suze’s brother, how strong he was, how smart, how fierce.  Constant.  He could do no wrong in her eyes, and if he wanted something, his mother would go to any lengths to give it to him.  Including theft and muggings.  Including meeting up with a man who disgusted her, who had money.  Including stealing from Suze, who got the scraps of what her brother had, taking all the money Suze had saved up to get a place elsewhere to give her brother a very expensive set of headphones.”

“You put this in motion,” Lucy said.  “You’re responsible for that unhappiness.”

“It’s something that you could find in any town.  There is favoritism and there are parents with blinders on in nearly every neighborhood, even, it’s only a matter of degrees.  This is a distorted reflection of that.”

“Doesn’t really change what I said.”

“May I explain the reason I put it into motion?” Charles asked.

Lucy shrugged.  “Your explanations leave a lot to be desired.”

He met her eyes briefly, then looked back to Suze.  “Suze, hungry, tired, frustrated, and lonely, verbally and financially abused by her family, maddened by the minute-by-minute worship of her brother, made to work and give over her pay as rent to her mother, who spent it on her brother, she snapped, though ‘snap’ does imply something immediate.  She took ten minutes to boil water on the stove with a full bag of sugar inside, and half a bottle of household cleaner.  Then she threw it at her brother.  The sugar made into a kind of tar, and the cleaner made the resulting scarring worse.  Her brother’s upper body and her mother’s hands were affected.”

“What’s the point of this?” Lucy’s mom asked.  “Telling these children a horror story?”

“The point is that Suze, after being forced to run away, is pursued and stalked by her mother.  It’s a game of cat and mouse, with Suze attempting to sneak home and get past her brother to retrieve her things, her mother alternating between a night and day hunt for Suze and care of Suze’s brother.  One small dynamic at play here.”

“Failing to see the point,” Lucy’s mom said.

“Suze can’t sleep.  Her mother hires thugs to look for her, or will appear wherever Suze has taken to resting.  She has to look out for opportunities, patterns, searches the trash in case her things are thrown out.  She doesn’t have much, and she badly wants to hold onto that little amount.”

Verona reached into her bag, and pulled out papers.  She sorted through them, then left their group, approaching the twenty-ish year old woman in the doorway.

Suze stirred as Verona approached, grabbing the door handle to pull herself to a standing position, opening the door, and entering the apartment complex as almost one motion.

“It’s okay.  I’m the third witch of Kennet.  Not a threat.”

Suze remained there, edge of the door pressed against the middle of her chest and stomach, ready to slip through.  Her head moved weird- like she was fighting to avoid falling asleep, even as alarm churned through her.

“Pass.  To enter Kennet found.  Wear a mask.  You can’t really hurt anyone, but… be good.  You’ll be able to sleep, no threat.  It’ll let you get your head sharp.  If you can’t find a way to get your stuff, talk to me.  I’ll be around tomorrow afternoon.”

Verona inched forward.  The moment the paper was close enough to grab, Suze took it, then disappeared inside, slamming the door.

Lucy’s earring let her catch the running footsteps, the slam of the door on the far side of the building, as Suze escaped out the back.

Verona came back.

“And that,” Charles said, “is a large part of why I wanted to talk to you.  We’re at odds.”

“You think?” Lucy asked.

“May I finish what I was saying?” he asked.  “Suze was on her way to becoming something special.  Every time she’s alerted and runs, the stress response is longer lasting, it gives her a little more for more time.  She’s already ceased to sleep, but as she twisted and knotted internally, she was gradually approaching a state where she’ll be running on a stress high every minute of the day… and even finding and entering a special second tier that exists when she’s always on the alert and something calls for a special stress response.  Eventually, if she lived and continued on that course, there would be a third.  In the process, she taps into something visceral.  If she goes to the right places, deals with the right goblins, the right bogeymen, if she draws in spirits, then she’ll adapt faster.”

“That sounds horrible,” Lucy’s mom said.  “Constant stress.”

“But it empowers her.  It gives her a special set of tools to approach the world.  Her mother has the potential for the same kind of growth.  So does her brother.  So does the young girl who was leading the small gang that briefly stepped into the road ahead of us.  So does the man behind the counter back there.  Mallory, Bracken, Bag, they had or have the potential.”

“It’s part of your plan?” Verona asked.

Lucy glanced around.  There were people who were looking at them, all around them.  They stood in the middle of the road, which wasn’t a big deal because there wasn’t much traffic, and they were the center of attention.

“This isn’t only about practitioners and Others,” Charles explained.  “If it were only about making some big, problematic Others to take over this region, my efforts wouldn’t amount to much.”

Lucy kept looking around.  “You’re going to do it elsewhere?  This?  You’re going to do it in all the Lordships…”

She trailed off, ready to make it a question at the last second if Charles gave any indication she was off tack.  But she was pretty sure-

“That is the intention.”

“This doesn’t look or sound like a very nice place,” Kelsey said.

“On the upside, it doesn’t look like most of the stores close mid-afternoon,” Connor joked.

Kelsey gave him a half smile, as if she wanted to acknowledge the joke, then she looked at Avery.  “You girls have been here a lot?”

“Those guys more than me,” Avery said.  “Most of this has sprung up while I was gone.”

“And you want to spread this out?” Kelsey asked Charles.

“Each Lordship its own instance, with its own ideas and rules.  Again, if it was as simple as a few puzzling monsters, someone like Marie Durocher could storm in, with enough brute power.  Or a clever mind could unravel the trap.  But I’ve looked over Wye Belanger’s shoulders, as he looked at the future.  I’ve kept an ear out for the ongoing discussions between the new Lords and people outside.  Between Raymond Sunshine and people around the world.  I know how this will happen.”

“Getting kind of tired of the prophecies,” Verona said.

Charles smiled a bit, but it was a smile turned surly by the deep lines in his forehead and face.  “I used to be friends with Alexander.  I know the feeling.  But I’ll tell you now, there will be an initial reprisal, without enough information.  Favors called in.  Aimed at me.  It’ll happen over the next few weeks and months.  Some will succeed, others will fail, but the ones they remove will be replaced soon enough, as sleeping Others rouse and act.  Then they’ll notice the people.”

Charles extended a hand, red hair on the back of it, dark lines in the grooves and marking out the lines, like he’d gotten ink on it and only rubbed the surface level of it off.  Toward the people on the street.

One of those people, an old woman, cupped a breast that drooped to her pelvis, and gave him the finger with a trembling hand.  The look on her face made it look like she could spit bile and venom.  Maybe she could, if she was out at night and nobody was really bothering her.

Lucy hoped the Oldbodies weren’t adding more people to their ranks.

“So you plan to fill the province with enough of these people to… what?”

“You’ve seen the people from the Lighthouse,” Charles said.  “You’ve seen the people Larry Bristow sent to Kennet.  Clementine, Daniel, Sharon?”

“They weren’t in the notes,” Lucy’s mom murmured.

“They’re in another book,” Lucy replied, quiet.  “I’ll get you that later.  They’re…”

“They’re wrecking balls.  They disrupt what practitioners build.  They fight Others.  Toadswallow has mentioned the cat lady?  The boy with the improvised traps, after he glimpsed a goblin?  The-”

“He’s mentioned the cat lady,” Lucy interrupted.  “Bit of a surprise obstacle for any goblins up to mischief.”

“Or a target, if they want to do something silly,” Verona added.

“Yeah.”

“Same idea.  Wrecking balls and pitfalls.  I like to see that kind of Awareness as the world straining, fighting-” he clenched a fist for emphasis.  “-fighting, climbing that wall that is the Seal, to get what it needs to the other side.  Antibodies.  A natural response.  A few humans, as they used to be.”

Antibodies.  Humans like they were in the bronze age.  Aware all over the place.

“To what?  Slow them down?  Mess them up?”

“They’ll be wary, after the first few traps.  Then they’ll catch first wind of the rise of this population of Aware and Knotted.  Hesitation becomes a halt.  A halt becomes a hiatus.  A hiatus becomes a question.  What’s the benefit?  What do they gain by trying?  A tract of wilderness?”

“Toronto?” Avery asked.  “That was apparently a big deal.”

“Say someone retakes Toronto.  What do they gain, except problems?  New problematic Others, sometimes one a month, sometimes two a week, all looking to be Lords, pulled there like… like gravity drawing drops of blood to the lowest point in a bowl.  And in the population, countless troublesome people mingling with the population, with abilities and resistances that put them contrary to conventional practice.”

“And everyone else?” Kelsey asked.  “People like this, who’d throw boiling water on their brother out of resentment?  Children with knives and cigarettes?  What happens to the Ontario we know?”

“Part of Ontario, part of Manitoba.  Different borders,” Charles replied.

“Whatever.  What happens?”

“The news media will find ways to explain it away.  A failure in the police, a question of leadership, employment levels, costs of living.  Some explanation for riots, insurgency, rising crime rates.”

“That’s not what she’s asking,” Lucy’s mom said.  “How many people get hurt?”

“Too many.  But the alternative is worse.  The alternative where the Belangers wound, maim, and use omens to spy, even knowing those omens may cause bad things to happen.  Like Melissa Oakham falling and snapping her foot off.  An alternative where Bristow enslaves and keeps people, uses them-”

“Like you’re doing with the Aware?” Lucy asked.

“I won’t enslave or keep them.  They’re free to do as they wish, and enough of them will wish to get in the way or push back that it’ll work.  What I’m saying-”

“What if we’re done hearing what you’re saying?” Lucy asked.  “Will you change your mind?  Is there anything I can say that’ll change your mind?  Verona?”

“I dunno,” Verona murmured.

“Avery?  Anything?  Charles, is there anything Avery can say or offer that’ll change your plans here?”

“It’s already underway,” the Carmine Exile told her.  His breath fogged in the cool evening air.

“I don’t think it’s very fair that you’re pushing all of this expecting us to come meet you in a compromise, when you’re not really budging,” Lucy said.

“It sure is nice of you to tell us your evil plan, though,” Verona said, eyebrows raised.

“It’s not evil,” Charles replied, looking momentarily startled as he said it.  His voice wasn’t a growl, but it still had that burr of a growl to it that came from years and years of being sick, of being tired, of being Forsworn.  “It’s desperate.”

“I think it can be both of those,” Lucy replied.

“You told me not to mince words.  So I won’t.  What Verona just did is hurting both you and it’s getting in my way.  Musser will return.  Kennet will face other threats.  Suze was on her way to becoming someone who could and would push back, who would trip up conventional practice.”

“Suze was a person and it sounds like she was having a hell of a bad time,” Avery said.  “Not saying she should have done what she did, but…”

Lucy folded her arms.  “It’s kind of a dynamic down here.  No law except how much you can defend yourself, everyone out for themselves, freedom.  Minimal support, unless someone sees you’re in trouble and offers help.  Which is usually us.”

Lucy’s mom put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing, and did the same for Verona.  But if she was proud, she was concerned enough for that emotion to override the look of pride in her expression.

“You two have, anyway,” Avery said.  “I haven’t been around.”

Lucy shrugged.

“But she was and is a person,” Avery said, looking up at Charles.  “Franky Reiber is a person, and she- is she going to be okay, when you use her to make a trap?  After she or her goat or whatever you’re doing makes her the focus of Thunder Bay?”

“In the city of Peterborough, there is a practitioner with the family name Allaire.  He’s a community organizer in Stanground, the only positive voice some youth have heard in their lives.  He does cleanup events every other weekend, picking up trash, maintains a group of twenty teenagers who go with him on weekends to various charity services, another ten who show up only sometimes.  But sometimes he’ll let them know there’s a tough stint in an old folks home, or something unpleasant, and instead he’ll take them to waterparks, or skating.  He rewards them with pizza, shawarma, burgers.  For some, again, it’s all they get.  Some of the funds for those trips and food come from community donations, some places let him and the kids eat for free once a month.  But mostly he pays out of pocket.  Family money.”

“That’s great,” Kelsey said.  “But?”

“He recently took an apprentice.  One promising young lady who attended every weekend, because she was homeless.  She showered at school, had a teacher do her laundry.  She was resourceful, smart, eager, and was working with plans to go to university in two years.  She was his thirteenth apprentice.”

“What happened to the other twelve?” Connor asked.

Charles’ voice took on that growl again.  “The same thing that happened to the thirteenth.  He forswore them all.  And he keeps them.  He gives them sanctuary knowing if they ever leave they’ll have to return before long, because what the world will do to a forsworn person is worse than being his servant.”

“Doesn’t the Seal prevent that?” Verona asked.  “You take on responsibility.”

“It should, and he should.  Just as Musser can say he’s won enough times he should be able to cry precedent and win this time, skip the trivial parts, Mr. Allaire claims he and his family have the right, because that’s their pattern.  His mother did it before him, and his son and daughter will do it after him.  Pillars of the community.”

Lucy gripped the sleeve of her sweater.  “So because bad things are happening, that excuses-”

“I see it all,” Charles replied.  His eyes were sad.  “You’ve been Carmine, even if it was only for a short time.  Thirteen individuals, four more that were Forsworn by the mother.  Allaire’s daughter did the Awakening ritual last year and has plans to paint a scenario, where she’ll ‘accidentally’, quote unquote, reveal magic to a classmate.  She aims to lure her in with that, then awaken her, then forswear her, and she’ll have a handmaid for life.  Seth Belanger, you know him, forsworn by his guardian.  Another man is out there, who was forsworn by Alexander.  A friend sometimes, an enemy at other times.  He was an enemy at the wrong time.”

“A lot of people are forsworn, okay,” Lucy said, “but-”

“Let me finish.  Because many of these people, they aren’t seen.  They aren’t recognized.  A Lord took over Peterborough just before Musser came here.  They shook Allaire’s hand and agreed to work with him, and I don’t think they’ll ever realize on their own, but if they do, I’m not confident they’ll care enough to act on it.  Thirteen under Allaire.  Four still alive, Forsworn by his departed mother.  One, soon to be, under the child.  Seth Belanger.  Griffin Lytle, forsworn by Alexander, far worse off than I ever was, he’s in the deep woods, barely holding on to humanity.  There are five more, and those are just the ones who’ve survived this long.  Joel Richardson, Lenard Lily, Yiyun Jen, Josef Miller, Helen Kim.”

“That’s a lot,” Avery said.  “That’s terrible.”

“I stand where I stand, and these people aren’t really in my jurisdiction.  The other Judges are meant to keep an eye on them, for varying reasons.  I’m meant to oversee the act of Forswearing.  But I still see them.  I see what’s in the region, and I can and do the equivalent of looking them in the eye, every moment.  I could change the subject away from Forswearing and tell you of the horrible things practitioners are doing without stopping until Christmas comes.  Some of those practitioners are in this town.  Others are like Allaire, too small to matter, but dangerous enough to ruin lives.”

Lucy felt her mom’s hand tighten on her shoulder.

“Then fix that,” Lucy told him.

“I will, but I have a lot to do before I can.  I won’t outline that part of my so-called evil plan to you, not here and not now.”

“Because it’s shitty?” Lucy pressed him.  She unfolded her arms.  “Because it’s so bad you’d spoil your argument?”

“Because you’re clearly against me.  If you won’t accept what I’m doing, I have to worry you’ll get in the way of me helping those forsworn, even if it means sealing their fates.”

“That’s not us,” Verona said.  “I mean, I’m way less empathetic than these guys, and I don’t see myself doing that.”

You’re more empathetic than you think, Lucy thought.  “Kind of surprised you haven’t done it already, Charles.”

“No comment,” Charles said.  He let out a heavy sigh.  “I’m desperate.  This has to change.  I hoped I could approach you, and call for another truce.  Keep Kennet above, Kennet below, and your Kennet found separate.  Don’t rescue the people here.  Let them find their own strength.  Then if they’re inclined, which many are, let them turn that strength against our mutual enemies.  For Griffin Lytle, it’s a question of life or death.  If you say no, if you refuse, Griffin dies as a result.  For Yiyun Jen, depending on her fortune, it might be the same.”

“Hold on,” Connor said.  “You’re threatening to kill?  And you’re using that-”

“I’m not threatening to kill.  There are things I can do and there are things I cannot.  I have certain reserves of power, I have certain ways of replenishing it.  If you interfere now, you slow me down, but you don’t stop me.  Griffin dies, Musser gets a small edge, and then I carry on doing what I was doing.  That’s the only meaningful decision.”

“That sounds like it’s on you, not us, and you’re an asshole for trying to make it our problem,” Lucy told him.

“The Forsworn are near and dear to my heart.  I don’t pretend to be a good person.  I may only care because I was Forsworn, but I care.  I’m selfish and I’m desperate.  With how much this matters to me, if there was another way, I would find it.”

“Running on empty, Chuck?” Verona asked.

“I have a lot to do and a careful balance to strike to get there.  Now, if you don’t get out of my way, then people who don’t deserve it, and perhaps some that do, they’ll suffer.”

“What the fuck are you putting on these kids’ shoulders?” Lucy’s mom asked.

“Reality.  As Lucy likes to stress, they’re teenagers, and that means an unhappy, sometimes unwieldy mess of childhood goofiness and the crushing weight of adult responsibility.”

“Not for you,” Lucy’s mom said.  “That’s for me to guide them into.  Trusted teachers.”

“And untrustworthy ones, and people your daughter will meet on the street, and those she’ll run into on a first job.  You know that well enough, through Booker.”

“Don’t talk about my brother,” Lucy said, words coming too fast, with a note of alarm.

Charles raised a hand.  Black in the creases.  Maybe dried blood.  Fingernails a bit too long and uneven.  Motioning for her to ease down.

She fucking eased up, drawing in a breath, ready to go on the offensive.  Being shushed, essentially?  Fuck that.  Especially from fucking him.

“I won’t touch or involve Booker.  Or your mother,” Charles said, looking aside.  “No more than they involve themselves, anyway.”

Lucy didn’t ease down, even with that.

“Come on,” Charles said.  He turned and started walking.  “Matthew is this way.”

“Matthew?” Verona asked.

“On a routine patrol.  Let’s get this awkward moment out of the way.”

“What you were talking about before,” Connor said.

“I’ve said what I needed to say.  I can’t see the future, I’ll have to leave it to you and those girls to decide.  I gave you a concession, letting the Garricks take people away.  I’ve given Verona time, in case Musser returns.  I’ve given Avery information about Franky.  I’m asking for assistance here, for something that serves us both,” Charles told them.

“But if we accept this concession now, what’s to say you won’t just ask us to make the same concession next time?” Lucy asked, walking fast to keep up.

“For one thing, there shouldn’t be twenty-five forsworn next time,” Charles said, without slowing.  His breath fogged around his head.  “And if there are, they’ll be a new twenty-five.  I’d hope you’re human enough to recognize that those twenty-five will likely need rescuing too.”

“Weren’t you talking about forswearing people?” Verona asked.

“If I must.  I wouldn’t stab this metaphorical child in the foot, but I’d cut the leg off if it’d save their life,” Charles said.  “I’ll act against those who’d hurt us all.”

“Sure sounds like you’re planning a lot of amputation.”

“Do you fault me?” Charles asked, more growl than before.  His back to them, his stride fast and fierce enough to put him ten feet ahead of the group, he raised a hand.

Maricica made her appearance, descending from a nearby rooftop.  She had no wings but didn’t need them to fly.  Blood splashed up where she touched road, and there hadn’t been blood pooling there before.

“Jesus,” Connor said.

“Different religion,” Maricica said, before turning to smile at him.

“Maricica,” Charles said, not even fazed by her arrival.  “Where is Edith?”

Maricica revealed a candle, then blew.  The air ignited, the flame spread, and wax splattered on the ground.

Wax gave form, and flame gave heat while forming into the shape of the spirit.  Big, candle across the shoulders, shorter than it had once been, almost a mirror to Maricica in how she had drippings all over her, but it was white wax and not blood.

Orange, burning eyes glared at Lucy, her friends, and their parents, before the ‘flesh’ rose up enough to encapsulate her.  Shoulders drew together, head ducked down, and she contorted into a position inside Edith’s form.  Wax formed into clothing, or formed clumps that broke off, with clothes beneath where there’d been skin before.

“Do your pleas go unheard, Carmine Exile?”

Maricica had asked it, smiling, floating with toenail tracing the puddle of blood beneath her, dragging faintly on the road occasionally.  She twisted in the air, belly-up momentarily, then crouching, keeping her head at a level with Charles’, even though she was far taller and larger than him.  Edith kept pace.  They spoke in low voices.

“I wouldn’t call them pleas.”

“Your cogent and heartfelt attempts to sway?”

“As Lucy observed, I’m not about to change my mind, this far in.  It’s perhaps unfair to expect the same of them.  I hope they do.  I hope they discuss, but I’ll figure out a way forward either way.  Maybe death is a mercy to Griffin.”

“And the other one?  I’ve let myself forget.”

Lucy’s mom touched her shoulder, squeezing.  “So that’s-”

Lucy pressed a finger to her lips, and tilted her head.

She’d missed Charles’ one word response.  Maricica was next to speak.

“My head is full of blood and violence.”

“Then you’d better leave as soon as you can manage, without causing a stir.  Her name was Yiyun Jen.”

“Of course, and of course.  Oh, poor Carmine Exile.  I’m sorry this hasn’t gone as you hoped.”

“It’s fine.  Edith?”

“What?”

“How are you today?”

“Worried.  Hopeful.  Matthew will hate this, but… inroads?”

“Better you ask Maricica that than ask me.”

Edith didn’t ask Maricica.

Lucy moved her finger away from her lips, then looked up at her mom.

“So that’s Edith.  And we’re going to see Matthew?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  I didn’t think Edith would be that… that was a spectacle.  And everyone acts like it’s normal.”

“It’s one of those things, yeah,” Lucy replied, quiet.

She glanced back, saw Avery at the back of the pack for once, talking to her parents, and Verona on her lonesome.

She reached back, grabbed Verona’s arm, and pulled her forward, to put an arm around Verona’s shoulders.

“Ooh, that’s nice and warm,” Verona said.  She was wearing that sweater that exposed her shoulders.  “Keep it like that.”

“Do you want to borrow my jacket?” Lucy’s mom asked.  “It’s a little big, but…”

“It’s okay,” Verona replied.  “Oh man, I want to talk about all this forever, but…”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.

The conspirators were ahead.  Just out of earshot.  No longer talking.

“It’s been super lonely, weirdly, with a stream of Foundlings and the occasional annoying practitioner passing through,” Verona said.  “Could really do with a sleepover.  I dunno if you’re up for it, I know it’s a school night, but if you aren’t, and if McCauleigh is staying around, maybe I’ll have her over again?”

“Can she?” Lucy asked her mom.  “Tomorrow night?”

“Yes.  Of course.”

“Cool,” Verona replied.  “Thanks.”

“I feel like- I feel as if we need to talk,” Lucy’s mom said.

“Oh no,” Lucy replied.

“Except I don’t know what to say, what to ask.  Maybe I’ll know by tomorrow night.”

They passed a guy on the sidewalk who had three sets of handcuffs on, plus some stuff at his ankles, and a bike lock extending from the crook of his elbow to the groin area, where the upper leg met the pelvis.  He was inchworming his way forward, huffing.  When he heard them coming, he flipped onto his back, up against the wall, and growled, holding a knife out.  Metal clacked on metal- he had two separate sets of brass knuckles on each hand, with wire extending from them to the cuffs, so he couldn’t remove them.  It looked like it made holding the knife hard.

A lock like Lucy or anyone in the high school might’ve used for their lockers, except with a bit more of a metal loop was in his face.  It extended up through the floor of his mouth, through a hole in the tongue, and out the front.

“Do you need help?” Avery called out.

He shouted something unintelligible, that might’ve been slurs and insults, drool and froth at his mouth and at the little hole in the underside of his jaw, working its way down that lock.  He got agitated, swinging the knife at open air, various shackles limiting his range of movements.

Partially to keep up with Charles, partially because the man didn’t seem to want saving, they left him behind.

There was a group of people all holding candles at a tiny church on one corner – tiny enough it wasn’t even that church-y – more a cross tacked onto a small store with apartments above it.  A pastor with blood on his white collar was holding both hands up like he was under arrest as he preached.  Each palm had an ‘x’ carved into it, blood caking the long black sleeves..  Maybe a cross, but the angle was wrong.

The candles burned brighter as Edith passed by.  It made shadows behind the bloody pastor sharp enough to make out, swaying and dancing for a brief moment as the wind passed.

“This is scary,” Lucy’s mom said.

“This is his,” Lucy replied.  “As much as we’ve tried to make parts of it better.”

And as they got to the north end of downtown, Lucy saw the market.  The stalls were mostly closed.  Matthew was there, talking to one of the Bitter Street Witch’s brothers.

“You sure?  Need me to alert anyone?”

“Don’t think so.  But go.”

“Matthew Moss,” Charles said, as he approached.  His voice carried.

“Charles Abrams, Carmine Exile.  And company,” Matthew said, dry, almost disappointed.  “My night just got worse.  Girls.  Parents.  I hope he hasn’t convinced you of anything.”

“Not really,” Lucy replied.  “Don’t think so, anyway.”

Matthew nodded.

“Hello, Matthew,” Edith said.

Matthew glanced at Edith, then looked away.  He kept his voice level.  “Charles.  You spoiled things with the Garricks.”

“I’ve offered the girls a compromise that will let them get the Garricks out.  But the Garricks can’t be doing business here over the long term.  Not as couriers.”

Matthew’s expression didn’t change.  He looked at Verona, then Lucy, then Avery.

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“I don’t.”

“I know the Garricks are anxiously waiting.  I’ll free the others to go where they need to go, but I thought it would be fairest if there are witnesses.  Edith would have to be here, and the girls being here means there’s more of a balance.”

“Witnesses for what?”

“Matthew, you successfully sought and maintained a Demesne claim.  The house is yours.”

“It damn well better be.”

“But you managed that fight by drawing on a connection.  A longstanding, intricate one.  You shared in something of Edith James, and she drew on her connection to you for strength.”

“Ahhh,” Matthew said.  “I see.”

“How in the bullshit did she draw on Matthew?” Lucy asked.

Edith wheeled on her, her eyes burning brighter than before.  “Mind your business.”

“This is our business,” Verona said.  “We’re guardians of Kennet, and Matthew is of Kennet, and yeah, what Lucy asked.  That’s not how this connection works, is it?”

“Edith James drew on an emotional tie to Matthew, for the strength to continue fighting against shit odds.  There are rituals that involve fighting, violence, and sacrifice that are less significant than her fight that night,” Charles answered.  “She drew heavily on that tie.  I’m going to rule as Judge that it fits.  He draws on power from the Doom, which was supplied by her, she draws on heart, a fervent, sustained desire.”

Matthew snorted his nose loudly.

“It’s not funny,” Edith told him.

“You’re an ass, Charles, and this is a sham,” Matthew said.

“You’ve undergone one binding ritual, marriage.  A second point of reference.”

“I’m sure you’ve got a third.”

“And you’ve been living together for a time, in close proximity.  All three of those things are tied to the property claimed as a Demesne.”

Matthew nodded.

“This sounds like common law marriage,” Connor spoke up.

“Common law familiarship, let’s call it,” Charles said.  “Sui iuris, by habit and repute.”

Matthew snorted again.  “Fuck you.   No words were said, no deals made.”

“But each party offered and gave to the others, and each has an inextricable relationship to the property,” Charles said.  “It’s done, Matthew.  If you wish to appeal, seek one of the other Judges.  Or me, if you wish, but I’ll be busy.”

“What does that mean?” Avery asked.

“It means that for all intents and purposes, as far as this Demesne is considered, and only for that purpose, Edith James is effectively Matthew Moss’s familiar,” Charles said.  “With all rights he has, with a small share of the influence.  It’s customary that the familiar gets space of her own.”

Matthew didn’t reply, his expression hard.

This is gross.  This is gross.  This is gross, Lucy thought.

“We’ll talk, okay?” Edith said.  “Tonight?”

“Will we?” Matthew asked, voice low.  He had a thumb hooked into his pocket and the hand clenched into a fist.

“A compromise?  It’s fine if you want to put me in the basement, knowing it’s where you kept me prisoner-”

“It’s complicated,” Verona murmured, to Lucy’s mom.

“-But we’ll cross paths.  There has to be some conversation eventually, right?”

Matthew looked off to one side.  “Charles.”

“Hm?” Charles asked.

“What proportion is usually given to the familiar?  Percentage?”

“One half to one sixth.  And she’d have the run of the space between, to access that subspace.”

“One sixth?” Matthew asked.

“I’ll insist you give her something, one sixth should be fine.”

“Don’t make it sound like we’re pulling your teeth out,” Edith told Matthew.

“Please shut up.”

“We can talk after, like we were doing before.  My family’s been asking questions-”

“I’ll send them a card at Christmas.”

“We should work out a system with the bills, I know you work and I don’t, but we still have the old joint account-”

“I don’t care.  This isn’t your way to reconciling, Edith.”

“I don’t- maybe it’s not possible to reconcile, but it was minutes out of the entire time we were together.  Out of ten good years.”

“Ten years tainted by what happened in those minutes.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?”

“Can I offer you half to shut up for a month?” Matthew asked.  “We can consider that our first interaction of this new dynamic.”

“Matthew,” Lucy said.  “No matter how bad this is, don’t concede.  Don’t give her space.”

“Don’t interfere!” Edith raised her voice, eyes flaring.

“Don’t shout at my daughter,” Lucy’s mom said, hand at Lucy’s shoulder.

A shaking hand.  Lucy put hers over her mom’s.

“Forget the space.  Don’t give her that step forward,” Avery said, insistent.  “A short term gain for a lifelong loss?”

“Do you want to be enemies?” Edith asked them.

Verona laughed.

Charles intervened, stepping between them, eyes on the ground.  “I’m sure this argument could go on for some time.  But I should get these girls to their Demesne claim and the Garricks.”

“So responsible,” Maricica said, smiling.

“Responsible for a lot,” Lucy muttered to herself.

Charles turned.  “Edith?  I did my part for our arrangement.  At least for this sub-part.  Find me after if you need.”

“I expect to be here for a long time.  This is going to be a process,” Edith said.

“Matthew?” Charles said.  “It’s set in stone.  To go against this would be to go against karma.  You’d spark off your own Doom.”

“Imagine that,” Matthew said, his voice so soft as to be inaudible.  “I thought we were friends, once.  As much as was possible.”

“Friends.  Occasionally using me as a carrying case for curses, ailments…”

“You could’ve said no.”

“But it was made clear, I had a debt to pay, for the sanctuary I was given.  It doesn’t matter.  There’s enough happening tonight.  We should talk again.”

“I’m convinced we’re going to, whether I like it or not,” Matthew said.  “Edith?”

“You have your key?”

She nodded.  “I am excited.  I know my influence won’t be close to yours, but… tonight’s a new night, right?  Fresh start?”

“You poisoned me, Edith.”

“Out of love.”

He snorted.

Edith went to the front door, unlocking it.

The door made it about a quarter inch before banging into something.

Edith turned to look at Matthew.  “A barricade?  Cute.”

“Not a barricade.”

She went around the front of the house to the window, where the curtains were drawn.  She moved a hand, and ignited the curtains.

The moment they’d burned up to the curtain rod, she motioned again.  The fire extinguished as fast as it had appeared.

Inside it was dark.  But it was-

Edith produced a light.  It didn’t help all that much- windows weren’t so great to look through if you were on the side with the light source.

-dark but textured.

Edith backed up, then looked at a second floor window.  She burned that curtain and the sheer drapes too, then extinguished that fire.

“Your mother bought us those drapes,” Matthew said, with a bit of humor in his tone.

“What is that!?” Edith asked.

“Slate,” Matthew said.

“Slate?  Stone?”

Matthew nodded.  “I kind of like it.”

He’d filled the house.  One block of smooth black stone with rough edges, extending through floor, possibly into the basement.  If there was any space left inside, it was a half-inch gap between the stone and the walls or the stone and the windows.

“Solid all the way through?” Avery asked.

“Yep.  Enlisted goblins to help, had them ferry it in, stack it, I made it all into one piece, then expanded it out.  I think facing down as many claims as I did really got the spirits cooperating.”

“Good for you,” Verona said.  “Really nice to hear.  I hope it works the same way with mine, and all the Foundlings.  They’re great, they’re fun, it’s cool, but…”

Edith went back around to the front door, and pressed her hand against it.  She turned her head.  “Good?  Cool?”

“I wish you’d taken the half instead, to shut up,” Matthew said.  “Amounts to pretty much the same thing.  One sixth of nothing?  Half of nothing?  Or there are gaps.  I guess you could squeeze some spirit and wax in there, but it wouldn’t be comfortable.  You can have one sixth of that space.”

“My things?” Edith asked.

“I don’t know where you’d buy a pickaxe, but I imagine that’s where you’d start.  Could even be fun.  Bit of archeology.”

Edith dropped to her knees, hands pressed against the slate.

“Your things?” Verona asked him.

“Moved out a while ago.”

“Good.  Cool.”

“Some of it I’ll miss.  But whatever.”

“Where do I go?” Edith asked.

“Not my problem.”

Edith turned.  “Charles, this is against what you told him to do.”

“Done before any ruling was handed down,” Matthew said.  “I made sure to ask what proportion might be fair.”

Edith climbed to her feet, then went back to the door momentarily, as if to verify it was still there.  “Charles?”

“He’s right.”

“Twist the ruling.  There have to be interpretations.”

“Dangerous words, with a dangerous karmic weight to them.  Asking a Judge to cheat on your behalf?”

“Fuck you, Charles.”

“Talk to me after.”

“I don’t want to talk after.  I want resolution now.  Tonight I was supposed to get Matthew back.”

Matthew scoffed.

With the brightness of Edith’s eyes as she turned toward Matthew, Lucy thought for a second she was attacking him.

White wax tears rolled down her cheeks.  The tips of her eyelashes had an orange spark to them, like tiny flames.  “Maricica.  You said I’d have him.”

“And you did.  For a little while.  You had him in your house, your company, at your mercy, even.  But I didn’t say you’d get to keep him.  That’s up to you.”

Edith looked at everyone present, as if for help.

Lucy made sure to have a good glare on her face for when Edith looked at her.

“So that’s it?  Fuck me?”

“I said we can talk,” Charles said.

“Does that talk get me Matthew back?”

“I don’t think it does.  But you might’ve never really had him for more than a few months, in all honesty.  But we’ll talk.”

“Edith,” Matthew said.

She turned toward him.  Lucy could see the hint of hope in Edith’s eyes, for just that one second.  It stirred up ugly feelings.  It made her think a bit about that useless fight against Logan.  A fight that had left her feeling more like a pig picking herself out of the mud than someone victorious or vindicated.

Edith was in that mud.

“Do you need cab fare to get to your family?  I can make the call.”

“In another town?  Trying to get rid of me?”

“Just offering,” he said.  “I think your wallet and phone were inside.”

Edith turned to the house.

“Then what?” Edith asked.  She sounded lost.

“Then you tell your family you’re kicked out because you poisoned me and manipulated me.  Or lie.  I really don’t care that much.  Maybe come back, talk to Charles, for direction, altering how you’re built, take the hurt away, I dunno.  Maybe just stay away, seems easier and better to me, but I’m biased.”

Edith stared at the house, and the open front door with a black face of rock just inside.

“That block is staying, as long as I can help it.”

“I was and am a broken ghost, spirit instead of a soul, candle instead of an inner light, cobbled together, hidden away inside a broken person,” Edith said.

“Sure,” Matthew said.

“I thought- I thought I was your broken mess.  I thought I at least had that.”

He didn’t reply.

“Played at being human pretty well, I thought.”

“Fooled me,” Matthew replied, quiet.

“I thought this would be it.”

“This is it.”

She ran her hand over her head, and wax came away from her hair in peels and flakes.

Lucy still wasn’t sure if Edith would lash out.

“I, um-” Edith started, halting with the emotion in her voice.  “I’ll take the money to get a cab.”

He got his wallet out.  Then he pulled out a whole mess of bills.  Maybe ten twenties.

She took it, then looked down at it.  “Had all that ready.  You were looking forward to this.”

He looked at the house, then back to her.  “I’ll call the cab.  Wait at the corner there?  End of the block?  In Kennet above?”

“Nothing else to say?  No last words?”

Matthew didn’t reply.

“Alright then.  End of the block, then I’ll move up to Kennet above when nobody’s looking.  I’ll talk to you, Charles,” she said.

“Mmm.”

Edith walked down the sidewalk.

“Wasn’t looking forward to it,” Matthew said, quiet.

“Definitely makes sense,” Avery said.

“Because I thought you’d fuck me over,” Matthew told Charles, finishing the thought.

“I’m not your enemy.  I’m where I need to be.  You’re where you need to be.”

Lucy shook her head.  “But you got where you are by-”

“By means,” Charles interrupted.  “I know.  Let’s not rehash this.  The Garricks are waiting and they’re worried.  Go to them.  Verona?  I’ll let you go.  Or if you’d like, I’ll walk with you.”

“Sure?” Verona suggested.  “How much more awkward can it be than my best friends’ parents walking in with all my naked mural art on the walls?  And ceiling?”

“We’ll come.  No way am I letting you walk off into crimetown in the company of a feral god man without company,” Lucy’s mom said.  She turned to Connor and Kelsey.  “Can you look after Avery?”

Kelsey nodded.

“I’ll come,” Matthew said.  “Bit of backup.”

“Please,” Kelsey said.  “Your name came up a few times.  It’ll be good to talk.”

Avery, standing by Connor and Kelsey, met Lucy’s eyes, as if trying to communicate something with a look.  Lucy wasn’t sure what, but her mom had a hand at her shoulder, and squeezed, and that made Lucy wonder if her mom had gotten what Lucy hadn’t.

Avery then looked at Verona, expression unreadable, who stood next to Charles, expression readable: bitter.

“Wish we weren’t always splitting up,” Avery said.

“Yeah,” Lucy told her.  “Text us?  Especially if you’re traveling in the morning.  Or we’ll reconnect closer to midnight?”

Avery nodded.

“Uh,” Matthew said.  “Before we split, I got word earlier.  We need to have a council meeting about what’s going on with the goblins down here.”

Lucy nodded.  “Talk to Louise?”

“I’m sleeping over there, so yeah.”

“Cool.”

It felt weird, talking about this with the conspirators close.  A faerie or ex-faerie close.

But like, they knew anyway?  Charles was kind of omniscient.

Maricica was first to leave, going to Edith’s side, when Edith really looked like she didn’t want the giant naked blood goddess as company.

Avery went down toward the valley, with Matthew and her parents.  Lucy, her mom, Verona, and Charles walked back toward Verona’s Demesne.

They walked, and it wasn’t a walk with a lot of conversation, which was kind of a nice thing.  It would have felt like they were leaving Avery out.

“Twenty-five forsworn,” Verona mused out loud.

“Yes.  You could consider it twenty-four.  Griffin is pretty far gone.  One Other trying to possess him, another trying to transform him, a tug of war with what’s left of him in the middle.   It’s not so much my aim to twist your arm as it is to hold onto some hope.”

“Pretty horrible fate,” Verona commented.

“And in each case, someone did it to them.”

“Costly, has to be,” Lucy said.

Charles raised eyebrows, looking at her.

“I remember some of the calculus that had to be made, the decisions.”

“Mmm.”

“Costly?” Lucy’s mom asked.

“Bending the interpretations and the rules for twenty-five people, to get them free of being Forsworn.  Takes… political capital?  Power?  Influence?  Whatever you want to call what you get from being a Judge.”

“A bit more to turn it back on the ones who did it to them, in some cases,” Charles growled the words.  “A bit to save Griffin, if he can be saved.”

“Are you bankrupting yourself?” Verona asked.

“No comment.”

“Getting to where you’re pretty vulnerable, and that’s why you’re shy of sharing?”

“This is getting to where you should be very careful, Verona Hayward.  I’ll be honest, some of the Judges are a little sick of your shit.”

“What are you saying to this girl?” Lucy’s mom asked.

He put up a hand.

“If you raise your hand with the intention of shutting me, my daughter, or either of those other two girls down again, I’ll make you regret it.”

He put the hand down, still with the presence of a man who didn’t believe her mom.

“If we agree to any truce, and we do have to talk to Avery about this, will you get anything you’ll use against us?”

“I might gain something.  I’ll agree not to use that something against you,” Charles said.  “I want them free, but it’s hard.  The timing alone- it’s not good timing now, but-”

“Griffin?” Verona asked.

“In another world, if I hadn’t found Kennet, I’d be in his shoes.  I’d hope he’d do the same for me.”

“You’d hope he’d kill hundreds?” Lucy asked.  “Threaten children?  Threaten to orphan children?”

“In his shoes?  In the shoes I was wearing at the time?  I wouldn’t be very picky at all, no.”

Which really said it all.

They dropped Verona off with hugs.  Then when Lucy turned around, Charles was gone.

Lucy led her mom by the hand, through Kennet below.

She knew Avery was really anxious about things, and how it was all presented to her parents.  The Garricks were meant to be something that represented what Avery was shooting for.

And they’d come here instead.

Here, where it was still creepy.  Where people were dangerous.  There was a shopping cart with barbed wire working through it, and a kid in a pillowcase nailed to a window, struggling.  There were Stuck-Arounds-

Who crossed the street, eyes down, when they recognized Lucy.

They went across downtown, over a ways.

And in front of the town hall, which was decrepit, a clear party spot, there was a fountain.  A Dog Tag sitting by the fountain jumped to her feet.  Angel.

“Standing guard?”

“It’s something to do.”

“Okay.”

“And you?”

“Just stopping in,” Lucy said.

Angel nodded.  “I’ll go for a short walk.”

As Angel left, Lucy looked up at the statue of the dogs on top.

“Wish I had my guitar.”

“This is John?”

“I guess.  Memorial.  I negotiated for this with the local city spirit.  Lis.  Who helped Charles.”

“Right.”

Her mom said that like she understood, which she might have, or like she was just getting past the conversation so she could get to where she was rubbing Lucy’s back and giving her a kiss on the top of the head.

“I’m sorry this has been such a nightmare.”

“I’d rather know,” her mom said.  “Not knowing is the nightmare.  Being quietly oblivious.”

“I think Verona was missing having someone with her, today.”

“You think we should call her mom?”

“I’m thinking… Tashlit, maybe.  I really don’t know how her mom would react.  It might be she’s too far away, you know?  Not close enough to any of this?  It’d just… not happen, with innocence and everything.”

Her mom nodded.

“I’m pretty worried about her, actually.”

“Then we’ll focus on that next.  After this.  After-”

There was a whoop in the distance.

Lucy listened, and heard very specific sorts of chatter.  Vulgar chatter.

She grabbed her mom’s arm, then pulled, getting her to where she was out of sight.

There were four gremlins with music players, and more goblins dancing and bouncing as they walked, shoving into one another, in a continual, mostly knee-high mosh pit.  With America at the center.

She’d taken up roost in the old town hall of Kennet below.  She wore a top hat with an arrow through it, and a kind of combination of a suit and post-apocalypse gladiator gear, various things strapped or stapled on, patching it, and added as accessories.

“Hey soldier girl!” America hollered.

Angel, in the distance, broke into a sprint.

The goblins and America chased her.  They were being led away.

Lucy waited until there wasn’t even a straggler of a goblin panting for breath before she relaxed any.  “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We’re okay.  We owe Angel something.  Not sure what she likes.”

She saw the worry in her mother’s face.

Her mom had said she’d rather know, but the way she’d found out, in the worst moment, with so much stress around all of this?  That was America Tedd’s fault.

Karma hadn’t really doled out any responsibility for that.

If Lucy was going to have any say, she had to do it soon, make a statement to the universe, using presentation, timing, coup.

Quietly, deep in thought, thinking again of that fight with Logan, wearing clothes she didn’t feel bulletproof in, worrying about what her mom would think, and worrying about all the complications again, Lucy drew a diagram.  Small.

Holding onto the dangling part of her earring, she passed it through.  Listening on the other side.  No footsteps, no conversation, even distant.  No breathing.

Her mom watched everything.

If her mom had doubted her, if there had been any skeptic in her, then would that have made the practice harder?

She got the bigger diagram done, which was a process of drawing, keeping an eye and ear out for any patrolling goblins, and checking this wasn’t all for nothing if someone happened to bring their dog through on a walk and sit down on a bench for a while.

One series of papers, passed through the small diagram.

Blown as if by wind, they would seek out the nearest light sources on a timer.  One in the first five seconds, one after ten, then one after fifteen, then one after twenty.

Lucy led her mom into the center of the circle, then activated it.

They arrived in darkness.  Near a town center and surrounding area that looked really nice, after the expensive and probably badly spent revitalization of the area.

The partially built fountain stood there, with a soldier at the top.  The last components- an epigraph to be mounted on the central stone bit below the soldier, mainly, they were stacked to one side.

I got this, she thought, touching the stone rim of the fountain.

She looked up at her mom.

So much fear and worry there in the instant before she realized Lucy was looking.

“You okay to walk a bit more?” Lucy asked.

“I work on my feet, I can do it if you can do it.”

Lucy smiled, even though she was aware of the tension in her mom.  All the accumulating worries.

“Where to?”

“Avery, check the thing with the Garricks is going okay.  Then home?”

“I’ll look forward to the home part in particular.”

Lucy nodded.

They walked.  Lucy bit back the tense feeling that came with Charles’ ask, the weight of lives put on her, that they’d avoided talking about, and everything else going on with America, Musser, the invaders.

As much as Avery’s going to hate it, we’ll need to bring in Liberty.  And we gotta make the stakes clear.

America fucked with our families.  There’s karmic responsibility on the line.  If Liberty can’t get her sister to back the fuck off and make amends, then America’s going to find out what’s changed since my fight with Logan.

Back then, didn’t matter I was outraged, didn’t change how the fight went.  It’s why it hurt more when I lost.

Now I can and will turn that outrage into some messed up shit.

Next Chapter