Author: Wildbow

Wild Abandon – 18.z | Pale

Next Chapter

Brie ducked her head under branches.  She held the branches up so the other ten members of their group could duck under.  Zed was at the back of the group, carrying a clunky laptop.

“Do you think the fact the bushes are so thick here means something?” Cat asked.

“Something useful?” Earring girl asked.

“I dunno!  But it gets you wondering.  If I said a lady had a great bush?  Rake?”

“Why ask me?” Rake replied.

“You know why I’m asking you.”

“Get bent.”

Brie gave Zed a lingering look.

“Yeah,” he said.  “Are you guys sure you’re okay like that?”

“All good,” Cat said, turning on the spot and smiling.

They reached the edge of the cliff, and they looked out at the little town, only about a dozen houses around a crossroads, with a train station and tracks running parallel to the main road.

Brie pushed hair out of her face, breath fogging heavily as she panted for breath.

Everyone gathered, some sitting, others standing, others distracted with their stuff, they watched as a car came down the highway.  Even from a distance, she could tell it was sporty, cute.  It reminded Brie of one her aunt had.  It was being abused: boxes and pieces of furniture were tied to the top.

It hit an indistinct breaking point, and the car exploded.  The explosion rolled out, and the explosion continued, rolling out behind the car like an unfurling parachute, disintegrating vehicle and rider.

The explosive bits that were furthest back snapped forward, as if attached by elastics.  Within the span of half a city block, the exploded person reconfigured into a red painted train, and the bits of car and the car’s contents snapped into place, disappearing into windows.  The things that had been on top of the car became people- wide eyed and alarmed, holding onto the tops and sides of the train as it continued speeding along.

The train had almost passed through the area when a shadowy, gangly Other leaped onto the train, scooped up three people, aiming for a fourth, only for that person to let go and fall from the train.  The Other then leaped off.  Effortless.

When the train became a car again, there were two boxes and a stuffed chair missing.  The last person who’d fallen off hit the road while going a terminal speed, and viscera and blood spread out in the violent, heels-over-head fall.

Where that blood and gore extended past the boundary, it became fallen clothing and what might’ve been shoes.

The car continued, the driver completely unaware of what had happened.

“At least it’s letting them through,” Antlers said.

Brie raised a hand to her mouth, then asked, “What was that Other?”

“Didn’t get a good look, but my laptop camera should’ve,” Zed replied.  “I think its worth stopping to review the footage.”

“Alright.”

“Gods and spirits, thank you,” Wicked Hat said, dropping down to sit on her ass at the cliff’s edge.  Her very wide-brimmed witch hat had hair draping down, but her face was hidden from view.

While Zed got his camera plugged into his laptop, Brie watched as the ten girls sat down, drank water, or talked among one another.

Zed raised his head.  “Can you all keep an eye out?  Brie?  Mind doing a quick check on our claims?”

Brie nodded.

A few of the girls took up vantage points to watch their flanks.

They were at the fringes of the Ritual Incarnate that had started out in Dryden.  Verona had nicknamed this The Placement Test, and it had stuck.  Brie found a clear patch of ground with no grass, bent down, and used a chalk bag to carefully draw out the modified hexagon inside another hexagon that was turned to a right angle.  Quick notations at each of the sides, some numbers, and a prick of her finger.  She put her hand flat in the center, poised over the diagram.

Lines lit up with a dull inner glow, and numbers exploded into blobs of chalk, that quickly fixed themselves into other numbers.  Her clothing lit up too, connected by the tattooed tatters of flesh she saw with her Sight, each tatter marked with numbers, symbols, wards, and faint, fading moon signs from the Hungry Choir.

She rubbed at her forearm, where the eight moons in different phases ran from the open space of her inner elbow to her wrist.  A fierce motion cleared the diagram.

She covered her mouth again.  “Zed.”

Zed put a foot out, hovering it over the diagram.  Brie looked at him, rolled her eyes, and moved the foot herself, planting it firmly in the diagram.

“Thank you,” Zed said, his eyes fixed on the screen.  “Got the video to watch when you’re done.  I’m doing a bit of enhance, shrinking pixels and upping resolution…”

Brie gave his calf a rub.  She covered her mouth.  “Do you want to pay or should I?”

“Oh, right.”  Zed typed something.  “That should do it.”

The lines lit up.  Zed’s things gradually started to glow- various articles of clothing, then the laptop.  The hexagon-in-hexagon diagram mutated, rearranging into something more complex.

“Two of your items are escaping the network,” she told Zed, around her hand.

Zed looked away from the laptop, looking at the diagram.  “Huh.  That’s the artificial heart and the disposable camera?”

“Looks like.”

Zed got the objects out.  The artificial heart was chrome and surgically safe silicon, and throbbed with power, while the disposable camera- he raised it to his eye and peered through the slightly melted viewfinder, rotating the plastic dial at the top.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing if the artificial heart got away,” Brie said, hand at her mouth.

“Mmm… it wouldn’t,” Zed agreed.  “But it wouldn’t be great either.  I picked my stuff pretty carefully, so it works well together.  The heart is a big part of that.”

The artificial heart worked with technomancy, casting out a digital echo to absorb the brunt of anything that went wrong with technomancy.  A bodyguard to throw himself out in the way of a technomancy bullet for Zed’s sake.

“But you, you’re just a troublemaker, aren’t you?” Zed asked the disposable camera.  “I don’t think we want you wandering off on your own.”

“What does it do?” Wicked Hat asked.  She stumbled as Shadowcloak pushed past her, ducking low, peering out from beneath a hood, face close to the camera.  Shadowcloak looked up at Zed.  “Yeah, what does it do?”

“It takes bad pictures,” Zed said.

“That doesn’t explain anything at all,” Wicked Hat said.  “Can I fiddle with it?  Experiment?”

“Pleaaaase,” Cat asked, throwing herself at Zed, arms at his shoulders.  With laptop on his knees and camera in hands, he had to do a quick adjustment to make sure he didn’t drop anything.  Brie put a hand out to help steady the laptop.

“Thank you,” Zed said.  He ignored Cat and adjusted the film on the camera, watching the diagram that surrounded his foot.  Things came into alignment and lit up more uniformly.

“Better,” Brie murmured, not opening her mouth too much.

“Thank you for doing that.”

This was Zed’s little workaround for the situation here.  He’d worked out how practitioners seemed to be able to hold it together and not be pulled apart by this place, which had to do with the ideas of claim and practice, and then devised a way to reinforce that.  It worked on similar principles to how a Collector could tie together a collection of ten different magic swords to empower them all and have more claim over them.

The girls had gone a complete opposite direction, strategically organizing and supporting the items they were bringing in.  Each carried subordinate things they assigned a kind of claim to.

As a result, Lucy’s hat had a chain with a dog tag and ring on it wound around where the point met the brim, and that became Dog Hat.  Lucy had also produced the Fox, from the mask, Smoke, from the cape with runes inscribed on it, and Earring girl, from, well, it was obvious.

Lucy had four, while Verona and Avery had three each.  Verona was Wicked Hat, Shadowcloak, and Cat.  Avery had Antlers, for the hat with the antler sticking up from it, Rake, from her duelist’s cape, and the Deer, who was running around at the flanks, scouting.

Each with a personality and mentality, and some small ability to practice in their niches.

“Here,” Zed said, turning his full attention to the laptop.  Dog Hat pulled at the back of Cat’s collar, producing a startling hiss from Cat, but at least pried Cat away from her position, which had been leaning hard into Zed, peering over his shoulder.

Antlers whistled, and Deer came running in, throwing one arm around Antlers’ shoulder.

“Three things stalking the woods.  Looked like a patrol.  Shears, hoe, lawnmower, working as a team,” Deer reported.  “They saw me, I ran for it.”

“Naturally,” Earring said.

“There’s seriously a personified hoe walking around?” Cat asked.  Dog Hat still had a firm hold on the back of her collar.  “That’s hilarious.”

Zed decided that rather than wait for a break in the low-level chaos, he’d play the video.  It showed a zoomed in video of the train attack, enhanced to a higher resolution.

Zed paused on a frame, hit a key combination, and went back a few more frames.

It was a skinny, gangly man with skin that looked like tarnished silver, eyes cataract white, carrying a bag on his back, full of things.  Other objects were wrapped around his arms and legs, until he looked like a pile of junk somehow collected around a person dying of starvation.  He had things like necklaces and bracelets, but they weren’t worn in the usual way; the bracelet lay against the elbow, three pieces of fine sliverware and a flashlight wedged between arm and bracelet in a way that, together with surrounding junk, locked everything haphazardly in place.

Zed typed a few times, putting in keywords.  Relic, treasure, hollow, silver and gold, S3.

He’d tried explaining some of the search terms to Brie and it really felt like he was making them up and they changed every time she asked.

Not her area of expertise.

He logged into the Atheneum, search terms bringing up about twelve texts, which he quickly narrowed down to three.  One had an image, with a similar figure with a bloated belly, various wedding dresses wrapped around herself rather than worn, streaming around her, and a portrait mounted on her face, so the head and shoulders mostly lined up with hers.

Zed paraphrased from the screen.  “It’s called a Grasping, it’s a visceral Other.  Lots of practices have a fail case.  You know, you’re looking to get power, or solve some issue, but if you lose your humanity along the way, screw up, you become something Other.  Hydes can become Fraward, the Hyde side takes over.  Aspirants become Awestruck, war mages can become a strong subvariety of Dog of War, yadda yadda.”

“Is that a fail case or an awesome case?” Cat asked, giving Zed finger guns.  “Because once you get past practitioner anti-Other B.S….”

“Fail case,” Zed said.

“But seriously, if they-”

“It’s a fail case, Verona.”

“I’m not Verona.  I’m Cat,” Cat said.

“You’re an awful lot like Verona.”

“I’m way cuter and cuddlier.”

Dog Hat grabbed at Cat again, covering her mouth.  “Fox.”

Fox turned, hand on hip, trying to look cool and succeeding.  The fox mask she wore had become hyperrealistic and beautiful, much like Cat’s.

“Distract her,” Dog Hat said.

Fox produced a spark of what Brie suspected might be glamour.

“When we’re done learning about the Grasping we should organize,” Wicked Hat said.  “Figure out who can do what.”

Fox made another spark.

“I’m not falling for that lame distraction,” Cat said, wrestling her way free of Dog Hat’s grip.  “I’m just wanting to be part of that conversation too, but I’m listening to this conversation too, so talk loud enough I can hear.”

Fox succeeded in luring Verona’s mask and hat away.

“Carry on,” Shadowcloak said, subdued.  She sat with Smoke.

“Uh, yeah,” Zed said, letting out the smallest exasperated sigh as he glanced at Brie.  “Grasping are Collectors gone wrong.  Sometimes someone does a ritual to draw items to them, and they reach too far, or they get too weak in Self to manage their collection.  They knit together with the collection.”

“So that thing’s a bundle of magical items with arms and legs?” Antlers, Avery’s Hat, asked.

“Yeah, basically.  We were worried this might be the sort of Ritual Incarnate where Others become a part of it and make things way harder.  So that’s one.  I think it’s pretty advanced.”

“Can we fight it?” Dog Hat asked.

“Let’s avoid it if we can,” Brie said, hand at her mouth.  “Could it snatch one of these guys up?”

“Maybe.  Advantage we have is they’re pretty heavily claimed,” Zed said.  “It’s why we invited them.”

“Happy to help,” Rake said.

The jumble of girls was a bit dizzying at times.  Brie got to her feet, then dug a shallow trench with her heel and kicked the chalk on the cold dirt into it, stepping on it to flatten it.

“Why cover it?” Zed asked.

“If they’re patrolling, they might also be tracking.  Let’s not give them information.”

“I’m not sure what they’d pull from that,” Zed said.

“But it can’t hurt,” Brie told him, hand at her mouth.  “I think back to the Hungry Choir, getting through those eight nights.  I did a lot of little things, because I wasn’t sure what the other contestants were capable of.  I don’t know what ended up working and what didn’t, but I feel like it’s important to stack up as many small countermeasures and actions as possible.

Zed nodded.  “Okay.  Won’t complain.  But let’s keep moving.  And watch out for that thing.  It moved fast and it was strong.”

“There’s other patrols out there,” Deer said.  “I could go out and distract them.”

“I think you should stay close,” Zed said, glancing at Brie, who nodded.

“I can keep an ear out for the patrols,” Earring girl said.

“Can you get us between them?” Brie murmured, teeth clenched.

Earring girl nodded.

They found their way down from the short cliff.

They ended up having to walk about a quarter mile through thick growth before there was a gap in the patrols.  They crossed the gap between wilderness and town.

It felt oppressive.  There was a quality to the air that reminded Brie of her second boyfriend from early in high school.  They’d slept together once, then she’d stayed the night, taking advantage of the fact her parents were away and this boyfriend had the keys to his guest house.  Between the mediocre sex and the actual sleep, he’d been a real shit about her pica- her compulsive eating of metal, making fun of it.  If she’d had more self respect, she would have left then and there.  But she’d felt like she had to stay the night, because they’d made the plans.  Lying there, her front to his side, his arm around and over her, she’d had her nose near the crook of his neck.

The human smells.  The sweat smells.  The breath smells.  The mediocre sex smells.  She remembered how it had felt like he was taking the oxygen out of the air with his mouth a handspan from hers, replacing it with air that was thick with smell.  She’d resented him, hated him a bit, even, and she hadn’t felt like she deserved better, her tired mind unwilling to believe she could or should turn over and risk waking him in the process, or get out of bed to breathe clearer air.

So she’d lay there, unable to sleep, unmoving, trying to breathe differently, as if she could somehow breathe in a way that filtered out the smell and got to the actual oxygen.

The air now reminded her of that air.  There was a human element in it that she didn’t want to breathe in.

Every bit of ground was someone.  Every fence, every trash can.  The air came from people.  It made her skin crawl.  It all fit together in weird ways that made it feel like it was an otherwise well done television show where the scenes cut from area to area in a way that was supposed to be logical but missed the mark.  Or traded a bit of New York for a series of shots taken in Toronto.  But things were moving too fast for her to easily tell.

“Hey, you okay?” Zed murmured.

She gave him a tight nod in return, then asked, “but can we stop?”

“What’s up?” Zed asked.  But he stopped.

Brie motioned, and the group of kids all moved over, crouching at the foot of a fence.

“It’s another one of those little things,” she murmured, teeth clenched.  “Might be totally unimportant.  The layout of this place.”

“Sure.  I don’t mind stopping.  I don’t feel like there’s a time limit.  So I think we can rest.”

“Thank you,” Wicked Hat muttered, falling over.

“I don’t feel a pressure or anything,” Brie murmured, barely parting her lips.  She moved from a crouch to a sitting position, back to the fence, eyes searching the area.  “Maybe it’s dormant?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you cold?” Fox asked Deer.

“A bit.”

“You’re underdressed.”

“I’m dressed to run around.  But we’re not moving that fast, so…”

Fox pulled off her fur-trimmed coat and gave it to Deer.

“Hey Deer?” Cat asked.

“What?”

“You think the reason you’re so pretty is ’cause Verona carved you?”

“Maybe?  Probably.”

“She’s kind of your mom, huh, because she made you?”

“Where are you going with this?” Dog Hat asked, pushing up the brim of her chain-wrapped witch’s hat with its dangling dog tags.

“Since she made you, and I’m kind of her-”

“All three of us are her,” Wicked Hat said.

“Yeah!  I think I should be in charge of you.  As a kind of aunt.  Like, not quite your mom, but not far off?”

“That’s moronic,” Rake said.

“What do you need me to do?” Deer asked.

“Don’t play along with her!”

“I don’t know yet,” Cat said, reaching over to pat Deer’s shoulder.  “But I’ll think of something.”

“You know, since Lucy carved you…” Fox murmured, leaning over.

“No, see, she did a sort of middle of the road job, while Verona did the kind of quality work that deserves respect.”

“You want to fight?” Dog Hat asked.  “You want to diss my girl Lucy?  Because that’s going to mean we fight.”

“I fight dirty,” Cat said.

“Guys,” Zed said.  “Seriously?”

“We have only one enemy,” Brie said, hissing through her teeth.  “That’s this.  This place, this dynamic, the game it wants us to play, whatever that is.  Don’t fall into the trap of fighting each other.”

“We’re not fighting, we’re being playful,” Cat said, throwing an arm around Deer’s shoulders.

Brie glanced again over the area.

“Any ideas?” Zed asked.

Brie shook her head.  “No.”

“Don’t feel pressured, okay?  I know you hate this and you want to do something about it, but it’s meant to be inscrutable.”

“So don’t try to scrute it?” Antlers asked.

“Don’t get down on yourself if you can’t scrute it,” Zed clarified.  “Talk us through it.  Rubber duck it.”

“The places, the details… every place here was once a person, right?  Sometimes a small thing, sometimes a whole house and yard.”

Zed nodded.

“I feel like I’ve seen some clue about where the seams are.”

“Just so you know, there’s a pair of patrol blocks around the corner and down the road behind us,” Earring girl said.  “The group that patrols this street is comparing notes with the group that spied us up the cliff.”

“Do we have time?” Brie asked.

Earring girl nodded.

“Let us know if they move?”

“You want to stay?” Zed asked.

Brie nodded.

“Okay.”

She sniffed.  That smell and heaviness in the air, like the hallway outside a locker room…

She checked the coast was clear, then crossed the street, moving down a few houses.  Deer, Antlers, and Smoke followed.

Another deep inhalation…

She went back to Zed.  “They smell different.”

“Okay.  Not sure how to use that.  Technomancy and smell don’t exactly go great together.  Tech doesn’t usually track smells.”

“Right.”

“Can you scan?” Wicked Hat asked.  “Omnicorder, beep boop, science fiction style?”

“I don’t do science fiction, Hat,” Zed said.

“So you can’t?” Wicked Hat asked.

“I could… maybe if I run an analysis of light patterns, if we know for sure that spot is one person and the spot we’re at now is another.”

“So you can,” Wicked Hat said.

“I can… it’s really not the same thing.”

“Spectrographic analysis, beep boop,” Wicked Hat said, deadpan.

Zed loaded a program, turned the laptop, and aimed it down the alley.

It took thirty seconds or so, but the black screen began to light up with periods, commas, dashes, and letters, red-tinted in one area of the alley, blue in another.  Painting a picture.

“I don’t know if that helps,” Brie said, wrist against her mouth.

“It’s an in.  Deciphering this place,” Zed said.  He moved his bag around to be between his feet, opened it, and pulled out a camera case.  The B.E.V..

He opened that case and pulled out a dead bird- or what looked like one.  He reached past feathers, and it glitched, showing a small drone inside.

The bird animated, flapping madly, as he pressed the button.  Red lights shone in the center of its eyes.

He let it go.

“We make a good team,” he whispered to Brie.

“I just felt like something was weird and smelled it out.  You’ve got the fancy programs and tech,” she told him, wrist still resting across her mouth at an angle.

“It’s good.  It doesn’t matter how small the detail you’re catching is, if it’s the detail that lets us start to unravel this,” he whispered.  He hit a key on the keyboard.

A second screen appeared, old-school tech, letters and dots forming a view of the Ritual Incarnate’s town from above.

Individual sections interlocked, and each section was shaped like a person lying on the ground, sometimes with arms spread, sometimes stretched out, sometimes curled up.

Each got different shades.

“We have a map now, we have a layout, one broad piece of the riddle,” Zed murmured.

Antlers leaned over, looking.  “Miss said the Stuck In Place was once a god or something, dead, and the Lost mess clung to the remains of the god or something.  And it became tar.  And realizing that was part of the riddle of where to go and look for clues.”

“Crown, brow, throat, sacrum, root?” Wicked Hat asked.

Zed typed for a few seconds.

Circles outlined each.

There was one that was close.  Past a fence, into a backyard.  Inside a greenhouse.  Zed held the laptop out.

“So what’s the ritual?” Dog Hat asked.  “Each ritual incarnate isn’t just a weird place.  It’s meant to be a challenge, right?”

“That’s my understanding,” Brie answered.

“So what’s the challenge?  It feels low stakes so far.  So long as we don’t get swiped up by the guy.”

“It hasn’t started yet,” Brie spoke her thoughts aloud.  “This is the prelude.  This is where we wander through the Hungry Choir’s domain, clock counting down to the start of the event.  Sometimes with the children dragging you there if you lag behind or take detours.”

“So what’s the challenge?”

Zed zeroed in on the item.

“The Choir,” Brie said.  “It was preparation, to put the contestants at a disadvantage.  It was possible to sign up early, get stuck there for days, no food, no water, jumpscares, if you made a sound or called out for someone, you got bit.  Screws up the odds against you.”

“So is this a trap too?” Zed asked.  “Something screwing with us?”

“Everyone has everything?  We haven’t lost anyone?” Brie asked.  She glanced at the doll, wary.

“Everyone’s here,” Earring girl said.

“People, places, things,” Antlers said.  “Those are the mechanics.  People become places, things become people, and…”

“Places become things?” Wicked Hat asked, pointing at the doll.  A popular brand, with messy hair, scuffs on the feet and legs, and a bright blue dress.

Zed took a picture with the disposable camera.

Then he rewound and looked.

He offered it to Brie, and she took it.

The image, distilled in negative, had gouges, broken glass, and the teal of negative-image blood everywhere.

But in all that destruction, the doll was untouched.

“It’s invincible?” she asked.

“Inevitable.  Integral.  It’s a key piece of this,” Zed said.

“Should I?”

“I dunno.”

Carefully, Brie reached out, and took hold of the doll.

She could pick it up, and move it up, down, side to side, forward and back, but it wouldn’t rotate.  Outstretched arms, feet, and its head remained fixed, pointing in one direction.  It felt like she could attach it to an aircraft carrier and it wouldn’t turn with all that weight and those engines driving at it.

“What place was the doll?  Back when it was a place?” Antlers asked.  “Beauty parlor?”

Zed checked.

“There weren’t any in this zone.”

“House?” Brie asked.  “Like a dollhouse?”

“Few of those,” Zed said.  “Scattered.”

“Blue, like the dress?  Tacky?” Antlers asked, leaning in.

“Hard to see from top-down, but… yeah.  And we’ve got a problem.”

Zed opened a window, then turned the laptop at a right angle so everyone could see.

There was a map of the town as it was when he’d first captured an image, and one now.

It was moving.  Shifting.

“It’s a labyrinth, like I thought,” he said.  “But the places- that were once people, they’re all moving around.”

“Meaning you might have to identify which place is a person, find that person’s heart, crown, sacrum, root, throat, whatever,” Antlers mused aloud.  “And find enough of those, while remembering what the original place was, that you can navigate to…?” she trailed off.

“The center?” Wicked Hat asked.

“Or work out a place that doesn’t belong?” Zed asked.

“Whatever it is, it’s time consuming, confusing, the time you’re spending doing this is time the labyrinth is shifting…” Brie continued.  “You might be getting hungry, frustrated, lost…”

“We theorized this was a trap specifically for Musser, right?” Dog Hat asked.

Zed nodded, though his eyes didn’t leave the screen.

“Then it could be you’ve got the item stuff.  It’s deceptive, that there’s a way to keep claim over items.  Which he has in spades, right?”

“Yeah,” Zed murmured.

“So he ends up thinking he’s well set up for this, but it’s a chore, the labyrinth wraps up around you, you get tired, lost, all that stuff.  And if you’re someone like Musser who hangs out with war mages, maybe you end up fighting those people.  Gets messy.”

“It’s very messy,” Zed murmured.  He glanced at the girls’ things.

“Don’t give us that look,” Dog Hat said.

Zed passed a look to Brie, and she was pretty sure she picked up what he wanted to convey.

The objects that had become these ten girls were immature, but they were also the girls’.  They picked up ideas, sentiment, personality.

What would that mean for someone like Musser, who was cold and ruthless?

The girls were bickering again.  Zed sighed.

Brie rubbed his back, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

He wasn’t typing.  Just looking at the data.

“What are you thinking?” Brie whispered.

He turned the laptop toward the doll, then typed.  “Current coordinates for the doll.  Coordinates for the house.  Helps we know where we are relative to where it would be, thanks to my bird’s eye view drone.  We know the angle…

Faint lines appeared in the air around the doll, encircling it in three dimensions, with lines stabbing off into the distance.

“Do we take it to the house?” Rake asked.

Zed shook his head, typing.  “We cheat.  Find me three more objects.”

He showed the girls the map.

They split into groups of three.  Each with one representative from one of the girls, with a set of hat, mask, and cloak.

“Be careful,” Brie told them as they left, hand at her mouth.  “You want me to go, Zed?”

“I want you to guard me.”

She was okay with that.

The girls were fast.  They came back, triumphantly carrying the items.

Zed laid them on the table, drew a quick diagram, and executed his code.

In blocky, imperfect pixels, glowing green against black, Zed’s code ran and began to list items and respective places.

“It’s math,” Zed murmured.  “Nothing is truly random, and technomancy, at its heart, is about shortcuts.”

He typed a short string.  The computer whined, and the various lines around the items all concentrated on pointing in one direction.

“There’s our heart of the contest,” he said.  “Everything mapped out.  We good to go?”

“If this was the Hungry Choir, I’d want to know if we were ready, if we’d prepared our bodies, taken anti-emetics,” Brie murmured, bent finger at her mouth.  “If this place was buying time to mix up the maze and get us turned around… are we too turned around?  It’s a big question, asking if we’re ready.”

“We have a map,” Zed said.

“One.  Is that enough?” Brie asked.  “What if you get caught?  Or hurt?”

She hated the idea.

“I’ll send it to your phones.  Who has a phone?”

Three of the girls and Brie did.  Zed gave his phone to Deer.

Each was loaded with a copy of the evolving maze.

They traced the unintuitive route, to the center of the town.

There was an empty park, with a great stone slab in the middle.  Flat.  Square.

It only appeared on the map as they got close enough.

The Grasping Other with its trove of magic items sunken into flesh and strapped on in a complicated way limped its way closer.

So did an echo-like figure carrying a battered, smallish aquarium with what looked like glowing playing cards within, flying around like they were fireflies, or blown by a storm.

Two dolls, one carrying giant scissors, one carrying a needle.  One Other that might have been undead, arms nailed to its body that was so calcified it cracked where the giant nails had gone in.  Five people who looked like they’d been wrapped in eggshell and the eggshell had broken, leaving them hollow in a way that should have had them collapsing in on themselves.  A woman in green who moved like she wasn’t really setting her weight down.  A woman who walked with head bowed, carrying an old fashioned phone that looked like it weighed twenty-five pounds from how she bent forward, both hands gripping it.  The cords, wires, and headset were wrapped around her head.

Twelve Others in total.

Zed showed Brie the laptop.  Brie nodded.

Viewed from overhead, these figures that were approaching were mirroring their group.  Twelve to match twelve.

And as they’d come in, the town had expanded.

“We don’t want to participate.  We want to talk,” Zed said.

A few of the assembled Others shook their heads.

“You’re on a collision course for settlements.  Moving from Lordship to Lordship, trading with whoever you run into.  Moving from A to B, give B’s lord A.  Move from B to C, give C’s lord B, and so on.  It’s messing with people, disrupting things.  Causing a lot of mess.  This works a lot better if you just go north.”

“You got here fast,” the Grasping said, in a voice that was surprisingly normal, if muddled.  Brie could see three or four rings held in its mouth.  Maybe wedding bands.  “Too fast.  It’s supposed to take days.  You’re supposed to sleep.”

“Tough?” Zed asked.  “Can we talk?”

“No,” the woman in the green dress said.  “Step onto the stone.  For starting positions.”

“What are the rules?” Dog Hat asked.

“They’ll be explained once you’re in,” one of the eggshell people told them.

Zed looked at Brie, who nodded.

Zed stepped onto the stone.  The Grasping did too.  As Zed paced across the stone, the Grasping matched him, moving the opposite way.

As Zed got close to one corner, the woman with the wires and phone mumbled, “Once you’ve left the bounds of the stone, it starts.”

“What starts?”

“The contest.”

“Which is?”

“Go where you please.  Defeat the other side.  No obligation to defeat your specific opponent.  The side with the last member standing wins.”

Zed turned around, looking at their group.

Brie’s heart was pounding.  “We’re vulnerable.  In different ways.”

“Yeah,” Dog Hat said.

The arrangements of items that Zed and Brie had with them were fragile.  If they broke, they’d split up into a pile of items-as-people, and they’d become places.

Oh.  They were really fragile like this.

Because the girls had come in from the edges of town.  They and Snowdrop had become places.

But if Zed and Brie were here, a few paces away from this stone, they’d become places, right here.

“It’s capture the flag… or vandalize the flag.  The places the three girls became…” Brie trailed off.  “If those Others get to them?”

“They’ll trash them.  Tear them to pieces,” Zed finished.

And if we become buildings because we lose our items, we become immobile, vulnerable.  Easy to target, burn down, vandalize, take apart.

She’d really wanted to come to this as the expert in these things.  A way to measure her growth.

She stepped onto the stone.

So did the woman in green.

One by one, they all entered.  They spread out, and so did the other side.

“I know about the ropes you’re carrying,” the Grasping said.  “Magic ropes to take you away?”

“Won’t work,” the telephone lady said.

“Because of the lady in green?” Antlers asked.  “I see the connections.  A lot of you just thought about her.”

“Good,” Zed murmured.  Louder, he said, “This goes a lot easier if you swear to go to a more unpopulated area.”

“We’re…” the undead creaked.  “…guests.”

“They’re not the ritual,” Brie whispered.  “They’re agents of it.”

“It’s a good deal,” the echo whispered.  It was pallid, sickly, and blurred at the edges, but its face was lit up by the glow from the glass-caged cards.  “For those that qualify, fit the ritual’s needs.  Play a rigged game, get what we need.”

“That’s a ghend,” Zed murmured.  “Random Other, usually an echo, finds things of power in the Ruins.  Pearls of power and bright emotion in the darkest muck… gets power, clarity, and meaning from tending to it like a flower in a place flowers shouldn’t grow.  Jessica mentioned it.”

“I remember,” Deer said.

Rigged game.

“We playing?” Rake asked.

“Not playing isn’t an option,” the Grasping said.  “You won’t get to her before I get to your ropes.”

“Nah,” Zed murmured.  “It’d be nice to be confident we can win, but… let’s call this a win if we get the information we need out into the world.”

“You’re the two who’re on point for this one, you make the calls,” Dog Hat said.  “Everyone on the same page?”

There were nods all around.

It was hard to breathe, but the smells came from those Others.

“The moment neither of your feet are touching the stone, we start,” the Grasping said.

Zed looked at Brie, and Brie nodded.

Zed backed away.  Brie watched out of the corner of her eye.

He set one foot off, firmly in grass.

“Three,” he said.  “Two…”

“One.”

He removed his other foot from the stone.

Brie screamed, mouth wide.  Letting the Others she’d stored inside her out.

Fire elementals.  They came tearing out, with plumes and bursts of flame, napalm spatters, and figures that danced through air, carrying fire in directions fire couldn’t normally travel.

The woman in green was already fifty feet in the air, small above them.

Carried aloft by threads.

The girls took action- Earring girl with a sound practice.  Rake with an enchanted lacrosse stick.  Fending off the rush of Others that came right for them.

Others had already left.  The telephone woman had teleported.  The eggshell people were fast.

The ghend held the fishtank overhead, the red light intensifying, shining on the Grasping, who was smoking.

Drawing strength.

A mixture of Others who can get to the places the girls became.  And ones who can tear past normal defenses, to scatter the belongings and force the transition of anyone who makes it this far.  Pure chaos in the form of fifty or a hundred varied magic items, for the Grasping.

The undead screamed, ear-splitting.

Brie pressed hands to her ears and matched the scream, releasing the last of the fire.

And turned her face skyward.  She wasn’t sure how much aim mattered-

Earring girl silenced the undead.

-but that helped.

Other girls were using spell papers, and magic items.  They were far weaker than they were whole.  Cat transformed.  Smoke obscured.  Just a few tricks in each one’s sleeve.

Brie, at least, hadn’t stored just fire.

The lightning spirit came out, and it traveled to the overcast sky above.

Hitting the woman in green.  She looked like a spider as she became a black silhouette against a white flash.  Thunder followed, rattling just about everyone present.

Brie cut it short, biting.  The lightning-shaped figure that briefly danced across the sky had to make that dance a limping one.

That was fine.

The Grasping already had his hands on two ropes.

Brie turned toward it, mouth partially open, and let the lightning dance on he tongue, ready to escape.

It had been hard, holding them in all this while.  She’d been afraid she’d let one loose and then they’d all come tumbling out after it.  It would be a disaster.

But she could hold twenty elementals inside herself.  Later, she would hold other, more terrible things.

The grasping let go of the ropes.

“You’re gainsaid,” Zed called out.  “We got the woman in green before you got the ropes.  Turn this ritual north and keep it on that trajectory as long as you can!”

“I don’t have a say,” the Grasping said.

“Give Brie an item she’d like, then,” Zed said.  “And back off.  We’re in our rights to ask for something.”

The Grasping looked like it wanted to kill them.  But it pulled a mirror away from its shoulder, where rosaries and necklaces bound it into place.  It threw it at Brie.

Brie caught it.

“Rope!” Zed shouted.  “Before-!”

Brie didn’t even wait for the end of that sentence.

She pulled.  The rope pulled her, with a whiplash-inducing yank that sent her flying up and away from the scene.

To the edge of the ritual.

There was a narrow bookstore, a sports field surrounded by gnarly trees, and a small graveyard studded by swords.  A winding alley connected them.

The Others were already there, doing some damage.  But they saw them coming, and moved out of the way.

The landing was a crash landing.  Brie winced more at Zed’s landing than her own, even as she hit the ground, spraining one ankle.  He carried technology, some of it sensitive.

Verona’s things collided with the bookstore, knocking it down.  The debris condensed down into Verona’s shape.  Avery did the same with the sports field, hitting grass and carving out a furrow that pulled the field and surrounding trees after like she was pulling a tablecloth off a table, with Snowdrop being sent flying out of that winding alley as Avery passed, wrapping her arms protectively around the opossum.

Lucy hit the graveyard and the swords were sent flying.  They narrowed and folded into one another as they flew through the air, until they became glints in the air, aligning with her earring.

“Oof,” Avery grunted, Snowdrop on her stomach.

The things they’d sent in landed around them: hats, masks, and cloaks.  Where magic items had been wrapped in cloak or placed in hats, they spilled out.

They lay there, at the edge of the ritual, taking their time catching their breath.

Brie’s ankle throbbed.

“Could’ve made those ropes better, huh?” Lucy asked.

“I did fine, I think.  There were other things messing with them.  The strings the green woman tied to them, and the Grasping touched some, I think it screwed with all of them.”

“Matches how it works,” Zed murmured.

“I don’t think we lost anything major, and we got information,” Zed said, lying there.  “Win, I guess?”

Brie crawled over, so she could lie beside him, head on his shoulder.  She liked the feel and smell of him.

“Would’ve been nice to get the bonus for turning it north,” Verona said.  “How did mask, hat, and cloak do?”

“Pretty good,” Zed said.  “You don’t remember?”

“I vaguely remember being a house or something,” Verona said.  “But hey, vaguely remembering is way better than innocents, who have zero clue.”

“Yeah.  I’ll sell the info, I know a lot of people want to get to grips with everything that’s going on.  It’ll get a decent price.  Pays this month’s rent, maybe next month too?” he asked Brie.

She nodded, cheek rubbing against his shoulder.

“I’ll give you three your shares later, if that’s alright.”

“Cool,” Lucy said.  “We trust you.”

“You okay?” Zed asked, quieter.

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t burn yourself, letting those out?”

She shook her head.

“That’s good.  Bit of a practice run, if you’re going to bind stuff in there.”

Verona laughed, “Fire and explosions like a full-on bombing run and the biggest lightning strike I’ve seen in my life are a practice run?”

“Ronnie,” Avery cut in.  “Let them have them time.”

Verona snorted, but she didn’t say anything more.

“And dealing with a ritual incarnate?”

“I’m tough,” Brie said.

She blinked as something cold touched her eye.

“Snow in October,” Zed murmured.

“Nearly November,” Brie said.

“Reminds me,” Avery said, sitting up with a grunt.  “I’ve got somewhere to be.  And I’ve got to do a situation report with my dad.  Full writeup, homework on everything we did.”

“Now who’s cutting into the mood?” Verona asked.

“Because I sorta have to leave, Verona.  Get bent,” Avery said, standing.  She lifted Snowdrop to her shoulder.

“You going to give your dad a modified version of the story?” Lucy asked.

“A bit.  Not sure there’s a lot to say, but maybe I’ll downplay how intense this whole thing is,” Avery said.  “You?”

“Some.  We’re all happier that way.”

“Feels weird,” Avery said.  “Showing up, becoming a house or whatever, then leaving.  I hope we helped.”

“You did,” Brie said.  “You guys backed me up when it counted, way back then.  I think I needed to face this down, even if we couldn’t beat it.  I’m glad you were there, in a way.”

Lucy put her hand up in the air, in a thumbs up.  Verona mimed her.  Snowdrop gave a raised opossum middle finger.

The snow began to come down in swirls.

“We should probably move, before the ritual decides to creep over toward us,” Brie said, even though she didn’t want to move.

There were two sides to the event, and Ann’s husband thought that the other side was a discreet meeting with local celebrities and politicians.

That was despite the fact that the mayor was on his side, in plain view.

He was so clueless.

A small jacket draped over one arm, Ann found one of her daughters in the crowd, wearing a black tulle dress trimmed in dark green, in a mermaid cut, with a green headband.  Quietly, she touched her daughter’s shoulder.  She’d made her appearance here, her daughter had as well.  She caught her husband’s eye and gestured for him to stay, indicating their other daughter.

He winked.

So clueless.  But he did what she needed a husband to do.

“Why are you pushing me?” her daughter asked.

“Guiding, honey,” Ann told her, using just two fingers to steer her daughter by the shoulder.

“Where are we going?”

“The back garden.”

“You did say we wouldn’t be using the back garden, and we’d lock the doors so the guests didn’t get out there.”

“They won’t be using the back garden,” Ann said.  “Come with me, stay by my side.  Say nothing, while there, or after.  Don’t talk to your father or sister about it.  Don’t talk about it to your friends.”

“Is it an escape room?” her daughter asked.

“What?  No.  This is actually important.”

“Escape rooms can be important.  They have prizes.”

“My dear,” Ann said, losing her patience.  “Perhaps you should go back to your father.”

“No.  I’ll come.”

Ann pressed a finger to her lips.

Her daughter pursed her lips together.

Ann held out the jacket, and it was a tailored enough fit it wasn’t easy for her daughter to put it on herself.  Ann wore a small jacket as well.

Unlocking the back door, Ann let them outside, then locked the door.  The garden was pitch black.

“Show no fear,” Ann whispered, guiding her daughter through.

The lights were trick ones, shining light only in one direction.  As they passed a certain point, the light became a brief glare, then gentle illumination of an outdoor party.  Men, women, and Others were gathered, wearing a combination of costume and elegant clothing- the Others stuck closer to costume, for the most part, but some wore only the elegant clothing, like Ann.

The council was here too.  Odis, in a suit, standing taller than he normally did.  Thea, in an evening dress.  Deb was there, of course, wearing a lavender that unfortunately brought out the scars from a history of electrocutions, abrasion burns, regular burns, and frostbite.

It wasn’t exactly tradition, but there was a tendency for Others to push the envelope, using costume and chaos to mingle more with humanity during Halloween.  In answer, some things had been lightly formalized, in a way that differed from place to place.  A truce was a big part- no Other was permitted to harm a human starting from sundown the night before Halloween until daybreak the morning after.  If they couldn’t abide by that, they had to stay away, and someone gave them gifts as payment for abiding by that.

Some took it a step further, treating this as an event to let the walls down, to pretend human and Other were on a more even keel.  A night to gather information, to find out what Others were local that hadn’t showed themselves.

Sourav Evans.  It was kind of him to show.

Nicole Scobie.  Her showing up was less kind.  Every time she walked into a room, Ann couldn’t help but feel Nicole had done so with the sole of one shoe firmly caked in shit.  She’d brought her daughter, who Ann disliked less.

“Mom,” Ann’s own daughter murmured, squeezing her arm.

“Shhh, don’t speak.”

An Other that moved in an eerie, inconsistent way, like it went from fast forwarded to half speed, wearing a suit, his long hair braided.  When he looked at Ann and her daughter, the shadows past the metal mask he wore had pinpricks of light that felt too intense to be artificially made.

“Rhecas,” Ann greeted him.

He did that eerie movement for a nod, acknowledging him.

There were more, this time.  Too many Others.

It was the climate.  Not the light snow that layered the grass but failed to cover it, but the climate of war, contests, and Lordships.

Yet in the midst of all that ugliness, there was an event like this.  Artificial, fragile, only manageable with a strong Lord that could enforce a truce and a council that would support every aspect of this.

She nodded her acknowledgement to a woman with spiky pink hair, her nails split from tip to cuticle, who was wearing a glam-grunge dress with just enough glam to it to fit the dress party atmosphere.

Elegant, quiet, somber.  There was a respect being paid to all of this that would’ve fit a funeral, but the mood was much brighter.

Then she saw Avery and her opossum.

“Avery Kelly.  What are you wearing?” Ann asked, quiet.

“Hm?” Avery grunted.  She looked at herself.  Ann saw a boy’s dress shirt in glossy green, a suit jacket, and slacks.

“I think you’ve forgotten you’re a girl,” Ann said.

“I think you’ve forgotten it’s not the nineteen hundreds anymore.”

“Does Snowdrop have fingerless gloves on?”

“I tried to say I couldn’t and shouldn’t,” Snowdrop said.  “It doesn’t match my theme.  I’m not a trash beast, I’m respectable.”

“We did what we could,” Avery said.

“Here I thought you were someone capable.  Apparently you can’t do much.”

Avery looked like she was going to say something, then said, “I’ll remember you said that, the next time you beg me for a favor.”

“I do not beg, Avery Kelly.”

Odis approached, giving Ann a sharp look.

Couldn’t fight.  There were eyes on them.  She held her tongue, thought for a second, then said, “Perhaps you should retire early.  You’re young, without a chaperone.”

“Ahem,” Snowdrop said, coughing into her hand.  “Ahem.  No professional guide and boon companion here.”

“Without an adult chaperone.”

“I think I might go soon, actually,” Avery agreed.  “Saying hi to some of the Others, making sure I don’t miss anyone.  I was hoping Gilkey would show up.  I worry.”

“Gilkey is a fine messenger and employee of our council, but I don’t imagine he’d easily fit this atmosphere.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not polished, I would say.  Not that I would expect you to understand,” Ann said, glancing at the fingerless gloves the opossum wore again.

Avery frowned.  “I, hmm, this is really nice, I can see you put in a lot of effort to make this space pretty and elegant, but I’m not sure I get it.”

“What don’t you get?” Ann asked, exercising the most patience she could.

“Why it’s so formalized.  Why cut out all the ‘uncivilized’?  Why not… why not do this every day?  Talk to them, work with them?”

“I’ll rebut that with a question, would your birthday be special if you had one every day?  Cake, gifts, people cheering for you?”

“Terrible,” Snowdrop said, shaking her head.

“Hmm, yeah, I think that would be awesome,” Avery said.  “That’s not the argument you think it is.”

“You would quickly sicken of it.”

“Would you want a birthday every day?” Avery asked Odis.

“I don’t have much time left, I’d think, so I don’t think I’d have time to get sick of it.”

“Hey, there’s one person who agrees with me.”

“Just one,” Snowdrop replied.

“What about you?” Avery asked Ann’s daughter.

Ann’s daughter looked at her mom.  “I’d get sick of it so fast.”

“Yes you would,” Ann said, proud.

“Okay, well, I guess I don’t see why we don’t always treat… them, nice, you know?” Avery asked.

“You’re so young.  So very young,” Ann retorted, giving Avery her best sweet smile.

Avery discreetly grabbed Snowdrop’s arm, before Snowdrop could poke Ann with a fork.  It looked like Avery wanted to do it herself for a second.

“Have a pleasant time saying goodbye to the last few Others and council members, and a safe trip home,” Ann said.

“Okie dokie.  Sure.  I hear tonight’s celebration is almost as good as what Florin did back when he’d run these Halloween celebrations.  So, congratulations, I guess?  Really good for a first try, apparently.”

Ann forced a smile to her face.  “Thank you, I suppose.  Oh, and just so you know, next week you will be expected to look after the goat.”

“I what?” Avery asked.  “What am I supposed to do with a goat?”

“Keep it alive,” Ann replied, tight smile still on her face.

“I live in an apartment.”

“I look forward to hearing about the inventive, safe solution you work out for that particular dilemma.  So long as the goat lives.  Good night, Avery.”

Ann guided her daughter away.

“You’re pinching my shoulder.”

Ann relaxed her grip.  Her daughter wasn’t understanding the ‘be quiet’ part.  Was she even absorbing the magic of this moment?

Had this been a mistake?  Too soon?

“Don’t ask questions, don’t comment,” she told her daughter.  Could she salvage this?  “In a few months, every mystery you see tonight will be explained.  Digest and absorb the mysteries of tonight as best you can.  From the proud and beautiful to the…”

She looked back at Avery.

“Deplorable,” her daughter said, voice crisp.

Perhaps there was something to salvage in this after all.

The car door slammed.  The cold immediately cut past Seth’s clothing, chilling him to the bone.  Skin prickled with chilblains, every nerve in his teeth sang like they were exposed to the cold air.

Foot-deep snow made every step a struggle.  He’d gotten so weak.  His boots had no traction.  How could every step be like wading through snow and walking on ice at the same time?  How could snow leak into the tops of his boots, to chase its way to his toes?  Slip down the back of his neck.

He felt like he’d die before he made it thirty feet.

“Do you need help?” Nicolette asked.

He shook his head.  “I should go on my own.”

He made it another few trudging steps.  His glove wasn’t staying on.  It found any excuse to fall off.

Some sort of animal howled in the deep woods.

He stopped, his back to Nicolette.

“You should have let me die.  Or whatever was going to happen to me, without protection.”

“Would’ve been karmically better.  You’re right,” she said.  “But it didn’t feel right.  Could’ve been me, if things had gone slightly differently.”

“I don’t get that,” Seth mumbled, eyes fixed on the white snow ahead of him.  He was so tired.

“Call it a quirk of personality,” Nicolette said.

“Quirk?”

“Having a conscience.”

“Should I give that a try?” he asked, his back still to her, his head hunched forward, his feet going numb.  “Should I ask you to go?  Don’t waste the gas or time on me.  Either this works or it doesn’t.  If it doesn’t… stop wasting time on me, stop wasting resources.  Stop making sure I eat, stop making sure I shower.  Stop making sure I don’t lose my mind.  Let the snow take me.  As a gift to you.”

“Nah,” Nicolette replied, the wind almost taking the hushed word away with it.

“Fuck you then,” he swore.  He pressed forward, and fell on his next attempt at taking a step.

The universe wouldn’t even give him a chance to deliver a serious ‘fuck you’ without a fall to chase it up.

He found his feet again, then he walked on.

Nicolette had taken him most of the way, but he had to walk the last leg of this journey himself.

Birch trees and white snow, white overcast sky, the air filled with flakes the size of dollar coins, buoyed by cold wind.

He passed through the trees, and he saw the Alabaster.  A woman, wrapped in white furs, with antlers at the shoulder, her hair pleated, her eyes lacking any iris or pupil.  She made the entire clearing too bright to look at.

Seth dropped to hands and knees in the snow.

“I’ve come to appeal,” Seth gasped out the words.  “I throw myself on your mercy.”

“I do not normally entertain the forsworn, Seth Belanger,” the Alabaster told him.

“But?” he asked.

“No but.  This is no exceptional circumstance.  I will not entertain you.  The woman who has given you sanctuary waits for you.  You may go to her.”

“Or,” the voice was rough.  “You may come to me.”

Seth raised his head.

Charles Abrams, Carmine Exile, stood in the snow.  The red of his fur coat and the rest of him seemed to sink into the snow, spreading out, turning it a shocking, bright crimson.

“May I take this off your hands?” the Carmine Exile asked the Alabaster Doe.

“You’ve taken on so many duties already.”

“Take it as a vacation.  A chance to rest,” he told her.  “It’s custom for a judge to allow another judge to take on any duty they see fit.  The divisions are arbitrary.”

“I do know the customs, Carmine Exile, you can trust that,” the Alabaster said.  She looked at Seth with cold, empty eyes.  “Do as you wish.”

As she left, the red spread further, coloring all snow, bleeding up through the trees.  As it spread far enough, the sky above them even reflected that redness in the clouds, faint.

“Unless you have an objection?” the Carmine Exile asked Seth.

“No.  But I didn’t fight.  The Carmine usually handles the… fights.”

“You’re fighting now, in a way.  So tell me.  You had Nicolette drive for almost a full day and night.  You trudged these last three hundred feet through the woods.  What do you want?”

“I said it earlier.”

“And I must hear it now.”

“I ask to appeal.  I don’t know the grounds I could do it on.  Nicolette said- that maybe it couldn’t be transferred to Alexander.”

“You’d think that with everything on the line, you’d find better.”

“She had better, I just- my mind’s a blank.  I’m cold.  And I’m not sure I deserve better.  A part of me is hoping you’ll say no and leave me to die.”

“I see that part very clearly, with all my senses.  Yet you’re here,” the Carmine Exile said.

The Carmine Exile seated himself in snow that was now so thick with blood that Seth’s hand was coated when he lifted it up and away.

“I understand,” the Carmine Exile whispered.  “That self-hatred.  The frustration.  The hopelessness.”

“You were forsworn too.”

“I understood all those things well before I was forsworn, well after.  I know you felt that way before.  That you hated yourself, hated so many things, and that you were trying to find kernels of meaning while you waited for life to happen.  You were a Belanger, even if you were a shitty one, so it had to happen, didn’t it?  Life would come to you and give you your due?”

“I dunno,” Seth mumbled, shaking hard.

“I wasn’t even a Belanger.  But I supported the wrong people and people got hurt because of that.  The wrong people got hurt, innocents got hurt, I got hurt.  I learned my lesson and then I ignored that lesson and did it again.  And again.  When you hate yourself enough, fucking up becomes an addiction.  It’s validation of those feelings, it’s a relief from the lie, taking everything a fuckup shitheel of a person doesn’t deserve and throwing it away.”

Seth pressed hands to his middle and pressed them between leg and belly, face almost in the snow.  It didn’t help.  “Are you still-?”

“I don’t know.  I hope not.  The kind of power I wield, the levers I’m pulling, the forces I’m putting in motion?  If I fuck up now, it’s no triumph for my enemies.  It’s ruin on a scale that will be a topic of conversation on the far end of the world.”

Seth shivered.

“Ask,” the Carmine Exile told him.  “Make it a clean ask.  Don’t muddle your words, don’t offer half-formed arguments.  Just ask.”

“I appeal my forswearing.  I ask you to undo it, Carmine Exile.”

“Done.”

The shiver that ran through Seth came in two flavors- one was emotional, the other a feeling of faint warmth finding itself, his skin prickling and tightening in reaction.

“That easily?  You’re not going to ask for-?” Seth asked.

“All you had to do was come to me and ask in earnest.  That’s all they had to do.”

Seth raised his head, looking.  The light bouncing off the crimson snow was warmer.

And in the trees were people.  People with dark looks in their eyes, like Seth probably had.  Some haggard, some recovering.

“Did you make them follow you, in payment?”

“No payment is necessary.  They follow me because they believe.”

“The Carmine doesn’t usually have soldiers.”

“I don’t ascribe to usually.  There’s a lot to do, the extra hands help.  But I don’t force anyone.  You’re free to go, Seth.”

“Am I free to stay?  Like they did?”

“Are you asking to stay because you believe, or are you asking to stay because you have no direction of your own?”

“I- both?”

“You should tell Nicolette, so she doesn’t wait in a snowstorm for too long.  As a matter of courtesy,” the Carmine Exile said, getting to his feet.  Melted red snow dripped off him like fresh blood.

“I will.  And then I’ll come back, and you’ll be here?”

“We will.  Tell Nicolette the Carmine Exile wishes her a merry Christmas.”

Next Chapter