Author: Wildbow

Crossed with Silver – 19.3 | Pale

Next Chapter

Avery walked on the top of the rickety fence, cornfield to her right, dirt path to her left, hand extended behind her, as she pulled Snowdrop along.

As she walked, a woman rose up to a standing position in the distance.  She stood as tall as a mountain, slender, skin bruised and cut, lips and eyelids stitched together, and she wore a dress that, from a distance, could be mistaken as dirty black material, when it was in fact an entryway.  Or a dark mirror.  A portal, with the edges being the edges of the material.

The world shifted, Avery’s gut doing a flip-flop.  Nothing moved, exactly, but Avery was left with the feeling that the woman had so much gravity to her that she could be pulled off her feet and into her.

Avery walked down the top of the fence until Snowdrop stopped, pulling her short.

“We need to go through to finish the Path.  You should think about doing it,” Snowdrop said.

“Don’t we need to get closer to talk?”

“We do, but talking is a bad idea, so we should reconsider.”

Avery nodded.

She could see past the gateway of the giant woman’s dress.  On the far side was darkness, a nighttime scene of black snow in violent flurries, but the snow failed to land on the grass, because the weather was so violent.  Some people were crawling across the ground, having strapped all kinds of things, from wood to sheafs of grass in an effort to block out the chill.

And near the front, hunkered down, was another Avery, and another Snowdrop, gaunt, bloody, stained with soot and snow.  Screaming, trying to communicate something.

Avery looked up.  “Hello!”

The giant woman with the doorway of a dress stooped down, reaching for the center of the cornfield.

Moment of truth.  Did we manage to unsnag it?

The woman picked up a sickle.  Avery exhaled in relief.  Failing to do that kind of made this whole situation a bit of a nightmare.

The woman used the blade of the sickle to cut the threads at her mouth and eyes.  While she did, the wind blew at her dress, and a fold swiped its way across cornfield, fence, and path.

It was still hard to shake the feeling that the cornfield and the fence were the wall, and the woman lay across the floor.  That Avery was clinging haphazardly to that wall, and that she could easily lose her grip and fall.  Through that door directly below her.  The movement of that ‘door’ toward Avery only made the feeling sharper.

“I was wrong, we should’ve been further down the road,” Snowdrop said.

“Yeah,” Avery agreed.

The woman finished, her mouth yawned open, and night spilled out of it, coloring the sky and casting the cornfield in a different hue.  Fireflies were stirred up from the cornfield, and became the only good and consistent source of illumination.

“Question,” the woman said.  Her voice reverberated through the realm.  “Deed.  Demand.”

“Question, please,” Avery told her, shifting her footing on the top of the fencepost.  Her stomach somersaulted from the vertigo.

“In 1452-”

“Vlad.  The Impaler,” Avery interrupted.

The woman paused.  Then she nodded.  “Question, Deed, Demand, then.”

“All questions.”

“In the 1883 novel-”

“Captain Flint,” Avery replied.

“The independent monarchy-”

“Sikkim,” Avery said.

“The Cornish prince-”

“Honor and worship from shame and pride.”

“Matisse was-”

“The Wild Beasts.”

“The first heart-”

“Groote Schuur.”

The woman looked around.

Avery felt a bit bad, that the woman had gone to all this trouble to rise out of the cornfield, be imposing, evoke night, put on her nice gateway-to-hell-dimension dress, and she was being bypassed like this.

“You, um, really need to update your questions,” Avery said.  “It’s the same two hundred, some are used by the Teacher in Falling Oak Avenue, others appear in other places.  It’s like some case of a hundred copies of the same trivia book got Lost and got incorporated into different paths.”

“Is that your requested boon?  That I ‘update’ my questions?”

“Hmmm…” Avery drew out the sound, looking at Snowdrop.

“Yes,” Snowdrop whispered.

“…Didn’t know that was an option.  Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know.”

Avery looked around, saw a bit down the path, where a tree grew over the dirt path and the branch was in reach of the fence, and moved down that way, mindful of the dress and how the wind blew at it.  It was hard to tell, with the only proper light being from the fireflies, but in the gloom, the near-black snow on the far side of the dress looked almost bright, compared to everything here.

She saw the fruit and fought past the vertigo as she stretched up on her toes to grab it.  Snowdrop helped keep her balanced as she on the fence-slat.  Avery held the fruit up.

The woman moved, stepping out toward the cornfield, her dress sweeping past.  The landscape behind her was different than it had been.  There was a gate, now, and rolling hills.

“Are you okay?” Avery asked.

The woman stopped, turning.

“Yeah.  Are you okay, Scarecrow Keeper?”

“Good idea here,” Snowdrop said.  “No way it’ll backfire.”

“Will it?  Or are you just worried it could?” Avery asked.

“It couldn’t backfire, don’t worry.”

“Why ask?” the Scarecrow Keeper asked.

“Seems like a dark, lonely path.  I mean, you’ve got company inside your dress, but that doesn’t seem like good company, and the whole process seems… not great.  Cutting your eyes and mouth free of the threads?  Then questions, deeds, demands, and if they can’t deliver, you sweep in, send them to the wrong realm, send terrible things after people to go back to Earth with them, or replace them with…”

Avery gestured at the other Avery, who was screaming, banging her hands against an invisible barrier.  Too far away to hear.

“It’s what I’ve always done, as far as I can remember.”

“But are you okay?  I don’t think I’m going to pass through very often, but if I did, or if someone I knew did, I could have them bring something.”

“If circumstances were different, I would ask for a replacement.”

“For?”

“Me.  Another to be the Scarecrow Keeper, so I could depart.  But there’s little time.  The ties run too deep.”

“Yeah?  What do you mean?”

“This path is heavy with the treads of many Finders and Path Runners.  The boons have been drained, we’ll find our way to Earth soon enough.”

“What happens to you then?”

“The destination point is marked.  We’ll be harvested for power and put to purpose.”

Avery looked back at Snowdrop.  “Who’s we?”

The Scarecrow Keeper shifted her grip on the sickle, and brought it toward Avery.  Avery tensed, crouching down to the fence, ready to use her shoes, but the sickle slowed as it approached.

A firefly landed at its very tip, and was brought within an inch of Avery’s nose.

“Ah.  Wouldn’t you want to leave, then?”

“I’m tied to this place.  They would pull on those threads.”

“Or… maybe I could change the questions?  And tell people to be careful?”

“Those who are already preparing to dismantle every part of this path would quickly work out a way through, or they would put their best to deed and demand, instead of question, to safely drive this home.”

“Ah,” Avery replied.  There was an option to do a task or to go fetch something, the first of which could be dangerous, the second of which could let you back to Earth, only for trouble to come crashing down around you if you couldn’t hunt down the obscure item, whether it was a 1981 penny or a slipper of one of the ruling Fae of one of the seven courts.  And the Scarecrow Keeper would ask six times.

The questions were easiest.

“It is done, Avery Kelly.  I’ve lived a long existence, this is how I end.”

“Like a bird flying for the first time, joining its flock,” Snowdrop said.

Avery had a vivid image from Snowdrop, and she would have been very confused if she didn’t know what Snowdrop was thinking of.  A TV animal documentary on whale fall.  The localized ecosystem created when a whale died and dropped to the ocean floor.

“Grim but evocative,” the Scarecrow Keeper replied.

“Who’s doing it?  Taking you to pieces?” Avery asked.

“You know who.  Best if I don’t say.”

Avery nodded.  Wonderkand.  “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve killed many of your kind.  Many of her kind.”

“Yes, kill all the opossums,” Snowdrop said, deadpan.  “We deserve it.”

“Lost, not opossums.”

“Extra true.”

“I’m still sorry,” Avery said.  “You remind me of friends.  Nibble and Chloe.”

“The ghouls.”

Avery nodded.  “You know?”

“I’m large enough I can see things from angles you can’t.  Perhaps I once was a ghoul, before I was Lost.”

“You sure you don’t want anything?  Music?  A story?  Something to while away the time?”

“Time has a different meaning.  An eternity and a nothing pass when there is nobody Time recognizes here.  I’ll ask you a favor, however.  Go, but don’t go alone.”

A dozen fireflies went to Avery.

“Alright.”

“I would give you more, but that could be considered a boon, and you’ve already taken yours.”

Avery looked at the fruit in her hand.  “I could give it back.”

“It’s plucked.  So much of what we do is irreversible, the paths we travel don’t allow travel back.  I’ve been bound to this path for a long time.  I look forward to quiet.”

“I don’t think it’s quiet.  It’s… nothing.  Oblivion.  It’s as quiet as it is noisy,” Avery said.

“Perhaps.”

“I think Luca Garrick might be coming through.  If this Path will still be here, in the next few weeks?  He could, hmm, evacuate some of your guys?” Avery asked.

“I will be here for the next six or seven visitors.  If that’s the boon he chooses, that will be a relief.”

Avery nodded.  “I should go.  Someone’s waiting for me.”

“The way is clear.”

Avery raised a hand in a wave and as acknowledgement, then broke into a run down the fence.  The Path was still dangerous, her stomach still lurched from that feeling that down was any way through and into the Scarecrow Keeper, and she had to time the run, staying balanced on the fence.  The Path let someone choose the terrain they wanted to go through, but the field let someone get lost, the road meant obstacles, and there were things that needed doing on both sides to free the sickle so the Scarecrow Keeper could use it, or she’d attack blindly, and turn this into a fight.  The fence worked as a compromise.

The dress blew in the wind, and Avery braced herself.  If that dress extended all the way to the fence-

The Scarecrow Keeper moved the sickle, trapping fabric against her leg, limiting how far it moved.

“Thank you!” Avery called out.

Fireflies reached her, and she put her arm out, letting them land.

She leaped from the fence to the gate, and that vertigo hit again, at the same time her trajectory changed.  She fell through, the gates crashed open, and she dropped, Snowdrop turning into an opossum and clinging to her wrist.

She landed in snow, sending up a plume of snow.

“Cold!” she shouted.  “Cold cold cold!”

“Hullo!”

Her dad was there, at the fence.  In the snow just past the fence was a series of circular holes.  The Left Field had rules for where it dropped people off, and one possibility was a field close to a desired destination, where there were exactly seven pieces of produce in an arrangement.

The snow was deep, and it got deeper close to the fence, where the wind had blown it against the surface and then it had formed a dune.  Avery was wearing only her sweatshirt, and she felt like stopping to put on her coat when she was waist high in snow would be sort of pointless.

“Is the coast clear!?” she asked.  “Anyone watching?”

“No, I don’t think so!”

“Fireflies, into my sleeve where it’s snug.  Snow-”

Snowdrop was already working her way in between sweatshirt and shoulder.

“-yeah.”

Once everyone was settled, Avery tapped her foot three times, then leaped.

The second leap got her from the middle of the field to the fence, and the snow was chest-deep there.  She leaped again, past her dad, toward the parking lot, where it was a little shallower, having been cleared away.  She trudged her way out, her dad following.

“Hi Dad, love you, nice to see you,” she greeted him quickly.  She gave him a hug.  “Brr.  Give me a few minutes?  Gotta get snow out from under my shirt and stuff, and I drank too much juice with breakfast, I’ve needed to use the washroom since I was five minutes into that Path.”

“Go,” her dad said, with humor in his voice.  “I can wait a few more minutes.”

“I wasn’t too long was I?” she asked, hurrying toward the roadside fast food place.

“Not too long.  Ten minutes or so.”

“Sorry!  Got to talking to the Scarecrow Keeper, she’s this big powerful thing at the end of the Path, she seemed a bit like she was in a bad place-”

“Go!  Tell me after.”

Avery went to the fast food place, shaking her clothes at the door to get rid of the worst of the snow, while her dad went to the car.

“It’s a good thing you can use the familiar bond to even out how full our bladders are,” Snowdrop said, once they were in the bathroom.

“Man, that’d be convenient,” Avery said, bringing a wad of paper towel with her into the stall, to get the damp from the snow.

A couple minutes later, hands washed, she shook out the charm, releasing her winter coat, and pulled it on, faintly warm from Summer.  She fixed her hair in the mirror, then got her water bottle out of her bag and filled it at the sink.

She peeked down her sleeve.  “You guys good?”

The fireflies pulsed.

“Cool.  We’ll get you situated after, kay?”

Avery ordered some deep-fried pickles and a little salad, then went out to the car.

“Thanks for waiting.”

“Not a problem.  You look good.  Hi Snowdrop.”

Snowdrop sneezed, before adjusting her position, dropping down from a spot near Avery’s shoulder down to her stomach, butt resting against Avery’s lap.  Avery fixed her sweatshirt to better cradle Snowdrop and keep the warmth in.

“I probably look frazzled.  Hmmm, speaking of, can I be crummy and make a call?  I’ve got this fruit, and I really should know what kind of fruit it is, before there are any problems.  And I should tell Jude what’s up with the Left Field before I forget.”

She showed her dad the fruit, which looked like it was halfway between apple and pear.

“Sure.  Whatever you need to do.”

She got her phone out, which necessitated adjusting the tilt of her body to get into the narrow pocket, which got a note of protest from Snowdrop, and then she dialed Jude.  She fixed Snowdrop’s position, carefully belted herself in, and was halfway through opening the deep fried pickle container when Jude picked up.

“Hey, Avery.”

“Heya.  You free?”

“Got some friends over.  Why?”

“Just ran the Left Field, I’m nowhere near my books.  Also, general notes and tips.”

“I can step away for a bit.”

“I feel like I’m inconveniencing everyone today.”  She mouthed a ‘sorry’ at her dad.  He smiled and shook his head.

Snowdrop got more comfortable in Avery’s lap.

“It’s fine,” Jude said.  “Did you get dumped out into a remote location?  I doubt it’s that remote if you’ve still got cell service.”

“Just looking up the fruit boon.  My dad set up my landing, did a good job.  He’s in the car.  Here, let me put you on speaker phone.”

“Got it.  For the record, you know the deal, I’m recording this call, keeping Uncle Peter happy.”

“Okay.  You’re on speaker, me, my dad, Snowdrop in the car.”

“Hi Mr. Kelly.”

“Hi Jude.”

“That’s good though.  My cousin Adorea got dumped from the Left Field to a farm about four hours east of Bogotá, Colombia.  She really wanted to turn that mistake into a short vacation in Venezuela.  They weren’t down with a fifteen year old girl vacationing alone in South America, they made her take a Path back.  I got the notes open.”

“Cool.  Yellow-green, bit like a pear, bit like an apple.  Heavy.”

“Waxy?”

“No.  Couple of brown spots.”

“That’s the Leftover Fruit.  Keep it around, it’ll help keep stuff from going bad.  Works better if it’s on display.  Eat it and you get a temporary effect, means all the food you eat, potions you drink, powders you use, bullets, anything you’d use up, there’s a good chance there’ll be something left over, when you go back, reach back into that container, pocket, whatever.”

“Hey Dad, want to stick it in a cupboard, enchant the kitchen a bit?” she asked her dad.

“I don’t think food goes bad in our house.  Even with the household split, everything gets eaten.”

“True that.  Okay.  Cool.  Also, Jude, the Left Field is sinking, it’s going to hit Earth, I think a certain organization already has people there and waiting for it to happen.  Six or seven visitors from now, it’s gone.”

“Good to know.  You know this how?”

“I asked.”

“That’s a very Avery answer because it leaves me with more questions.  You asked who?  The Path is empty except for-”

“The Scarecrow Keeper.”

“Ah.  Sure.”

“If Luca or another Garrick passes through soon enough, they can ask for fireflies.  Different boon.”

“What’s the point of the fireflies?”

“Dunno!  But they can ask.  It’d be nice, evacuate some before the Path becomes a location somewhere and gets dismantled.  I’d consider it a favor.”

“Alright.  I’ll pass that on.  Can I file the info on the fruit?  I think they pay like, fifty bucks for that.  And I could file the stuff about the boon and the fact the Path is disappearing.  Spare you the paperwork.”

“Spare me the paperwork and collect the prize?  I know other Finder families and groups pay for that.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Jude said, sounding innocent.

“As thanks for doing this call with me, how about you pass on the info on the fruit, I’ll file the rest?”

“Fifty bucks for a quick phone call and some research is a pretty good deal.  Send me a photo of the fruit?”

Avery took a few pictures and texted it to Jude.

“There.  Talk to you later?  We’ll talk prep for the Promenade?”

“For sure.”

“Enjoy your friends.”

“The movie we’re watching is so bad.  Enjoy your time with your dad.  Bye Mr. Kelly, bye Snowdrop, if she’s around.”

“She’s sleeping.  Bye.”

“Yep.”

Avery hung up before the goodbye could string out any further.  She sighed, which got an unconscious sigh of a response from Snowdrop, then she turned to her dad.  “Hi.”

“Hi.  How are you?”

“Starting out our road trip with damp clothes, but otherwise I’m pretty good.  How are you?  Safe travel?  No trouble on the way over?”

“No.  So far so good.”

“Hopefully it’s the same for the way back.  I don’t want it to be an issue, where you get recognized as my family member and then the Lords of the nearby territories kick up a fuss.”

“Just tell me what to do.”

“Okay.  Was Uncle Sean’s okay?”

“Grumpy but he’s playing along.  Kind of hoping the one weekend gives him more of an idea of what goes into caring for Grumble.”

Uncle Sean and Aunt Tracy were watching Grumble, Declan, and Kerry for the weekend.  Part of a tentative deal between Uncle Sean and Avery’s dad to share the load when it came to caring for Grumble.

“Let’s hope,” Avery agreed.  “He came alone?”

“Just him and Aunt Tracy.  They left Kyle to babysit Caleb.”

“Hmm.”

“Status report?  You just ran a Path, tell me how that works.”

“I’ve got food that’s getting cold, might be awkward to talk around the food in my mouth.”

The mention of food partially woke Snowdrop up.  She wriggled.

“Between Kerry, Declan, and Grumble, I’ve gotten pretty used to bad table manners.  Tell me about the Path, then tell me where we’re going.”

Destination one.

Avery had looked it up on wooble maps and it hadn’t been winter when that image was captured, and the building here hadn’t been complete.  It had been something in construction in the middle of rolling hills, not that far from the lake.  A scattered community surrounded it, and there was a row of houses on the far side of the road, relatively close by, and one larger building that looked like it was made of a bunch of shipping containers connected together – it wasn’t, but the corrugated metal sides, painted red, had that look to them.

It was a bit of an odd look, a cube-ish modern office building in the middle of nowhere, stone exterior, tinted windows, a cleared parking lot, and lights, surrounded by older, quaint houses that had seen better days.  A bunch of snowmobiles were parked at the side.

Her dad pulled into the parking space.  Avery moved the sun-shield thingy down to use the mirror that was built into the one side of it, and fixed her hair.

“No jokes,” she told her dad, not for the first time.

“I know.  I know you think of me as a goofball, but I can be serious.”

“Okay,” she said.  She hadn’t ever actually seen her dad at work, except to visit once or twice when he needed to pick something up.  She got Snowdrop up, then grabbed her bag and got out of the car.  Snowdrop became human, and Avery smoothed her hair down a bit, before giving her a once-over.  The shirt was one Avery had seen before, just O.P. and a graffiti-style opossum.  “Watch what you say?”

“I’m going to go on a huge rant like I did at Thunder Bay.”

“Good.”

The fact that a portion of the building was tinted windows made it a bit unclear whether the door was on the one side- Avery checked, then went around to another side of the building before seeing the subtle handle.  Her dad beat her there and held the door open.  Inside was a little reception terminal, with illuminated buttons.  Various businesses and charities.  Unsure, Avery hit the one for ‘reception’.

“Hello?” the voice came through the intercom.

Avery pressed the button to reply.  “Avery Kelly, I have a meeting with the Anishinaabe council?”

“There is more than one council in this building, Mrs. Kelly,” the reply came.

“I think it’s the Council of Good Humans?” Avery asked, unsure, before letting go of the button.

There was only silence on the other end.

“I think I might’ve screwed that up?” Avery asked her dad.

He shrugged and shook his head.

A young woman with olive skin and a dark green cardigan came to the door, then opened it.  With a tone more weary than Avery had heard over the intercom, she said, “Come in.  Upstairs, turn right at the top of the stairs, go down the hall.”

“Thank you,” Avery said.

The woman went back to her desk, while Avery, Snowdrop, and her dad went upstairs, then down the hall.

Five people sat at a long table that faced an otherwise empty room that could’ve been used as a dance hall.  Five chairs had been placed out in that empty space, and more were stacked up in the corner.  Three of the five people were sitting together at one end, talking, papers and a laptop in front of them, and two were working on their own.

Avery was glad that the oldest person in the room was easy enough to identify- a heavyset sixty or seventy year old man with deep wrinkles and folds around his eyes, graying hair in braids.  The other two people at one end were younger, fair-skinned and fair-haired, with very strong cheekbones, and Avery was pretty sure they were siblings or something, at a glance.  Then there was a heavyset woman that made Avery think of a First Nations version of her aunt Clara, peering through reading glasses at paperwork, and a First Nations man in a gray suit, no tie, thick black hair parted, talking quietly on the phone.

Avery approached one of the chairs, and stood behind it, hands on the back of the seat, waiting.

“We’ll be with you in one moment, just let us wrap up what we’re doing.”

“Thank you,” Avery said.  She put her bag on her seat and opened it while she waited.

They were talking in quieter voices about a school.  The man in the suit finished his phone call, and the woman put her paperwork aside, removing the reading glasses.

The older man moved to the center seat, sitting down in the center, and the others moved their seats, spacing themselves out roughly evenly across the table.

“Your names?”

“Avery Kelly.  This is my dad, Connor Kelly.  And my familiar, Snowdrop.  Opossum boon companion.”

“Why do you speak for your dad, Avery?” the older man asked.  “Can’t he speak?”

“My daughter was introduced to the world of Practice in May.  I only found out about it this fall.  I haven’t Awakened, I’m only here to keep her company and help where I can.  She’s the one who knows more about what’s going on.”

The older man didn’t look impressed with that.  “Sit.”

Avery sat, putting her bag at her feet.  Her dad and Snowdrop sat as well.

“I’m Gene Harlow.  The pair here to my left are Helena and David Stately.  Sitting to my right are Lea Littlewood and Joe Gagnon.”

“Pleased to meet you.  Oh, hm.  I was told gifts might be nice, if that’s alright?”

“Who told you?” Mr. Harlow asked, brusque.

“A friend.  Jessica Casabien.”

“Do we know this Jessica?” Mr. Harlow asked her.

“You might?” Avery asked.  “I don’t know.  She’s on the other side of lake.”

“Do we know her?” Mr. Harlow asked.

“I know her,” Joe, the man in the suit, said.  “We talked a few times.  Sharp.  She’s good.  Went in her own direction.  In five or ten years, I think we’d want her in a group like ours.  Not our group, she’s not close enough for that, but a group like it.  Do I think she’d accept?  I don’t know.”

“Is it worth reaching out to her?” Helena asked.

“Probably would scare her away instead of bringing her in close.”

“But we can trust her taste in people?” Mr. Harlow asked.

Joe nodded, shrugging one shoulder.

“Gifts are welcome,” Mr. Harlow told Avery.

Avery reached into her bag, and got things out.  “I’m told wine is customary as a gift, but I’m only fourteen.  I wasn’t sure what to give, I thought homemade baking might be nice for the effort, but also maybe chocolates, so I ended up getting both.  If one’s not okay, I hope the others are appreciated.”

She put a container of magic cookie bars and a box of chocolate bars down on the table in front of Mr Harlow.  The container of magic cookie bars had tape on the lid, on which she’d written out some ingredients people might be allergic to: coconut, pecans.  He was the one who should be shown the most respect, served first.

“Thank you for making the time,” she said, as she returned to her seat.

“Breaking up the monotony of the days,” Helena said.

“Monotony is good, progress is monotonous,” Mr. Harlow said, in a rote tone that suggested he’d said it a lot.  “What are you here for, Avery?”

“I’m on a bit of a mission, to reach out, see who could be a friend, who needs help, who can give it, networking, connecting.  I thought it’d be a mistake to ignore the First Nations and their practitioners.”

“We don’t need you to save us,” he replied.  He pried open the lid on the container, and took a magic cookie bar, taking a bite, before holding it out for others.  Lea took one.

“Yeah, for sure.  I just figured the world is a better place when people talk, compare notes, share.  It’s pretty intense out there.”

“We’re a small group serving a small nation, Avery,” Helena said, leaning forward.  “Most of us aren’t strong practitioners.  We deal with a practice-related crisis every other year.  When there’s a problem, a lot of the time, we contract out to other communities for assistance.”

“We do fine,” Mr. Harlow said, brusque again.

“We’ve managed so far.  We do.  We do fine,” Helena said.  “We’re not leadership, we’re an eccentric group the leadership ask when they don’t know who else to put on a problem.  A lot of the time, that lines up with those crisis situations.  But most of the time it’s community work.  Most of our focus lately has been on getting this business center up and running, trying to help the school find teachers, and trying to get kids more invested in the community center.  Practice barely factors in.  We don’t have many practitioners.”

“And practice won’t factor into this discussion,” Mr. Harlow said.  “What we know, what we do, how we approach practice, and what we do with or to get past your Seal isn’t for you to know.”

“Absolutely,” Avery said.  “Okay.”

“So what do you want?”

“Part of what I’m doing, is I’m trying to get people to use a computer program called the Black Box.  It’s a bad name, but it’s a way of tracking the trouble that’s out there, everyone sharing notes.  If something came into your neighborhood or if there was trouble, it could mean you know what to do, what not to do, how dangerous it is.  And anything you happened to add to it might save lives.”

“Do we know what this is?” Mr. Harlow asked, head tilting toward Joe Gagnon again.

“I’ve looked at it.  Slow to load, not very intuitive.  Ugly program.”

“All programs are ugly to me,” Mr. Harlow grumbled.  “I don’t get this tech.  Apps.  Too old for that.”

Avery nodded.  “It’s not pretty but especially when things are kinda super not great out there, I think it’s important.”

Joe wrinkled his nose, clearly unimpressed.

David, Helena’s brother, leaned forward, elbows on the table.  “What do you think, Joe?”

“I think Mr. Sunshine could really stand to hire someone to make his programs more user friendly.”

“Sunshine?  Do we know him?” Mr. Harlow asked.

“He’s one of them.  Very much one of them,” Joe said.

“Ahhh,” Mr. Harlow said.

Joe looked at Avery.  “Do you know him?”

“We’ve talked a few times.  I attended the school briefly.”

“Why only briefly?” Joe asked.

“The school was… a mess.  It had a civil war.  The kind of war everyone loses, I think.  We kind of cheated our way in, and once the dust settled, it was better that we left.  The new headmaster coming in, we wouldn’t have gotten away with what we got away with, with Alexander Belanger.”

“That doesn’t sound right.  Not many people got away with things with Alexander.”

“It was… complicated.”

“That sounds more right, when it comes to Alexander.  Okay.”

“Alexander came to me once,” Mr. Harlow said.  “I was younger, he wanted teachers.  I thought, we don’t have enough teachers here.  I wouldn’t have, even if I liked him, but I didn’t like him in the slightest.  And every single thing I’ve heard about him since has told me that feeling was on point.”

Joe was nodding.

Alexander thinks Mr. Harlow was good enough to be a guest teacher, Avery thought.  They said most of the practitioners here weren’t strong, but they didn’t say they were all weak.

Avery clasped her hands in her lap.  “Alexander is gone, but someone worse is in his place now.  Kind of.  The school closed down.  Abraham Musser.”

“And after this Abraham Musser I’m sure there will be someone else and I probably won’t like him either,” Mr. Harlow said, a bit dismissively.  “What’s the relationship between this Sunshine and Belanger?  Or Musser?”

“He was a teacher at the school,” Joe said.  “Sometimes.”

“Ahhhh.  Then I’m not sure I like this Black Box business.  Anyone associated with the people at that school, it worries me.  The way they think, the way they deal.  Anyone disagree?”

“May I?” Avery asked.

“You may,” Mr. Harlow said.

“I think… Raymond Sunshine is a very smart person who is really good at what he does, but I don’t think he’s a bad person.  I think he’s a mostly good person who was in the same sort of situation you were, he was talented enough for Alexander to pay attention, he was asked to teach, but his emotional awareness?  I think he didn’t get the bad feeling.  He should’ve, but he didn’t.  He didn’t… a lot of times.”

Mr. Harlow rubbed at his chin.

“There were a lot of people like that around Alexander.  Including the current Carmine Exile.  But being emotionally dumb doesn’t mean Raymond Sunshine isn’t smart in other ways, and it doesn’t mean that he’s not doing good here.”

Mr. Harlow rubbed at his chin some more.  “Joe?  You know this Mr. Sunshine.”

“I believe it.”

“Okay.  Alright,” Mr. Harlow said, dropping his hand from his chin.  “What do you think, Joe?  You think you can keep an eye on this Black Box?”

Joe wrinkled his nose again.  “Yeah.  If you’ll do me a favor, Avery?”

“What’s the favor?”

“Tell Raymond Sunshine to make this more user-friendly.  I don’t know if he’ll listen, but it really can’t hurt to ask.”

“I’m friendly with his apprentice.  Another friend of Jessica’s.  I can tell him to tell Ray.  I don’t know if he’ll listen either.”

Joe nodded.

“I’d also like to leave you my contact information.  We can talk as much or as little as you want, but as someone who’s a protector and guardian for another small community, I think there’s common ground.  If you’re in our neck of the woods, I think we can host you, or take you out to dinner.  Or if you have a question, I can try to answer.”

“I’ll take that,” Joe said, at the same time Mr. Harlow frowned.

Avery got up from her seat and gave Joe the sheet.

Mr. Harlow put a hand on one side of his face, elbow on the table, turning to look at Joe.  “Be careful.  We don’t want to get seen as taking any sides.”

“I’ll be careful.  But it seems I’ve become the person handling outside business, practice and non-practice.  I might as well have her information.”

“If you reach out to her, you reach out to all sides.  Right now we’re being left alone.  The new monstrous Lords don’t interfere with us, we leave them be.  Let’s not upset that balance.”

Joe nodded.

“You’re reaching out to the practitioners of other nations?”

“Yes.  And practitioner families on the sidelines, solo practitioners, Others… anyone.  I feel like something bad is happening, and depending on how things go, we might end up really wishing we were in contact with more people.”

“I’ll let them know you’re coming,” Mr. Harlow said.  He raised a hand slightly off the table.  “That’s not necessarily a good thing, or a bad thing.  I’ll tell them what I think.”

Avery nodded.

“I don’t know how similar our communities are or aren’t,” Mr. Harlow mused.  He rubbed at his chin again.  “My instinct is you’re being presumptuous.  But I’ll extend you the benefit of a doubt and wish you luck with that.”

“Thank you.”

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll wish you a good day and safe driving in this snowstorm, as well.”

Their cue to go.

As Avery got up, Mr. Harlow pushed away from the table, moving down to the end where the paperwork and laptop were.  Lea reached for her papers, and went to say something to Joe, but Joe got up, fixing the button in his jacket as he rounded the table.

He walked Avery, her dad, and Snowdrop out to the hallway.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, in a way that suggested he’d have something to say when he did.

They’d stopped at an intersection on their way through a town, and a phone rang.  It was an eerie jangle.

“Ignore it,” Avery said.

“That’s across the street.”

“Yep, and ignore it,” Avery said, quiet.  She checked the papers she’d brought with.

The connection block was gone.

The phone kept going.  She glanced over.

A pay phone.

Yeah, it was a bad idea to ignore a Lord of any territory, but accepting the invitation to meet would probably be a disaster.

The light changed, and her dad pulled ahead.  The cars ahead and behind them turned left and right.  They passed into the next section of street, where there was a big ‘slow’ sign, and a bend in the road.  Construction equipment had been set up around a manhole, then abandoned, taking up half the street.

A phone rang.  A convenience store at the corner of the residential block had a pay phone.

“I know I’m meant to ignore that,” her dad said.

“Please do.”

“But just so I know, how serious is this?”

“Serious,” Avery murmured.

Snowdrop crawled out from under Avery’s sweatshirt and made her way to the back seat, becoming human.

“What’s the plan?”

“You keep going,” Avery said, as she got her spell cards out, and made sure her bag was open.  “I see if I can’t stall them long enough that we can get away.”

A dark cloud passed over the sun, and the area dimmed.  Her dad wove around the various bits of construction.

Avery glanced around.

Yeah.  They were lapsing out of reality.  They’d been on course to get somewhere more residential, but it ended up being something of an extension of downtown.  A strip mall on one side, a school on the other.

And zero people now.  No cars.

Phones in front of three stores jangled, ringing.

The sky darkened again, as if another, darker cloud had passed over the last one.

Avery wasn’t used to feeling the worst of the itch of Zoomtown.  She had the boon that made it easier to navigate crowds and traffic.  It was meant to kick in when she was in the car with someone else as driver, but it didn’t because she couldn’t drive yet.

She was feeling it now.  She wanted to tell her dad to be prepared to dodge, get out of the way of any trouble, maybe peel out, maybe brake hard.  And the natural answer to that would be her being behind the wheel.  It was a weird, conflicting sort of logic, feeling like she was sure she could do a better job in a pinch, except she also knew she couldn’t drive.

A half-dressed human body dropped out of the sky and hit one of the barricades protecting a bit of open road with exposed pipe and wire.

“Jesus fuck my grandmother!” Avery’s dad shouted.  “The fuck?”

“Drive.”

He hit the gas, maneuvering more recklessly past the construction.

Phones lined either side of the road, now, and they all rang.

Two more human bodies dropped.  Her dad evaded one, and drove over another.

“Jesus fucked my grandmother,” Snowdrop said.  “I have a long and detailed family history and I know that for a fact.”

“Not helping, Snow!” Avery raised her voice.

“I actually don’t mind the levity, Snowdrop,” Avery’s dad said, his voice strained and held at a raised, atonal level.  “Distract me.”

“You won’t even have to bribe me with milk.”

“I will happily give you whatever you want, and we don’t even need extortion for that,” Avery’s dad kept talking in that atonal, almost robotic, forced voice.  “You’re protecting my daughter and giving her guidance, and that’s really cool.”

“I do a really shit job of it, you know.”

“That’s great.  I love it.  Why the obsession with milk, Snowdrop?”

“It’s totally not because I have issues with my mom leaving me to starve.”

“I getcha.”

Avery rolled down her window, unbuckled, then raised herself up off her seat, sitting inside the window.  She told Snowdrop, “Don’t let me fall.  And don’t run into anything, Dad.”

“What are you doing?” her dad asked.

Avery put her legs out, Snowdrop hugged her ankles, and Avery leaned out to the side.  She pulled a charm off her charm bracelet.  A small wooden wheel with a broken, bent axle.

She had to crane herself all the way back, arms and body stretched out, one hand gripping the handgrip above the door, the other extended down toward the road, trying to get the wheel to touch.  The axle wasn’t long enough.

She let go of the handgrip, trusting Snowdrop’s grip on her ankles.  She arched her body backwards and out, and touched wheel to road.  It squealed as it spun up, metal grating on metal, sparks flying.

Her stomach lurched as the car veered to one side, her dad avoiding another body.

“Killwagon, Killwagon, Killwagon!” Avery shouted, as the wheel started spinning fast enough.  “For Kennet!  I know this is expensive, summoning a visceral Other like you, no prep, I need Kennet to pay!  Save our asses like we talked about!”

Then she let go, did the biggest sit-up of her life, to get back to the handgrip, and slide back into the car.

The wheel spun, bounced, and skittered as it kept going ahead of her dad’s car, which wasn’t going slow.

Killwagon came out of the darkness, wheels squealing, as his wheelchair collided with the wheel in the road, and that wheel fused into place.  The bogeyman, Toadswallow’s acquaintance, sped ahead a bit, hauling the wagon behind.

“What do you need!?” he hollered.

“Out!” Avery shouted.

“How do I get you out?  I don’t think you’d want a ride to where I’d take you!”

“Get-” Avery looked.  “Clear the payphones out!”

Killwagon sped up, reached overhead, and then pulled down the metal framing that arched over his head, lowering down into a kind of brutal, spiked cattle-catcher around his lower body.

He swerved, then slammed into the rows of payphones, uprooting them one after another.

“Follow him,” Avery told her dad.

He moved over, following the same course, as Killwagon plowed through about a hundred pay phones.

And light broke.

They reached the other side.  Highway, past the town.  Further from the urban.

The Lord was a Lord, but he was still a technomancy Other.

Outside of the urban area, the influence dropped away.

Avery exhaled.  “Thanks Snow.  Good job, Dad.  I guess we’re going to have to figure out something for the return trip, huh?”

Her dad was white-knuckle gripping the steering wheel.

“You okay?” Avery asked.

“I think so.  Keep driving?”

“Safe bet,” Avery told him.

“Post-situation report?” he asked.

“You were in the situation.”

“Talk me through it anyway.”

“That was the Dropped Call.  Lord of one of the areas.  If we stopped, he was going to take issue with the fact Milly got free on her own and stopped the Child-thief, the Beorgmann.  So we didn’t stop.  He tried to close the net on us anyway, Killwagon cleared away the phones he puts up as fenceposts around his altered reality.”

“How bad was it?” her dad asked.  “You hurt?”

“No.  Not hurt.  You?”

“I’m fine, but I think I sprained a glute, clenching so hard.  Mentally okay?”

“Yeah.  Glad we got clear.  We had a plan.”

“How bad was it?” he asked.

All routine questions.

“Bad but not too bad,” Avery told him.  A response she’d given before, in her phone calls to let him know what she was doing.

“You’ve dealt with worse, huh?”

That’s not even in the top ten.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

Number two.

The phone rang.

“Hi Avery,” Raquel said.

“I’m just down the road from Mr. Knox’s place,” Avery said.  She leaned forward, squinting.  A cabin in the woods had been done up in a very fancy way, no dollar spared, except to draw a bit of a line when it came to keeping it a cabin.  It looked like there was a pool built into the porch that extended around the four-story property.  Cars were parked beneath.  “You said to call?”

“Your sister’s late with her podcast.  Tell her to get on it.”

“She made an announcement saying she’d be late.  Exams.”

“Tell her to drop out, and focus on the podcast.”

“I’ll tell her one of her fans said that, okay.  I think my parents won’t be keen though.  Hmm.  Do you mind switching gears, focusing on this thing?  I’m worried he’s going to look out his window and go on the offensive or something.”

Avery’s dad shifted the car out of park, into reverse, peering forward.

“He’s a pussycat.  But he likes to dream about being a tiger.  I talked to Kass a couple days ago, after you called, apparently her dad is pretty mad about not getting respect, with everything going on.  Stick-in-dickhole mad.”

Avery snorted.  “Raquel!  That’s not like you.”

“I liked the line, I wanted to work it in there somewhere.”

“In what way isn’t he getting respect?” Avery asked.

“He was friendly with Bristow, Bristow was friendly with my uncle, but my uncle isn’t friendly with Mr. Knox, you know?  And things are pretty bad, you know?  My uncle has lost friends, he’s running out of allies to call in and people to strongarm into trying to deal with the Lord situation.  They’re holing up in Toronto, fighting to keep it, and…”

“Attrition,” Avery said.

“Yeah.  So every once in a while, my uncle will have someone say, you know, they have family business to see to, they wish him the best, but they’re not in a situation to keep contributing to this.  And they’ll give gifts and promise future aid, but they’re basically bailing.  And then my uncle goes and he calls in others, and every time he skips over Kass’s dad, Kass’s dad gets more and more stick-in-dickhole P.O.’ed.”

“Ahhhh.  So he’s basically the last guy picked for a team in gym class?”

“Yeah, or he’s getting to be in that position.  I don’t think it’s because he sucks that much, don’t get me wrong.  He earned his stripes okay as a practitioner.”

“It’s because your uncle hates him?”

“Probably said something crass at a party and my uncle won’t let it go.  Anyway, the way he deals with being disrespected is to disrespect everyone he thinks is lower than him.  Which includes Kass.  And, judging by the fact he’s been ignoring your calls, last I heard-?”

Raquel made it a question.

“Still ignoring my calls,” Avery confirmed.

“-includes you too.  Makes him feel big and important to shrug you off.”

Avery sighed.

“Do you see his car?  Black Luxur TX?” Raquel asked.

“I don’t know cars that well.  Let me ask my dad.  Black Luxur TX?”

“Yep,” Avery’s dad said.

“Yeah,” Avery passed it on.

“Then he’s home.  Anything else?”

“Heavy duty car with a weird texture to it.”

“That’s the bulletproof one.  Which is totally unwarranted, but that tells you more about the kind of person he is.”

“Okay.”

“He’s probably alone, or Kass is with.  If you think of Anthem and my uncle as being part of a group, then think of Kass’s dad and Larry Bristow as being another group.  Get what I mean?”

“Oh no,” Avery groaned.

“Bluster, bravado, showmanship.  They act like they’re bigger than they are, and wait for the world to believe the lie.”

“I think I get it.  Okay.”

“Make a big show to get his attention.  The bigger the better.  Similar story to Bristow.  You can’t really be too ostentatious or over the top.”

“Hmmmmm.”

“You’ve got to get past the wall.  And that wall is, right now, his ego is better served by ignoring you.”

“And if I get past that wall, I could get in friendly with someone egotistical, obnoxious-?”

“Obnoxious, yeah.”

“Who apparently isn’t the best at handling frustration.”

“But he’s also connected to people who you want to talk to.  Some are people like him.  People my uncle doesn’t consider, who don’t like not being considered.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “I guess.  Big and showy, huh?”

“That’s my instinct, having met him and had dinner at Kass’s place a few times.”

“Gives me a place to start from.  Thanks Raquel.”

“Don’t mention it.  But pay me anyway.”

Avery nodded.  She poked at her phone, bringing up a notepad app.  “What are you in the mood for?”

“I’m in the mood for your sister to get her podcast going again.”

“Besides that.”

“Something exciting.  Psychological.  I think I love psychological films.”

“There was one Sheridan liked, hmmm.  Your tastes run similar to hers, which is weird to think about.  Fish in a Dish.  It’s about a guy, forced by a mastermind who’s rigged traps and bombs to force his hand, to make him devise a trap for someone, and it goes layers deep.”

“Oh yeah.  Your sister mentioned that a few episodes ago in the podcast.”

“Okay, that works, then, great.  That’s still my recommend.  Payment given.”

“You didn’t remember she mentioned it?  You didn’t know?  You don’t listen to your own sister’s podcast!?” Raquel raised her voice.

“Thank you, byeeee!” Avery drew out the word to drown Raquel out, hanging up.

She sighed.

“All good?” her dad asked.

“This guy is apparently a jerk.  His daughter was kind of a jerkier, more resentful version of Verona, so I shouldn’t be too surprised.”

“Am I good to come?”

“I think so.  I think we’ll need help.  For showmanship,” Avery told her dad.

She got out of the car, and onto the paved driveway.  Snowdrop did the same.  Snowdrop held Avery’s bag while she got torn papers out, and laid them on the driveway, overlapping, forming a pile, where the crayon lines all connected.

“Tearaway Kid, Tearaway Kid, Tearaway Kid, if it’s no trouble at all, I’d appreciate the help,” Avery said, touching the paper.

Her dad, now out of the car, watched with folded arms.

The papers rustled.  Then some lifted up.  Tearaway Kid came out of the hole.

“Hey,” Avery said, greeting him.  She wanted to hug him, but wondered if that would be weird.  “How’s Edeline?”

“Good!  We had a close call with some Finders.”

“If that comes up again, let me know.  Maybe I can talk to the right groups.”

“We’ll manage.  We scared them off.  I’m here for a reason?”

“I thought it might be fun, you were the first person to pop into my head,” Avery told him.  “I need showy.”

“How showy?”

“Hmm.  Raquel said the showier the better, but I know you can do some pretty over-the-top stuff.”

“I can.  Just tell me what you want.”

“I want… spectacular.  Big.  Impressive.”

“I need paper.  I’ve got some, but I need more.”

“Got some.  Got crayons.  You can take those to go.”

“Ahh, you’re too kind,” the Kid croaked.  He looked up at Avery’s dad.  “Who are you?”

“Her dad.”

The Tearaway Kid drew.  “I don’t have one of those.  Seems like a weird way of going about things, honestly.”

“It can definitely feel that way.  Not just with Avery.  All my kids leave me feeling existential at different times.  Beats the alternative, though.  I love having kids.”

“I’m not going to have any kids,” Snowdrop said.

“I like having a hobby,” the Kid croaked, stapling papers together.  He’d scribbled green on a lot of them.  “See?  Want to try?”

“Crayon drawing?”

“Try it on?”

“Wait,” Avery said.  “Wait wait wait.  You can share your costumes?”

“Sure!  Most people don’t wear theirs as well as I wear mine, but here, wait, let me wear this one, father of Avery, I sized it more for me.  And I’ll just copy what I did with minor adjustments…”

It did not look to Avery like he was replicating what he’d done before.

“I’m not sure I understand what’s happening,” Avery’s dad said.

“He’s in my notes.”

“I get that, I remember reading it, but are we talking very convincing, with paper and crayon, somehow?  Not to- I don’t mean to offend.”

“It’s really about understanding the interplay of the paper, materials, media, the body you’re putting it over…” the Tearaway kid croaked.  “I’m going to play it safe and color the other sides of these sheets red.  And let’s take these sheets, draw on some fire, put them together.  Let them spill out the mouth if you ever need fire breath.  Don’t drop them.  Here, hold those, and bend over, mr. Tall.”

Avery’s dad did.

The Tearaway Kid slipped the costume over his head, then tugged things into place.

Avery’s dad in costume was a dragon, about thirty feet long, but dense, a tank of a creature, all menace, heat shimmering in the air over its scales.  Avery could feel the heartbeat of the dragon echoed in her own chest.

“If you want spectacular, why have just the one dragon?  Let’s do two.  And if he’s not very good at acting, it doesn’t matter,” the Tearaway kid said, stapling papers together for his own costume.  “An incompetent dragon is still a dragon, right?”

“I will take your word for that,” Avery said.

The Tearaway Kid pulled on his costume.

Darker in color, larger, with vast wings and a snaking neck, the Tearaway Dragon stretched, wings unfurling, and then it roared.  Forty tons of reptile, the elemental energy of a large volcano erupting.  The roar combined both into a roar that would let the world know ruin was coming.

The Dad Dragon tried to roar, craning its head up and out, made a feeble sound, and then lost its balance, stumbling forward and headbutting the upper end of a tree.  The top of its head resting against the tree, it let out a more confident feeble sound.

“Okie dokie,” Avery said.  She looked at Snowdrop.  “You and me and two dragons, huh?”

The Dad Dragon spewed fire out its backside, then panicked as its back feet rested in the flame, stumbling forward.  Its face caught in the branches around its head, and it collapsed, spewing out more flaming diarrhea.  It made a feeble sound, interrupted partway through when the branches broke and its face whapped against the ground.

“That one most definitely isn’t my spirit animal,” Snowdrop said.

“You are a spirit animal, you dork.”

“I can confidently say I’m dorkier than you are,” Snowdrop replied.

It looked like Kassidy’s father had come outside to see what the commotion was, followed by Kassidy herself.

The Tearaway Dragon flexed, wings unfurling, neck stretching out.

Hollering in a mournful way, the Dad Dragon lay on its side, trying to get up, flaming diarrhea all over its back legs, which it barely seemed to care about anymore, in its abject, crippled misery.

The Tearaway Kid wasn’t entirely wrong.  It was still a dragon, still impressive in its own way.

“You okay?” Avery asked her dad, quiet.

The Dad Dragon made an ‘arooouuhh’ sound like a seal with a near-fatal bout of gas trying to sound positive.

“Okay.”

“What the hell are you doing in my driveway?” Mr. Knox asked.  He sized up the dragons, tense from head to toe.  “What is this?”

“That’s Avery Kelly,” Kassidy said.  “I told you about her.  She and her friends are weirdly powerful.  They apparently tripped up Anthem, and gave Musser pause.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Avery said.  “You’ve been ignoring my calls, and I figured, I was in the area, travel’s hard…”

“My daughter didn’t say you were ‘two dragons’ powerful,” Mr. Knox said, studying Avery.

“It’s kind of one and a half, isn’t it?” Kassidy asked.

The Dad Dragon tried to get up, swung its head back, then in trying to compensate, swung its head forward, headbutting the ground.  It nearly broke its own neck, saved only by the fact it was prehensile.  Lying on its own neck, it struggled, its back feet skidded and scraped around in the sea of flaming diarrhea, still.  It honked out a roar.

The Tearaway Dragon did a lot with very little effort, casting a massive shadow.

“I heard a dragon egg couldn’t be heated up too much.  They absorb the heat, absorb just about anything you put in them,” Mr. Knox said.  “I think someone heated that one’s egg up a little too much.  Baked something in that noggin.”

The Dad Dragon extended a tongue, trying to lick up the flaming diarrhea.  It got some into its mouth, struggled to try to reorient its head, then, on finding it was too hard to coordinate moving its head with the fire held within its mouth, vomited it back out so it could resume flailing.

“They’re not actually dragons,” Avery confessed.  “I wanted your attention.”

“You got it.  But you’ll have to tell me.  Is this illusion?  Or are they other Others that resemble true dragons?”

“Kind of both.  I’ll tell you what.  I will show you later, but only after you’ve heard me out.  I’ve been told you’re the man to talk to.”

Appealing to his ego a bit.

“Then let’s step inside and talk.  Your false dragons can wait outside.  Come in, I’ll show you my collections.”

“You good?” Avery asked the Dad Dragon.

It let out an uneven groan of a positive sound, then flop-inchwormed its way closer to Avery.

“I think he wants to come.  Or protect me.  So let’s maybe talk out here, cover what we need to cover, and then maybe after I’ve shown you the big reveal, we can all go inside and you can show us?” Avery suggested.

Mr. Knox considered, then nodded.

“I got to be a dragon,” Avery’s dad said.

“Really?  A dragon?”  Avery’s mom asked.

“I wasn’t a very good dragon, but being a really badly made dragon is still pretty fantastic.  I highly recommend it.”

“I think the Tearaway Kid was a little offended you weren’t more on the ball with things,” Avery told him.  “I’m not sure he’s up for a repeat performance.”

Her dad was barely listening, because he was kissing her mom.

“I’m going inside.  I’ve gotta get stuff,” Avery said.  “You guys hang out here in the cold and do whatever.”

“Sheridan and Rowan are out, but Rowan’s babysitting tonight,” Avery’s mom said.  “Your dad and I are taking some time together.”

“Ew, and ew.”

“Not ew,” Avery’s dad said, pointing a finger.  “Woo.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.  I can’t think of a situation a babysitter would be appropriate.  I had a friend turn Dad into a dragon, I negotiated stuff, I fended off an attack.  Why do we think I need someone to watch me?” Avery asked.

“Attack?” her mom asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” her dad said.  “Avery, close that door.  You can be on this side of it and talk to us, or the other side of it, and give us privacy, but choose one.”

Avery closed it, staying outside.  “You’re standing outside in the cold, there’s no expectation of privacy.  Look, there’s no need for Rowan to watch me.  I’ve got plans,” Avery said.  “People to see.”

“Nora?” her mom asked.

“No.  Other people.”

“More meetings?” her dad asked.

Avery nodded.  “I’ll take a path.  Then I’ll path back for tonight.”

“Do you need company?” her dad asked, turning more serious.

Avery shook her head.  “You guys hang out.”

“Because it feels like you’re avoiding having us along for this one.  Because it’s something you don’t want us to know?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

“That makes me think you need more company,” her mom said.

“More dangerous for you,” Avery said.  “I’m trying to cover all the bases.”

“Tell us before Rowan and Sheridan get back from shopping,” her dad said, now in full serious mode.

Avery entered the little cafe, and her first instinct was to go to the counter and order something, because she was ravenous.  She hadn’t wanted to eat a ton in the car, in case she was invited to eat at any of the places she stopped at with her dad, on their road trip to find allies and make connections.  Then they’d been on their way home, Rowan didn’t stick the landing with dinner, and it was going to be late, and Avery had had to leave to make sure she’d be here on time.

Lucy and Verona were covering their own bases.  Avery needed to cover this one, that she’d pledged to.  She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but it was vital that she make sure that if they needed an expert in something, a problem solver, or something, that they have some solution.

And maybe, just maybe, the Carmine Exile was going to make a bad call.  It felt bad, seeing the Lordships, running into trouble while traveling.  It felt bad, reading the Black Box stuff, with entries about disasters, and practitioners meeting bad ends while trying to unseat Charles’ lords.

It felt bad.  The Carmine Exile was actively, constantly making and perpetuating this ugly mistake with horrible ripple effects, and things were going to hit a tipping point way worse than the last one.

It felt bad in the same way climate change felt bad.  Like things were already in a really terrible spot, and the future promised disaster on an exponentially greater scale.

And to deal with that, they needed allies.  People who understood what was going on, or who could approach this from different angles.

Avery wanted something quick and easy from the cafe as a substitute for dinner, Snowdrop, currently in opossum form, wanted something even more, and yet she had to go see who she’d come to see.

Clementine, from Bristow’s apartment complex, was sitting at a table already.  She was wearing a nice top that seemed more ‘spring’ than winter, coat and bag on the chair next to her.  She looked, superficially, just the same as Avery had last seen her, Asian, large chest, scars, including one bad one at the side of her neck and one that made one eye stay stuck partially closed.

But in other ways, her demeanor seemed lighter, a little less tense.

Probably helped that Avery wasn’t seeing her moments after a near-miss with a car accident, or after Daniel Alitzer had thrown everything into disarray.

“Hi,” Avery greeted her.

“You came a long way.”

“I’m well equipped to get around,” Avery replied.  “Thank you, by the way.  I appreciate this.  You coming, you hearing us out.”

“Sit.  Or did you want to order?” Clementine asked.

“I actually really want something to drink and something to eat, but I can wait,” Avery told her.  “I didn’t want to make you guys wait ten or fifteen minutes, or however long that line will take.  I thought that would be rude.”

“It’s fine if you want to go order, I think,” Clementine told her.  She turned to the man who sat next to her.  “Right?”

“It’s fine,” was the reply, from the olive-skinned, white-haired old man, who sat across from Clementine.  “It gives us more of a chance to talk.”

Avery had wanted to talk to Clementine, that was true.  But part of the reason she’d asked Clementine to come, to help, was because Clementine being here was something that helped convince someone else to come.  Someone who wanted to talk to Clem, and who wasn’t enthused to talk to Avery.

Kassidy Knox’s dad had been the key to actually getting in contact in the first place, and arranging this.  Mr. Knox had been close with Bristow, and Bristow had had contacts.

Through Mr. Knox and the promise of being able to talk to Clementine, who was providing a massive favor, Avery had gotten Mr. Samaniego to the table.

Mr. Samaniego, head of the Lighthouse.  The biggest Witch Hunter group in the country.

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