Author: Wildbow

Crossed with Silver – 19.6 | Pale

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“I’ve got a great or terrible idea,” Verona announced, as a great or terrible idea struck her.

The others looked at her.

“Don’t do that,” McCauleigh said.

“Do what?” Verona asked.

“It’s like asking, ‘can I ask you a question’?  It’s annoying.  Just say the idea.”

“If she was ready to say the idea she’d say the idea, right?” Lucy asked.

Verona frowned, eyes closed, stinging faintly with sweat.  “Hmm.  Let me marinate in it for a second.  I just didn’t want the moment to pass without occasion.”

Peckersnot peeped.

“I’ll get back to you, one way or the other.  A minute or two or three, give or take.”

McCauleigh sighed.

Verona reached for the bucket, was handed the mug, and got some water, pouring it over her face and scalp.  Clearing her eyes of sweat.

“Thanks,” she told Tashlit.

Tashlit gave her a thumbs up.

Verona had gone over to see about helping to expand Tashlit’s living space, bringing McCauleigh and Mallory with.  Tashlit already had a ‘house’ that was more of a one-room shed, and they’d set about adding an adjunct room, when the process had kind of naturally transformed.

The original plan had been to do something quick and dirty and then reinforce it with inexpensive practice.  Runes to help insulate, protect the building from fire.  Workable, cool.  Four walls had been made with pallets and two-by-fours brought over by McCauleigh and Mal.  Then they’d used a process Verona had worked out, with wood-to-liquid alchemy, then liquid-to-wood alchemy to get thin, flat sheets of wood with some weird patterns in the grain.  It helped make the floor and make the walls flat.  They’d sanded it to deal with potential splinters.

The ceiling had been a little tougher, but Tashlit had held it up, Verona had screwed things in, they’d added a skylight to help with illumination, added triangular sections and adjusted the roof to be slanted so snow would be easier to knock off, and Peckersnot had helped by looking for gaps and gluing stuff shut.  Lucy had been a late helper to the project, coming over after school.

Then, as Verona had been in the process of working out a good set of diagrams to keep things in a certain temperature range, humidity had come up, and Tashlit liked humidity.

Three hours later, helped with practice and some excellent brainstorming on Verona’s part, in Verona’s own opinion, they had turned what they had built into a sauna.  They were now resting and sweating, weary from the building job.  Verona, Lucy, McCauleigh, and Mal had borrowed towels from Tashlit, mostly wearing them around their necks and shoulders, and drying their faces, pulled off the heaviest clothing, and were using diagram work to control their own humidity and temperature.  Peckersnot lay spread eagled and naked, which was his usual, though he was so small it barely mattered.  A wet paper towel was laid over his upper face, since Tashlit was, well, exposed.

Tashlit sat on the bench opposite Verona, having gently worked her upper body free of the loose skin that normally draped her, contorting through a large rip in the lower back, trying not to tear or stretch it further.  Her body was sleek, black, and covered in interlocking eyes that formed a star pattern on one side of her face and something more like rows or a fanning-out section on the left.  She was proportioned like the gray aliens in movies and urban legend, back against the wall, eyes half-lidded, the skin of her upper body and head separate and lying draped across her lap.  She used a bucket of cold water and a mug and washed her skin meticulously, stretching out portions, rinsing, searching folds, and taking care of two bad spots.  One where a fresh tear in the skin was raw and red, and one spot where the skin had been folded too much for too long, and had gotten infected, looking at it.  A blood vessel bulged out of the skin, black, surrounded by redness.

Mal was taking up an unnecessary amount of bench, lying across it, a second towel over her head.  She had a tattoo that looked way worse off than any of the spots Tashlit was taking care of.  McCauleigh sat against the corner by the door, staring at nothing in particular.  Lucy was doing homework, notebook in her lap, runes glowing at the corners, book beside her, sitting in a chalk circle so the humidity wouldn’t ruin it.

Basking in the warmth.

Tashlit’s fingers slapped against moist skin in time with the drum in the music.

“Turn it up?” Lucy asked.  “Or are you going to share that idea?”

“When this next song is done,” Verona said, leaning forward and turning up the music.  “It’s pretty hype.”

It was a Latin chant over alternative pop and rock, cut with a woman’s singing.  At least, Verona was pretty sure it was Latin.  Her head bobbed in time with the beat.

“What have you done?” Verona sang the Latin part, which weren’t the lyrics, but fit the time signature and tone.  Adding the questioning lilt at the end made things a little weird, but it was better to be safe than sorry.  “Oh fuck me son!  What have you done!?”

Mal, damp towel over her head, snorted.

Verona emoted with her hands for emphasis, singing, “OhGodohJesus,” over a word that sounded like ‘facetious’.  “What have you done!?”

“You’re making me wish I had my guitar,” Lucy said.

“In the light of the sun?  You’d better run, what have you done?”

Lucy hummed over the woman’s verse, finishing with, “the shit you’ve stirred, the trouble spurred, you lost control, you tarnished soul?”

“You fucking scum, what have you done!?” Verona sang louder.  “OhGodohJesus.  Ohfuck-a-mesus.”

“Enh,” Mal grunted.

“Shh!” Verona quickly shushed her.  “What have you done!?  The lies you’ve spun?  My wayward son?”

“The things I’ve heard, the trouble stirred,” Lucy sang, pitching her voice high.  “The facts you’ve blurred, you broke your word?  You lost control, you tarnished soul?”

Verona moved over, lifting off the paper towel from Peckersnot’s eye, and emoting at him as the song finished.  “What have you done?  To that poor nun?”

Peckersnot laughed, enjoying being the momentary center of attention.

“Such dorks,” McCauleigh said.

“It’s training, kind of,” Verona said.

“How in the what is it training?” McCauleigh asked.

“If we’re ever improvising practice, curses, and we’re working together on it, it’s handy to be able to riff off a workable line,” Verona replied.

“We’ve done it a lot,” Lucy added.

“Riffing off workable lines,” McCauleigh muttered.  “People don’t do that a lot.”

“Why not?”

“Because people don’t tend to have power to spare on experimenting like that.  And the ones that do, like my family, like, there’s whole books of stuff they’d rather we memorize and practice, instead of improvising, or expectations.”

“I’m imagining a reopened Blue Heron with improv classes,” Verona said.

“Have to get around the fact we can’t lie.”

“Worth practicing for that too.”

“We practice all our lives, basically.”

“Then improv class shouldn’t be that hard, huh?” Verona asked.

McCauleigh gave Verona the finger.  Verona laughed.

Lucy, doing her homework even as she talked, added, “Applies to bad situations, where you won’t always have the time to think.”

“Most practitioners don’t get into any fights, blah blah blah, or so people keep telling us,” Verona said.

McCauleigh shut her eyes and leaned into the corner.  “Me a few months ago?  I can stay in Kennet, and treat it as a study into Wild practitioners, see if I can figure out what you’re doing to be as powerful as you are.  Cool.  Me now?  Sitting in a sauna with a naked goblin-”

Peckersnot, still lying down, put both hands between his legs, peeping and chirping something.

“-and an admittedly cool god-begotten, listening to music as old as my mom and talking about improv classes.  There’s no way I can-”

She stopped.

“What’s up?” Verona asked.

“I keep automatically thinking I’m going to end up in front of my parents, trying to explain myself.  But that’s not necessarily true, is it?  I haven’t made a decision, it’s just unsettling it’s so automatic, you know?”

Tashlit gestured.  Verona looked over.

McCauleigh’s eyes were closed, so Verona translated.  “Tashlit says, I think, they’re your parents.  They have years where they get to shape who you are, and you don’t have anyone to learn from but them.”

“Sucks.”

“For sure.  Want to talk about it?”

“Later.  Not now.”

“Okay.  Uhh…”

“What’s your idea, Ronnie?” Lucy asked, still taking notes.

“Okay!” Verona sat up.  “Okay, so, just to frame how I’m coming at this?  We’ve got a few problems right now.  And the big one is that we’ve possibly got a mystery guy at St. Victor’s who may or may not be using the same technomancer as a contact that the ones who attacked Avery at the Blue Heron did.  Either a teacher or a kid- teen.”

“Teenager.  I’m leaning teenager,” Lucy said.

“Right?  Yeah.  And they’re not just flying under the radar.  A quick, inexpensive check from Nicolette and the Bitter Street Witch didn’t turn anything up.”

“Kennet below represent!” Mal cheered.

“Except she failed,” McCauleigh said.

Mal kicked McCauleigh’s thigh.

“And we have to pay for another, more serious attempt, with no guarantee it’ll work,” Lucy added.

“So they’re being super careful, we don’t know how long they’ve been around, they’re strong, and we don’t have any great leads.”

“With you so far,” Lucy replied.

“There’s also a few missing pieces to what we’re doing, big picture.  We were building momentum, but then we lost it.”

“With what?” McCauleigh asked.

“Kennet.  Knitting things together.  Losing the arcade really threw us for a loop.  Hurt relations with the Undercity.  And Kennet found was taking up a disproportionate amount of focus for a short while.”

“I think I see where you might be going,” Lucy said.

“And there’s this,” Verona went on.  “I hope a day like today is a good day, Tashlit, and this makes the winter cozier.”

Tashlit gave a thumbs up, then gestured.

“Happy,” Verona translated.  “Happy is good,”

Tashlit nodded.

“And we want to keep doing this.  We were helping out the ghouls last weekend, I don’t know who’s next-”

Peckersnot peeped.

“-Maybe the goblins are due a quality of life upgrade.”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this, now,” Lucy said.

“Where do you think I was going?”

“Bait.  Doing something to bait them out, with something bigger or better than the undercity arcade.”

“About right.  Just… there’s room to do other stuff in the meantime.  I think we can network this together.  I think we open up the market in Kennet below to some ordinary people.  Special event.  Make it like a festival.  We filter who can come, then we keep tabs on anyone from St. Victor’s.  And I think we can do it while helping local Others.”

“Great or terrible, huh?” Lucy asked.

“Great or terrible.”

“Avery suggests the Wild Hunt may be paying a visit-”

“I have thoughts for that too.”

“And you want to play games with innocence?”

“To make a point about innocence.”

“Risking upsetting Kennet below, again, after the arcade issue?”

“Or renewing bonds.”

“With a possibly hostile practitioner maybe ready to make a move on us?”

“I’m thinking if we do this really soon, while we still have the first boom from people coming for the winter season, they might not have time to put something as complex as the alien game dude together.”

“Okay.  Changing my question to ‘and you want to do this on short notice?’”

“Desperation and panic fuel creativity.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “Get it down on paper, let’s run it by the council.

“That explains so much about you,” Mal said, face down on the bench.

“I’m not desperate, or panicked, am I?” Verona asked.

“You haven’t gotten over that Jeremy guy.”

“Wow, low blow and wrong,” Verona said, as Lucy talked over her, saying, “Shitty,” and McCauleigh swatted Mal’s foot.

“Then you should take my offer!”

“Because it can’t be healthy, not having a boy in your life.  Probably screws up hormonal balances, goes against nature, thousands of years of history…”

“Mal wants me to go on a quote-unquote ‘double date’ with some dude and the guy she likes,” Verona explained to Lucy.

“This Shirtless?”

“Shirtless lost all respect from me!  He put on a shirt because he got too cold!  He still calls himself shirtless?  I’m all on the Coma Boy train now.”

“Coma Boy,” Lucy said.

“He’s always asleep, so they joke he’s in a coma!  His friends even carry him out of class sometimes!”

“I’m really fighting the urge to be sarcastic right now,” Lucy said.  “This is what gets your heart racing?”

“He says he’s tired all the time because he’s so good with girls he’s up all night.  How can a girl say no to that?”

“Again, I really want to be sarcastic.”

“Think of resisting the urge to snark at Mal as a kind of training,” Verona suggested.

“And his sleeping face!  It’s supernaturally cute.”

“I’ve seen it, with Sight and not.  It’s not supernaturally cute.”

“Then your Sight is defective, Verona.”

“You’re usually chiming in,” Verona told McCauleigh.  “Tired?”

“No.  Lucy’s over there trying not to be sarcastic, and here, I’m looking at Mal lying there with a towel lying over her head and thinking it’s a good thing she’s not face-up, because I could be tempted to waterboard her.”

Mal flipped over, then winced as her tattooed shoulder touched the bench.  She squirmed, then fixed the towel back over her face.  “Do it!”

“Sorry for the chaos,” Verona told Tashlit.

Tashlit made gestures, indicating the space, finishing with a lazy side-to-side wave of her hand.

“I’m tough!”

“I’m not sure you can really out-tough waterboarding,” Lucy told Mal.

Peckersnot had gotten up and wore the paper towel as a towel around his waist, walking around to where Mal lay, excited.

“We helped build this, you can deal, no big?” Verona translated for Tashlit, when Tashlit was done.

Tashlit shrugged and nodded.  She poured cool water over the skin in her lap, wetting the hair.  She pushed the stretched out face-skin into a shape that resembled what it had used to be.

“I want to start digging into books and stuff, to see what it would take to pull this off.  I think it’s time I bail.  Anyone wanting a good dry-off, I think you’re going to have to come with me.”

“You guys are really going to leave me hanging?” Mal asked.

“Friends don’t waterboard friends,” Verona said.  “What has our life come to, that I’m saying that?”

“I’m tempted to encourage you to do it,” Lucy said.

“Come on,” Verona said.  “Stuff on.  Peck, I’ve got work for you later, I’ll pay.”

They got sorted, pulling on sweaters and sweatshirts, boots and coats, adding hats, earmuffs, gloves and scarves.  Peckersnot took up residence between Verona’s scarf and coat at her shoulder.

“You good to stay?” Verona asked Tashlit.

Tashlit nodded.

“See you at the council meeting?”

Tashlit nodded.

“Cool.  Good hanging.”

Tashlit mimed a back-and-forth.  Same here.

Verona shivered as they went from sauna to winter weather.  She felt clammy.  She hurried, passing her bag to Lucy.  “Get the flask marked negative water.”

“On it.”

Verona started stomping out a circle in the clearest patch of snow off to the side of their work site.  McCauleigh joined in.

“And while you’re at it, there’s a healing potion in there.  Give it to Mal.  Because her shoulder looks so nasty it’s probably going to kill her.”

Lucy fished it out and handed it over.

Verona started kicking snow out of the circle, clearing the ground some.  “Put that in the snow.  Don’t bring it into the circle or we might have some cross-alchemy fun.  Now, if you want to dry off and deal with the sweat, inside the circle.  Let’s see how well this works.”

“Can I double check?” Lucy asked.  “What if this works too well?”

“Normally when you do it, it’s in the open, right?”

“Right.”

“And it’s dangerously effective right near the opening of the bottle, and gets less effective as you go further, right?”

“And if we’re in a contained circle… then all the stuff that’s, I dunno, ten percent effectiveness thirty paces away, and so on?  That’s increasing the effect inside the circle.”

“Like a bomb going off inside a walk in freezer,” McCauleigh chimed in.

“Specific but fair analogy,” Verona said.  She kicked the snow back into the circle, then did another circuit, creating a much wider circle.  “Good call.  I don’t think this would’ve like, dried us out one hundred percent.  But maybe it might’ve hurt.”

“Come on,” Lucy said.  She stepped into the bigger circle.  “Turn your backs to the center, adjust your posture.”

Verona helped guide Mal and McCauleigh into the right postures, adopted the same kind of stance she’d used with Guilherme.  Then she unscrewed the top, opening it slowly until it started to hiss, turned her face away from it-

The alchemical vacuum sucked in moisture from the snow, leaving the snow there, just reduced to the most frozen part, almost lattice-like, and it sucked moisture from skin, clothes, and wet hair.

For five of them, if she counted Peckersnot.  It ended up being a bit too much capacity for the bottle, and the alchemically negative water was jarred out of the bottle before it could unite with the sweat and snow-water.  The result was like dropping a big rock into the thermos-like container, and then a good share of the water spraying outward once it had reached its apex, as it inconsistently collided with the water.

A lot of it shot up Verona’s sleeve.  Icy sweat water.

“Aahhhh!”

“Are you hurt?” Lucy asked.

Verona shook her head.  She shook her arm out, trying to get some of that water to flow out like it had come in.  “But aahh.”

“Did it work?” Lucy asked.

Verona checked herself.  Aside from the icy sweat water?  “Pretty good here.”

“Same,” McCauleigh said.

“Nice deal.  Okay.  Peck?  Need you to do a favor, will pay.  Run to Toadswallow?  Tell him to come by?  Give me a bit of time to get sorted… say, an hour from now?  If he’s willing.  He can send a goblin if not.”

Peckersnot nodded.

Verona lobbed him in the direction of the metal bin where Tashlit kept her trash locked up, not that she ever had much.  He landed in the snow, producing a hole as he disappeared beneath, then proceeded to move the rest of the way toward the bin.  The path he carved was marked out by a depression in the snow.

“And I’m going to do research.  We should call the council meeting-”

“I can,” Lucy said.  “I’ll call Louise and let people know.  Anyone that you want to see that you don’t think would usually come?”

“Alpy.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows.  “Got it.”

“And Mal?” Verona asked.

“What?”

“No,” Mal said, hands in her pockets, facing Verona down.

“No, you won’t help me out?”

“You won’t help me out.  There’s a guy with a supernaturally cute sleeping face and I want him to do unspeakable things to me, and you won’t back me up in that, so I won’t back you.”

Verona scratched her head.

“Suck it!” Mal told her.  “Sucks to be you, find someone else to run your errands.”

“Verona’s done a lot of nice stuff for you,” McCauleigh said.  “You’ve mostly eaten her snacks and freeloaded, and you get a partial council vote, you get paid by the council.”

“Barely,” Mal replied.

“For doing basically nothing,” McCauleigh said.

Mal considered that for a moment, then turned to Verona.  “Suck it!  Should’ve agreed to the double date with Coma Boy and his friend.”

“Maybe I should have let you be waterboarded.”

“Yes you should’ve, because I would’ve rocked it and you would’ve been so shocked at how I rocked it you would be saying I deserve Coma Boy.”

“You’re so lucky you can lie.  I gave you a healing potion!”

“And I’ll give you another suck it.  Suck.  It.”

“I’ll swing back that way,” McCauleigh offered.  “What were you going to ask for?”

“That’d help.  Uh, need the Bitter Street Witch at the council meeting, if possible.  Run it by her?  And then ask who’s running the market, next few days?”

“You need a temperature check or notes?”

“Hey,” Mal said.

“What?” Verona asked.

“You’re just going to ignore me?”

“I’ve got stuff to do.  I’m sorry you’re mad, but this is tight, timing-wise.  You’ll just tell me to suck it again, right?”

“Maybe.”

Verona turned to McCauleigh, remembered the question, and said, “Notes, if it’s no trouble.”

“Notes I can do.”

“Hey,” Mal said.  “I don’t want to be left out.”

“Compromise?” Verona offered.

“You’ll go on the date?”

“I don’t like the whole… idea of dates.  Let’s look into the market event, and I’ll meet them.  If they’re cool, we can hang out.”

Mal contemplated for a second.  “Okay.  I’ll tell him to bring his coolest friend.”

“Okay.  Go with McCauleigh?  Do that stuff I said.”

“Why am I being punished!?” McCauleigh cried out.

Which got Mal to start roughhousing with McCauleigh, who was way better at it.

When Mal had been tipped over into a snowbank, she lay there, and told Verona, “Bitter Street Witch is visiting Nicolette.  Oldbodies are in charge.”

“Fuck.  Okay, but for this thing, I’ll need to research stuff about Alpy, I need to call Nico anyway.  I’ll get in touch.  Just get started with the other parts.”

They split up, Mal and McCauleigh going one way, Lucy and Verona heading down toward the House on Half Street and home.  Verona looked forward to a shower.  A quick one.  Then research.  Then cross-checking with Toadswallow, asking for tips on practice stuff, then council meeting…

“You guys have the most antagonistic friendship I can think of right now,” Lucy muttered.

“She’s great.  Like the spicy food of humans.  Irritating, but in a fun way.”

Lucy shook her head.  “You do you, Ronnie.”

“How bad do you want to bet this guy she’s hooking me up with is?” Verona asked.

“Keep that up and you might find out the Undercity guys she’s connecting you with are somehow the coolest, hottest people you’ve ever met, just to be contrarian and prove you wrong.”

Verona snorted.  “Thanks for hanging out, though.  I know they’re my friends more than yours.”

“A sauna and music make it pretty worth.  Can we go again?  Borrow the sauna?”

“If Tashlit’s cool with it.”

“Wish I could have helped more,” Lucy murmured.  She glanced back.  “Anything else I can help with?”

She said it very casually, but Verona had a sense…

“Yeah.  Can you look into Law practices?  Musser and Anthem both pulled some real bullshit, obscure legal precedents, cheating the Law, you know?”

“Good call,” Lucy said.  “You figured some of that out.  Challenging Charles when he tried to gainsay you?”

“Yeah.  And I’ll keep studying that, but I thought you could ask Guilherme, he’d know stuff, especially now he’s Winter, and you approach the heavy studying stuff differently than I do.”

“How important is this?” Lucy asked.

“I think it’s vital,” Verona said.  They made eye contact and Verona held it as they walked through the snow, serious.  “But it fits your niche, if you’re helping us figure out how to deal with Musser, and I wouldn’t mind if you point me in the direction of anything interesting.”

“Got it.  Same for you?”

Verona nodded, breaking eye contact.

Still talking in code.  And if they were comparing notes, maybe they could use that as more code.

Law practice would be important here.  The practices that got into the rules of practice, of karma, the Seal, and who got a say in those things.

“…and your homework?”

Verona stopped in the middle of getting things sorted, looking around.  She’d just showered, she’d pulled some books online, and she’d been in the middle of finding her momentum when her mom had called.

Homework.  Verona was basically just doing homework, now, for school.

The word made cold fear and familiar anxiety ran through her.  Especially in the context of her wanting to get something else done.  It came with frustration and the distinct feeling of a giant boulder in her path she had to push out of the way.

“Verona?” her mom asked.  “Did I lose you?”

“No, um.  I’m here, I’m just… processing.”

“Processing what?  What’s going on?”

“I- one thing I’ve been noticing, my class online, it makes me fill out these surveys and charts and wellness trackers and garbage like that, right?  And I think a lot of the people taking these remote learning classes are addicts or criminals, so some questions are wildly off base…”

“But some are useful?”

“But some of it’s like, oh, so that’s what’s happening.  Putting it down on the stupid little online forms is like, I can figure myself out better?  And that’s important because I gotta figure out how I work because I’m having to do all this on my own.”

“There are resources, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.  But also like, I started out super behind, right?  I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

There was a knock at the door.  Verona went to open it.  Toadswallow.

She mouthed an apology, pointing at the phone, and he waved her off, before waddling in.

“It feels like you’re trying to couch my expectations.  You don’t have to do that.  I’m just really hoping this ends up being workable for you.  If this is something where you pick up valuable lessons and then we can make a better choice about what you’re doing, figure something else out, like the homeschooling, for more of a balance…”

“No, no, I want to keep doing this.  It’s just- I want you to understand where I’m at,” Verona said.  “Because, like, one of the lessons from the survey I figured out, I sorta realized how I get super focused on one thing and go on a tangent, you know?  I’ve lost like, a whole day reading up on obscure textbooks online that have nothing to do with what I’m doing for homework, or drawing, or kitchen experiments…”

She looked over in the direction of her alchemy setup in the kitchen.

“Is this something you can target, work on and improve?”

“Wait, wait- because I really want to convey this in the right order.  Sorry to ramble, but anyway, so I had that realization.  I’m hyperfocusing on stuff.  So I took two things I’m doing, the hyperfocus, and people stopping by to check on me or whatever.”

“At the library?”

“Sometimes.”  Twice was sometimes, right?  “Sometimes Jasmine, other times it’s Lucy or other people I know.  Anyway, I’m kind of training myself and the most common interrupters around me to train me and keep me on task.  So I make tea and every time I go to make another cup, I’m like, is what I’m doing useful?  And when a friend stops in, or Jasmine’s reaching out, and they ask how I’m doing or if they can drag me away for something else?  That’s another check-in, and sometimes I’m even like, I know who’s at the door, is what I’m doing productive?  If yes, can I ignore that person?  And if no, I’m all, okay, let’s use this interruption as a way to break the spell, stop hyperfocusing on browsing clothing and art stores online, and after I’ll pivot.  See if I can’t get started on something on my priority list.”

“And?”

“And I had three days last week and four days this week, where I, no bullshit, no catshit, no dogshit, no duckshit, no toadshit-”

Toadswallow smiled ear to ear.

“What?”

“-not shitting you in any way, I got like, a week and a half worth of assignments and coursework done last week and two weeks worth done this week.  I’m ahead.  The idea of schoolwork still fills me with dread and leaves a knot in my stomach, but that’s like the psychiatrist guy and his dog with the bell, right?  That bell’s been rung a lot.”

“You’re doing well?”

“I’m not just caught up, I’m ahead.  I could screw around and do nothing for a while and I’d be fine.  I don’t know how much I’ll remember, but hey.”

“If I remember right, you can check in with the teachers for any reason.  Maybe you should, to see if you’re retaining enough?”

“Isn’t that just for like, homework questions, when I’m stumped on a thing and I need them to explain it to me like I’m five?”

“I think you could ask for a practice test or something to see if you’re remembering things.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  “Ummm.  Let me put the phone down.  Making a note.”

She got some painter’s tape, wrote a note about that on it, then stuck it on the fridge.

“Okay.  Back.  Made a note.  I’ll do that.”

“It sounds like something’s going right.”

“Hey, uh, this may sound weird, but a friend stopped by, and I’m sort of doing that thing, where it’s like… am I being productive?  And I am, but it’s a side project, not school.  We’re still going to have our weekly call in a couple days, right?  Can I go do other stuff?”

“Actually, I called to do more than check in.  I talked to Jasmine, and she was worried.”

Verona frowned.  “About?”

“She ran into your dad, apparently.”

“Is he okay?”

“That’s part of why she called.  You don’t know how your father’s doing?  She said you’re not spending much time at home.”

“No,” Verona replied.  “I’m not.”

“Tell me about that?”

“I’ve got someone over, waiting patiently, I…”

Verona wanted her mom to reply to say she could go, no problem, they’d talk about it later.  But she didn’t.

Verona leaned against the doorframe.  “I’ve got more freedom, like this.  And I use that freedom to avoid him, I guess.  And when I do go by, I play defense.”

“Play defense?”

“Oh god I sound like Avery, without context.  I- I bring people over.  I time doing stuff he’s been nagging me to do so he has less to complain at me about.  Which doesn’t work, usually, but I dunno.”

But it lets me be righteously indignant and break his stride and then I can find a better chance to do what I gotta do and then I leave.

“I worry.  Because it’s good you’re more independent and free, but you should have more guidance in your life,” Verona’s mom said.  “What if something happens?”

“I manage.”

“What if there’s something about diet, or health, or something for school, and it’s something where attentive parents would catch it?  But if you’re avoiding those people…”

“Do you think dad would catch it?” Verona asked.

“Would you reconsider coming to Thunder Bay?”

Fair play.

“You said your path to happiness and thriving isn’t here in Kennet.  My place isn’t in Thunder Bay.  Not yet.  Not unless everything here melts down, I guess.”

There was a pause.

“If Jasmine says she’s worried then I’m worried.  I’d like to come down this weekend.  She said she’s happy to host me.  Which is good because there won’t be a motel, cabin, bedsurf, or anything at this time of year.  The season started?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything I need to know?  Any thoughts?  Adjustments?”

“It’ll be cool to see you.  I can’t promise I won’t be a little distracted.”

“If you’re distracted by school that’s great.  Or something fulfilling or creative.”

“Right now, it’s fulfilling.  I’m ahead on school, I think I can do that.  It’s cool.  My friend’s waiting.  I’ll see you this weekend?”

“Check in with Jasmine?  She said it’s been a little while.  One night in the past two weeks?”

“Yeah.  Okay.”

“I’ll see you this weekend.”

“Bye.”  Verona hung up.  “Sorry.”

“Quite alright.  Your servants are away?”

“Squire-l and Page-on aren’t really servants, they’re like, help.  And I help them.  They’re with Sootsleeves.  They’re an extension of her, they have to regroup sometimes.  It’s a little celebration.”

“Quite right.  I was thinking I’d ask for tea.”

“Is Bubbleyum not with you?”

“Doing much the same, my dear.  She’ll be back.”

Verona had boiling water ready to go in her Demesne, for alchemy and tea both.  She prepared two cups.

“You needed help with something?” he asked.  “Your friends started to explain, but one’s a tit, and she’s the sort of tit that runneth the bra cup over.”

“Mal?”

“She was distracting and derailing McCauleigh’s attempt at explaining.”

“She’s a character.”

“Quite fun, but just as I wouldn’t ask Ramjam for a carefully crafted plan, I thought it would be good to come straight to you for your explanation.”

“I want to open up the market to visitors.”

“It’s always been the plan that once we were underway, we could expose a limited section of the market to select outsiders.  Ever since we knew about black sheep, those people from Kennet above and the rest of the world ‘above’ who find themselves more comfortable below, we knew they’d be our clientele.”

“I want to open it up more.  I want to open it up more than we opened up the arcade.  To innocents, sans chaperone.”

“A tall order, my dear.”

“Can I walk you through it?” she asked.

“I’m interested.”

“Come downstairs, see what I’m doing with the bookstore.  I’ve got my notes on peddling down there too.”

She handed him his teacup.  “Milk?  Sugar?  Snack?  Nuts?  Worms?”

“Worms?” he asked, amused.

“Mealworms, got them at the petstore.  Something for Page-on.  And Squire-el when they think nobody’s looking.”

“Just the tea for now.”

Verona led the way downstairs, bringing her bag.  She kicked the waist-high stepladder over to where there was a chair at the counter, using her control over the Demesne to make it slide on feet that would otherwise grip, and Toadswallow ascended it to the chair, settling in with his tea.  He had a way of looking very self-indulgent when sitting down.

“I started looking into this stuff when it came to my store, because magic for an evil store that sells cursed items to customers might apply to a magic store that sells other things.  But I think there are ways to scale this up.  Apply it to your market.”

“I’ve seen subtler workings in Fae markets,” Toadswallow said.  “There are some that accept goblins, or tolerate them, at the least.  They have their own ways of drawing the customer in.  Enticements, glimmers.”

“Ooh.”

“Put something nice on to cook and turn the wind so it leads someone down the right alleys.  The interplay of different vendors jousting and parrying with enticements, to lure people the right way is very involved.  Not surprising for Fae, but you’d never know they were doing it unless you were an Other of a sort they’d never imagine was paying attention to those possibilities.”

“Want to compare notes?” Verona asked.

“Tell me more about your plan.”

“I’m thinking a festival night.  One night a week, during peak season, Others take the day off, disguise themselves, or step out of sight, put others in place.”

“My instinct is those Others won’t like it.  I could pitch it, try to sway them.  I’ve been looking for a way to get them interested in visceral glamour.  Before I go that far, tell me more.”

“We need a way to scale this up, right?  We open the doors, but we still filter.  A Peddler’s store has ways of letting restless souls find the wandering store that moves from town to town.  Fae markets can have those enticements and glimmers.”

“Indeed.  I wouldn’t recommend using Winter Court glamour to create your signposts and lures, if that’s how you’re thinking of scaling up.”

“I’m not.”

“Visceral glamour?”

“Not quite that either.  We want to bring people in, send them to parts of the market where they can find whatever it is they need to fill the hole in their hearts.  Or quell their restlessness, ease their worries, excite the bored, and we want to do it in a way that supports innocence and gives us plausible deniability.”

“So,” Verona explained.  “We use Alpeana.”

“Och, what?” Alpeana asked, looking a lot like a student who’d been woken up when they were called on in class.

They were on Rook’s rooftop, but this time they were in a cage.  Wrought black iron on the building’s roof, stretching up like a birdcage, panels of glass between the iron.  Shielding them from the blowing snow.

“For all the goals we’ve got, integrating the different layers of Kennet, baiting out the invader, restoring the support of Kennet below, that we lost when we lost the Arcade, growing the market, and maybe most of all, protecting Kennet, I want to create a nightmare festival.  A nightmare market.”

“I like this,” Toadswallow croaked, adding his support.

“Aye?” Alpeana asked.

“We can set up filters, use guideposts, maybe even add in glimmers and baubles.  And anti-glimmers and anti-baubles using goblin stuff, wards, and connection blocks.”

Verona passed out the notes she’d put down and printed out.  She talked as she did her rounds.

“I want you to imagine this.  Middle of the night, the town is asleep, we’re glutted with tourists, people who’ll come and ago, and some of those people, restless, tormented, missing something, whatever, something beckons them.  Music in the background-”

At that cue, Lucy put on some music to complement the sales pitch.

“Or a light over the town, whispers.  Maybe some carefully curated, mass-produced nightmares, so their cabin or motel room feels uncomfortable to hang around.  Which I think Alpeana can do?  I read up on nightmares and incarnate forces, but had to wait for Alpeana to wake up and come here before I could ask.”

“Noo just haud on.  It’s nae very good.”

“It’s inefficient, I know,” Verona said.  “But that’s the beauty of how this would work.  A big part of what you do is fixing the wrinkles, smoothing things out, resolving the unresolved, yadda yadda, right?”

“Yadda yadda,” Alpeana replied, like she was a bit annoyed.  “Aye.  That’s richt.”

“So we offload it.  Mass produce whatever it takes to stir people into action, get them outside, get them moving to the market, then let us handle a big part of it, and then you tie things up with a bow.  Take the kid Melissa met for example.”

Melissa sat up.  “What about him?”

“Kid’s bored, he breaks his arm and leg, he can’t ski, he’s miserable.  I did a small test run of what I wanted my bookstore to do when I gave him a book.  A kind of magical recommendation, to find the best book to give him.  Probably scored a B- on the execution, but you know, short notice, store’s not set up, first try.  Now imagine he wakes up after a nightmare, he’s anxious, hears music, goes to wake his family, but they’re fast asleep.  He gets pulled outside, makes his way over, leg and arm don’t hurt like they should.  And the entire market is in front of him.  And instead of a B- book delivery, he gets something way more fitting to his situation.”

“A goblin puzzle box for his boredom, perhaps,” Toadswallow said, putting a puzzle box on the table.  “Or a stop in with a doctor in Kennet below who can offer a quick fix.  For a small price.  What do you know, maybe his arm and leg weren’t broken after all, it was a fracture and a sprain.  Muscle bleeding put a shadow on the X-ray.”

“Just so I’m clear?” Matthew asked.  “Are these items and deals cursed?”

Verona shook her head.  “Idea is to be a net positive.  But some of the nightmares are bad things for bad people, and I know there’s goblin stuff that’s like that, and I know there’s stuff in a market in Kennet below that’s going to be sketchy or have… let’s call it predatory pricing.  I think as long as we’re careful with karma and making sure people deserve what they get, our consciences can be clear?”

Avery was on video call.  “Is there room for something like Clem’s items?  If we buy them off her?  They can be powerful.”

“Absolutely there’s room.  In fact, if the item is powerful, we can use that power to draw the right person in.  Someone who can handle it, maybe.”

“But maybe not?” Avery asked.  “I told Clem stuff would have to pass the smell test with the council before we resold it.”

“Okay.  That does tie our hands a touch, makes it harder to strike for a middle ground to start and then work our way to better.”

“I’d rather start mostly positive,” Avery said.

“Okay.  Acknowledged.  Fair.  What I’m thinking is, when they’re done and they’ve found something, if we set it up right, they’re handling the smoothing of wrinkles and resolution of the unresolved by a process that’s automatic, built into the nightmare market and market in general.  In the process, they have to come to terms with what’s bothering them or whatever weird thing, and they get their prize.  The item.  Maybe we let them browse more, or eat, if we’re selling food, or whatever.  Earn our vendors a few dollars more.  Then we cap it off with a bit of nightmare or dreaming, again, stock, mass-produced, maybe looser, let it flow naturally from whatever they’ve got going on.  They wake up, nobody seems to believe them, it really feels like they went to bed at night, they had a nightmare, but things are different after.  Hey Alpeana?”

“Aye?  I dinnae ken, lassie.”

“I just- do you get rewarded for leaving people unsettled?  It seemed like it varies, when I was reading up.”

“Aye, a smidgen.”

“That becomes part of the process.  Because when they go to pack up, they’ve got a goblin puzzle box or book or something in their luggage.  Was it a nightmare after all?  Unsettled.”

“Aye.  That’d dae, if I git credit.  But I dinnae ken.”

That’d do, if I got credit.  But I don’t know.

“What’s got you hesitating?” Verona asked.

Alpeana frowned.

“It’s change?” Louise asked.  “You’ve been doing what you’ve been doing for a long time.”

“I dinnae want tae git stuck mass manufacturin’ ‘hings.”

“That is a part of it,” Verona said.  “But I figure it’s not that different from me doing spell cards?  And if this works, you could step it up, bring on help.  Lesser nightmares.  Omen-tier stuff.  Shadows.”

“Aye, but if I dae that ‘n’ it goes sooth then whit?  I’ve git tae keep taking care o’ them.”

“Okay.  Fair.  Believe me, I get not wanting to take on a huge commitment you might pay for for the next few decades.”

“Ah’m nae sayin’ no, mind.”

I’m not saying no, mind you.

Verona nodded.  “I think it’s not that different from what you’re doing.  But instead of scavenging and foraging for, say echo stuff, spirits, and things to build into your nightmares, you’d have…”

She motioned, moving a finger between Toadswallow and Alpeana, or, more specifically, between the item in front of Toadswallow and Alpeana.

Toadswallow pushed the puzzle box across Crooked Rook’s meeting table.  Alpeana caught it.

He passed her a knife and then a rat in a cage so small it could barely turn around, white and old with eyes that faintly glowed.

Alpeana studied them.

“Might be more interesting.  Can you work with the flows, weave an atmosphere, help guide the people to the items, match entry and exit nightmares to the item?”

“Aye,” Alpeana said.

“Are they actually asleep or are they awake?” Louise asked.

“Waking nightmares.  Best of both worlds for us.  Innocence does a great job of latching onto plausible deniability.  I want to walk the line more.  Because straight up innocence is boring and feeds into huge problems we’re all dealing with.  Was it all a dream, or was it real?  We use connection blocks so people who found the market don’t find each other until they’re out of town.”

“Okay, fine, but what would we get out of it?” the Vice Principal asked.

“More customers, more money flowing into Kennet below, Others would probably want to keep their heads down just a bit, so we walk that line of plausible deniability more, so goblins would want to have people trained to handle things.  They could work from behind the scenes, still.  That’s a few more employees.”

“Bit weak,” she said.

“I see it as being like you’re running a haunted house.  You get to be a bit of an asshole, scare people.”

“More convincing.”

“And if you get other projects off the ground?  They’d be peripheral to those.  More new participants than just black sheep coming through.”

“The arcade was really a good thing while it lasted,” Lucy said.

Verona hadn’t planned to say anything about the arcade in Kennet below.  It threatened to be a dirty word.

But Lucy was making her own judgement call.

And it seemed to work.

The Vice Principal frowned.  “I’ll think about it.”

Which sounded better than what she’d been saying before.

“The Bitter Street Witch is open to the idea,” Grantham the Oldbody said.  “We have skills that apply here.  We can burn herbs to draw people in, fuzz the line between dream and nightmare.  Invade dreams.  Reach inside someone, if we want to answer a lack or create one.”

“Let’s… not hurt people, but that’s good,” Lucy said.

“I want to do a trial run soon,” Verona said.

Miss asked, “You said this protects Kennet?  It seems like it increases our exposure.  More people with ties to vulnerable elements, more information about Kennet moving out and beyond our reach.”

“More than that,” Toadswallow croaked.  He smiled a bit.  “We’d be pulling on certain threads.  Luring them in.  Set this up right, we have people from out of town ending up in Kennet, because they’re good fits for the nightmare market.  Car trouble, change of plans, luck?  Doesn’t matter.”

“How does that protect Kennet?” Rook asked.

“By doing what we talked about when the market first came up.  We make ourselves indispensable.  And by bringing innocents in, tying them to the consequences, if someone decides to screw things up?  We extend that.  More Aware, more black sheep, more innocents who may be around at any time, making it hard to attack the market.”

“The ship has sailed on keeping Kennet secret,” Lucy told Miss.

“Witch Hunters know, Musser knows,” Avery said.

“There’s a difference between accepting that we’re known, and inviting others to know us,” Miss said.

“There is,” Verona agreed.  “But is it a workable difference?”

“You said something about bait.  The practitioner you’re worried is still in Kennet?” Rook asked.

“If we set up the filters and lures right, then I’m pretty sure what we’ve got is a teacher, teenager or kid from St. Victor’s who has to notice the market being active.  Kicked up spiritual activity, kicked up echoes, incarnate forces, music in the distance.  Do we think they’re going to ignore it?  I don’t think so.”

“Practitioners are curious creatures,” Lucy said.

“There’s not many students at St. Victor’s,” Avery said, through laptop speakers.  “Few enough we can use last year’s yearbook, memorize faces?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Lucy said.

“We’ll talk things through, look into matters,” Miss said.  “This might be something to bring to another council meeting, once we’ve all looked into this and prepared.”

“I want to do this soon.  Before whoever made that Father Gobar Other can regroup and prepare something for a round two.”

“Perhaps a council meeting tomorrow, launching the day after, if we’re in agreement?”

There were murmurs of acknowledgement.

“Any questions, ideas?” Verona asked.

“Can we tie in Kennet above?” Louise asked.

“The people are coming from Kennet above.”

“The customers, but they’re not from Kennet.  Can we knit Kennet into that?”

“I dunno.  Can we?” Verona asked.  She looked at Toadswallow.

“The arcade,” Lucy interjected.  “People were so curious about how it was put together, they started investigating.  And found it way too soon.  Maybe we can insulate ourselves.  Someone like Brayden from school, his dad manages the triathalon sports store.  I don’t know if he owns it or runs it, but we can loop them in, in a controlled way.  People like him.”

“They’ve had times they had excess stock,” Avery said.  “So many extra coats from last year they throw them out.  Can’t even give them away, not that they would, when they want to sell this year’s coats.”

“And Kennet below has supply issues, right?” Lucy asked.  “So we can use this to connect up supply lines.  Get stock from Kennet above below… money from Kennet below to Kennet above.  Maybe?”

“Good.  And Kennet found?” Louise asked.

Verona answered, “For right now, we’ve given Kennet found a lot of attention.  They’ve already got people preparing to sell in Kennet above and they’re selling in Kennet below.  But later, I don’t know, maybe we pivot or expand.  A market of nightmares and dreams?  Up to Alpeana.”

“Okay, let’s postpone that.  And let’s assume we meet tomorrow and people are in agreement,” Louise said.  “That we’ll do a trial run.  What would we need?”

“All hands on deck,” Lucy said.  “Because the stray practitioner might be around.  And because we want this to go smoothly.”

“Alpeana would have to get organized.  A break in her routine.  One I hope would pay off,” Verona said.

“Aye,” Alpeana said.  “Ah’ll haf a go if folk are keen.”

“And then it’s a question of connection blocks, connection draws, glimmers, enticements, setup, stock… I don’t know if we get five people who meet criteria or twenty five or fifty.  But we should be ready.  For part of that setup?  It’d help a ton if you’d help with the flows, Lis.  And massage the sleep cycle of people to have a deeper sleep for those who’re okay, and a lighter sleep for those who are restless and wanting.”

Verona turned to Lis, who stood off to one side, near the glass at the rooftop’s edge.

“Play along, come on,” Lucy said.

“This runs against everything the Carmine Exile and I were doing when we set up the knotting around Kennet.  To make approach hard, to insulate this town.”

“Didn’t work so hot against Musser,” Lucy said.

“Because you found, exploited, and widened loopholes to get into the town.  Ones they ended up finding and using.  But it remains a defensive measure.  Weakened by Kennet found holding back as we try to hold away.”

“Was kind of the idea,” Verona said.  “Lucy said the ship had sailed, we’re known.  The ship sailed, your setup with the Carmine Exile, it didn’t work, it didn’t fit.  So let’s adapt.”

Lis shook her head.  “You can try on your own, but I won’t help you, and I won’t wish you luck.”

Having said that, she disappeared, slipping into the spirit world.

“Okay.  Figured.  We can do something similar with practice and preparation.  Are we thinking we’re going to do this?” Verona asked.

“What’s the goal?” Matthew asked.  “What do we want, here?”

“Besides the half-dozen or more things that this supports?”

“Besides that,” he said.  “Or past it.  This sounds like it’s the sort of thing that, sure, it meets a bunch of needs at once.  Good for the moment.  But what’s the goal?  Where are we taking this?  You talked about a market of dreams and nightmares?”

“Actual name pending.  But what I really want is for Kennet to be a crown jewel of the area.  A must-stop-in place, with a cool market, cool events, Others- safe Others.  A place practitioners will want to protect, because it’s convenient.  Because they can, I dunno, meet their enemies in a cafe in Kennet found, and not worry about being ambushed or poisoned, because that’s prevented by capital-L Law there.”

“It feels almost like refuge in audacity,” Rook observed, cooly.

“Too big to fail, kind of,” Lucy said.

“I’m not sure if we’re on the road to ‘too big to fail’,” Matthew said.  “But that sounds like it’s a way to get to be too interesting to fail.”

“Fair,” Lucy agreed.

He went on, “But the problem is, between where we’re at now and the point of being too interesting to fail, it’s us being interesting, getting attention.”

“I don’t think there’s any endpoint where we’re secure,” Avery said, “where we don’t have to travel a tricky and carefully guarded road to get there.”

“Well said,” Miss agreed.

“Then I guess the question is if this is the road we want to walk, and if we’re in agreement,” Louise addressed everyone.  “Let’s meet again tomorrow night.  Research and investigate what you need to research and investigate, and come to the meeting with fresh mind and a good night’s sleep, or however you refresh yourself.  We can hold a vote.  If that’s okay?”

The Vice Principal nodded.  As did Miss.

“What else?” she asked.

“If we’re talking about watched roads and being seen as interesting, we should talk about those who may be watching or tampering with us,” Rook said.  “The Wild Hunt comes, if they’re not already here.”

“For the time being, don’t use any glamour of the seven courts,” Toadswallow said.

Of the seven courts.  He’d said that very carefully.

“Are we safe to talk?” Verona asked.

“I don’t know.  My instinct is that no,” Crooked Rook said.  “I would watch your words until we know more.  Watch your words, show respect and deference where you can.”

A new kind of market enriched with Visceral glamour might be just what we need to hide what we need to hide.

Maybe that was foolish, with the Wild Hunt being what they were.  But maybe, at the same time, it was their only shot.

Verona walked through black-tinged snow, Sight on, watching.

A man stumbled and tripped on snow as he walked through a light fog that had an odd smell to it.  With Alpeana helping to keep that shroud of sleep wrapped around him as she guided him through a thin point between Kennet above and Kennet below.

To him, it was a sinister and faint shift in tone.  The shroud of sleep came away, and he was in a place he recognized but didn’t recognize.

The vote had passed, the experiment was underway.

“Marcel, you’re going to be late,” Alpeana whispered, adopting a man’s voice.

Her hair moved, snow stirred.  She transformed, becoming a part of the backdrop- a view between buildings.

For Marcel, the man out in the cold, he heard whispers, and he looked over his shoulder, looked between buildings as he walked down the street, and he kept seeing the same thing.

For some people, recurring nightmares were about monsters, or people, or events.  For Marcel, it was a recurring image of a building.  Corporate.

“You’re doing so well, why would you quit?” Alpeana asked, in a woman’s voice that echoed through the empty street.  Then she changed her voice again.  “Most people would be thrilled to be where you are.”

Marcel had a job that paid well, but it was mind-numbing.  He couldn’t conscience leaving, when it paid six figures, but he couldn’t bear to stay.  It twisted him up.  And that was the substance of this waking nightmare.  Being stalked by a building that would move closer and closer, one that would keep him.

Alpeana moved to Verona’s side, looking.

“Gotta nudge him over.  Toward the market.”

“A tricky spot, innit?  Tryin’ tae play it subtle-like.”

“Ah.  Sure.”

“Keep an eye on this’n?  Ah’ve got another.”

“Sure.”

Three in the first hour.  People dreamed most in their sleep for about twenty-five percent of the night, but it was a bit scattered, happening in cycles.  In the end, because Lis wasn’t cooperating, they couldn’t really be up all night and working with people throughout.  They’d set up a bit of city magic to alter the flows in a way that would have been way easier for Lis to do, and they’d primed it to work for about two hours.  Lis could have done more.

Sucked, not that Verona was surprised.  At least she wasn’t sabotaging them.  They could improve things later.

Verona wasn’t sure if three in an hour was good, but she was kind of glad it wasn’t too much.  They weren’t scrambling, and they could have a team on each individual, securing things at each step.  Letting the pattern build.

And that also meant more eyes out for trouble.

Melissa’s friend with the broken arm and leg had hobbled in, getting close enough to get a sense that it was a market, but the practice Verona had rigged to lure people to things they needed and wanted had been active and focused elsewhere, on someone with a bit more traction in all this.  So Melissa’s friend hadn’t really found anything yet.  It would need tweaking.

And a couple Others had poked around- a solid echo and a revenant.  Lucy had verified they weren’t more creations from that St. Victor’s practitioner, then let them in.

A little bell at Verona’s wrist jangled.

“Alpeana, Alpeana, Alpeana,” she called out.  “Sorry.”

Alpeana reappeared.

“Someone’s approaching central market.  Can I-?”

“You good though?”

“It’s fun, innit?”

“Yeah?  That’s super.  You want to keep doing this?”

“Aye!” Alpeana shouted after her.

Someone was happy.

Verona crossed the rooftop, jogged down the fire escape, and went over to central downtown.  Where the market was densest.  She reunited with Lucy.

“Repeat, or-?”

“Our fourth.”

Together they watched.

A woman, hair unkempt, wearing sleep clothes with winter boots and a winter jacket, a little dazed.  An omen dogged her, whispering.

“Guess Alpeana made an omen?” Verona asked.

“Seems like.  Guess she got over those worries about committing.”

“I think she’s enjoying this.  A change from the drudgery of nightmares every night.  Something cooperative.”

“Yeah.  Now where’s our woman here going to go?” Lucy asked.

Verona used the Sight, tracking the white that flowed through the bloodstained shrouds that cloaked the market here.  It looked like the work they’d done to guide customers was a little too thinly spread out.  It was working on two people at once and it wasn’t working well.  But she could see the crimson meaty thing in the woman moving, leaning- tempted.

She could see veneers and past the veneers.  She was sure Avery would be a lot better at tracking the connetions, but… connections and needs were different things.

She broke into a run, pulling on her cat mask.

Cutting past the woman, and then crossing in front of her, walking backward, breathing hard, because her boots were heavy and her body already tired.

“Black cat crossing my path?” the woman asked.

Verona could see how the meaty thing in the woman was moving.

She remained silent, and she pointed.

The woman frowned.  “What is this?”

Rather than answer, not wanting to inject her own stuff and strain the market’s effect further, Verona went in the direction she’d pointed, before using a spell card to create darkness as she dipped into shadow.  Deepening that shadow.

The woman followed, moving past her, and then, closer to where the pull of things was, kept going, moving with more direction.

Until she reached a stall hidden away.  Where two of the Oldbodies were.  The old and creepy people of Kennet below who would probably take over if the Bitter Street Witch moved out more permanently.

The woman approached the stall.

“She has a bad heart,” Lucy said.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“You’re in the dark, I can hear you.”

“Right, sorry.  Tired.”

“I can hear them.  They’re working their way up to an offer.”

It took a minute.  The woman sat down.  She was served tea or coffee, but looked reluctant to drink it.

The Oldbodies were a special kind of mean, that worked their way into their expression and features.  It made them disconcerting.

“They’ll give her a new heart.  One that works, and that’s healthy.  But it’s up to her to dispose of the old one.  The woman agreed.  But I don’t think she understands.”

One of the old women leaned across the table.  She started to unbutton the woman’s pyjama top, only for the woman to grab her wrist, stopping her.

She lunged, pushing hand forward, into the woman’s chest.

And pulled out a heart.  Major veins and arteries snapped.

The woman collapsed back into her seat, clutching at her chest, trying to breathe and failing.

The one who’d removed the heart handed it off to the other, and then opened a box.  She thrust a new heart into the woman’s chest.

The other one waited, watching, until the woman had finished recovering.  Then she spat something black onto the damaged heart that had been removed, cupped it in her hands, and squeezed.

When her hands came apart, the heart was dark and long.  A pen?

“Give that pen to an evil person.  They’ll lose their heart, that heart will come back to us.  They’ll have something diseased and horrible instead.  The woman’s heart.  They’ll feel dread for weeks leading up to a failure of the organ.  Then they’ll die.  Are we okay with this, Ronnie?”

Alpeana had joined them.

“They couldn’t have given her a cool puzzle or something?” Verona asked.

“This feels like the kind of thing that would be hard to explain to my mom.”

“Alpy?” Verona asked.  “Can you at least make sure the exit nightmare is really, really big on the guilt?  Make her feel the weight of the decision?”

“Aye.”

“No,” Lucy said.  “Fuck this.  They didn’t get permission to pull this, they’re exploiting our setup.”

Lucy stepped out of the alley and crossed the square-ish space between four different buildings, to the tucked-away stall.  She went over to one Oldbody, leaning in to whisper something.

The old woman scowled.

“No sign of anyone from St. Victor’s?” Verona asked.

Alpeana shook her head.

A minute passed as Lucy worked something out.  She handed the Oldbodies the pen, they did something, then handed it back.

Lucy returned.  Alpeana left, hair spreading out.

She swallowed up the woman in the black-drain-hair nightmare grossness, then carried her back off in the direction of the motel.

“That they have to make it karmic.  Fairer.  They didn’t like it, but they tweaked it.  For the person who gets the sick heart-pen, their sickness will increase and decrease based on their wrongdoing.  If anything rebounds, or if the cursed heart-pen ends up being a bad investment, they have to cope.  It rebounds to the Oldbodies, not the woman.  Not perfect, but…”

“Better than nothing.”

Lucy nodded.

“No sign of anyone from St. Victor’s.  This has to be super obvious to them, right?  Just about everyone Aware has showed up.  Cat lady included.  Anyone with any kind of Sight has to be awake and wondering what’s going on.”

“They didn’t take the bait.  That’s a data point in itself, right?”

Verona shook her head.

“What are you going to do?”

Leave a message.  That’s what I’m going to do.

In the end, with hours of prep work, two hours of monitoring and coordinating, and safeguarding the market as Aware and others came by… seven special customers and about thirty more people who came and bought stuff.  Then a couple hours of debrief.  She’d been up all night.

It was getting to be light out.  If she waited much longer, she’d be running into the first students or staff to show up at the school.

She stood outside St. Victor’s, and she brought a paper down to the snow.

The back parking lot didn’t get plowed during winter, to save money.  It was a small school that was basically a box made of bricks, with a tiny amount of students.

“For Kennet,” she whispered.

The paper lit up, and the lines of the diagram extended out into the snow.

What she’d written in miniature extended out to the snow of the parking lot.  Heat and flame.

Melting the snow until there were distinct letters.  She pulled out a flask, and sucked up the water.

Leaving letters, bold and black, spanning the entire parking lot.  Visible from any window on the north or west side of the school.

Come talk to us.

The ones who knew would definitely know what-

Her bracelet ticked, interrupting her thoughts.  Her head turned fast.

She saw dark silhouettes in a dark classroom.  They startled as she focused on them.  A group.  Young teenagers- more than three, but beyond that, given the five in the morning gloom and the distance, she couldn’t say.

They didn’t come talk to her.

Didn’t go to the market.  Didn’t show their faces when they released a game monster at her.

So she went looking for them.  The ratfink key Cherrypop had given her, or that Toadswallow had given Cherry to give to her, anyway, it worked to get into the school.

Her Sight tracked the meat things, as representations of spirit, in a certain angle.

She went purely based on activity.  Places those meaty things were more agitated.  Like chasing someone that ran through tall grass, watching the tips of the grass more than she hoped for any direct sighting.

She didn’t find them.  They’d had a way of escaping.  But she did find the classroom they’d been in.

And a dead body.  Dessicated, wrapped in bandages that looked like they’d been soaked in black ink.

Her Sight let her find a knife under the teacher’s desk.  She teased it out without touching it with her hands, to be safe.  Old fashioned.

“Not even going to clean up after yourselves?” she asked.

They’d been here all night.  The trash can had empty soda bottles in it.  A bag of ketchup chips lay on a desk, ninety percent eaten, a few chips at the bottom.

She looked down at the corpse, that had been mostly treated.  Only the mouth was open, yellow-orange teeth jutting out of the lipless orifice.

We got started as investigators, trying to find culprits.  And those guys were way harder to find than you guys.

Verona used plastic bags to collect everything she could without touching it.  Maybe they could triangulate connections later.

And the body… that was trickier.  She took some pictures with her phone.

Trickier in some ways.

The classroom had a landline.  So she used that.  Dialing the police nonemergency number.  She wondered if there was even anyone in the station at this hour.

But someone did pick up.

“There’s a corpse in a classroom of St. Victor’s.”

If they wanted to play games and do nefarious stuff, they could have that added hassle.

She got out of there.  She’d have to wait a few hours for the next step.

“Zed.”

“Verona.  Avery told me what you were up to.  Did you even sleep?”

“Not yet.  Wanted to run this by you.  Necromancy, I think.  Making undead.”

She sent the pictures.

“Definitely,” was the reply.

“Would’ve called when I found it, but it was five in the morning.”

“Thanks for not calling then.”

“I think we woke them up with our nightmare market test run.  And instead of going back to sleep, they got together.  A group.  Undead, ritual knife, sending you a picture.”

“Technomancy Other and now an undead?”

“Yeah.  I interrupted them, apparently.”

“What do you need?”

“Textbooks on undead.”

“I’ll send you links to some good ones.”

“I don’t suppose you know if there’s a practitioner family who does this sort of thing?  Or solo practitioner?”

“None I’ve heard of in our area.”

“Like, how big an area?  Carmine Exile’s domain type big?  No skilled necromancers, nobody who’d teach kids to do something like this?”

“Nobody I know of.  Once, I think, but they’re gone now.  Dead, I think.”

“Hmm.  And technomancy?”

“Freeman, the guy you called Phreak?  He’s gone home.  Nowhere near here.”

“Not in the Carmine Exile’s domain, then?”

“No.  And as someone who keeps track, no technomancers good enough to make that Father Gobar simulacrum.”

Verona shook her head a bit, frustrated.

“Weird,” Zed said.

“This is just a shot in the dark, but I don’t suppose I could get you to do a hack for me?”

“What kind?”

“I’ve only got, like, twenty bucks I can safely spend, before life gets inconvenient.  But I think I could get Avery to pay you.  Community pool of funds.”

“I’ll do it for free if it’s something I can do over breakfast, you can pay me by soothing my curiosity about these guys.”

“Can you find out what students are marked absent at St. Victor’s here?” Verona asked.  “It’s a long shot, and maybe they’re more savvy than that, but…”

“Worth trying?”

“I’m kind of hoping they’re spooked I got close, and sleep deprived enough to not realize how it’d look.”

“On it.”

And let’s hope, Verona thought, that if the Wild Hunt comes after us, that they aren’t thinking the same thing about our nervous, sleep deprived selves.

Next Chapter