Author: Wildbow

Crossed with Silver – 19.z | Pale

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Ryan’s pen twirled around his finger as he kept one eye on his computer screen, another on the street.  His computer program ran, progress bar filling.  Rune work on the underside of the laptop let him connect to the internet of the business that was next door and upstairs without wiring himself in.

It didn’t have to be a computer program.  It could be paper.  But his hand was still cramped from the last time he’d handled things on paper.  That was the reason for the pen-twirl exercise, trying to loosen things up.  At least this way he could do two things at once, borrowing the internet of a Turkish fusion cafe and eating at the same time.  Tea with sugar in it and fresh made baklava, with a bare minimum of vegetables and protein in a kebab, to keep himself from collapsing or getting scurvy.

The last time around, he’d reached sixty percent before having to stop early.  He’d picked too large a chunk to try to take, tripped security, so to speak, and he’d had to run.

Now he was almost out, and he badly needed to hack the system, get enough to get a hotel room, sleep, eat properly, and get back to being okay.

“Ryan?”

He startled, looking up, reaching for his bag before his eyes even clarified who he was looking at.

“Lori from high school,” he said, wary.

“What a horrible way to be remembered.  From high school.”  She smiled to signal she was joking.

“But that’s when we knew each other?”

“Yeah,” she said.  “It’s really good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too.”

Lori was beautiful.  She’d been one of the beautiful girls.  He’d been part of one group, she’d been part of another, but there had been overlap.  When the popular kids had been gathered together for a party at someone’s house, they’d mixed.

He’d always kept one eye out for Lori.  A night he happened to see her was a good night.  They’d even had conversations.  One had been at the senior year party, in a hot tub, even just the two of them for a fifteen minute stretch that had felt like an hour and had replayed in his head since.  It held a place in Ryan’s heart and mind that he figured was normally reserved for guys seeing their wives on their wedding day.

And here she was.

Gods and spirits, damn it.

“How have you been?” Lori asked.

“Hectic.  It’s been hectic.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s okay, or it’s going to be, I hope.  Started a business with my brother, now I’m doing my own thing.”

“What thing?”

“Software,” he said, indicating the chunky laptop, before clarifying, “Computers.”

“Already?  Doesn’t that take time to learn?”

“I dabbled, before.  I didn’t really tell people, because, you know, you get stuck with a bad label.”

“Nerd?” she asked, humor in her voice.

Lunatic.  Weirdo.

“Wouldn’t rule it out.”

“Good for you, Ryan.  I hear there’s money in that these days.”

“There is, apparently.”  He glanced at the progress bar.  “I guess we’ll see if I get any.”

This whole situation… he felt a chill.  This was bad.

He closed the laptop lid.  It would keep running, humming along.

“I hope that works out.  Very cool,” Lori told him.

“Yeah.  It’s something.  Anyway, that’s me.  How are you?” he asked.

“Oh, um, that’s a hard question to answer.”

“No pressure.”

“No, no, no.  Um, I don’t know how I am.  Just divorced.”

“Oh no.  Or are congratulations in order?”

“I don’t know.”  She shrugged and it took all the willpower his overtired brain could muster to not glance to see what that shrug did with everything that was beneath her top, especially when there was so much beneath.  “The ex took my daughter for the week.  She was pretty upset.  Too young to grasp what’s happening.  He snapped at me, right at the end- it made it worse for her, overhearing that.”

“Oh, that’s- that’s horrible.  That’s bare minimum, not doing that.”

“Isn’t it?  But that’s why we’re divorced.  He didn’t- nevermind.  It’s- I’m okay.  I’m weirdly okay, now that I’m done being so pissed off about that shitty, stupid comment right at the end.  Like I’ve been on a boat in a storm for a year and now the waters are tranquil.  I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“That’s good.  I- I kind of get it.”

“Do you?  Relationship or-?”

“No, nothing lasting, no time,” he admitted.  “The work I’m doing.  Scrambling to get things done.  Tranquility is… rare.”

“Are you in a storm right now, or is it tranquil?”

“You could call it a storm,” he said.  “But I don’t want to turn the conversation back to me.  You?  Are you working today, coffee break or-?”

“No.  At home today, got restless.  Lonely.  Empty house for the first time in… two years, I guess.  Half the things in it taken.  Random pieces of furniture missing.  Half a life.  Figured I could at least talk to the Barista.  Sherry.”

“You know her?”

“No.  I read the nametag.  That’s how starved I am for- nevermind.  That sounds bad.”

“Nah,” Ryan replied.  “I get that too.”

She smiled, then, jumping like she’d had a thought.  “But then I run into you.  I’m not bothering you?  I feel like I’m interrupting.”

“No.  Um.  Very not bothering me, just-”

His eyes went to the window, looking past the ‘Tea with Limon’ lettering on the glass to scan the road, rooftops, cars, bystanders…

“You’re expecting someone?” she asked.

“In a way.  Related to-” he tapped the laptop.  “I’m not ready for that run-in.  Gotta get more work done first.”

“I see.  I think.”

“Do you want to sit, or-?”

She sat with no hesitation, putting her drink down.  When he glanced at it, she said, “Chocolate milkshake with brownie.  I thought I deserved it.”

He smiled.  “Go for it.  Honestly, that seems pretty easygoing, considering.”

“I’ve got Oh Me Oh My ice cream in the freezer back home,” she confessed.  “Thought I deserved that too.”

He chuckled a bit, nodding.

She tucked some hair behind her ear as she leaned down to take a pull on the straw.  More beautiful than she’d been in high school.  The sun shone through the big window one table down, highlighting her hair on the one side, the peach fuzz on her shoulder and upper arm, the soft fabric of her top.

He took the moment she wasn’t looking at him to glance outside.

He couldn’t see anything, but… shit.

Yeah, the bad feeling wasn’t going away.

“So where are you staying, are you traveling right now?” she asked.

“Always traveling.  Hotel room tonight, maybe.”

“Oh no, don’t do that.  Look, this might be forward, but I’ve got an empty house, there’s a fold-out couch, if that’s okay?”

“I don’t-”

“You’d be doing me a favor.”  She met his eyes for a moment, in a way that made it feel like a moment, not just regular conversation.  “So long as you don’t judge me for the state of the house, missing furniture and all.  And help me eat that ice cream.”

It reminded him of the hot tub.  But at the time they’d been in the hot tub, she’d been attached, presumably to the guy who was now her ex.

She’d always been attached.  He’d never had a chance.

“Do you have internet?” he asked.  “A modem?”

“No.  Unless my ex got it and I didn’t know?”

“You’d know, I think.  Okay.  I think I need it for work.”

“You don’t have it now, do you?  Do hotels have that?”

“I’m managing for now, but it can get tricky.  I just- I don’t think-”

“Okay,” she said, a little quickly.

He glanced out the window.

“Do you want to walk?” he asked.

“Burn off some of these calories?”

“If that’s the reason that works.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “Yeah, yeah, for sure.”

The smile she shot him.

He went to pay.

“No need,” the barista said, looking up from the surface she was wiping down.

“Sorry?” Ryan asked.

“The customer before you said they wanted to pay for the next few customers.”

“Lucky,” Lori said.

Ryan popped some of the money into the tip jar, then left, hurrying now.

He was one step out the door, bag with his computer and things at his shoulder, holding the door for Lori, when he saw her.

She didn’t see him, it looked like, but the fact she was here…

A woman in a form-fitting dress that looked like it was made of small, overlapping gold coins, not sequins, wearing sunglasses, smoking.  Looking.

His Sight wasn’t strong.  But it confirmed the obvious.  The world was cast into blurry black and gray, every individual a silhouette in light gray.

And she, the woman in the gold coin dress, was a silhouette in burnished, molten gold, backed by a complex, ever-changing sigil that looked like someone had knifed reality itself, dragging out a wound, and then poured molten gold into the crack, with the gold overflowing.  Flecks of it escaped the wound and drifted out, lazy, until they darted out to stab people, stab circumstance.  The sigil looked like a four leaf clover and a circle had merged, with arms extending out to the left, right, up, and down, past and through buildings, up into sky.

Weather wasn’t under her purview as much, but she got some say.

He chose a direction, Lori coming with, walking away from the woman in gold.  His computer beeped angrily as the connection to the nearby building was lost.

On a rooftop nearby, two more.  A man, heavy duty clothes stained and frayed, skin dirty and greasy, head shaved.  There was something blunt-edged about him.  Callused in a way that went beyond just the hands.  Something regal too.  Proud.

The sigil behind him was like a circle, mounted on his shoulders, with a pair of rectangles forming a shape like a gavel or sledgehammer.  The world around him and the sigil seemed to bow under the weight of it.  Like the roof’s edge wasn’t even completely straight anymore, caving in slightly.

The other- the person was small enough he saw the sigil first, even though it was normally easier to see.  A sigil in bright orange, a column, bright orange with cut stones ascending like they were smoke, crumbling and dissipating as they went.  It flashed bright.  The person-

Tom.  Tom was a she, despite the name, bad haircut, clothes disheveled.

Tom had been an acquaintance, once.  Maybe even a friend.

Three had come.  Three big ones.

He’d anticipated a steady progression.

He saw others congregating.  Two were especially noteworthy.  A woman in a clown’s harlequin, green with gold diamonds on one side, gold with green circles on the other.  Her back was straight, and there was zero humor in her.  He knew of her as the Whammy.  An Envoy.  She’d split into green and gold, visiting two people.  Making them offers.  Each could take what luck and circumstance had granted the other, choosing at the same time every day, until such a time as both decided not to take anything.  There were catches; they could only take what luck and fortune had provided, like good health, sanity, family money, and  and got nothing if they asked for something that had been earned, whatever was taken using the envoy counted as ‘earned’, and couldn’t be taken back.

She had two subjects with her.  Two teenagers who stood on either side of her, both of them looking rather worse for wear.  Her targets inevitably destroyed one another.  She might have made them an offer, letting them off the hook if-

If they’d find and help deal with Ryan.

The Wagering Man was another Envoy.  He wore a cap from the fifties, a suit jacket, and long coat.  Ryan knew less about him, only that he was an Envoy for Venture, who was an incarnation that was maybe fifty percent with Fortune, thirty-five percent Fate, and fifteen percent Nature.  He let people explore paths not taken, adventures they’d turned down.  But with rules.  Restrictions.  Don’t touch a dog.  Don’t be outside after eleven at night.  New rules each time they wanted to extend the deadline or adjust the reality.  And goals, to seal the deal, make the new reality real.  Get the girl.  Earn Dad’s approval.  Could they manage it, before they screwed up and broke a rule?  Or would the accumulated rules and paranoia around them ruin them?

There were more.  The foot soldiers.  Fools.  He couldn’t identify them in the crowd with his normal eyes, but his Sight could track them by the gold tint.

One of the bits of escaping gold darted down nearby.

A stray twenty dollar bill sprung into existence where the gold had hit, then floated through the air with the wind, slapping Lori’s shin and sticking there.

“What- no way.”  Lori beamed a smile at Ryan.  “Did you see that?”

“Leave it,” he said.

“What are you talking about?  It’s-”

“Think-” he had to pause to come up with an excuse.  “Think of it like a quarter glued to the sidewalk.  I don’t think it’s real and it’s- just shake it off?”

“Are you sure?”

With his Sight active, he could see the sigil reorienting, shedding its gold light over the area.  Like a spotlight shining down on him, while he tried to escape a prison at night.

And with that… well, similar deal to Lori finding Ryan.  He didn’t know if Lori had been the equivalent of putting out feelers, or if it had been genuine good luck that had tipped certain forces off, but he was pretty sure the bill being paid off was a feeler, and the bill.

The woman in the gold dress had noticed.  She’d maybe even identified him.  She was distant, but he could see her lips move.  Lady Luck herself.  Or a Lady Luck.

And someone heard.  Tires squealed.

A car out of control hit a hydrant, went up, then the nose came down.

He pushed Lori clear, reached for his pocket, and went limp.

Going limp was usually a good idea with the big stuff.

A fragment of shooting star got bright in his hand.  He folded the paper around it.

That was half his numbers gone.

The car hit him, bumper dragging against the sidewalk.  Ryan hit hood, windshield, slid on roof-

Front-flipped through the air.

And landed on his feet, unharmed.  Luckily unharmed.  The car bumped into the wall by a window with enough force the window cracked and partially broke anyway.

Every single one of Fortune’s Fools, both Envoys and the Incarnation of Hardship snapped their attention to him.  Every Other present who hadn’t already been focused on him.

“Oh my god,” Lori gasped.

“I’m okay.”

“You got hit by a car!  You flipped!”

“I’m okay!  Really.”

“You need to go to a hospital.  There are injuries you might not even know you have.”

Lady Luck had already seen him.  So had Tom, who had presumably delivered the airborne car.

Who wasn’t Tom anymore.  She was Disaster.

He wondered if that was what was in store for him.  Being put on the job.

Lady Luck might be too annoyed with him at this stage.

One of the concerned bystanders that was approaching was one of Fortune’s Fools.  Slightly better looking than average, disheveled, in a ‘just rolled out of bed looking good’ way.  And his pupils were the clubs symbol of a playing card.

He reached out to offer a helping hand, like he wanted to check Ryan was okay.

Ryan avoided the hand, bumping into Lori.

“I gotta go,” he mumbled.

“What do you mean?  Ryan?”

He broke into a run.

“Ryan!?”

This sucked.

If Lady Luck had brought Lori to him just to rip her away, he wouldn’t be surprised.  She could be cruel, especially to those she didn’t like, and she didn’t like Ryan.

He pulled out the papers.  He’d done calculations, he’d done his best to keep track.  If he lost his place or missed circumstances unfolding around him, then he’d have to find it again… or reset.

Use of the shooting star was that.  A big hit of Fortune, that drew way too much attention, but also acted like a reset button on his other tools.  He could trust that where he’d folded the paper was the right number now.

A bit of practice, some tools to help decipher and decrypt…

Two more of Fortune’s Fools ahead of him.  Two women.

2, poor luck.

He snapped his fingers twice before indicating, himself with thumb, nearby sandwich shop with ring finger, two Fools with middle finger.

The door of the sandwich shop opened.  A crowd of people were leaving what looked like a private event.  Slowing the fools down.

He could hear sirens, now.  Incarnations liked to use authorities.  Usually they could find a way to pull on them.  Institutions.  Anything fixed and big enough would have strings that could be pulled.  If he’d been up against Nature, Nature could draw on instincts, the power imbalances, pursuit and tracking, territory, and so on.

Fortune could just line up the right cop in the right moment.  At least from her perspective.  For Ryan, it would be the wrong cop in a bad moment.

The Envoys were fast, moving across rooftops, trying to get out ahead of him.  Fortune’s Fools were everywhere and all they needed to do was touch him.  Death had a similar thing going with the grim reaper type thing.  If they touched him, he wouldn’t die, probably, but he’d be hit with fortune.  A coin flip as to whether he’d be blessed with good fortune, and the net would close, or he’d be robbed of it, and he’d be met with disaster or rendered destitute by a bank error.

Fortune, who also went by Lady Luck was following, taking her time.  Hardship was doing something similar.

Disaster -Tom- had picked up the pace.

Further down the street, he saw the gold reach of Fortune, and a car’s brakes failed.  It rolled down the slope to hit a poorly fitted hydrant, rode up on it a bit, and then the car’s weight pulled it over.

Water geysered out.

Chaos ensued.  People moving, running, going to play, trying to get clear before they got wet.

Slowing him down.

A Fool stepped out of the shop, a heavyset man with a glow of good nature about him.

“Sorry, buddy,” the guy said, reaching.

The next number on the paper- Ryan moved his thumb.  The next number was a six.

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed.  “Sorry.”

The flows of fortune and fate were already tilted in that direction, looking for an excuse, and Ryan was cheating the system.  He glanced up, saw an air conditioner.  He used the Sight, gesturing at the same time.  Eye movement and hand movement-

He backed into someone, who pushed him slightly.  The reaching hand of the Fool got within an inch of him.

The air conditioner fell and caved in the Fool’s head, neck, and shoulder.

Ryan backed away- saw the Envoy crossing the street, invisible to everyone present.  Fools followed after, in a loose crowd.

The guy would live.

The entire deal was that Ryan had figured out how to cheat Fortune herself.  He’d helped the business he and his brother were running, clearing away all obstacles, he’d shared info and techniques with Tom, along the way.  Someone reasonably nearby, working with Fortune from other angles.

Except cheating Fortune was a wrinkle.  One that stacked up, each cheat having ripple effects on the fabric of it all, that piled onto one another, got messy, and started to affect other things.

It could be smoothed over in all sorts of ways.  Fortune’s Fools were sent out to find wrinkles and balance scales.  Those without Fortune’s favor -the poor- were easy targets.  So someone could win the lottery, then meet ruin shortly after.  Unless they were already rich, in which case it was less of a bump in the road.  Other agents of the universe were conscripted.  Items or circumstances to draw in excess, like shooting stars, or put out into the world to fill a lack, like lucky coins.

Or Fortune herself could get involved.  She could just reach out, altering reality to fix things in all sorts of ways.

The net was closing, he wasn’t having any luck finding a good way out.  He was only spending what he had – the last batch of numbers he’d managed to get, that let him take chance and happenstance and do away with it entirely.

He stopped short as cops pulled onto the street.  The paper slipped in his hand.  A fleck of liquid gold, and his thumb had slid, the gold streaking as it had moved on.  From a 1.

Miserable fortune.

Yeah, she was way too close if she was able to fudge and spend his numbers for him.  That cop was going to shoot him, now.

He had tools and practices.  The same things that had drawn the negative attention from a member of the universe’s middle management team were ways to handle her.  The fragment of the shooting star for something big, numbers for nudges and tricks… except he only had fifteen numbers left.

Fortune would chase him down, use her agents to keep an eye out, and always, inevitably, she would show up again.  If he could do a good batch of fresh numbers on his computer, he could go to a hotel, trust a turn of good luck that he’d lost the trail, rest.  But usually he was up and running for days at a time, scrabbling for what he could get to survive.

In his back pocket were some side options.  There were places he could go, that were between realms, or pocket realms where, according to people and Others he’d met, the demiurge or owner of a Demesne would trade, barter, or just provide sanctuary in exchange for company.  But even that was a finite resource.  Spend too long there, and Fortune would eventually find her way to him.  If he burned a community hiding place by staying too long or not taking precautions, they’d burn him.  Doors would close.

But there was a reason he’d kept to London, Ontario, instead of leaving the city, even with the increased pursuit.  Moving elsewhere would help, but he had a contact.

He’d established a familiar.  A bit of city spirit, tied into factory, commercial real estate, road.

Sovereign, he reached out.

This, too, was an option that could be burned if he relied on it too much.

He ducked into an alley.

The city spirit Sovereign stirred as he reached out through the familiar bond.

Sovereign helped.  Ryan ran down the alley, glanced back, and saw a wire fence where there hadn’t been one before.

The cop was on the far side, just rounding the corner, gun in hand.  Two Fools stood further back.

“Hey!” the man barked.

If Fortune willed it, it’d be my bad luck to resemble a notorious criminal.

He put a hand on the wall to speed his turn around the corner.  As he did, Sovereign flashed a signal at him.

A door was unlocked.  He stepped inside, closed the door quietly, then took stock, breathing hard.

The kitchen or bakery inside was dark.

He crossed the kitchen, went to the main dining area… and saw Whammy the clown.

Whammy flipped a poker chip, caught it, then flung it to one side.

The chip hit a stray glass on one table, tipped it, it hit other things, and in a cascading series of events, tipped a chair, which knocked over a table, and the round table rolled a partial circle…

In the end, three tables and several chairs knocked over, things littering the ground.

The Wagering Man stood from amid the chaos, fixing his hat and suit coat.  He flipped the poker chip, caught it, flipped it…

Stared unblinking at Ryan.

“There’s a deal on the table,” the Wagering Man said.

The Whammy stalked around the edges of the room, silent.  Feral tiger-in-a-cage energy, serious expression, very un-clown-like posture and attitude.

“Okay.  I don’t figure it’s a good deal.”

“Considering the alternatives?  It’s better than what you stand to get.”

“Yeah?”

“Me or the Whammy.  Take what we offer, give it an honest shot.”

“A rigged game that you’ll rig worse.  Wipe out a little wrinkle-”

“You’re not making little wrinkles, Ryan,”  Lady Luck murmured.  Ryan took a few steps over to see.  She was sitting at a table at the side, wearing gold-tinted sunglasses despite the fact the lights in the restaurant were off, the blinds drawn.  “You use your machine to run the code, you use spirits as messengers between yourself and the business you’re connecting to for their internet.  If the spirits are asked to relay a message, they need to hear it.  They register it.  They’re influenced after.”

“Hm,” Ryan grunted, acutely aware he was being surrounded.

“I can clean up some of it, but some of it escapes my reach first.  Different jurisdictions, different Lords who don’t welcome me and my influence into their domain.”

“A few spirits with a minor influence of Fortune?  I understand if it’s irritating, but…”

“That’s the little stuff, Ryan,” Lady Luck told him.  The end of her cigarette burned gold in the gloom.  He could see molten gold eyes behind the reflection of the sunglasses, when the angle was right.  “By putting yourself out of my sight and reach, you’ve broken from reality.  The only fortune you get is when my light shines on you.”

Her Sign was becoming visible even without him using his Sight.  The room took on a gold cast.

“I guess I have you to thank for the opportunity to see an old classmate?”

“Yes.  This isn’t an irritation, it’s not a… you called it a wrinkle.  It’s a gouge, and you, you don’t realize how much you’ve twisted yourself into being something without luck, good or bad.  You’re a tool that doesn’t know it’s a tool, dragging itself against the world and leaving gouges everywhere.”

“Huh.  I figure you would’ve found me faster, then.”

“I’ve been busy clearing up the damage.  I haven’t been able to clean it all up.  I was considering recruiting you to the task.  There are about sixty disasters unfolding that you were part of, practitioner, that are outside my scope to act.  Ordered by priority, if we change you to not need sleep, putting you on the job, not a minute of rest, you should be able to deal with most.  At the conclusion, when you’ve finished cleaning up the damage you caused, I can use you as a sink for karma and consequence, to help balance the scales.”

“In essence, the better you do, the better you end up,” Tom said.  She glared at him as she came in the door behind him.

“Hi Tom,” Ryan greeted her.

“Not my name anymore,” Disaster told him.  “Pay attention.  This is important.  Sometimes people in your circumstance don’t even get an explanation.  They have to figure it out from the moment the starting gun goes off.”

“Figure what out?”

“On the one hand, fail, and we will make sure you experience the very worst that Fortune, Disaster and Hardship can make a practitioner experience, and you’ll experience it for a very long time.”

“And if I succeed?  Sixty disasters to tackle, no sleep, no breaks?”

“Sixty and counting,” Fortune told him.  “Damage takes time to repair, and new problems sprout from every instance of it.”

“If you get it ninety nine point nine percent right?  Then it’ll still be metaphorical hell,” Disaster told him.  “You’ll feel the harm done by that point one percent you could not prevent, and you’ll feel it without relief.”

Ryan clicked his tongue.  “What if I get it one hundred percent right?”

“You won’t.  All of the rest of us working in concert couldn’t.  And if it looked like you might, I’d make sure you broke your ankle, right at the end.  To guarantee there’s some suffering.”

“Tomasin-”

“Disaster.  I’m Disaster now.  Because of you.”

Because, while running from the metaphorical bear, he’d pushed her over, to give the bear something to eat.

“A small Disaster.  Brand new, still very Tom.”

“Not winning any favors from me, Ryan,” she said.

“Are there even any to be won?”

“You could start by apologizing and begging.  Then we could see.”

“I am sorry.  I didn’t realize how bad this would get.”

“People warned you.”

This close to Fortune herself, his numbers wouldn’t work.  The shooting star wouldn’t work.  It would backfire, if anything.

“How bad?”

“What are you asking?” Fortune asked him.

“These things I have to go up against.  How strong?”

“They vary.  Some are barely stronger than one of my Fools.  Aware.  Others… a false incarnation.  Spirits forged into something else by coincidence.  A god in a computer server.  Some will take years to emerge.  Others are doing damage as we speak.  Many of them will do their damage.  Many of them will create their own wrinkles, their own Others, and things will be set in motion.  I’d call you a Fool but you don’t deserve the title I give to my agents.”

“Should’ve taken my deal,” the Wagering Man told him.  “At least you would’ve had a chance.”

“I don’t believe in chance,” Ryan replied, backing up.

He pushed through the swinging kitchen door.

The cop was there, red-nosed, like he had a cold.  Which explained why he couldn’t smell the reek of gas that was flooding the room.

He’d drawn his gun.

“Get down on the ground!” he hollered.

Zero trigger discipline.

Damn it, Tom.

Sovereign!  Ryan thought.  Now.  Anything, everything!

“Down!” the cop hollered.

He could feel Sovereign reaching through the walls.  City magic distilled.  A reconfiguration of space.

“Now!”

He crouched, working his way to his knees, hands raised.

“Face on the floor!”

He couldn’t, because then he’d be trapped.

“You can start work now, swear to capture the sixty by the rules we impose, or you can do the exact same thing starting in a few hours, with third degree burns over most of your body,” Fortune told him.  “He’s about to fire a warning shot in a gas-flooded kitchen.”

“Who’s behind you!?” the cop roared.

It was a matter of running, never sitting still for long.  Everything had to be bought with hard earned currency.  Any knock on the door or person coming around the corner or down the street could be an agent of a fundamental authority.  Or the authority herself.

“If you have accomplices, Jonathan, they need to show themselves now!”

“Not my name.”

“Shut up!”

If he could buy enough time, find enough moments to revise his formula, solve luck itself, he could slip free.  If he could set enough things up, gather power, improve, maintain a long enough streak of running away that coup was on his side, and timed the killing of this version of Lady Luck with a good enough getaway, whoever took up her mantle wouldn’t be able to give chase.  He’d be free.

“Now!  I know you in the back can hear me!”

He had his aces in the hole, refuges, back alley markets, places outside of space and time.  For brief stints.  He had other aces in the hole.  For the little escapes.  For the emergencies.  And for the real emergencies, he could burn his aces.

It’s okay to show yourself, he thought.

“Come out now!  Hands up!” the cop roared.

From this point on, everything would be harder.  His secret familiar who could reorganize streets and give him directions, while confounding his pursuers?  No longer secret.

He reached for the back of his shirt, and grabbed a paper.

Using a back way like this was burning another bridge at the same time.  Once it was found, word would get around.  It wouldn’t work as an escape route.

The practitioner who ran it had extorted him last visit anyway, so he didn’t feel too bad.

The officer coughed, then coughed harder.  “Fucking cold.”

“That’s the gas leak,” Ryan said.

Sovereign reached into the building’s fabric, folded it, altered it, and made a way.

And with the paper he held- an invitation, he could take that a step further, altering the path, leapfrogging past it.

He took his moment, while the cop was doubled over.

There was a bang, the ceiling shifted, and pipes came tearing through, cascading down.

Blocking the door as Sovereign opened it.  A tangle of pipes and wood he could crawl through- if he had two minutes.  He didn’t.

He could see the open park on the far side.

“No,” Fortune told him.

She was in the room now.

“You!” the officer shouted.  “Down!”

Fortune didn’t comply.

The gun went up.

By any means.

Sovereign’s centipede body snaked through, grabbing him around the middle, and pulled.

It was not a perfect or gentle way through.  His upper body hit some pipes, his leg hit another.

The gun went off, echoing in the kitchen.  The explosion came so fast after it it sounded like one continuous sound.

Ryan’s spine folded with the force of Sovereign’s pull.  Internal organs were damaged.  Cold fire consumed his legs as the explosion took the kitchen and everything up to the doorway, while he wasn’t all the way through.

Except not.  The cold fire was his nerves.

Sovereign, in human form, gilded businessman, shut the door behind them.

Buying them minutes.

“Let’s go, before she follows us in,” he told his familiar, groaning out the words.  “There aren’t many options left.”

We’re not going to solve the formula now.  There’s no time, I’m too hurt.

There’s nobody to put in the way of the metaphorical bear.

No good refuges.  Not when she’s on my heels like this.

One option left.

Sovereign scooped him up.  It was all he could do to not scream in agony as his lower body moved.  All he could do to hold on.

Sovereign flowed into the spirit world, bringing him with.  He drew on Sovereign’s nature to become less corporeal and more spirit, which made it easier to endure the pain.  Not that he could get rid of all of it.

“Let’s go talk to the Aurum Dame, see if we can’t get to her before Fortune gets to us,” Ryan told his familiar.

“I expected more fighting, having to extract deals, having to argue my case,” the Carmine Exile said, walking through snow.

“What argument would you have made?” the Aurum asked.  He wove his way through

“That the system is broken, that it’s mutated at the hands of the self-interested.”

“We know that already.  Argument made before you made it.  There.  Easy.  Efficient.”

They’d reached the school.  It hardly mattered, when they could move across their realm at will.

“We’re all such contradictions, aren’t we?  By nature?” the Aurum asked.

“All of us?” the Carmine replied.

“You were a forsworn criminal, and now you are Law, your word matters, Carmine.  The Alabaster, whose role put so much emphasis on mercy and sacrifice, has lasted longer than any I know of, and her heart is colder than any of us four.  The Sable Prince is arbiter of death and other passages, and he lives in a sense, he acts.”

“And you?”

“The unchanging arbiter of change?” the Aurum asked, before shrugging.

“People in jail make some of the greatest students of the law,” the Carmine Exile said.  He looked at the Aurum with red eyes.  “Mercy doesn’t require warmth any more than sacrifice requires death.”

The Aurum laughed.  “True.”

“And if having no semblance of life was a requirement for the role, I do not think our judge in black would be very effective for his role.”

“I can see you, Carmine.  The entirety of you as you are now, and everything that fed into making you you.  Your childhood, your past.  I know you enjoy this.  What a shame you weren’t able to attend a practitioner school, and have educated debates, battles of wits.”

“I was hardly the type.  I would have kept to myself, no debates.”

“You don’t think you could have been drawn in by a young Alexander?  Or even a young Musser?”

“Depends how young a Musser you mean.  But that’s more about who they are than who I am.  I don’t think there’s many out there who could resist Alexander’s charisma, if he truly wanted to get on your side, or Musser’s force of will.  How Musser could make you feel so privileged to be in his good graces, considered a friend.”

The Aurum Coil extended a hand toward the building, palm up.  The Carmine Exile nodded.

They stepped from a point ten paces out from the school building to the inside of a classroom on the second floor.

The Sable Prince sat on a chair, wearing a black suit with a black shirt beneath, black tie, hair wild.  His foot was propped up on a student’s chair.

At the desk next to where he sat, an echo with some soul attached sat at his desk, wearing his school uniform, head down.  Sixteen or seventeen.

“Are you a creature of contradictions, Sable Prince?” the Aurum asked.

“Some respect, please,” the Sable replied.

The Aurum looked.  To the echo, to the moment that created it, then back out to the future.

“The boy’s still alive.”

“Something died in him at this moment,” the Sable replied.

“He knew he was different,” the Carmine said.  “But here, he was confronted by it.  He tried for a long time.  He got help.  Tutors, direct lessons with teachers.  Extra time.  He was held back one year, in hopes that would be enough.”

The Aurum looked through the echo and around the room.

Other students were younger.  Smaller.

“But at sixteen, he had the capacity of a twelve year old.  He won’t have higher when he’s sixteen, twenty, forty, or sixty.  He shouldn’t be in this high a grade, it’s only causing him misery,” the Carmine finished, looking down at the boy.

“This is the moment, staring at the backs of smaller students in front of him, that it all strikes home,” the Aurum noted.  “He feels an emotion deep enough to leave an echo behind.  A coherent one.  A piece of him breaks.  Fortune and Nature are cruel with the hands they deal.”

The Sable put out a hand, resting it on the echo’s head.

“Carmine Exile,” the Alabaster said.

All three of them turned to look at the doorway.

“If we left you alone long enough, you’d go to war against the pillars to keep things like this from happening,” she said.

“I’ve already started, Alabaster,” the Carmine replied, looking at the echo.  “Undercities, to capture those who’d fall through the cracks.  Lords, powerful and ruthless, to crush those who’d trample over others on their way to the top.  A climate where someone in this kind of pain will see that pain given form, that form acting to make sure others know.  To force corrections.”

“This one won’t,” she said, as she walked over, footsteps silent.  Dew from melted snowflakes beaded the fur portions of her dress and hair.

“No.  But the climate will change and will continue to change as long as I’m in power.  In a month, maybe the next echo that resembles this one will.”

“You’re speaking of the future more,” the Aurum said.

“I can see so much.  Power, past, future, flows,” the Carmine mused aloud.  “Yet I’m baffled.  They haven’t come for me.  They haven’t found their footing.  I’ve situated myself in a hard to reach spot in a town with passionate defenders, and even then, I thought our enemies would put together an answer.  A part of me wants to push things further.  To cross more lines in order to see…”

“Passion, instead of self interest,” the Aurum supplied.

“Perhaps.  The Blue Heron.  The team, the practitioners gathering together, working together.  Alexander recognized the importance of that moment, the confluence of forces.  Some great men and women in alignment, others- not so great in the grand sense, but capable of supporting and enabling.  I would have liked to see something like that spring up against me.  Maybe I could have said something profound to them before they undid me.”

“But there’s nothing?” the Sable asked.

“Nothing overt.”

The Alabaster put a finger to the echo’s throat, looking at the Sable.  He nodded once, hand still atop the echo’s head.

She drew the finger across the echo’s throat.  It parted the faintly transparent, ephemeral impressions, parting everything there.  The echo crumbled.

She caught the fragment of soul in her hands before it could fall and break.  Walking to the window, she cupped her hands and said, “He needs you.  Back you go.”

The exhalation that came with the words was enough to send it on its way.  It passed through the glass as if it didn’t know it was supposed to stop against the hard surface.

“We must contradict,” the Sable said.  He met the Aurum’s eye.  “Else we’d be Incarnations.  Death.  War.  Innocence.  Fortune.”

“Ah,” the Aurum said, smiling.

“Why ask?” the Carmine Exile asked him.

“We do important things.  If we’re gone, the universe will contrive to put something in our place, whether that’s a neighboring judge getting more jurisdiction, or something else eventually springing up in our place.  Things carry on.  But as a kind of thanks for not making it a harder process, we’re afforded leeway.  Flexibility.”

“Mm hmm,” the Carmine Exile grunted his reply.

He knew more than anyone about that leeway.  There really was no firm or pre-established restriction on what leeway could be taken, what liberties could be explored.  The Carmine Exile had taken the idea and run with it, and he would keep running with it until stopped.

“The agents we choose or don’t choose, the Others we raise up, the personal interests we may serve.  Typically small things.  If it’s unwarranted or extreme-”

“You get replaced,” the Alabaster said.

“That’s the idea,” the Carmine Exile murmured.  “Something’s broken or missing.”

“Or the Seal was made for people of a different era and nobody who had a hand in it imagined things extending to this scale, civilizations this dense,” the Aurum said.  “Either way.  I was not too greedy.  I unmade a certain Incarnation, and one of her subordinates, who I’d known before she was an Incarnation.  I gave some fortune to a lady, and some to my brother.”

“The same lady who is now dying,” the Sable noted.

The Aurum nodded.  “The fortunes she got will go to her child when she passes, and the child will do well, and I will, if trends hold, be replaced, and whoever follows may do away with that precedent.  My deeds will be undone.  I’m not introspective all too often.  There’s enough to do.”

“Why fixate on the contradictions?” the Carmine Exile asked.

“I’m left thinking about what we are.  The why of it.  I was and am a cheat of the highest order, cheating reality itself, now I dictate the rules.  I am a judge of change, but unchanging.  I am a judge of scales and exchange, but I am a higher power, interacting with those beneath me, with little parlay.  Any quippy observations to that, Carmine?”

“I’m sorry that this woman you thought so highly of died.”

“The irony,” the Aurum observed, centipede body flowing around the room as he shifted posture, reclining a bit.  “Is that Fortune favored her already.  She didn’t need my help.  She was born beautiful.  I may be sexless now, above and past those concerns.  But I recognize that much.  I play into your concerns, Carmine.”

“It’s fine.”

“The powerful get power so easily.  A woman fortunate enough to be beautiful and lucky enough to be able to afford to be kind wins the heart of a young practitioner, and when he ascends to a higher role, she gets favor from an arbiter of Fortune.”

“Except now she dies.”

“Out of Fortune’s reach.  She was poisoned at work, handling chemicals with gloves insufficient to the task.  No luck involved.”

“I see.”

“Are you asking for assistance in saving her?” the Sable asked.

“No.  Don’t worry.”

The Sable Prince didn’t reply, silent.

The Aurum went on, “I never dwelt on it much.  I supported my brother and Lori removed some enemies in the shuffling we naturally do when we take power.  I didn’t think of it again until now.  Now that she’s passing, things seem different.  Contradictions seem difficult to reconcile.”

“We don’t stand alone,” the Alabaster said.

The Aurum looked at her.

“When we stand alone, we are weak.  We saw this with the past Carmine.  Her isolation killed her.  We have tacitly agreed to stand as four against threats.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” the Carmine Exile said.

“You assume I’m speaking about you specifically.”

“Aren’t you?  I’m the biggest target.  I’m the biggest threat to the sorts of forces that have the ability to remove us.  They’re too busy infighting to act, but they could.”

“I am speaking mostly about you.  Only mostly.  I’ve been doing this for some time now.  I’ve seen the various holders of office come and go.  Certain things remain the same.  Roles.  Relationships.”

The Aurum listened.

“We each hold certain things that are for ourselves alone.  Violence is the Carmine’s.  Fortune is the Aurum’s.  Death is the Sable’s.  Pieces of each of those things can be shared out.  We have common ground too.  The Carmine and I hold a closer connection to nature.  The Aurum and I are both arbiters of transformations, of different types.  The Sable and I both oversee sleep and dream.  I could list fifty things any pair of us share.”

“Contradictions too,” the Aurum noted.

“We each have common ground, and yes, we each stand as opposites to the others in other ways.  Violence and passivity.  Life and sustenance against death.  Stability against progress.”

She looked at the Aurum as she said that last part.

“Yes.  I know this intuitively, but hearing it said aloud-”

“Closes the gap between heart and head?” the Sable interrupted him.

“Yes.”

“What the Carmine is doing?  You’ll help him more than either of us two, at least for now,” the Alabaster told the Aurum.  “If you choose it.”

“It’s a flawed system, I see a system, especially one with flaws to exploit, and I want to cheat it.  I choose.”

“The Sable will help the Carmine through the aftermath.  The interstitial stage.  People will die.”

The Sable nodded.  He still sat by the now-empty chair, boot propped up on a chair seat.

No mention is made of choice.  Because he’s older.  An edifice in this system.

“I, when all is done, may be the one to secure it as tradition going forward.”

Even less than the Sable.  It was treated like it was assumed she’d accept whatever happened as a new status quo.

“You took the throne with a self-imposed mandate, the mandate fits your role,” the Alabaster said, as she turned away from the window.  “You’ve given us no reason to stand in your way.  Carry on.”

“Either I create something harsh enough to force change, or they collectively change enough to stop me.”

“Or some combination therein,” the Aurum added.

The Carmine nodded once.

“So be it,” the Alabaster said.  “They’re waiting downstairs now.”

The Aurum led the way.  The centipede’s body rasped against ground, legs whirring as the body flowed through air, running against corners and doorframes.

He reached the gym and circled its outermost perimeter.

Five students were inside, at the center of the gym.  One was young, and had retreated to the middle of the huddle, hiding a bit from the adults in the room.

Four men and two women were standing outside the large diagram circle that had been drawn onto the gymnasium floor.

It was a Judge’s prerogative to have or not have agents, as it had been Lady Luck’s prerogative to have her Fools, the envoys, and the aid of subordinate incarnations.

One more figure sat off to the side.  A young lady in a private school uniform.  She’d inserted herself into the school as a student in the background, whispered here, whispered there, and she’d hand selected five to start with.  She had her eyes on others.

The Aurum’s chitinous body rasped against the stage that overlooked the gymnasium, before settling there.

“They were getting restless,” Lis told him.

“Is that better or worse now that I’ve arrived, riding a giant insect?”

“I don’t think it changed the fact their teachers cut intimidating figures.”

They did.  There was a look in their eyes that resembled a soldier that had been at war, or someone who’d endured unimaginable pain.  The Carmine Exile had that look at times.  Too wide eyed, unblinking, unflinching.

“For this to work,” the Carmine Exile’s voice echoed in the gymnasium, before he’d even fully entered.  “It needs to be unanimous.  Judges, facilitators, teachers, students.”

The Alabaster and Sable followed him in, Alabaster behind his right shoulder, Sable behind his left.

“If you have reservations, say so now.”

“They’re so young,” Yiyun said.  One of the teachers.  Chinese-Canadian, long-haired.  She had fled her family with her daughter in tow, hoping to save her daughter.  She hadn’t, even after being forsworn in her efforts to rescue the girl.

If any would have reservations about children, it would be her.

“Them being young is the point,” the Carmine Exile said.

“We’re not that young,” Nomi said.

“There is a standard process for Awakening, a standard diagram” the Carmine Exile told them.  He paced around the gymnasium.  Around the non-standard diagram that had the students at the center, teachers ringing the perimeter.  The Aurum and the two other judges were standing or sitting at cardinal points, around the edges of the room.  The Carmine was taking the long way around to getting to his spot.  The Carmine Exile went on talking, telling them, “But it’s not obligatory.  There are other paths.  Someone can be introduced to the world of Others by a higher power, or they can run up against the supernatural so often and so forcefully that no Innocence remains.”

The ex-Forsworn and children hung onto his every word.

“Some of you five are here because you need power.  Some because you’ve tasted Awareness, you’ve seen that this town is changing and you know you’re on the outside of that change.  Some of you have natural talent and the willingness to exercise it.  Even when it means breaking into the school at a late hour.  Facing down people like your teachers here.  Facing me, the Aurum, the Sable, the Alabaster.”

One of the boys, Teddy, made a greater effort to meet the Carmine’s eyes, as if rising to the challenge.

“Something brought you here and keeps you here.  Something will keep you here when things get more intense,” the Carmine said.  He was halfway around the circle now.  “You have your reasons.”

There were some nods.

Teacher stared at student, studying them.  Each teacher had come from the lowest points a practitioner could reach.  Many looked to see if the children had what it took to survive reaching those points, if it should come to that.  For weakness.  For strength.

“The typical process for this is a binding oath.  You make an oath to spirit, to Otherdom as a whole, and pledge your word.  It’s common to put children in this position.  Common to turn them into soldiers and tools.  I won’t lie and tell you that your potential teachers here won’t have expectations.  Or that I won’t.  But above anything, I want to change the worst parts of this typical process.”

The children, the Aurum could see, didn’t truly get it.

They might, in the future, after they’d seen more.  But then again, the Carmine Exile’s words weren’t for them.  He was creating new law.  Stating it for all to hear.  He ensured it was witnessed by the Aurum, Sable, and Alabaster.

Like Fortune, Lady Luck, with her sigil behind her.  Reaching its arms outward.  He wanted this to do something that went beyond these children and this room.

“At any time before you turn eighteen, you may forfeit what tonight gives you,” the Carmine said.  “At any time before you turn eighteen, your teachers may, with the agreement of myself or another judge, withdraw what you will be given tonight, if they think it’s not for you.  If you are soundly defeated and you are in true danger, what was given to you tonight will be withdrawn.  If you put the others at risk by sharing information with outside powers, be they outside Kennet or inside Kennet but opposed to us… what was given to you tonight will be withdrawn.”

There were some nods.  Mostly, they’d been warned about parts of this in fragments.  This was pulling it all together.

“If we withdraw you, it is to protect you.  You will lose the ability, the word, and memories.  It will not be offered or given again.  You will return to your ordinary life, as much like it used to be as we can contrive to make it.  Enemies will know you to be Innocent immediately, when the practice is taken from you.  That may protect you.  But I cannot guarantee it.”

He found his spot, at the south edge of the room, opposite the Alabaster.  Though, truly, as the Alabaster had explained, he was opposite to each of them.

“The young often need practice.  Some of you need it.  But the practice is not kind to the young.  It is, too often, too rigid.  This is a compromise.  A new kind of Awakening.  A tenuous one.  Your practice will be weaker than if it was a true, lifelong Oath.  I intend to give you access to powers on a great enough scale that being stuck at a quarter of your usual strength won’t matter.  When you turn eighteen, the oath will be binding, and you will inherit the full suite of powers… while losing the ability to withdraw.  Decide before then.”

The diagram on the floor included a void- an empty circle.  The space in that void rippled in response to the Carmine’s last statement.  The teenagers shifted their feet nervously.

“There are five of you and six teachers here, soon to be ten.  Together with us, you’ll nominate more to join you, over time.  I’ll find more teachers as you do.  You’ve talked to the teachers, you’ve talked among one another, you have your own needs.  Have any of you decided?  You’ll learn something from each teacher, and you’ll share with each other what you learn, but each of you will have one mentor.  You’ll decide later.”

Already, the Aurum knew that Nomi Bearden would go to Yiyun Jen.  They’d talked.  Nomi had lost both of her parents and lived with her grandmother.  Yiyun had lost her daughter in the worst way.  Both were touched by death, and Yiyun could teach necromancy, constructing undead.

Joshua Roberts would go to Lenard Lily.  Joshua wanted strength, because his father was a brute.  His need to defend others from more brutishness would lead him to take the scariest teacher, to protect younger kids like he wanted to protect his three younger siblings at home.

The Aurum, in response to unspoken symbol, helped to power the diagram.

The circle at the center where the youths stood changed, becoming a door.

Maricica the blood goddess rose up out of the diagram as if she’d been lying down, larger than she had been, blood-slick, impaled in the heart with an iron spike.  She was careful to rise up in a way that kept her from toppling or hurting any students.

Some retreated a few steps, but stopped short of stepping outside the circle.

Faced with the prospect of leaving, forgetting everything, or finding reasons to stay and face Maricica in her bloody glory, they managed to stay.

Lis began to recite words in old languages.  Less the Aurum’s purview than the Alabaster’s.  He could translate but didn’t bother.

Maricica was careful as she bent down to touch the forehead of each youth with her lips, leaving bloody marks at each.  The blood was absorbed by skin.

A reserve of power for each that would need to be replenished with another meeting with Maricica.  They’d have more once they connected with the outside Lords the Carmine Exile had erected.

Already, with this alone, and with the power the Carmine Exile and the Judges invested into this effort, they had power reserves greater than most average practitioners.  Even with their power being a fraction of what it should be, with the oaths being so tenuous.

“From here on out, until you withdraw or are withdrawn, you are in Lis’s hands, your teacher’s hands.  What you do is up to you,” the Carmine told them.

Or so he said.

The Aurum could read deeper, see deeper.  The Carmine’s intentions were good, borne of an intent to give an example on how to do things better.  But like the children, the Carmine needed something out of this.  He’d designed them as a counter.  A parry and a thrust, he’d called it, while talking to Maricica and Lis at one point.

Parry and thrust.

The Aurum, interested in this venture, was watching the imminent ambush closely.

They’d been taught Calling.  Argumentative diagrams were drawn up and left unfinished.  A few strokes would wrap them up.  Then each of the nine youths would call on a different Lord of Carmine provenance.

Lenard stood by, ready to help.  To disable Musser, delay his allies, and use his practice to try to create a doorway.

Nine Lords with some Abyss in their makeup would be summoned or draw on in some capacity and aimed at the man with explicit orders to disable or capture.  To drag him through the doorway that Lenard made, and into the Abyss.  Musser had lost on several counts, he was tired, distracted, and they had a coordinated trap, separate from oaths and obligations to hospitality that the core Kennet group were holding to.

It might even work.

“Josh,” Lenard said.

Joshua’s immediate reaction was nervousness.  Lenard spoke, and Josh flinched.

“Yes?”

“If one of the younger children falters, fails their ritual, you need to step in.”

“Yeah.  Yes.  I knew that already.”

Nomi Bearden whispered something to Kira-Lynn Everett.

None of the children were especially fond of Lenard.  His appearance was offputting, according to the children.  Among themselves, they’d talked a fair bit about him, describing bad teeth, juicy, full lips that drew the eye to the teeth, eyes with a lot of white around them, under brows that were perpetually lowered in what could be read as a glare or perpetual confusion.

The girls especially had trouble taking him seriously.  Only Joshua had seen the full brunt of what Lenard’s experience with the Abyss could do.

“What the hell?” Nomi asked.  “Step through.”

“Shhh,” Lenard shushed them.

She made a face, before glancing at Kira for validation and finding it.

The Aurum watched as Lucy Ellingson created her arena, contract in hand.

The Wild Hunt, omnipresent in Kennet, were drawing near.

He was reminded of Fortune’s forces closing in on him.

“We’re done,” Lenard told the group.  “Wipe away your diagrams and pack up.  Leave no trace.”

“What the hell?” Nomi asked.  “Done?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“We just spent thirty minutes huddled in the cold, we drew diagrams with freaking gloves on, and we’re leaving?”

“I’m here to teach you and give you advice.”

“Listen when Mr. Lily says something,” Josh told the others.

“Yeah,” Teddy said.  “He might know something we don’t.”

“I’m meant to teach you, so I’ll point this out.  The Wild Hunt of Winter who’ve been circling around Kennet the past week are congregating.  Winter especially demands respect, and the easiest way to pay respect to them is being a safe distance away.”

Once he’d verified everyone had picked up properly, Lenard led the way.  Some of the other teachers in supporting roles on the flanks converged on their position and talked to Lenard.

The children weren’t as cooperative.

“There’s two cool teachers in the bunch,” Kira said.

“Mine’s one, right?” Nomi asked.

“Yeah.  And I guess the practitioners from the Allaire group are alright, but they’re not doing much.  The rest of them, they’re creeps like mine or they’re weird or they’re creepy weirdo cowards like Joshua’s teacher,” Kira said.

“Are you going to stick up for your teacher?” Stefan asked.

“No,” Joshua replied.  “But he’s strong.  I think.  He said if something went wrong he’d hold them off for a bit.  And I kind of got the impression from the way they described the guy we’re not supposed to name- the guy we were going to ambush, he’s no joke.  So if my teacher can do okay or buy a little time, that’s a big deal.”

“Do you think you could?” Kira asked.  “Or like, against one of the three witches of Kennet?”

“Maybe.  I dunno.  I wouldn’t want to try.”

“We need actual experience,” Nomi said.  “We need to do something.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said.  “We really do.  Waiting until shit goes down and then that being our first big time being in a bad situation, that’s a problem.”

“Then let’s ask a teacher,” Joshua said.

“Oh my god, Josh,” Nomi groaned the words, sounding like she was dying.  She clutched at his sleeve.  “Has the suckiness of your teacher rubbed off on you?”

“We ask a teacher, I’m serious.”

“You got a scaredy-cat for a teacher and now it’s making you worse, and you weren’t brave to start,” Nomi accused him.

“Teddy?” Joshua asked.

“Okay.  We ask one of our mentors.”

Nomi groaned.

“We pick and choose carefully.  I bet there’s a few who’d probably say yes.  Or if they say no, they might not make a big deal if we go to someone else and ask them,” Teddy said.

“Ask mom, if mom says no… ask dad?”

“Basically.  Same idea.”

They stopped in their tracks as they saw Lenard had stopped.  A Winter Fae was trudging through the snow.

“Sir,” Lenard said, ducking his head in a bow.  The kids followed suit.  “Good hunting to you.”

The Fae didn’t respond, and trudged onward, toward the rooftop where the situation was wrapping up.  Musser had lost Durocher’s support.  She didn’t brook weakness, and he’d shown too much.

The Aurum withdrew from the scene.  It wasn’t one that required a judge, and if Durocher went on the offensive for any reason, it would be dangerous to all involved.  Even Judges.

The St. Victor’s group left the vicinity of the rooftop and the growing number of Faerie, Joshua agreeing to carry the heavy stuff back to where they were storing it at the school, and where he’d talk to Lenard.  The rest split off to go to their individual homes.

The Faerie didn’t hurry, didn’t delay.  He arrived precisely when he wanted to, and he wanted to arrive in concert with the bulk of the Wild Hunt, meeting the people who were finishing their confrontation with Musser.

“You’ve finished your business with Musser. Now we can address you without you being distracted,” one said.

The Aurum observed without being present, as did the Sable and Alabaster.

The Carmine was present, however.

“As Verona and I are the only proper students of Winter here, can I ask you to let the rest leave?” Lucy asked.

“They are complicit.”

“I’ve been thinking.  I think I know the answer you want.”

“Of course you know the answer we want.  We don’t ask questions if we don’t already know the answer.”

“Then you know the answer I’d give is best given to you without others around.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Avery Kelly asked.

“Only- we left you out of Winter at Guilherme’s recommendation.  To ensure there was someone unscathed if we ran into trouble.”

“I’d like to be part of this.  I’ll swear oaths of confidentiality if I have to.”

The Fae loomed over the girls.

“Okay,” Verona said.

Lucy glanced at Verona, then looked at the closest Wild Hunt Faerie.  “We awoke together.”

“Then send the rest away.”

“You’re sure?” Matthew asked Verona.  Lucy hugged her mom.  Avery held her dad’s hands in between them and talked to him briefly about plans and expectations.

The wind picked up, and snow was scattered into the air.

The street was empty, and it was empty because of the Wild Hunt’s influence.  Across Kennet, a glint in a car windshield made someone miss the turn of an incoming car.  A jam at one intersection.  People were kept from stepping outside, by the passing of cold air that cut through one winter jacket, leading them to think they needed another layer.  Cars didn’t start.

Seeded and prepared for a final conversation.

The girls and the opossum familiar were left alone with the Wild Hunt, standing in an empty downtown street during Kennet’s busiest season.  The Carmine Exile looked on, but was ignored.  He was omnipresent, as was the Aurum.

It was, to the Aurum Coil, a reflection of what he’d faced once, in his final days as a practitioner.  Being hunted by a foe that was inflexible, unyielding.

It was also a contrast to what the Carmine Exile was doing.  He wasn’t just railing against the practitioner establishment.  He had concerns about what the council of Kennet was doing, and the shape things would take down the road, if others emulated it.

He’d intended the practitioner students of St. Victor’s to be an effective parry and thrust.  Except they’d been countered, tonight.

Had they succeeded in removing a threat as major as Musser when the existing practitioners had failed, then they could have pushed their way into being the guardians of Kennet.  Or at least co-opted some of that role, responsibility, and power.

But they hadn’t.

Avery finished swearing the necessary oaths.

“Our concerns are sufficient for us to remove Guilherme to the interior court, and to dispatch the three of you, rendering you unable to access or practice winter glamour by death or injury.”

Lucy nodded.

“Um, that’s not great,” Verona murmured.

“Shh, just-” Lucy didn’t finish the sentence.

“Convince us otherwise.”

Lucy’s hand trembled.  She shifted her stance.

“Unless you can’t.”

“I’ve been trying to think-”

“Don’t prevaricate,” a woman Fae said from the sidelines.

The Aurum could look, however, and see the justifications behind words.  Especially when it came to deals.  The ideas weren’t guarded, Lucy was open about them, so they were easy to access.

Lucy had dwelt on the idea of Estrella Vanderwerf and Silas Vanderwerf.  Both impressive, but neither perfect.  She had reflected on conversation with her mother, as her mother had wrapped fresh bandages around the arm with stitches from wrist to inner elbow, and around the other arm, where they extended a short distance from elbow down forearm.

Drawing comparisons between the Wild Hunt and real things.

That authorities tended to punch down.  The Aurum liked Jasmine Ellingson’s analogy to tax offices.  That they would prey on a hundred people who’d made two or three digit errors in their accounts, while not pursuing the hard targets – where even one company’s wrongdoings, if properly uncovered, would outweigh the nickel-and-diming of an entire province’s lower class.

Which wasn’t quite his own experience, but… he liked parallels either way.

“It’s my current assumption,” Lucy told them, “that we are not your concern.”

“Is it?” a human member of the Wild Hunt asked.

“I know for a fact that Estrella Vanderwerf and Silas Vanderwerf, while very good practitioners from everything I’ve heard, don’t necessarily meet the bar you’ve asked us to meet.”

“Is it your intention then, to deflect us from you to the Vanderwerfs and their failures?”

“No.  What I want to do is paint a full picture.  It’s my intention to keep learning under Guilherme.  I will try to protect Winter’s reputation when he cannot.  I am already custodian and guardian for Kennet-”

“We are,” Verona added.

Avery nodded.

“-and with your allowance, we will extend our duties to all elements of the Winter Court.  I think we’ve shown we’ll go as far as it takes on this.  I went up against Abraham Musser tonight.  I’ve fought Anthem Tedd and I think I did well enough that people weren’t left with a bad impression.”

“You lost.”

“He’s one of the most dangerous practitioners in the region,” Avery protested.  “An expert fighter, versatile, strong-”

“And you, Lucy Ellingson, lost.”

“I lost the skirmish but won the war.  Which was more important.  I needed him to lose that way, to win other victories,” Lucy said.

“Are you saying you could have won?”

“No.  But I wouldn’t have been as likely to pick the fight if I couldn’t achieve something.  I didn’t embarrass Winter.  I’d challenge you to pick a random student of Winter with the amount of training under a mentor that I have, pit them against Anthem, and compare how we did.”

“We even have Anthem in Kennet found, we could borrow him if we needed,” Verona volunteered.

The Fae raised a hand, gesturing for them to stop.  “No need.  There are too many other concerns.”

“Melissa and Bracken have the veils of Innocence over their eyes still.  Partially.  It’s a happy middle ground.  If they succeed they can carry Winter’s reputation for skill and talent with them.  If they fail, they’re Aware, something was missing.  They don’t know what Winter or Guilherme are, exactly.  It comes down to Guilherme himself, us three, and the council.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think what you really want is commitment.”

“We can give you commitment,” Verona added.

“If you want to scare me off and wound me, that won’t stop me.  If you want to attack me in my home?”

“Take away my practice twice?  Won’t stop me,” Verona said.  “We have responsibilities here.  We swore to protect Kennet.  Guilherme is part of Kennet, and Guilherme is Winter.”

Avery’s eyes widened momentarily.  The moment of realization drew the attention of her familiar, who felt it through the familiar bond.

She understood what Verona and Lucy were referring to, now.

For the rule of threes, she’d need to add something to what the others had said, while walking the same fine line they were.

“From Kennet or my role further afield, I’ll help guard the various elements of Winter.”

She understood.

A new Winter Fae had come into being in Kennet, a civilized area, outside the Winter Court’s reach and immediate attention.  Reputation mattered, and for all his strengths, Guilherme was new to Winter, and he had not yet found any true consistency.

“I’ll swear an oath to that effect,” Lucy told them.

“If he makes a single mistake-”

“No,” Lucy interrupted.

The Fae drew a blade.

“I’ll protect your interests and his with the same kind of vigor I use to defend Kennet, as part of defending Kennet.  I think that’s better than you’ll get from most.”

“Yet we could do better, hewing to the plan we stated earlier in this conversation.  We take him to the court interior, remove you and other involved parties-”

“Remove witnesses?” Avery asked.

“Witnesses to what?” a Fae with a musical voice asked, the music in the voice taking an accusatory, harsh tilt and echo.

Lucy interjected, “I can guarantee you, if you remove him and remove us, it will cast Winter in a worse light than if you let us do what we’re offering to do.”

“That is not our observation,” a large Fae with draping wings asked.

“It’s mine.  It’s the internet, stuff gets around.  Practitioners talk, and they’re talking more in this era of the Black Box.”

“That’s an app,” Verona cut in.  “A program that helps track and keep notes on Others, and warn people about what’s in what place.”

“Have you spoken to anyone in this machinespace about Winter Court matters?”

“That’s private, we wouldn’t, except between us,” Lucy said.

“I’ve been handling a lot of the communications… it’s just not the sort of thing we talk about or do,” Avery told them.

“But,” Lucy cut back in.  “If something happened to us, our trusted companions know the Wild Hunt was in town- it’s common knowledge-”

“Because Black Box,” Avery added, quick.

“They have the tools to know what happened and likely why.  And that will trace back to Winter,” Lucy said.  “What I’m proposing is better.  I do believe that, and not because I don’t want to be on your bad side.”

Fae in the back conferred, while others remained up front, stern and silent.

The ones who’d conferred stepped forward, while the ones in front slipped back.

What Lucy hadn’t admitted was why she was so certain word would get out.  She and Verona had talked before tonight’s meeting.

Trying to reconcile what didn’t make sense to them.

Then Verona had set up a number of emails, each scheduled six months in the future, to communicate just what had happened, and what Winter might have to hide.  If they died and she wasn’t able to cancel the scheduled email, then it would eventually go out.

Giving them their cover and Lucy’s certainty.

An issue remained.  Fae discussed with Fae.  The Carmine Exile had a reason for remaining, watching.

“We cannot return empty-handed,” a Fae addressed the three.

Lucy turned, looking at the Carmine Exile.  “Charles?”

“Chuck?” Verona threw in.

“I’d like permission,” Lucy said.

“No,” the Carmine Exile answered, harsher this time, his voice taking on that faint growl that came from years of being Forsworn.

“You realize you’re forcing our hand, right?” Verona asked.  “Because if it’s us and Kennet on the one side and you on the other…”

“I’ve made deals and sworn oaths.”

“So have we.”

He didn’t reply.

But he was here to witness.  To mark the occasion.

Verona Hayward rubbed her hand.  Lucy had a hand on her injury.  Avery had a grip on the back of Lucy’s sleeve.

“Allow us Christmas,” Avery said.  “Give us this.  A reprieve, and then-”

Lucy picked up where Avery paused, telling them, “We’ll give you what you want.  We’ll tell you a weakness and we’ll give testimony against a Fae who has betrayed us, apparently betrayed all courts-”

“And spoken badly about Winter, and we can give some details on location,” Verona said.  “Is that enough?”

“That you know her and can testify is vital.  The weakness and location-”

“What weakness?” the Carmine Exile asked.  “I hope you mean something more complex than-”

“No comment,” Avery interrupted.  Charles talked over her, but was interrupted by a sharper, more skilled voice.

“Carmine,” a Fae rebuked him with a word.  “This is not your role or jurisdiction.”

The Carmine Exile fell silent.

“In the new year, is it agreed?” the Fae asked Lucy.

“Yes.  The new year,” Lucy answered.  She turned to Charles.  “Will you give us this?  We’ve tried to be fair.”

“You’re aware of what this means.”

Lucy nodded.

“Have your holiday, then,” he turned.  The other part of it was implied.  That after, they would be in conflict.

He turned to go, and the three girls and the familiar watched as he faded into snow and shadow.

They turned back toward the Wild Hunt, and the street was empty.

They’d bought the Wild Hunt off, at the price of war with the Carmine Exile and the Carmine’s agents.

The Aurum was satisfied.  A question personal to him answered.

Next Chapter