Author: Wildbow

In Absentia – 21.2 | Pale

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Partway down the street, two older people were in their backyards, chatting with neighbors, while their son and his friend brought lunch out.  The house was big, the porch multi-tiered, and a fire danced in what looked like a custom-made fire pit, with a flame design to the metal edges.  It gave some warmth that wasn’t entirely needed, since it was about fifteen degrees out – or about sixty degrees to the Americans here.

The old dude was black, his hair white, his build solid.  It looked like he worked out, and he did not look like he was in his late sixties or early seventies.  He looked closer to forty.  Overall, his aesthetic was very much someone open and energetic, laughing and being a bit loud as he talked to the neighbors, striking that look of someone who could go golfing, go to church, or kick ass at surfing, no sweat, even in his late sixties.  Khaki pants and a short sleeved shirt.

The woman was white, and had frizzy hair that was white with dark gray still running through it.  She was thin, more naturally tanned, and dressed a bit like a hippie, with the loose flowing clothes.  Always with a steaming mug in her hands.  The fire was probably for her.  A lot of her focus was on the teenager and his friend, keeping them involved in the conversation.

Verona, Lucy, Avery, and Snowdrop hung out in the side lane between the houses, Snowdrop climbing a tree while Avery hovered below, ready to catch her.  Lucy mainly kept an eye and an ear out, while Verona spent some time doing that, when she wasn’t crouching, drawing with chalk on the walkway.

“Remember when we were kids?  Summer, you came over to stay for a bit with me and my mom?  It was before your parents had the divorce.  But things were bad?  I remember my mom bringing it up.”

“Yeah.  Getting me outta there so they could work on stuff, maybe.”

“And you stayed with all of us for one of our last big family gatherings.  Not that long after my dad died?” Lucy asked.

Verona nodded.  “Yeah.  Tough times all around.”

Lucy turned to Avery.  “It’s a weird family.  Barbie inherited a good bit of money from her dad, trusted Ran with it so he and a friend could start up a business, business got bought, they came out way ahead.  Helped start up another, that didn’t get bought but there was something with stocks you got working for the company, it’s like… they could never earn another dollar, and they could live happy off their savings for the rest of their lives.  And they could have zero savings and live off the dividends from those stocks and stuff and they’d be fine.  But they have both.”

“House in Canada, house here,” Avery said.

“And a cabin, and like, seventy-five percent of a house that was gifted to my Aunt Renee when she started her family,” Lucy said.  “Which kind of rubbed a lot of the rest of us the wrong way, because, like… nice for Renee, I think Martie got something but he was smart enough not to give away anything.  But, that’s kind of what I’m getting at.  Ronnie comes up with me that summer, and it’s like, they talk to her all lunch, this one day, and okay, maybe my mom said Ronnie was having a tough time-”

“Your dad died around then, though?” Avery asked.

Lucy shrugged.  “-and they kept saying, oh, they love how Verona’s head works, and she’s funny, and blah blah blah.  Gets to where it’s like… okay, you’re my grandad and grandma, and you’ve said more nice things about Verona than I can remember you saying to or about me all my life?”

“You got so mad, and annoyed at me, for whatever reason,” Verona said.

“Sure, yeah.”

“And I was like, fuck, I just want to enjoy my summer.  Swimsuits and my best friend and there’s a little beach just for us right there, who cares?  But I get it now.”

“It kind of maps out?  Because like… my mom struggled without my dad.  Scraped by.  And Renee gets a house?  Martie gets some help with his business?  And you can go crazy trying to figure it out, because dad was their bio son and I’m their only bio granddaughter I know of, but it’s almost like they’d be content forgetting I exist.  I don’t get the logic for who they favor or who they don’t.  Vince, me and my mom, kinda get ignored, but they’ll go to Cuba with Uncle Martie.”

“I kinda get where you’re at,” Avery said.  “Feelings-wise, I mean.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, no, yeah,” Lucy said.  “You would, huh?”

“Yep.”

Verona nodded along with that.  “I guess the question is, though… if you show your face, will they recognize you?”

“And call my mom?  Indirect message?”

“Part of the reason we’re here.  Besides the research.  How are you doing, Snow?”

“I can’t see what you asked me to look for,” Snowdrop said.  She lay on her belly across a branch, hands folded, chin on hands.

“How do they look?” Avery asked.

“Nice.  Part of the family.  No blood, nothing spooky.”

“Blood?” Lucy asked, alarmed.

“No blood, I said.  No tattered dead animal stuff, no nakedness, no-”

Lucy reached up and climbed the tree, taking a helping hand from Snowdrop, moving up to a higher branch.

“Outside the house,” Snowdrop said.

Lucy nodded.  “I see it.  Looks like a ghoul and a fish had a baby and it really likes the feel of rabbit flesh on its skin.  Why are rabbits so common with weird Other aesthetic?”

“Like scummy, secretly sinister Luna,” Snowdrop said.  “I don’t like her and she can’t tolerate me, even if she pretends to, and she likes her alone time, so I hang around her and play nice to bug her.  That what she gets, another animal aesthetic on my turf, annoying.”

“And Rabbit Killer, and your local Other, Ave,” Lucy said.

“Ashumare Ashumare, naughty naughty Ashumare.”

“Wat?” Verona asked.

“Apparently their full name.”

“Is naughty naughty their middle name, or is it the second Ashumare?  How do you put that together?”

“Guys,” Lucy said.  “There’s a spooky-ass ghoul thing wearing bloody rabbit skins hanging around Barbie and Ran’s house, with its dick hanging out.  Can we focus?”

“Can they see it?” Verona asked.

“They walk by it like they can’t.”

“Is it dangerous?  To your Sight?”

“Dangerous yes, to them?  I don’t think so.”

“Deal holds up.  Thanks, Yiyun,” Avery said.

“We came because we figured we could tip off the parents, get past any connection monitoring stuff with a sufficiently innocent, indirect connection,” Verona said.  “And this gives us a sense of just how far Chuck is willing to go.  If this is Chuck’s, it sure looks like he sent an Other down to California to keep tabs on things.  That’s wild.  That has implications.”

They’d retired to a Path last night, for a rather rough sleep, where they’d taken shifts, because they couldn’t wholly trust the Path to not pull something on them.  Then they’d discussed options this morning.  Thunder Bay was out, because it was still in the Carmine’s territory.  The Lord had power that superceded Charles, but there were a lot of cases where the Lord’s power and influence weren’t universal.  For example, if the Lord was gainsaid or forsworn, there had to be an authority overseeing that, that wasn’t the Lord themselves.

There were just too many cracks in the system.  Too many cases where they could be there, Charles could find a situation or excuse where he could use his authority instead of having to leave it to the Lord, and they’d be boned.

“There’s an Other in my grandparent’s snowbird house,” Lucy said.

“I hear you.  But they seem safe, and like, if we’re going to work this out, we should decipher Chuck’s approach, right?  That’s why I figured we should go for a distant but valid connection.  If he’s got one Other-”

“That we know of,” Lucy cut in.

“-then does he have more for other people we know outside Kennet?  Did he dispatch agents to everyone that has a connection to us, to get a sense of our movements?  Was it more strategic?  If this is how he keeps tabs on Barbie and Ran, then what’s he doing with, say, Liberty?”

“Don’t even joke,” Avery said.  “Oh god.  Do you think he’s watching Nora?  Is there an Other around her house?”

“I don’t know.  But figuring this out feels like it should be a key part of our planning.  We’re mostly blind about what Chuck is doing, he’s mostly blind about us, and both he and we want to make a decisive move,” Verona said.  She added to the connection diagram at their feet.  “Right?  He’s got to be doing something back there, besides waiting.  So what can we do here?”

“He’s coming outside.”

Verona stood, stepping onto a portion of the fence to get high enough to peer over it.  Lucy hopped down from the tree and moved to the closer vantage point, as opposed to the higher one.

The description of a ghoul crossed with a fish was right.  He was about their height, the size of a mid-teen, flesh grayish and a bit dead and dry, mouth agape, chinless, with tiny teeth and a narrow tongue, bulging eyes almost situated on the sides of its head.  He was haphazardly covered in rabbit skins, many of the insides red and raw, the outsides shades of white and gray.  More furs draped the shoulders, sharp or splintered bones acting as pins to attach them to one another and keep them in place.  He was unclothed from the waist down, making the ‘he’ fairly blatant, until any correction came.  He’d positioned an upper portion of the furs so the scalp of the rather small rabbit sat at the peak of a slightly pointy, human-sized head, One ear halfheartedly sticking up, another flopping down.

“Awwww, lookatim,” Verona cooed.  “He has a little dead rabbit hat.  Do you think he likes rabbits?”

“Or really hates them,” Avery suggested.

People walked past the Other without glancing at or reacting to him.

“So, question,” Lucy said.  “What is he?”

“Surface level impressions?  He’s goblin-ish,” Avery said.

“Goblins don’t walk around people like that, do they?” Lucy asked, moving a bit to get a better view.

“No, none of them do,” Snowdrop said.

“Some do,” Avery said.  Clarifying.

“You ever hear about the flying gremlin on a plane wing?  Not a goblin.  There’s no real experts at it.”

“Expert like that?” Lucy asked.

“Hmmm… yeah.  Expert like that, now that I think about it.”

“He might be moving like he’s lighter than he is.  Like echoes and spirits do,” Verona pointed out.  “Could be a shift in that direction.”

“From?”

Verona nodded.  “Goblin?  There’s actually, like, big breakdowns in terms of types of goblin-”

“Oh god, not again,” Avery groaned.

“Not like that.  But if you get into history and how goblins spread, there’s a lot of branches we don’t normally see or interact with much, because the goblins who deal with humans are so in-your-face.”

Verona looked down at the connection block she’d drawn on the road.  A person had biked by earlier without giving them a glance.  It presumably helped them against that Other.

“What Others are good at bypassing connection blocks?” Verona asked, staring down at the chalk.

“Fae.  They do it like they breathe,” Avery said.  “Which is why enchantresses like to ally with them.”

“Goblins, presumably?” Lucy asked.  “Eighth court?”

“Maybe,” Verona said.  “But only the really human-facing ones, right?  They’re the only ones who have a reason to learn that skill, develop those talents, figure out connections, normal and warped?”

“Snow?” Avery asked.  She looked up at Snowdrop.

“Doesn’t sound right.”

“I think I have a plan,” Verona said.  “Get info, communicate a little something to home while we’re at it.”

“Okay,” Lucy said.  She looked over in the direction of her grandparents.  “I trust you.”

“Going by what we can see, I think he’s using something that isn’t connection manipulation to avoid them.  It’s more like selective invisibility.  I think he’s bad with humans.  He keeps shying away when they’re doing stuff like cooking or laughing.  So, if understanding humans is something that makes you better at manipulating connections, a lack of understanding suggests weakness.”

“Stands to reason,” Lucy said, eyes not leaving the Other.

“I think, if we lean hard on the connection block, it won’t be able to see us.  So step one, you leave the block, and stand where one or both grandparents can see you, but the Other can’t.  Not easily.  Then get their attention.”

“Scream?” Lucy asked.

Verona shrugged.  “We want anything she says or does to make our parents think we’re okay, right?  Blood curdling scream wouldn’t work.”

“Maybe if you make an ‘ok’ sign with your hand?” Avery asked.

“Signals in the wrong direction,” Lucy said.  “We don’t want to tip Charles off about where we’re at or what our moves are.  If he or one of his people listen to the call and it’s that obvious… okay.  Then?”

“Hopefully that baits that Other close.  Then we do diagnostics.”

“Diagnostics?” Avery asked.

“Yeah.  Quick and dirty.  Avery, you’re better with connections.”

“I did a connection map while tracking Florin Pesch.  I can do something like that.  Study the connections between it and Charles.”

“Good.”

Avery got a larger sheet of paper out of her bag and folded it across the middle, then the other way, and then at diagonals.  There were eight creases in the paper.  She drew lines down each.  Getting grit from beside the road, she poured it into the center.

Verona nodded.  “Sand is more time though.”

“I know.  For fate, the strongest connector, we want thread.  Snow?”

Snowdrop climbed down.  Avery pulled some stray lengths of cloth from the knees of Snowdrop’s jeans, which had worn through.

“Could do more.  Nature?” Verona suggested.

Avery got some petals from rather pale looking Californian dandelions and bits of grass from the roadside.  Adding them to the pile in the center.  She wrote out some names.  Charles in one corner, Lis and Maricica adjacent.  Warrens…

“Spirit world,” Verona suggested.

Avery nodded.  “Sure.  What else?  Three more spots.”

“The local Lord,” Lucy said.

“I like where your head is at,” Verona said.  “I think I know what you’re thinking.”

“It’s an option.”

“My grandparents,” Lucy said.  “How invested is he in tracking them?”

“Barbie and…”

“Ran.  Short for Randy.”

“And us three,” Lucy said.  “Is he specifically after us?”

Avery scribbled that down.  “Okay.  That’s eight.  How to get a bead on him specifically though?  It’d help to have something I’m anchored to.  Don’t have a name, description is iffy… could draw something on the road and get the connection map if that Other passes through?  Leave bait?”

“Movement?” Verona asked.  “Mercury sign, ambient, extend it past this connection block.  Even draw a direct line…”

She went to draw the line and symbol, and nobody objected.

Quickly, they sorted out some other stuff.  They used the same sorts of things they would for magic item identification.  The goal wasn’t to have one test get a very exacting result.  The goal was to get a wide spread of information.  Playing cards, a diagram on paper, stones of various types and style with symbols drawn on them in acrylic marker, for the pillars, balanced carefully on a larger stone.

Lucy nodded, then stood, taking over for Snowdrop, who was keeping an eye on things.

“Be ready to defend yourselves if it turns out this connection blocker doesn’t work or doesn’t hold.  Based on that technomancy Other last night, Charles doesn’t play,” Lucy told them.

Verona nodded.  “Better hurry before someone passes through.”

She still had the broken branch they’d liberated from Kira-Lynn, and she had the rasp.  She wasn’t sure which was more horrific in its destruction.  In the end, she held onto the rasp.  If something got past Avery and Lucy, which was usually the case if something came for her, it probably needed some degree of extreme prejudice.

“I guess I’ll see if my grandparents even recognize me at this point,” Lucy said, backing away from the circle.  She partially climbed up the one wooden fence, using the supporting slats.  “Head turned away, need to leave room for doubt on all sides.  Then…”

Lucy whooped, loud and long.  She pulled away from the fence, head turning, and Verona guessed she was making brief but direct eye contact with her grandparents.

Before dropping down out of sight.  Moving to the diagram.

“Saw a glimpse of him,” Lucy whispered.  “I don’t think he saw me.”

A moment passed.  Lucy struck out a sound rune on the fence, still in the bounds of the half-circle diagram, then tilted her head.

There was a rasp and a huff, and the goblin thing appeared at the top of the fence, about ten feet down.  He made a sound like one of those smashed-nose dogs struggling to breathe, then hopped down to the road.  Verona dug her phone out of her pocket, trusting the others to watch her back.

Wind faintly stirred.  Paper rustled, things moved.  The four of them crouched, backs to the fence, tree branches overhanging, watching as it moved across the road.  Thread, grit, and grass all blew across Avery’s connection map.  Stones fell, cards flipped over and scattered.  The old fountain pen Verona had placed on her own magic item identification diagram rolled, dripping ink in lines and blots.  The more the Other moved, the more things settled.

Verona, rasp in one hand, held her phone with the other.

All of them remained silent, still, waiting, as he climbed up fences on the other side of the road, peering over.  He sniffed at the tree Snowdrop had been on.

All around them, chalk chipped, frayed, and faded.  This thing had a lot of ability to seek them out, wearing down the diagram fast.

Avery reached out slowly, putting fingers to the diagram’s edge.  The movement made it fray more, but once contact was made, it held up a bit better.

Verona and Lucy followed suit.

The Other was active, almost frantic in its search, moving this way and that, climbing and pushing things aside.  The connection block kept it from looking their way, always with something else to distract him, a hiding place spotted that he felt the need to search.

The more he moved, the more their diagnosis tools narrowed down.  The paper Avery had folded and prepared rustled, the contents scattering and settling into the creases, stones clicked together as they took their time falling and settling, the fountain pen rolled.

A biker came down the road.  Verona snapped a picture with her phone in the last moment before more intense, faster movement drew its own shift in the diagnostic tools.  Stones resettled and rolled, cards drifted, and a lot of the stuff on the paper blew away, leaving very little behind.  Ruining their work.

They held it together until the Other had done its search of the area, climbed back over the fence, and gone back to Lucy’s grandparents.

“Good idea, taking the picture,” Avery said.

“Had a feeling.”

Connections.  Strong connection to Charles, mild to Maricica, none to Lis.  Moderate connection to the grandparents.  Some connection to Warrens, not that much to spirit world.  Weak-to-no connection to them, but, in retrospect, that might’ve been the connection block at work.  No connection to the local Lord.

“If you look at the diagonal here-” Avery gestured with a finger.  Barbie and Ran were in one corner, paired together, and Charles in another.  “Strong thread to Charles, that’s fate.  Dense but scattered leaf collection there for nature, weak sand for time.”

“Charles made it?  He’s the dad, kind of?  A lot of attachment,” Verona said.  “And maybe it’s been a little while since Charles sent it.”

“Cool,” Lucy said, eyes intently studying everything on the paper.

“Yeah, and then as you go down the line?” Avery asked.  “More sand.  To the point it’s thick.  Less thread.”

“Because it was near them just recently, but maybe it’s only attached to them because of orders,” Verona interpreted.

“Stones?” Lucy asked.  She looked down at the pile.  Big stone in the center, connected to the diagram that extended out of the connection block.  Painted ‘pillar’ stones around it.

Hard to judge the weight of it.  Verona looked at the camera image, but it was a bit fuzzy.  “Time and Nature’s closest to center.  Then War.  Death moved the furthest away.”

“Inconclusive,” Lucy said.  She took the phone, then passed it back.  “Cards?”

Similar deal.  More inconclusive.  Verona wasn’t sure what she’d been hoping for, but nothing stood out.  Maybe if a certain number had stood out, or a certain suit.

And the magic item diagnosis diagram.  Concentric circles with function and focus at the center, then the different strengths and weaknesses of a practice, then the major branches of practice at the outer rim, all connected by lines.

“Hand and eye at the center.  He might do stuff, maybe errands, maybe making stuff.  He might watch out as a spy or second set of eyes…”

“Squiggly line to Longevity,” Avery noted.  “Meant to last?”

“And then we get to Divinity,” Verona said, pointing to one of the eight spokes at the outer edge.  “Divine goblin?”

“That’s so lame,” Snowdrop said.

“Divine caveman proto-goblin that really likes dead rabbits?” Verona asked, looking at the different members of the group, in the hopes someone could make this make sense.

Lucy was distracted.

“Luce?”

“Barbie called Mom,” Lucy said, leaning back against the fence, head turned so her earring was close to the diagram.  “I’m listening.  She was just saying she thought she saw a ghost.  She worried about me.  Like it was a premonition.”

Verona nodded.

“She cares,” Avery whispered.

Lucy nodded, eyes falling to her hands, which were in her lap.  “Mom says I’m doing good.  Barbie says you mean she’s doing well, and Mom says no, I’m doing good.  Booker is too.  That she worries, but last she heard, we were safe and sound.  So no, Barbie didn’t see a gho-” Lucy paused, looking at Verona.  “Julette.”

“What?”

“From our friend Julette.  She heard from Julette, we’re okay.”

Verona let out a huge sigh.  Avery gripped her, shaking her lightly, smiling.

“Fuck yeah,” Verona whispered.

“We might spend part of the time before New Years with our friend Guilherme, we’re doing good, we’re doing community stuff…” Lucy gave them the cliff notes.  “Um-”

She had tears in her eyes.

Lucy stopped repeating the conversation, putting arms over knees and burying her face in them.

“Hey, hey,” Verona murmured.  She scooted over, and put arms around Lucy.  Avery got up and moved around, to sit and hug Lucy from the other side, while Snowdrop went small, going under Verona and Lucy’s legs to navigate around to Lucy’s side.

“Sorry, I don’t know why I’m- why this is getting to me,” Lucy murmured.

“It’s been a crazy twenty-four hours, intense, a lot’s discombobulated,” Avery said.  “It’s how it goes.  We all might have moments like this.”

“Sorry,” Lucy murmured.  She lifted her head and turned to Verona, whapping Verona’s leg lightly with the back of her hand.  “Hey, your magic cat doppleganger is alive, huh?”

Her voice broke faintly in the middle of that.

Verona nodded with emphasis.  It was good, great.  But also Lucy was crying so it wasn’t the number one priority in this moment.

Lucy took a moment, pulling herself together.  Eyes moist, still not all the way back to her normal, Lucy said, “Sorry.  That just hit me, I don’t know what it was.”

Verona suspected she did.  This sucked.  A lot of this sucked.  And what her friend was losing kicked a leg out from the chair of Lucy.

They sat for a minute, enjoying the outdoors and the fact the temperature was nice.  Verona had pulled off her sweater earlier, and glamoured her coat to small size to pocket it, and wore a tank top with her jeans and boots, sweater at her waist.  When a breeze came or clouds went over the sun and the temperature dipped, she’d get chilly, but it wasn’t so bad.

“I think your mom got what we were trying to do.”

“Think so,” Lucy agreed.  “Which, that’s a good question.  What are we trying to do?  We think we have a diagnostic?  What next?”

Verona frowned, leaning back against the wall, moving her hand from Lucy’s shoulders to her lap.  She tapped the fountain pen against her pants leg.  “Could try provoking him.  Give Chuck a tidbit of info on us and where we currently are before we leave, but see if and how rabbit-hat communicates with the guy to let him know we’re here?  Then, if it’s something we can exploit, that’s a way we can cut him off from things he’s sent out there.”

“Complicated,” Lucy said.  “Lots of ways it can go wrong or not turn out like you hope.”

“But imagine if it works,” Verona replied, eyebrows raised.  “We want to neuter him?  Cut him off?  Get into the best position we can?  Limiting his reach to the various places we can go is pretty major.  Figure out how they’re communicating, mess with it.”

“Hmm,” Lucy replied, noncommittal.

“Wish I could look this up.  But I’m not sure I trust my phone.  Feels like I could try connecting to the Atheneum Arrangement to search up some books on weird and different goblin types, but I can see it going wrong.”

“If there’s another thing like last night?” Avery asked.

“Yeah.”

“My line of thinking?” Lucy asked.  “We go to the local Lord.  From the diagnostic thing, we have reason to think it hasn’t.  If we’re the first to show up, I think that counts for something.  We can evict it.”

“Doesn’t do anything for all the others Charles might’ve sent out there,” Verona pointed out.  “And it has one big flaw.”

“Sure.  Run it by me,” Lucy said.

“As far as we can tell, it’s not super strong.  It’s just here as a lookout.  It might be here as an alarm, in a way.”

“An alarm?”

“Like… it gets taken out, Charles knows, has reason to think we were here.”

“We could ask the Lord of this region to not tip Charles off.”

“No guarantee the Lord says yes.”

“If we’re going to do this, I don’t want to make enemies in every territory we visit.  Talking to the Lord seems like a safer bet.  Vote?”

Verona frowned.  “Okay.”

“Vote in favor of going to the Lord?”

Avery and Lucy raised their hands.

“Vote in favor of trying to bait out and decipher this dude?” Verona asked.

Verona and Avery raised their hands.

“Seriously?” Lucy asked.

“I want to go inside.  Do a quick check.  We don’t have to invest anything major into figuring out bunny no-pants over there, but we can look for anything obvious.  He’d want to keep stuff close, if he’s keeping a constant eye out, right?”

Lucy sighed.

“I’m on your side, I like your plan.  Let’s make this a two minute thing.  I can black-rope in from here.  One of you distracts, one of you comes as another set of eyes.  We do a circuit of the house, see if anything’s hinky, any curses, anything dangerous, other Others, and then head out.  Then we can see the Lord, with more info.”

“I can go cat mode,” Verona said.  She turned to Lucy.  “Distract?”

“Got it,” Lucy said.  “Be safe.  Be careful.”

“I’ll signal you when I’m close and need the distraction, Luce, so wait.  Ave?  Wait until I’m in the window?”

Avery nodded.

A small dash of glamour, and the girl-to-cat transformation snapped around.

She navigated fences and bushes, zig-zagging along the neighborhood until she’d reached a porch she could get onto to leap onto the fence-top and onto the property.

With a human voice, she whispered, “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.”

“Wooooo!”

The whoop was distant.

The Other leaped onto the fence- the same one Verona was on, but overhanging bushes blocked the view.  Verona went under the railing and onto the top layer of the multi-level porch, by the covered and somewhat neglected hot tub.

Slipping into the house through a door that had been left open, while the Other was still peering out in the direction of the whoop.

She popped up into the window, looking out, meeting Avery’s eyes.

She turned away, hopping down, and Avery and Snowdrop were right behind her a moment later.  Using silence runes.

Avery walked through the rooms of the house, looking for the obvious, with Snowdrop as extra senses.  Verona, meanwhile, took her time, sniffing around with cat senses.

Only have a couple minutes, she thought, as she peered into dark areas, following her nose.

Barbie and Ran fought like hell to avoid being ‘old’ in the classic sense, even to the point of insisting on being called their names instead of grandma and grandpa.  The house still had its hints of their presence.  Both used lotions heavily on their skin, above and beyond the usual, and she could smell the traces of them.  Underlying it all was the smell of something between ammonia and stale air.  A brief investigation suggested it was a smell that was meant to be hard to trace, sticking to the wrong things.

Verona found what she was looking for by moving away from the hints and searching the spaces the house’s occupants wouldn’t.  She found it behind the furniture, in a corner that had collected dust: it looked like a bird’s nest, made of bones, lined with the skins of dead rabbit, that looked fresh and raw and were slimed with something that smelled like ammonia, again.  Making a softer cushion for the inhabitants- three small, infant versions of the goblin thing, curled up, eyes sealed closed because they had yet to mature.

She got Snowdrop’s attention, and Avery came.

Once they knew what to look for, they did another quick circuit of the house.  At the top of the closet, at the back, Snowdrop found another nest of bones and bloody, ammonia-scented furs.  There was another behind the hot water heater, the little, narrow bones massed almost as tall as the heater itself.

Movement at the back door made shadow sweep across a portion of the house.  Verona, Snowdrop, and Avery turned their heads.

The teenage foster son and his friend had come in through the back door, and were moving through the house.

Verona whispered, “Go.  I’ll cover you.”

Using up just a touch more of a limited resource to generate the magic to speak, but if Guilherme could find them, that would cease to be a problem.

Then she crossed the house, moving across a room, letting herself be spotted.

“Barbie!” one of the boys shouted.  “There’s a stray in the house!”

“What?  A stray what?  Get it out!” Barbie asked, twisting around in her chair.

The Other started to move toward the house, and both boys started to move to catch her and shoo her outside.  She didn’t want to go that way, so she led them on a bit of a chase, toward the front door, being careful to stay out of the Other’s way and the Other’s sight.

She retreated into the front closet, the smell of the nest above her thick in the air.  The smell of the Other’s approach growing.

When one of them opened the door, she darted outside.

Safe.  And she’d bought Avery time to go upstairs and black rope out.

She found her way to Lucy and Avery, who had already made it back.

“He came for me again,” Lucy said.  “Connection block almost didn’t hold.  Then he doubled back toward you.”

Verona became human.

“You’re okay though?” Verona asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Enough to go to the Lord with?”

“Yeah.  And a few more details.  It looks like this wasn’t set up in the last day.”

“Meaning Charles has been anticipating this,” Avery said.

“You didn’t make a list of places to run to that he could read, did you?”

Avery shook her head.  “No.”

“But he knows us,” Lucy said.  “He kind of knew us before, and you can bet that since he’s become Carmine, he’s been keeping an eye out, anticipating that we’ll be a thorn in his side later.  And he’s been planning.”

“Then I guess we’d better get a move on, huh?” Avery asked.  “Get our plans into action.”

“You guys have more experience than me with this stuff,” Lucy said.  “How do we find a Lord?”

Find the nearest Other or practitioner, and ask.

Their destination was an oceanside home partway up a hill.  It wasn’t exactly secluded, but dense foliage on two sides hemmed it in, including, weirdly, the side that would’ve allowed a view of the ocean.  It was a whole lot of white, with a lot of glass in the upper half, a triple-wide garage that extended beneath the property that was otherwise poised on the slope, and it just kind of sprawled, as if extensions had been added.

They’d asked, they’d been pointed here.  No guarantee that it would be the Lord, specifically, but if they had a request, someone would look into it.

As they approached the property, a woman stepped outside.  She ventured down the steps as they walked up, stopping at the point where the walkway met the driveway, facing them, chin slightly raised, like she expected them to talk first.

“Three practitioners, one familiar, new to town.  Passing through.”

“Pass through then,” the woman said.  “Do no practice of note.”

“We’ve already done some minor practice, but it was for the sake of investigation,” Lucy said.

“Investigating one of ours?”

“No.  Pretty sure not.  That’s part of why we came.  We’d like a word before we go.”

“Inside.”

They approached, walking up the empty driveway, passed her, and then went up the walkway and up the stairs.  The woman waited for them to pass and then followed after.

She has a gun, Verona noticed.  It wasn’t hidden but it wasn’t on full display either, half covered by her top.

“Mr. Landon,” the woman murmured.  “Three guests and one familiar for Lordship business.”

“Is it the Lord?” Avery asked.

“It is, but you likely won’t be dealing with him directly.  Through here.”

The house was open, more massive than its pieced-together construction on the outside made it appear, and very glossy white.  It looked almost like it was mocking the ‘modern’ house design, with how over the top white everything was, redoubled because of mirrors and open windows to more areas that were tiled or painted white.  Only a few dark brown cabinets and pieces of furniture in various modest colors broke things up.

Past the sitting area, where vast windows looked out on an outdoor pool that was walled in, hidden from view from the outside.  Some teenagers were outside, lying on pool chairs, two with books, wearing light clothing, not swimsuits.

The room at the far end of the house was a study, with books lined up along two sides, no apparent shelves to keep them up.  The back wall was gold, and had a fan of blades arranged in a half circle, framing Mr. Landon.  The man had long hair, draped over one shoulder, with golden flowers placed in it, and sat in a chair without legs, in front of a desk low enough to match, with another half circle of blades fanning out across it, each halfway inset into the table.  A boy and girl stood on either side of him, each about ten years old, clearly family, nicely dressed.

“Landon, Manifold Gardener, Lord of this area.  My son, Evren, my daughter Moira.”

“Lucy Ellingson, first witch of Kennet, Ontario, trifold duelist.”

Lucy stepped forward and placed her gift on the table.  One of Avery’s coins.

“Avery Kelly, second witch of Kennet, Ontario, finder and Path Runner.  My familiar Snowdrop, opossum spirit, boon companion, and goblin sage.  She has a weird rule of discourse, just to warn.”

Avery placed a second of the coins down.

“Verona Hayward, nascent sorceress, dabbler in half-light and shape, co-creator of Kennet found, by way of hatching the moon, peddler of books not yet written, interpreter of the voiceless.”

Verona placed a third one down.

“Whose turn is it?” the Lord asked.

“I-?” Lucy started to ask, but he raised a hand.

“Mine,” the daughter said.

He moved his seat, sliding off to one side a bit, and sat sideways, one leg propped up, the other down.  Leaving a space in front of the desk.  With a reaching arm, he collected the blades from the desk, sliding them off to one side, so they all sat in a row.  His daughter walked over, and knelt in the space he’d occupied a moment ago.  He reached out, taking a gold-leaf flower from his hair, and put it over her ear.

“Moira Landon, I will be acting as Lord with my father’s observation, as test and training,” she said, laying daggers in three of the grooves most in front of her, one golden, one black and mottled, and one that looked like it was a singular piece of very ornate glass from hilt to tip.  “In hopes of one day becoming Lord.”

“Well met,” Lucy replied.

“Speak.”

“We arrived this morning, we have reason to believe we’re being interfered with,” Lucy said.  “Enough that if we’d come directly to you we could have brought trouble to your doorstep.  We investigated, used a moderate amount of practice, gathered some information and we’d give it to you before we go, so you may better administrate your realm.”

“If it was that simple you’d leave.  Venturing into the lair of a Lord you do not know is dangerous and you run more risk of being followed,” Moira said.  “What are your motives.”

“There’s an Other on your turf,” Avery said.  “It hasn’t announced itself, it’s been here for a bit, and it’s stalking and occupying the house of family.”

“There’s a good chance we know of it and decided it was meaningless.  Not much evades us,” Moira replied.

“We have reason to think it’s divine,” Verona said.  She started to step forward, reaching into a pocket, but Lucy hooked a finger on the back of her top, pulling her back.

“Ask before approaching,” Lucy whispered.  “I haven’t met many Lords but I know that much.”

The girl’s hand had moved closer to a dagger.

“May I approach?  I’ll show you,” Verona said.

The girl nodded.

Verona pulled out the paper with the ink stains.  “Diagnostics.  Good sized blot on the divinity portion.”

“Augury of this sort is very unreliable,” the girl said.  “I can’t easily verify how the test was done, and it doesn’t tell us much.  There are very least-tier Others who would read as divine.”

“It’s breeding,” Verona told them.  “It has nests, progeny already born, it has ties to a higher power if it’s reading as divine, and that is a very basic recipe for something that should concern any Lord.  Something with ties to something bigger is getting a foothold in your territory and it seems like it’s going to keep doing that.”

“What power does it have ties to?”

“If I can-?” Avery asked.

Verona stepped back.  Avery got a nod of permission, and approached, placing another paper down.

“I don’t know many of these.  Evren?  You’re acting as my right hand right now.”

Evren glanced at his father, who dipped his head in acknowledgement.  “Yes ma’am.”

The girl seemed to fight to suppress a smile at that, but the smile fell away.  “The Carmine… sounds familiar.  Do you know what this is about?”

“It came up in conversation at the Christmas party.  Some of the ladies from Toronto brought it up.  A lot of eyes are on the situation.”

“A complicated situation we should avoid entangling ourselves in,” Moira said.

“I’m sorry, but inaction is entangling yourselves,” Lucy said.  “The Lords of a large part of Ontario and eastern Manitoba are Carmine-created Others and entities that defer to him, handing him all rights to power for the region.  He’s now reaching out, with agents and forces readied to act or placed in all sorts of regions.  Mainly in anticipation of facing us, but it’s been our experience people who take power on that scale rarely stop or hold back.”

“What regions?” Moira asked.

“We don’t know in full yet.”

“And you three, apparently with no knowledge of our affairs or how we operate, expect what?”

“Removal, at least, of the Other that’s spying on my family.  Ideally without tipping him off that it’s because of us.”

“Why ideally?”

“Because he set the Other down with a purpose.  If you let him know it was because we were here, he gets exactly what he wants.  He has no reason to stop.”

“What do we care if this Carmine stops?” the girl asked.  “Distant, more or less irrelevant.”

“Inaction means letting him do this.  I believe action means asserting your borders, boundaries, and power,” Lucy said.

“A rebuke or punishment for him pulling this would be nice,” Verona said.

“We can handle our own affairs,” the girl said.  “With this, situation as it is, for our region, it’s fine to leave it alone.  But other regions are involved?  You think he’s placed Others as watchdogs?  Lying in wait for you?”

“Tracking the movements of us and his enemies.  Possibly extending his power and influence into those territories.”

“Is he that reckless?”

“He’s reckless,” Verona said.  She paused.  “Probably not all that reckless.  I don’t think he even anticipated this thing breeding, but the fact he sent it out and it did…”

“Sloppy,” Avery supplied.

Verona remembered talking a lot about how Charles was a fat sloppy cock, and repeating that a lot in hopes of getting Lucy to crack, and she had to fight to keep from smiling or laughing to herself.

“You can’t say for sure that he’s using these things everywhere?”

“He probably isn’t,” Verona said.  “He’d mix and match, keep his enemies on their toes.”

Better to say ‘his enemies’ than ‘us’.  Implying there was more out there.  Which there probably was, to some degree.

“No telling what’s out there, you can’t say where they’re placed?”

“No,” Avery said.

“Are the most likely Lords and territories to have these spying Others in them neighbors of ours?” Moira asked.

“Not… very likely,” Avery admitted.

“Blue Heron students, possibly?” Verona suggested.  “He wouldn’t know for sure who we befriended, right?”

“Evren?” Moira asked.  “Do we know what that is?”

He shook his head.

“It’s a practitioner school in Ontario, fairly prestigious, mid-size,” their father spoke up for the first time in a little while.  He ran fingers through his daughter’s hair, at the back.  He looked at the three of them.  “Or it was?”

“Was,” Lucy confirmed.  “We attended, we have allies.  Most students, I’d guess, could have spies on them.  If he’s got spies on my distant family, he could have spies on students.”

“Some of whom may be neighboring Lords?” Moira asked, looking at her brother.

He didn’t seem to know.

“Yes.  A handful,” the Lord said.

She took a deep breath.  “I will table this… we will do as you ask, on the belief that we can curry good favor with other Lordships, close and distant.  If we can, the scales are balanced.  If we cannot, we will reach out in the future to ask of you three graces.”

Grace.  Old language for an inoffensive favor.  No asking for a firstborn child.

But table-?

“I will take the tabled suggestion,” the Lord said.  “I’ll take over from here.”

Ah.  Moira couldn’t actually make a deal as Lord here.  Fair enough.

Moira stood, moving to the side.

“Well done,” he told her, “but you need to study more, so you do not need to ask your brother or have me answer.  Take that as motivation.  You’re ten and nine years behind your oldest siblings, the family practice requires you to have a Lordship, you must work to catch up, if you want a region like this and not a patch of desert around a small town.”

Moira nodded.

He moved his seat around, put the daggers aside, and moved the swords across the desk with a practiced sweep of his arm.  They whisked into the slots that had been made for them.  “Thank you for tolerating me giving Moira her practice at being a Lord.”

Was there a choice? Verona wondered.

“Are we in agreement?” Lord Landon asked.

“One amendment?” Verona asked.

She could see Lucy glance her way, with a lot of intensity in her eyes, even though her expression gave nothing away.

“Ask,” the Lord said.

“If we’re right and this earns you any goodwill, spreading the word about something happening, grant us a grace,” Verona said.

“You, to all appearances, are three homeless practitioners and an opossum, ousted from your region, scrabbling for a place in this world.  Giving you an audience in the first place was a grace.  The fact I could be seen as taking your side in this is a grace.”

Verona replied, “we were in the process of building something great and if we can come out ahead in what we’re doing, I do think we intend to keep building it.  I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest market in our wider region, or it’s going to be.”

“If you’re a Gardener, then that suggests to me that you make magic items,” Avery said.  “Infusing the power of a realm into the object, and shaping it.  That’s… we can do business.  A good grace would be opening negotiations- I’m not screwing you up, am I, Ronnie?”

“No.  You’re right.  Is that okay?  If we’re upfront about what we’re asking for?  Nothing sneaky?” Verona asked.

“So be it,” the Lord replied.  “And if you lose?”

“Maybe think hard about if you want to ally with this guy,” Verona told him.

“Leave my territory promptly.  Do not return until the matter is settled or you are called on to pay me any graces owed.  If you are to claim a grace, take it after.  I will oust the creature without prejudice, barring unexpected resistance or unforseen circumstance.  Depending, the others I talk to may exercise prejudice, for reasons you mentioned earlier.”

Verona nodded.  Lucy and Avery did too.

“You don’t deny you could lose.  From what I know of the situation, you may be underestimating your adversary.”

“I think we’re estimating him,” Lucy said.  “I don’t think we have any major illusions.”

“Hmm.  You may go.  Do not delay in leaving my territory.  This is not a time to stop for a shopping trip, to eat, or to use washroom facilities.  Directly out.  Take your papers.”

They claimed the papers, then turned to go.

Out of the house.  Two teenagers who’d been outside were in the kitchen, conversation going silent as they watched the four of them go.

“We’re homeless,” Avery said, once they were at the end of the block.  “Just hit me.  Bit of a slap in the face.”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.

“So that worked out okay, right?” Avery asked.

“Pretty okay.  I’m just glad they didn’t take that sudden movement toward them, reaching into a pocket as an attack.”

“Right,” Verona said.  “I should’ve thought.  Tired.”

They’d slept on a Path, slept in, stopped for food, and then went looking for a familiar face, with the idea of checking a distant connection to see how much Charles was doing.

“Yeah.  We’re… not at our best.  I’m feeling gross I haven’t showered,” Lucy said.  “No spare set of clothes, we can’t go shopping here, even though it’s basically L.A….”

Verona sighed.  “At least we might have a slight edge on Charles after this?”

“Is he really being this reckless, or will we owe a favor?” Avery asked.  “He’s not dumb.”

“He’s not dumb, exactly,” Verona said.  “But he can be sloppy, and we know some of his weaknesses.  He’s always said he hung out with the wrong people.”

“Currently Lis and Maricica, right?  And the St. Victor’s group,” Avery said.

“And we know he absolutely hates the practitioner establishment.  He buys into it, he is it, but… sending minions to go beg and ask nicely if a Lord will let them enforce his power in other places?” Verona asked.

Lucy snorted air through her nose.  “He doesn’t want to do that, huh?  He wanted to be Carmine?  He rules his area.  Let’s not let him have too much power outside it, at least.”

“That’s the idea.  And speaking of, I thought it was important we not bend over for the guy.  We had to ask for a little something.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Shortening my life expectancy while you’re pulling those stunts.  But you’re right.  Guilherme would’ve liked you doing that.  Maybe with more elegance.”

“Speaking of,” Avery said.

“I did make a deal with the Winter Court,” Lucy said.  “It’s going to be hard for him to track us down if we’re zipping all over the place.  Going over our list of priorities, figuring out a next step… we need shelter, a shower, sleep, clothes, information… fuck.  Sanity.”

“I can give you all but one of those things,” Avery said.  “But it means burning an option we were going to save up for a bad patch.  For when we needed a recharge on all fronts.”

“We need one now, I think,” Lucy replied, her expression changing, showing some of that weariness and a bit of what she’d been dwelling in when she’d started crying earlier.

“Start us off on the right foot,” Verona said.

“Woo!” Liberty cheered, as they approached.  “Oh gobs and spirits.  Hug, hug.”

Avery looked startled as she was pulled into a fierce hug.  Lucy was next.  Verona braced herself.  Tight squeeze, all enthusiasm, the side of Liberty’s head bonking a bit against Verona’s in her haste.

The neighborhood was really normal.  There was a house with lots of inflatable decorations around it.  One with a goblin in it, that pressed its face against the plastic from the inside when no Innocents were looking.

“Come in, come hang out, take a load off.  Take those boots off.  Have you even had the chance?”

“Slept with our boots on last night, in case we had to make a run for it,” Avery said.

“Okay, let me sort out my own crap, I’ve got to pick some goblins to bring inside.  I think I’ll skip Footrub in that case.  Sorry Footy.  Not with my friends.  Ummmm… Hamcandle, Clownstick.  And Windowlicker, you got me the message, right?”

Two goblins slipped out of the bushes.  Snowdrop scooped them up as she passed them, carrying them in.

“I really hope this wasn’t any trouble,” Avery said.

“Nope.  Nobody was willing to carry your message through the Warrens, it’s kind of a no-go zone over there, at least for now,” Liberty explained, “the Carmine is playing with fire, making the alliances he is, here.  But that’s the sort of thing that’s going to be a five years from now problem, not a now problem.  They did manage to find me, I was already chilling here after our big goblin Christmas freakout!”

The goblins cheered at that last word, moshing, cartwheeling, lighting lighters, and screaming.

Further down the street, an old man was climbing out of his car.  He turned, and the goblins simultaneously hid, went still, and went silent.  Except for one that was safely out of sight behind a snowbank, who kept doing cartwheels, anatomy slapping him across the face every time he went arse over teakettle, as Alpeana would’ve said.

He went inside, and the goblins resumed their freakout.

“I love you guys,” Liberty told them.  “Wish I could invite everyone in, but we all know what would happen.  Getting my dad to relax the rules and up the protections, but that’s a process.”

Verona glanced over the pack of goblins, wishing she could spot Peckersnot in there.

They entered a nice, mostly normal house.  The door was heavy, it might’ve been reinforced, and there were guns in places.  But it was still a pretty typical house, with brown leather armchairs, a couch made of some durable material, and pictures on the walls of eagles and forests.

Difference being that Liberty was making her way through to the kitchen, chattering away, and the couch had America lounging on it, raising a hand in a wave midway through going through her phone, two goblins sleeping on her belly, another sitting in the corner between couch, her neck, and her shoulder, looking at the little rectangular screen.

“So there’s no way to get goblins to get a message through?” Lucy asked.

Liberty shrugged.  “I mean, there probably is, these things don’t hold up, goblins find a way, and that perimeter isn’t perfect.  But the big question is how many lives are you willing to risk?  I’m betting you’ll hit a point where you’re getting the details to people, and your enemy here has to change things up.  Big question is, do you want that to happen?  Do you want him to move to the next phase of disruption, offense, pressure?”

“Right now we want a bunch of really basic stuff, I think,” Lucy said.

“Of course, yeah.  Okay, kitchen, have what you want.  Staff restocks it, if you have requests, we can have it at the door in ten minutes.  Washroom, one full suite upstairs, more modest one downstairs, and in the corner of the laundry room we have a cleaning station with all the big heavy detergents, a few alchemical solvents, and a hose sprayer with a max setting intense enough you want to make sure you don’t aim it at a major organ.”

“Somehow I shouldn’t be surprised,” Lucy said.

“Clothes, you’re in luck.  Staff keeps all sorts of things stocked.  See, some people are preppy, some are goth, some are jocks, some are nerds, whatever, but what we like is a badass satire version of all of those things.  Spikes, adjustments, exaggerations, goblin-ified stuff.  Sometimes you want to look like some girls from a private school that got set on fire, and you made it out alive because you’re badass.  Raid our closets.”

“This is a massive help,” Avery said.

“I’m actually going to grab a shower ASAP, if that’s okay?” Lucy asked.  “I’ll have my earring on.”

“Go for it, no rules.  Do what you gotta do.  But as payment?”

“Photo shoot.  What I really want is you guys in cute outfits, transformation style.  And I want you to autograph it.  Trust me when I say it’ll be worth it, I hang this up in my room, then if I do a livestream to the Warrens sub-channels with that in the background, it will earn you points with the goblin rank and file.”

Lucy made a soft, defeated laughing sound.

Avery, you wingbat, Verona thought.  Goblin eyes tracked her as she walked.  This isn’t the ace in your back pocket to get us sorted, chance to recharge, chance to resupply.

This is a freaking extrovert’s chance to recharge and resupply.

She already missed her Demesne.  She missed the pigeon and squirrel, she missed Peckersnot.  She missed Tashlit being a ten minute walk away.

“There’s a guest room upstairs, guest room downstairs, sleep when you want.  Avery, you can sleep in my bed, goblins sleep wherever, best to stay out of America’s room…”

“Um,” Avery said.

“I’m kidding.  I’m kidding.  I wouldn’t do that to you and your fantastic girlfriend.  You need to show me pictures.”

“Did you see the drumming video?  On the rooftop?”

“I did.  Loved it.  Warm fuzzies on the eve of Christmas day,” Liberty said.

She sounded so genuine.  It made Verona feel a bit like a fraud for being salty about Jeremy and his horse girl bullshit.

“Gotta get past this situation,” Verona said.  “Reunite Avery with her girl.”

“Well, for the meantime, there’s a pull out couch for a third bed.  It’s not the most private, people and goblins will pass by on their way to the kitchen, so maybe stick your deepest sleeper there.”

“That might be you, Ronnie,” Avery said.

“Lucy and I have were sharing a bed for sleepovers when we still wore pigtails and clothes with hearts and unicorns,” Verona said.

“Dude, do not knock pigtails.”

“I’m not.  I’m really not.  But it’s whatev.  We shared a bed at the Blue Heron.  I don’t think she’ll complain.”

“No issue!” Lucy raised her voice, from the next room.

“Sure, you do you.  Whatever’s comfortable.  What else?”

“Do you think your goblins can find a giant Winter Fae without causing a war?  He might be looking for us.”

“I will put some of my best here on it.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Avery said.

“I know, right?  It’s so good to see you!  This is fun.”

Avery frowned.  “Any chance you can get word on how things are doing in Kennet?  If the market’s okay?  And our parents?”

“I can ask, might take a while to get past the defensive filter they’ve got set up.”

Avery nodded.

“Any word on McCauleigh?” Verona asked.

“I haven’t heard.  No.  She’s a tough one.  I wouldn’t fuss.”

“But that’s the thing, right?” Verona asked.  “It’s not about being tough.  Tough is what her family wants.  It’s about being vulnerable.”

“I hear you, babe.  Yeah.”

The goblin Windowlicker was licking the front surface of the oven.  Liberty looked down, watching him for a moment.  Hamcandle and Clownstick were a piggish and clown-painted goblin, lingering behind and acting a bit bashful, taking in the surroundings.

Maybe a bit like Verona was.

“It’s close to dinnertime.  From what you said, I’m guessing you haven’t eaten?”

“We snacked through the day, had supplies,” Avery said.  “But not really eaten, no.”

“Frozen pizza?  Two?” Liberty asked.  “I got a vegetarian-Indian flavor one you can eat, Ave.”

“Thank you.”

They accepted that offer.

Then it was a short while, oven preheating and then pizza cooking inside, that they took the time to dig up some durable bags to keep stuff in, and then stocked up on clothes, picking according to their style from what was basically a small, very diverse clothing store, sans price tags.  America stood in the doorway, arms folded, for the latter half of that process, commenting as Avery held a top against her chest, or Verona unfurled a pair of black jeans to get a better look at the sizes inside the waistband.

“…think I’d peg your bunny-ears goblin as a cuimrech,” Liberty was saying.

“A what-now?”

“Gods like having servants, and really raw, rough, minor gods used to take these goblin-cousins as servants if they couldn’t get humans.  You’d get a lot of them in caves and stuff, building shrines out of bones and whatever.  They lurk and hunt and carry a kind of protection from those without Sight, but they’d spend it and lose that protection for a while in order to leave ominous signs and dead animals lying around.”

America added, “Leaving dead animals and ominous bloody signs by doorways to lay the breadcrumbs to lead people to the dark crevice or whatever with a whispering god inside.  Ideal situation being that the humans start sacrificing animals to the god or whatever.”

Liberty nodded.  “It sounds neanderthal but they still exist, they still do this in rural areas, even today.  Numbers get thinner.  But there’s always a market for a sniveling, groveling little handservant to the gods.  I guess your Carmine found him and put him to work?”

“And the nests?” Verona asked.

“I think those were actually shrines.  It’s tempting to think that has something to do with where goblins come from, but in this case, it’s just a shrine made to channel a source of divine power into creating more.”

Lucy poked her head out of the washroom.  “Toothbrush?”

“There’s like, forty beneath the sink,” Liberty said.  “Daddy made us keep our stuff organized, and not all over the sink, so you’ve got one tub for essentials, I think it’s white-”

“Blue,” America clarified.

“One that’s makeup, that’s… pink?”

“Pink, yeah,” America said.

“One that’s heavier makeup, body paint, dyes, red bin.”

“Yeah,” America said.

“Yellow has the piercings, needles, razors, lighters, stuff for sanitization, and a little bin for disposing of sharps, if you’re replacing any razor blades or tossing needles.”

“Can I grab a razor for my legs and pits?  For a later shower?  I know we’re eating.” Lucy asked.  “Trying to feel a little more human.”

“Yeah, no, go ahead.  Whatever you need.”

“It gets to you surprisingly quickly, we’ve had days where we weren’t able to sleep, we rushed things.  Like when we went from Blue Heron to Kennet and back to Blue Heron for a morning class, then slept in,” Avery said.  “But… something about the situation, not knowing for sure if like… you’ll be attacked?”

“It’s a risk,” Verona said.  “Sorry.  I hope that part of our message to you got through.

“Our guys would love a combat sitch,” America said.  “Don’t apologize.”

It was so weird, things being what they were with America.

Last real encounter, before her stay in Kennet found, she’d flipped their lives upside down.  She’d had a meltdown, she’d attacked them.

But they’d reunited her with Anthem, and things were cool… ish.

“Don’t know when the next shower will be, makes being sticky or having fuzzy teeth feel way worse and more noticeable,” Avery said.  “And there’s no hard rule, but we’re thinking two days max in each place, so there’s kind of a limit on how many places we can stay.”

“Well, if it helps you cheat that max, I can relocate from here to another Tedd house, get set up, be ready to resupply you,” Liberty said.

“Hmmm… I’d worry he’d target you specifically, to disrupt us being able to do that or organize.  But it’s nice to have as an option.  Thank you.”

“Don’t forget school,” America said, still leaning against the doorway.  “Deal with Daddy, right?”

“Right,” Liberty said.  “Well, we’ll work something out.”

School.  Verona thought about her online studies.

Was that a connection that could be attacked?

It sounded like Lucy was finishing in the bathroom, so Verona brought over some clothes.  Lucy opened the door, wrapped in a towel, and looked startled.

She mouthed a ‘thank you’ before closing the door to change.

The oven beeped, signaling the pizzas were done.  Lucy changed fast, pulling on whatever- they’d be crashing soon anyway, probably.  And then she was right behind them.

“Thoughts?”  Avery asked Lucy.  “Anything to add?”

“We can’t be doing this for months and years, I think,” Lucy said.  “He’ll use the time to anticipate us, those apprentices of the ex-Forsworn are learning fast, scaling up fast, raiding the Whitts and Belangers, altering themselves.”

“That’s so crazy, isn’t it?” Liberty asked.  “My jaw dropped when I heard about the Whitts, and the Belangers?  They’re an institution.”

America got the pizzas out of the oven.

“I want to make a move,” Lucy said.  “First thrust, let them know they can’t be complacent, let’s not give them a chance to plan against us.  We played defense a bit, this here is our chance to recover, but let’s spring back from this, hard and fast enough it catches them off guard.”

“What do you need?” Liberty asked.

“A lawyer.”

“We’ve got a lady, we used to think it was funny to put ourselves in ridiculous situations, practice-based and real, that she had to rescue us from.  She probably twitches when we appear on caller display,” America said.

“Oh yeahh.  I almost forgot,” Liberty said.  “I barely think of her as a lawyer.”

“To go from that to someone we do think of as a lawyer, is there a chance she knows Sebastian Harless?  Contract lawyer in Thunder Bay?”

“Can ask.”

“You want to make a move?” Avery asked.  “We were talking about this before.  Alabaster?”

“Alabaster,” Verona agreed.

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