Author: Wildbow

In Absentia – 21.3 | Pale

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There was no ticking clock, and the only way to see the time was to fumble for her phone in the dark.  She’d laid it on the bed before sleeping, cord trailing to the wall.  She didn’t, though, because it would only irritate her and make falling asleep harder.  A regular squeaking sound punctuated the small hours of the night, in a side room in the Tedd house, repetitive but uneven, changing in timing and tone.

She thought about using her phone as a flashlight to go looking, but she really didn’t want to go on a hunt in a strange house and risk waking up anyone.  Especially when the sixteen year old girl who’d tried to shank her in a muddy tunnel was two doors down.

An apology would be nice, actually, Avery thought.  But that was the sort of thought that circled through her head in the sleepless dark hours.

The squeaking continued.

Snowdrop was in opossum form, pressed up against Avery’s body.  They were maintaining the same schedule, so she couldn’t borrow from Snowdrop’s energy and fatigue levels to knock herself out.

She lay on her side, arm stretched out into the open space beside her. She’d put on one of the premade temporary tattoos that Lucy had given her, extending down her arm as a sleeve of deer.  It had held up really well.  She’d also left on the essential bracelets, especially the one that suppressed the Promenade boon.  It wouldn’t be a good thing if she got up to go to the bathroom and interdimensional doors slammed into existence all through the house.

Avery thought about Nora, and how absolutely shitty it had felt to leave things like they were.

Looking past her tattooed arm into the corner of the room, she could see a dark shadow in the corner and she wasn’t familiar enough with the room to really piece together what it was.  Her mind played games with her, and filled in the blanks, making it her Wolf, dressed in red, hunched over, sitting in the corner, gray-black hair scraggly, smiling with uneven, yellowed teeth.

The faint squeaking continued, like a pig’s squeal, but regular and not… rhythmic.  Ooo-ee, ooo-ee, ooee-oeeeee, oooooo-eeee.  An odd and unfamiliar sound that made the shadow more ominous.

She blinked, closing her eyes, then opening them, Sight on.  It did have some of the same effect that turning on the lights would, waking her up a little more.

A really small, short chair, with red fabric and a blanket thrown over it.

Blink.  Sight off.

She did eventually reach for her phone.  Two in the morning.  She put on a video.

“What are you doing?” the Avery on the screen whispered.  The sound quality was really crappy, captured on the laptop microphone, compressed, and then filtered back out through the phone speakers.

Nora, fiddling around, had turned on the webcam on her laptop.  So it was pointed at both of them.  The two of them in her room in Thunder Bay, lying the couch in the middle of the upper floor apartment, laptop half on her and half on Nora, and they’d been watching that cartoon that had been so defining for Nora.  Eco goth punk rockers had had their moment earlier in the film.

There was noise in the background.  The apartment in Thunder Bay was technically two apartments, one above the other, with the above space being Avery and Sheridan’s.  A good half of the upper apartment wasn’t being used for much, with an empty and appliance-less kitchen space, so her mom was moving some stuff around to make use of it.  She’d chosen that time, when Nora and Avery were hanging out, to thunk boxes and home office things around.  Their mom on one side of them, past their feet, Sheridan on the other, behind them.

“My face looks weird when I’m lying down like this,” Avery murmured.  She pulled her chin back to try and give herself a double chin, making a face.

“Stop, stop that,” Nora told her, hand covering her face.

“Why turn on the webcam?” the Avery on the screen asked.  “You hit record?”

Nora pressed her lips together, eyes wide, shifty, looking down one way, back the other.

The thunking in the background stopped.

“Rowan!” Avery’s mom called out, barely audible.  “Or Sheridan!”

Avery’s mom, dipping downstairs to look for an extra set of hands.

The Nora in the video did a quick double check to make sure the coast was clear, then leaned over to kiss Avery.  It was sudden, unexpected, and rushed, brief, so it was a bit awkward of a kiss, but… really nice.

“First crush,” Nora whispered, pointing at the screen.  She pointed at Avery.  “Now crush.”

“Why record it?” the Avery on screen asked.

“Felt important.  Dunno.”

“I’ve got to not blush, or my mom will get suspicious,” Avery whispered, fanning herself.

Sheridan said something offscreen, not related to any of that, she hadn’t seen or anything, and Nora clicked something to stop the recording while Avery craned her head around.

The video put her at ease.  Things weren’t ruined.  They were just rocky.  Nobody to blame.  Maybe a few years down the road, when things were serious, she could break it all down, and Nora would understand and forgive.

Squeak, squeaaaaak, squeak.

Avery reached for Snowdrop’s Lost Sight, to get a better look at things, and some nocturnal-oriented vision.  Snowdrop, dimly aware of what Avery was doing even in sleep, stirred, opened her eyes a bit, smacking her tongue.

“It’s okay Snow,” Avery murmured.  She stretched as she sat up.  In Snowdrop’s night vision, because of the range of colors opossums could see, her freckles stood out against her skin the same way blue ink might against white skin, the edges of the temporary tattoo on her arm were visible when they weren’t normally, and she could see some of the hints of the brush strokes in the paint on the wall from when walls had been painted, especially around the ceiling, vents, doors, and a few points where damage to the walls had been fixed and repainted.

Squeaksqueak.  Squeak.

She ventured into the hallway, and leaned against the doorframe, eyes searching, ears listening for that squeaking noise.

In the living room, moonlight streaked in, helped by the snow outside, which made the night so much brighter.  Christmas lights inside and outside didn’t really light things up so much as they added an ambient glow.  Avery couldn’t see…

Squeak.  Squeaksqueak.  Squueaaaak.

“Windowlicker,” she guessed, voice quiet.

The squeaking stopped.

“Stop licking glass.  It’s late.”

Silence followed.

“Go to sleep.”

She waited, saw and heard nothing, and turned to go back to her room.

Just the one squeegee-squeak of tongue on glass, small.

Little fucker.

Her irritation might’ve stirred Snowdrop the rest of the way awake, because Snow got up, scampering across the bed, down the sheets to the floor, and between Avery and the doorframe, popping up to human size.

“What are you up to?” Avery whispered.

“I’m going to hurt him, punish him for messing with us earlier,” Snowdrop muttered.  “I’ll be able to sleep, you can handle the rest.”

“I guess he really did help us out, running that message.  You’ll be tired tomorrow if you stay up now.  We don’t know what the day will bring, right?” Avery whispered.

Squeaaaaak.  The exaggerated squeegee sound cut through the quiet of the Tedd household at night.

“I don’t figure we’ll manage.  Sucks,” Snowdrop muttered.  “This kind of crap ain’t my deal.”

Avery mussed up Snowdrop’s hair.

Snowdrop went and picked up Windowlicker, taking him outside.  Avery went and got some water in the kitchen.  She looked at the kitchen and the glass of water through Snowdrop’s vision, holding the glass up to the window to let the light refract through it.

She could dimly sense Snowdrop meeting all the other goblins.  Arms over her head, doing her ‘aaaa’ thing.  The goblins taking up the cry.

She wasn’t sure if she faintly heard it or imagined it.

A rustling made her turn her head.  Verona.  Wearing the top she’d had on during the day and flannel sleep pants that were too long for her, even with the cuffs rolled up.  Her hair was scruffier than usual.  Except for the slight scuff of the fabric on the floor, she was nearly silent.

Verona ventured into the kitchen, where the lights were still off.  Blue-tinged moonlight that streamed in through the window was enough to illuminate things.

“Hey,” Avery greeted her, voice a whisper.

Verona trudged over, forehead bonking into Avery’s shoulder.  “Wondered if that was you.”

“Yep.  Windowlicker was squeaking the windows.”

Verona pulled away, looking around.  “Guy’s got a gimmick, I’ll give him credit.  What’d you do with him?”

“Snow took him out.”

“Did she?  Wow.  Bang bang?”

“What?  No.  Dummy.  Took him outside.”

Verona smirked.

“What are you doing up?” Avery asked.

“I pea’d myself.”

“What?  That’s- do you need help, or is Lucy-?”

“Princess and the pea.  You know, princess can’t sleep because there’s a pea a few mattresses below her?  I’m too used to sleeping in my Demesne.  Psychic temperature control, mattress softness adjustment.  Fix the sheets with a thought and a gesture, sort out the pillow business…  Pea’d myself.”

“Ronnie, that phrasing…”

Verona smiled and chuckled without making any noise, shoulders shaking.  She knew exactly what she was doing.

“How’s Luce?” Avery asked, to change the subject.

“Homesick.  She talks about wanting to do this for the long haul, if we have to, but seeing her now, I think not being able to go home or see her mom and Booker would really fuck with her.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Avery whispered.

Verona sidled up to Avery, standing beside her, facing the kitchen window, and the view of a snow-covered garage beside the Tedd house.  She reached for Avery’s water glass, and Avery handed it over.  Verona finished the water.

“Feels like every time I’m starting to figure shit out, life winds up to give me a running kick to the clit, you know?” Verona asked.

“Ronnie, geez.”

“What, guys can talk about how this or that’s a kick in the dick, but I can’t do an equivalent?”

“You’re kind of a menace at two in the morning, huh?”

“Feels like my brain works better at night.  I’ve been thinking about that, you know?”

“About?  The standard-issue Avery Kelly brain doesn’t work better at night, Ronnie.”

“About how my brain works.  About how I work.  I spent so long just kind of feeling like I was crap at a lot of stuff.  School, I could kind of coast, and it didn’t feel good or easy, and chores and cooking and fucking personal hygiene, and all that bullcrap, it just… the only thing I could feel good about was the magic stuff, really.”

“You’re good at other stuff though, you know?  You’re a good friend, good artist.”

“Not looking for a pep talk, but thanks.  It’s more that my starting point was that, you know?  And if the only shit I’m good at is magic and being a friend, and maybe even art, why not just cut all the other shit out, and distill my life down to that?  Become Other.  If I like how I look and can keep that without the upkeep, like shaving my fucking pits, and remembering to brush my teeth, and periods, come on, right?”

“Yeahhhh.”

“I groaned and moaned my way through my first one and figured that’d be it and I’d get used to it but no.  Just kinda makes my day suck a little more when it comes.  Like mowing the fucking lawn knowing the grass is just going to regrow, but it’s bleeding from the cooch.”

Avery sighed.  Verona was in a mood, apparently.

“At least the metaphorical puberty fairy waved her obscene looking wand and delivered a body I like, which… feels like something not everyone gets?  I see a lot of teen girls in shows and stuff hating their bodies or whatever.”

“I think reality might be a bit better than TV?  Lucy seems ok, or doesn’t think about it much, as far as I can tell.  I- I like getting stronger, taller.  Mostly I’m happy if my legs get me where I want to be.”

“I feel like when you’re saying that last bit, you’re thinking of a sports field.”

“Or a Path.”

“Jockdork.”

“Give me that water back so I can pour it on your head,” Avery whispered.

Verona did pass the glass back, and Avery refilled it, but she didn’t pour it on Verona’s head.

Verona continued, “Turns out the reason I felt like I was subpar at so many things was I have someone close to me telling me it, all the time.  And I’m tired because he’d get into whining at me and breaking down at eight or nine or ten at night and then I’d be wound up and feeling shitty, and then I only get four or five hours of sleep and of course school sucks when that happens a couple times a week.  Get behind, it’s a bitch to catch up.”

Avery nodded.  “Yeah.  Makes sense.”

“I’ve been figuring that sort of thing out, putting the mental horsepower into it.  Felt like the world all had a rulebook they could follow and I’m here fumbling along.  Maybe I’m a little bit neurodivergent, ADHD or something in that direction.  Maybe that doesn’t help.  But child services and getting time away and getting a damn fucking place of my own that’s away, right?  Buys me time to actually look objectively at shit, use that horsepower.”

“You’ve talked about doing better at school.”

“I’m acing school, or I was.  Holy fuck, Ave.  Turns out if I get rid of all the shit in the way and the late nights listening to my dad and just do school the way I always felt like I should be able to, I’m good at it.  You haven’t been around for a lot of this, but I’m figuring so much of it out.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t around.”

“It’s okay, that’s not what I’m getting at.  But I think maybe you don’t know where I’m actually at nowadays.  I’m in a good place.  I’m in a place where I don’t want to cut out ninety percent of life and distill things down to that ten percent I feel good about.”

“That’s so good.”

“It always felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day and there still isn’t because fuck Chuck Abrams, fuck this whole situation, but I… if someone had walked into Ontario and challenged Chuck to a Carmine Contest and won and it was all, surprise, merry Christmas, you don’t need to worry about this shit anymore?  I think I could have the time in the day I want.  Demesne and Julette and assistants and fucking not having some fucking archaic institution dictate half of my damn weekdays, you know?  Plus homework adding up to another half day of bullshit?”

Avery sighed.  “Yeahhhhh.”

“I don’t want to insult you or anything-“

“Huh?  What?” Avery whispered.

“-I have an analogy for this.  You and Nora-“

“Don’t insult me and Nora please.”

“Shut up and let me talk.  You had this thing you wanted, this loneliness, and a lot of shit ties into that, like your parents letting you down, and, I dunno, Avery Kelly with a cool girlfriend just makes a lot more sense than bachelorette Avery, to me.  Honestly, you with multiple girlfriends in a polycule or something makes the most sense…”

“Don’t say anything like that around Liberty or I think it’d be a real pain in the ass.”

“I mean…”

“Ronnie.  You were saying?  Before?  What was it?  An insult?”

“I know things are rocky and being away and being unable to reach out sucks seven different metaphorical flavors of ass, at least, and I know I’m risking insulting you by drawing a comparison to your love life, here.  But like… I’ve been having my own personal journey here.  I didn’t get a cute girl, I got my own damn self, you know?”

Avery looked over at Verona.

“You got someone, you might’ve even found love.  I think we’re all too shy about saying that word, you know?  Love?  And she’s lovely.  She’s cool.  She’s- I used to sort of subconsciously or semi-consciously dread the idea of you finding someone, because-“

“Gee thanks.”

“-because it’d mean you’ve got less time for hanging out with me, I figured, but if you and her being long-term means I get the Avery and Nora package that’s pretty cool.  Anyway, you maybe found love, and I found love too.  Just… for me.  Myself.”

“As evidenced by your choice of potential familiar.”

“Maybe,” Verona whispered.  “I dunno, don’t feel like that’s growing out of narcissism or self-love, exactly.  Let me get back to you on that.”

“Okay.”

“To keep drawing that analogy to you and Nora, though, I know things are shaky for you guys and there’s no telling how things will end up with her.  I’m rooting all the way for you, I’ll back you up any way you need, that I can think of.  And at the same time, here I am, and things are shaky and I have no idea if I’m going to be able to go back and stay in that good groove I made for myself.  What if this ends, we go back to our lives, and I can’t find that good place for myself again?”

“Ronnie.  The stuff you learned, the stuff you built, that’s all there.”

“The entire way my head works, sometimes it feels like there’s stuff I pick up or try and I kick ass at it and then I put it down or walk away and there’s just… zero interest left.  What if I go back to life and I can’t find that passion to keep up what I was doing?  What if I go back and I’m just kinda crap at ninety percent of life again?  Or if I get hurt or fucking brain damaged or forsworn or… what if- what if it’s all this big fucking tease of what could’ve been, before life delivers a running kick with a steel-toed boot to the clit, huh?”

Avery reached over, pulling Verona into a hug.

“What if I lose either of you?  Or both of you?” Verona asked.  “I can see that sending me back to crapville in a way that sticks, even more than brain damage.  What if something happens to either of you and I get so fucked up by it I end up becoming my dad, despite everything?”

Avery looked around the unfamiliar kitchen, lit by moonlight.  “I… I’m trying to think of a good response to all that, that isn’t me repeating, over and over again, that most of that stuff you’ve been figuring out doesn’t seem like something you lose or walk back.”

“Magic makes a lot of things possible.  Including me going right back to being shit.  Including… you guys dying and there being absolutely no way to see it coming or stop it happening.  Just takes someone getting desperate enough to try.”

Avery swallowed.

“I’m scared, Ave.  It feels so real sometimes I feel like all it takes is a push from the wrong Other and this is the reality that breaks up into illusion and that’s what comes true.”

Avery squeezed Verona tighter in the hug, thinking.

Verona asked, “You ever get thinking about how many times one of us has almost died?  Or where things could’ve gone so much worse?  And it feels like a weight?  You visualize it?”

“I see and think about the Wolf sometimes.  It’s like she embodies all that,” Avery replied.

Verona nodded.

“Verona,” Avery said.  She broke the hug, and shifted position.  “I think you might actually be one of the smartest people I know.  You talk about brain horsepower, I think you’ve got it.  You remember details, you put things together, you pick stuff up.  Your imagination and creativity stun me sometimes.  You think about things from angles I don’t think I could with a week to mull it over, and you do it so damn fast.”

“It all comes with drawbacks.  Staying on one thing.”

“But you work around it.  You are, I really do believe, on track to be a Sorceress.  And you, with all those smarts you- we all have to consider the risks and consequences and imagine outcomes and anticipate our enemies.  You do that but you do it with a lot of metaphorical horsepower.  Is it possible?  Yeah.  Could things go the absolute worst way?  Yeah.  But when you’re thinking about the bad and it’s really, really vivid in your head?”

“Yeah.”

No longer whispering, but voice soft, Avery told Verona, “It’s not because the bad is closer or more real.  It’s because of your horsepower.  The clearer and bigger the image, that’s less about how bad the bad is, and more about how much power you’ve got in that skull of yours.  Appreciate that image for how clear and big it is.  Because your ability to imagine and think about stuff is what takes you away from the bad.  Takes us away from or past the bad.”

Verona turned her eyes to the window above the sink.

Avery added, “Just like my feet do.”

“You’re more than your feet.  Without you, I think, I dunno, I sorta get tired of people and want to stay away from the bad ones, and Lucy, she doesn’t forgive as easily, but you seem to want to work things out.  You’re probably why we’re in touch with Zed, and Nico, and Fernanda, and why we’re even able to do the market.”

Avery gave Verona a smile.

“I was thinking a lot about Bristow, tonight.  I didn’t plan for things to go the way they did.  I figured, situation being what it was, one of us would gainsay the other.  I thought, you know, he helped make the school and make the deals with the Brownies, so he’d probably have a way, and I thought if I could gainsay him that’d be a really good fucking way to punish him for sending those Aware into Kennet, because he was in a position where being gainsaid would really, really fuck with him.  And I was in a position where it’d suck but… I could deal, right?”

“Yeah.  For sure.  But things got complicated.”

“I didn’t add it up together.  That maybe he had a way to deal with the Brownies, but being gainsaid would take that way away.  Or that he’d have a way, but lose the will, if he lost against Alexander.  I didn’t imagine the Brownies were as bad as they were.  It’s all just… a complete and total failure.  I don’t think I’m all that.”

“I mean, we were being hunted.  We were tired.  It was a lot.  It’s okay to not do the math on the situation right, when things were what they were.  It was an accident.”

“But now we’re here, we’re doing my plan, and it’s… not an accident.  If the Alabaster doesn’t cooperate, we’re looking at trying to remove her.  Kill her.”

“What’s the alternative?” Avery asked.

“I dunno.  I thought about this months ago, I’ve been thinking about it since.  Most of that thinking is about how, and how we’d make it happen, but I think some about other options, or if this is right, and the more I dwell on it, the more I feel like this is the one part of the magic stuff where I’m still crap.”

“You’re not crap, Ronnie.”

“A part of me hoped this would be where you guys helped shore up my weaknesses or helped come up with something to make it okay.  Or that maybe you’d have a way to deal with Chuck and I could turn my idea into a way to layer another attack onto that plan.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.  Just… this sucks.”

“We talk to the lawyers tomorrow.  I don’t think you can unriddle whatever’s been stumping you for months tonight.  You’ve had months to think about it.  Let Lucy and I think about for a short bit, about what the missing piece to the puzzle might look like.

“We want and sort of need to do this soon.”

“I know.  But for right now, the best thing you can do is go sleep,” Avery said.  “Be fresh for tomorrow.  Same deal as school.  Lucy gets nightmares, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So put your focus into her, and looking after her.  I don’t know if you could lie with your back to hers like you did at the Blue Heron, sometimes I have Snow next to me… would that wake her up?”

“I could hold her hand.  We did that sometimes, getting closer to the end of summer.”

Avery nodded.  “That counts.  Mulling over other stuff doesn’t, necessarily, especially if you’re getting yourself down and getting tired.”

“What about you?”

“I’m okay, so long as I’m moving, and, I dunno, keeping track of where my team is.”

“Oh, I had an internal bet going on if you’d get there before the clock hit two twenty.  Sports metaphor.”

“Barely.”

Verona smiled.  She gave Avery a pat on the shoulder, then headed back to her room.  She paused at the door.  “Going back to bed?”

“Waiting for Snowdrop.  We’re here having this serious conversation, and she’s out there getting… muddy?  Cold and muddy.  Or slimy.  I’ll wait for her to come in, then I think I’ll take her down to the cleaning space in the basement Liberty talked about.”

“Have fun with that, huh?  The joys of having a goblin sage as a familiar?”

“It’s great.”

“Even picking up her rule of discourse?  Wow.”

Avery rolled her eyes.

Verona went back to her room.  Avery remained in the kitchen with the lights off, bathed in moonlight, hands in the pockets of her sleep shorts, back to the counter, experiencing Snowdrop’s misadventures through the familiar connection.  Laughter, mess, a rough tumble, more mess, something cold.

Off to the side of the kitchen was little hallway with the way to the back door and the stairs down to the basement.  A shadow stood, back to the wall, like a figure with her head hunched over.  The shadow was coats.  A long coat reaching to the ground, maybe a scarf, towel, or hat draped over the hook.  Rubber boots on the ground.

She could tell herself that, but she saw the Wolf.

Why now? she thought.  Why haunt me in a time like this?

She could have used her Sight or drawn on the opossum sight again to get a clearer picture.  She could have flicked on the lights.  She could have approached, or run away.

She could have gotten her coat and boots on and gone out to Snowdrop.  Out of this house, this wolf’s den, that two of the scariest people she’d ever known, Anthem and America, had called a home.  It didn’t matter that they weren’t being aggressive now.  She knew what they were and what they could easily be again.

It wasn’t about them.  It was about her.

She’d had a deer mask and she’d played around with the wolf mask, changing up her role and approach.  This plan of Verona’s made use of the ‘deer’ aspect of her, but the shadow that was cast over it was undoubtedly ‘wolf’.

She stayed where she was, back to the counter, moonlight flooding the room, for about thirty minutes, that shadow in the other room leering at her with uneven, imagined teeth.  When the clock hit ‘3:00’, she let herself signal Snowdrop to come in so they could clean her up.

She didn’t have any ideas, but she didn’t want to turn away from or ignore that shadow and what it meant.  She walked past the coat, the scarf, the boots, which no longer had that imagined uneven, off-kilter smile, and waited by the back door for Snow, who showed up wide-eyed and caked in gray mud, goblins of varying size milling around her.

“Shh,” Avery hurried to tell them, as she opened the door and ushered Snow inside, having her go small to reduce the amount of mud tracked in.

Walked past that place where the shadow had been once again, going down the stairs to go find that washing station.

Sebastian Harless nearly fell as he emerged from the Warren-hole they’d set up at the back of the Tedd’s garage.  He squinted against the brightness of the sun, with snow magnifying the light of day and blasting it into the garage interior.  It apparently took a bit for his eyes to adjust, as he grasped who was present.

“Ah,” he said, once his vision had resolved.  He looked at Avery.  “Hello.”

“Hey.”

“I thought something was being left out.  Now it makes sense,” he said, straightening.  He fussed over his appearance for a second.  “That was an adventure.”

“Warrens trips usually are,” Liberty said.  “Was there any danger?”

“None direct.  My escorts were-” he paused to look back and see if any had followed him through.  “-sufficient.  Charming, in their way.”

“Good!” Liberty said.

“Sebastian Harless, contract lawyer, pleased to make your acquaintance, I think, I hope.”

“Liberty,” Avery jumped in, to make introductions.  “Liberty Tedd.  That’s America in the back.  You know Lucy.  I don’t think you were there when Verona came to the council meeting, but that’s her.”

“Welcome to Wisconsin,” Liberty said.

“Of course.  And my colleague, who reached out?”

“She’s on her way,” America said, from the back.

“I hate to scare you or anything,” Lucy said.  “But were you followed?”

“I was watched,” he said.  “Since before the call came in.  It came up at the council meeting, in fact.  I went, I don’t usually, but I went because I thought maybe I’d stepped on toes without knowing it, and it was the council spying on me.  But…”

“Charles,” Lucy said.

“We did conclude it likely had to do with him and it likely had to do with you,” he said.  “Are you okay?”

“It’s been… harder,” Avery admitted.

“Come in,” Liberty said, indicating the way from the garage to the back door of the house.  “Not a lot of people would be like, sure, I’ll wade through a goblin mud tunnel to fast-travel to a place I don’t know to meet people I don’t know, when something’s clearly up, all while under some real sketchy surveillance in really scary times.”

“There’s a noble and ignoble reply to that,” Sebastian said.

“Ooh, what’s the ignoble one?” Liberty asked.

“Be nice, please,” Avery urged.  “He’s a friend and ally.”

“Oh, sorry.  May I ask what the ignoble response might be, Mr. Harless?” Liberty asked.

“I didn’t mean ask the rude question in a nice way!”

“He brought it up, I’m only following up.  If he didn’t want to say he shouldn’t mention there’s something like that.  You guys seem to like him, that’s cool, I’ve heard the good stuff, hearing the less-noble stuff gets me a fuller picture.”

“You’re such a goblin sometimes,” Avery told her.

“The ignoble answer is you’re paying,” he said, at the first break in the back and forth.  “You… are paying?  I know I’ve given you three free advice in the past, but-”

“We’re paying,” Avery said, “unless something happens like a technomancer screwing with the payment, I guess, but we don’t want to leave you hanging or expect something free just because we’re friendly.”

He dipped his head in acknowledgement.

“What’s the noble answer?” Verona asked.

“A lady asked for help.”

“Haha,” America said, in the back of the group, as Liberty opened the door.  “Imagine thinking of Poole as a lady.”

“I mean, she is,” Liberty replied.

“It’s been a while, but I imagine her as the human equivalent of a chicken with its head cut off.”

“Who did the cutting?” Lucy asked.

“Us,” America replied, pointing at Liberty and herself.

“Thought so.

They went into the house.  They removed coats and boots, then crossed through the kitchen.

“We’ve got soda, juice, water, sparkling water, ummm…” Liberty looked around the kitchen, as if more would reveal themselves to her.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Coffee I can do,” Liberty said.  “There’s the living room.  Make yourself comfortable, get down to business, whatever, let us know what you need.  Don’t mind any goblins wandering around, unless you see more than three.  That’s the current house rule, three max.”

“Alright.  I brought some papers, but I’m flying blind.  What are we up to?”

“I like that phrasing,” Verona said.  “Good mindset.”

“We want to challenge the Alabaster Judge,” Lucy said.  “At least to start.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows.

“Do many practitioners even know about the judges and non-Lord powers, as a basic thing?” America asked.  “Because I didn’t until shit started going down.”

“I don’t think most do,” Sebastian said, putting his bag down.  “I’m at least familiar with them and the ideas surrounding them.  The Alabaster?  Not the Carmine?”

“The Carmine’s anticipating us coming for him, and a confrontation means violence and trouble and that’s his whole deal.  He’s got plans, almost definitely, he’s got an army of Others and he can practically imagine more into existence,” Verona said.  “Especially because she’s supplying him with power.”

“I already dug into some of the details about how a journey to meet a Judge starts and stops,” Lucy said  “Applies to Lords too.  We can start outside and finish our journey past the threshold.”

“A lot of what applies to one applies to the other.”

“What we want to do is a big ritual, we want to challenge her on her failings, and we want to make her cover the cost of the challenge.”

“My initial thoughts?  If that’s doable, it’s done with collateral.  You’d put forward the power for the challenge, and you’d ask her to pay for it, knowing that if your challenge fails, you must pay.”

“That’s a problem,” Verona remarked.

“It’s expensive?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lucy replied.

“Last fall we founded a new realm, reflecting our town,” Verona told him.  “Brought an Other down from a key Path, put a huge amount of power into getting her through and to the target point, huge amount of power into fortifying the town, keeping the other two versions of it distinct, containing the realm.  We had a massive power battery of realm energy, we had cultivated spirits at the border, we backed things with two demesnes and a local council meeting area, and I think we had a good bit of karma backing us, because we were keeping oaths by defending and defining the space.”

“A massive power battery of realm energy,” he remarked, glancing at Avery.

“No comment.”

“And I will make none unless forced to by duress.  Our conversation here is privileged, not by law or Law, but by principle.”

“Thanks,” Avery said, glancing at Verona.  Don’t go blabbing about the thing we stole from a Thunder Bay Council Member.

“Something in that vein, then?” he asked.

“What we want to do is, from a pure costing perspective, many times that,” Verona told him.

“Which is why we want her to pay for it,” Lucy said.

“Okay.  And this intersects with Law practice or contracts because she’s a judge?  Tied into Law?”

“Partially,” Avery said.  She’d seated herself in an armchair and leaned forward.  “Part of our approach here is Law, capital-L, part is city magic.”

“City shamanism, to be clear?”

“Yeah.  At least, that’s what the practice category is called, referred to.”

He made a note on the notepad he’d pulled out.  “Wanted to make sure it wasn’t something in the vein of historian practices.”

“My old lawyer just pulled in,” America said.  She waved through the window and motioned to the door.

The interruptions from America were a bit annoying.  Avery pressed on.  “Can we cut the cost down somehow?”

“Through karma?” Lucy asked.

“Karma and Law can absolutely cut the cost down,” Sebastian replied.  “I remember talking to Lucy about how a contest like the Devouring Song could be challenged by its participants, if it’s thought to be impossible.  That’s similar to what we’re talking about now, but that’s a little more codified.”

The door opened.  Avery turned, standing, as a woman came in.

She was younger than Avery had expected – maybe thirty?  Glasses, utilitarian brown hair with straight-across bangs, and a gray suit, with a black messenger bag, two hands holding the strap.

Something about her made Avery think ‘law student’, not ‘lawyer’.

She looked a little startled as Liberty approached and hugged her.  She extricated one arm from between Liberty and her own body, and gave Liberty a light and careful pat on the back, by way of response, eyes open and wary.

“Hi Ms. Poole,” America said, grinning.

“Ms. J.T. Poole,” Liberty beamed, smiling in a way that showed all of her filed-down sharp teeth, as she stepped away.  “She was kind of our babysitter with a law degree for a good few years, we made sure to need the law stuff.”

J.T. Poole looked like someone trying not to die inside, in a very ‘I went to Law school, and studied Law practice, all to be called a babysitter’ way.  She turned her focus to Sebastian, the light in her eyes still flickering like a candle about to go out.  “You’re Mr. Harless?”

“I am,” he said.  He’d already stood up.  “I do like meeting colleagues in Law.  Thank you for helping these three.”

“I wish I could take credit but I’m on retainer.”

“All the same.  You expressed interest in helping out?”

“Contractually, I should be involved if I’m aware these girls are going to be involved with Law practices in any way, and there’s not an accepted tutor or teacher of the practice.”

“Like the Blue Heron teachers,” Liberty said, settling into her seat.

“Quite a commitment,” Sebastian said.

“You have no idea.  Hey, Poole,” America said.  “Remember when we sold ourselves to the Faerie, back when I was twelve and Liberty was ten, and you had to come get us out of the deal?  And you didn’t know what court or region we were in?”

“I will never forget,” J.T. said.

“We almost annoyed them into letting us go, or killing us, seemed like a fifty-fifty either way,” Liberty said.  “Good thing you caught up to us when you did.”

Avery winced.  Anthem didn’t seem like a client anyone would want to upset, even if he had his gentler side, and with his daughters on the line…

“Or when Libs and I got into a fight and tried to forswear each other?” America asked.

“Over the Zombie Bible,” Liberty said.

“I had to read all of your disaster bibles, finished or partial, and keep you from digging yourselves in deeper with the ongoing argument.  You bit me when I had to physically put you in different rooms.”

“I’m sorry,” Liberty said, sounding about five years younger than she was, all innocence.  “It was a very important argument and America was very wrong.”

“Excuse you,” America muttered.  “Oh!  When we had our classmate sell her hand in marriage to that really hot Oni prince?”

“Your Innocent classmate from public school, yes.  Etched into my memory.”

“He was hot, right?  Back me up, Poole.  You’re a red-blooded lady, unless something’s changed since Liberty bit you.”

“We’re getting distracted,” Lucy said.  “Can we please refocus?”

“But the Law stuff is boring,” America groaned, turning sideways in the chair, draping herself sideways across it.

“Then leave,” Liberty said.

America groaned, and didn’t leave.

“We’re not very far in,” Sebastian said.  “Before we continue, can we trust that all discussion will be confidential?”

“I may be asked to report to Anthem Tedd.”

“He’s in a tricky area,” Avery said.  “Currently in Kennet found, serving time for murdering a lot of individuals.”

“Many, many individuals,” Lucy said.

“He sure is good at the murder,” America said, head upside-down as it hung past the armrest of the chair.

“More specifically, he’s in an area a greater power has influence over,” Lucy said.  “One we want to stay off the radar from.  If you go to Anthem to give him an update while he’s there, you’ll be informing our enemy.”

“Noted.  America?  Would he want to know?”

“Probably happier not knowing, letting this be kept secret.”

“Then I won’t share this past those in this room, without further permission.”

“Are you familiar with the Alabaster?” Sebastian asked.

“Independent or greater power?”

“Greater power.  Of the Manitoba-Ontario region.”

“Academically.”

Sebastian nodded.  He pushed some papers around, then looked up at Avery.  “Alabasters exist as standalone forces, elsewhere.  Other forces like your Judges do too, but the Alabaster is notable.  They’re tied into Law, Fate, but can exist even if there are other dominant powers, like we have Judges in our area.  You can go to the Faerie courts, for example, and if you know the ways to travel or the extra barriers to entry, you can find one in the same way.  Less powerful, less involved, but still capable and still carrying roles that they’ve adopted.  Giving sanctuary and mercy, for those who have the ability or strength to find it.  The sick, cursed, the mentally ill…”

Avery nodded.

“As a force for you to face and tackle, she’s… if I’m right and if she was an independent Alabaster before she became a Judge, she was born to it, then took a position that conferred it.  Law, karma, facility, protections…”

“Isn’t that redundant?” Lucy asked.

“No, it’s…”

“Like if a God-Begotten ascended and got a god’s power?” Verona asked.  “Even if you take away that power, they’re still that, on some level, a subtly or very different level, deep down?  And they’ll know things about the power on an instinctual, my-kind-was-made-for-this level?”

“…Yes.  That works.”

“Not that you can easily take away this kind of power,” J.T. said.  “It’s Law.  It’s the bedrock of everything we do with practice, established with the Seal.”

“If I’m correct, and I have only anecdote and loose evidence to back this up,” Sebastian said, “The Alabaster has been a Judge here for a very long time.  Maybe since the Judges were properly Judges.  Others have been replaced, she remains.”

“Alabasters are normally vulnerable.  They’re going extinct, for lack of a better word,” J.T. said.  “Skinning one and taking their hide or bones or other parts of them is a fast way to seize control over karma, Law, and other power for yourself.  For any practitioner who needs power for a major ritual, where a normal sacrificial animal isn’t enough, an Alabaster doe will often do it.  They’re part of the bedrock of practice under the seal, they’re tapped into it.”

“Sacrifice,” Verona said.  “What about that goat?”

“Oh no,” Sebastian said.

“That’s complicated,” Avery replied.  “Partially because you’d need to pry it from the council’s fingers.”

“Don’t they want to get rid of it?” Lucy asked.

“They do, they hate it, they hate that we have to take turns caring for it,” Sebastian said.  “And there are a few in the council who will fight to keep you from taking it if they think you’ll get an advantage by sacrificing it.  Some will think you could cause a huge amount of devastation if you make a mistake in the process.  I would be in that last group.”

“We could turn our focus to having the Alabaster contain the damage,” Verona said.

“Can we convince people?” Lucy asked.

“You haven’t met the Thunder Bay council,” Avery told her.

“I know they’re bad, but…?”

“This might be a case where you have too much faith in crummy people,” Avery told Lucy.

“Hmm.”

“To get us back on track, let’s figure out where we stand before getting into those details.  Alabasters are vulnerable,” Sebastian added.  “They don’t typically fight back.  They represent the vulnerable, prey.”

“Deer, not wolves,” Avery added.

“Exactly.”

“Power and influence on a deep and fundamental level,” J.T. said, “that won’t fight back if you try to take it.  Small wonder they dwindle in number, and those that remain have wider territory.”

“They’re endangered?” Avery asked, suddenly feeling a lot worse about their plan.

Sebastian nodded.  “Which gets back to my driving point here.  She isn’t.  Yours, the judge, she stands fast.  She’s been targeted and challenged and she is still here, after a long time.”

“It’s like you’ve got a giant piggy bank made of clear glass with dollar bills filling it from hoof to coin slot, sitting in the middle of a high-traffic area in the city,” Verona said.  “Sledgehammer right beside it.  And nobody’s broken it in years?  Something’s up.”

“…Apt,” he said.

Verona looked pleased.  “Except she’s kind of a… piggy bank inside a piggy bank?  If you’re right about her being an Alabaster before she was Alabaster Judge?”

“Complicated,” Avery muttered.

“Yes, let’s not overcomplicate it,” Sebastian said.  “Maybe.  If I’m right.  Though I’d say she’s been an entity of karmic Law and representative of the Seal for so long the point is academic.  She’s of Law, regardless.”

“Okay, but am I on track?” Verona asked.  “I’m trying to get my head around this.”

Avery wondered if Verona was feeling more motivated after last night’s talk.

“For our analogy, I would say yes, you’re mostly right,” Sebastian said, “but it’s more accurate to say it’s not in a highly trafficked area.  Not everyone knows it exists.  But it’s discoverable.  Many texts and resources point to it.  I know families in our area that give their newly Awakened children their Essentials texts as introductions to practice, and the Alabaster and other judges is explicitly mentioned in there.  I think Ann Wint even does.”

“Huh,” Avery grunted.  “Verona and I couldn’t sleep that easy last night, and we were talking last night about if we even should do this.”

“Now it’s sounding like it’s more a question of if we could,” Lucy added.

“Those are very complicated questions on their own and you’re putting them out there with seconds apart from one another,” Sebastian said.

“I’d much rather this than something that makes me worry about the welfare of children in my care,” J.T. said, looking at Liberty.

America, still draped over the chair, put fingers and thumb together to make a heart shape.

“This is why I got into Law, actually,” J.T. said, looking brighter.  Like that law student had been locked in a closet for years and was finally seeing the doors open.

Avery didn’t get the ‘headless chicken’ vibe, but she could imagine this woman being like that after some of the situations America had mentioned.  It was more like she had a real passion and lived and died by it, to the point that some stuff made the internal light inside her flicker, dim, and die, and other stuff brought her entirely to life.

“To get to those questions,” Sebastian said, “I can’t say if you should.  She’s a very old force.”

“So it’s like cutting down a redwood?” Avery asked.  That’s even worse.

“Again, I can’t speak to the morals, that’s entirely subjective, but to inform those morals, I will say she has a suite of duties, she’s been around for as far back as I’ve been able to research this region, and she’s doing the bare minimum, conserving and investing power as a buffer.  She’s also supporting forces that I would say most Alabasters wouldn’t.  Or even couldn’t.”

“Chuck,” Verona said.

“The Carmine,” Sebastian said, to J.T.  “Another judge.”

“I’m more aware of that one, because it came up in conversation with everything going on.”

“Of course.  But yes,” Sebastian said.  “The Carmine is one of those forces.  Another Alabaster could work with him as all judges have to cooperate on some level, but to be this complicit and even defer to him?  It’s odd.”

“So, for another analogy…” Verona started.

“Ronnie,” Lucy said.  “What’s up with you?”

“Spurring thoughts along.  Woman who should’ve retired a forever ago is running some business, in this analogy…”

“Or a sanitarium,” Avery said.  “Taking in the sick, infirm, the mentally ill, the cursed.  I met them before the end of school party.”

“Right.  But she’s phoning it in, maybe people who should be getting help aren’t, and she’s working with organized crime?”

“I’d say Musser was organized crime,” Lucy said.

“Legit!” America chimed in from the background.

“Or terrorist ones,” Verona amended.

Avery nodded.

“Has what she’s done amounted to something worth killing her for, especially when she’s a member of a vulnerable and valuable population?” Sebastian asked.  “I don’t know.”

“But in this analogy,” Verona said.  “What if we say the sanitarium is under iffy leadership, technically checking the boxes but not super great, and it’s supporting horrible terrorist stuff, and we want to fire the boss.  But she’s someone so invested in the job that she’ll off herself or wither and die without it.  It’s all she’s got.  We don’t want to kill her, but it’s kind of a casualty of what we might end up having to do.”

“If we stick with this,” Avery pointed out.  “This is one angle of attack.”

“As to whether you could?” Sebastian asked.  “I think the fact she’s still here is a testament to how durable she is.  But I think also, that the people who confronted her in the past underestimated her, and I can’t imagine others were bringing power like you’re describing using to the contest.”

“I started from the same point they used to go after the Carmine,” Verona said.

“You have other advantages.  Others of Law tend to be bound by those same forces they govern.  And she is tied into this system and its laws twice-over.”

“And Chuck is once-over?”

“The Carmine?  Yes.  Once-over.  What this means is that if you can find points to argue, they will count.  Her integrity is literally her integrity, as your bones are to you.  Things you could hold against her will count.  If you want it to count against the price, you could.  Question becomes… do you have enough?”

“Ronnie?” Avery asked.  “You had a list.”

Verona dug into her bag for her book, got it, and put it on the coffee table, turning to the right page.

“Okay, this is a good starting point…”

The conversation went from a storm of individual points to the nitty gritty of arguing these points of capital-L Law.  Sebastian was sitting on the couch, which was closest to the coffee table, and J.T. went to sit by him to get a better view of things.

“How important is it that she pays?” Sebastian asked.

“Very,” Verona said.  “Because, first of all, we can’t, unless that goat is everything it’s made out to be.”

“Don’t plan on the goat,” Sebastian groaned, sounding tired.

“I have no idea what this goat is about and I love it,” Liberty said.

Avery hadn’t told her because spreading the word about a huge, dangerous power source seemed like a good way to cause trouble that’d get her or her family kicked out of Thunder Bay.

“Second of all, I’m not positive she can pay.  She’s been giving a lot to Chuck.”

“What happens?” Lucy asked.

“Part of managing karma is being a custodian for karma,” he said.  “And not having enough power to manage what you’re meant to manage?  It’s like being a big bank and people you owe debt to start calling in those debts.  Maybe you can get the money together, but you’ll pay steep interest.  If you can’t get the money together, then it calls everything you’re doing into question.”

“There we go,” Verona said.

“Except in the real world, don’t banks get away with a lot of crap?” Lucy asked.  “Even when stuff is really questionable?”

“They do,” J.T. said.  She turned to Sebastian. “She’s an institution?”

“She may have been the originating point that judges in the region congealed around.”

“Y’all are assholes,” America said. Avery looked over.  America was still hanging upside-down, draped across the chair.

“Be good, Meri,” Liberty said.

“You be good.  Let me get this straight.  You guys rock on up to the Blue Heron institute, Bristow gets dragged off to a fairy pocket world, and stupid sexy Alexander gets murdered.  All signs point to you three being involved.  Summer ends, and we get a new Carmine who has a hate-boner for you three-”

“Not exactly,” Verona cut in.  “He likes us.  He wants us to get out of his way, and I think we’re at the point he’s willing to kill us to do it, but he likes us.  He hates all the rest of the practice.”

“-whatever.  He goes to some pretty extreme lengths.  Abe Musser rises up as opposition, unites all these practitioners, and oh, would you look at that?  Who’s there to kneecap the guy who can rock riding boots and gold glasses?  You three.  And now, not all that long after, we’ve got you three talking seriously about like, fuck, there’s an age-old entity that’s become foundational to the local practice.  What to do?  Kneecap a doe-eyed bitch.  With a fucking goat?”

“You said you’d be helpful if you stayed,” Liberty told her.

“I feel like I’m the sanest person in this room and that’s really fucking sad.”

“Meri, when things were worst with us, you got mad.  You thought we should side with Musser, because things were shitty, and he was our best bet.  These guys won.  They showed they’re the better bet.”

America sighed, shifting position to sit up.  It looked like she was making a willful effort to not immediately retort or be a pain in the ass.  “But you do see the pattern, right?”

Lucy shook her head.  “The pattern is the foundation’s cracked, everything built on it is going to be uneven or broken, and we’ve got… generations and generations and generations of building being done on the same spots, magnifying those breaks.”

“America?” Avery asked.

Fuck.  The way America turned toward her, it felt like the first instinct was to attack, and America held back.

Still dangerous, on that baseline level.  Especially when challenged.

“You sounded so unhappy and dejected with everything when you were fighting with Liberty, back in Kennet.  That’s what we’re trying to fix,” Avery said.

“And murking this defenseless lady fixes it?”

“Not defenseless,” Verona said.  “That glass piggy bank ain’t broken.  That doesn’t happen by coincidence.  Could be metaphorical snipers on nearby rooftops, could be a trap.  Could be head games…”

“Murking this lady, then?  A woman who takes care of the crazies, the sick?”

“The idea is we talk to her first,” Avery said.

“Sure.  And this Other that’s invested heavily into the Carmine is going to hear a good argument and quit it?  Go back to being a moral, upstanding figure?”

“She’s an Other of Law so we can’t rule it out,” Sebastian said.  “It might be the easiest thing for her to do.”

“I want to make sure I get this.  I want to hear it from Avery, too.  I don’t want you running away from the subject or dodging what you’re doing.  You want to murk someone, do it, but don’t pretend you’re not doing what you’re doing.”

“We don’t want to murk someone,” Avery said.  “And I don’t want to run.  But I don’t have an answer ready just yet.”

She thought of the Wolf that had haunted her last night.  Like a dark streak of bad conscience given form.

“Go easy,” Liberty told America, before America could say more.

Leaving Avery to sit back, listening to the back and forth, considering what they were doing.

Verona’s analogy helped the most.  Turning this around, getting away from the idea of prey animals, endangered species, and redwoods.

More like some ruthless person operating a hospital or sanitarium, collaborating with and helping out some terrorist.

A person who was doing that… who was functionally untouchable outside of this whole approach.  Either by forcing her legally, almost to the point of binding her, or by removing her from her station.  A situation that, in this metaphor, would see her irrevocably and unavoidably killed by the same forces that she’d drawn on and used.

Avery got up from her seat, leaving the room.  She remained in general earshot of the ongoing conversation.

Getting water.  Then staying out, dwelling on things, as they ran through the points of Law.

It wasn’t her focus, it wasn’t what she was good at, and it felt like if she did try to keep up and memorize all this, she’d be so caught up in doing that she wouldn’t do the necessary consideration on other fronts.

So she stood in the kitchen, the talk about Law and counterpoint and duty a dull background noise she could pick out if she focused on listening or walked closer, but not something that would drown out and override her thoughts.

After a few minutes, Liberty came in.

“Heya,” Avery said.

“Sorry about ‘Meri.”

Avery shook her head.  “Important questions.  And there is a pattern.  We should be aware.  I don’t- I haven’t been responsible for a death, like that.  You know?”

“Like the others were?” Liberty asked.  “Meri’s stupid sexy Alexander dying?”

Avery nodded.  “And Verona with Bristow, I know he’s not dead-dead, but…”

“Yeah.  Gone for keeps.”

“But things are broken.  Charles- he sees the shit built all askew, generations of work layered on top of each other,  the stuff built slightly off to start gets more and more exaggerated with each layer, and he wants to ruthlessly clear it away.  Get those kids at Saint Victor’s to cut the people and burn the builds.  You know?”

Liberty nodded.

“It’s making more cracks in the foundations, until it looks like anything we try to build after that is going to be even worse to start with than what we had before.  I don’t think he’s ignorant to that.  I think he has a plan, and the plan is to just destroy it all, and then let it be.  Force everyone out, let the dust settle, let the cracks fill in.  Keep practitioners out.  Maybe innocents do their thing in the meantime.  Maybe they get scared out too, somehow.”

“Let nature grow over the burned ruins?” Liberty asked.

“Yeah.  Maybe metaphorically.  Out of everything he could do, it’s the only thing that makes sense to me, that’s believable, and that’s still scary and reckless.  Because you need all three to really fit the bill for Charles.”

Liberty nodded.  “And those students?  The religious ones?”

“I don’t know if they’re all religious.  Lots of students go to the Catholic schools because they’re private and have more money or something.  Or they just have a tidier image.”

“Right.  But about them.  How do they fit in?”

“I mean… he talked about wanting to make undercities and they’re sort of that.  Maybe they stay.  Maybe they go elsewhere.”

Lucy had gotten up and approached the kitchen.  She stood in the kitchen door.

“What’s up?” Avery asked.  “Sorry.  I’m just thinking.”

“Sebastian has relevant info about our strategy.”

“Okay,” Avery replied.

Apparently she was meant to come back to the room.  She followed Lucy back through.

“Say it again?” Lucy asked.

“Your plan was to travel for a day from safe territory to his territory, so the last step would take you to the Alabaster, but not put you in that territory for long enough for him to gainsay you,” Sebastian said.  “You had two options.  Now you’re down to one.  His people attacked the other one and expanded his territory.  The territories adjacent to that expansion aren’t as good for you.”

“Ottawa’s still next to his territory but not in it,” Lucy said.  “He attacked it but didn’t get it.  That’s our starting point.  We’d have to deal with the Lord and then get moving.”

“Is the strategy workable?” Avery asked.

“We think so,” Verona said.  “Some stuff to look up.  Question is, do you guys want to do this?  Hearing all this?  Will you see it through?  Because if not, that’s not much different to me than if something happens to you.  If we’re fighting Charles, we’re doing it together.”

“It’s karma, isn’t it?” Lucy asked.  “That she’s punished for lending out power for questionable purposes and ugliness.  That we use her nature to confront her.  If she’s no longer a representative, then we can unseat her.  We’ve got the grounding to cut the required collateral down.  We can do this.”

“Ave?” Verona asked.

“I want to build something bigger, something better, on this cracked ground.  That’s made to be level.  Something that can have stuff built on top of it that will be level too.  And we do that with more people.  More eyes on this.  This plan uses all the little, insignificant people, so… that makes sense to me.  That makes sense as how we build.”

“You want to build the market?” Sebastian asked.

“I want to build more than that.  Families.  Bonds.  Good relationships within families.  If the Alabaster will give us that, and revoke the excess power she’s giving Charles?  Okay.  I don’t want to hurt her.”

“But she won’t, will she?” J.T. asked

Avery shook her head.  “I don’t think she will.  So let’s fire her.  Put what she’s been doing up to the challenge, remove her.  That will kill her.  Okay.  I’m not dodging that or running from it.”

She looked at America as she said that last bit.

“I wasn’t getting down on you.  I just want you to be honest about what you’re doing,” America said.

“It’s the only way, isn’t it?” Avery asked, looking to Sebastian.

Someone who’d killed someone else with his recklessness.  Someone sad and broken in his own way, who’d dedicated his life to doing good after.

Felt like the best person in the room to ask.

“Maybe not the only one, but I don’t think any of us have better ideas.  Legally, this seems like a way forward.  I don’t know if it will work, if she has a trick up her sleeve, or something else.  I can’t speak for the strategy of it,” Sebastian replied.

“Strategically, we need to move fast,” Lucy said.  “He’s already cutting off our avenues for approach, and this is one judge out of four.  We summon something to throw at Charles, and we start moving on the Alabaster, sooner than later.  Before he goes after Ottawa again and there’s no good territories sympathetic to us next to the bigger region he manages.  Yes?”

Putting the question to her, again.

Because, at the end of this, this was a question about morals, and what they were willing to do.  If they were okay killing one person that hadn’t committed murder directly but had enabled it to this level.

It didn’t feel good, but it felt necessary.

“Yes,” Avery replied.  “I’ll get my stuff.”

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