Author: Wildbow

In Absentia – 21.7 | Pale

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The Beorgmann used one hand to lift planks up to the Y-divide of branches in a tree, balancing them there.  Hand still upraised, he grabbed a branch, and lifted himself into the air, feet carrying more planks, rope, and a bucket filled with old-fashioned nails, long triangular wedges instead of straight posts with pointed ends and flat heads.

Dangling from one hand, with two feet, he positioned a plank, and with one hand, he took nails from one bucket, and set the plank in place, pushing the nails into tree with his finger.  Three planks set in a row.  His weight pulled a branch from a diagonal angle to a horizontal, and a support plank with some nails kept it there.

One plank every few seconds, support planks after, beneath, to keep the floor solid.  He knew the length of each plank already, and years of practice combined with the ability to look at all his past work, to sense his entire territory, let him easily find the best way to combine what he’d collected.  Smaller struts became components for a railing, encircling the platform he’d built.  Gaps became slots for posts to go into.  Planks were nailed to posts, and the treehouse now had its platform and the loose structure of the main building.  Three tiered, each room on each tier smaller than the one below, with the top as a lookout tower.

He set the bucket of nails down on the platform, then dropped to the ground.

The sound of his landing on the forest floor echoed across his territory, making trees and treehouses waver.  Children in the mounds felt it in their bones.  All reacted, gasping, startling awake if they were asleep.

He drew in a deep breath, and the breath pulled in not air, but sustenance.  The gasps, already leaving throats, became something more essential, pulled out of each of his captives like knotted ropes they’d been made to swallow, now pulled out of them with more strength than they could ever hope to fight back against.  Soul.

In some treehouses, lights flickered and died.  In others, things broke or fell.  For some children who had startled awake, they started to rise to their feet, only to find themselves weak, collapsing.  Some fainted, some panicked, because they knew what came after.  Some lost memories, and would not get them back whole.  A handful lost integral parts of their identity.  They forgot names they had given themselves, or the particulars of clothes and toys they’d once loved.

He exhaled, and grasses and branches stirred, dirt resettling.  He moved, swift, silent, and powerful, gripping the occasional branch or tree to change direction or pull himself up to ascend a bit of cliff.  He knew his realm here like the back of his hand, and did not even need to look.

With one hand, he reached into some bushes, grown up and through a car that had made it partway into his territory, driving down a dirt road.  A husband, wife, and five kids in the back seat.  A hard-to-digest thing.  He’d picked up the car, holding it with one arm around the car’s body, or both legs wrapped around the vehicle, as he used hands to climb, the occupants imprisoned up until he reached inside, to take one child out and place them.  Twins in one treehouse, the older girl in another.  The older boy had hurt him, so he’d been placed on a high platform, to shiver and pace, with no four walls around him, no light, nothing to do but look out across treetops.  The last boy, the youngest, had been placed in a mound, built and left empty for almost a century, as an option if too many children came at once, as these five had.

The parents had been kept in the car.  They’d pleaded, fought, improvised, tried to negotiate.  Only then, with that offer, had he asked them to swear themselves to his service, to bring children to him.  He would even, he told them, let them choose one of their five children to free.

They had refused, so he had kept them imprisoned until a need for water had claimed their lives.  Now the car remained, a rusted body with shattered windows and more dirt inside than intact seats or plastic.  And the bodies?  With every exhalation, he could push some decay and rot into them.  Now they were almost gone, barely recognizable as the heaps between car seat and floor.

For now, it was a wart.  Scar tissue.  Something unwanted.  It was a landmark if someone ever found a way to escape.  Other places, he could turn around, move, and adjust, so they would be turned around and went in circles, but not this, not while this mass of metal and two corpses were there, as something that wasn’t his.

Another causality of this rusted metal wart was that his exhalations were uneven.  It caught on the warts, collected around them.  He reached into the bushes that grew between car and hillside, and pulled out planks, some ten feet long, four or five at a time.  In the trunk, which was too rusted to close, those things he’d Created with the exhalation of what he’d drawn out of the children included ropes and white Christmas lights.

The children he’d taken in most recently had ideas about the Christmas lights as decoration for all year, inside their rooms.

Beneath the car- he rummaged.  Treasure.  A decorative metal plate that could be imagined as a shield.  He added it to his collection.

He moved, powerful strides carrying him forward at a pace that could move as fast as that car had traveled down the dirt road, footsteps shaking the earth and making children in mound and tree alike startle, heartbeats quickening.

He leaped, climbed, and high in the branches, he caught cloth, that had been exhaled into his realm and put in the branches as if they’d been there for days or weeks, blown from someplace far away by the wind.

Passing one depression in the woods, he stooped low.

A hidden mound, easy to miss.  It bulged from the sides of the little valley, a hollow place in the earth he’d built, first placings sticks, then branches, leaves, and twigs, then dirt atop that, and dirt atop the dirt.  Branch and leaf and twig had rotted away long ago, but the mound held its shape on the inside- not quite tall enough to stand in.  The weight of it all pressed down on sticks at the hole in the front, compressing them, and making them something stronger than steel.

Ruth Washam, captured two weeks after her eleventh birthday in 1931, peered out of that hole at him, skin and hair so dirty it was hard to tell her apart from the dirt she lay on.  She breathed hard, exhausted after he’d drawn in that breath earlier.  The whites of her eyes, though… they fed the darkness in his as she stared him down.  She put her hand out between the branches that barred her exit, and she gave him the finger.

Ruth Washam had been in a treehouse once.  A fine one, by his standards.  She’d been a scurrilous tomboy.  Not fitting in with other children, she’d wander out into the woods.  He hadn’t been bound at that point in time, so he’d been able to catch her, placing her in a treehouse.

With no less than nine nigh-impossible leaps, she had jumped from branch out to the branches of the next tree, catching onto the thinnest, most breakable branches, either scrabbling for better grips or managing to swing her legs up and catch the branch, scratching thighs with rough bark.  She’d pulled ribbons from the hair her mother had done for her, that she hated so much, and she’d used them to help make a spear.

She’d found and passed two warts, and she’d found the wizard’s garden, where she got some answers and direction.  In the doing, she’d made it as far as anyone had in a long time.  That deserved its reward, so he’d offered a deal similar to the one he’d given the parents.  That she could go free, but she’d owe him a child every year for the rest of her life.  She’d speared him in the outstretched hand instead of accepting, so he’d put her in the mound.  The only ones who found her were the ones who ventured into that depression in the earth, finding a low place to crouch in while trying to hide from him.  Those who found her were rewarded with her knowledge.  She remembered the way quite clearly, and collected information from the other children.

Otherwise, her time was spent in the dark and mud, watching the spot of forest past the mound’s opening, when and if there was enough sunlight coming from the right direction to reach past foliage and light the bottom of the depression.  When it rained, her mound flooded, and she had to fight to find places to push her face to breathe, and if she didn’t, she suffocated, drowned, and would spend days or weeks coughing, retching, and expelling water and mud from her lungs.  When it snowed, as it had here, the unnatural warmth of the earth around her and the heat of her body escaped the mound and melted snow near the entrance, so light could come through and melted snow would form a cold wet layer beneath her for months at a time.

The hand that held up the middle finger shook violently from the cold, a response made worse by his recent inhalation, but her vision did not waver.

She was terrified.  Of him, yes, but also because a rabbit and its kittens had found her mound and decided to share the burrow with her, borrowing from her warmth, accepting the occasional tentative pat.  Not many animals came into his domain.  She loved them and she did not want him to take them away.

He moved with such suddenness that she jumped, hand withdrawing.  But he wasn’t after her.  He carried on.  More planks.  His fingers raked the earth, digging past snow to earth.  Frozen dirt came apart in clumps, sifting through fingers, while nails, scattered in the earth, did not.  He placed them in the depression of the metal plate, where they rattled and jangled.

There was a garden with a boy inside- a practitioner.  Not one of the Legendre children.  This one had been here for longer.  Another waypoint.  Another way for someone to piece together what they needed to escape.  A way to win, if the tables were turned and someone or something with the power to challenge a being as old as him to his own game.  They could ask him to play at being a child in a treehouse or mound, to piece together what was needed to escape.

A boy called Billy the Sissy by his classmates, who had called himself that when talking to Ruth twenty-six years ago, had followed those same steps, more or less.  He’d found the boy wizard in the garden, hiding there for some time while the Beorgmann searched.  Boy wizard and Billy had shared a kiss through the gap in the shifting hedges that kept the boy wizard within, then they’d parted, with a promise.

He’d gotten directions to the warts, which could not change or shuffle around, he’d gotten a tattered umbrella from the car, carrying that with him, and it made it take more effort for the paths to turn on themselves.  He’d found Ruth Washam, and obtained details on how to evade the Beorgmann’s senses and carry on finding his way.

He’d made it.  Out past the perimeter, the Beorgmann so close on his heels that two or three seconds of delay might have made the difference.  The Beorgmann couldn’t chase past that point, but he could speak, and he could make an offer.  Billy the Sissy had made a promise and the Beorgmann offered a way to let him keep it.  Send in two children, like his bullies and tormentors, and the Beorgmann would release the boy wizard.  Send in two children, and he’d free Ruth.

Billy the Sissy had agreed.  Billy had then found out that more time had passed than he’d thought.  That his tormentors were grown.  And by the wording, ‘like his tormentors’, he’d known in his bones that he was obligated to take the boys and girls that were his old bullies’ children, four in number, and capture them to take them to the Beorgmann.

Billy had refused, going to a priest instead.  The priest had introduced him to practitioners, and the Beorgmann had been forced to call on the deal and inhale of Billy from afar, in hopes of unmaking him in entirety before too much could be said.

No luck.  Billy was Innocent, and before the Beorgman could consume him from afar, even with deals of the Old ways, he’d been secured away from the Beorgmann’s ability to draw on the connection.  There he remained.  A prisoner of a different sort in a different place, where Time and Death could reach him.

The Legendres had come not all that long after.  They would have been the ones to seal the escapee.

Now, here things were.  The Beorgmann moved through the trees, collecting the necessary odds and ends that had been Created in his realm like crops sprouting from a farmer’s field.  A realm bounded in by a fence someone else owned and managed.  A realm with a fence that had its own weak points, like the Beorgmann’s prisons did.  If he could only gather up enough power, he could turn a chink in the armor into a break, a gap into a door.  A weakness into escape.

He heard voices.

“Wetu.”  A hand banged against the side of the treehouse.

“Is that house?  Treehouse?”

“Wetu.  Uhhhh… wigwam?”

“Wigwam, like tent?  This isn’t a tent.  Tent?”

The Beorgmann could see.  Two treehouses, too close together.  A girl with blonde hair and a winter hat on looked across at a girl with straight black hair.  The blonde girl made a pointed shape in front of her with her arms, fingertips touching.

“Tent?  Uhh- wait!”

She went inside, and carrying her sleeping bag, she held it up, arm extended overhead, making a triangle shape with the whole of it.

“Uhhh… yes!  Wigwam.”

“I- Katie,” the blonde touched hand to chest.  She touched the wall of her treehouse.  “Wetu?  Wigwam?”

“Wetu.”

“Cool.  Katie…” she touched her chest again.  She extended a hand.  “Alona.”

“Katie… Kìzis nimìnisisan.”  Katie touched her hair, then pointed.

“What does that mean?”

Alona put her hands together to make a circle, then held them high.

“Cool.  Sun or moon?  I’m guessing sun.”

They’d pulled themselves together.  That was a problem.

Katie knew Morse code from her Beescouts group.  Alona knew it because her grandfather had served with Canadian forces in the war, with a group of the original Canadians.  They’d used flashlights he’d given them to communicate by Morse code, Alona knowing a few basic phrases, then had started shouting at one another when he was far away, going by the impact of his footsteps and movements.  Then they’d reached a place where they were close enough to talk to one another.  Now they were sharing language.

Two had far greater than twice the chance of escaping, if both could get to where they had feet on the ground.

He did not give them the benefit of footsteps they could hear.  He didn’t move or rustle branches.  He approached, climbed, and only in the last moment did he put his head between them.

They screamed, terrified, sounds ragged in how loud and sudden they were.

The screaming intensified as he tore Katie Spicer’s treehouse from the tree, slapping down the things he was carrying and then holding them against the porch of the treehouse as he held it.

“Alona!” Katie screamed, top of her lungs, scrambling across the sloped floor of the treehouse, trying to reach the railing.  She only reached it after Alona was out of sight.  “Alona!”

He moved through trees, back the way he’d come.

Placed her.

“Please, please, please, no,” the girl whispered, holding onto the railing still, shielding herself behind it.

He reached past her, through the open door, and inside.  There, he collected things.  Treasures.  A doll.  The flashlight.

“No!  Not my light!” she shouted, as she realized.

She grabbed the hand with the flashlight with one hand, and threw herself forward, grabbing onto the flashlight with one hand.  Her other hand slapped forward, grabbing it.

Her entire body dangled, both hands around the piece of plastic.

“No!” she cried out.

He remained there, waiting.

She looked into his eyes, and she saw the darkness there.  Oblivion.  Night without stars.

That defeated her.

She slipped, letting her grip break.  She fell, foot clipping the railing, and sprawled on the porch.

She watched him go.

He left her in her treehouse, striding through the woods, peering into a few treehouses along the way.  Each one just far enough from the others to not be able to see or clearly hear one another.

He returned to his work in progress, and he built the walls and, after a short detour to collect some pieces, built the roof with corrugated steel.  It would drum loud in the rain.  He collected mineral rich iron from riverbeds, and resin, and he exhaled lightly, with some of what still sat in lungs that weren’t used for breathing, to stir the components together.  He mixed in carbon ash and oxygen, minerals, and he shaped it.  A flashlight for light that would not go out.  Christmas lights were untangled in one easy motion, then strung along the railing.  They lit up without power.

He hung the decorative plate, a shield surrounded by lights.  Everything was positioned relative to the branches around them, with an eye to the possible paths someone could walk.

He had stood at the edge of his territory, bounded in by a seal and wards set up by Milly Legendre, and he had looked out over the surrounding area.  In the distance was a path that children sometimes walked, to get to and from school.  One day, possibly days from now, possibly weeks, possibly years, a child would take the longer way around.  To avoid bullies, to pursue a hobby.  If they did and if they looked this way, they would see a glimmer, of the christmas lights, or of the metal plate catching the lowering sun at that time of day.

They would approach, and they’d see the seal and they’d see the treehouse, bright, and pretty, with interesting things in it, its rope ladder lowered.

Most would come.  Most would come up.  Then the way down would disappear.  every branch below poised to skewer them, the slope of the ground below promising death or permanent mutilation.

Milly Legendre had found it hard to get here to upkeep matters.  The local Lord wasn’t cooperating, beholden to the Carmine as it was.  There were more opportunities than there had been for some time.

The wind changed.

The air carried voices.  Voices carried Law.  Law had a taste and soundless cadence in the air, that changed as it was delivered with more weight, or with a different person to deliver it.

He remained there, hand on a tree branch, near his treehouse, inhaling, listening, eyes watching the movement of the longer grass beyond his domain.

He had last felt this in the most recent spring, when the Carmine had died.  Years before that, it was the Aurum.

The changing over of a judge wasn’t necessarily of any consequence.

There.  Pollen in the air, catching moonlight.

Alabaster.

He tilted his head, studying that twirling of pollen intently, trying to interpret what he could about that situation.  When the pollen moved out of sight, he moved, swift and sudden.  A boy in a treehouse he passed screamed and retreated inside at the sudden sight of him, stumbling and hurting himself on the way through the door.

The dirt road the car had come through, partially overgrown.  Rodents were looking his way.  Their eyes reflected light in the dark, becoming a hundred lightless flames – a dozen here, and more around the sealing perimeter of his territory.  It was a tentative, uneven look.  A hand inside a glove, feeling for the fit.

Dismissing it.

Moving on to other things.  The lights of the nearest town, one once managed by the Lordship of Milly Legendre, now overseen by a ghoul, they glowed faintly brighter, and the diffuse rays of light that came off of the distant glow of windows and streetlights were faintly crowned.

Details so faint that even those who’d been alive for a thousand years, with reason to study these things wouldn’t know it.

But they were information.

Why did they keep looking?  They were still feeling out their role, testing senses, and settling in as a power, but three times now, they had taken special note of him.

The wind changed again.  A direct line, from those crowned, glowing lights to his territory.  Sweeping across.  Dust particles danced along the rope that encircled his realm, around wards, searching.  More glowing eyes- racoons this time.  Crows that came and went from the nearby town.  There were some caws.

It didn’t stop, and it didn’t go away.

He reversed direction, going back the way he’d come.

He reached the treehouse he’d just built and crashed into it, inhaling the dust and splinters that came from broken wood.  Pieces broke further as he continued inhaling, hands pulling apart pieces of it, tearing the Christmas lights.

It was good to have a lure, but he couldn’t afford it right now.

The newest Carmine had taken the throne with a mandate.  To change, confront, and overturn the existing system, and to turn its sharpest edges against the people who had once embraced it.  The other Judges had permitted it.

Now there was a new Alabaster.  Time would give more evidence to what their mandate was… but for now, the Beorgmann’s attention was consumed by the fact that their mandate included him.

He inhaled, and the treehouse came to pieces, eroding, breaking down.  The fragments broke down into smaller fragments, until there was only dust, drawn in through the Beorgmann’s nose and mouth.

He lowered himself to the ground, arms and legs bent, cheek caressing snow.  He moved across the ground like that until he found a place where there was dirt, with tree cover too heavy for the snow to reach the ground.

He exhaled, a deep, low exhalation that reached into the dirt, and stirred up Creation there.  He breathed existence into material.  Nails and glass and other sharp things into dirt.  A slight tilt of the head and a breath sideways, and he breathed horizontally into the snow that layered his domain, his breath rising and falling with hills and valleys.  Let this place be a place of waste, where too much was left abandoned.  An unofficial junkyard.  Let every step into snow threaten to catch legs with stray sheet metal or metal points from rusted fences.  Let stray cords and ropes tangle, pulling.  Let it all be organized, so one stray step could cripple, and they would get only a partial scream out before falling into something worse.

A predator’s eye could dilate, narrowing into sharp focus, as he settled on prey.  The Beorgmann’s realm dilated in a similar way.  Treehouse was moved closer to treehouse and further from the perimeter.  The children would be close enough to one another that they could shout, talk to, or signal one another, and any that set foot on the ground would find it was a question of a quarter hour of travel instead of a half hour or an hour, to reach a landmark, a wart like the car, or Ruth, or the Boy Wizard.  Sacrifices had to be made.  They had to be put out of reach of outsiders.

Already, they were studying other things.  The link between Beorgmann and Billy the Sissy, the one who’d gotten away.  He could feel vibrations along its length, as it was viewed, picked at, prodded.

The protections around Billy weakened, then intensified.  The direction of the wind changed again.

He was Old.  He knew how this would unfold.  The new Alabaster would find a way to attack him.  It might not be anytime soon, but it would come, if they were not replaced.  A champion picked, made, or someone asking something of the Alabaster would be asked to find an inroad to the Beorgmann in trade, possibly by reaching out to other regions.  The Alabaster could direct karma and fate, and could put the right people in their vicinity.  One of those people would no doubt be Billy.

They would watch the fraying rope that sealed him in.  They would send their champion with a clear plan on how to attack him, Billy assisting and providing counsel and direction.

The Beorgmann retreated to the center of his domain.  No use farming and gathering power for now, or drawing in new victims.  Power had to be conserved for whatever attack was coming.  At the center of his territory, he could best sense what was happening on all sides.

Inhalation.  Drawing on his charges, carefully, because they were now a weak point.  Children fainted.  Some reacted, aware something was different, and that the pace had changed.

Exhalation.  Deepening the darkness in the dark places.  Making ice more slick.

Inhalation, again.  Now more children were reacting, stirring, even as strength left them.  It would come back.  That was the sort of resource they were.

No exhalation, but his fingers dug into the cold, hard earth beneath the snow, what he had inhaled fed through arms in a restless way, working their way out into the ground.

He wrenched, and the realm broke.  Large chunks became small fragments.  Now, when he moved a part of his domain, shuffled things around, and turned what looked like a straight path into a bend, the pieces he moved could be smaller, more nuanced.  He could watch as people came through, see how they moved, what they were watchful for, and direct them into traps they weren’t careful about.

Crawling, he moved to the darkest, most central part of his domain, where no light reached.  Children’s voices, faint, shouted out to one another, but he ignored those.  If any feet somehow reached the ground and started running, he would act, but with the bare minimum expenditure of energy.

He crouched there, in a cavern he’d hollowed out, surrounded by dense foliage, his arms and legs bent, ready to spring into action the second it was required.  His fingers and toes were twisted into the earth, digging in, ready to force a movement of one grouping of trees or one precarious slope, so it could be in the way of any escaping children or intruding attackers.

It was a place no light reached, the darkness so thick it was tangible, but his eyes were darker still, unblinking pits of black so deep that they would stand out in a lightless place.

Watching, waiting, for the attack that could come in days, weeks, months, years, or a century.  For a new Alabaster was watching him, as much as they could when they couldn’t reach into his realm.

He went still, not inhaling, not exhaling.  Waiting.

The world shook, as if it had a heart and that heart had suddenly beat once.  Nicolette, midway through taking her laptop through to the main room of the community center, lost track of where her feet were, where up was, and fell.

She fell onto her laptop, which was open, the front edge jabbing her in the ribs before slipping to the midsection.  She dropped the papers she’d been holding with her other arm.

“Nico?” Gillian asked, her voice distorted, warping more with her alarm.

“Augh,” Nicolette groaned, rolling over onto her back.  “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I-” Nicolette looked over at her laptop.  It was in two pieces, across scattered papers.  Screen separated from keyboard.  “Fuuck.”

She accepted Gillian’s help in getting to her feet, then bent down to get her laptop and the papers, placing them on one of the big tables that was used for parties, or as a place to sit behind during open council meetings.

Nicolette crossed the room, Gillian a few steps behind her.

They had some things laid out, from lessons with the kids, and a bit of side work Nicolette had been doing.

“Did you change this around?” Nicolette asked.

Gillian’s eyes with their elongated, diagonal pupils caught the light in strange ways as she moved around the table, looking.  “No.  A few cards flipped over when you fell.”

“Other things changed too,” Nicolette said.  She put her hands on the table, leaning over the arrangement of cards, bones, the salt plate, and stones.  “It all changed.”

She pushed against the table, crossing the dimly lit community center- a bare bones rectangular building with a large area that was at times daycare, dance hall, wedding venue, seating for a council meeting, or shelter.  Right now, there were two sections dedicated to cots- cheap with cheap sheets and cheap pillows.  Many had lost their homes.  Most were out right now.

She pulled her coat on, one she’d picked out last year because it was Belanger blue, before going her separate way in the summer, partially.  She flipped her hood up, one hand at the side of her head so it wouldn’t knock her hair ornament off.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark.  A lot of the compound was still in pretty bad shape.  She touched her glasses to adjust more quickly, picking a Sight that let her see people more easily.

Jen was out there, talking and walking with some of the other parents and members of the Belanger group here.  Owen Belanger was off to the side, talking to the workers who were handling the rebuild.  Some were from out of town, which meant they had to keep certain things under wraps or hidden.  The official line was a gas explosion.

She saw the Bitter Street Witch out at the guest house, stepping outside much in the same way Nicolette had.  They made eye contact.

“What’s going on?” Jen called out.

There were others outside now too, stepping outside, or already outside and acting weird.

“Something big,” the Bitter Street Witch said, to Nicolette more than to Jen.  “Felt it in my bones.”

“Knocked me on my ass, totaled my laptop,” Nicolette confessed.

“Did you do the contretemps sensitivity ritual?” Jen asked.

“I- yes.”

“What’s that?” the Witch asked.

“It’s-it’s a ritual, Alexander had me and the other apprentices do it.  It’s a ritual, we do it so you know if anything big happens, so if you’ve got augury ongoing, anything you’re tracking, you know to be right on top of it.  Usually it’s stuff people are going to ask about it, so you want to know sooner than later.  It’s-”

“Call Wye,” Jen said.

“You’re telling me to call him?  You?”

“Now.”

Nicolette didn’t need to be told a third time.  She got her phone out, finding Wye in her contact list.  They hadn’t really talked since Gillian, and a lot had been going on, so he’d ended up two scrolls down.  “The ritual’s something you’re supposed to get a handle on, once you’ve experienced enough big events, it makes it easier to flip around your Sight and any Augury you’re using in response.  But the first few times it packs a punch-”

She found Wye and tapped his name.

“-I didn’t feel anything this big with the founding of Kennet or Musser losing.”

“Teach me?” the Witch asked.

“Yeah.”

“I never got the chance,” Jen said.

“We are currently understaffed at the moment and cannot answer your call as promptly as we would like.  You may wait and you’ll be answered as soon as we can get to you, you may press one to indicate an emergency, or you may press two to leave a message.  Thank you for your patience.”

“Busy,” Nicolette said.  “I’ll walk you through the ritual too, Jen, if you want.”

Nicolette suppressed a sigh.  Others were approaching.  Maybe ones who’d done the ritual, or had other awareness.

“We don’t know yet,” Jen told them, before they could ask.  “We’re waiting for Wye.  Does anyone have any further information?”

Before anyone could respond, Jen turned her head, and her eyes widened.

“Gilly!” she exclaimed.

Gillian had stepped outside, without a coat, barefoot in snow.

“Inside now.”

“The cold doesn’t feel like cold.”

“Inside.”

“I wanted to look at the stars, and see what was going on.  I’m better at reading the stars than anyone, now.  Stop.  The cold really doesn’t bother me.  Short carpets bother me more than the cold does.  Mom.  Geez.”

Her mother ushered her inside.

Nicolette held her elbow with one hand, to keep the phone raised and close to her ear.  She looked at the Witch.  “Packed?”

“I should go be a warlord again, for a little while, with everything back in Kennet.  You going to be okay with Jen?”

Nicolette moved away from the others who were talking.  “She’s easier to deal with.”

“You’re giving her something she wants.”

“More than that.  Doors opened, she’s communicating.  She’s tolerable.”

“Might change after she wins, if it’s because of the vote later.”

Nicolette nodded.  “For now, it’s good.  She managed the vote to open up the storehouse.  It’s a good move.  Pass around books and resources, but get people to commit to giving them back.  Means they have to stay around and give them back.”

The Witch nodded.

“We’re going to push Wye some, see if we can twist his arm, get him to send some stuff back.  It’ll help the bigger dynamic.”

“It’s a shame I won’t be here.  I’m good at twisting arms.  Don’t be disappointed if she backslides.  People go back to their normal, unless something changes.  Habit, routine, food, home, people.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I have one idea.”

Nicolette sighed.  “Not that again.”

“Can we tell Owen Belanger to go and fuck her already?  She needs it.”

“I do not think that would go over well.  Even if you were right about that dynamic.  He’s her cousin.”

“Come visit Kennet below later.  After things calm down.  If they do.  We’ll quickly… you won’t think that’s such a stopping point, after seeing how some people are.”

“You’re not really convincing me.”

The Bitter Street Witch smiled, baring teeth.

“Nicolette?”

She moved the phone to her ear.  “I’m here.”

“I’m scrambling.  You felt it?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your read?”

“You have ninety-five percent of the tools and things over there.  Which we’re going to be asking about later, to warn.”

“Figured.  Okay.  I’ll give you the full rundown and keep you up to date, but go easy on me.  I’ve only got Tanner.”

“That’s your own fault, and you’re technically obligated to-”

“Nico.  Please.”

“Give me the rundown.”

“Short version?  Alabaster’s out.”

“The Alabaster.  When the Carmine took the seat at the end of Summer, I didn’t feel that big a wallop.”

“The perimeter might’ve dampened it.  And it was an empty seat.  This was both a long-held seat being suddenly vacated, and something else sitting.  Looks like a major city spirit- bigger than Toronto.  I’ve got a backlog of twelve people on the line.  Can I pay you to-“

“No,” Nicolette said.  “I’m here, I’ve got stuff to do for the council vote.”

“We’re swamped.  It’s all the old work and ongoing stuff, needs a re-read, equipment needs recalibrating, and incoming work… people are going to have questions.”

Nicolette picked up the pace, walking toward the community center.  She waved at Owen, beckoning him over.

The Bitter Street Witch couldn’t keep up, so Nicolette turned and mouthed a ‘sorry’, pressing phone and hand together into a prayer gesture.  The Witch waved her off, rolling her eyes, and pointed at her car.  Nicolette nodded.

Going to Kennet.

“I might have a deal, let me gather the right people around me…”

“Fourteen people on the line now.”

“The only ways I really see you getting out from under this stuff that’s burying you is you work with the Augur enclave I was going to run off to-”

“Ugh.”

“-Or you put up with me for another couple minutes.”

She opened the door and held it for Owen, who came right after her.

Jen was talking to Gillian over by the table.  Nicolette motioned, and turned the phone to speaker.

“It’s the Alabaster, she’s been replaced,” Nicolette said, for the benefit of Owen, Jen, and Gillian.  Wye is swamped, there’ll be a lot of business.  My tentative proposal, which would need to be agreed to by Owen and Jen, at the very least, is we send people to you, Wye.”

“Good.  That works.  I’ll take anyone who can transcribe a call and consistently spell words with six letters in them.”

“But when they leave to come back, they’re taking stuff from the storerooms and bringing it back here.  This is not the usual thing where we get only what you can’t and won’t theoretically use anytime soon.  Your ability to say no starts and stops with the stuff you really honestly need, Wye,” Nicolette said.  “I know how much stuff is back there collecting dust.”

“Start with the dustiest?  And run it by me.  Only Belanger stuff.  Others have donated to the Blue Heron, I don’t want to not know where it is if they ask for it back, now that school’s on ongoing hiatus.”

“You’ll know where it is.  If it’s not with you, it’s with us.  If we have to ask you while you’re busy, it takes too long, we don’t get nearly as much.  I’m saying we save you, like you should’ve saved us, like you should’ve saved Gillian, and we walk away with boxes.  Back seats of cars full.  If you, Jen, and Owen all say yes.”

“It’s more secure here.  You guys already got attacked once.”

“Wye,” Jen said.  “There’s another alternative.  We go there.  We don’t have enough actual beds.  You have an excess.  Especially with the new building Bristow had made.  You don’t have manpower, we have an excess.”

“That gets politically fucky.  The Blue Heron is watched by certain powers.”

“Not being able to fill obligations gets fucky too.  If you don’t have good answers at a time like this, people won’t come to you the next time anything important happens,” Nicolette told him.  “Do you want to deal with that, or do you want to deal with a tense phone call with actual London?”

There was a delay.

“Wye?”

“Let me think.”

“Okay,” Nicolette replied, before muting their end of the call, phone held out, one hand still at her elbow.

Jen nodded at Nicolette.  “Good thought.  Needed to be taken a step further.”

“Not complaining,” Nicolette murmured.

“Are you going to go to Max and screw us on this, Owen?” Jen asked.

“He should know.”

Jen tensed, looking like she would storm out, except she couldn’t.  The call was still live, waiting for Wye.

“I’ll tell him there’s really no other choice.  Wye’s not leadership material like this.  Maybe in a few years…”

So he might still be my competition, after the time Jen’s in charge, Nicolette thought.

“But not like this, not now,” Owen said.  “I’m backing you, Jen.”

“Are you?” she asked.  Jen looked faintly surprised.  “I might replace you if you don’t shape up.”

Stop drinking, for one.

“I’m shaping,” he answered.  “As long as there’s a chance things get better, I’ll work on it.  This seems like a move toward better.  Or different.  Different works.”

“Alabaster gone and replaced… definitely something’s different.  Another play from the Carmine, maybe,” Nicolette murmured.  She unmuted the call.  “Did we lose you, Wye?”

“I could spend another two hours trying to get my head around the politics of this shit.  Whatever, I can’t- the calls are piling up.  I can’t mull it over forever.  Come.”

“You realize you won’t be in charge?” Jen asked.

“Fuck me.  This is your coup, is it?  Seize on a moment of weakness?  Right before the council vote?”

“You had your moment of weakness when we were raided, Wye,” Jen told him.  “You didn’t come here.  I haven’t forgiven you, and I don’t think others will forgive you as easily once they realize the extent of what you’ve been enjoying and holding back from the rest of us.  I want to knock your teeth out of your skull, collect them, and turn them into a nice little augury trinket, but I’ll hold back, if it’s the best thing for the Belangers as a whole.  It’ll help if you keep being cooperative.”

“There’s work I’m thinking I should do on the road.  Personal visits I could make.  After I’ve called Paris and London, at the very least.”

“Can Tanner show us?  Or Chase, if we bring him?”

“You’re bringing him?”

“And Gillian.”

“…They can show you.”

“Then it’s a good idea for you to go.  Go calibrate your magic items and ongoing rituals, answer your phone calls.  You can route some minor ones to us if you need, we’ll keep a skeleton crew back here.  We’re a few hours out.”

“Alright.  That helps.  Still there, Nico?”

“Still here.”

“Guess who took out the Alabaster?”

“The Carmine?  Wait- you’re asking me, so…”

City spirit.

“Yeah.  I’m pretty sure your second guess is right on the money,” Wye answered her.

“If you’re not telling me right away, it’s either not critical, or it’s not something I can easily act on.”

“Correct,” Maricica said.

Charles gave the Sable a pat on the shoulder as he walked by.  “Thank you.”

“I’ll take my leave.  It seems we all have work to do.”

“That bad?” Charles asked.

The Sable was already gone.

Maricica’s group of denizens and Abyssal soldiers parted as Charles approached.  He let the ‘arena’ finish crumbling while he opened up a doorway to his sanctuary in Kennet.  The warped, shattered Kennet with an island placed in the river at the center of things.  The distorted image of the town  reflected faintly in the sky and the frozen river.  A cabin stood there with a high vantage point, fires perpetually burning around it.  He’d tinted the window glass red for a visit with the practitioners of St. Victor’s, in a contrast to the Blue Heron.

Maricica floated through with him.  The group followed, looking around.

Kennet was in the middle of upheaval.  Rook was at her rooftop, sitting with the St. Victors students.  Lis was watching that from a distance.  The Lordships were intact.

The Lords unaffected.  His first thought had been that Ottawa had retaliated, retaking some significant piece of ground, like Toronto.

Something about Toronto- it was like the sun shone differently on it.

In the same moment his thoughts took another direction, he reached for power, and he found a void of debt instead.

“There it is,” Maricica cooed, as she sat on the roof of the cabin, one foot on the snow piled in front of the porch, two stories down.

The Aurum was fine, busy overseeing the chaos in Kennet.  He’d come to check in later.  He wasn’t acting like some particular point of Law had been argued and the Judges assigned some massive collective debt.

He’d seen the Sable just moments ago.

The Alabaster-

Charles summoned his throne and sat, elbow on the armrest, five fingers against one side of his head, eyes moving as he tracked the roving implications and changes.

He made a small scoffing sound, before turning to look at Maricica.

She’d picked up her foot and now lay across the length of the rooftop.  Blood from her body stained the snow beneath her.

“We’ll have to tell our practitioners that their escape clause may not stand,” Maricica said.  “It probably will, the deal is sound, but the Alabaster could fight you on it.”

He snort-sighed through his nose.

“At the very least, our practitioners won’t necessarily have an easy time being un-forsworn.  I know they’ve plotted some maneuvers around that possibility.”

“I don’t need the Alabaster for that.”

“But you need power to do it.  Which you are now short of.  They’ve requested everything you were given be returned to them so they can pursue their own self-declared mandate.”

“And I owe the Alabaster throne, it doesn’t matter-”

Lis stepped through into his domain.

“-who sits.  Lis.”

“You’re done with the challenge.  You’ve realized?”

“I have.”

“I won’t say I’m not worried,” Lis said.  “The Alabaster traditionally oversees the spirit world, and given what sort of spirit they are…”

“Haa,” Charles made a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh, without any humor in it.  “Their investments and focus so far have been somewhere else.  They haven’t been active for long, but take that for what it is.  You’re not their first focus.  Or their second or their third.”

Lis visibly relaxed.

Charles considered the situation.  “We can’t easily retake the Alabaster throne.”

“She’s a representative spirit.  There could be backlash, extending back into the region,” Lis said.  “Same as if I was wounded.  Kennet would suffer.”

“There are ways, but they aren’t always easy ways,” Maricica purred.

“This isn’t checkmate,” Charles said, sitting straighter, thinking, fingers at the side of his head moving to the thick beard at his chin, “but it’s a check.  It slows us down.  It doesn’t stop us.”

“They’re hardly done, are they?” Maricica asked.

“Probably not.”

He looked.

The three girls, the opossum, and Guilherme were still there, in the new Alabaster’s clearing, talking to the Alabaster.

He looked out further.

More of Maricica’s people were out there already, surrounding that clearing.  He nodded.

He rose from the throne, swept a hand from the side, and made his approach, out of the seat of the Carmine Throne, and toward the Alabaster’s.

Starting from the point at her shoulder where the bullet made contact, extending up into the neck, the Alabaster bleached out.  It was as if the bullet’s impact had rippled out, and the ripple took something away with it.  As that ripple reached the top of the Alabaster’s head, the hole in her shoulder and neck began to expand, disintegrating, powdery flesh chasing after the ripple.

She toppled, staggering, tilting, and then as her upper body swiftly crumbled to nothing, it changed the center of balance, she rocked backward, and never quite reached the ground before crumbling to nothing.

Lucy’s hand and arm hurt from the feeling of the gun going off.  She hadn’t made it a small gun.

Her throat had locked up, making it impossible to swallow, hard to breathe, and then the bleaching and disintegration reached out around them, filling the air.  The little white flowers scattered and became heavy powder, and it felt like she would have choked if she breathed.

Her realm collapsed- mostly.  All the details she’d added went to nothing, and the sky above was darker than the moonlight-heavy sky in the Alabaster’s realm.

A white throne stood, catching the light, at a slight rise on the ground.  Trees were thick, now with no real clearing anymore.  There was heavy snow on the ground.

The scene was suspended like that.  The last bit of disintegration at the edges- the borders of this space, a swirl of the white dust, snow, and petals.

Verona’s boots crunched and squeaked in snow as she hurried over to the tree.  Pulling sweater over her head, reaching for the coat she’d hung up.

Lucy’s earring let her catch the snap of a branch.  She turned her head.

The old woman.  The ex-therapist.  She creeped Lucy the fuck out.  Creepier now, as she broke the largest branch she could, then put the pointed, broken off end to her own throat.

“Not-”

Lines stood out in the old woman’s arm as she put all of her strength into pushing the branch into her own neck.

“-here,” the regional spirit said, as she walked over to the throne, and sat.

The air pressure changed as she did so.

The old woman tried again.  Lines standing out.  All her strength.

She was barred from doing that gruesome thing to herself, tearing out her own throat.

The spirit’s coat changed from black to white.  The same sorts of flowers in her eyes began to flower around the base of the throne.  Stars shone brighter in the sky, and aligned.

Became the windows of buildings so tall they seemed to lean into and over the space.

There was a sound of a car passing.  Light streaked its way in through the trees, and as their eyes adjusted, so did the scene.  A spot of park, with a walking path running through it.

“If you had sanctuary under the Doe, you may have it under me,” the Alabaster said.  “If you want direction, I can tell you where to go to start a new life… after I’ve talked to these three.  If you’d do yourself violence today… you must walk away first.  If you attempt it with people around, today, or in the next few days, you will be stopped or saved.  You’ll do it alone, unrecognized, or not at all.  I’ll make sure there’s no point to it.”

Lucy looked around at the people, who stood with their backs to dark woods, ringing the new clearing.

“Give me a moment?” the Alabaster asked.

“Of course,” Avery replied, glancing at Lucy.  “I think we could use one too.”

Lucy’s wrist hurt.  The other hand clenched the dog tags, weapon ring, Yalda’s ring, and her house keys.

She thought about seeing the memory of John.  Reaching out with glamour, as if she could make him a little more real.

“You okay?” Verona asked.

“My wrist hurts.  My hand a bit too.”

“If that’s the worst thing you’ve got going- unless it’s the curse?”

“No.  Just gun.”

“If that’s the worst thing, I think we’re okay.  It’s hopefully better than what happened with my hand with the last Judge turnover we saw.”

“My heart hurts.  I wanted to see him.  I wasn’t prepared to see him.”

“Valid,” Avery told her.

“I really just killed something, didn’t I?  With my own hands.  On my own.”

“We did,” Avery told her, leaning in close, voice insistent.  “With our words.  With intent.  I think it was… not a great thing.  Not even a good thing, maybe.  But it was right.  There’s just- no way things go okay if we can- if our response to that kind of situation is to stand back and let her keep doing what she was doing.”

Lucy nodded.

She looked at Guilherme.

She was not in the mood for his particular brand of being helpfully unhelpful right now.

“At another time,” he said.  “When it’s stiller a moment than this, when your heart sits so heavy you can’t feel it beat, and when your mind is especially unquiet, visit me and we can talk.  You’ve done fine.”

Done fine.

High praise from Guilherme.

“I knew you would.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

“I think the new Alabaster’s waiting for us,” Avery said.

Verona caught Lucy’s arm with her own.  Arm hooked along Lucy’s, she gripped Lucy’s aching right hand in her own left one, tight, and Lucy could feel how Verona’s grip was weird.  With the nerve damage.

They approached the Alabaster.

“We’re going,” the old woman said.  She had a few with her.  The scarred woman.  The teenage boy.  “I hope you know, our blood is on your hands.”

“Your blood will be on your own hands,” Lucy told her.  “That’s how it works when you stab yourself.”

“It must be so convenient to you, that you kill her while claiming no responsibility, no curse.  It’s her own fault, you say.  We’re not your responsibility either.  Yet you walked in here today, and all was well, and when you leave this behind, an old, beautiful thing will have died in an ugly way, and our lives will be ended as well.  You’ve taken away someone who was more family and caregiver to some of us than we ever had outside of her care.”

“Cud’ve at least had the decenny t’ take her seat and the responibilly,” the young woman with the scars murmured.

“I think you’re idiots,” Verona told them.  “Pissing on what she gave you in the way of a second chance, throwing it away to make a point?  I bet you were a shitty therapist.”

“Enough,” the new Alabaster said.

The silence after the word hung heavy in the air, and the three people turned to go, venturing into the woods, out of the new Alabaster’s domain.  The old woman passed through some gateway, and the others tried to follow, and were barred.

“Each from a different direction,” the Alabaster told them.  “I won’t help you.”

Lucy was surprised more hadn’t gone.  They lingered.

Why?  Was it just that the momentum had broken?  That they couldn’t make a show of it?

Maybe they’d have more to say or ask for later.

She wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or annoyed.

Still.  Three.  She didn’t want it to bother her, but she had to assume it would.  It was how her head worked.  She dwelt.

“What happened here today, we aren’t allies because of that,” the Alabaster addressed them.

Lucy nodded.

Guilherme had stood and approached, kneeling on the path.  Lucy belatedly wondered if she should kneel as well.  They hadn’t before any Judges before now, so she didn’t.

“The Beorgmann I’ll think about.  I don’t want to make the same mistakes, and I don’t want him in my backyard.”

“If you’re going to channel those energies, that’s a good direction,” Avery said.

“The Carmine-” the Alabaster paused to think.  “-I’ll keep a stern hand with him.  Honestly, he’s fucked with me for long enough.”

“I don’t suppose we could have an ‘enemy of my enemy’ thing, if we’re not allies because of other reasons?” Avery asked.

“We could.  At least until he’s on his way to making it up to me with interest.”

“Valid,” Verona replied.  “Count the Hungry Choir and the damage done in that, maybe?”

“Good idea,” the Alabaster replied.  “I can’t do much to protect you, standing alone against three Judges.  If he forswears you for unfair reasons, I can undo it.  Gainsaying… possibly.  He’s worn that one out, I think.  But you may have to come to me.”

“So maybe we don’t stick around, at least until we’ve done something more?” Avery asked.

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” the Alabaster told them.  “For one thing, we’re surrounded.”

Lucy looked at the trees.

“Around this spot.  The Carmine’s new soldiers.”

New soldiers.  Lucy clenched the dog tags in her hand.

“Are you in danger?” Avery asked.

“No.  Not for a little while.  But you are.”

“If only we could have it another way,” the voice growled.

Lucy held firm.  She realized she was still clutching the dog tags at her necklace.

It felt a bit like when she let go, she’d be letting go of something else.

He emerged from the trees with the kind of subtle ease of someone who didn’t really need legs to move forward, but the rough gait of someone who walked barefoot in snow- with a slight sway and carelessness.

“You got out fast,” Avery said.  “It was supposed to take longer.”

“I used to be a decent practitioner.  You find ways.  As you have here,” he said, his voice rough-edged.  He looked around.  “Huh.”

“My domain, my rules, be good,” the Alabaster told him.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding tired.  “And you are?”

“The Alabaster Assembly.”

He nodded.  “Setting yourself apart from the Exile, are you?”

“You call me the Alabaster if that’s easier.”

He stopped behind the throne, and stood with one arm over the back of it, which seemed to annoy the Alabaster.  He looked at the three of them.

Guilherme’s voice was smooth, soft, and carried despite the low volume.  “With vast power, the ability to shape how you appear, to be giant or small, titan or mouse, you choose to be this unkempt?  A fur coat with no shirt, hair and beard shaggy?  Charles, you no longer have the excuse of being forsworn.”

“I’d say it’s because it’s been a long day, but it doesn’t matter.  I frankly like the look and feel of it.”

He looked at Verona as he said it, like it was an in-joke or something.  Slightly scruffy Verona.

“How’d you like Percival?” Verona asked.

“I regret, that in all my time as a summoner, I didn’t get to inflict something quite like that on the people I hated most.”

Verona smiled.

“How’d you like the part immediately after?” Lucy asked.  “This?”

“I didn’t expect it, I can say that.  I was watching-” he paused.  “The city magic doodles in Verona’s notebook.”

“The peeping thing is still super creepy, Chuck,” Verona told him.  “I tried to work on things a little more worrying for you before and after I worked on those, to draw your attention away.”

“I came for a reason.”

“Asking us to join you again?” Avery asked.

“No.  The reason Guilherme is with you now, is that I let Julette go, with instructions to notify your families and tell Guilherme so you could keep the oath made to the Winter Court.  I know it doesn’t always feel like it, but I’ve been gentle up until now.  I don’t hate you.”

“Even after Percival whatever of the ninety-nine titles?” Verona asked.

“You made me sit through that and you can’t even be bothered to remember his name?”

Verona shrugged and smiled.

“Awarnach,” Avery murmured.

“Huzzah.  That was you, wasn’t it?”

Avery nodded.

“Carmine,” the Alabaster said.  “This is my domain, my time.  If you’re not going to get to the point, I’ll evict you.”

“We both know the area has painful, drawn-out eviction processes,” Charles said, smiling a bit.  “But I will get to the point.  Girls.  You’ve demonstrated I can’t keep being gentle.  We have Kennet hostage.  Think very carefully before your next move.”

“Cuts both ways,” Lucy told him.  “Watch yourself.”

“I intend to.”

“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Avery asked the Alabaster.  “You’re sure you’re okay with Charles here?”

“Nothing else, and I’m fine.  Aren’t I?”

Charles nodded.

“I don’t suppose we could ask for a door?  Or a few?” Avery asked.

“Very easily done,” the Alabaster replied.  She gestured.

The snow had stirred in a way that made it so there was mist on the path, skimming and moving over the flat surface like snakes.  And there were doors in the mist.

They changed as Avery pulled off her bracelet and approached them.

“That’s certainly a trick, isn’t it?” Charles asked.

“Be nice to Kennet,” Avery told him.  “I don’t think they deserve the pain you’re putting them through.  I know it wasn’t perfect, but they looked after you while you were forsworn.”

Avery found a good door and opened it.

She paused.

Lucy could see why.  They were leaving the Alabaster with Charles.

It felt bad.

“It’s fine.  You’ve trusted her this far,” Guilherme said.

“You good for the Paths?” Avery asked.  “Bit weird.  I get it if it’s not your vibe.”

“I’ve been.  Back before they were called something else,” he said.

“When they thought it was dreams?”

“Before then.  They found the right answer early, and then convinced themselves they were wrong.”

Avery, Snowdrop, Verona, and Guilherme stepped through, onto the path.

Lucy lingered, holding the door open with a hand that was attached to an aching wrist.  She looked back at the Carmine.

Her hand let go of the dog tags, keys, and Yalda’s ring.  She saw his eyes drop to them, looking.

She walked through.

Dogs barked, barking overlapping.

“It’s so late,” Avery murmured.  “I feel bad.”

The house had a closed porch, with another door.  The first front door opened, and Zed stepped out, onto the porch.  Lucy couldn’t see, but her earring picked up the huffs, snuffles, and panting of the dogs.  One residual bark that was let out like it had been accidentally left over made her wince.

Zed ushered the dogs inside, let Brie come out with, and then walked over to the glass door, opening it.

“Holy shit,” he told them.

“Guess you heard?” Avery asked.  “Alabaster?”

He nodded.  “Nico said.”

“Sorry to drop in unannounced.  Phones are fucky.  I don’t suppose we could snag that pull-out couch you said was available, once?”

“Of course you can,” he said.  “We’ll see what we can do about those phones.  But can we take a moment and acknowledge what happened?  Ottawa called Ed and Ed called me.”

The city mage guy who’d connected Avery to the Garricks.

“We can take a moment,” Lucy said.  “But it’s going to be a long moment if we’re trying to take in something this big.”

“Maybe inside, then?” Brie suggested.

“Yeah.  For sure,” Zed said, moving to hold the door open for them all.  “I know it’s me being a bad host, but I’ve got a build for the Black Box I’m collabing with some people on, I really should spend another four hours on it.”

“We dropped in like we did,” Avery said.  “It’s really okay.”

“I’ll be busy tonight.  It’s a project I’m psyched about.  Free sharing of information… keeping people safe, but with a better UI, and ethics, even.  But if you’re okay with it, put up with me being antisocial tonight, I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“He’ll be better, but he’ll still fret and compulsively refresh emails, I’m betting,” Brie said.  “You should see him and Ray in a room after anything they’ve worked together on.  Wearing out the refresh button.”

Lucy turned to Guilherme.  He’d hung back a bit.  “You good?”

“I think, instead of the domestic frenzy, I’ll take in the quiet.  Do remember your decorum, Lucille.”

“Lords?” Lucy asked, turning to Brie and Zed.

“You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Then I’ll go for a walk.”

“If you want to sit, and you don’t mind the cold-”

“I am of the Winter court.  I don’t mind the cold.”

“There’s the backyard.  Can’t promise there’s not any dog poop we might’ve missed, though.”

“I’ll walk.  I’ll be here when you look for me.”

Lucy nodded.  “Don’t go making enemies with goblins or anything, huh?”

“I’m walking to be alone with my thoughts.  I won’t encounter anyone.”

Was that okay, in keeping with their deal with the Winter Court?

She had to hope so.

Zed and Brie introduced them to Bear and Trooper, two fairly large mixed-breed dogs who didn’t seem to know what to do about Snowdrop.  They were let into a modest, nice, lived-in house with a fairly big living room and a dining room that was halfway occupied with Zed’s home office.  It looked like the fridge, for whatever reason, had been put in the hallway by the kitchen instead of in the kitchen.  It looked like there were moving boxes that had sat partially unpacked, long enough to accumulate mild clutter on the top.

Lucy sat on the couch, leaning back, and realized how tense she still was; she had to work to make herself relax against the couch.  The dogs, once the new people had been verified okay, took the opportunity to solicit pats and attention.

That helped, in a lot of ways.

She thought about John.

Leaning forward, she hugged and rubbed a happy Bear.  The dog tags traced her sternum as they shifted.

Heart so heavy it felt like it didn’t beat.  Head full of noise.  Not so bad it required Guilherme.  He’d said the best time would be a quiet moment.  For now, she had Verona next to her, and Avery and Snowdrop being goofy with Trooper.  There was a friend, older, with mom-ish vibes who was happy to offer them food and drinks.

The quiet moments would be harder.  She swallowed around a vague lump in her throat.

“I’ll get back to work so I’m free to help you tomorrow.  You good, Brie?”

“I was going to watch shitty reality TV because I couldn’t find anything else.  Company is good.  I’ll make the bed for them soon.”

Zed looked at them, frowning.  “Wow.”

“Wow?” Avery asked.

“I could say holy shit again.  You realize that got a lot of attention, right?”

“Bad attention?”

“I… don’t even know.  I’ve been distracted with this build.”

“We were hoping you could help get us in touch with family,” Avery said.  “Or figure out what’s going on.”

“I can help with your phones in the morning.  Nico’s busy moving the Belanger group into the Blue Heron for now.  She said the coast was clear.”

“I don’t want to be shitty,” Avery said, “Hmm, you have your priorities, we’re dropping in, but-”

“But they said Kennet’s being held hostage,” Lucy filled in.

Zed nodded, frowning.

“Sorry.”

“No.  Obviously that’s huge, and scary.  I’d hate to say this and be wrong, but Nico saying the coast was clear, to me, that’s… it’s suggesting nothing’s happening that’s going to be major, tonight.”

Lucy nodded.  “Kinda felt like… hostage, they wouldn’t shoot the hostage out of nowhere, would they?”

“I don’t know,” Zed replied.

Lucy thought of St. Victor’s, and how dangerous those kids had been, after they’d stepped out of the health office changed.

Maybe they’d shoot the hostages.

She looked at the others.

“If Nicolette’s saying the coast is clear, and my gut’s saying… decent odds they won’t pull anything, and the last we saw of Chuck, he’s not frothing at the mouth in anger… I think we’re okay.”

Zed looked relieved.  “Hold out until morning, okay?  I’ll leave a message for Nico if there’s a spare moment.  Just to let her know you’re wondering.”

Lucy nodded.

“Can’t believe you killed the Alabaster,” Zed said, in a way that suggested it was parting words before he ran off to do his project.  “Ed wants to talk to you, I think a bunch do.  Might be a time to pick up some allies.”

“We’re not done.  We need to take away his support,” Verona said.  “We were thinking about going after the Aurum Coil next.”

Lucy wouldn’t have interrupted Zed further with that.  But she wouldn’t blame Verona either.  They were all frazzled.

“There’s a reason you came to me, huh?” Zed asked.

“He kind of deals with tech and innovation,” Verona said.  “Among other things.”

“You can say no,” Avery added, quiet, giving Trooper ear scratches.

“Don’t get me wrong, you guys weren’t ever… I dunno, chill, but you guys really aren’t holding back now, huh?”

“Neither is Charles,” Lucy said.  “And he wasn’t ever all that ‘chill’ either.”

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