Author: Wildbow

In Absentia – 21.9 | Pale

Next Chapter

Avery fidgeted, watching Verona on her call to Mallory, checking on the House at Half Street.  Which, like, being one hundred percent honest, was a tiny bit frustrating, because the whole point of the Demesne was that it’d take care of itself.  But Verona was entitled to a call and Avery could definitely see why her friend wouldn’t want to call her dad.

Maybe her mom, though?  Wouldn’t that be better?

Maybe just touching base with all the various people who were stopping in at the house was the important thing.

Lucy put her earring on her knee, as she sat with her back to a concrete pillar in the parking garage.  Seeing Avery look, she said, “I don’t want to eavesdrop on that.  I only listened in when it seemed like it’d speed things up, getting the full story about Kennet, and what’s going on.”

“Sure,” Avery replied.  “Lots to unpack.”

“Distract me?  Because they’re talking about boy stuff I’ll overhear if I’ve got nothing else to listen to.”

“Still got good ears without the earring, huh?  I wanted to ask about Wallace.”

“Oof.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.  What’re you wanting to know?”

“Just… where things are at?  You sorta seem like you don’t know, the way you’re talking.  You even referred to him as a possible ex-boyfriend?”

Lucy nodded.  “Yeah.”

“How come?  If you’re okay telling me?”

“I think…” Lucy paused, thinking.  “If I really try to put it into words, Wallace, early on, didn’t always give me one hundred percent.  Or- I don’t even need one hundred percent.  Nobody can give one hundred percent all the time.  Going away for his surgery and not getting in touch?  That sucked.  That’s less than fifty percent, I’d say.”

“Zero percent?” Avery asked.

“It’s… I think he did think about me.  But he didn’t actually make the effort to call.  Let’s call it less than fifty percent.”

“Sure.  Less than fifty.”

“And then I called him out on it, and to his credit, he stepped it up.  I think there’s being a friend, being a boyfriend or girlfriend, being a neighbor or a pet owner, I dunno, that’s…”

“Connections?”

Lucy perked up at that.  “Any connection, yeah, you can coast or you can try.  And trying is tiring.  And I think Wallace started trying.  But then the whole thing with his mom not liking me.  Getting past that takes effort.”

“And he didn’t?” Avery asked.

“He sorta did?  But only sorta.  I dunno if he didn’t because he wasn’t really trying that hard, or if other stuff got in the way- he’s got to deal with his mom every night, right?  He’s with her all the time.  And if she’s pestering him about me, or if they’re fighting, I don’t know most of what’s going on behind the scenes.”

“Could be a lot of things, yeah.  He showed he was willing to try before at least.  After you getting mad.”

“It’s…” Lucy started, stopped, thinking more.  “I’m a girl and I kissed him and that probably counts for a lot.  He’s a boy and Verona vouched for him and he has lots of great qualities, and kissing him was exciting, so, yeah, I liked that.  I like him.  Except I’ve got all this stuff going on and I stopped being the one to call him.  He’s got holidays.”

“And possibly other stresses with his mom being a twit.”

“Yeah.  But I stopped calling as much, and if he’d called and asked to make time and hang out, go skiing, whatever, I’d have been excited and I really would’ve tried.  And I bet if I called and I asked, he’d do it and he’d enjoy it.  But…”

“But.”

“I dunno.  I feel like the next time I call him, it’s going to be like asking him on a first date all over again.  Because we have to get past everything we haven’t said, and both of us have to explain why we didn’t call the other.  It’s like we’re soft-ghosting each other.”

“Too many little things in the way?”

“Yeah.  Too many little things getting in the way and neither of us is currently excited enough about us to keep things going.  Is it weird that a tiny part of me is almost relieved to not have one more thing to worry about?” Lucy asked.

“No.  I think maybe if that’s where you’re at, it’s a sign?” Avery asked.

“Part of me is pissed.  If I looked like Mia, I bet I’d still have a boyfriend.”

“You’re pretty,” Avery told Lucy.  “Objectively.”

“Eh.  Not really what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah.”

“Mostly, I’m annoyed at how hard it is to get my feelings sorted out about this.”

“I feel you there.”

“Why ask?  Thinking about Nora?”

Avery nodded.

“Thinking about my ex-stepdad, and Wallace, and even… remember this summer, while Verona was away?  I did a bad job of keeping up our friendship.”

Avery nodded.  “I feel like I’m going to be poking a sore spot no matter what I do if I call.”

“Not talking and not communicating usually hurts more than it helps.  If you don’t poke that sore spot, it’s going to be harder to poke later on, next time you get a chance.”

“If I get one.”

“That’s an even better reason.”

“Urgh.”

“Sorry I basically… was that a piledriver I did back there?”

“Dunno.”

“Sorry I threw you onto your neck, back there.  Was trying to keep you from going through the glass.”

“All good.  I don’t get hurt by falling anymore.”

“Handy,” Lucy said, before yawning.  “Man.  Carby breakfast and barely any sleep… I don’t know how Zed is functional.”

Avery looked over at Zed, who was taking care of Brie, reeling out fresh extension cords to plug into the setup, fixing what the Tenant had broken.  Zed was fussing a lot over Brie, who was sitting in the wired-up chair again.

“I think for us, the situation’s calmed down a bit.  Bad guy put away.  For Zed, he hasn’t been able to relax.”

“Like, can we win this thing against Charles, let things calm down for… at least eighteen months, chill out, regroup, repair what’s broken, and then save Zed’s life or something?”

“Hmm?”

“To repay him for everything,” Lucy said.

“That requires him to be in danger.  Maybe if we make one of his dream projects a thing?  Pull on market connections, get some mega huge, mega cool magic item he’ll like?”

“He’s got connections through Ray for technomancy stuff.  What else?  What if we, like, just took a break from any serious practice for a month, and saved up power, and gave him a battery full as a present?  With Kennet’s council’s permission.”

Avery thought about her phone call with her dad.  “If we have a council anymore.  If people come back.  If we win.”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s a cool idea.  One Verona would be less on board with, I think.”

“Maybe we set an amount and work to fill the battery.  Fill it as we can, put a bow on it, deliver.”

“I’ve got the messenger outfit.”

“Hah,” Lucy said.  Then she yawned again.

“Want to go lie down?”

Lucy shook her head.  She tried putting her earring back on.  “Oh good.  They’re back on track.  Verona’s saying you want to make your call.”

“I mean… yeah, but also she doesn’t need to rush.”

Lucy shrugged.

“Gonna go check with Brie and Zed.  We need a better way to refer to them.  Breezee?”

“Oh god no.”

“Breezee is a problem because Zed is a Zed and not a Zee, and Chase was a dick about that.  Hmm.  Bread?  Start of Brie, end of Zed?  Breed?”

“Stop.  Please.”

“They’re my favorite couple that’s not, you know, my parents, but that’s a roofs-over-my-head thing.  Them, Nibble and Chloe…”

Who are gone.

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed.  “Makes me jealous.”

Avery thought about how they got to live together, had dogs together, had all their stuff, shared things, worked together… “Big same.  Ugh.  Be right back.  Watch my sleeping opossum.”

Lucy nodded.

Avery handed off Snowdrop, who sleepily crawled her way into Lucy’s sweatshirt pouch, to Lucy’s protests about stretched fabric.

Walking over, Avery made sure she wasn’t interrupting anything important, before venturing to the same tier of diagram that Zed was standing in.  “Hey.”

“How’s it?” Zed asked.

“We’re okayish.  Still getting the full story.  I wanted to ask you that.  Sounds like Verona’s maybe wrapping up.  Are you okay to wait while we do another round of calls?”

“Brie?” Zed asked.

Brie was surrounded by a rippling effect.  Here and there, the spaces around her would glint, like Avery was standing close to the glass and it had caught the light, or there’d be a patch of blur like it was on glass, and then the ‘picture’ would change and she could see hints of the apartment building on the far side, with collected Others inside it.  Then it would pass.  Other times, there were violent flickers of that other world springing into being and then disappearing.

Brie closed her eyes for a moment, considering, then said, “I’ve got a handle on it, pretty sure.  Go ahead.”

“Thank you.”

“What’re you hearing?” Zed asked.

“The market’s on hiatus.  My dad didn’t have the full story and Lucy’s mom only knows what the Dog Tags told her, and they aren’t that involved in that side of things.  I think Verona’s getting more info right now.”

“Not good for your plan.  Two big holes in it.”

“I feel like we could work around one hole,” Avery replied, looking back in the direction of the others.  “Two is a problem.”

Zed nodded.  “Don’t pressure yourselves too much.  Talk to who you need to talk to, get sorted.  Then, I offered Lucy a quick shopping trip, maybe that on our way back, you guys can head out, you can stay if you need to.  Let us know when you’re reaching your limit, Brie?”

“You can interrupt,” Avery said.  “Depending on how this goes, I might want you to.”

“Who are you calling?”

“My girlfriend.  Nora.  I can’t tell her about the magic stuff, I warned her I might disappear all of a sudden, then I disappeared all of a sudden.”

Zed hissed inward through his teeth.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got a bracelet, it suppresses practice.  Is that the sort of thing that would help with your thing?” Avery asked.

“There’s things Durocher taught us and gave us that would help,” Zed said, “If Brie ever ended up harbinger-mode for a longer time.  Yeah.  It’d help.”

“I’ve got spare stuff for if my bracelet ever breaks.  It’d just need a tweak, right?”

“Yeah.”

Avery saw Verona walking back over toward Lucy, and headed back over too.

“Can do this well, or we can do it fast…” Verona was telling Lucy.

“And we should do it fast, huh? Figures,” Lucy replied.

Avery internally winced.

We might not be able to not pressure ourselves, Zed, Avery thought.  “Are you guys okay with me going next, or-?”

“Go,” Lucy said.  “You were barely able to sit still as it was.  I’m going to talk to Guilherme and hope he doesn’t try to rope me into another training session.”

Avery got the okay from Zed, then climbed into the back of Zed’s station wagon.  Snowdrop, following, climbed in over her, closing the door as she came in, and snuggled into the gap between Avery’s waist and the middle seat in opossum form as Avery lay down.

“The idea was privacy, Snow.”

Snowdrop replied with what Avery was sure was a very sound argument inside Snowdrop’s own head, conveyed in blurry familiar-master connection impulses.  Something about Demesnes, Avery was a Demesne somehow, cozy, Snowdrop was support…

Hardly mattered, really.  Snowdrop could read her emotions if she wanted.  There weren’t secrets from a familiar.

Avery drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly.

Her thumb traced a checkmark against her arm.  Reassuring herself.

Snowdrop’s nose traced a checkmark against Avery’s ribs.

“Thanks, Snow.”

There was that emotional support, Avery supposed.

Snowdrop ‘replied’ with a sensation of amusement, before snuggling in, tucking her face into the gap to keep the light out.  Avery moved her arm over to help.

She stared at the name on her screen, then tapped her phone.  It rang.

“Avery?  Heya,” Nora answered.

“Hi.  Wanted to call, stay in touch while I’ve got a chance.”

“Calling before you disappear in the New Year?”

“Already disappeared, kind of,” Avery said.  “Stuff started happening.  But at least starting sooner means I might finish sooner?  I wish I could get into it more, but-”

“I think-”

Their voices sort of ran into one another.

Avery’s heart thudded in her chest.  Like she’d worried, she was playing with fire, poking at a tricky topic just by calling.

“Go ahead,” Avery said.

“If you start on that stuff again, I’m going to be in a worse mood than I was before you called.”

“Can we talk about other stuff?” Avery asked.  “I’d really like to talk about other stuff.”

“Went to band practice.  They loved the video of me drumming on the rooftop, that was cool.”

“Of course,” Avery said, relaxing some, her head resting on the seat, legs bent so one was on the floor, because there wasn’t enough room to stretch out all the way.  “Who didn’t?”

“Putnam really wanted to go hard at practice.  I went for my philosophy, you know why I went on the roof, right?”

“Right, yeah.  No chickening out.”

“And no turning down opportunities.  So she wanted to go hard and I was like… yeah.  Which I think surprised everyone.”

“I see this going two ways,” Avery remarked.

“What ways do you see this going?”

“So, hmm.  Putnam is great, good energy, good person, sharp, pretty-though-not-my-type.”

“Mm hmm.”

“But she’s not really good at easing up, and she’s not good at being chill, you know?”

“Oh, I know.”

“So either you tried to keep up with her and she showed that her reserves are bottomless, which would be no fault of yours, and you’re exhausted now… or you matched her okay but the others got wiped out.”

“Cranky, they got cranky.”

“Ahhh.”

“It was okay, though.  They snarked, and it was fun while it was good.  Really fun.  You know- when you look at some bands and stuff, and they put out this amazing album, and you see the interviews and they say how they wrote and recorded two of their hit songs within hours of each other?”

“They were in the zone.”

“In the zone together.  And I was always like, wow, how?”

“Downing hard drugs like my little sister downs candy.”

“I mean, that’s probably part of it.  But there’s also chemistry, right?  Not girlfriend-girlfriend chemistry.  But you know what I mean?”

“Totally.  Yeah, no, I’ve seen it, and felt it.  Being on the hockey team.  A little bit less with soccer or lacrosse.”

“I feel like I got a taste of that.  Of being in a band, doing that more often.”

“Of being in the zone with people, not doing the hard drugs, I hope.”

Nora laughed.  “No!”

Avery smiled, leaning back.

Nora didn’t laugh a lot.

“That’s super cool,” Avery said.

“It’s so cool.  I was in a bit of a funk before, uh-“

Yeah.  My fault.

“-but then I tried the thing and it worked so well, we’d suggest stuff and then immediately break off into something new, and every other experiment we did kind of worked, we got more done today than in the two weeks before Christmas, and I’m still riding the- don’t make the joke you made before, because my mom’s going to hear my reply and get the wrong idea.  But I’m still… hyped.”

“I love that.  Getting secondhand hype.”

“I’m really glad I could talk to you about it.  My brothers wouldn’t get it, and my dad just nods and smiles and makes comments, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him hyped about anything.  So I’m sitting here, vibrating with-“

“With hype?”

“Yeah, kinda!  And nobody to talk to, and I’m glad you’re willing to put up with me blabbing on and on about it.”

“Not putting up with anything.  I love that that’s going well.  Except for the others in the band?”

“Oh, they- after a while of doing it, they started to make jokes, like ha ha, Nora’s been absorbed by the slime mind, ha ha.  Putnam putty.  Our Nora, lost to us forever.  Ick blick.  And the further we went the more they were just saying ‘ick blick’ in response to anything.  I think that’s a reference to a show?”

“Sounds like something Declan’s talked about.  Ick blick, all will be absorbed by the slime.”

“They were having fun, but they were having fun for… the wrong reasons, kind of?  That sounds like such an asshole thing to say.”

“You’re in a band to make music.”

“Yeah.  It started to slow us down and my mom was saying to come by for lunch with a family friend who’s in town for the holidays.”

“Ended on a high note then?”

“High… ish.  I hope I can recreate that zone, though.”

“I’ve been there with the team, and I’ve-” Avery paused.  “I’ve been there with Lucy and Verona.”

She sensed the slight pause before Nora replied, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  Except on the current project, I feel like I’m not doing so hot.  I’m helping, but I’m not in the zone.  I haven’t found my groove again, yet.”

“Are you going to get there?”

“I sure hope so.  I missed out- I was supposed to do my homework on some stuff with studying up on Law, and… I missed my cue because that’s a thing I do.”

“Relatable.  Missing cues.  Kicking myself for it.”

“And then- there was this place we were meant to stay, and I flubbed it and we couldn’t stay, and maybe if I hadn’t flubbed it, someone else would’ve, but I was the one who flubbed it.”

“Flubbed like, lost the receipt, or flubbed like-“

“Like… they were pretty big fans of me before and then after they were like, please leave.  They put me on this big metaphorical pedestal and… getting tired of falling.  And that was a pretty painful fall, so to speak.”

Ironically, when the same thing that put me up that high made me immune to getting hurt to falls, Avery thought.

“I’m reminded of your team.  Your coach seems to really think you’re a big deal.”

“I’m not like… going to the Olympics or anything.  But I guess in the world of high schoolers running around on fields or skating on rinks, I’m-”

“Pretty darn good.”

“I have my strengths.”

“Maybe you have strengths here too?”

“I do, I know I do, but… I feel behind, in a lot of ways.  Being away like I was made it hard.  And like, I’ve told you, Verona and Lucy were best friends from early on.  Over at each other’s houses most weekends since kindergarten or grade one.”

“I want to ask stuff, or help, but it’s hard.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to step on toes or turn this into a sucky conversation again.”

“I know.  I don’t want- I don’t want to shut you out.  That’s not the idea.  I want to tell you stuff.  But there’s stuff that’s going to have parts I can’t explain.”

“I like talking to you, Avery.  I missed talking to you, even the past couple days.”

“Same.  Big same.”

“Can you tell me more about… how you’re doing, then?  Even if you can’t tell me what?”

“I can say some stuff.  Ran into Liberty.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“No.  I’d take this one phone call with you over a day with Liberty, and I think Liberty is great and fun.”

There wasn’t an immediate response.

“We’re over with our friend Zed right now.  Have I talked about Zed any?”

“Very briefly.  Or one of your friends did while I was around them.”

“He’s really great, really supportive guy.  He’s got this girlfriend, Brie, she’s pretty.  And seeing them together made me miss you a lot.  Made me think about where I want to be, years from now.  House, dogs, sharing a space.”

“Am I in that picture?”

“Of course.”

Again, silence on the other end.

Avery flushed slightly.

“Then you need to tell me what’s going on.”

Avery’s imagination filled in the blank, in a vivid, almost-real way.

Nora hadn’t spoken.

Don’t leave me hanging, don’t-

There was noise in the background.

Avery’s thoughts went to worse places.  If there was another attack, by another vector, targeting Nora?

She sat up.

Then she recognized Nora’s mom’s voice.

“-hiding out in your room?”

“Telling Avery about the band.”

“Jan and Robert are over, and they’re asking about you.  The best way to answer their questions would be for you to be there.”

“They’re only asking to be polite.  Henry and Luke were talking about yoga for, like, an hour.”

“You talked about band, and I might talk about how much I love and obsess over you three, my lovely children, who I am so proud of-“

“Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhgh.  Mom.”

“And your dad might talk about gardening, or maybe about that very nice brewing kit you got him.”

“No, don’t bring that up, I want to die.  No.”

“It was a very nice present.”

“How do two kids talk about yoga for an hour?” Avery asked.

“Right?” Nora asked.

“Oh, is Avery still on?  Put us all on speaker phone.”

“Mom, no.  We were having a nice conversation-“

“Our family was having a nice conversation with Jan and Robert before you ran off to answer the phone.”

“Look, let me- let me talk to Avery for one more minute, I’ll come downstairs, I’ll be an angel.”

“You are already my angel.  You have always been and you always will.”

“Go, please.”

“You shouldn’t be talking about anything you wouldn’t say in front of me.  If you’re not old enough to talk honestly and openly to your parents about boys and boyfriends, you’re not old enough to have one.  And you will never be old enough for drugs.”

There was a sound of a door closing.  An exasperated sound from Nora.

“Got a minute left,” Nora said.

“Yeah.”

“I had half a thought while you were talking about your friends from Kennet, and half a thought when you talked about Zed and-?”

“Brie.”

“Brie.  Putting those thoughts together, there’s a thing in relationships I’ve heard about, where the best relationship is the one where both partners feel like the other one is out of their league, and they work their butts off to try and close the gap?”

“Yeah.”

“What if it’s okay?  What if- what if you feeling like you dropped the ball or you’re the one who’s behind and needs to catch up is good?”

“It doesn’t feel that good.”

“But… yeah.  Okay, like, valid.  Really.  But that’s a state of mind.  It’s like, with my band, I’m really, really not the kind of person who’ll be good at marketing and outreach and finding venues or whatever.  So all I can do is play harder, do the things I’m good at better.”

“Hmm.”

“I don’t know if that’s enough.  Feels a lot of the time like it’s not going to be, and any time I go will be the next time they’re like… surprise, new drummer, bye Nora.”

“They’re not going to do that and if they did I’d kick their asses.”

“But I’m making okay sense?”

“Yeah.  Stop kicking myself-”

“Being the biggest hypocrite in the world right now, telling you not to kick yourself,” Nora said.

“Nah, you’re not the biggest.  So, stop kicking myself, focus on the ‘catching up’ part?”

“Yeah.”

“I like that,” Avery said.

“Good.  I’m glad.”

“I hope it’s okay I called.”

“I’m happy to talk to you.  Obviously it’s complicated.  Whatever it is.”

“Really complicated, yeah.  Main thing is I don’t want to lose touch.”

“I don’t either.  So I’ll look forward to the next call.”

“I’ll do my best.  Good luck with the yoga talk.”

“It’s so dulllll…”

Which became Nora’s closing line- it sounded like a door had opened and her mom had started speaking again.

Avery lay in the back seat of the station wagon, staring up at the ceiling, which had a couple of scorch marks.

Snowdrop was asleep.

Being gentle, pushing relaxation and peace into Snowdrop through the connection, she kept the little opossum asleep while getting out of the car, holding her in the crook of one elbow.

“Done?” Lucy asked.

Avery nodded.

“Go okay?”

“Really well, I think, actually.  Still… touchy.  Stuff to think about.”

“We’ve got lots to think about.”

“You want to go?” Verona asked Lucy.

“I’d call Booker but I think instead of taking up time, I’d rather just get going.  Maybe some super-quick shopping for bare essentials.”

“Notecards, fresh markers,” Verona said.

“Yeah,” Lucy said.

“Road snacks” Avery said.

Snowdrop, previously fast asleep, twitched her ears, rousing.

“Later.  Shush,” Avery told her.

Snowdrop went limp again.

“I’ll call my mom real quick, if that’s okay?” Verona asked.

“Yeah.  I’ll call mine after, I think.”

Verona nodded.

Food for thought.  Avery stared out at the gray sky and the snow-covered city.

A couple of minutes passed.

“Thinking?” Lucy asked.

Avery nodded.

“If tough conversations get you in that mode, you’re going to be stuck like that for a while.  Verona’s mom is saying she reached out to your mom.”

“Yeah?” Avery asked.  “Why is that tough?”

“Your mom was in Thunder Bay with your older siblings, packing to leave.”

Meaning a conversation with the Garricks was in order.

Brie was outside, wearing a bracelet, a jacket they’d turned inside out and drawn runework in, and even with all of that, there was leakage.

Her reflection in the pharmacy window was wrong.  Sometimes it wasn’t Brie, but was the old man.  Most of the time, the background behind Brie was of the apartment building, with flickers of electricity running up and down from it.

Then there were dancing shadows, and whispers, and other minor things.  Here and there, a flash or whisper made a person on the sidewalk turn their heads.  Innocence counted for a lot.

It was apparently better for Brie to be outside the station wagon.  Otherwise the build-up would happen inside until it manifested in problems.

Lucy looked genuinely happy as she came out of the pharmacy and brought two shopping bags into the station wagon.

“Are you going to be able to fit all that into your bag?” Verona asked.

“Magic.”

As they got settled, Brie waited as long as possible before getting back in to sit in the passenger seat.

“How are you managing?” Zed asked.

“He’s getting stronger, better at pushing against the bindings.”

“Bracelet, coat…?”

“Won’t hold out,” Brie told him.  She twisted around, looking at Avery, Lucy, and Verona in the back seat.  “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Avery said.  “We really appreciate you doing this.”

“You guys are moving forward with this?” Zed asked.  “Heading out?”

“Yeah,” Avery replied.  “Gotta figure out how we’re tackling this now.  And I think we’ve done what we can here.”

“Wish there was a way to shake up tech like you wanted to shake up the markets. Heading back to the parking garage, launch from there?”

“Yeah.”

The trip wasn’t far- only a few blocks.  Getting into the parking garage was a little trickier, requiring them to wait until there wasn’t any incoming traffic, before they turned on connection blocks, opened the way, and let Zed pull the station wagon in.

As Zed navigated past the various bits and bobs of ongoing construction to reach the spot where they’d set up the wires and wired-up chair, Avery voiced what Nora had left her with.

“I feel sometimes, like I’m behind the curve, with us three.”

“Huh?” Lucy grunted the word.

“You know, not keeping up, all the time.  With the Law stuff, and planning, and being involved in Kennet found.  I’m the finder, and I haven’t been around enough to really engage with that, draw on it as a resource.  And you guys are part of the city, working with the Others…”

“You do realize you have phenomenal power with that door thing, right?” Zed asked.

“I know.  I know, I’m not saying I don’t have strengths.  But I feel like I have more weaknesses than Lucy and Verona.  Am I alone?”

“Maybe start asking if you’re crazy, and I’ll say yes,” Zed suggested.

“Come on.  She’s obviously getting into something real,” Brie told him.

“You’re not alone,” Lucy told Avery.  “I’m not a natural at practice like you two.  I’m not great at clicking with Others, I can improvise some stuff but that’s stuff I do, that’s stuff I’ve been focusing on from the start.  It feels like I take baby steps and you guys are all, hey, Lucy, what’s that?”

“Hey, Lucy, what’s that?” Verona asked, shaking Lucy’s shoulder, pointing out the window.

It was Guilherme.

“Right?  But then I turn back around, and-”

She’d turned toward Verona.  Verona put hands on her cheeks, making an ‘o’ shape.

“-what are you doing?”

“I have no idea how you’re going to finish the sentence, so I’m guessing at trying to find something workable.”

“You’re not that far off.  I look away, get distracted, look back and you’re past the beginner stages in some new practice, Ronnie, or Avery’s done some Path and has some wild new power.”

“It’s really inconsistent.  A lot of the traveling with the new door thing doesn’t get me boons and rewards,” Avery said.

“But sometimes you’re not changing much, and sometimes you go ahead by miles.  And Verona’s hard to keep track of.  So yeah.  I feel like I’m the one holding you two back.”

Avery dropped her eyes to Snowdrop, scratching the space between the ears.

“You fought Anthem,” Zed told her.

“I didn’t win.”

“But you fought him.  You argued down Musser.”

“Durocher was the clincher there, not me.”

“But you argued.  You describe these baby steps, but those steps took you to a place where you’re holding your ground okay.  I know you guys have made friends with people like Liberty and McCauleigh.  Have you talked about the whole political dynamic around those combat practitioners?”

“Dynamic what?” Avery asked.

“There’s a certain power that comes with being the toughest person in the room.  Or someone the toughest person in the room can’t beat up and toss aside without blinking an eye.  A whole part of the Blue Heron was about that.  Establishing pecking orders.  I think you’d be surprised, Lucy, if you keep going down this road, how you can pass a certain threshold, and all of a sudden there’s a lot of respect, and recognition, and the ability to sway politics, because you being friendly with someone means they can become a Lord and have you back them up if they’re challenged.  Lets the bookworms who can’t fight take a seat.”

“I don’t think I want to be someone else’s enforcer.”

“Yeah, I get that.  But the principle holds, you know?  That one person can be strong enough that being friendly with them or friendly with their friends can change the politics of things.  We saw a lot of that with Musser.  We could see it with your market and Kennet.  Don’t get discouraged.”

“I’m not discouraged, exactly, I’m just… taking the baby steps, while my friends feel like they’re leaping and bounding or expanding out what they do like wild.”

“So is that the deal, then?” Verona asked.  “We all feel like we suck?”

Zed chuckled at that.  Brie punched him lightly in the arm.

A crack fractured the station wagon’s windshield.  A faint ‘hhhhh’ breathing sound filled the car.

“Sorry,” Brie said.

“Okay,” Zed said.  He stopped abruptly.  “Better to get out and walk, carry our stuff the rest of the way.”

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed.

The car was put into park, they unbuckled, gathered their things, and took it outside.

Guilherme was guarding the venue, wearing the guise of an old man.  Not heaped with muscle like his ordinary body was, but still very healthy and hale, as old men went, with long white hair rolling off shoulders and nice clothes.

“Look, occasional and wholly deserved ‘holy shit’ moment aside,” Zed said.  “I’m not as surprised as I once was when you guys did powerful stuff or got involved with powerful people.  But you think you’re weak?”

Avery shook her head.  “I think it’s more that we all know our flaws well.  And we love each other for our strengths.  I love Lucy’s ability to grasp arguments or figure out how to take apart a threat.  I love Verona’s ability to get a practice, right off.  Sometimes it’s been a feeling, sometimes it’s something I’m paying attention to, where I logically know I’m not doing terrible, but emotionally I feel like I’m not keeping up or helping like I need to.”

“You’re doing more than okay,” Verona said.

“With that last bit?  Where I know one thing but feel another?  It’s usually paired with this feeling like… damn it, me, get it together, get over this.”

Verona was nodding.

“What Nora was saying?  Maybe I shouldn’t get over it.  Maybe it’s something we channel.”

“So the reason you guys have pushed yourselves as far and as fast as you have, is you’re competing with each other?” Zed asked.

“Not competing… exactly.  Putting the others on pedestals – pedestals Lucy and Verona deserve, in my opinion, and then trying to climb to a height to match,” Avery said.

Brie was out of the vehicle.  She touched the crack in the glass.  It was minor- just one line, but Avery remembered that Zed had a protection on his car, that made it better at holding up to damage, so long as it was cared for.

So this was one crack, but that was after the big protection spell.

“Does this relate to the Aurum?” Lucy asked.

“It relates to everything, doesn’t it?” Avery replied.  “I have an idea, on how we approach… approaching this.”

“For now or for after we regroup at the Garricks?” Lucy asked.

“After.”

“Then let’s handle this quick.”

“I’m going to let our technomancy Other go,” Brie said.  “Wish I could hold onto him, but he’s going to get out.”

It was intensifying from what it had been in the car.

“There are people who do this full time?” Verona asked.

Zed nodded.  “God or other higher power finds someone vulnerable, sticks power in them with no ability to let it out.  They use practice to suppress what they can for long enough to do what they need to around innocents, usually with some minor leakage, still.  Technically Brie’s not a harbinger, because we did it on purpose, but… that’s technicality.  Terminology gets loose.”

“If it walks like a man venting a constant storm of burning ghosts, talks like a man venting a constant storm of burning ghosts…” Verona said.

“Exactly,” Zed said.  “Except for Brie being a woman, not a man, no burning ghosts…”

“Generally speaking.”

“Yeah.”

“If I knew it would help you guys and restrict Charles, Maricica, and Lis, and if I could, I’d hold this guy in for a year, put life on pause,” Brie said.

“Can I give you a hug?” Avery asked.

“Better wait until I don’t have a violent old man tech god with his fifty pet urban legends leaking from me,” Brie said.

“If we let him out, let’s do it on our terms,” Lucy said.

She pulled out spell cards with curses on them.

The whole plan had been that if they’d brought the Tenant here, and hadn’t been able to get him to Brie, they could tag him with some curse practices to slow things down and possibly muck things up for Freeman.  Lucy’s role had been set there.

Now… Zed had laid out the extension cords to keep the Other bound.  Like binding Tenant 2603 in Brie, that wouldn’t hold indefinitely either.  Especially because they were here, in a place they didn’t own, connection blocks would wear out, people would go back to work, and stuff would get moved or unplugged.

Brie sat back in the chair.  Lucy worked around the edges, laying down spell cards with curses on them, adding arrangements of notecards around those with their own markings.  Guilherme watched, standing behind her with arms folded.

“I’m going to call back the summons I put out to occupy certain territory over there,” Zed said.  “Can I get some people on standby?  There’s a chance they messed with my Others and they come back snapping at me.”

Avery went over.

“Hey, while we’re doing this, can we ask what they’re seeing?” Verona asked.

“No guarantee there’s any great info, but sure,” Zed said.

“Trying to see if we have an angle against the Aurum.”

Zed summoned back an Other, a tech-wraith.  He quizzed it briefly, Verona made some notes, and they let it go once they were sure it wouldn’t attack.

“I’d keep it around to help against the next one if it wasn’t dangerous on its own,” Zed said.

After two more repetitions, they got the word.

Freeman was still defending himself against the Turtle Queen.

“Can we communicate with her?” Avery asked.  “Call her in?”

“With a Bugge?” Zed asked.

“She’s a good Bugge, I think,” Avery said.

“That’s still asking if we can communicate with the computer virus that isn’t limited to computers.  That can get into words, and symbols, and imagery, styles, sentiments, in real life.  Not even barred by Innocence, they just spread across non-Innocent lines.”

“Yeah.  She’s pretty cool,” Verona said.

“Talking to the thing that uses talk and non-talk vectors to infect and consume things with her symbol set.  I’m sorry,” Zed said.  “I try to be cool but this is the sort of thing where if you’re even slightly wrong, literally every bit of work I’ve built and most of what I’ve built turns into a sentient, very hungry dumpster fire.  Metaphorically.”

“So that’s a no?” Verona asked.

“Sorry, it’s a no.”

Zed called his next one, a tech spirit.

“Can we ask about her?”

“You can ask.”

“Heya,” Verona said, to the tech spirit.  “See any signs of the Turtle Queen?  Gold, black, and green, reptiles, slaps on a literal and slangular level?”

The spirit nodded.

“Did she give you a hard time?” Verona asked.

The spirit shook its head.

“Not trying to prove you wrong or anything, Zed,” Verona said.  “Just getting a sense of where she’s at.  I don’t suppose you can draw a map, little spirit thing?”

It took a minute, but Verona put down paper and a watercolor set with some water.

The water got knocked over, green and gold and black spread out through it.

Becoming a very blurry, indistinct set of watercolor stains on a page.

“Cool.”

“Don’t tell me you can interpret that,” Lucy said, standing up and stretching after being stooped over, laying out cards, looking over from a distance.

“It’s a start,” Verona said.

Zed had summoned ten Others, they’d already done four.  With the remaining six, they quizzed them and kept them around.  Two staying behind to protect against the next.

More paint, ink, and scribbles- each Other had a different drawing style, and they overlapped.  The spirit made a good starting point, because it worked on vague, broad-strokes levels.

A bogeyman that was a child driven to the edge by exposure to too many bad things on the internet scribbled onto the ‘map’ in loose shapes.  Zed didn’t keep the bogeyman child around.  A more technical Other tied into tech and Law made notes, giving them names for key blots with scribbled circles around them, drawing out lines.

It kind of resembled a circuit board.

“Hm,” Zed grunted.  “We’re only getting the edge of the map.  Past a certain point, he’s still defending his ground.  And then you’ve got this yellow-black splash, that’s the Turtle Queen, presumably.  My guys weren’t passing or scouting through that territory.”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  “If we’d summoned her we could get that full map, I bet.  But we didn’t, so… what we do know is Freeman’s not being aggressive.”

“Nope,” Zed agreed.

“He’s got some big guard dog, probably something on the Tenant’s level, between him and the Turtle Queen. She’ll move to certain nodes, attack from an angle, force his guy to reposition.”

“He’s defending something,” Zed said.

“What’s the deal with him?”

“Not from a Family, no ties to any key Other.  That means he stumbled onto practice, kind of like I did.  He might’ve found a power reserve and started from there.  It’s kind of a wild west out there for technomancers.  Sometimes we’re friends, sometimes we’re enemies.  Depends on the situation.  Freeman has never had a lot of friends.  Never good enough or nice enough for things to happen that way.”

Guilherme approached.  The tech spirit from earlier was still overlooking things.  As was the Law Other.

“Coins?” Guilherme asked.

Avery hurried to fish into her pocket, and pulled out painted coins.  She held them out.  One with a beggar, one with a woman and a tree, and one with a sword stuck in a dead bear.

Guilherme dropped into a crouch, and laid the beggar coin on the map.  Two fingers pressed over the top of it, he said, “Freeman and his guard dog.”

The coin changed when he pulled his fingers away.  A different man.  Guilherme flicked the coin, moving it toward the spirits and things working on the map.

“Turtle Queen,” Guilherme said, taking the coin with the sword.

It, too, changed when he pulled away.  A dead serpent, a gold sword.

He didn’t slide that over toward the others.

“Connections,” Guilherme said.  “Travel, like virtually all things, down the path of least resistance.  The trick is to find or define that path.  Or force it on others.”

He slid the coin along lines of the ‘circuit board’ map.

The spirit moved.  Sliding the other coin to another space to match.

“Like an ouija board,” Verona murmured.

“It’s connections,” Guilherme said.  “And with a cord tied between one person and another, metaphorical or otherwise, whether you’re talking, clashing with swords, exchanging arrows, or strategizing on a field of battle, defined by wires and places of human power, certain principles hold true.”

Guilherme slid the coin left.  Freeman and the guard dog moved to counter.

Guilherme moved right, slowly, slowly, then fast.  The reaction followed.

Frost crept along the lines.

Guilherme moved the Turtle Queen coin abruptly back, away.

Freeman centered himself inside a scribbled-out circle, and the frost spread around him, faintly colored black with the drying watercolor paint.

“She leaves, he reinforces?”

“He doesn’t chase after her to seize on any weakness or recoup what is lost.  He’s not protecting power,” Guilherme said, picking up the one Turtle Queen coin to hand them back to Avery.  “He’s guarding against a weakness.  The Turtle Queen terrifies him.”

“Spooks me too,” Zed admitted.

“Terrifies him, because he has a darkness he cannot entirely put away,” Guilherme said.  “And she would turn the lights out and give that darkness power.  You don’t have that darkness to you, Zed.”

With a long arm and a flourish of his hand, Guilherme reached out, two fingers extended, other fingers and thumb forming a point, aimed up at the ceiling.  His fingernails ran through the paint.  Drawing out narrow, barely perceptible lines.

The Freeman coin remained where it was, moving as the paper did, sometimes nudged by a reaching hand of the spirit, who watched intently.

Guilherme seemed to use those subtle responses to adjust what he drew.

Apparently drawing out what was in the shadow, behind Freeman, intuiting what his weakness might look like.

“I know men like this,” Guilherme said.  “I have been a man like this.  You have two eminent options, Lucy.”

“Do I?”

“You can communicate this to the Turtle Queen.  Send a messenger, give her this map.  Give her the knowledge he won’t press against her.  She can increase her attack, he will be weakened, and things will carry on.”

“Or?” Avery asked.

“Or you can do this as a Fae might.  It would resemble in many ways what happened with Alexander Belanger.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear this,” Zed said.

“You know.  You’ve heard it before, but only in pieces,” Guilherme told Zed.  “Alexander was distracted, trying to release great dangers to the world, turning great powers against a man who was a friend just days earlier, and not even an explicit enemy at the time.  He seized his eye on a prize, the man Ted Havens, and he was shot while he was unaware.”

“How do you know all this?” Lucy asked.

“Because I was prepared to defend John Stiles if there was an attack, because I agreed to the bullet, and I had my own share of responsibility for it.  As you did, my student.  I asked and I gathered the full picture, from forces big and small.  What we would do here, in the second option, is very similar.”

“I feel like I’m being asked to come to terms with the Alexander thing over and over again,” Lucy said.

“Only because you haven’t fully reconciled it in your heart.  Once you do, it will simply be the way things are.  That a certain kind of malfeasance deserves a certain kind of ending.”

“No nuance, huh?” Avery asked.

“Don’t ask a Winter Fae for nuance.  Subtlety, yes, but nuance, not so.”

“Not sure of the distinction,” Verona said.  “And I usually word good.”

“You can remove him,” Guilherme said.  “Or wound him.  The weapons are there.  Laid out on the diagram.”

Lucy looked over.  “The minor curses?”

“Yes.  Whatever brought Freeman into this world… if it was a different situation, I would know this was a parent, but it’s not.  He was brought into practice by this wound, this darkness.  It throbs uncomfortably in the darkness, a telltale heart beneath floorboards, a monster chained in the closet.  He defeated his Wolf, so to speak…”

Guilherme looked at Avery.

Avery swallowed.

“But it is not dead.  It lurks on the other side of a computer screen, still.  It dwells in his nightmares, it is the first place his mind goes when he thinks of horrible fates.  All it requires is a flurry of distraction, those lesser curses and a restless Tenant sent back toward him, and a rekindling of an old connection, by way of another, sticking curse, with some glamour to feed it and give it animation.  Let a dark computer screen come alight, bright-”

“-and let his Wolf have him?  So to speak?” Avery asked.

“Yes.  By the time he realizes what it is, it will be too late.  It will have him, and he will have it.  He will end the same way he began.”

Avery stuck her hands in her pockets, pacing.

Snowdrop was rousing a bit, yawning, having taken on a human form.

“I’m for it,” Verona said.  “But I wouldn’t be the one writing up and doing the curse stuff.”

“Are we voting?” Avery asked.

Verona shrugged.  Her breath fogged.

“What does it mean if we say no, here?  And we said yes to Alexander?  Does that mean we’re not coming any closer to turning this from a constant agonizing choice we have to make, with Alexander, and others, and with Alabaster, and now Freeman?”

“Whether to pull the trigger,” Lucy said.

“Yeah.  Maybe agonizing over the choice is the choice?  That it shouldn’t be easy or automatic?” Avery asked.

“We don’t have time,” Lucy murmured.  “We need to wrap this up and get to work tonight.”

“What’s your instinct?” Avery asked.

“I… don’t want to.  Freeman is an asshole, an opportunist, he’s attacked us, he helped the St. Victor’s kids.  He helped them do what they did to Gillian.  I’m not sure he’s crossed a line that warrants us inflicting his worst nightmare on him.  Not without more evidence, showing he knew or collaborated specifically on horroring Gillian.  I’m not cool with ending him, however that works.”

Avery nodded.

“No objection,” Verona said.  “Pretty valid.”

“Zed?” Lucy asked.

“What’s up?”

“Can you call him?”

“I can try.  He knows I’ve made plays against him, he’ll have identified my Others.  He might not be friendly.  Let me secure this.”

Lucy nodded.

Zed took a minute, gathered them together, then made the call.  He set it on speaker.

“Zed Sadler,” Freeman’s voice came over the line.  “I’ve got control of this chessboard, you don’t have many moves.  Already calling to formally surrender?”

“I’ve got others here.”

“Figured.  I should attack you now.  Through this call.”

“I wouldn’t.  Takes time, and in the time you took doing that, they’d respond.  Hear them out?  I’m talking one professional to another, here.  You want to hear them out, I think.  They’re on speaker.”

“Fine.  We’re on speaker too.  Me, the Horror practitioner, the alchemist, three of our pupils.”

So Helen was there.  And Josef.

Avery looked at Lucy.

That was a snarl.

“We’ve got your number,” Lucy told him.  “We’re having a conversation about whether or not to completely and utterly destroy you right now.”

“Depending on phrasing, you could be talking about my phone number.  You could be having that conversation, with no way to actually do it.  We know you could have the big Fae with you.”

“We have a way,” Lucy told him.

“Still doesn’t mean anything.”

“A telltale heart in the basement, apparently.”

There was a pause.

“Not a basement,” Guilherme whispered.  “But somewhere beneath ground.”

“Something snarly lurking below ground?” Lucy asked.  “That hates you.”

“Telling me means I can do something about it.”

“Not telling you, and just using it, we could’ve given you to it.”

“And it to him,” Guilherme whispered.

“And it to you.”

“I’ve got friends now,” Freeman said.

“The faintest of wavers as he talks about friends,” Guilherme murmured.  “Alchemist or horror.  It ties back in.  Everything does, when you want to avoid swirling down a particular, all-consuming drain.”

“What’s that whispering?” Freeman asked.  “Doing something in the background? Attacking while you think I’m distracted?”

There was a nervous note in his voice that Avery didn’t need to be a Fae to catch.

“If I’d wanted to attack while you’re distracted, I would’ve returned the Tenant to you with a bunch of curses along for the ride.  We would’ve cursed you, then let that thing you’re so afraid of have you.”

“A horror thing or an alchemy thing,” Guilherme whispered.

“Do your buddies there with you know about it?” Lucy asked.

“I took measures,” Freeman replied, defensive.  “I’ll take more.”

“He will.  You’ve sacrificed the option.  It would be hard now,” Guilherme whispered.  “But not impossible.  They’re writing down what I say.  There’s a pen scratching in the buzz of noise from that device you’re using.”

Lucy replied, “I’m offering you mercy, Freeman.  We could’ve got you, we didn’t.  I’m calling to be nice.  You need to leave, abandon all work, make it up to Gillian and Chase, you helped them get horrored, you have to pay up, put in hours of work, do something honest and good to earn your way back to… making them whole again.”

“Swear you’ll go to the Alabaster Assembly,” Avery jumped in.  “Swear you’ll ask her to judge your rehabilitation.  To put restrictions on you, give you direction, and let you know when you’ve made it up to your victims.  Not just your part of what happened with Gillian and Chase either.”

“I like that,” Lucy murmured.

The problem was, he was sitting in a room with others.  People who he might feel pressured to side with.  Friends, maybe, or peers.  What could seem like a reasonable option if he was alone might get skewed like this.

“And what?  I’m supposed to do all that because you say you-“

“Have your nuts in a doorway and we’re prepared to slam the door shut,” Verona said.

“Freeman.”

A woman’s voice.  Helen, the Horror practitioner?

“Yeah?”

“If you walk away, go to the new Alabaster, or accept any agreement they make tonight, I’ll use my practice on you.  I will horrify you, with prejudice.”

Avery swallowed.

“So what, they’re threatening to- to-”

Guilherme finished the sentence, “to take that practitioner who hunted you, once upon a time, and tried to steal your body, failed, and was horrified instead, and give him what he originally wanted.  Your body.  He still waits, doesn’t he?  In the dark, in an underground place.  You could have that position.  I could use glamour, to hide the door from any who would stumble on it.  Better than you’ve hidden it.  And we would see if that predator of a practitioner would go to the Alabaster to beg for help in making restitution, instead.”

“I have good ears, Freeman,” Helen said, on the other end.  “And they said it would be difficult for them.  They showed their cards, and they might be good cards, but they showed them.  It would be so very easy for me.  Even right here.  You show any sign of wavering, and I can horrify you.  You could lash out now, run, but this is not friendly territory.  We have three of four judges on our side.  Are you sure you can get away?  Can you get yourself out of the Carmine’s domain before I can call his name three times and have him gainsay you?  He would.”

Lucy clenched her fists.

“What the fuck?” Freeman asked.  “We were just studying, talking.  Now, what, I’ve got two people telling me there’s no choice, I have to listen to them, or they turn me into a horror?”

“Hang up,” Helen told him.

“I thought we were friends.”

“We were.  But I’ll still horrify you if you cross me.”

“Freeman?” Lucy asked.

“If she finishes that sentence, and I think it’ll do anything other than keep you on my side, I’ll horrify you.”

“No need,” Lucy said.  “I’m calling it off.”

Avery nodded, a bit relieved.

“I just hope you think hard about how this could’ve gone, and what you’ve helped do to others,” Lucy said.

“He will,” Helen said.  “I’ll do my part, though.  Can’t leave things like this, friendship turned to threats.  I’ll see about having him swear oaths of allegiance.”

“And the kids in there with you?” Avery asked.

“You saw them at the school, at Edith James’ spirit surgery.  They’re okay.”

The call ended.

For a certain meaning of okay.

“Fuck,” Lucy muttered.

“I said there were two eminent options,” Guilherme told her.  “Mercy wasn’t one.”

“You couldn’t have clarified that beforehand?”

“I did,” he replied.  “I said there were two eminent options.  The conclusion that follows from that is that a third, middle road, is not especially eminent.”

He turned to walk away.

“I think it was good to try a middle road,” Avery said, after Guilherme wasn’t in earshot.  Probably.

“Can we give him a shot?” Verona asked.  “We still send the Tenant back, right?  Swearing oaths of allegiance takes time, and these technomancy Others don’t, do they?”

“No,” Zed confirmed.

“No guarantee he goes off and does the right thing.  He does know we know his biggest fear, and we came close to deploying it.  Maybe that moves him toward the Albaster?”

“Maybe he decides to try and attack or hurt the people who know,” Lucy said.

“Have to decide fast,” Verona said.  “I’m thinking about McCauleigh.  Raquel too.”

“Liberty.  Nicolette.  Fernanda wasn’t exactly friendly.  Even Zed was kind of an enemy,” Avery pointed out.

“Zed didn’t help horrify children, as far as we know,” Lucy said.

“I appreciate that being clarified,” Zed said.

“Vote,” Lucy said.  “Send the Tenant back to Freeman, give him the chance, at least, to fight back, hurt Helen, maybe, and run?  Knowing he could continue to be a monster?”

Avery put her hand up.  So did Verona.  So did Lucy.

Lucy nodded.  She turned to Zed.  “I’ll clear out the curses.”

“We’re letting him go, no malice toward Freeman?  Directions to go to Freeman, talk to him.  Freeman gets a powerful Other, no pushback?” Zed asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Get the curses. I”ll get right on it.”

Lucy went to go collect the curses.  Zed started talking to the Tenant, through Brie.  Laying it out.

Zed made the arrangements, then checked with them.

Avery gave her nod, when he looked her way.

He threw the switch.

The Tenant escaped Brie, pulling free as the diagram reversed power or whatever.  He floated there, hair and beard whipping around, shirtless, wearing sweatpants.  The flickering intensified-

And then he was gone.

Brie’s body seemed to take a few moments to go back to normal.  The permanent marker had burned away, leaving sunburn-like marks behind.

She ran fingers down the tattoos of one arm, sat up straighter, and then accepted Zed’s help in standing, hugging him briefly.

No fanfare, no call back from Freeman.  They probably wouldn’t know anytime soon.

“Hate getting played like that,” Verona said, to Avery.  “Our sense of mercy being used as a weakness.  We could’ve taken out one of Charles’ players.”

“But it’s not worth the cost, right?” Avery asked.  “I’d rather play to our strengths, than someone else’s weaknesses.”

“Tell me you’ve got an idea.”

“Maybe.  But first…”

The Garricks.

Avery had taken an extra five minutes to find a door that took her to a Path that wouldn’t drop them all immediately inside the Garricks’ place.  Because that felt like it’d be a bit of a problem.

“So different from the Blue Heron,” Snowdrop said.  Inside her open coat, she was wearing a Christmas sweater with ‘Trash Talk’, a strutting opossum, and ‘Sass Walk’ on it, top to bottom.

“How’s that?” Avery asked.

“I thought I made a good Snowdrop impression on the Blue Heron when I first left it.  And they’re all like, oh, that Snowdrop, what an adorable character.”

“And then you went back.  Like we’re coming back now,” Avery said, sighing.

They gathered as a trio, with Guilherme and Snowdrop behind them, standing outside the glass door at the front.  A Garrick they didn’t know was manning the desk.

The place looked a little worse for wear.  It had been a few days and there was still glass to sweep up.  Caution tape had torn and been caught by the wind, and was stuck at the foot of some bushes.  The corner store at one end of the lobby where Jude sometimes worked was dark, locked.

They weren’t invited in, and the guy instead called up.

They waited in the cold until Cliff, Peter, and Leona Garrick came down.

The doors were opened, and they were allowed in.

“Heya,” Avery greeted them.  “Sorry again, for last time.  We dealt with that Other that they had watching the cell lines.”

“You dealt with a lot, according to Ed,” Peter said.

Ed, the city mage contact of Nicolette and Zed that had introduced them.

“Yeah.”

“Ed would like to talk to you when you’re free.  It’s understandable if you won’t be free for a while.”

“For sure.”

This was so awkward.

“Took a while to rally the kids, but… ah, looks like that’s them now,” Cliff reported.

Avery’s mom came down the stairs, two at a time.  Avery swallowed hard, stepping around Cliff and Peter as her mom crossed the floor of the lobby space, and swept her into a tight hug.

Normally a little awkward, especially around people she cared about the opinions of, but Avery went for it, hugging her mom back just as hard.

A tension in Avery went away.  There were still plenty of other tensions, but one big one went, at least.

“I was so worried.”

“Were you in danger?”

“Your dad said you thought it might be better if we went.  And told us to leave the area before calling the Garricks.”

“Yeah.”

“They picked us up, blindfolded us, and not that long after we were here.”

“Good.”

The ‘us’ was also Sheridan and Rowan.  Sheridan came down the stairs on her own, while Rowan was in a quartet of Garrick twenty-somethings, which included the long-haired Clayton Garrick.  The Garrick Avery had negotiated with, and done the Station Promenade with.  There were two other guys around Rowan’s age or a little older, and one girl.

“Hey, Skates.  You’re alive, that’s good.”

Avery smiled.  “Hey big brother.  Doing okay?”

“Sure.  They’ve been good hosts.”

“I know what my practice is going to be,” Sheridan said.  She glanced at Guilherme, who had trailed in behind them.

“Think about it a little longer, and go a few weeks without lying first, please,” Avery’s mom said, pulling a bit away from the hug.

“Guess what my practice is going to be?”

“How am I going to guess what your practice is going to be?” Avery asked.  “There’s so many.  Hundreds.”

“Guess though.  You should be able to guess.”

“Loser,” Verona guessed.

“Don’t insult my sister.  That’s-”

“Got it in one.”

Avery turned around to face Sheridan.  “What.”

“How do you do that?” Lucy asked Verona.

Verona winked.

“Did you tell her, did you talk to her?”

“Sheridan, you shouldn’t just pick a practice because it has a funny name,” Avery said.

“I shouldn’t but I will.  My little sister’s the Finder, I’m the Loser.  It’s great.”

“I don’t get any of this,” Rowan said.

Avery ran fingers through her hair.

“How are you two doing?” Avery’s mom asked.

Verona shrugged.  Lucy- Lucy looked a little bit like she wished her mom was here too.

“Could be better, could be worse,” Verona said.

“We need a place to set up and work from.  We can’t stay long.  If- it is okay we’re staying?”

“Yeah,” Peter said.  “If you’re reasonably sure you’re secure this time?”

Avery nodded.

“Same place.  Offices.  It’s a little emptier than it was since the incident.”

“They haven’t specified exactly what happened,” Avery’s mom said.

“I- yeah.  Can’t, really.”

Lucy was already carrying stuff over toward the offices.  Avery went.

“Do you need me?” Rowan asked.  “We were going to watch a movie up in one of the apartments upstairs.”

“If you want to go watch something upstairs and you’re safe and around people who know what’s going on, that sounds wonderful,” Avery’s mom said.

“Want to come, Sheridan?” Rowan asked, in the tone of someone who didn’t want her to say yes but felt obligated to ask.

Sheridan scoffed.  “You’re missing out.”

“See you, loser.”

Sheridan smiled.

“It’s actually a very interesting and versatile practice,” Cliff said.  “Removal of problems.”

“Won’t have to go far for problems, I’m loaded with them.”

Avery wanted to drag her fingernails down her face.  Sheridan was so embarrassing, and this situation was already awkward.

At least the Garricks seemed reasonably cool.

They went to the conference room from before.  Sure enough, a lot of furniture had been moved.  Boxes had been brought in that looked like fresh furniture, not yet put together.

Guilherme looked like a fish out of water here.  He walked over to stand by the window, head turned to look outside.

“Have you been protecting them?” Avery’s mom asked.

“To some degree.  They are more than capable of protecting themselves.”

“I heard you killed someone?” Avery’s mom asked.  Not asking Guilherme.  Asking them.

“My mom blabbed, huh?” Lucy asked.

Avery would’ve liked to be a part of the ‘tell the parents’ conversation there, because obviously the parents would compare notes on it.

“Self defense?” Avery’s mom asked Avery, voice a little bit softer and gentler than usual.

“How far do you want to stretch the idea?” Avery asked.  “She was helping someone who was and is hurting almost all of us.”

“We thought about it long and hard,” Lucy said.

“I think I’d be happier knowing it was a thing you had to do in the heat of the moment,” Avery’s mom said.

“I think I’d feel the opposite way.  Being out of control, it means it can happen again, by accident, or with the wrong person.”

Avery’s mom gave Avery a long look.

“And now we have to do it again,” Avery said.

Feeling, again, that sentiment that seemed to dog her.  Like, more and more, she was finding herself in situations where she could say the wrong thing, and push people away.

In no particular order, coming out to her parents.  Magic.  Melissa.  Being outed to the Garricks.  Her mom not taking awakening well.  The team and Jeanine.  Nora and secrets.  The Garricks and her fucking up.

In general, people were okay.  Or there’d be a lot of shittiness for a while but things got to okay eventually.  Usually.

It didn’t stop the worries from digging their claws in to grip the core of her.  It didn’t stop her from feeling like each time she got out more or less intact, she was tipping the scales so the next time would fuck everything up.  Everything, with rolling ramifications.

Now her mom knew she’d taken a life.

“We should plan,” Verona said.  “We don’t have days.  Ideally, we should work something out, target him in the early hours.  Before streets are active, before businesses are open, before any of that.”

“Good idea,” Lucy said.  She walked around to the far side of the table.  She took her bag off and put it on the table, along with the two shopping bags of things, which she put on a spare chair.  She began to pull out notebooks.  “Aurum Coil.”

“What the what?” Sheridan asked, plunking herself down in a seat.

“You may have to go before we get into the nitty gritty,” Avery said. Or now.  That would be cool too.

“You said you had an idea, Avery.  An approach to the approach?” Verona asked.  She was pulling out her things too.  Including a map that they’d apparently grabbed in the pharmacy, along with the snacks and Lucy’s stuff.  Verona began outlining the perimeter.

“What if it’s true, and we’re aware of our own flaws, and of the strengths of the others?” Avery asked.  “What if we need to shift gears?  Because I don’t know about you guys, but when I start digging into what I want to do, and how I want to tackle this, I keep running up into stuff where I’m very aware I’m bad at certain stuff.  It happened a lot before I got into the market stuff and preparing for Musser.  It happened with Charles, here.  It seems like we split up, and then we work on stuff ourselves, and then we tackle the problem, hoping we synergize.”

“Which we do,” Lucy said.

“Some, yeah.  But I think, if we really want to do this, we need to play to our strengths.  And I don’t know about you guys, but I think you’re both pretty amazing.  So what if we go around the table, and instead of coming up with ideas for ourselves, we assign tasks for each other?  We need to deal with the Aurum, and to do that, we have two big holes in our plan.  Other holes too.  Who are we replacing him with, how can we shake up the dynamic, and how do we deal with Charles in the meantime?”

“Assuming a Percival Awarnach the second won’t work?” Verona asked.

“Assuming.”

Avery was very aware her mom and sister were watching.  So were the Garricks.

To them, she explained, “Charles, the Carmine, is in charge of all violence, all war in the area.  Most of Ontario, some of Manitoba.  He was supported by three others who are supposed to be in charge of other things, but they’re giving him their resources.  We can’t fight a guy in charge of fighting.  So we’re removing the supports, complicating things for him.  We already removed one.”

“Just so you know?” Lucy cut in.  “We offered her a chance to cooperate, back out, stop helping Charles, stop hurting children.  She seemed to think it would require too much of a change in a routine she’s maintained for a very long time.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not talking about a couple decades?” Sheridan asked.

“She said no,” Lucy said, ignoring Sheridan.  “One down, two or three to go, depending on how we look at it.  We’ll do the same thing if we can, and try to offer a way out.  He agrees to stop helping Charles hurt people, and we’re cool.”

“And if he doesn’t agree, you kill him?” Avery’s mom asked.

“The thrones they sit in… they don’t abandon their posts.  They can’t.  It’s a commitment,” Lucy explained.  “They deal with so much power and responsibility and knowledge, it would be too dangerous if they were to take the job and then leave it and go back to ordinary life.  Or at least, that was the idea, originally.”

“We want to fire him,” Verona clarified.  “But because it’s a job for life, tied to their life, that means they stop existing after.  No afterlife, nothing.”

Avery’s mom looked at the Garricks, studying them, as if their expressions or attitudes would help inform how she saw this.

They looked dead serious.

“Mom?  Cover your ears?  I’m going to say stuff, not bad stuff, but stuff that would clue you into weirdness.”

“Does it matter?  I’ve already seen so many things.”

“I don’t know, but I’d rather be safe.  Sheridan…”

“I’m doing this, I’ll be a loser, so I can hear, right?”

Avery winced.

Her mom covered her ears.

“Verona, Nascent sorceress, dabbler in shadow and halflight, she who shattered the moon-”

“What.” Sheridan said.

“-enforcer of Kennet below,”

“Does she even weigh more than a hundred pounds?  Enforcer?”

“-founder of Kennet found, friend of cats, and voice for the voiceless… I would put forward to you the task of doing what you do best.  Ruin Charles’ day.  Make a mess for the Carmine to clean up that will preoccupy him for as long as we need to make our moves.”

“Tonight?” Verona asked.

“Ideally tonight.  Ideally one that won’t upset the regional spirit we just installed in the Alabaster throne.”

“You’re challenging me?”

Avery motioned that her mom could uncover her ears.

“You’re challenging me?” Verona asked.

“We’ve been challenging ourselves to keep up with each other all this while.  I think it’s a big part of how we got here.  But I think we’re a bit unfair to ourselves when we do that.  So… other way around.  I’m challenging you because I think there’s a world where you can pull that off.”

“Making a mess?” Verona asked.  “Okay.”

“You were born to make messes.  The floors of your bedrooms?  Your locker at school?  Your work desks?” Lucy said.

“Ha ha.”

“Let’s start ambitious and then work our way down to a workable plan,” Avery said.  “Instead of starting from a crummy place and then trying to rise up despite that.”

“I’ve been feeling less crummy,” Verona said.  “Talked to you about that.  Doing well at school.”

“That’s great.”

“I do have moments though.  I do like you just giving me permission to do this.”

“Walk it by us first?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah.”

“Lucy?” Avery asked.  “Any ideas?  For Verona?  For me?”

“If I had your talents, and your capabilities?” Lucy asked.  “The market thing.  You were going out, around, you made contacts, you talked to people.”

“Bit hard to do now, tho-”

“Shush.”

Avery shut her mouth.

“Raise an army,” Lucy said.

“You want Avery to raise an army?” Sheridan asked.

“Sheridan, if you’re not going to be helpful, leave,” Avery’s mom said, stern.

She looked a little spooked.

Sheridan didn’t leave.

“Doesn’t have to be a fighting force.  But we know people who know people.  Liberty and her followers.  We need a candidate, we need to shake up markets… okay.  How many can we get on board?  What happens if you, doing what you’ve been doing before, recruit twenty capable people to come into Carmine territory and start talking to key individuals about the market, all at the same time?  Coordinating to change things up when we spring things on the Aurum?”

“While Chuck is busy with my mess?” Verona asked.

“They’d get stopped, probably.  Screwed with,” Avery said.  “It wouldn’t be safe.”

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed.  “So… what if it was two thousand?”

Avery considered, leaning over the table, arms straight, palms flat on its surface, scattered notebooks open in front of them.

Sheridan wasn’t talking, but she had a look on her face, that was changing from ‘you’re joking’ to ‘you’re serious’.

Where to even begin?

“Tonight?” Avery asked.

“We said we needed to do it fast, right?”

“Liberty’s friends, that’s, if we push it, could be half,” Avery said.

“The girl who came over, I poured water on her?  That’s half your army?” Sheridan asked.

“Sheridan,” Avery’s mom said.

“Not really an army.  I don’t want to put people in direct danger,” Avery said.  “I wonder if we can get word to Sootsleeves.”

“That’s another few hundred,” Lucy said.

“Guilherme?” Avery asked.

“I do hope you’re not planning on including my brethren in the same strokes of a plan you’re using… fodder.”

“Don’t be ugly,” Guilherme,” Lucy said.

He gave her a cold, pointed look.

“Not your brethren,” Avery told him.  “But your… lesser family members.  I know some from the markets, I can swing by, get something going, maybe.  If it’s words, if it’s errands they’re running for clear benefit.  But I get the impression that you, if you wanted to, could ask for something to happen, and get a lot more of them moving.”

“You should know the stakes escalate if you do this.  Eyes will be on you during and after.  And you’re taking on a new approach, changing a dynamic in your trio of practitioners.  It’s a dynamic that may have its flaws, but that is working for you.  You’re doing both of these things with a time limit.”

“I’m talking hypothetically.  Figuring out what we could do.  Not necessarily what we will do.”

“What you are talking and what you are feeling are different things.  An idea becomes a reality not when it is enacted, but when the heart seizes on it.  If I tell you I can help you do this, it will be hard to put the idea out of mind and heart both.”

“Who the ass is this guy?” Sheridan asked.

“Someone you don’t want to get on the wrong side of,” Lucy replied.  “Seriously.”

“Quite seriously,” Guilherme added, meeting Sheridan’s eyes.

She shut up, hopefully for good this time.

Guilherme didn’t move a muscle, except to move his gaze to Avery.  The question still hanging in the air.

“Is it doable?” Avery asked.

“This part of it is.”

Next Chapter