The town center of Kennet was in one of the areas they tried to keep fixed up, in contrast to areas just three blocks away. It was a nice stone older building with some copper roofing that had taken on a green patina, and a clocktower. Unlike the night of the Hungry Choir, the clock was in working order. The streetlamps in that old fashioned lantern style were free of cobwebs and had been cleared of peeling paint and painted, and the sidewalk closest to the town center was done in brick, all arranged in zigzags.
Lucy kind of hated it. It felt like the mayor and other people at the top were spending money on their own front yards, except at work, rather than at home. It did make some sense, with the tourism and the fact most tourists wouldn’t be going to the very north or south ends of town, but it was too much, when she’d just been a few blocks north and seen how sad some places were.
They walked around the building to the parking at the back. A few strips of grass and concrete surrounded the lot, followed by trees, which were backed by fence with panels hanging from it. Keeping idiots from wandering onto the train tracks, and providing some sound cover from the trains themselves, probably. Lucy had been warned about the tracks as a kid.
“There’s no way over or through,” Snowdrop said.
“They’re on the other side then?” Lucy asked.
“Which way is over?” Verona asked.
It was Avery who jogged forward. She looked around, pulled her rope from her pocket, and wrapped it around her hand.
Lucy looked away, checking the coast was clear, while making it easier for Avery to make the leap.
“There’s one tree branch that’s weak, it’ll put you in the way of the train,” Snowdrop said.
Lucy looked. Avery was walking on the fence-top, holding onto the occasional tree branch. The panel that was zip-tied to the fence provided enough breadth for Avery to set her foot down on.
“Found it,” Avery said.
“There’s a way through?” Lucy asked.
“Nah,” Snowdrop said. She walked over and leaned against a panel, her expression sullen.
The panels had a fair bit of graffiti on them. More permanent marker than actual paint. A hole in one plastic panel had a large frog drawn around it, so the hole served as the frog’s butthole. Tattoos or writing pointed to the butthole, indicating something obscene.
“They’re not so subtle, are they?” Lucy asked. She pulled the panel back. The fence on the other side was torn away from the post, giving space to crawl through.
“They’re all wise and crap,” Snowdrop said.
Lucy listened, then checked both ways before slipping through the fence, and crossing the tracks. Snowdrop slipped through after her, running about twenty feet down the tracks to another spot in the fence, where she pushed aside another panel.
Lucy followed, pausing to pick up a strappy sandal. Brie might need it, if everything went well.
Avery hopped down on the far side of the fence, jogging parallel to Lucy. Verona followed after.
“We get Brie and run for it?” Avery asked.
“I guess so,” Lucy said. “We have to be prepared for trouble.”
“Goblins definitely,” Verona said. “John maybe? When you scouted out his place the other day, did he teleport?”
“No,” Avery said. “Jogged after, I’m pretty sure. Caught up while I was fixing my diagram. He was still pretty fast and good at tracking, though.”
Lucy nodded. She took a second to think about the possibilities. “I don’t think they can hurt us, according to the deals we made. We can’t really harm them either. They can get in our way or harass us and they can maybe hurt or capture Brie. If we get her and they get her back, then that makes everything harder.”
“It’s like we’re playing a game and we can’t let them take possession of the ball,” Avery said.
“You are such a jock sometimes.” Lucy said.
“I don’t like the sound of ‘jock’. Sporty, maybe. And so?” Avery challenged her. “Drawing on that kind of experience really helped me on the Forest Ribbon Trail.”
“Can’t argue with that one,” Verona jumped in, giving Lucy a look, “unless you want to be a jerk.”
“Not going to argue with it,” Lucy said. “If it works, it works. And I stand by what I said.”
“Sporty, not jock. Jock makes me think jockstrap,” Avery said. “Or smelly, or those fratty boys in the 80s movies, who act like creeps. Jocks versus nerds. Blah.”
“Sporty, fine,” Lucy said. “Getting more on topic-”
“Nerds always seemed like the side to go with,” Verona said. “But I tended to find the weirdos off on the sidelines most interesting. Break the mold, go make dog noises or cover yourself in paint. That’s cool.”
“It’s too bad we don’t have anyone like that. We’re a merry band of friggin’ normies,” Snowdrop said. “We’re such losers!”
Avery wrapped an arm around Snowdrop’s head and gave her a vigorous head-rub, ruining whatever of Lucy’s earlier work the girl’s hood and the goblins hadn’t already messed up.
“Getting back on topic,” Lucy insisted. “We need a battle plan. Also, I tended to feel sorry for those people in the movies.”
Verona gasped. “I’m hurt!”
“Not in a way that looked down on them. More in a way that like, it’d be cool if they found a kindred soul. A friend group, a girlfriend or boyfriend.”
“This might redefine how I look at our friendship,” Verona said. “Pity? Ugh.”
“Solidarity. Without changing who they are,” Lucy added.
“I hope not!” Verona returned. “Was this what you were thinking when you approached me all those years ago?”
“I’m pretty sure I was thinking I liked your springy pencil-topper and if we worked together on the drawing thing I might get to use it,” Lucy told Verona.
“The vibrating wacky spaceman?” Verona asked. “So you were using me.”
“Yeah. I was a kid, and kids are pretty amoral.”
“The topic,” Avery chimed in.
“Sorry, we’re leaving you out,” Verona said.
“No, actually, the topic. I want to do this right. For Gabe and Reagan.”
Lucy nodded, her expression changing to something more serious. “Plans and counterplans, then.”
“Goblins, maybe John, what about Faerie?” Avery asked.
“If we run into Faerie aren’t we kind of screwed?” Verona asked.
“We have the firecrackers and stuff,” Lucy said. She slipped her bag off her shoulder, then reached inside. She pulled out a stinkbomb made out of a tennis ball, and a set of firecrackers that had been tampered with. She offered them out, and it was Verona who took the stinkbomb. Avery who took the firecracker.
Lucy kept one of the modified firecrackers. While she was at it, she pulled off her necklace, got her ring and the dog tag, and secured the tag in her pocket, where there was no chance it could get thrown down. She put the ring on.
“That only buys us a bit of time,” Avery said.
“If it takes more than a bit of time, I think the Faerie win,” Verona answered. She rubbed at her chin. “Unless that’s the image they want us to have.”
“I think it’s probably true,” Lucy said. “What about John?”
“I can take him,” Snowdrop said.
“What if we spread out, and if he comes after one of us, the others can throw down their dog tag and then we order him to handle the problem?” Verona asked.
“He said if we summoned him for the wrong reasons, he might not give us a replacement tag. I think that’s a good way to not get a replacement.”
“But,” Verona said, holding up one finger. She pointed that finger at Avery. “Also a way to keep a certain player away from the ball?”
“Yeah,” Avery said. “But it feels bad. In a situation that already feels crummy. We’re permanently giving up that help and security? It feels like a… I don’t know. Like we’re making this real and permanent. Snowdrop’s friends with some of the goblins, and what happens for her after today?”
“Meh,” Snowdrop grunted out the word.
“It might be real and permanent anyway,” Lucy said. “Do you not want to intervene? Because we could have that conversation.”
“No. I think we have to. Tomorrow night is the next ritual night, isn’t it?”
Lucy nodded. “I just wanted to leave that open, in case anyone’s having second thoughts. I jumped into that, talking about Yalda and stuff at the meeting.”
Their destination was a building that intersected the fence, a little way down the tracks. It might have been a spot for repair, or egress, or giving people access to the tracks for messier situations.
The goblins could be heard within, arguing.
“Nah, so get ready to move,” Snowdrop said. “We’re gonna make a lot of noise and scare ’em off! Maximize collateral damage!”
Avery put her hand over Snowdrop’s mouth, and pulled the kid into the thicker bit of trees alongside the fence. Lucy and Verona followed.
“She means to be quiet,” Avery murmured. “Be careful.”
Snowdrop, mouth still covered, did an eyebrow contortion in an effort to communicate her frustration at Avery.
“You said you’d distract them?” Lucy asked Snowdrop.
Avery released Snowdrop’s mouth.
Snowdrop nodded. “Cherry’s hard, because she’s sensitive, and I can’t scream at her. Toadswallow’s trying to ensure I’ll grow up nice and human. They’re the tricky ones. Gashy is easy, I just can’t fight him. An’ I have ideas for Munchy.”
“Don’t fight him,” Avery warned Snowdrop.
“Yeah? That’s what I said,” Snowdrop replied, tugging her shirt down and adjusting her hoodie, before pulling the hoodie off and tying it around her waist.
Lucy rubbed her forehead, trying to process that last one.
“I won’t think any less of you if you aren’t up to this,” Avery told Snowdrop.
“Then I’m outta here,” Snowdrop said.
“Want something to help with the distraction?” Lucy asked. “Firecrackers or a stinkbomb?”
“Firecrackers. I like weird, loud noises.”
“Or my rope?” Avery asked.
“I’m meh on the rope,” Snowdrop said. She smiled, showing off her missing teeth.
“We’re thinking about it wrong,” Verona said. “Goblins gave us this stuff to deal with the Fae, right? So… maybe we use Faerie stuff to deal with goblins.”
“Glamoured images?” Lucy asked.
“Good backup plan. But what’s a goblin scared of?” Avery asked.
“Incoming train?” Lucy suggested.
“That might be a lot to draw up with the glamour I’ve got.” Verona said.
The arguing had paused inside. There was a crash.
“I hope Brie is okay,” Avery murmured. “I’m mad at her, kind of, for last night, and for letting Reagan die, but I hope she’s okay.”
“We have the broad strokes of a plan?” Lucy asked.
“Snowdrop goes in, does her scream-and-greet with Cherry, keeps Cherry distracted. Make Toadswallow think there’s room for corrupting her?” Avery asked.
“Then run. Don’t fight Gashwad,” Avery said.
“Fighting him won’t really get his and everyone’s attention,” Snowdrop said.
“Don’t. You’ll get hurt.”
“Don’t,” Avery said, a third time.
“What if…” Lucy trailed off. She had to dig in her bag some more. She got more of the glamour. “Put your hand out?”
Lucy deposited a good bit in Snowdrop’s hand.
“Nettlewisp, nettlewisp, nettlewisp,” Lucy whispered. She hesitated, trying to think.
“Our opossum is great, our opossum is strong,” Verona continued.
“Protect her from goblins who might do her wrong,” Avery whispered.
“If goblins try to hurt or grab, give them something prolonged,” Lucy said.
“Time enough to run, no need to be violent, but make it strong,” Verona added.
“Bewilder and daze, confuse and craze, fill their eyes and ears with…” Avery hesitated.
“Sweetness, rainbows and birdsong,” Lucy finished, as she drew the symbol into the dust.
Lucy closed her hands around Snowdrop’s, so the hand closed around the dust. It shifted and squirmed between her fingers.
Snowdrop smiled, clasping her hands behind her back, and swaying a bit on the spot.
“If John comes for us, distract, we use the tag trick if we have to, but surrender if you have to. If one of us gets caught, the rest can go ahead,” Lucy told the others.
“Are you sure? We don’t double back?” Avery asked.
“We do what we gotta to get her to Zed, along with instructions on what to do with the Choir,” Lucy said. “If we get caught… we worry about rescue later. They need us out there, acting as practitioners, or some of the stuff that’s holding back people like Alexander will break down. They can’t do that if we’re prisoners.”
“We raise hell if they insist on keeping us prisoner,” Verona said.
Avery handed Snowdrop the black rope. The girl took it in her hand that wasn’t holding dust.
“Firecracker the faerie if they come for us, and when it comes to glamour, keep your glamour tricks in mind,” Lucy said. “Draw a quick barrier for Edith. Matthew… I don’t even know.”
“If it’s Matthew,” Avery whispered, “I don’t think he can do a lot without letting the Doom out. I think even Verona could outrun him. They’d both get exhausted, but he can’t afford to get so exhausted he lets his guard down.”
“I can definitely outrun him if I’m not human,” Verona said. “Permission granted to use any and all things Faerie in a pinch?”
Lucy nodded. “Okay. Be safe and be smart. Because what I was talking about before… this feels like a moment a trap could come back to bite us, and it would be dramatic in a way Maricica could use.”
“As for Alpeana…” Lucy trailed off, wincing a bit in anticipation.
Avery answered, “I can’t see Alpeana coming after us. Especially considering it’s still light out.”
Lucy looked up at the overcast sky. Sun still peeked through.
“Right?” Avery asked. “Or am I crazy?”
Lucy dropped her eyes from the sky, looking at the other two girls, and the little lost opossum spirit. “If this takes a while, she might. Remember she can travel between worlds, she can mess with spirits and echoes and stuff, and she can get in our way a lot, since she can kinda teleport.”
“If it comes down to us needing to make a run for it, and one of us needing to stop and get in their way while the others go ahead… Avery should be the one to run ahead,” Lucy said. She locked eye contact with Avery. “No arguing in the moment. Take Brie and go. If you absolutely have to, communicate the Yalda weakness, then let her run on ahead.”
“And then what?” Verona asked. “All three of us lose or get caught and then we…?”
“Negotiate. Renegotiate. Do what we have to. Again, they can’t keep us. They have to let us operate, and they have to give us a bit of freedom, or it’s not really ‘Practitioners’ who are investigating the Carmine Beast, because we’re not doing so out of free will or anything. It’s three human puppets doing the investigating. That doesn’t work.”
“They could take two of us hostage.”
“And the third of us can go reach out to higher authorities,” Lucy said. “Remember the Sable, Aurum, and Alabaster? Remember how to get there?”
The other two girls nodded. Snowdrop stared over at the little railside access shack.
“You’re so cool when you’re into the neat practice stuff,” Verona murmured.
“I’m into it, I’m just into it in a practical way.”
Bags in place. Tools and weapons in hand. Lucy used the ring and hot lead to draw out a pen to spear form. Avery had her hockey stick. Verona had the knobby wood club.
“Careful about using that around goblins,” Avery murmured. “Same idea as using glamour on the faerie.”
Verona nodded with some vigor.
They had connection blocking stuff, so they felt safe to get in close to the little access shack. It was a solidly built construction, with a door and a window in the front and, it seemed, a door and a window at the back. A brief peek within told Lucy all that she needed to know about the place and what it was for. Those with the key could enter the building, get any tools or whatever they needed, and enter onto the tracks, and vice-versa. It looked like tools had been dragged away from one side, so there was only a workbench and some shelves, and Brie was inside, tied or cuffed to the workbench.
The three of them had to carefully climb the fence, to avoid making noise, get onto the roof, and use that to get to the other side. Leaving Snowdrop by the door.
They made their way to the window, peeking in.
The process made Lucy’s hat diagram smoke, burning down like a fuse, but the same diagram made it so they were peeking inside when others’ heads were turned to look at something else, pulling back when those people turned to check the window.
“Hey, I can wait out here all day!” Snowdrop hollered.
It looked like Bluntmunch and Gashwad were arguing over some of Brie’s things, which were strewn out across the floor, while Cherrypop sat on a shelf, apparently tasked with watching Brie. The shelf served to cut the room in half, almost but not quite a wall, when someone could peer past the items on the shelf. A sixth of the shack was marked out for what looked like a tiny bathroom, where the sink was almost in the lap of the person on the toilet.
Lucy peeked. Cherrypop’s attention was mostly on the fight, and on Snowdrop’s arrival. As Snowdrop came in the door, Cherry climbed through the shelf.
“Rhaaa!” Snowdrop shouted.
“Aaaaa!” Cherrypop returned. She started to turn away-
“What’s with the scream-and-greet, by the way?” Verona whispered the question.
“It started with a debate over who’s more screamy,” Avery whispered back. “Now it’s a thing.”
Verona headed toward the door, the little goblin key in hand, while Lucy leaned in close enough to the dusty window that her nose touched the wall, looking in through the corner.
There were a bunch of tools by the door.
Lucy snapped her finger a few times in quick succession, then held up her hand.
Verona joined Lucy then looked.
“What’s the problem?” Avery asked.
“Tools are set up, leaning against the door,” Lucy whispered.
Cherrypop’s ear twitched. Lucy pulled back in the same moment Cherrypop looked her way.
Verona squirmed, pulling off her bag. Then she got out a sheet of blank art paper. She drew a freehand circle that was better than some circles Lucy could draw with a compass, then began elaborating. An earth rune inside a diamond… Lucy recognized that. The diamond imparted qualities of whatever it contained. An earth quality, feeding into the circle around it. Then a bunch of Earth runes that controlled the flow of what was going into that circle. A triple-line, with earth quality insulated on the exterior and interior.
Then a ring around, blocking air.
“Why block air?” Avery whispered.
“Because I don’t know the symbol for sound, and air carries sound. Best I can do. Also…”
Verona added a bit. A second diagram on the paper, a mercury sign, tied to a very lopsided air with a line pointing out. There was a Saggitarius sign attached to that second diagram, with notation: ‘Out, not in’.
Lucy’s pen spear was dripping blue ink down its length. She sat there, her back to the wall, waiting for the crash, the shout, the whatever, that would set off this whole situation.
Verona touched some glamour to the diagram, and the image began to move, parts of the diagram rotating on the paper, the corners of the paper fluttering, even as the part with the diagram remained flat.
She touched the paper to the window.
Glass near-silently cracked, where the ‘earth quality’ was being focused.
It took a moment. The glass finished breaking in a neat circle, and the wind picked up, paper clinging to glass and pulling it out and away, into the air.
Avery caught it out of the air before it could crash to the ground.
“…Toadswallow will want some,” Bluntmunch growled.
“Toadswallow can shove the keyboard where it don’t shine, then bang it against something precious until gremlins come out his nose!” Gash growled.
“If there’s something you want,” Brie said, “We could give you more things. Even more gremlin things.”
“Shaddup!” Gashwad barked.
“Yeah, shaddup!” Cherry echoed.
“What’s this?” Snowdrop asked, and there was a clatter.
“Don’t touch! Don’t touch unless you know what you’re doing!”
“Aaaa!” Cherry screamed.
“Aaaah!” Snowdrop returned. “I’m not an honorary member of the goblin team, so I don’t get anything, huh?”
“You are a member of the team, you dunce!” Cherrypop exclaimed. “Augh!”
Quieter, Cherry said, “She’s dumber than I am and that’s saying somethin’.”
“I see,” Brie answered.
It sounded like Cherry was right under the window with the hole in it, by Brie, who was cuffed or tied to the workbench.
“I don’t suppose I could use the facilities?” Brie asked.
“I need to poop, Cherry.”
“Then poop and sit in it!” Cherrypop said, with enthusiasm. She cackled.
“Don’t touch that!” Bluntmunch raised his voice. “You’ll set something off!”
“Ah!” Snowdrop was audible. “I didn’t touch it!”
“Aaahhh!” Cherrypop jumped in, “You did! I saw you nudge it with your toe!”
There was a noise as Cherrypop scampered.
Verona was rubbing glamour into her arms, turning into a mink, maybe. She stopped as Avery grabbed her arm with enough force that it made some of the glamour cloud up and fly away.
Further down the way was Toadswallow. He was on Snowdrop’s side of the fence, approaching the shack.
“When he awoke, Lord Donald was standing by his feet,” Toadswallow sang, as he waddled his way along. “Saying ‘how do you like my feather bed, and how do you like my shit? How do you like my lady, with her massive tits?’”
They had to pull back behind the cover of the building to avoid being seen by the fancy goblin.
“Oh, I like your feather bed, and I like your shit. I like your lady bae, with her massive tits. ‘Then get up, get up,’ Lord Donald cried, ‘get up as quick as you can. It’ll never be said in England that I fucked up a naked man.”
“Toadswallow! Hide the stuff!”
“Hide what!?” the commotion came from within.
“The stuff, the important stuff. The keyboard. Where’s the keyboard?”
“Oh I can’t get up, I won’t get up, I can’t rise up for my life. You’ve got a huge fucking gun, and I’ve not even a pocket knife. ‘You lie dear boy for you’re clearly risen, and I’d guess it’s been so all night. I may have a huge fucking gun, but that’s there’s no pocket knife…”
Toadswallow got close. The commotion settled almost immediately. Too quiet and still for a shack full of goblins.
“So the lad struck the very first blow and he made Lord Donald sore, but Lord Donald pulled the trigger, and the lad was dead before his -ahem- struck the flooooor!”
Toadswallow’s final line landed as he reached the door. He’d seen Snowdrop, from the sudden censorship, Lucy imagined.
Lucy grabbed another paper from Verona. She quickly inscribed a connection breaker diagram, then took the key, placing it in the center.
“Hey, Toadswallow? They hid stuff,” Brie called out. “I’ll tell you what if you do me three favors.”
“Three, hm? Expensive.”
“It’s really cool stuff, I think.”
“Your word isn’t worth much, my dear. You’re not awakened. You’re just a hapless innocent who stuck her nose too deep into our unmentionables. Now we need to figure out what we’re doing with you.”
“For right now, is there any chance we can figure out the washroom situation? I’ve been tied up here for half an hour, I’m guessing.”
“Not even,” Toadswallow said. “And you won your little contest, didn’t you? Do you even need to worry about that sort of thing anymore?”
“Oh yeah,” Gashwad could be heard. His voice was snarlier, of the four local goblins.
“Sneaky sneaky,” Cherrypop said.
Lucy folded up the paper around the key, drew a key on it, and then handed it to Avery, removing her own hat to press it against the wall, in some vain hope of getting more connection blocking.
Avery, cape wrapped around her, popped up, tossed the goblin key down at Brie, then ducked back down.
She really hoped it wasn’t rope that was tying Brie to the table. Something with a lock.
“What are they hiding, Snowdroplet?” Toadswallow adopted a smarmy tone. “Must I bribe you? Gifts? Fun things? Treats? Tricks?”
“Say nothing!” Gashwad barked.
“I won’t tell you.”
“I mean, I’ll tell you.”
Other goblins growled. Toadswallow. Cherry.
“I’ll give you things! I won’t make you drink milk!” Cherry shouted. There was a clatter.
“Grab me!” Snowdrop called out.
The nettlewisp explosion detonated within the little access building. Pink fog, rainbow hues, giggling, and ear-piercing tweeting as birds sang in harmony.
The goblins screamed like they were being burned.
Inside, Brie rose to her feet. She immediately headed into the thick of things. Bending down to grab stuff.
“Come! This way!” Lucy hissed. “Remove the blockage at the door!”
“You!” Bluntmunch growled.
Avery used her hockey stick, slamming it into the door. It crashed through, scattering two different pieces of the door and knocking the tools that had been stacked up against it across the room. Something sprang, going off on the other side, and a screwdriver seemed to paradoxically come flying at Avery, through the broken door. It caught her near the elbow.
“Get Brie,” Avery said. “Go.”
Verona was close enough to support Avery and watch things. Leaving Lucy to dive into the pink mist and rainbows, that smelled like cotton candy and a warm sunny day.
The goblins were writhing, hands over their eyes.
Lucy found Snowdrop and Brie. She grabbed Brie’s arm, tugging.
“I need to get these things. I made promises.”
“You’re not awakened, so you can lie and break promises,” Lucy growled the words. “and this is the second time we’re saving your hide. Give us some cooperation.”
Toadswallow kicked out, hitting Lucy’s shin.
Brie was bigger, seven or so years older, and Lucy had no hope of making her move. There was the spear… but that was counterintuitive.
She bent down, helping. Aware they were swiftly burning through their headstart.
Getting the things the goblins had been portioning out.
“There’s a keyboard under the shelf.”
Lucy used her spear to strike the keyboard. She grabbed it, and it was sticky. She made a face.
“I think that’s it. Notes on the shelf.”
Snowdrop grabbed the notes.
They headed out, onto the tracks, where Lucy and Avery were. The screwdriver had been pulled out, and Avery had wrapped her arm in the end of her scarf.
“Where were you going to meet Zed this time? Same place?”
“North or south?” Lucy interrupted. “Don’t answer, just run that way.”
“Goblins can hear us,” Verona said.
Brie began running north.
The mist was already fading.
Verona grabbed her spell cards, and some of the pieces of paper she’d been drawing on. Art on the front, diagrams on the back. She drew about ten lines on ten pieces of paper, then threw a bunch more into the air.
“Don’t hurt them,” Lucy said. “We swore oaths.”
“They hurt each other more than this just by messing around and scrapping with each other,” Verona said. “Is it really harm if they’re fine by tomorrow?”
“Might be. Don’t give them any ammo they can use.”
“Letting them come at us without any problems is giving them ammo too,” Verona retorted.
Lucy couldn’t really debate that.
“How’s the arm?” Lucy asked.
“Hurts. I’m glad it’s not hockey season, or this would be the biggest bummer.”
“That’s your priority? This is the sports-crazy thing again.”
Avery gave a one-note chuckle.
They were far enough away now. “Stop for a few seconds.”
They did. Lucy grabbed the sandal she’d collected and gave it to Brie, who put it on.
“Where did you plan to meet Zed? Same place?” Lucy asked.
“No, but it’s close. By the highway, there’s a rest stop. What’s going on?”
Lucy answered, “We’re rescuing you. We bring you to Zed, Zed owes us concessions and help. If we get stopped but we can give you the chance to get to Zed… we need you to tell him stuff.”
“Like there’s a way to beat the Choir, potentially. A weak point. Tell him a black dog was killed, and passed on a curse. There’s a good chance the black dog’s intelligence, personality, or some trace of it are driving the choir. An intelligence at the core, that keeps hidden.”
“Okay? Black dog. Like, woof woof?”
Verona spoke up, “He’ll know or he should have the resources to look it up. It didn’t seem like this was super specific knowledge.”
Lucy added, “Her name was Yalda. A little girl who sang and brought bad stuff wherever she went, especially to anyone who hurt her. And she’s tapped into power from the war in Afghanistan, it’s complicated, and it’s why the choir ritual is so stubborn.”
“I’ll pass that on, then.”
“If we can’t go talk to Zed with you,” Lucy warned. “If we bring you to Zed, you stay quiet. You owe us at least that much. Let us negotiate in good faith.”
“I thought the world would get simpler again, when I won.”
“It could’ve gone that way, if you’d kept your nose out of things,” Avery said.
“Can’t,” Brie said. “I went looking for you guys to try to get answers or figure out a way forward. I found Zed instead, or he found me. I- you saved me, you did. But Zed saved me and Zed made the world make sense again, gave me hope, cared. More than that. I tried to go back to my old life and I can’t plug back into it. I can’t- he ended up becoming my whole world.”
Lucy looked at the woman with her Sight.
Brie’s white shirt and white pants were stained red with her own blood. Her hair was matted on one side, her hand and both feet were mangled. The ‘blades’ that pierced her were slivers of bone, teeth, and the occasional blade serrated enough it could be part of a beartooth trap. Watercolor stains spread from each wound. The keyboard she was carrying was so stained it was dripping the stuff, the individual keys standing out in the grime, like they glowed.
No sign of trickery. No enchantment or anything. It was-
“You love him,” Avery spoke up.
The goblins had emerged from the shack.
They resumed running. North. Toward the highway.
The goblins reached the illustrations. Cherrypop was fastest, running across one-
It detonated into a whirl of wind. She was sent skidding across more papers.
Smoke, a gush of water. Other papers flew through the air. Gashwad got touched by one, and it flashed, a bright light that made Lucy’s eyes hurt, even though she was a good distance away.
“That’s about ten hours of drawing gone,” Verona huffed.
A violent farting noise behind them made their heads turn.
Toadswallow, one eye narrowed, the other eye socket wrapped around a scratched-up monocle, wearing a varsity sweater and tie with his belly-nails sticking through both, was holding something that looked like a balloon wrapped in skin. He squeezed it, and a puckered hole at the end vibrated and jumped in every direction with the horrendous force of what it was expelling, fumes pouring out. The papers were blown away.
At the fence, Bluntmunch climbed it, hopping over onto the far side, and began loping forward, on the right side, where there were no tracks of papers.
They were a good two hundred feet down the tracks, and Lucy could already smell the first traces of it on the wind. It resembled the smell from when Barbie and Ran’s dog had eaten an entire cheesecake and butt-vomited it all over the back bedroom. A smell so bad she couldn’t hear cheesecake without her head immediately going there.
There were bitter after-smells, too. Smells that stung the nostrils. In third grade the teacher’s elderly aunt would come in to help students who were struggling with math, sitting with them at the round table in the back corner. She’d had more of the offensive old lady smells than every other old lady Lucy had ever met put together, and she’d had bad teeth. Some black, soft and rounded off. Her breath had brought Lucy to tears- and not just making her eyes water. She’d sobbed in class and left that little table.
This was like the cheesecake mess chased with Mr. Clark’s Aunt’s breath.
Bluntmunch was fast. Gashwad slipped through the fence on the other side, and he was moving kind of like Avery did, like every time Lucy looked away and looked back, he’d found ways to skip ahead. Snarling from start to finish.
“Can any of these gadgets we gave up our headstart to get do anything?” Lucy asked.
“I’ve got a tape that makes it easier to keep working out.”
“Yeah. But it’s indiscriminate. It helps anyone who can hear, including them!”
“I don’t think they get tired like we do. Use it!”
Brie took something from Snowdrop, and plugged it into a little tape player, the sticky keyboard tucked under one arm. She hit the button, and music started immediately, playing from the speaker at a pretty good fidelity.
Toadswallow was speaking. He wasn’t as fast as Bluntmunch or skipping ahead like Gash, but he was keeping pace with them. The other two were catching up, and Toadswallow was spending his breath on…
“Stiles… John Stiles. Come.” Toadswallow said. “Matthew Moss, Matthew Moss, Matthew Moss.”
The Others of Kennet knew now. That something was up.
“Guilherme, Guiherme-”
“You’re calling them?” Bluntmunch hollered.
“-Guilherme. Maricica. Maricica-”
“Don’t,” Bluntmunch struck the panel by the fence. “Not her. Not with the way the votes went.”
Toadswallow didn’t say her name a third time.
Now a Faerie were in play.
The music began playing. It was intense, high energy, and every part of Lucy that she might’ve thought would’ve been a barrier to getting into music just utterly failed her. It was like having cold water thrown over her and her heart and lungs and guts getting wet and chilly, somehow.
Gashwad had gotten ahead of them, and slipped through the fence at the same spot they’d come in. He stepped onto the tracks.
Where was the other panel? It was about this far down, wasn’t it?
“Go through. We can try to deal with Blunt!” Lucy called out.
Avery, jogging ahead, ducked to the side, pushing at panels, until one moved. She ducked through. Brie followed, then Lucy, then Verona and Snowdrop.
Bluntmunch picked up speed, charging ahead, tearing past bushes and smaller trees. Violence, rage, and intensity.
If it’s instinct, it’s not really them that’s acting against us, and they can actually hurt us.
Lucy whipped the spear through the air. The blue ink swiped out at Bluntmunch’s face. It splashed one eye and missed the other. Unfortunately, he had one big eye and one squinty one, and it messed with the squinty one.
Avery stepped out from behind a tree to body-check him with her hockey stick. He stumbled back a good ten feet, bumping into a tree, but he didn’t lose his footing.
He chuckled, then leaped forward.
Avery stepped past the same tree, and appeared further up the path.
“I can keep running, I’m tough, I’m made for this-” Snowdrop huffed.
Verona reached down and took the girl’s hand.
Snowdrop became a possum pup, clinging to Verona’s wrist.
Avery, ahead of them, was holding her stick awkwardly, hand pressed against her elbow wound. It had hurt, going after Bluntmunch like that, with her elbow hurt.
Gashwad kept skipping ahead. He was lying in wait now.
“How’s he moving like that!?” Lucy called out.
“There’s little paths and tunnels, if you’re tuned into the Warrens,” Avery said. “The place goblins come from. Snowdrop showed me some. Gash- gash seems to know most of them!”
“If I can smash anything valuable, I can use this keyboard,” Brie huffed.
The music was making it easier. That high intensity music that had drenched Lucy’s insides was making the breath come more easily, making her feel like if she was in gym class right now she’d be more into it than she’d ever been.
And… something darker. Ominous.
Whatever. If it helped, she could put aside the rest of it. An indistinct woman’s voice was encouraging, clapping along with the music, keeping a pace.
Gashwad leaped down from the fence, into their way. Lucy reached into her pocket, where she had the last of her glamour.
He threw something down into their way. Grass blackened and died. Then the blackness bubbled.
Avery was closer and was faster on the draw. She had her own glamour, and she used it. A fistful, a thumb-flick, in the gesture used for ‘lightening’. Violent enough to lighten it all the way to a flash.
Black tar turned gray and stopped bubbling so fiercely.
“Lucy! Verona!” Avery called out. She used a tree and skipped ahead to the far side of the patch of blackness. “Use-”
Avery’s eyes widened as she looked back.
Lucy turned, and saw Bluntmunch only a few paces behind her.
She used the fistful of glamour much as Avery had done. A flash. Right in Bluntmunch’s face.
It blinded him. That much was clear. She swung the spear again, trying to splash more ink-
And he grabbed it. He pulled it away from her, and because she was a half-second too slow in relaxing her grip, the force he used to tear it away also pulled her off her feet.
She slapped a tree to try to push herself back and away and get out of his reach before he could actually grab her. the edge of his meaty paw brushed against the top of her head as she ducked back, and scrambled away.
“Watch out for the tar! I was going to say you should flash it too!”
The tar blocked her way. Verona, still with glamour smeared over her from earlier, wrapped herself in her cloak, twisted, and became a bird for just long enough to cross it. It looked like Brie had leaped across, stepped in the edge, and was undoing her sandal.
Lucy grabbed a tree branch, and turned it into a weapon. A warhammer or something. It was unwieldy, but she slammed the end into the middle of the tar patch, hoping to vault over. Instead, the hammer hit the earth and just stuck up, handle first.
She used the head of the hammer as a leaping-off point to get to the other side. The moment she made contact with the ground, Gashwad tackled her, tangling up in her legs. She fell into a bush and a bunch of tree branches that had been shoved off to the side.
He clambered up her, pulling away a chain that he’d been using as a belt to keep his cargo shorts up. They didn’t fall off, but they slumped down further on his gnarled body. His bare torso seemed disproportionately long for his legs.
He had breath like Mrs. Clark’s Aunt had.
A hand gripped his hair from behind, pulling his head and body back.
Brie sank her teeth into his shoulder and neck. Tore. Spat, her expression contorting.
Brie bit again. It was like she was tearing at cotton candy, for how easy it was to get her teeth in.
“Don’t hurt him! He’s an ally! Just-”
Brie pulled back. Her eyes were wild.
“Different sides right now,” Lucy said.
Lucy shifted position, got her legs braced against Gashwad’s side, and propelled him back, so he landed in the middle of the tar, stuck.
Bluntmunch leaped onto the trees to the right of the tar, grabbing at branches.
It was Verona who followed up, throwing some more spell cards. Pummeling him with flashes of fire, smoke, and expulsions of wind.
“I’m out,” Verona said.
“Yeah,” Lucy said, as she took Verona’s hand, getting to her feet.
Brie, just to the side, had her hand over her mouth. Not quite covering the smear of blood there. The intense music played around her, and hit Lucy right in the soul.
It was only Toadswallow, who was catching up, a cloud of nose-burning gas surrounding him, the gas bladder stuck to his hip, and… no Cherrypop. She was either being sneaky, or she’d run off to notify people.
Toadswallow had more gadgets and tricks. That was his thing, maybe. Bluntmunch hit things, Gashwad messed things up, Cherry was useless, and Toadswallow… he knew the tricks, he collected them.
He spiked a wooden box onto the train tracks.
Rats and mice spilled out. Way too many for the box.
They ran. Lucy could see the line of trees and the clocktower above the town center, off to the right. The big gas station, just a bit ahead, and the train station, further up the tracks.
A way further ahead was the train station.
The gas seemed to spur the rats forward. They chased, nipping and seizing at Lucy’s sneakers with their teeth and claws. Which was way more horrifying than she might’ve guessed it would be if she’d been told this would happen in advance. The added weight, the promise that if she fell, they could be all over her…
The tape Brie was playing was pumping her full of vigor and vim and intensity, and the traces of gas that were catching up and overwhelming her were choking her, making each breath harder.
Again, Bluntmunch was catching up. Too big and mean to really give up.
Brie stopped the one tape. The vim and vigor faded. There was only the sour, choking smell that made each breath an effort.
“It’s not that long a track, and-”
Brie clicked the tape back in.
There was an opening sting.
“Crying cold tears…” the tape played.
A man with a bleached mullet, mustache, and tiny denim shorts hurled himself at the biggest goblin.
The track skipped, straining, the volume waning.
Lucy looked back. The man with the mullet flickered, fritzing. Each time he did, he lost a bit of ground, giving the goblin a chance to rise up, or get in position to punch, or a fritz made a punch not land.
But he kept up the fight for thirty seconds or a minute.
Time enough for them to get ahead, put more distance between themselves and the goblins.
The running was hard. Lucy’s legs felt like they were stone, not flesh, and she had to consciously think of the mechanical movements of running, of ways to vary it up slightly so that she could use muscles that weren’t so tired.
They reached the station. A single platform and a train stop that was perpetually under construction. A mural was painted on a sign, welcoming travelers to Kennet.
Stairs led up onto the platform, and Lucy was tired enough she wasn’t sure she could manage those stairs.
Avery, good arm holding her stick, extended the stick down. Lucy gripped it and accepted the help in climbing the stairs.
There were staff here, and as they backed up toward the middle of the platform… Toadswallow and Bluntmunch remained behind. Toadswallow walked over to say something to Bluntmunch through the fence.
The big guy tore the fence with one meaty paw, and Toadswallow slipped through.
Both of them disappeared into a set of bushes that had collected a lot of wind-blown trash and papers.
“We have to keep going,” Avery said.
“How’s your arm?” Lucy asked.
“It’s okay, I think. I know goblins are gross, but I don’t think they did anything special with the screwdriver.”
“Did you get your tetanus shots on time?”
“Yeah. My parents are good about that sort of thing.”
“We have to keep going, or they’ll get ahead of us. There’s not any practical difference between Brie being stuck in the shack and us being on this platform with Goblins in the woods and stuff behind, and John and Matthew on the road out ahead.”
“Get Brie to Zed, yeah,” Lucy said.
“I wore the wrong shoes for running,” Verona mumbled.
Lucy looked. The shoes had scraped the back of Verona’s heels raw.
“I think I heard Toadswallow calling out names,” Avery said.
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Matthew, John, Gui…”
She didn’t say the full name, looking at Brie.
“I didn’t hear, back there,” Brie said. “Gui?”
“They stopped before calling G’s, uh, sorta-roommate,” Lucy said.
Lucy went on, “That means Matthew and John, and they’re racing up this way. The goblins might be telling them where we were and where we’re headed…”
“They’ll be on our trail,” Avery said.
“We’re running out of tricks,” Verona said. Snowdrop was clinging to her shoulder.
“We make do. I think the sooner we go the better our chance,” Lucy said.
But they headed on, pulling off masks, hats, and scarves. The connection breaking diagrams were gone, like they’d never been written, now.
“The truck. If they get close, or if they have guns, the red button-”
Verona had notecards that Snowdrop had picked up. “The jammer.”
“Good,” Verona said. “It’s something, and we don’t have a lot of somethings for those two.”
They weren’t really in a state to run, so they half-jogged, half-speed walked, across the gravel lot that was at one end of town.
Past that gravel lot was the motel. And at that motel-
Goblins. Other goblins. Snatch, and a weirdly smooth pink one that gave off the vibe that his entire body was like some baby’s bottom, and a snarly one that ran forward on all fours, not loping but running.
“Damn damn damn,” Avery said.
Verona and Lucy didn’t have the breath to join in on the cursing.
Brie had the keyboard. She smashed it into the back window of a car. Setting off a car alarm. Gunk flowed from the keys on the keyboard to the glass, to the car interior.
Things clawed their way up through and past the gunk, out of the shadowy parts of the interior. Skinny, long-fingered…
She smashed again. The car alarm wailed.
“Wait!” Verona shouted. “Are those goblins?”
“They’re gremlins, Zed told me. It’s in the notes!”
“They look like goblins!” Verona shouted, between huffs for breath.
The little guys moved around the car like monkeys could move through trees. Swinging down, sliding. They were scrawnier than even Gashwad, with bigger heads, and lots of little weird bits, like a bike chain wound into, under, and out of skin, hooked up to a ticking gear wheel that made the chain move, and one with tech pushed under his shoulder, with various blinking lights shining through pallid skin. One was naked and had decorated itself with the unfoldy bits of an umbrella in a way that left Lucy unsure if it had had male or female bits, before.
The ones that had been under the car emerged with bits of the car undercarriage held as weapons.
“Crap crap crap crap crap,” Avery said. “We can’t leave it like that. Go ahead, I’ll use the rope.”
“Get them!” Brie told the gremlins, indicating the goblins, who were moving through the gravel lot.
The gremlins charged, weapons ready.
More interference, more distractions… but it didn’t feel like enough. Bluntmunch was there in the rear, swiftly catching up. Others looked better at fighting. The snarly one was fast, Snatch was brutal, each punch with her metal-decorated hand pretty much dispatching a gremlin.
“This way, I think,” Brie said.
There was a tunnel that let cars that were passing east-west go under the highway and access Kennet. That was the way. A single sidewalk on the far side of the street allowed passage through the same tunnel.
Bluntmunch picked up two of the gremlins that had overwhelmed his minions, then hollered in their faces.
He dropped them, and they scampered back.
He pointed, and they obeyed.
That was part of his deal. Bossing goblins around. Having that clout.
“Well, we gave them more troops,” Verona observed.
“Sorry. Zed didn’t say anything about that.”
“Having any second thoughts about this whole thing?” Lucy asked. “Because man, you shouldn’t have stuck your nose in this.”
“No second thoughts,” Brie said.
There were no cars coming. They were free to cross to the sidewalk. They entered the tunnel.
Cars passed by, and the goblins didn’t follow.
“What’s your story? You seemed pretty okay with biting that goblin,” Lucy said.
“I had to help you. I… the devouring song, the reward is you have no more obstacles when it comes to eating things. It makes it all easy. I thought I’d weaponize it.”
“That was your first time doing that, then?”
“I mean, aside from the night I won.”
“We lost a kinda-friend because of what you did,” Avery said.
“I’m sorry. Really. I- it was horrible. It changed me. I still dream about it.”
“How? Why?” Lucy asked. “How’d you win when you couldn’t walk?”
“Zed gave me tricks. Roller blades, weapons. I put my leg-stumps into the roller blades, used a bit of a prosthetic leg to do it with the one where my leg wasn’t long enough. They let you bring in whatever you want on your eighth night. But I think whatever you do, you leave a big part of yourself behind. Zed gave me support after, let me forget the worst of it for moments. Let me feel a bit like me again. That’s why I owe him. It’s why I have to finish this.”
“Why would you even do it in the first place?”
“I have- had pica. I don’t even always consciously realize I’m doing it, when I eat things. Thumbtacks, screws, pop can tabs- so many pop can tabs, and batteries. You know that zone you get into, when you’re snacking, and you don’t even realize you’ve been eating until you reach in and you hit the bottom of the bag? It was like that. Treatment didn’t work, from age fourteen to nineteen. And I poisoned myself, with metals in my body. Long-term damage. Then the ritual landed in my lap.”
“And you’re better?” Avery asked.
“No more organ damage, no more weirdness, pretty sure. But better?”
Brie laughed. A rueful chuckle.
“No. Imagine cutting out your heart to fix heart disease. And magic keeps you alive. Your blood doesn’t pump, you don’t feel the fifty different things connected to your blood, but everything else keeps on going. Like that. But it’s eating. Intake. Fueling your body. Everything is working great and… it feels wrong. Zed said I could lead a normal life, act like I had the body I had before, and innocence could take over again. Or I could dive into this. I have to stop other people from suffering like I suffered. Leave the door open for anyone who truly needs it, keep the gift I got as my reward going, so I don’t die. But… there need to be more barriers to entry. We have to be able to control who does the ritual, so stupid kids and others don’t get into it.”
The goblins still weren’t following.
“Let us negotiate with Zed,” Lucy told Brie. “And we’ll see about working on that.”
More cars passed through the tunnel, briefly illuminating things. Still no more signs of trouble. The road was one-way, so there was no way for Matthew or John to follow.
They emerged into sunlight, and it was bright.
“This way. Off to the side.”
They took a shortcut, stepping off the road.
Through trees, probably intended to block the noise of the highway for those scattered houses to the north.
The road here was dirt. Flowers and tangled greenery and trees on either side.
And Guilherme sat at the side, his back to a tree.
“Big,” Brie whispered.
The three of them stepped back as Guilherme rose smoothly to his feet. His long hair draped his face.
He bent at the waist and picked up a spear from the grass.
Lucy reached into her pocket, and pulled out the firecracker. She’d taped a match to the side, and pulled it free-
Guilherme casually tossed the spear underhand.
The firecracker disappeared from Lucy’s hand, impaled.
“Nearly hit us, you git!” a goblin complained.
They were being followed by the goblins. They’d crossed through a goblin tunnel or something.
“Duty to Kennet compels me to stop you,” Guilherme said. He moved his head and his hair slipped off his shoulder to frame his face more. He looked down at them with deep green eyes. Shirtless, muscular, wearing pants with a kind of kilt over them, belted in place three times over. “But I’ll stop you my way.”
“What’s your way?” Verona asked, wary.
“A duel. With the losers agreeing to concede when they recognize defeat.”
“I don’t suppose Zed is nearby?” Avery whispered.
Brie shook her head. “City limits are a ten minute walk away, and he can’t come in.”
“A duel is kind of silly, isn’t it?” Lucy asked. “You’re so much better…”
“We’ll make it fair,” Guilherme said. He paced. “One on one. You pick your champion. I’ll waive all deals and conditions about harm for this. You can bleed me, if you’re good enough, and if your champion draws one droplet of blood out of me, I’ll surrender.”
“This is so stupid,” Toadswallow called out. “Just grab ’em!”
Avery, Verona, Brie, and Lucy all backed off the road, into the shade of trees.
“You couldn’t get them your way. Don’t tell me how to do things,” Guilherme said.
“It’s still an unfair fight,” Verona challenged him.
Guilherme walked behind a tree. A boy, thirteen or so, shirtless, with the same belted kilt and dark pants tucked into boots emerged. He wasn’t a mountain of muscle. If anything, he was average. Light brown skinned, with his hair long and eyes deep green.
“So stupid,” Bluntmunch growled.
Lesser goblins yipped and jeered from the background.
“Pick your champion,” Boy-Guilherme said. “Or I’ll pick for you and you won’t like my choice. Lucille, Avery, Verona.”
“It’s Lucy, not Lucille.”
“You said Lucille was formal?” Guilherme asked.
“This is a formal duel,” he said, smiling.
Avery was hurt, a wound at one elbow.
Verona was… she was a trickster, not a fighter. She liked her pocket of glamour and spell cards. She had glamour but no spells, and glamour wouldn’t work on Guilherme.
“Me, then,” Lucy announced. Process of elimination. “You won’t hurt me too badly?”
“I’ll keep to my oaths,” the boy-Guilherme said.
She held the hot lead, painful against her upper palm, as it touched her ring. She had another pen in her pocket.
She held it back, stepping a bit closer to him.
“Give him a show!” Verona called out.
“Make him bleed!” one of the goblins with a voice Lucy didn’t recognize called out.
Guilherme smiled. He moved so confidently he almost strutted. Like this, an arena, was what he was about.
“Watch the others,” he instructed the goblins, indicating Lucy’s friends and Brie.
“You watch your face!” a goblin called out.
Guilherme looked so confident.
And she hated herself for thinking like this, but he looked way too cute like this. Crush material. Damn it. Lucy had some sympathy for Avery and how Avery had been tongue-tied around Maricica, now.
“Can you make this fairer?” she asked him.
“You tell me. Make your suggestion,” he said.
“Give up the years of knowledge and training? Put yourself on my level?”
“It’s too intrinsic to me to give up in entirety, but I can give up some.”
He relaxed a bit, hooking his thumbs into the top belt of the kilt he wore. “Scratch me, bruise me, and you’ll break the glamour, and then I’ll be in violation of the ‘fairness’ of this duel.”
She pulled the pen from her pocket, touching it to the ring, and flicked it out to its full length, a four-foot spear, like crystal, with a brassy head and a channel of black running through its core. The hot lead John had given them burned hotter against her palm.
The spear point swept near boy-Guilherme, who turned his body sideways, his shoulder bumping the shaft.
Quickly, he took three steps toward her.
She swung backwards, aiming not to get him with the point, but to hit him at least hard enough to leave a mark, or do something.
He shrugged, head ducking down, shoulder dipping low, and the shaft touched his one shoulder and swept over to the other, dropping down from the weight of the head.
She kicked out as he stepped closer, trying to keep some distance between them.
He brought his knee up, meeting her leg before it could get up to speed. Then, stepping around, setting his foot down, he walked backwards into her, his shoulder bumping into hers.
She twisted, mouth open, biting-
And he walked forward, his hip bumping hers, his leg hooking around hers.
She landed on her rear end.
She huffed, heated, angry.
This was fundamentally unfair, whatever he said.
She could almost call it such, but… she worried there was a trap in that. Especially because it was Faerie-given knowledge, used against a Faerie.
She tossed the spear into the air, and it became a pen. She caught it, slapping it into place so it rested against the back of the hand with the ring and against the palm of the other hand.
Whipping it out, she had a shorter blade. One she could swing a few times in short succession.
He backed away a few steps as the blade passed within millimeters of him each time. He smiled.
She stepped forward, pushing her tired legs- and stepped on something. A stone, a branch, a root.
He stepped in, touched the back of her head, and pushed her down.
Her arms went forward to catch herself before she could crash face-first into the dirt. She felt him grab the back of her top, bunching up the cloth, and held her with both hands, arresting her fall.
It meant she landed without skinning her palms.
She reasserted her grip and thrust at his shins. He stepped onto the blade.
This wasn’t working. She heaved herself to her feet. Something else. Her bag.
She pulled out papers. Probably homework. The hot lead smouldered against one corner of the page as she flicked it out. A large fan, with the letters of whatever had been printed on the paper as a serrated black edge.
“Guilherme, you promised a gift and you didn’t deliver-”
He stepped in close. She stopped, swinging. His wrist crossed hers and redirected the flow of her swing so her hand and fan went over his head.
“I pledge to give you lessons in combat and self defense,” Guilherme told her, calm.
“No- I want you to stand down.”
“I’ve made my pledge.”
She could’ve spat. The words and the movement and the way he fought flowed so well together.
Goblins jeered, mostly in her favor, even though they were on Guilherme’s side.
“Avery’s more the dashing warrior than I am. I’m not sure what I am yet,” she said. “I’m not sure the combat lessons will do me any good.”
Why was she saying this now?
“They won’t do you any wrong. By pledging it-”
She used the fan a few more times, then used the little pen-rotation movement she’d practiced in class in fifth grade to turn fan to pen, then to spear again. As he got far enough away. She jabbed- three times.
For the first time since he’d hooked his thumbs into his belt, he lifted a hand, backhanding the spearpoint away.
He raised his hand, showing her the back of it. A red mark, but no blood.
He smiled, like he was proud. “By pledging it, we maintain a positive relationship. It doesn’t need to be more than that. I have no interest or need for traps.”
“Why are you here? Why Kennet? We quizzed you but I don’t get you.”
“Love,” he said. “The greatest adventure of all. Us Summer Fae do love our adventures, our battles, and our challenges.”
Her heart and head stammered a bit. Fucking stupid traitor mind and body.
“I loved a man and I tested myself, loving him more deeply and more intensely than can be put into words. I’d loved before, and they were my first time loving a woman, my first time loving a man, or dangerous loves, or monstrous loves. There were fleeting loves and important loves. This was my experiment with deep love, and was matched by him. I used glamour to expand my heart to put more into it. He did the same. And then he died of old age. I put myself into exile, to mourn.”
She jabbed, taking opportunity of his opening up to see if there was a weak point. he backhanded the spear again, the point so close to his shoulder she could swear she’d felt the friction.
There was no point to this. It was theater, he was so much better than her.
“The treasure Maricica wants?”
“A letter. Written by the man I loved, to someone else. I kept it because it was his. It’s one moving piece in the midst of a thousand thousand that will see the courts change again. From seasons to something else, though the Winter Court will remain what it is and always will be, the rest of us will adjust, and so will the games we play. Your great-grandchildren, if any, could be dead of old age by the time those moving pieces start moving. But Maricica wants it to be closer to the center of things. It doesn’t matter to Kennet, except that the quietness of this place and the lack of practitioners makes it a good place to stop and think, and to keep away from the more obnoxious Fae who would pollute my mourning.”
“Less talk, more scrapping!” Toadswallow hollered.
The goblins in the background jeered.
“It’s fine,” Guilherme said. He smiled. “I might as well decide this.”
He came in, barehanded. She used the spear and jabbed, poked, swept the point towards him- and he fended it off.
Twirly movement- she switched weapons. The fan, more mid-range. He feinted, moving like he was going to go one way, then taking a step to the side.
She made her weapon a dagger, a knife, gripped upside-down, and he caught her wrist before the blade could touch his collarbone.
She slammed her hand into the base of the dagger, to drive it home, and he stepped back, still holding her wrist.
It didn’t make contact.
“You believe in what you’re doing,” Boy-Guilherme told her.
“Lives are on the line.”
“Good,” he murmured. “It’s good, that you believe that fiercely. Miss picked good people to be our practitioners.”
She tried to get free, and he didn’t let her. From that point, he didn’t let her go, didn’t give her any reprieve. She moved, and he was there, not even letting her get her arm back in front of her without a hand at her bent elbow to limit her movements. A light push at the shoulder. A hand flat against her face, pushing her back. The path had a slope to it, and she stumbled back, goblins scampering and scrambling to get out of the way. She found her bearings, looked at Guilherme, and he was sliding down the same dirt path, down and past her, so he was behind her. He swatted a goblin with a stick, because the goblin wasn’t moving out of her way, tossed the stick after the goblin, then pushed her before she could get her balance again. She caught a branch to keep herself from tipping into the midst of jagged branches and bushes.
He caught her hand, like the other times he’d stopped her from falling too hard, and slipped the ring off her finger, catching the hot lead as well.
He held the sword ring by the point, hot lead sitting in the loop.
It had been nearly cold, anyway.
“Give that back,” she told him.
“Surrender. It’s done.”
“Give. It. Back.”
“I will, when you surrender. Trust me.”
“I don’t think I trust any of you,” she told him. “You assholes. People are dying out there. We have to act. We-”
She thought of Laurie, Avery’s brother’s girlfriend. The activist.
“-I don’t want to live in a world where bad stuff happens and we don’t do anything about it.”
Guilherme didn’t budge. His stare was level.
“You realize, if you don’t work with us on this, if you fight and stop us then-”
“Be careful what you say,” he told her.
“Careful,’ he interrupted.
“We might never forgive you. This might never be okay again,” she told him. Tempering her statement with the ‘mights’.
“I surrender. Whatever.”
He reached out to hand her the ring and hot lead.
She took both, and the hot lead wasn’t even hot enough to burn, anymore. She’d used it up.
She looked at her friends, expecting to see the disappointment, or frustration matching her own.
She stared for a few long seconds.
“Frig, poop, darn, damn!” Toadswallow cursed.
The goblins realized. They gave chase.
Put on a show, Verona had said.
Lucy hadn’t even caught that one, which was probably good, because the Others hadn’t either.
A still image, drawn up in glamour, of Verona, Avery, and Brie, huddled in the foliage off to the side.
The goblins fled. Guilherme didn’t chase.
“You’re not going?”
“They’re there already,” he said, smiling. Then he winked.
No, Verona hadn’t fooled the Others. They’d fooled the goblins.
Couldn’t deceive a Faerie like that.
Lucy caught up. The deal was already underway.
“You’re okay?” Avery asked. Like Lucy, Avery and Verona were wearing their masks again.
“My pride’s a bit stung. The goblins?”
“I took measures,” Zed said. He stood, leaning against his car, which was already pristine again.
Brie had settled in, leaning against the car just beside him. She’d cleaned the blood off her face.
“Can you use it?” Verona asked.
“I can,” Zed said. “I’ll call in help. Do you have a way of getting to Donnybrook, tomorrow night?”
The three of them exchanged glances, then shook their heads.
“Not easily,” Lucy said.
“Me and my acquaintances might try to bind it then. We’ll give you recompense, in exchange for any power or benefit we derive from managing it. Not that I have any plans like that.”
“What are your plans?” Lucy asked. “Sorry if I’m asking something you already went over.”
“I want to curtail it, and when and if I can find a way to separate the stuff Brie needs from it, I’ll dismantle it. Until then, we manage it, keep it small, keep it contained. If the binding works. I give it a seventy percent chance. And if it doesn’t work, with the power I, my teacher, and our acquaintances all pull together… maybe at least you can rest easy, knowing you’re not in a position to stop it.”
“What deal did you make?” Lucy asked Verona.
“For the information on Yalda, the opportunities, our concessions, and for Brie… Zed’s backing off. And he’s agreeing to play fair. He went over the plan. It’s not like, paid access to the Choir or anything. A few other terms. Hopefully the only people who sign up are people who’ve been given other options and who have their eyes wide open.”
“It’s big enough some people are already studying it and using it,” Zed said. “We can’t stop that or what they do, but if we can bind the individual at the core, we should have the most say in how things go.”
It wasn’t as good as stopping it altogether. But…
“And we keep the junk Brie brought in with her,” Verona said.
Lucy rolled her eyes a bit.
The stuff was arranged on a cloth on the ground. A tape player, two tapes, the red button, glasses, a keyboard, a credit card with something red on it, and a flat key with a loop at the end that a finger could go through.
“Thank you,” Brie said.
“You still owe us,” Lucy said. “We really went… what’s the saying? We went the extra mile for you?”
“You too, Zed,” Avery told the teenager.
“Let us know when you’ve handled or done whatever else with Yalda.” Lucy said. “We have questions.”
“Zed’s going to call us and let us ask, when and if things get that far,” Verona said.
“If the ritual’s active, it’ll be another space-”
“My phone works anywhere,” Zed reassured. He smiled. “Don’t worry.”
Lucy nodded. She was thinking of their trip to the Ruins, and the late hour when they’d wrapped it up.
“Good luck tomorrow night,” Verona said.
“I hope I don’t need it,” Zed said. “I should hit the road, if I’m going to be all the way down there tomorrow night. I guess… I hope to talk to you tomorrow, with news of a successful binding. And I’ll see you at school?”
The three of them nodded.
Zed opened the door for Brie, then walked around to the driver’s side. The car started up, humming, and the music started playing. Two figures appeared in the back seat, flickering. Singing along.
The car revved, then pulled out of the rest stop, onto the road.
When the were gone, Lucy sat down on the spot, pulling off her hat and mask. She exhaled.
“We should get home,” Avery said.
“I know, I know. But… I’m wiped. I guess we’re not going? We’re not fighting the Choir?”
“Not unless you want to walk the Forest Ribbon Trail,” Avery said.
“Not it,” Verona said.
Verona took a sitting position, her back to Lucy’s.
With their vantage point on the hill, they could see Kennet, streetlamps and streetlights going on, illuminating the roads, which branched out before them. Each branch with buildings off to either side, porch lights and interior lights illuminating them.
Today would change things. Some would be angry, some would be like Guilherme. On their side, even if not explicitly allowed to take sides. If a Faerie could even be trusted at face value like that.
Which was why she was taking her time heading back. Putting off her return to that.