Author: Wildbow

In Absentia 21.12 | Pale

Next Chapter

Lucy sat in the Garrick’s headquarters, watching through the window.  Guilherme sat in the snow, in the dark.

“Back,” Avery said, as she came through the door.  “Sorry, wanted to check in.  What’s up?”

“If I’m doing this, if I’m going up against every combat practitioner in the area, trying to get a good outcome?”

Avery grimaced, teeth bared, glancing at Verona.

“I want to take stock.  I want to think about what I’m after here.  Who I’m after.”

“Who?” Verona asked.

“Charles.  What does he want?  What doesn’t he want?  Verona wants to target that.  We’ve got this sheet, have you seen it?”

Verona shook her head.  “I sent it to Avery’s phone, which I know isn’t the best, even with Zed helping-”

“I was busy,” Avery said.  She sat down, taking the paper, sliding it to be in front of her.  She nodded a bit as she read.

“Those were some obvious targets,” Verona said.

“Charles is trying to twist the region into being something it isn’t.  We can target those things, we can try to make it harder for him.  But… I guess what I’m trying to figure out, I think each of you guys, you had to wrap your head around the puzzles, right?”

“Puzzles?” Avery asked.

“Verona had to figure out how to make a mess.  Okay.  I have to figure out this.  How do I not get shouted down?  How do I not get torn to a million pieces by Charles or his people, the moment I’m a valid target?”

“He has to follow the rules, right?” Avery asked.

“Kind of,” Lucy agreed.  “The problem we have with him is the same problem we had with the Alabaster.  It looks like they’re coming at things from two extremes.  Alabaster’s too rigid, old, inflexible.  Not changing, not addressing things.  Charles is changing too much, too new, ignoring the rules.”

“But it’s the same problem?” Verona asked, pulling her feet, shoes removed, onto the office chair, hugging her knees.  She looked tired.

“That they aren’t serving the people.  The fact Gilkey was who he was, that the Alabaster wasn’t stepping in to stop the Hungry Choir, that she wasn’t intervening with the kids at St. Victor’s, the fact Charles is doing what he is with those kids… that’s not what the Judges are, right?”

“No,” Avery agreed.

“What was it you said with the Alabaster, way at the beginning?  Before the end of summer party?  The grove of people she cares for.”

“She represents that there’s always a way out.  There’s always someone who’ll help.”

“But she wasn’t that.  The always wasn’t true.”

“Right,” Avery said.

“The way I look at it,” Lucy explained, fingers drumming on her printout of Verona’s suggested list of things to bring up at the sword moot, “is that the Judges, by the Seal, by Law, are meant to be the last ditch option.  Our first conversation with them, they were ‘a court of appeals, a final stop’.  If there’s a psychopomp in the area, they run the whole seeing-the-dead-off-to-the-afterlife thing instead of the Sable.  If there’s an incarnation of Death, they handle Death stuff instead of the Sable.  If there’s wrinkles in the nightmare-scape and Alpeana can wrangle that, she wrangles that.”

“She smooths out other wrinkles too,” Verona said.

Lucy nodded.  “But she has that right, right?  And the Sable’s not in a prime position to go hey, Alpeana, fuck you, I’m going to handle the nightmare-scape.”

“Right,” Avery said.

“Mayyybe if Alpeana’s fucking up or something,” Lucy said.

“But,” Verona said.  “It gets a little tricky.  Because the Sable can say, hey, all you various nightmares and dream-eaters, practitioners invading dreams to manipulate women to date them, omens using dreams to leave vague premonitions before doing the omen thing and making disaster happen, whoever, you’re bumping into one another and getting in one another’s ways… all this dream traffic needs a system of traffic lights, and I’m going to be that.”

“Weird example,” Lucy observed.

“But you get what I mean?  They exist and act where others don’t.”

“The Judges exist for the gaps, as that final safety net, to catch whatever filters past everything else,” Lucy reworded it.

“Yeah,” Verona agreed.  “So someone like Alpeana can handle nightmare stuff, for our example here, and do that as she sees fit, as she’s allowed, she gets karma and sustenance for handling it, yadda yadda, yes?”

“Yes,” Lucy agreed, “that is my understanding.”

“But if there’s a gap in, say, the management of those like Alpeana, they can be managers,” Verona said.

Avery nodded.  “They can be a lot of things, until a Lord takes over, gets automatic say-so over things in that realm.  It’s being handled by the Lord.”

“And if the Lord doesn’t handle stuff, because they’re not paying attention, they don’t have the resources, tools, or raw power to spend, or they actively pass on handling it because they don’t care, but it still happens in the Lord’s territory, filters through, someone needs to arbitrate…” Verona went on.

“Judges do that,” Lucy said.  “Safety net.  The Seal set them up to be that, it seems to be built on something that came about naturally, like Alabasters existed before the Seal.”

“Flowers growing in patches where nothing else grows,” Avery said.  “Necessary part of the ecosystem.”

Lucy nodded.  “It set them up to be arbiters of Law, when everything else has failed.  We got into all of this early on, in our first visits, but I don’t think we clearly nailed it down.  Because what we’ve got, the tricky part, is one massive clusterfuck of practitioner infighting, subjugation of Others, we’ve got what Miss talked about, with deals made at the outset of the Seal that then went way out of control in the long term, giving humanity an advantage.”

Verona nodded.  “I get your drift.  While we’re infighting, and clusterfucking, and making arranged marriages with child brides like Raquel, and exterminating goblins or beating up poor ghouls like Nibble and Chloe who just want to be left alone-”

“-A lot of stuff falls through the cracks, onto that safety net,” Avery finished.

Lucy shifted position in her seat.  They were on the same page.  It felt good.  “The Judges take on so much and do so much and get away with so much it seems like they have an incredible amount of power.  They do have an incredible amount of power.  Musser sets up a series of Lordships, shrinks things down, but all the while, because they can’t smell past their own bullshit, because practitioner society doesn’t recognize or think enough about Others, Charles is sitting back there, catching everything that filters past the Lords, summons up some big Others, and overturns it all.”

“Sounds about right,” Verona said.

“The Judges are meant to be the last safety net, the guys where, if we don’t have someone in charge, they step in.  A lot of the time, that covers Law and the Seal, because truth and karma and gainsaying and forswearing don’t tend to have…”

“Management,” Verona supplied.

“Yeah.  Outside of Lordships, anyway, but that’s not natural, exactly.  Some Others might manage that Law and Seal stuff, or capitalize on it some…”

“Probably most, if you look at it,” Avery said.  “In small, tiny ways.  A ghoul or goblin that minds Innocence does way better than one that doesn’t.”

“Right,” Lucy said.  “And I guess, to pull everything together, the Judges are meant to be the final word, the catch-all-that-filters-past management, the back end.  But because we can’t get our collective shit together, they’re the front-end now.”

“And Charles is pushing everyone out and subverting the idea of Lordships and creating an ecosystem where that stays the case,” Verona said.

Lucy thought back to asking Mr. Lai about ecosystems, and an ecosystem without its judge.

“Missing judge meant, I think, that nobody’s acting as that final filter, other Judges can handle some of it, but they don’t have the tools,” Lucy said.

There was a knock on the glass by the door.

One of the Garrick aunts.

“Am I interrupting?”

“A little,” Lucy said.  “Talking about complicated stuff, would like to stay focused.”

“Is it important?” Avery asked.

“I brought donuts.  Lots of donuts, but they’ll go fast, I imagine.  Wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you very much,” Avery replied.  “We may partake later, when we’re done here.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said.  Verona, beside her, gave a thumbs up.

Lucy turned back to the others-

“Also, by the way,” the Garrick aunt said.

Lucy swiveled back.

“Wanted to let you know now, so you’re not getting interrupted multiple times, the other Garricks are starting to wake up, so it’ll get busier.  People are awake, they’re going through showers, talking…”

“Thanks for the info,” Lucy replied.

“It’s going to be busy soon.”

“Noted.  Thank you.”

“They’ll be able to do the extra shopping you needed as soon as stores start opening up.”

“Yep, we know.”

“Are you sure you girls don’t want donuts now?  The best ones will get snatched up.”

“No,” Lucy said, with an emphasized, “thank you.”

“Nope,” Verona said.  “Can you close the door on your way out, so the others don’t interrupt?”

“You don’t need to be rude.  The donuts are in the next conference room, if you decide you want them.”

The woman left in a huff.

“Ugggh,” Avery groaned.  She turned, looking outside.  Lucy looked too.  Snowdrop was stomping through snow, gathering up snowballs, while approaching Guilherme.

Avery swiveled back around.

“I think we’ve been talking around this without nailing it down,” Lucy said.  “How we dealt with the Alabaster, our tactics with Charles, preliminary strategy for the moot. Charles handles the backend, he’s the last port of call for spirits and Law, but if we can get out ahead, handle the front-end, set up established pattern and like… rule of discourse, but not discourse, specifically…”

“Get everyone agreeing,” Avery said.

“Get everyone agreeing.  Like, if enough people agree that a certain use of a word makes a sentence not a lie, then that’s the Law, basically, and Charles has to spend power to override that.  Power he shouldn’t have right now, with the new Alabaster putting him in debt.”

“So that’s a workable strategy,” Verona said.  “Using the sword moot to throw fifty things at the wall, a lot of which Charles can’t ignore, because it’d undercut him or force his hand on issues.”

“Or if he ignores one or commits to something elsewhere, he runs the risk of not being able to steer things any,” Lucy said.

“Downside?” Avery asked.

Lucy and Avery talked at the same time, using different words to say the same thing.

“You’ve got to get enough people onboard.”

“I’ve got to wrangle those assholes.”

“Miss Wint, you don’t-”

“Mrs. Wint.  I am married.”

“You don’t have any authority to direct these proceedings.”

“We should wait for everyone anyway,” Lucy said.

“I have enough authority.  I’m on one of the largest councils in the Carmine domain.  We’ve held our own just fine against him while being respectably powerful practitioners in our own right.  That should count for something.”

“To be honest,” Charles said, “I haven’t bothered much.”

“What’s the saying?” Ann asked, turning to Deb.  “Walk softly and carry a big stick?  We’ve kept a sufficiently low profile while carrying very… big… sticks.”

She purred the last few words, while smiling in a sly way.

America, breath fogging, hands in her pockets, said, “When you talk in that sultry way while talking about sticks, it makes me think you’re bragging about carrying around ridiculously large dildos.”

“It wasn’t sultry.  It was confident.”

“Potato potatoh, dildo vibratoh.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with having a cavernous vag you could hide a puppy in,” Liberty hurriedly interjected.

“And you are?”

“Liberty Tedd.  That’s America.”

“And here I thought the Tedds were a respectable family.  Are you from a sub-branch?”

Grayson Hennigar scoffed lightly.

“I assure you, my daughters are worthy of respect, and are hardly from a sub branch,” Anthem said, as he joined the discussion.

“You’re Anthem?”

“I am.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ann said.  “I do think we were getting sidetracked.”

“You talked about your big ‘stick’ with a sultry voice,” America said, “it’s really your fault.”

“How are we doing?” Anthem asked, glancing Lucy’s way.  “This is you?”

“Us three,” Lucy replied, quiet.

“The message I got came from a goblin, quite excited and out of breath.  I don’t think I got all the nuance.  What do we need to do here?”

“For now, wait,” Lucy said.  There was a dramatic advantage in that too, or- more accurately, there was a reason she didn’t want to get too deep into things.  She knew Charles, she was wary of his approach, and his big thing was stepping in to drop some bombshell.  He couldn’t do that here, but he did have underlings.

The St. Victor’s kids were hanging back.  Like they knew things hadn’t started up in a serious way, yet.  A few of the teachers were with them.

“There’s advantage to getting some things out of the way before we’re a mob instead of just a crowd,” Grayson said.  “Early birds, as they say.”

“I don’t disagree,” Ann said.

“What we’re doing is crucial because of the voices it includes,” Lucy said.  “Terms of war, for the warriors.  If we don’t include people, we weaken the entire effect.”

“We don’t have to finalize anything, we can discuss and figure out the groundwork.  If they’re late, that’s on them.  Procedural penalty, without harming the entire thing,” Grayson said.  “You yourself suggested a term limit.”

“I just got that out of the way because I didn’t want to forget, and it was fresh on my mind.”

“Well, I’ll say now, I don’t want to forget, I think we need a point system, based on our contributions to the greater system, and our ability to fight.  Say, a hundred points of voting power to the most powerful, ninety-nine to the next most powerful and so on.  If we can’t agree on total power, we can take it to the dueling arena.”

“A system that naturally rewards you?” Ann asked.  “I assume by ‘powerful’, you’re talking about family size, money?”

“And other resources.  Contacts, influence on the local, regional, and global scales.  Something I know you don’t have, Wint.”

“How would you arbitrate that?” Mr. Mele asked.  The Battle Puppeteer from Montreal.

“There are rituals the Hennigars and Mussers use to measure an individual’s worth.  A distant cousin comes from a trip around the world, we weigh the scales.  Incarnations such as Affluence, Riches, and Influence give their keen insights, and give us a numerical value.  Lay that into the stage,” Grayson said.

“There are so many things wrong with that idea,” Lucy said.  “The basic idea, to start, the fact you know the ins and outs of this system, the idea of rating people-”

“Then do you challenge me?” Grayson interrupted.

Lucy stopped.

“Isn’t that the idea here?” Grayson asked.  “We should fight it out where possible.  You asked for that.”

“Lucy.”

Lucy turned her head, looking at Anthem.  He scratched his right cheek with his left hand, mouth hidden from view as he talked.

“Grayson Hennigar doesn’t lose duels.  Even I would be hard pressed.”

Yeah.  That was a snarl.

“Think about it for ten seconds,” she told Grayson.  “The way a Judge works, they fill in for incarnations that aren’t present.  If you put this in place, the Carmine or Judges friendly to him probably gets to stand in for Affluence, Riches, and Influence.”

“If you do this, Grayson,” Charles spoke, his voice still with that growly texture.  “I would favor you over Lucy Ellingson.  At least for the first engagement, on this matter.”

Lucy clenched her teeth, tense.

“Tempting,” Grayson said.  “Give me something, Ellingson, I’ll consider backing down.  Or back down, yourself.  Seems like you’d place highly enough in my rating system.  My impression is you three girls inherited a great deal of power when you decided to whore out your services for the Others of this nothing town.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grandfather said.

“Connections, a powerful little town, you stood up against the invasion.  You could be top ten, in the number of votes granted.  That’s not nothing.”

“For a nobody coming from nothing, it’s a good set of moves,” Abraham Senior said.  “You’ve set up infrastructure.”

“It’ll be taken away from you the moment you rest,” Grayson said.  “The moment you let your guard down, the moment you’re weak.  But for now, you place.  I say… seize on that.”

Charles’ voice cut into the proceedings.

“She can’t.”

He had a presence that even the stronger fighters didn’t.  The stage was his.  There was an ownership in the space that they’d granted him, as part of this.  Like a choir in their church.  Like a singer at a concert that everyone had paid to be in the audience for.

The wind stirred Charles’ hair, beard, and the hairs of the crimson furs he wore.

“More like won’t,” Lucy told him, glaring, speaking because she didn’t want to let him have too much presence, unanswered.

“Can’t and won’t.  You’re cut off from this town.  You’ve been failing in your duties to it.  Its power, wealth, and connections are all in a fragile state I would not recommend trying to capitalize on.  Perhaps Grayson’s right.  If you could place according to his proposed ranking system, it might be a good idea to seize on the chance.  But you wouldn’t place.”

“From the Judge himself,” Grayson said, smiling slightly.

It felt like so many eyes were on Lucy, now.

Nobody from nothing?

She hated that, but she didn’t know what to say in response to it.

“You’re making stupid, small moves,” Lucy told Grayson.  “The situation?  An entire region that’s a nightmare to live in?  Lords chasing us out?  Others having to obey or flee?  You guys are setting the future on fire to be rich in the now.”

“But we’re rich and powerful in the now,” Grayson said.  “It would be foolish not to seize the moment.”

“Carmine.”

It was the old man speaking, again.  Abraham Senior.

“Yes?” Charles asked.

“What do you want?  We’ve already taken my people out of the area, we’re situated elsewhere.  My family’s allies are doing something similar.”

“We are,” Grayson said.  “I’ll open up the same question.  As I see it, you win, Carmine.  You get your region, I’m open to dealing.”

“Was this part of the plan?”

“Shh, the Carmine can hear all words spoken.”

“It wasn’t, was it?”

Eyes from the people in the periphery flashed as they looked at Lucy and Anthem.

Lucy held back her words, waiting, hoping to see an opening.

“You assholes,” America Tedd growled.  “You come here and you pull this?”

Abraham Senior replied, “We’re not alone.  I’ve spent much of the past twelve hours talking to others.  The reality is the reality.  Moving has been costly for all our families.  Moving back would be just as much.”

“It’s a cost we can pay, mind,” Grayson said.

Abraham Senior dipped his head in acknowledgement of that.  “It is.”

“You, the family who swears their lives to War, are backing down from a fight?” Lucy asked.

“We’re deciding that the costs outweigh the rewards.  The Hennigars are not two dimensional caricatures,” Grayson said.  He considered a moment.  “Not all of us.  There are other fights, more rewarding, than a dull and likely fruitless campaign against a stand in for War herself.”

“The arithmetic of it is different for the Mussers,” Abraham Senior said.  “But the sentiment holds true.

“When we were saying everyone needed to stand up to Charles, you picked a fight with us instead,” Lucy replied.  “Now you pull this?”

“Not quite how I remember it,” Grayson answered.  “We had a solution, you didn’t like it.”

“Subjugation,” she named that ‘solution’.

“Security,” Abraham Senior retorted.

“Cowards,” she said.

“We’re not, and in fact, I’d be willing to take that to the dueling arena,” Grayson said.  “I have a great many things I’m intent on arguing here, and I don’t plan on backing down.  I am willing to enter the arena to fight for those things.”

Mrs. Ferguson had arrived and stood by, watching.  Lucy wondered what she was thinking.  Because Mrs. Ferguson had pushed hard for the inclusion of the Mussers and Hennigars.

Not that they had intended to leave the Hennigars out.

“Second time I’ve offered the duel,” Grayson said.

If I refuse a third time, that’s liable to count.

Lucy waited.  There were possibilities.  Two floated.

If she opened her mouth again, and if he challenged her again… she’d be trapped, more or less.  Either she’d have to back down and cede clout, or she’d have to fight him and probably lose.

Guilherme had lost and he’d been her main teacher.

“Wint?” Grayson asked.  “You were so vocal before.  A duel?  Or do you accept my suggestion, a presumptive ranking of everyone present, weighing the scales, giving everyone a vote proportionate to their strength, and we carry that forward through the moot?”

“All things in order,” Charles answered.

Again, that presence.  All ongoing debates and conversations stopped.

“Some goblins are demanding my attention for a contest they’re having,” Charles said.  “That will have to wait.  It’s not important, even if it is something I have to eventually handle.”

He glanced at Lucy.

“…An annoyance I’m sure the Kennet practitioners arranged, to tie me up in bureaucracy.  I have to do things in order.  So, top priority, first question at hand?  Abraham Senior, Grayson Hennigar?  You wanted to know what I want?  Take yourselves somewhere private where nobody has to see, and fuck yourselves.”

Lucy had had two floating options in mind, for how they’d handle this entire thing, and Verona’s tactic of antagonizing Charles was one.  Charles the man.  Charles who deeply resented the practitioner families.  The Belangers, the Mussers, the Hennigars, the Graubards, and it went on, all down the list.

Would Lucy have been flabbergasted if he’d taken their offer or agreed to work with them on some level?  Not flabbergasted.  But she knew the cracks and weak points were there.  Maybe there would’ve been an opening, a way to set them against one another.  Maybe they would’ve avoided leaving any gaping weaknesses but still would’ve distracted each other.

She didn’t know.  She wasn’t a Fae, she wasn’t capable of reading things on that level.  But she could recognize them as factors and look out for them, as much as she would any injury in a duel.

“Be reasonable, Carmine.  I’m saying you’ve won,” Grayson said.

“I’m aware of where I stand, I don’t need to take your concession or your offer to work together with the glee of a sugar-starved child being offered a chocolate bar.  You get that from the Songetays and their sort.  Reasonable?  I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.”

“Has the Carmine role consumed you then?”

Charles shook his head.  “The man who took the role, Charles Abrams, is the one saying this, you sword-humping dolt.  Even in the days I was new to this world, finding my niche at its edges, seeing your magic schools, your people with their great talents and accomplishments, I never thought much of you, Hennigar.  And after everything I’ve experienced, being Forsworn?  After everything I’ve seen of you, filtered through that experience, being Carmine, with a view of so much of you and how you operate?  I think less.”

“You could seize everything.  It’s in your grasp, right this moment,” Abraham Senior told him.  “You can take your dominant position and solidify it with our power on the outside.  We can help keep people from entering, from the outside.  Any point you’re trying to make?  We could take it to the ears of people like London, Paris, Rome, or Japan and we can speak your intent in their language-”

“-the languages of money, power-” Grayson added.

“-and we can make it sound good to them.  All we ask for in exchange is a working relationship.”

Charles shook his head a bit, scoffing, and turned, pacing to the arena’s edge, back to most of them.

“I’m reminded-” Lucy started.

“Are you going to be a Judge or are you-” Ann started to say.

“Charles,” Ferguson spoke out.

A jumble of voices.

Frustrating.  A frustration Lucy had hoped would sit more on Charles than on the rest of them.  A lot of this was frustrating.

“Lucy.”

She turned her head, saw Grandfather, who’d murmured her name, Guilherme standing next to him with arms folded, and followed their gaze.

Killwagon.  Arriving at the perimeter, stopping.  A few Others sat on top of the wagon, hopping down.

The walls and roof of the wagon collapsed, falling to either side like an unfolded cardboard box.  Except here, the inside of the box was a whole mess of torture devices, weapon racks, cages, and other tools.  All of the cages were occupied, the table with the needles poking up from beneath had two Others sitting on it.  The Milkmaid leaned back against a weapon rack.

“Ambush?” Mr. Songetay asked.

“Not really possible here,” Lucy said.

The ‘bottom’ of the wagon fell out, and the sound of clanking machines filled the air.

The Others approached, and because the way to the stage wasn’t especially clear, they stood on the shore, looking over the water, standing at railings.  Many were Abyssal, others were the Named and the Heroes, Lucy had briefly met them at the market estates, where Avery’s acquaintance Gilkey had been.

This was the second of the things she’d been looking out for, when Grayson was threatening her with a duel.  The first had been that she knew Charles hated what the established practitioners represented.  The second was this.  That Others would come.

Then, as if it had been planned all along, that they’d undercut that, the St. Victor’s kids and teachers made their approach, crossing the bridge to join this.

You’re not combat practitioners.  Not all of you.

It was only the Dragonslayer and screamy Abyssal guy who’d come.  Joel and Lenard, if she remembered right.

Was that one of Charles’ reveals?  That she’d come and the practitioners would start trying to get on Charles’ side?  Now the Others would come, and the abyssal ones would reveal they were with Maricica?

People were distracted enough studying the new arrivals that there was a gap.

“I’m reminded of the lessons we were taught at the Blue Heron,” Lucy said.  “I feel like some experienced practitioners here need a refresher.”

“Oh do we?” Ann Wint asked.

“Know your enemy.  Study first, then act.  I don’t think you guys get what the Carmine Exile is about.  Like, you looked up the Carmine Judge and the rules for Judges and you stopped there.”

Charles went from watching the approaching Others to looking over one shoulder, draped in its Carmine furs, meeting Lucy’s eyes.

“Enlighten us?” one of the Montreal practitioners asked.  A Mr. Neumann.  Abyssal scourge.

“Yeah, he’s a Judge, but the Judges act on certain principles.  The Alabaster is meant to represent that there’s always a way, always a helping hand, a place to go.  Without that, stuff gets screwy.  We were screwy, we were screwed, for a while.  Maybe that changes with the new Alabaster.”

So many eyes were on her.  So many ears were listening.

“The Carmine represents another principle.  It’s a bit of a counter-principle to the Alabaster.  It’s also complimentary.  The way they’re balanced against one another, they play off each other like that.  The Carmine represents, as I see it, the idea that you can always be threatened, there’s always something with more teeth, to eat the vulnerable and complacent.  Something to need sanctuary from.”

Some people glanced at Charles.

“I think that’s why he got some of the leeway he did.  Because a big, glaring issue we’ve got, is too many of you, of us, aren’t afraid enough of the costs.  So Charles gets to go, hey, look at these arrogant assholes, trying to take over Ontario, looks like I’ve got a job to do, help me out.  Look at these families with their riches and entrenched positions, time to flip that table.  Emphasis on the flip, I guess.”

“More or less,” Charles chimed in.  He was facing the group now.  The position of the St. Victor’s kids put them at his back.

“Predator and prey,” Lucy said.  She looked at Charles.  “You’ve been the hyper-vulnerable.  You’ve been the one who preyed on others, when you were a criminal.”

He shrugged one shoulder.

“And in keeping with the role you’ve taken, you’re twisting everything around, so everyone who was on top is on the bottom?”

“Or gone.  I thought I’d spook them, at first, then get removed.  But here I am, and they’re begging me to cooperate with them.”

“Which you won’t.”

Charles scoffed.  “I’ve got a set of fairies interested in getting my attention now.  The queue grows longer, you wanted my hands metaphorically tied, they are.  In the interest of moving things along… Grayson, Abraham Senior?  You’ve made me an offer, I’ve extended my counteroffer, for you two to go fuck yourselves.  Do that before reaching out to me again, I’ll hear you out, and I’m very suspicious I’ll tell you to go fuck yourselves twice as hard.”

Ann clicked her tongue.

She startled slightly as Charles turned his full attention to her, eyes wild.  He then turned to Grayson.

“As for the duel between Grayson and Wint?  It has been offered, it has not been accepted.”

“Can I interject?” Lucy asked.

“Anyone with a claim to the sword can,” Charles said, with an energy about him now.  Like he’d been holding back and now she’d called him out.  “It’s what you’ve set up here, isn’t it?  Hurry it along, the goblins seem to want my attention with what I’m guessing is going to be a violent fart contest, they keep calling for me.”

“The Alabaster.  I don’t figure everyone here knows how we removed her.  When we created the regional spirit… the idea was we’d represent everyone.  I’d like to do something similar here.”

“A regional spirit?  With a Carmine slant?” Charles asked.  “A hard ask, but doable.”

“No.”  I’m not that dumb, Lucy thought.

A regional spirit with a Carmine slant would be pretty much everything Charles was setting up, with the churches of bloody glory and the undercity stuff.

“Out with it, then.”

“Let others in the region lend their support.  Those here, mainly, but also anyone who couldn’t come.  A share of their strength to whoever they back, in any of the duels.  With a cap, a limit on what each participant can offer.  Keeping to the ideas of the Carmine, if I’m more or less on target… Let the strong fear the majority, if they upset them enough.”

“You know, I was already working on that,” Charles said.

The undercity philosophy you talked about, Lucy thought.  Where some of the vulnerable can dig deep enough to find a kernel of strength and rise up.  The undercities in general.

“Is this your game, then?” Grayson asked Lucy.  “You brought these Others here to tip the scales?”

“They’re part of the majority you don’t want to upset.  Even a king has to worry about the peasantry revolting, right?  Why should you be even farther out of reach than a king?”

“You’ve made your proposal, but it’s my right to challenge you on it, isn’t it?  A third duel?” Grayson asked, smiling.

There it was.

“You won’t win.”

Anthem murmuring, behind her, barely audible without the earring.

“It’s the same damn riddle that came up with the Alabaster,” Charles said.  “To decide how a duel is weighted, we need to have a duel.  And around and around it goes.  Difference being, it’s not on me to work my way out from under it.  As arbiter, I judge it.  I decide how this works.”

“And how does it work?” Mrs. Ferguson asked, from the sidelines, with a vaguely amused air.

“The duel can happen, if both participants agree.  It was posed as a question by Grayson and not accepted by Lucy yet.  Lucy fights for the rule to gain strength from backers, so as she counts coup, the rule takes effect.  Grayson fights for the counter-rule.  If he scores a hit, draws blood, seizes the advantage, he weakens the force of that rule accordingly, and gains… what do you want, Grayson?  Karma?”

Charles sounded so annoyed at having to ask and supply Grayson what he wanted.  Not that he was in love with helping Lucy either.

“I’d fight for the vote.  For the weighting by power and authority, counting in votes and in duels.  Let wealth and contacts be more raw power,” Grayson said, arms folded, pacing.  “My rule against hers.”

“Then that would be the effect.  A tug of war.  We start at neutral, then whoever has the advantage puts their rule more into effect.”

“It wouldn’t have to be Lucy, would it?” Anthem asked.  “Fighting?”

“No.  If you thought you could fight for a specific rule better than she could, you could step in.  If you disagreed with her about who was best able to fight for the rule, you could duel over it.  That is what you wrote down, isn’t it, Lucy?  The rules for this moot?”

Lucy nodded.

So he’d read the papers Verona had written up, or used his awareness to pick up on conversation to gather that much.

“Give us a moment to confer,” Guilherme said.

“As I said, we’re in a hurry, there’s a growing queue.”

“I am charged with the protection of the first guardian of Kennet.  If you wish to rush this, this can quickly devolve into a nested series of duels over who is most capable, and how to handle things.  We’ve scarcely begun.  Give us a moment to consider and organize, we can avoid that tangle.”

“Hm.  Have your huddle, then.  I’ll see to the goblin contest, it shouldn’t take long.”

“And you’ll be right back?” Lucy asked.

“As I must, apparently.”

The Carmine disappeared.

Guilherme put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, leading her to the very edge of the arena.  There was no railing, and it was a steep drop to the water below.

Others drew nearer too, to listen.  Anthem, the Tedds.  The goblins, Grandfather.

Across the shore were others.  More practitioners ventured closer to listen to what was being said.

“What you say next will tell me how much you’ve internalized my lessons,” Guilherme told her.

Which was a really convoluted way of saying ‘tell me what you’re thinking’.

“Hennigars are Gore-streaked.  They sign on to War, Death can’t claim them, curses can’t, they shrug off everything so long as they can keep fighting.  Problem is, in a duel, you can’t walk away from the fight.”

Guilherme didn’t interject so she kept going.

“Every battlefield has its rules.  Something greater you’re fighting for, morale, position, meaning, personal growth, blah blah blah.”

“I cannot tell you how glad I am of that ‘blah blah blah’,” Toadswallow said, from the shore.  She hadn’t spotted him.  “Shows you haven’t been huffing too much of your mentor’s glamour.”

“Love you, Toadie,” Liberty said.

“Put what he says aside,” Guilherme said.  “The Carmine laid out the rules.”

“And the rules exist in relation to me in relation to him, and in relation to the ‘blah blah blah’ stuff,” Lucy said.

Guilherme looked unimpressed.

“Gore-streaked means endurance.  Means it’s a knock-down, drag-out fight.  It’s, with the rule, there’s a chance, I feel like, that I score early coup and my rule comes into effect and if I’m right and if people resent the Hennigars more than they side with them, that’s an even bigger upper hand than I could hope for.”

“Sounds like the first strike matters,” Grandfather said.  “He hits you first, his rule comes into effect, you hit him first, your rule happens…”

Lucy frowned.  She looked at Guilherme.

“Last hit matters the most,” she said.

Guilherme gave no indication he was pleased.  That was pretty much his thing, now.  The kind words were rare.  She was forced to guess, and she guessed he was satisfied with that.

She carried that forward, explaining, “Seems like I can’t ever finish because he probably won’t concede, he won’t succumb to curses, pain, madness, he doesn’t die.  He’d keep coming at me.  I’d guess I could use words, hack at his connection to War, talk about how he’s too chicken to fight the Carmine.”

Grandfather said, “And while you’re doing that, if you’ve gained any kind of lead, you can lose it all if he gets a good hit in.”

“Basically,” Lucy agreed.

“It’s not likely to work,” Anthem said.  “He has enough of a relationship with War that you couldn’t- you couldn’t easily get him to exhaust it.  And as much as he has endurance on his side, it’s not how he fights.  He fights like a man with no reason to hold back.  Don’t expect him to be slow, don’t expect him to be patient.  He is an impatient man who suffers no cost at all for rushing.”

“Maybe you sit this one out,” Grandfather said.  “Pick a champion?”

Who could she even pick?  Guilherme had lost to Grayson, apparently.

“Weaken my point?  Our position?  All of Kennet’s?” Lucy asked.

“That is the situation you seem to have created.”

“I told the others I’d handle this.  I want to handle this.  I-”

She looked past Guilherme, at the combat Others.  Kennet Others had come too, and stood on the shore, watching from the sides.  They looked worn out, tired.  Miss was there- she didn’t look anything, because Lucy couldn’t see the parts of her that’d suggest much.  But she’d seemed different.  Freak and Squeak were there.  The lesser goblins.  Melissa.

Melissa wasn’t an Other.  But still.  She held Cig.

Bracken.  Mal and Raquiel.  No Alpeana, but it was daylight. No Nibble and Chloe.

There were others.  People from the Undercity.  Foundlings.

Tired, like they hadn’t slept.

She turned, and she looked over the St. Victor’s group, standing at the edge on the opposite side.  Rook stood on a rise above them with Hollow Yen.

Lucy didn’t love that.

Grayson wasn’t using the time to confer.  He drank something- she hoped it wasn’t a potion.  It didn’t look like a potion.  If he’d talked, her earring could have picked something up, about his strategy.

“I’m a guardian of Kennet.  I’ve been away, I feel like I should try,” she said.

Grandfather looked like he wanted to say something, then didn’t.

“Thanks for looking after my mom.”

“Don’t say stuff like you’re saying goodbye,” Toadswallow said, from the shore, still in earshot.

“Good idea,” Lucy said.  “Don’t want to give the spirits the wrong idea.”

Then, because she wasn’t sure she’d be heard without shouting, and she didn’t want to tip Grayson off, she pointed into the crowd.

Raquel looked around, seemed to consider crossing the bridge, but that would have been awkward, and would have brought her close to Abraham Senior.

Instead, she pulled out a needle and thread, and dangled it, thread at her fingertip, needle at the same level as her toes.  It touched water and froze it.  Even with it being ice, with the river water running over the surface, her feet didn’t slip as she walked over the bridge she created.

Lucy met her at the edge, crouching, as Raquel stood at the base of the ‘stage’ that was in the middle of the river.

“What do you need?” Raquel asked.

“Abraham Senior.  How tough is he?”

“Strong.  He still has items he took once.  But he’s old.  He uses alchemy, I think, to stay limber, exercises.  When he reached a certain age- not actually very old, he passed things on to my uncle.  So the Mussers would be represented by the best.  The idea was he’d pick a heir in a little while, same deal.”

Lucy nodded.  “Can I hate him?”

“Everything my uncle is, my grandfather’s just as bad.  He made the Musser you know best.”

“Are you thinking of changing who you fight?” Grandfather asked.

“In a way,” Lucy said, straightening.  “Any items or practices to watch out for?”

“He’s got strong Names.  For a while, back in the day, if he beat someone badly enough, he’d take someone key from their family line- past, present, or future.  That stopped when big families started getting more protective with their bloodline records and stuff.  There’s the gas mask, releases spirits that take over vapor and smoke, guard him.”

“Well,” Lucy said.  “Damn.  Which vapors?”

“Anything difficult or toxic to breathe.  It produces its own smoke.  He’s got a bell, it disturbs practice.  There’s a syringe hammer, gives terminal disease to his enemies in exchange for benefits to him.  The homunculus jars.  I don’t know what to say except expect homunculi.  And the stopped clock.  That’s big.”

“What’s that?”

“Starts ticking the moment there’s any threat to him, lets him know, and fifty-seven seconds later stops time for twelve seconds.  He can act, nothing else can.  I think it does a number on him after, but yeah.  He can more than make up for it by whacking someone with the syringe hammer a few times.”

“Where does he wear it?” Lucy asked.

Raquel tapped the space over her heart.  “But I wouldn’t count on being able to shoot it or break it.”

Lucy nodded.  “And Grayson?”

“Mostly swordfighting.  He carries a bow that collapses down.  He knows enough practices that he can turn back most of what he stops with his main when he screams.  Don’t underestimate simplicity,” Raquel said.

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “Two on two match.”

“Is that what you’ve decided?” Charles asked.

He was back.

“I was going to keep talking, double check I had someone willing before-”

“Two people opposing you- the head of the Hennigar family and the Musser elder.  Two on two makes sense… unless Abraham Senior wishes to stand down?”

Damn it.  He had not overheard her.  He’d used his Carmine sense and now he was pushing for this.

Either way, he won, right?

“Want a rematch?” she asked Guilherme.

“I believe I see a light in Anthem Tedd’s eyes,” Guilherme said.

“Did you force that belief into existence, to try to spark something within me with those words, or did you actually see it?” Anthem asked.

“You tell me,” Guilherme said.

“I’m rusty,” Anthem said, rubbing at one shoulder.  He shucked off his winter coat.  Then he looked at Lucy.  “This is okay?”

She hesitated.

“It’s okay to say no, if you’d rather it was someone you trusted more.”

“It’s not that.  I don’t want to get on your kid’s bad sides.”

“Whatever’s fine.  So long as I- Miss?”

“What is it?” Miss asked, from the shore, far side of the frozen bridge Raquel had made.

“Give me a cut on my sentence if I help out here?  With how things are, it’d be nice to go home, make sure things are secure.”

“You murdered a great many foundlings.  You attempted to kill me.  We can talk about a temporary, probationary release.”

“I’ll take it.”

“A talk, not a guarantee.  Do well by Lucy.”

Lucy walked toward the center of the arena.  Anthem followed behind and then sidled up to stand beside her.

“We were friends,” Grayson said.

“Yeah, we were.  But I’ve had time to think, and the way things have gone, there’s been too many tears, too much struggle.  I think I mistook the feeling of triumph for feeling good.”

“Pithy,” Grayson replied.

“I thought so.  We gave it a shot, Gray.  Got our best together, marched, fought.  Shot missed.”

“So you’re a sore loser?  Your magic bullets finally missed, and you’re going to give up?”

“You say that when your plan was to come here, capitulate, attach yourself like a canker to the edge of the Carmine’s domain, have your ‘working relationship’?”

“Always stay moving, Anthem.  Always stay on the offensive.  Can’t make a dent here now?  We move on to other targets, regroup, think, gather resources and information, then try again later.”

“I’m not surprised,” Charles said, from the sidelines.

“Fuck, man,” Grayson addressed Anthem, with a slight drawl.  “They really fucked you up.  Did you donate your nuts to charity before this or is that on the schedule for later?”

“If I’m donating my nuts, it’ll be a posthumous gift to a museum,” Anthem said.

“After I kill you, I can make that delivery with all the necessary care and ceremony.”

Why do these things always get a little bit gay?  Lucy thought.  She thought about Liberty and America teasing Ann and Deb.  Or sexual?

“No death and dying,” she told Charles.  “As a rule for the duel.”

“I assumed.  Fine.”

“The duel will require the weighing of the scales beforehand,” Grayson said.

“I’ll skip that if you skip my side of the tug of war.”

“Hmm?”

“The way it worked before, I assume, is if I had coup, the system of being backed by others would affect us both.  But if you had coup, the system of having sway, weighing on the scales, karmic benefit, it’d affect us both too.”

“Less you, with the Carmine saying you have little to gain.”

Lucy nodded.

“Candidates to the opposite sides of the area.  I will secure the space,” Charles said.  “No death or dying will occur as a result of any deathblows, but curses and other effects may persist.  Instead, death will be approximated, the candidate removed.  No interference from outside parties, the barrier at the edges will be obscured, to stop messages from reaching outside or inside.”

Lucy and Anthem walked to the far side of the barrier. Guilherme clapped a heavy hand on her shoulder as she walked by, encouraging.

“Do your weighing.”

Grayson Hennigar spent a moment drawing on the stage, in a space that had opened up, a circle attached to the inner ring, which was about twenty paces across.

She saw wisps of the forces looking in as the diagram lit up- like holograms, almost, just the parts of the affluence and whatever else that faced that circle, everything else about them invisible.

“You have a plan?” Anthem asked.

“Help keep me alive while I get going?” she asked.  “Then I need a moment of coup, advantage.”

“They’re going to make it hard.”

She nodded.

“You realize the setup, they make a damn good pair?  We’re forced to rush a conclusion with that clock Raquel talked about, but we can’t, with Gray being who he is.”

“Yeah.”

“So long as you know.”

Fifty-seven seconds before that watch triggered.

“I’m going to lean on you pretty hard at the start here.”

“That’s fine,” Anthem replied.

Charles stood at the one end of the area, outlined with a faint line on the ground.  Lucy and Anthem stood together, looking across the circle at Grayson and the older Musser.

The old man was burly, as old men went, in a different way than Guilherme tended to portray himself.  He wore a heavy, long jacket, and was pulling things out from inside it.  A belt of jars with what looked like fetuses curled up inside them, which he clipped to his left shoulder and right waist.  The mask, gold, fitting over nose and mouth.  He exhaled and gas vented out the sides.

He pulled out a rod from his sleeve, and then reached inside his coat for two hole-studded domes, which he affixed to the top, creating a sphere.

Syringes protruded from the holes, radiating out in every direction, with various green, yellow, brown, and combinations thereof inside the glass parts.

Then he pulled out something- the watch?  No.  It looked like a badge.

After he pressed or adjusted something, tubes protruded from it, snaking along his arm, up his body, and up around his neck to plug into the gas mask.  It attached to a point in his chest, in the backs of his hands.  It connected to the hammer, and as it did, something that looked like a bag for a blood transfusion plopped itself down, dangling from the point where the long pole met the syringe-studded orb.  Black fluid within.  The syringe fluid bubbled and darkened.

More black ichor surged in the tubes, and where they pumped fluid into his body, veins bulged out and turned black.  The tubes connected to his mask made his head jerk, and he made a faint snorting sound that Lucy only heard with her earring.  The gas coming from the mask turned black.  The fetuses in the jars writhed, moving, turning from pink to translucent white, as the fluid around them turned the color of water with more than a few drops of black ink in it.

“That’s the tubes-”

“Enough,” Charles interrupted.  “You’ve had your time to confer.”

“-Connects things,” Raquel finished.

“Step inside or forfeit.”

Lucy put her mask on.  “He gets to set something up, I get to set something up, it’s only fair.”

“Step inside or forfeit.”

“He’s still getting ready.  Give me a circle that feeds into the arena.  Like he has.”

Charles moved a hand.  A smaller circle with a faint glowing line surrounding it formed a few steps from the main circle, connected to it with a line.

She drew out the card with the duelist mark, touched it to her mask, and then cast it down.

The pinks and reds of her arena effect spread out, filling that circle, tinting the line.

“When I’m granted power by my rule, empower that,” Lucy told Charles.

“Sure.”

She walked through.  So did Grayson.

A moment later, Anthem and the old man exchanged nods, stepping through at the same time, the old man exhaling heavily, creating his fog.  Anthem with hands in his pockets.

The gunshot came from right next to Lucy’s right ear, making her wince.  Hands in pockets, but- that was a feint. An illusion.  Grayson started forward, walking right into the incoming bullet.  Each gunshot that followed, just as loud, was right on target, taking the uppermost portion of Grayson’s head clean off, going right down the line of brow, throat, heart, solar plexus, gut.  With each shot, more of the illusion broke away, showing that he’d had a gun pointed at Grayson the entire time.

The seventh shot from the six-shot revolver was aimed at groin, but by that time, the older Musser’s smoke had reached Anthem.  A narrow black hand reached out, blocking the bullet from making contact.

Lucy used her glamour.  Her own smoke, of a sort, spreading out.  Winter glamour to create her foxes.

Grayson gurgled, and the gurgle became a groan, blood bubbling up from mouth and throat, and the groan became a scream, and the scream got louder and louder.

Blood that bubbled up was frothing out in sticky, rope-y spurts, and the ropes lashed out and reconnected, and formed shapes.  Filling in the damage done, before wicking or crumbling away, to show flesh intact and normal.

“Gehen.”

A command word.  Grayson surged with strength, and with what looked like a single step, still healing, screaming again, he crossed the space that would take Lucy twenty running steps to get across.  He twisted in the air as he did so, drawing his sword, descending from that single forward movement and rotating, drawing the sword and cutting in the same motion.

Anthem used the gun he was holding to block the cut, but momentum was momentum, and he and Grayson slammed hard into the barrier, Anthem with his back to it.  Grayon’s sword cut into and through the invisible barrier, point protruding through, a blur of burning watercolor visible, like Lucy’s Sight saw, without her Sight on.

Lucy hurried, passing the dog tags on chains to the five foxes she’d created.

No glamour, no goblin stuff.  Maybe it was foolish, doing it this way.  But she knew Grayson had beat Guilherme, and she didn’t have faith in the distraction created by a slime packet or stink bomb.

Third path.

Grayson leaned into the handle of his sword, using the generated leverage to try to behead Anthem.  Anthem, two hands gripping a six-shot revolver, used the piece of metal and arm strength to keep the sword from meeting his neck.

Lucy drew and threw a spell card, generating a burst of flame against Grayson’s back.

“Care-” Anthem grunted.

She heard.  The footsteps were heavy.  The old man wasn’t fast or graceful, and was a few paces away.

She was grabbed well before he was due to reach her.

Black smoke condensed down to narrow black hands with narrow, long, pointed fingers.  They grabbed at her, holding her, thrusting her back against the barrier as well.

With a kind of lazy ease, the old man did a two-handed swing to drive that massive syringe-studded hammer at her midsection.

She dashed away glamour with a movement of her hand.  The ‘her’ that was held by the black hands wasn’t really her.

No cup game.  She’d distributed the tags and things, and among them had been the one with the weapon ring, John’s tag, Yalda’s ring, and her house keys.  The glamour around that fox was dashed away in the same moment her other body disintegrated into dust.  The syringe hammer slammed into the barrier, glass and needles breaking.  It pulled away with thick black fluid stringing between hammer and invisible wall.  New syringes sprouted, pushing out the broken ones.

Grayson pushed himself away from Anthem, still holding the handle of the sword.  He drew a fresh blade as he moved, his momentum helping tug the blade free and away, for a long, arcing slash at Lucy.

One he abandoned mid-motion.  He drew a fresh, narrow blade out of nowhere, spin turning into a lunge.

Her house key became trident, and she parried, asserted her grip, and broke that narrow rapier-like blade with a twist of the trident.

She pressed the attack, turning trident into a shorter blade, which he fended off with his broken rapier.

Anthem shot him twice from the side.  Which made one parry weaker-

Feint.  Lucy backed off instead of capitalizing on it.

He didn’t need to parry.  He didn’t need to defend himself.

Grayson was getting shot repeatedly, and as he let out a groan of a scream, eyes animated, blood bubbled, and wounds disappeared, veins standing out all over his body.

Glass bottles with fetuses in them broke against the barrier, the homunculi plopping down to the ground.

Anthem against the old man now, Lucy against Grayson.

He came at her, holding the same sword he’d used against Anthem.

“Stark.”

The word was said under Grayson’s breath.  He moved, swinging the sword with too much ease, now.

She treated it like she would a meteor coming from the sky.  Or trying to dodge raindrops.  Stance, flow, angle respective to other things.

She saw Anthem find a break away from shooting the homunculi and tearing away from clawed hands to aim at Grayson’s back.

She used the weapon ring and what had been the trident, then gladius, to create a stiletto dagger.

The bullet hitting him from behind made Grayson stumble forward, and she stepped inside the reach of his arm and sword, both of her hands gripping the handle of her blade.  She stabbed not to kill or stop him, but to make the mechanical movement of arm and shoulder difficult.  Blade inside shoulder joint, pressed in deeper with the heel of her hand against the pommel of the dagger.

Dog Tagged Foxes converged from all directions, seizing his legs and one arm with teeth.

He punished her by smashing his face into hers.  Knee into her chest.  Elbow followed, then a kick.  Casual, easy, and she knew what she was doing and saw what he was doing and she couldn’t easily stop it.

She held onto the weapon, trying to use that leverage to swing herself sideways instead of falling and being right where he wanted her, with a sword ready to finish her off in a single downswing.

He barked out a violent sound, and the blade broke.

At the same time, the pointed tip broke off her weapon ring, where the styled sword inlaid in the top stuck back toward the back of her hand.

Hurting, she made herself breathe.

He didn’t let up, though.  He came at her, and the only saving grace was that Anthem was still finding the occasional moment in the thick of his fight against Musser Senior to fire off a bullet.  Half the time, it felt like she was as surprised as Grayson was, as he stumbled her way unexpectedly.

Her earring caught the sound.  The ticking of that clock Musser Senior was wearing.

How long had it been?  She hadn’t been keeping time, she hadn’t measured it.

Her time had to be half up.

Grayson came at her again.  Even recognizing she needed to find a moment to make something happen, he wasn’t letting her.  He didn’t stop.  The back and forth between them wasn’t much of a forth for her.  She was pressed back, kicked, shoved, her every movement controlled and pressured.

Black smoke still roiled at this end of the battlefield, where Musser senior had started.  She saw glimpses of clawed figures moving through it.  Figures made of that smoke.

She didn’t have a good way to counter or use that.

Spell card to flash-

He roared, tearing forward past it, eyes dilated to pinprick pupils, teeth bared with saliva stretched between them.

A bullet to the side of the head made him slam into the side of the barrier.  She found a moment to back a few paces away.  She narrowly avoided tripping over a reaching hand of black smoke.  Then Grayson was already on top of her again.

Another slamming sound came from the other side of the ring.  Anthem was fighting two armored men.

She seized the small chance she had, gesturing.  Foxes leaped onto Grayson, to weigh him down, to require a word from him, asking for strength, or speed, or something.

He started to speak and she interrupted it with a spell card.  He blocked it, but the card exploded into smoke, choking him.  He made a growling sound through it, ignoring the worst of it, but growling wasn’t saying a key word that made him strong enough to cut her in half.

More foxes.  She gestured.

She was still cornered.  Grayson with three or four foxes tearing at him and his ability to say some word or another for a boost was probably more than a match for her alone.  Musser senior figured Anthem was occupied enough by two of the summoned heroic figures that he could focus on cornering Lucy.  His mask vented black smoke, and the smoke creeped along the arena’s edges, reaching up to find the smoke her spell card had made.  It converted it to something black, with reaching hands inside.

Grayson found the edge he needed.  One fox was cut in two.  It fell.

The fallen tag hit the ground, Lucy turned and moved, and the tag became a soldier.  She heard the boots hit the ground.

Grandfather, gun in hand, opened on Grayson first, then Musser senior.

Black hands of smoke blocked the worst of what was aimed at Musser Senior.  Protection on his clothing blocked the remainder.  It stopped him from slowly and implacably marching toward Lucy though.

Kept him close to Anthem, who cut one of the heroic figures in two, shoved the other aside, and opened fire on Grayson- at least until that hero recovered enough to come at him again.

There was no space in this arena.  Less with the smoke.  Less with Grayson being essentially invulnerable, unstoppable, and insanely strong or fast or whatever else if he was free to say a word.

Claustrophobic.

That was their strategy, and it was hitting her on both a strategic and emotional level.  That the smoke pressed out and made it so the barrier at the edges was like an unfriendly crowd in a schoolyard fight.  Getting pushed up against the ropes, you’d get clawed at, jabbed, pulled down, torn at.

Hammer and anvil, Lucy thought.  And as much as Musser Senior had a literal hammer or mace or whatever it was, he was setting up the anvil in this idea.  Grayson, hard hitting, fast moving, and relentless, was the hammer, driving her into the anvil.

The world past the invisible wall was blurred.  She wanted to see past it, to see some sign, some encouragement from the outside.  Some clue that would help her figure this out.

“Go all out,” she told Grandfather.

“All of you-”

Grayson came for her again, and there was no rescue.  The claustrophobic feeling mounted, she didn’t have great tools in hand.

She remembered Guilherme, patting her hard on the shoulder.  Hand reaching back, she grabbed the winter glamour he’d put there, and twisted it into a fox shape.  The fox formed in the same moment it closed its jaws on Grayson’s face

The bell dinged.

She heard it with her earring, and heard how special the sound was.  The barrier around them weakened.  The glamour-made foxes lost their strength.  Grayson stumbled slightly, throwing the half-formed winter glamour fox aside.

Her vague smoke-sight stuff and other runework inside her mask dipped in strength, and her vision obscured.  Only her earring really stayed effective.  Grandfather was still there, but the foxes with dog tags around their necks were barely holding themselves together.

She saw the bell.  Fixed to the bottom end of that mace, a black tube feeding into it, dripping black ichor.

Grandfather aimed and shot at Grayson.  Then Musser senior.

Who wasn’t affected by the bell.  The black hands were still there.  All of him was still in perfect form.

She had only her training, without glamour, without fancy fae stances or other practice-based tricks to complement her abilities.  She ducked low, beneath that syringe hammer, as he swung it for her.  By ducking low, she went straight into the clutches of those smoke-made hands, who grabbed her to hold her still.

Grandfather hauled her out and almost threw her away, before getting smacked across the side of the head.  Syringes stuck in and broke off, and that didn’t count the fact the hammer did damage like it was twice the heft of an ordinary sledgehammer.

Lucy scrambled, reaching for foxes, hands moving.  Shaping glamour.  Getting them into better shape.

The bell’s effects were receding, but a lot of the damage done hadn’t faded.

He’ll do it again, as soon as he thinks it’s advantageous.

Grayson stood taller, making a ‘haaaahhh’ sound as if it extended his scream.  He healed all the bites the foxes had managed to get.

There wasn’t enough time.  She could hear the ticking, still.  She had seconds.

Lucy knelt, hand out to her left, resting on one fox’s back.  Hand out to her right, on the other’s.  Another prowled between her and Grayson.  That would be Doe.

She fixed the glamour with fingers moving through fur.

“All out.  Hold nothing back.  None of you.  Spray now and ask for forgiveness later,” she told them.  She pushed them forward at the same time she pushed herself back and away.

She hurt.  Being kicked around.

Grayson came forward with none of the caution ninety-nine percent of the population would normally have against a group of snarling foxes.  The foxes went at him with none of the caution an animal would normally have in the face of a bigger, snarlier predator.

So they got him, and he screamed, and he got them, and the glamour broke, and they became soldiers.  Doe rolled to the ground, landed on her side, and didn’t even get up before she was aiming and shooting.

Mark was still young, but had matured slightly since the end of summer.  He’d come to them without a face and in the course of patrols supporting Kennet he’d gained eyes.

But he’d always been the second best marksman.  Thus the name.

He didn’t spray and pray so much as he picked off key shots.  Shattering knee, shattering spine.  Grayson ignored both, stabbed him, then flung his body into Lucy, who fell.

One of the homunculi had landed in smoke, and hidden from view, had swelled in size.  Now a bodybuilder, naked and vaguely malformed, he lurched up and out, grabbing Lucy and Mark.

She cut his hand, breaking free- twisted away, and found herself in Grayson’s way again.

Just… chaos and noise and no fucking opportunities to breathe or act.

This would’ve been high pressure if it wasn’t four of them in this one contained space.  As it was, it was too much.

Grayson stabbed her in the arm, and she let it happen, because not letting it happen meant a less serious injury, that would pin her against the barrier, and leave her exposed to whatever came next, and she couldn’t say that Anthem would get a good shot off to buy her a second, or that the Dog Tags would be able to do anything to slow Grayson down.

She heard the sound of a metal sheath, and she felt the tremble beneath her feet.

She’d sparred with Anthem, between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  She’d had some lessons, but mostly she’d talked to him about the little things.

She knew this tool.  He’d offered to loan it to her with so many caveats and penalties if she broke or lost it that she didn’t want to take it on.

He’d used it against her.  A giant blade sprung out of the ground, forming a flat barrier between her and Grayson.

Grayson stepped around it, and another came out from the side.

It bought her maybe two seconds.

Two seconds to take stock.

Her foot kicked out, heel sliding hard into the spatter of liquid that had come from the alchemy jars.  Probably fucking up her winter boots, so they’d smell like semen and afterbirth until the sun went out.

But liquid touched the watch she’d strapped to her ankle, and the one and a half seconds of time became a bit more.

Giving her a chance to see two injured Dog Tags, Ribs focusing fire, literally, on the older Musser.  Grandfather preparing to attack Grayson.  That’d be another second of distraction.

Anthem had beat both of the heroes or names or whatever they were that the old Musser guy had called, and as two naked, totally hairless bodybuilders with the faces of five year olds came tearing at him from either side, and black hands reached, he found an opportunity to buy her this.

Spell cards.  She reached for the bunch.  At the same time, the world in slow motion, she saw Musser senior adjusting his grip on the syringe hammer.

Her fingernail clicked against the spell cards she’d strapped together.  With her earring, she knew one card, she could feel it through the spikes of her earring, as much as she’d feel the vibration at the end of a tuning fork from the handle.

She’d asked for an opportunity to act, so here it was.

Spell card flung out.

Abraham Senior’s hand slapped the end of the hammer a moment after the spell card touched it.

No bell.  A flicker of that pink-orange on the ground, as her arena found a bit of purchase.

Spell cards.  She took a whole pinch of them, with a few more from near the other end of the stack and she prayed Avery hadn’t mucked around with the order any, even though she knew Avery hadn’t, she’d double checked.  She needed this.

Twenty or so spell cards came out and scattered, and touched ground, and fifteen spell cards erupted into fire, with a few more feeding that fire with air runes to draw air in.  The ground around them had more coup.  Probably, with the dramatic effect of the slow motion, everything she did had just a bit more.

Giving her, just for a few moments, this arena.  Painting things in her colors.

Ribs got her cue, and instead of focusing on Abraham Senior, who was fending off the worst of it by turning the smoke of the flamethrower into a barrier that could ward off it’s flames, he lit up a good share of the arena with liquid flame, adding those flames to hers.

John had told her that Dog Tags worked well together.  Black Dogs like Yalda countered binding and stuff, made it dangerous to attack the Dog Tags willy-nilly.  That a Dog Tag could be bound, but Blast Dogs or Hot Dogs, or whatever Black and Ribs were called would be a good counter to that.

That they could confer and offer a protection to their allies.  A Blast Dog could set a fire, and the Dog Tags would wade through those same flames without suffering as much as they should.

She had runes against steel drawn on her, and she had runes against fire.  A bit of lopsided protection.  Another incremental advantage.

She and her Dog Tags could handle the heat in this frying pan.

“Doe!  Musser!” Lucy called out.  “Hold him back!”

Doe sprinted.  No hesitation.

Anthem went after Musser Senior too, cutting down one homunculus on the way.

Grayson screamed, not caring about the fire.

Lucy moved her hand, touching the wall with the back of her closed fist, other hand gripping a blade.

Tick tick tick tick.

And she was out of time.  She heard the clock hand hit that final notch.

So she stood still, in flame and smoke that was being corrupted to be clawed hands.  The others did too.  Doe hadn’t reached Musser Senior.

Grayson was marching toward her, and froze mid-stride.

She was aware of it all.  They all were.

The old man wasn’t fast on his feet, but he was steady.  He had to circle around Doe to move to Anthem, hefting that hammer that gave terminal diseases to those it hit.  His breath hissed in the silence.

Hissed, wheezed.

He changed course abruptly, backing away.  Reaching into a coat pocket, he pulled out chalk.

Chalk sounds marked the side of his mask as he drew a crude, quick rune.  As he did, the colors of Lucy’s arena shone through the fire in a more dramatic way.

The twelve seconds were quickly spent, as he advanced forward again, shadow hands clearing away waist-high flames from the flamethrower and spell cards, now hurrying.

“Grayson!  Count coup!” Musser Senior shouted.

The effect ended.  Lucy moved, angling her shoulders to indicate her target, as Bubbleyum had taught her.  Basic battlefield body language, necessary to understand for cooperation and for feints.

She stabbed the homunculus that was tackling Anthem as Anthem went for Grayson.

Dog Tags focused on Musser.

The homunculus was a powerhouse, and she was driven back.  Maybe it didn’t even have a heart where she’d stabbed it.  It made baby sounds at her, blood in its mouth, and shoved her away.  She went with it, rolling, and runes on her body went hot as fire around her landing site was pushed away.

The rune against her mouth was hot too.

The arena was at least fifty percent fire at this point, and fire burned oxygen, and she had her claim over the arena.

She’d had oxygen supply worked into her mask for a long time, as a result of her using smoke as often as she did, so she had the oxygen.

So now everyone else was suffering.  Musser senior had drawn an air rune, Grayson was making an increasingly strangled scream, and Anthem was gasping, while avoiding the fire.  The Homunculi were losing momentum fast, and the Dog Tags, at least, were doing okay.

She threw spell cards.  Air ones.  Each one fed fire, and pulled away from what Musser Senior was using.

But he was strong, he had some supply, still.

The fight was becoming that endurance battle, now.  They’d passed that one deadline, suffocation too much a threat for Abraham Senior to ignore,

She had her arena.  She had her rule.  A share of power from everyone who supported what she was after, here.

Which meant that the arena was more hers, which meant she could shift her feet, and tilt the disposition of this field, so the heat was biased toward the one end.  So that fire didn’t reach Anthem, but oxygen did.

Every spell card she threw now was a bit more coup, a bit more advantage.  A bit less air to the enemy.  More to Anthem.  A bit less effectiveness for Musser Senior’s rune.

Grayson didn’t have the air to scream or use key words to grant himself strength, and with three Dog Tags on him, now, he wasn’t free to draw anything or use any tools.

Anthem shot him, and Grayson gasped out, groaning out the last reserves of air, a promise to battle.  Then threw two of the Dog Tags aside, pinning Doe against the barrier.

But Musser senior wasn’t moving much.  His chest heaved, and the rune he’d drawn was fading out.

He sat down heavily, wreathed by black hands that warded off the worst of the fire.

“I can keep going.”

The words were growled, uttered without proper air, in Anthem’s ear, as they crossed blades.

Musser senior raised a hand.  Black hands reached out of darkness, grabbing a badly injured Mark.

It barely mattered, when Lucy, Grandfather, Doe, and Ribs were able to cross this battlefield.  Runework on Lucy’s body made the fires part before her.  Dog Tags didn’t really care.  Ribs least of all.

Them and Anthem against Grayson.

“It’s done,” Charles said.

Fire and everything else was extinguished.  Her arena banished.  Glamour flaked away.

The sky seemed so painfully bright.  Even with runes shielding off the worst of the smoke, Lucy’s eyes teared up, stinging with it.  With sweat.

So many eyes were on her.  She’d forgotten they were being watched.

She tried not to let on how sore she was as she walked over to where her bag was.  She dug out one of Verona’s healing potions, uncapped it, and drank some.

“Good job,” Anthem said.

She pulled the potion away from her mouth, wiped the rim, and offered him some.

“No,” he said.

“Thanks,” she told him.

“You suffocated and burned my dad,” America accused, from the side.

Lucy nodded.  She checked Anthem.

“It’s okay.  We won.  I’ll mend.  Don’t get mad, ‘Meri.”

Charles cleaned up the remains of the mess and the two residual ritual circles with waves of the hand.

A lot of that had been Anthem.  Keeping pressure off.  She’d fought a fighting retreat for a lot of it.  But starving them of oxygen and the ability to effectively scream had been her intention.  A dick move to do it to Anthem, America wasn’t wrong, but… a win, yeah.

When he was done, Charles faced everyone.

“By these rules, your power in duels and arguments can be weighted by public sentiment, for you or against you,” Charles said.  “You will not be given more votes for having power or money.”

Lucy wondered how much public sentiment had been backing her right at the end there.  Who was on her side?

“I expect for this next part, you’ll want to decide how to proceed.  If nobody objects, I’ll see to a fairy conflict that is, like this one, going to distract me,” Charles said.  “I’ll return as soon as I’m done.  You decide what your next key point of debate will be.”

He didn’t sound worried about being tied up here.

“That sounds fine,” Ann said, because nobody else had spoken up.

Another pause as Charles departed.

Eyes were on Anthem.

On her too.

Anthem looked at her, and she almost choked on the potion she was chugging.  She hurried with swallowing it and wiping excess away from her upper lip.

“Let’s go by the points raised in the papers we handed you when we came to talk to you,” Lucy said.  “Let’s talk about the process and new restrictions for awakening kids.”

They were listening to her some, now.  Nobody interrupted, or went out of their way to argue.

Probably, that would come later.

Especially because the snare being laid here, in papers that the St. Victor’s kids and teachers hadn’t been given, was that they’d collectively invalidate the half-awakening that the St. Victor’s kids had undergone, that let them back out if they said the right words.

They’d probably argue about that, yeah.

Holding up my end, you two, Lucy thought.  I hope you’re managing okay with the Aurum.

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter