Author: Wildbow

Hard Pass – 22.1 | Pale

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Verona, painted the color of slate with glamour, decorated with dead lichen, crouched by the rocky outcropping of Kennet’s shore.  She watched carefully to see that the Abyssal explosion at the edge of the trees where Avery had disappeared wasn’t creeping too close to her.

For all that they’d been talking about how they were compatible, there was one annoying incompatibility that she should have expected.  Avery liked to run.  So was it really a surprise if they did a thing together and Verona had to run?  Ugh.

The stretch of shore she had to cover on foot was smaller, but she was slower.  A lot of the people had moved off, going after Avery, but there were still a few.

Verona used glamour, aware of her diminishing reserves.  She had only what was in the tiny little containers, barely bigger around than the circle she could make with thumb and middle finger touching, three-quarters of an inch deep, and she really only got one, maybe two uses out of each.  Sometimes it could be recycled, or even return more than she’d started with, but that required a few things to happen.  Mainly that she get lots of attention and have the time to scoop it out of the air.

Not so possible when dealing with undercity denizens and Abyssal zealots with guns.

Glamour, bam, ta dah, flourish, scoop, bam bam, dead.

The biggest issue was that she was waiting for the go-ahead.  So it wasn’t just about finding the right time to run for it, she wanted verification from Avery.  So she had to stay ready, hands moving as she prepared, hoping she had another minute, hoping it wasn’t so long that she lost focus and ended up screwing up in sudden panic…

She’d used up high fall and dark fall glamour becoming the wind, she was holding onto the high summer glamour for later, including the extra Avery had passed her, and she’d used dark spring glamour for fine detail in making a fake self decoy.  Winter was pretty much exclusive for cat transformations- there wasn’t much else she was willing to lock down just yet.

Leaving her with dark summer and high spring.

She needed a distraction and she needed a clear route forward.  She was working on a larger spell paper, using one of the big sheets from her sketchbook that was more square than standard issue.  Fire, mist…

Dealing with this crowd?  Better to have something with a dark summer slant for the distraction, high spring for her getting out of here.

She leaned over the paper with the fire rune, whispering, “slings and arrows, snarling dogs, draw their fire, make war’s fog.  Meet the water, then fly high, turn their heads with trumpet’s cry.  A bright flare, in winter’s eve, an imminent attack, they’ll believe.”

Good enough.  It just needed to know what to do.

Some of the men had flashlights, attached to their guns, but they didn’t really need them.  She and Avery had spent the day claiming Aurum territory while Lucy was arguing her case, and the sun had set, but there was a mostly full moon, and there was some illumination from past the hills, which snow and water reflected out.  Kennet and the brightly lit ski hills she wasn’t in a position to directly see.  It was about half as bright as daylight – the flashlight beams were reserved for lighting up the spots where bits of the mostly slate shore went high and cast shadows, or around trees at the edges.

She folded the paper and the dark summer glamour grew around it.  It looked like plant at first, then formed an outer shell.  Verona held a finger on the paper until she was sure that it wouldn’t unfold and escape the shell.  It formed into a small, fist-sized skull with four eye sockets and small horns at the brow, a faint glow of a small candle within.

Dark summer wasn’t her vibe, but she could appreciate the aesthetic.

She needed to get herself clear.  Still waiting for Avery’s signal, she put that aside, washed her hands in water, and began working on the other illusion.

High spring wasn’t as confrontational- if anything, it was the opposite.  The work that was possible with high spring glamour was high end and detailed, but fragile, and the standard rules for glamour were exaggerated.  So it was good to have a tell.  Turning invisible wouldn’t be as effective as something where she could pull something off and-

Verona, Verona, Verona.

-be able to laugh later about how the other person was a fool.

She moved fast.  Gestures for light, drawing out the shape.  She didn’t have long, but Avery thought that people were as far away as they’d get.

Flashlight beams shone onto rocks and snow, and there were a couple of fires the patrols came and went from, and Verona had to judge as best as she could when nobody was clearly looking at her.

Another Abyssal explosion in the trees turned heads and for a moment, there was no extra light near her.

She stood, rearing back, and hurled the dark summer projectile out toward the water, where visiting practitioners had docked their ships.

Then, not hesitating between motions, not using the hand she’d used to throw because it had the wrong kind of glamour on it, she finished the light glamour, drawing it around herself.  Making it oblong, suggesting direction-

She hid herself within a stray flashlight beam without an owner.  A patch of light without a source, darting across ground, scanning the darker patches.

The dark summer glamour hit water.  Then it cracked audibly.

A flare went high, with shouts, a firework volley of burning projectiles coming toward shore, and the barking of dogs.  The smoke from the flare billowed out.

And Verona moved, miming the back-and-forth sweeps of light in the confusion.  Responding gunfire went over her head, and people shouted, heading toward cover.  Toward her, that same rocky outcropping she’d been crouched beside.

A bullet hit the ground near her.  A burning projectile from the direction of the flare hit ground too.  She dodged both, trying not to look too obvious.

She wished she could have used a connection blocker, but she wasn’t sure if that would muck with the whole plan.  If nobody recognized her to see that she was covering certain ground, then it might not count that she was crossing the shore and helping to close this circle.

She reached the woods and stopped, waiting until no light was near her before she shrugged off the light beam, collected a pinch of winter glamour from a pocket, and drew out cat shapes in the shadows where the beam of light from the flashlight was darkest.

Into the woods.  She was tired, and she figured the act of running around as a beam of light wasn’t necessarily easier than running around as a person.

Here in the woods, it was darker, but it was dark in the way that didn’t help her out much.  Consistent darkness at least let her relax, shift vibes, but as long as she was moving, she strayed from shadow into moonlight and back again.

Sight on for the night vision aspect of it, she checked the coast was clear, double checked, triple checked, and then started to move forward, when she was forced to suddenly crouch as someone she hadn’t seen started moving.

Her bracelet was still and quiet, and she felt like she needed four different contingency plans, if the bracelet started acting up.  Run this way, run that way, barrier, spell cards, depending on what direction they came at her from and how intense the attack looked.

She traced a quarter-circle around the perimeter, or planned to, but she stopped when she saw a large campground of soldiers in a clearing, with a large shape moving through it.  Crimson blood painted near-white flesh…

Verona had the option of going out, further from Kennet, circling around, while keeping tabs on Maricica, or going toward Kennet, and she chose the latter.  It meant less walking, but it also meant a bit of an uphill climb.  She wanted the view of things from above.

She was only partway up the hill when she saw the perimeter on the far end of that same hill.  The same area with Long and Borrador.  An orange light raced along the barrier, flaring when it crossed a shrine, like it had to push back or it was doing something.

And it stopped relatively close to Verona.  The flame intensified, and then dimmed, and as it dimmed, it was the Girl by Candlelight.  The echo nature of her was obvious, but wax and heat shimmers rolled off the tattered parts of her, and there were parts that seemed a little too sharp and clear, like the eyes.  Dark and burning.

Creepy.  Sad.

Verona stepped over into deeper snow, standing in the trees, and drew a line between herself and the Girl by Candlelight as the figure walked down the hill toward Maricica.

No human body anymore.

She’d never really vibed with Edith, but seeing the Girl by Candlelight divorced from mortal flesh was like seeing Matthew’s guts torn out and raised as an intestine puppet or whatever.  Except Matthew hadn’t fucked with them.  Not on his own- when he had, he’d done it because of Edith’s influence.  Matthew had at least been cool.

It felt like how she might imagine it being if her dad had died with that stomach thing in the summer.  Like, a relief.  But a relief in a bad way, a guilty way.  A relief that came with equal measures of frustration and sadness.  Because she’d much rather live in a world where her dad was the guy who’d made her Halloween costumes and took care of her when she was hurting, and she’d rather live in a world where Edith got a fucking clue and made amends for helping Charles.

If her dad was dead she’d never see him smarten up.  The Girl by Candlelight, similarly, ripped out of Edith?  The flesh dead and gone?  No chance at redemption.  No chance at things looking up.

She could imagine a world where everything turned out okay, where their enemies heard the magic words that tapped something deep in their unconscious minds and realized what total taintholes they were being.  Was there a chance?  Probably not.  But if she could imagine a worst case scenario then she could imagine a best case scenario, and Edith being dead was the best case scenario getting less best.

And that ‘getting less best’ was now walking, talking, and being creepy looking and it made Verona not want to look at her.

Verona waited until Edith had passed, then approached the barrier.

She was ten or twenty feet from it, depending on how she interpreted the amount of terrain she had to go around, when Montague spread abruptly through a section of it, right in front of Verona, like a forking lightning bolt, but red tendrils and limbs.

He reached for her- motioning.

She moved fast, half-jumping, half rolling, in the direction he’d motioned.

The space around Montague glowed orange, and Verona heard the Girl by Candlelight’s raised voice.

The barrier ignited.  Montague with it, at least partially.

The Girl by Candlelight was there a moment later, intensifying the effect.  Melted snow became melted wax, and her echo-self flickered with intensity.

Verona’s heart hammered.

The tracks she’d left behind herself were not that subtle.

“What are you trying to do, Montague?” the Girl by Candlelight asked.  “It’s my barrier, now.  Keep out of it.  You want to leave Kennet?  Leave Charles’ realm?  You can, but it won’t be tonight.  Not while other things are happening.”

Montague moved through snow, and snow melted from the residual heat.  Spider limbs made of blood clots and melted-together chunks of burned-plastic red stuff dragged themselves through the woods, away from the Girl by Candlelight.

The Girl by Candlelight raised a hand, and Verona used her Sight.  She watched as the barrier intensified with charred black-red meaty flesh things.

Without her Sight- a faint orange haze.

Anyone who tried to go through would be burned.

The Girl by Candlelight waited for a moment, and Verona waited for her to turn around, see the extra set of tracks in the snow.  She discreetly removed spell cards from one pocket and prepared to throw one if necessary.

The Girl by Candlelight walked back down the hill.

No mention made of the tracks, no hesitation.  She was lighter than she had been, and floated instead of falling when crossing down past tricky portions.

In the woods on the other side of the barrier, an owl dropped out of a tree, flapping madly, screeching a death scream.  Pierced on a bloody Montague spider limb.

Verona watched as Montague flowed into the owl, then out of it.  More of those lightning bolts made of flesh forked their way out of points of the wings, the owl’s rib cage opened up, and bones audibly snapped as its head was turned around too many times, enough for it to break free, at which point it was held a foot away from the body by a clump of Montague-stuff.

It ‘flew’ closer to Verona, stopping short of touching the barrier.  The orange intensified, and feathers singed.

“Was that a warning?” Verona asked.  “You jumping in there to bait her?”

The owl nodded.

“Thanks.”

The owl jerked.  One wing ahead, one spur sticking up.  Verona returned the thumbs up.

“Fuck,” Verona muttered.  “I was thinking I’d get inside, do the next part of the plan inside.”

The owl pointed at itself.

“Nah, this is something I’d have to do.  Okay.  Shit, alright.  I’ll see you?”

“Urk-”

Verona stopped.  “Hm?”

The owl ‘spoke’, partially through its own destroyed throat and mouth, partially by the way it burbled and broke.  “Urk-uh kwheee-mm?”

“There’s an idea.  Turtle Queen’s still around?”

The owl nodded.

“That’d be a nasty little scrap.  And it’d let them know I’m trying for something.  It’s okay.  I’ve got another idea.  Look, I should get ready to handle this next part.”

“Uugh Uck.”

“Thanks.  Good luck to you too.  I meant it when I asked if I’ll see you.  Thanks for looking out, sir.”

The macabre, freshly dead owl bowed, using a wing to doff a hat it wasn’t wearing.

Verona headed back down the hill, going down the same tracks she’d made when she’d gone up.

She could see Maricica from above.  Was Avery going to be okay?  There was a cluster of people here.

An Abyssal explosion further down made Verona jump.  That complicated her route down.

Verona saw someone walking ahead.  They stopped, kneeling, facing Verona’s general direction.  It felt for a moment like they’d seen her, but the bracelet didn’t budge.

They slashed their own throat.

Maricica claimed them.

Maricica was there, moving through trees, a few followers behind her.

Blood soaked hand outstretched, finger pointing at the source of Abyssal stuff.

Verona could hear ground crack and break.

A line was drawn in the dirt, connecting the two patches.  Black smoke and staining boiled up from the line.  The space around it distorted.

Verona hurried to text Avery.  One word.

She texted more information.

Her phone vibrated, and she hurried to secure herself with some silence.

“Ronnie?”

“It’s a game of chicken, Ave.”

“What?”

“The people, they’re offing themselves.  Then Maricica claims them, she spreads Abyss-stuff.  It’s all connecting together.  If we draw this circle around Kennet, she’ll draw hers.”

There was a pause, no response from Avery.

“You remember what Ann does, right?”

“Yeah.”

Verona wished they’d spent a bit more time on this stuff.  No classes at the Blue Heron had covered it.  But it had come up with Ann and in her readings of bogeymen.

Avery’s voice came through.  “Can we break it up?  Gilkey’s poison was enough that Maricica couldn’t keep bringing people back. She gave up, and when she did-”

“She lost her claim.”

“Verona, Lucy’s fighting hard. Advocating for us, for vital stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s counting on us. I figure it takes me five minutes to close the circle.”

“I hear you.”

“We all have our parts to play.”

“Start running. I’ll do what I can.”

Verona snatched up the silence rune, holding the spell cards she’d gotten out with Edith.  She half-ran, half-slid down the hill.

Fucking- I’m making a rule, Verona thought to herself.  Next time Avery and I have an outing, no running involved.

She needed to envision the end result she wanted, first.

Breaking that line of Abyss-stuff.

Getting closer to shore, crossing the line, entering the Abyss area where it was thinnest, she could still see how it extended around.  A circle being drawn around Kennet.

It looked like Maricica was going counter-clockwise around the circle, following the route Avery had taken.  Her soldiers had either gone back toward where the campsite was, or were following her.  The beach was abandoned.

Why defend it, after all, when she already ‘had’ the beach, after a sense?  That part of the Abyssal circle was established.

Would she come up behind Avery?

Verona made edits to her spell cards, not even really caring what they were.  On the main part, she added a squiggle of a line, like an upside-down question mark, before adding a notation at the bottom.  Three minutes.  Venus sign and attached light rune on the far side.

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten, Verona whispered to herself, lips moving, but no sound coming out, pen scribbling.

Two minutes forty five.  She slapped it down.

Upside-down question mark, time, quick circle with a dot inside, Venus sign.  Really shitty, really fast.  She had ten seconds to do it while also stumbling forward through snow.  She laid it beside the black line.

That third one was two minutes, thirty seconds.

Another for two minutes.  Another for one minute forty-five.

She was going fast enough she felt okay accelerating it.  It helped that there was less snow to trip her up, even if the shore was a bit slippery.  She adjusted the times, hurrying through the cards.

Shit, she had ground to cover.

She hurried.  Up toward the pass below Kennet.

There were guards up there.  Maricica’s people, still guarding it.

She kept going, scribbling.  Laying things down as she went, until she got as close as she comfortably could.

She could hear gunshots in Avery’s direction, west of Kennet.  Like firecrackers, sharp and very loud.

One minute.

Set for forty-five seconds.

“Turtle Queen, Turtle Queen, Turtle Queen,” Verona whispered.

Leaves rustled.

There were shouts from the men.  They backed up, guns raised.

“I’m passing through.  Your guns won’t hurt me, save your bullets.”

They shouted some more.  The Turtle Queen was on fire, standing in the road.

“Call her,” the Turtle Queen replied, rolling her shoulders.  The fire went out.

“I need you,” Verona whispered.  “Avery needs you.  Turtle Queen.”

The Turtle Queen disappeared.  Leaves rustled more.

The leaves were changing around Verona.  The woman stood a few feet away, black, bald, noble, and very decorated.

Verona figured she had a high tolerance for intense and spooky Others, but this was her being very close to a Bugge.

“Spell cards are going off soon.  In a series.  Can you disrupt this line she’s drawing around Kennet?” Verona asked.  “Use the light.”

The woman didn’t respond.

“It’s important.  It looks like she’ll sink Kennet.  Drop it all into the Abyss, take it for herself.  There’s got to be something-”

The first spell card went off, close by.  A blast of broken ground.  Fitting, loud.

Verona shrank back into the trees.

Men moved down the pass, approaching.

The next card went off, as the remnants of the first blast began to glow bright.  The Virgo sign paired with light drawn on the backside of the card made it react to being disturbed, and the other diagram was enough of a disturbance.

The second explosion was fire.  The light was weaker- a badly drawn light rune, or something.

“Please.”

The Turtle Queen looked in the direction of Kennet, then disappeared.

“You didn’t go back, did-?” Verona asked.  A third card went off.

She’d timed them so they’d set a trail leading away from her, not toward her.  The last one would go off in three minutes, the second last one, with ten seconds travel time and her timing it for two minutes and forty five seconds, would go off five seconds before, and so on.

The Turtle Queen stood as a silhouette in the midst of the light and fire.  Light had tinted gold, and the fire was on its way to an amber hue.

Bullets continued to fire in the distance.

Each successive explosion, the Turtle Queen expanded out.  The line began to glow gold.

At the far end of the beach, at the spot where the first explosion had happened, just behind Avery as she’d run through the trees, a hand reached up, cracking the stone further.

A bloody one.

Maricica raised herself out of the broken ground.

She fixed her attention on the Turtle Queen.  “You’re opposing me, bug?”

Her voice had a haunting quality.

Verona drew back further into the trees.  She checked the way was clear, then began moving slowly toward one of the more intact of the dilapidated factories.

Both goddess and Turtle Queen had voices that really carried.  Verona had no trouble hearing them.

“You swore oaths,” the Turtle Queen replied.

“The Faerie Maricica did.  I’m something else.”

“Weak.  You swore to guard Kennet, to abstain from harming the girls.”

“What danger to Kennet are you suggesting?  And any danger to the girls is incidental.  I give no orders.  These denizens of the Carmine undercities act of their own volition, draw their own conclusions.  The responsibility for their actions is theirs.”

“Weak arguments, again.”

“Take it up with the Judges.  Somehow, I think the majority will side with me.”

The explosions kept going.  The gunshots seemed to have stopped, at least.

“I declare that I am claiming and undoing this Abyssal spread to secure Kennet.  If you are doing this inadvertently, you should have no objection to my removing it.”

Maricica smiled, and her teeth were white in the moment before the blood that ran down her face covered her mouth.  Her chest was thrust out, hands spread, with pointed tips stained black and covered in more blood.  The spike pierced her.  Air around her shimmered, and snow melted into more blood.  “It’s fine.”

“Is it?  Shall we talk to the Judges after all?” the Turtle Queen asked.  The golden light around and behind her intensified as more explosions happened.

“Avery is talking to the Aurum now.  They believe I’m bluffing and they’re intent on calling that bluff.”

The Turtle Queen swept a hand in front of her.  The entire line of glowing gold fissure shattered, broken earth coming away in glowing gold flakes that scattered across the shore.  There was no line of Abyss-stuff drawn out.

“It’s fine,” Maricica said, smiling.  “Have your victory.  I have groundwork to lay and work to do that has nothing to do with any of this.  I’ve done my part.”

Verona watched Maricica go, and then retreated, hurrying through the trees.

Verona, Verona, Verona.

She could hear Avery’s voice in her head.

The signal was for Avery to call out to her when it was time for Verona to leave and cover the other part of the shore, and then to call out again when she was in the meeting with the Aurum.

Second signal meant Avery had the Aurum locked down, and Verona needed to set the stage and give the signal.

HATE BATHES, Verona thought, going back to the initialism to help her memory.  When she’d discussed it with Avery, Avery had rolled her eyes and said she’d read the names off her phone.

At least like this, Verona could just recite it.

She missed her word-swapping pen that her dad had broken.  Figuring out how to rearrange letters on the lawnmower had been the last time she’d done something like this.

“Haline White, Haline White, Haline White…” Verona said.  A mid-size fairy they’d prepped beforehand and sent to the market estates.

There was a fence that had- not barbed wire, but wire so rusty it might have been barbed, over a decade old.  No trespassing signs were hung up.

“Arschgeige, Arschgeige, Arschgeige,” Verona called out.  One of Liberty’s.  A funny mid-size goblin who didn’t speak English, who probably got more mileage out of ranting, raving, and offering input in angry German that nobody else understood than he would as another random member of the crew.  Sent to the tri-cities area to notify four different practitioners who had stores and bookstores, who they had preliminary relationships with.  One group that Clementine sold to a lot, and one bookseller Nina had recommended.

Not the elf.  Sending a goblin to an elf would be a disaster.

“…Threelegs, threelegs, threelegs…”

“…Eucesca Islet Evatoinette Iorelei Vienne, Eucesca Islet Evantoinette Iorelai Vienne, Eucesca Islet Evantoinette Iorelai Vienne…”

She wondered if the fairies had heard about Percival, when they threw that one at her.

She got past the fence, stepping from a high pile of snow onto the post, then down onto the other side, snow crunching beneath her boots.

“…Eti Roux, Eti Roux, Eti Roux…”

She wasn’t super into fairies, but she liked how varied they were.  The variety in names alone was fun.

She could hear some ongoing gunfire.  Had Avery set up a distraction or something?  Had the original gunfire drawn police attention?  That would be an interesting situation.  How would the Abyss folk revive in front of Innocents?

The factory was still standing, though it wasn’t in great shape.  She was pretty hopeful the roof wouldn’t come down on top of her head, but just to be safe, she started out by laying out spell cards.  Diamonds with a rune inside indicated ‘quality of’, and she chose quality of steel, setting the runes against the wall on either side of the door, before using her Sight to check the spirits and make sure there wasn’t anything too dangerous.

“Beesucker, Beesucker, Beesucker.”

Another of Liberty’s.  A goblin of Cherrypop’s stature who was apparently good at following orders.

Verona got out the high summer glamour she’d been holding onto, from Avery’s supply that she’d saved up from the high summer rose that Guilherme had gifted her, in a red velvet bag that had held a crazy expensive liquor bottle at Anthem’s.

Dry rose petals were mixed in with the dust of the summer glamour.  They broke up into rich red powder as she pinched them between fingers, too bright for the gloom of the factory interior.

“…Ailill the bird rider, Ailill the bird rider, Ailill the bird rider…”

She changed the floor and walls, throwing petals at the plant growth that was creeping into the place through broken windows and a wall that was so moldy that it was giving way.  Petals became blooms, rewriting that mold into something else, setting roots into the mold and darkness, faltering at first, then with more vigor, and Verona guided that with sweeps of her hand, broad strokes, to take it over.  Flowers bloomed.

She was an artist.

Bit of a lapse, the last year or so, between her dad’s freakout over her forgetting his birthday while with her mom for spring break, destroying her art shelf, and awakening, at which point she’d started to do portraits of the various Others, then just launching right back into it in full.  Art for goblins, art for herself, art for art’s sake.

Art for this.  It didn’t matter that she’d worked on getting pencils or pens or brushes to do what she wanted.  It did matter that she be able to start a piece and see where it was going, get out ahead of it.  It mattered that art came naturally, because it came regularly, that picking up a sketch pad when watching a show was natural to her.  Because there were no tools here, and the twists and turns of fingers to manipulate glamour here were art, not science.

“…Tintagel, Tintagel, Tintagel…”

She altered this place with movement, with gesture, sweeps of her arm with fingers sticking out of coat and long sleeves that reached her knuckles, eyes as wide as she could get them, glowing intermittently with Sight, so she could get more angles on what she was doing.  She painted the walls gold, stirred up dust.  A slash of her hand split floorboards, and she smudged them out, turning them into tiles.  Twist of the hand one way for one, brightening it, shifting it to white, twist of the hand another way, turning it gold.  Long bangs fell across her face and she didn’t care.

It didn’t matter if the building had holes in it.  It didn’t matter it was ruined and had been for longer than she’d been alive.  To work with the glamour, she needed it to be glorious, golden, rich, exciting.

“…Humblefuck, Humblefuck, Humblefuck…”

She made a crystal spike in the center and let the light refract through it, illuminating the interior, then dashed it to pieces with one hand, the other hand held out and up, finger up, as if to tell the illumination to wait.  As that hand swept the room, the light gleamed, traveling along the wall to match.

Ruins, but a celebration of ruins.  Ruins with the plants cultivated and beautiful, bursting forth, bright and warm.  Metal frames that had once held things in place became pieces of machinery wrought in brass and bronze, like some ancient contraption once invented and long forgotten.  Industry.

The checked floor of white and gold was a homage to the games, the gambling.  The gold a nod to Fortune, in the sense of wealth.

She started at the walls, and worked her way to the edges of the room, and gradually turned her focus inward.  A circular motion around herself cleared a space in the center.

For this, at least, she needed her phone out.

“Eggmilk, Eggmilk, Eggmilk,” she said, because trying to remember and say words while she was writing them down would mean she’d get turned around or distracted.  Another of Liberty’s crew, out to deliver messages.

To reference the diagram.  To mark down the elements of the seal, and the words, as best as people had been able to figure them or find the information from Others, in old tongues, translated over.

Writing down, simply put, the established elements of the Seal that had provisions for thrones and the Judges that could occupy them.  This wasn’t an incantation, it was a reminder.

The glamour across the building cracked.

Verona turned, and she saw the Turtle Queen at the door.

“What-?” Verona started.

The Turtle Queen struck the wall with the back of her hand.  What had cracked now shattered, crumbling to pieces, across the building.  The dust drowned everything out.

Verona hurried to gather the dust, pulling it in with sweeping motions, scooping it out of the air, toward the bag.  Once she had the first bit in, most of the rest followed.

The glamour was gone, but everything behind the glamour was there, substantial, not just dressed up.  Some modifications- the flowers had changed to ones with gold petals.  There were reptile motifs, and there was more greenery, but…

“Saveage, Saveage, Saveage, go little fairy, you’re the last one,” Verona stated the words.

That hit most of the major markets, who were in communication with lesser ones, which could filter down.

Freeing Verona to focus on the rest of this.

She inhaled, then exhaled.  “What’s up?”

The Turtle Queen entered the space, pacing along it’s edge.  She looked down at the words in the center.

“Gold would look good on you,” Verona ventured.  “But it’s a tough seat to hold.  I’m not sure I’d recommend it to a friend.”

“Are we friends?” the Turtle Queen asked, looking down at the words.

“I dunno.  I think you’re cool.  I really appreciate you helping out back there.  And elsewhere.  I appreciate you holding back.”

“I don’t hold back,” the Turtle Queen replied.  She circled the room.  As she passed through moonlight, her jewelry and eyes gleamed by equal measure.  “I take, then I immediately give back.  Faster than most notice.”

“Holding back after a fashion.”

“I can’t hold back.”

Verona clicked her tongue, nodding.

“What’s next?” the Turtle Queen asked.

“Next I’d put out a call, got the practice here on my phone, need to write it down.  Then I’d negotiate with whoever comes, offer what is hopefully the trick to beating the Aurum to the person I deem most suitable for the throne.  Someone who will push back against Charles and help us instead of hurting us.  Or at least be neutral.”

“I could help.”

“You’d become the role.  It’d redefine parts of you.  You wouldn’t be you.  You wouldn’t be able to spread the same way.  How does that redefine who you are?”

“I can’t spread the way I normally would anyway.  It was a restriction put on me if I wanted Kennet’s sanctuary.”

“But it’d be way more enforced.”

“Do you not want me to?”

“I- hey, look.  I’m all for role redefinition, stepping off the paths set for you, all that jazz.  But I believe in going in with your eyes open, with as much info as you can get.”

“Give me more information, then.”

Verona, phone still in hand, with its diagram, folded her arms, tapping fingers of her unoccupied hand against elbow.  She could feel twinges in her hand.

“It has a high turnover.”

“When Kennet falls, and I lose this sanctuary, I return to an existence with a very short life expectancy.  Bugges are not tolerated.”

“If Kennet falls.”

“That too.”

“I think the big thing is these seats are lonely.  You’d be removed from the rest of us.”

“I already am.”

“But, like… you get on with Montague, don’t you?”

“He’s the same.”

“In a lot of ways, yeah, similar to you.  What if he’s bummed out?  Our gentleman horror has this cool new friend who relates to him, she’s beautiful, and then she goes off and takes a big job without even saying hey?  I feel like there’s a few steps skipped there, that leads to heartbreak.”

“He could work under me.”

“He may not want to be your subordinate.  Again, skipping steps.  There’s a process of negotiation, boundaries…”

The Turtle Queen shook her head slightly.

“…the last of which is an alien concept to a boundary-overriding Bugge.  Right.  What if I said that if we’re going to okay this, we need you to talk to your closest acquaintances in Kennet, first.”

“Montague.”

“There’s nobody else?  Nobody you, I dunno, visit when restless?”

“…Sootsleeves.”

“Okay.”

“And Miss.”

“Great.  Talk to them first.  I carry on here.  Plan is Avery stalls for at least another couple hours.  But don’t take too long.  I’ll ask on my end.  We should check with the others.  I’ll try and call Lucy and Matthew.”

The Turtle Queen turned her head, and then she was gone.

The space began to creak and make its slow transformation back to being what it was.  Verona hurried to shore it back up with glamour, holding onto things.

Then she messaged Lucy.

Verona:
I think we got it.
Stage is set.
Signal going out.

“Fuck,” Verona muttered.  She paced around the circular space in the floor with the text in it.

How did this work?  What were they doing?

To save time and stay moving, she drew the diagram in the floor.  It was a calling diagram, astrological, with the Seal taking up two thirds of it, offset so the rest of the diagram work filled a crescent shape around that seal.  Her loudspeaker.

She didn’t finish it, placing her spell cards down on top of it, the rune-suppression ward facing down, and she didn’t power it.  She just had it there, in case they needed it, and in case she’d accidentally phrased things in a way that suggested she’d write it down.

She was pretty sure she hadn’t.

That took a couple minutes.  Dwelling on the situation might’ve taken another one or two.

She messaged Lucy again.

Verona:
What do we think about Turtle Queen trying for Aurum?

Sending an ally to the slaughter felt weird.  She hoped Lucy was okay with the subject.  The idea of losing someone like they’d lost John…

After so much action and pressure, the quiet had a weird feeling to it.  The fact they could text each other here felt weird, because they’d been paranoid about the Aurum having an eye on things relating to technology, but Avery had that handled.

She dressed up the surroundings a bit more, glancing at her phone.  “Gods and spirits, Lucy, come on.”

The phone buzzed as a reply came back.  “Thank you, finally.”

Lucy:
Wait.  Thinking.

“Damn it.  I was already waiting.  What did you think I was doing?”

The phone rang.  Lucy.

“Hey,” Verona answered.

“We’re having an informal recess.  Some filibustering to hold the floor and keep this from being canceled while Charles handles another thing.  How many are there?”

“None yet.  If we go with the Turtle Queen, there’s no need to call out.  She’s supposed to be talking to Montague and others.  Sootsleeves, Miss.”

“Okay.  Miss isn’t here, so that tracks.”

“It’s complicated, the Turtle Queen taking the seat, but I can’t think of anyone that’s, I dunno…?”

“Fitting for the role, trustworthy?”

“I’m noticing the fact you’re making that a question, not a statement.”

“Yeah.  Is that weird or unfair?  She’s been an ally, she’s fought enemies, defended us, she’s keeping to rules, but when she is what she is?  Shit, I hate saying that, sounds so awful, but-“

“She’s a pretty intense variety of Other, with very aggressive things she does automatically, pretty much.  Have to wonder how that translates to the seat.”

“So an ally and trustworthy but also not like- we’re okay enough with it?”

“Yeah.  Basically.  I just feel like it’s either going to be a really good fit and a good thing for her, or it’s going to be terrible, and it’s hard to say which.”

“Yeah.”

Verona turned and saw the Turtle Queen standing near the door.  She didn’t jump or flinch.

It felt like if the Turtle Queen was human or human-adjacent, she’d care more about being talked about when she wasn’t here, but as it was, Verona just had no real idea.  And she usually had a good sense about these things.

“I don’t want it to be terrible for her.  She’s here, by the way.”

“Speaker phone?”

“Switching over.  Hey, Queen.”

“I talked to them.  Montague, Sootsleeves, Miss, and Matthew.”

“Cool.”

“Less ‘cool’ for Matthew,” the Turtle Queen replied, returning to the room, drawn to the center again.  She occupied the spot opposite Verona.  As Verona paced clockwise left, the Turtle Queen paced clockwise to Verona’s right.  “He was working.  It is the busy season, he said.”

Verona let out a half-laugh.  Matthew worked retail at Buckheed, which supplied a lot of more rugged winter stuff.  With the ski season in Kennet being what it was… yeah.

“Montague thinks I shouldn’t,” the Turtle Queen said.  “He wanted to come but couldn’t.  Edith guards the perimeter.”

“Did he say why?” Lucy asked, on speakerphone.

“He said my reasons weren’t good enough.”

“What are your reasons?” Verona asked.

“It’s there.  A seat I could take.  I am something that takes.”

Verona clicked her tongue again.

“All the risks, the problems,” Lucy said.  “The dangers of taking the seat-?”

“Loneliness, being altered in purpose,” Verona chimed in.

“I think you need a better reason,” Lucy said.

“He said something similar.  That I need to think about it when the seat isn’t there, potentially something I could take.  That I need to decide without my nature getting in the way.”

“He’s a good bean, that Monty,” Verona said, placing the phone on the edge of a piece of machinery so she could rub at her palm.

“It could be an extra layer of security,” Lucy said.  “Not in the protection sense.  In the security blanket sense.  Um.  One of the things we worry about is if there aren’t good enough candidates.  If we know we’ve got someone in the back pocket, who could potentially take the seat from whoever we back here, if it ends up being a problem…”

“He wants me to think about it when it’s not in front of me.  That’s not how I think.”

Still on that.

“Is it impossible to think that way?” Verona asked.

“Then… something to work on.  If you need something right in front of you to really give it consideration, processing, whatever, maybe we have another meeting, talk it over?” Verona suggested.

The Turtle Queen was still.  She stared down at the diagram.

“But we’re decided, you’re not trying for it here?” Lucy asked.

“No,” the Turtle Queen replied.

“I should get on this, then,” Verona said.  “And I should get off the call.”

“Luck,” Lucy said.  “Can you get in after?”

“It’s guarded by Edith, but I think maybe.”

“Come, after.”

“Okay.”

“Talk to you later, Turtle Queen?” Lucy offered.

“Alright,” the Turtle Queen said.

Lucy hung up.  Verona did too.

About two seconds later, before she’d even fully gathered her thoughts.  Her phone buzzed.  A text.

Zed:
Is a Bugge in the room with you while you’re using phones I gave you?

She looked over in the direction of the Turtle Queen.  Verona winced.

Verona:
She popped in.
Sorry.
Is it a problem?

Zed:
No apparent long term damage except maybe to my heart.
10+ different alarms going off.  Be careful?

Verona texted a ‘cool cat thumbs up’ emoji back at Zed.

Okay.  Again, deep breath, regrouping.

Getting everything ordered in her mind.

She dropped to a squat, and finished the diagram with three strokes of chalk.

Essentially using practice to do the same thing the Judges had done without chalk on floors, when the Carmine Contest had happened.  Putting out the call.

She’d already set up the arena.  The Turtle Queen had polished it.

She’d hoped for a big golden beam of light to spear the sky or something, like a beacon or flare, but there wasn’t anything.

“The current Aurum is an asshole,” Verona said, touching fingers to the edge.  She wasn’t sure if the words would be transmitted or if it would be just the vibe, or if nothing went through.  Maybe it would depend on the recipient and their ability to tap into this wavelength.  Easier for those related to Law or spirit, maybe.  “If anyone’s up for it, I have what I hope is the trump card to take him down, ready to go to the most qualified.

“Kennet, I know I’ve called on your collective power a lot.  I get the impression this is a big one, I know it’ll suck.  Maybe it’ll suck at a time you guys are pretty beaten down and battered.  But we need this.  I know we don’t love the Seal, I know we don’t love how things have ended up, but we don’t have a great way forward that doesn’t involve it.  The best way to win this, the way we see it, is with people.  We did it with the Assembly, and now we do it with collective power draw.

“For Kennet.”

The diagram glowed.

“Markets, groups tied to markets, allies you’ve called on, anything extra you can give… hopefully you’ve had things explained to you.  How you can pass us power to put towards this.  Really hoping you’re on board for the other part of the plan, rotating markets and integrating more tightly, instead of just having Kennet as something central.  Now’s the time, pass us what you can pass us.”

The diagram glowed just a little bit brighter.

She pulled fingers away.  The diagram remained lit, the glowing golden lines almost vibrating with intensity.

Bright motes of light appeared on the rim, moving slightly as the entities they were referencing traveled.  Apparently indicating that there were four people on their way, approaching.

“And now we wait,” Verona said, straightening.

“There’s one already?” the Other asked, as it entered.  He was a teenager that wore a bloodstained suit with a faint print on it, medium green rectangles on dark green.  He had a half-smirk on his face, and narrow eyes that were only narrow because that was how he seemed to view the world.  He had a long coat on, and between the suit, hair he was slicking back, and the long coat, he looked like some old fashioned gangster.

“The Turtle Queen isn’t a participant, I don’t think,” Verona said.

“Observing, for now,” the Turtle Queen replied, from the sidelines.

“So I’m first?”

Verona nodded.  “Hi.”

“You’re offering a deal?  An edge?”

“I’ll address people when they’re all here.  But yeah.”

“We’ve crossed paths before.”

“Have we?”

“At the Blue Heron.  We didn’t interact.  You barely made eye contact with the boy.”

Verona wracked her brain.  Wouldn’t be Dreg.  One of Reid’s?  No.

“Bloody Money.  One of the two spirits hosted by young Xerxes.”

“Aha.  What sort of Other are you?  If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Indweller spirit.”

“Indweller.  Got it,” Verona said, studying Bloody Money.

She barely remembered Xerxes.  He hadn’t participated in many big ways.  But an indweller spirit was something that had come up in a class with Graubard.  Verona figured it might’ve been her first enchanting class, actually.  Indwellers were spirits who took on roles as animating forces.  Such as a spirit animating a doll, which was vital for Graubard, the big dollmaker in the region.  Or a suit of armor.

Or, in this case, a corpse.

“Can I ask what happened to Xerxes?”

“Didn’t make it out of the region when the Carmine Lordships seized power.”

“Right,” Verona said.

“I can try to put in the energy to keep the body from rotting, but it’s going to go that way eventually.  It helps that the weather is cold.”

“Makes sense.  Is that what you’re trying to stave off?”

“Part of it.  I like being solid.  That’s another part of it.”

“Has its pluses.”

“And I won’t say I’m the most moral individual around, but they killed my host.  We had a good thing going.  There’s a justice in that, isn’t there?”

“Yeah.  I suppose there is.”

“And if justice happens to be paying today, instead of getting paid off…?”

He shrugged, smirk a little smirkier.

Verona texted Lucy.

Verona:
Bloody Money, indweller spirit / basically a spirit zombie
Occupying Xerxes from BHI
Not the most moral by his own admission
Tied into sketchy stuff but doesn’t like Charles.

“Verona Hayward, I instigated this thing,” Verona said.  “Non-participant.”

“Turtle Queen, observing non-participant.”

“Bloody Money, possible participant.  These things tend to be one on one, don’t they?”

“For Aurum?” Verona asked.  “Yeah, that’s what I gather.  I think you could all go in, but that’s pretty grim, when only one of you leaves.  More fitting for the Carmine contest.”

“Better for us to get your seal of approval, is it?”

“I figure.”

The new Other was a boy, younger than Verona.  The way he was built, with an oversized head, and broomstick-narrow arms and legs, he seemed… Verona was put in mind of the puppet boy from the Blue Fairy movies.  Except he wasn’t made of wood.  He was made of flesh, and not well made.  It was like he was mostly cellulite.  He had a haircut like someone from a boy band and high end clothes, and walked with a saunter that put right shoulder forward, then left, and back and forth like that.  Like he was the shit.

“Tenmercy,” the boy announced himself.  “Toymaker.  I happened to be in the region.”

“Coming from which direction?” Verona asked.

“From neither East nor West, nor North, nor South,” Tenmercy replied.  “From places adjacent.”

“It doesn’t look like you have your kit with you, Toymaker.  How do you make your ‘toys’?”

“I put one together once I decide to set up shop somewhere.  Then I stay as long as I’m tolerated.”

“Which I imagine isn’t very long?”

“I manage.  I’ve been at this for a while,” he said, smiling with a mouth that had no lips, and very uniform teeth.

Verona nodded.

She had a sense of who and what he was, because it was adjacent to the standard peddler dealio.  If peddlers were caveat emptor shop owners who sold cursed items that would see the buyer suffer, harvest energies or whatever, then ship it back to the seller, then Toymakers were a similar thing without the shop.  They just made the cursed items and sent them out into the world or planted them to be found.  Simpler.  Maybe older.  Sometimes they sold to peddlers as a business relationship.

She wondered if he’d made anything that had made Clem suffer.  It was why she’d asked about direction and where he’d operated in the past.

Verona:
Tenmercy: Toymaker Other
That means he mass-manufactures cursed items
Fleshy pinnochio looking motherfucker
Old, probably cannier than he looks

“Tenmercy, Toymaker, contestant,” Tenmercy announced himself, before Verona even noticed someone was approaching.

“Bloody Money.  Contestant.”

“Cassia Hyacinth Carter.  I don’t know what I am.  Or what the contest is,” the woman said.  She looked to be about eighteen, and wore a rough-looking jacket three sizes too big for her, over what looked like a school uniform.  “Someone called?”

“I put out a call, kind of,” Verona replied.  “I’m Verona.  What’s your story?  The way this dot is moving, I think they’re an hour away.”

“I lived somewhere good and safe, and it got taken away.”

“Where?”

“A school.  We knew of the outside world, but we didn’t venture into it often.  I did, sometimes, for supplies, information, things.”

“A pocket world?” Verona asked.

“I suppose.  A school surrounded by woodland.  With spooky things inside.”

Cassia glanced at Tenmercy.

“What took your home away, or what’s the deal?” Verona asked.  “I think you got pulled here because you’re a free-floating particle, you’re unattached, and the universe likes to find ways to tidy those up.  I don’t think this contest is for you, exactly.  But I need more information to know.  Or to help you.”

“We were told that the outside world was impure and cruel,” Cassia replied.  “My experience has been… mixed, so far.”

“I’d guess that even in your pocket world, things were pretty mixed.  It’s the way things end up.”

“Yeah.  I guess it is.”

“I’ve taken in a couple of people in bad situations, I- don’t get me wrong.  I’m sorry, I’m not sure I’m in a position to do that now.  I can’t even go home that easy.  But I’d like to help.  Can you tell me more?  Was your pocket world standalone or was there a figure or person or power, or object at the center of-”

“A person.”

“A person, okay.  The one in charge?”

“Yes.  He said he used to live in this world.  But it frustrated him.  So he made a world himself.  One free of the bad influences.  One without the noise or drugs or screens or boys.”

“Or what now?  No boys?” Verona asked.  “That sounds hellish.”

“It was home, it was perfect.”

“You were made there?  Or taken from here and brought there?”

“Made there.  Almost all of us.  One to four girls every school year would filter in.  Ones who didn’t belong in your world.  Runaways.  Girls who were mistreated.  The lost.”

“Necessary,” Verona said.  “Yep.  Feels more Alabaster than Aurum, so far.  Sanctuary for… you’re all gay, I take it?  The girls you take in are?”

“We’re pure.  All of us free of concerns about boys and men.”

“I feel like that could get so toxic, so fast, with an old conservative dude setting up that dynamic.  Making you, shaping you?  Running things?”

“I think you’re going out of your way to demonize something good.”

“Ah,” Verona made herself stop.  “Sorry.”

“It was fine.  But he got old, and some of the others started taking control of the- every part of it.  Who was made, how it was run.”

Verona looked down at the seal on the floor, nodding.

“They drove me out when I questioned them.”

“And you took something with you?  Intentionally or not?” Verona asked.

Cassia tensed visibly on hearing that question.

“None of my business, I guess.  I just figured if you’re here for the Aurum contest, maybe you have the ability to change things, or develop and invent things.  It’s one of the things under the umbrella of the Aurum.  If you did this contest, you’d be taking the seat for life, you’d have control over a lot of that.  Invention, Fortune, change, exchanges.”

“Taking the seat for life?  I couldn’t go back?”

“No.  Probably not, I figure.”

“Then I don’t think I should.”

“You would have the power to potentially sway things against the usurpers or whatever,” Verona said.

“If there was no incentive to you being here, I don’t think you would’ve felt the call.”

“I could fix things but I couldn’t go back?”

“Essentially, I think that’s what’s being set up for you.  There’s better options, I think.  Do you have a place to go?”

Cassia shook her head.  “It’s been a few weeks.  I used to come out, to find people for our sports teams to play against.  Contests for our artists.  Books to bring back.  I know my way around, a little.  But I tried going to one of your schools for shelter and they sent men after me.”

“Child welfare or something, maybe.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Or something, yeah.  I’m sorry,” Verona told her.  “I can put you in contact with some people, later.  Some who might know their way around your whole deal.  Some who could break into your school.  Some who could give shelter.”

“Can they give me power to fix things like this contest could?”

“I think… probably not, but that’s a whole side deal with a helping of issues.  I can pretty much guarantee you that there’s better ways.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

“We just gotta get this underway, it’s going to be a bit before the next guy, so let me make some calls, sort things out, and then later, if nothing gets in the way, I’ll see about getting you set up.”

“Okay.  Thank you.”

“You were with your sports teams?”

“I was manager.  No talent, but I enjoy the games.  We were never very good, when we had matchups with schools from your world.”

“Man, I have a friend I feel like you’d vibe with.  Avery.  Let’s see about you meeting her later.”

Verona:
Cassia Hyacinth Carter: Aware, demiurge-created human
I think she has some stolen divine tools used by the demiurge to create or alter his realm.
Not competing after our discussion.  After this text I’ll call Clem to ask about short-term accommodations, and connect CHC to Avery later.
Thats 3/4

“Oh,” Verona said.  “You.”

Freeman glanced around, eyes widening as he recognized the Turtle Queen.  “Jesus Christ, is she bound?”

“Jesus Christ, you don’t know us at all, do you?”

“Fuck.”

“Bloody Money,” Bloody Money introduced himself.  “Contestant.”

“Tenmercy, contestant.”

“Freeman Boyd, contestant, I guess.”

“Is this a ploy?” Verona asked.  “A thing from Charles, hedging bets?”

“Or from Maricica or-?”

“No.  Neither.  Not that.  I wasn’t sent or ordered or forced.”

“Okay.  I’m still suspicious.”

“And I’m trying to stay clear of a practitioner who’d horrify me.”

Verona made a ‘tsk, tsk’ sound.

“When you sent the tenant back to me, was that to help?  To arm me?”

“Yep.”

“Then I owe you one, don’t I?”

“Wouldn’t object.  Still suspicious.”

“I’m not your enemy.  Every step of the way, I’ve tried to minimize risk, side with the strongest, I haven’t betrayed anyone, I do the best work I can, and somehow I end up here?  I don’t want to go up against you.  I don’t want to go up against them.  This seems like the best way to take myself off the table, get as far away from…”

“From certain basements?” Verona asked.  “From being turned into a horror?”

Freeman looked like the color would’ve drained out of his face, but there really wasn’t any.  It looked like it took him two tries to swallow his own spit, his eyes sliding off to the part of the building with the least people there.

“Three people willing to go up against the Aurum,” Verona said.  “It’s not my interest to get you to bend the knee, serve Kennet, blah blah.  That’s… that’s fucked, kind of, because it means the next guy to come along will ask the same and try to replace you.”

“High turnover,” Freeman said, eyes downcast.  “I know.  But I feel like I survive longer this way, and if I go out like an Aurum, or get eliminated in the contest, that’s better than some of the fates waiting for me.”

“But we do want the best Aurum possible.  And the current one that shirks duties and sides with Charles isn’t that.  What I’m offering is what I’m hoping is the edge against the current Aurum.  So tell me, which of you three would be willing to swear not to side with Charles?”

“That gets complicated,” Bloody Money said.  “I hate the Exile, he murdered my host and I liked the boy.  Ruined a good thing that was supposed to last for decades.  But if we take the seat, there’s some negotiation required.  Shutting him out completely is… it would leave us open to being replaced.  Same as the Alabaster was.”

“Unable to do our jobs,” Freeman said.  “I’d be willing to say I won’t do what the current one is.  I could swear I’ll work with him no more or less than a normal Aurum would.  I’d call in the debt.”

“Points to you for offering an alternative.  I really would need you to swear you’re not on his side and you’re not rejoining.  There’s only so many times that someone can flip flop, Boyd.”

“I don’t see it as flip-flopping,” he replied.  “If you don’t adapt to changing circumstances, that’s being a zealot, it’s being stupid.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  She typed on her phone.

Verona:
Freeman Boyd – You know him.
Swears he won’t side with the Carmine faction broadly.
Will work with chuck on minor level, but sounds like they all will.
Feels a lot like we’re going from Aurum Coil 2.0 to Aurum Coil 1.0 – running from problems.

In retrospect, Lucy might not have all the info on fugitives that Avery had gotten from Exult Wrought.

“Okay,” Verona said.  She sighed.  “Heard most of your reasons for wanting to do this.  Bloody Money wants revenge-”

“And to have a permanent solid body.”

“Right.  Boyd wants to escape horrible fates.  And Tenmercy?”

“I have few places left to go, that I wouldn’t be hunted or attacked.”

“And we’re not even talking latitude and longitude.  We’re talking sidereal and Abyssways and Faeways and Ruinsways?”

“Yes.”

“Dude.”

“There are two things I’m good at.  Playing the games in front of me and surviving, and my less savory work.  I want to put that work aside, and focus on the first.  You want to weaken the Carmine alliance from the top?  I’ll do that,” Tenmercy told her.  “One of these two is a failure who couldn’t defend his host, let alone a throne, and now he’s crumbling away as a consequence, and the other is a failure who can’t face reality and now he runs.”

“It sounds like you want to see why I’m called Bloody Money,” Bloody Money told him.

“I survive.  I play the games.  I’m stronger than I look.  I have the best shot at winning this contest with what you’re offering us.  Let me hang up my hat as a cursewright for good- I do think you seem to know what I do, so I’ll stop pretending.  Let me stop and start something better.”

“We’re not going in this together?” Freeman asked.

“That means this is a plan where three contestants and one Aurum enter the contest and one leaves, that’s fucked, if there’s another way,” Verona told him.  “I’ll give the info to the best sales pitch, here.  Consider that a part of the contest, maybe.”

“You saved my life, you saved me, you gave me a chance,” Freeman said.  “Take this shot away from me, there was no point to that.  I could have sided with them again, bowed to Helen’s threats, said what I needed to say, and I didn’t.”

“I know I’m not strong,” Bloody Money told her.  “But I think we’re most closely aligned.  I won’t be your ally, I won’t be symbolic of some compromise of what the throne means.  That might be what your side hopes for but it’s not what you need.  But I do hate Charles, I don’t like what he’s doing.  That’s my thing, before you came, after I came.  What you offer doesn’t change that one iota.  You ran a market in wartime?”

He indicated himself with two hands.  The smirk had dropped off his face.

Verona sighed, looking back at Cassia and the Turtle Queen.

She made her decision.

Verona was the last one out of the factory.  She made sure the Aurum was coming down and into the building, and made a moment of eye contact, before stepping outside.

Doors closed, and the venue was sealed for the contest.  The others that used feet to move trudged through snow that was piled on dead branches, and crossed the fence to go to the shore.

“Careful of the guards!  There’s some sketchy Abyssal dudes out there, maybe!” Verona called out.

Cassia called back something she couldn’t make out.

The Turtle Queen waited at the edge of the trees.

“We should see if we can get inside the barrier, see how that moot is going, huh?” Verona asked the Turtle Queen.

“It’s guarded.”

“Well, we can fend off Ed- the Girl by Candlelight, I hope.  Once we’re in Kennet found, we’re safe-ish.”

“Yes.”

“Cool.  Right.  Well, Maricica’s gone, she said she would be, Aurum Coil’s now seeing our challenger, which means Avery finished.  Let’s regroup.  Avery, Avery, Avery.”

Cassia, on the shore, was asking about the boats.  Verona only caught the final word with the quizzical tone.  The boats the practitioners of the moot had ridden in on.

“I’m calling a lot of names today.  I wonder if I’ve worn out connections or some bullshit,” Verona told the Turtle Queen.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Doesn’t really work that way unless you’re rebuked, and if we were rebuked by our fairy, goblin, human, and ghost friends with their markets and stuff, we’ve got bigger problems.”

“Indeed.”

“Yeah.  Avery Kelly, Avery Kelly, Avery Kelly.  Come on, my girl.”

Silence, but for the sounds that leafless trees made in wind.

“Avery Kelly, Avery Kelly, Avery Kelly.”

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