Author: Wildbow

Hard Pass – 22.5 | Pale

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A silence-runed gun flashed, illuminating the street below.  Abyssal soldiers fought through Jabber’s influence by dying, now in twos or threes, and the darkness swelled, warping the surrounding area.  Wet snow blew around them all, on the rooftop and down below.

The Dog Tags who weren’t fighting were gathered here.  Grandfather, Doe, and one of the new ones.  Foggy, Verona was pretty sure.  Snatchragged was in the corner- she’d been standing guard over Verona and Lucy while they slept, one eye peering out of a mane of tangled hair, one arm studded with piercings and barbed wire, with some bonus broken Christmas lights and tree ornaments for the season.  And Tashlit was not that far behind Verona, standing by, with snowflakes gathered on her head and upper body, which was eyes meshed together with eyes.  The snowflakes that fell in the seams  between eyes stayed while others were blinked away, creating a highlight effect.

Lis’s irises glowed with the same light and diffusion as the streetlights below.  She walked on the rim of the rooftop, wearing her private school uniform.  “If any of your soldiers reach for their guns, I’m gone.  Not that shooting me would be a good idea.”

“We called you here to talk,” Lucy said.

“And you answered because a part of you wants to listen, right?” Verona asked.

“I listen to most things in the city.  I don’t track everything, it’s a buzz, constant conversation.  Water flows, power is turned on and off, television streams into houses, phone calls are made, internet streams and stutters.”

“Blood spills,” Lucy said.  “Darkness spreads.”

“True,” Lis replied.  “And other things happen beneath the surface.”

“Are you okay with that?” Verona asked.  She’d watched videos of interrogations and the subtle ways interrogators put pressure on suspects, and moved around to one side, sitting on the roof’s edge, so that Lis couldn’t keep her and Lucy in view at the same time.  “Being chipped way?  Key buildings and things being taken away?”

“Or is that why you asked them to not kick up a fuss at places like the hospital?” Lucy asked.  “Lost too many key things, holding onto what’s left?”

“Who says I did?” Lis asked.

“I’m not saying you did.  Just asking, informed by eliminating all the other reasonable options.  Ski hill in peak season… you should be at your strongest.  Businesses returning for the first time since summer, people thriving after the midnight market.  And all that gets thrown away.”

“Mm hmm,” Lis replied, noncommittal.  She looked down at the ongoing fighting, and the spreading Abyssal dark.  “Harri’s not doing so well.”

“No,” Lucy agreed.

Verona didn’t have enhanced hearing or a city spirit’s view of the city, so she had to look.  Kira-Lynn waking up led to the others following suit, the diagram crumbling.  Harri was freaking out, thrashing as Adrian reached for her.  It was hard to tell, but very few of them seemed to be doing that well.

“Travis is saying he feels like the madness was so real it’s screwing with him even after he’s woken up,” Lucy said.

“I’m a fan,” Lis replied.  She turned to Lucy and smiled.  “If you’d been like this from the start, I could’ve been convinced.  Maybe.  I’d want to be a city spirit anyway.”

“Even if they’re taking chunks out of you?” Lucy asked.

“That’s the philosophy you have to agree to buy into with Charles,” Lis replied.  “That you’ll be torn down.  It’s not just the forsworn.  It’s everyone, human and Other, who’s brought low before they can resurge.”

“Like Edith?” Verona asked.

“Well,” Lis said.  She stared off into the distance, watching the kids pulling themselves to a waking position.  The sleeping kids were already being guarded by soldiers from Kennet below, and some of those soldiers helped.

“Well?” Lucy asked.  “What do you mean?”

“Thinking.  It wouldn’t mean anything if being brought low didn’t involve some risk.  If you’re not strong enough-”

“Edith was finding her strength,” Lucy said.  “Pulling it together.  Accepting the Matthew situation.  She spent years being weak, gross, and manipulative and she was on her way to something better.”

“Good point,” Lis said.  She glanced back at them, irises still aglow like the distant streetlights, eyebrow arched.  “I guess it has to be a useful kind of strength?  Useful to someone else.  I’m not on the same track as Edith, to go back to what you said as I arrived.”

“Seems like Maricica is taking over doing what you’re doing.  Turning Kennet into more of a barrier between him and the rest of the world,” Lucy said.

“You chose to do what you’re doing right now because Maricica’s focus is elsewhere, right?” Lis asked.

They had.  They knew the Blue Heron was under attack and it was a tough nut to crack.  So they’d warned Nicolette, of course, they’d had Alpeana’s sexy dream friend contact some people from the moot to back up Nicolette.

Verona thought about the people they’d contacted waking up with flushed faces, damp underwear, and weird boners and leaping to the defense of the Blue Heron before either had resolved, and smirked at the mental picture.

“Yeah, seems like you did,” Lis said, inferring.  “As things evolve, Maricica stands to be Charles’ right hand, advancing and expanding his interests.  But I’m here.  Kennet will struggle and I’ll struggle alongside it, but if I can prove I can bounce back from that, and find a strong position, then that should be a point in my favor with Charles.”

She sounded so confident.

“Look at Harri there.  She’s not doing well,” Lis said.  “Teddy is angry and split on what to do.  They can’t figure out if they should go to the Abyss, call mentors, or go home.  Whatever they choose, it feels like you’re nudging them.  I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?”

“No,” Lucy said.

“We should do up an earring with the rune of horn on it, put a hole in your ear, let me borrow that sometimes,” Verona told Lucy.  She thought of Avery, like it was her instinct to do, and her heart kind of did that thing like she’d missed a step and lurched.  She tried to recover.  “Multiple earrings.”

“Sounds good, something for the future,” Lucy replied.  “Lis is right.  I can hear them.”

“The weak will back off and run, the tougher ones will stay and teach the ones that come next.  I’m glad you’re doing this,” Lis said.  “They’ll adjust.  Maricica will move further out.  Charles will come back to me to support him here, locally.”

“You hope,” Lucy said.

“He’s listening, he’s paying attention to this conversation.  There’s no lie in any of that.”

“And then?” Verona asked.  “Do you really want to be city spirit of a really shitty town, infrastructure ruined, run by gangs?”

Lis considered.  “Yes.  Most of that.”

“Really,” Lucy replied.

“Infighting, backstabbing, sabotage, it’s all interesting.  It feels like home.  And St. Victor’s will flip.  I won’t give you the exact details, but it won’t be long before it’s a not-so-secret magic school.  Serving the region.  Education of a sort you can’t get elsewhere.  The town around it will change, becoming extensions and supports for the school.  For the attitudes the school is meant to instill.  Your friend McCauleigh talked about the place she was sent.  I overheard.”

“Creepy.  Invasive,” Verona told Lis.

“Says the girl who’s invading nightmares, engineering the darkest, most vulnerable moments for those kids out there, who are just starting to get their shit together,” Lis said.

They were.  Figuring out a game plan.  Verona couldn’t hear, but she could see body language.

Come on.  Someone needs to bail.

“You should stick around, Tashlit,” Lis said.

Verona looked back at her friend.

“You’re divine.  There’ll be a lot of stuff around Maricica, her Church of Bloody Glory.  It’ll be a big part of what gets taught at the new school.  Charles asked Seth to investigate, and there isn’t a magic school out there with that kind of curriculum, with a god or goddess at the disposal of the school like that.”

Tashlit gestured.  Hands framing her face, then arms up in front of her, crossed at the wrists, then a motion around her silhouette, hands miming the shape of her body, armpit to hip, then quickly making brushing, sweeping motion at the top of her chest, connecting the two ideas.

Verona translated.  “I think that isn’t what she’s about.  I read that as the divinity is her but she’s trying to get away from it defining her.  Is that right?”

Tashlit nodded.

“But you like connecting to people, being Verona’s backup.  Imagine if you were out there, finding the lost and scared, the kids crying in the woods, their magic bullet to get them back in the game.  A new Verona every few years.  Nobody’s going to tell you you haven’t met Charles’ standard.”

Tashlit gestured, two hands out, toward the two halves of Verona’s face, then moving one hand away with one finger extended, while closing the other fist.

“There’s only one Verona,” Verona said.

It meant a lot.  She and Tashlit hadn’t connected so much recently.  The direction Verona was going and the things she was interested in, the people she was connecting with, they weren’t in the same ballpark as Tashlit.  Which wasn’t at all saying that she didn’t like Tashlit.

“You know what bothers me?” Lucy asked.  “So many damn people seem to think they’re the ones who are going to tough it out.  That they’re the ones who’ll make it through and be on top in the new world order.  You’re going to make it where Edith failed, Lis?”

“I’ve made it this far.”

“And she was in it for longer.  Or are you going to tell us you’re not in it for the long haul, you want to get your moment of glory, fuck mediocrity?”

“Was that Charles who said that?  I wouldn’t call what he had mediocrity.  He was forsworn.”

“Others.  Seems to be a refrain.”

“We selected them for certain traits and talents.  The weasel, the cheat, the thief.  We looked for people who were dissatisfied, who wanted to burn brighter.”

“Can’t help but notice the candle metaphor, burning brighter for half as long,” Verona said.

“Charles selected you for that same kind of ambition, didn’t he, Lis?” Lucy asked.

“Are you really trying to draw comparisons between people he’s failed and me?  When I was once a wallflower doppleganger?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “I’m including you in that group, and I don’t think you’re special, and I think you’re going to get burned.”

Lis leaped down from the lip of the roof’s edge, eyes bright, changing shape, and someone moved behind Lucy.  Horseman, reacting.  Lis tilted her head, and the building shook, that corner of the roof dipping slightly, concrete groaning.

“Don’t move your hand closer to guns,” Lis said.  Her skin was light brown, her hair wavy and messy, pulled back into a short ponytail, and she wore a black military jacket.  A coyote mask hung from her neck, positioned at one shoulder, and she had a bag slung around her back.  Her eyes moved over to Lucy, then Verona.  “If you shoot me, what do you think happens?”

“We wound Kennet?” Verona asked.

“That.  And I get removed.  Then, instead of a city spirit with some minor interest in leaving the hospital alone, you have whatever Charles puts in place as a guard dog to secure the town around his throne.”

“That’s the threat, then?” Lucy asked.

“I’m not a fan of threats.  If I want to hurt someone, I’ll do that without the warning.  If I want them not to do something, I’ll manipulate them.  Otherwise?  I’m telling you the facts.”

“You’re a tool, Lis,” Lucy said.  “In more ways than one.”

“Sure,” Lis said.  She turned her head.  “Would you look at that?  They realized Maricica’s busy and-”

“They’re calling you,” Lucy said.  “You’re a distant second pick to them.  They barely even remember you’re meant to be their mentor and supporter.  Kira-Lynn had to remind them.”

“I’ll go.  Time to show them what I can do.  This is my arena.  In more ways than one.”

“Lis?” Verona asked.

“What?”

“Your facts?  Your not-threats?” Verona asked.

She glanced at Lucy, who paused, then asked, “Same offer?”

“Yeah,” Verona said.  Lucy dipped her head in a nod.  “We’re offering you the same compromise we offered those guys.  You can bail.  If you do, we’ll help.  Part of that is you make restitution.  You hurt Ken, you did a lot of damage, but we’ve got a lot of Others who crossed lines in the past.  You can work your way out of that hole.”

“Any information you have on Avery out front and center, no being coy,” Lucy said.  “Help us find Bracken and Bag and get them out.  Secure the hospital.  Cease helping Charles and his side in any way.  That includes the St. Victor’s kids.  Any underlings, soldiers, assets, or other people you have sway over should turn themselves over to our council.  Similar deal for them.  That’s where we start.  When things settle, we’ll figure out what else.”

“I don’t think you understood what I was telling you.”

“We understand,” Verona replied.  “Counteroffer: get your shit together, start on the road to making it up to us, to Kennet, or you’re the next target.”

“You have bigger things to worry about than me.”

“For sure,” Verona replied.  “But when we step on you on our way to get to them, we can step hard.”

“I’m not that easy an adversary.  Just because I keep to the background…”

“The Alabaster kept to the background,” Lucy pointed out.

Lis fell silent.  She looked out toward the other group.  “They’re calling.  I have to answer.  Excuse me.”

“If you go,” Verona said,  But Lis was gone.

Verona sighed.

“Lis, hear me,” Verona said.

Off in the distance, Lis’s glowing eyes turned their way.  The entire city swelled faintly, imperceptibly, like every street became a few inches wider, expanding, then shrunk back down again.

Like an animal puffing itself up to appear intimidating.

Verona glanced at Tashlit.  She was good at reading body language and weird modes of communication.  Here, she could read Lis some.

“Hear me, if you don’t come back to talk to us before this situation below us forces us to bail, we’re going to assume you’re not accepting our offer.  You’ve fucked with us and people we liked one too many times, so either you start helping to unfuck everything that’s fucked, or we come after you.  Swear?”

She made that last question one for Lucy.

“So pledged,” Lucy said.

“So pledged,” Verona added.

It looked like that worked to distract Lis from what the others were saying.

Verona stretched, turning away.  She looked over the rooftop’s edge, to where the battle lines were forming.  About six or so people from the undercity were Abyss-baked enough to start ignoring Jabber, mostly.  A few of them laughed and howled, showing they were still under the influence, rictus grins on faces- including one guy who had a trail of slobber that had to be a foot long, whipping around him without breaking for like, three seconds.

“Jabba!” Jabber cheered, fists going up.  “Merash acton!  Ackan rot!”

“Fuck you!” a distant person shouted.

“Kids are pretty shaken.  Kira-Lynn’s trying to rally them.  Lis is on her side.  I think Kira-Lynn and Lis get along.”

“Lis was talking to Kira-Lynn around the time of Edith’s surgery, in the bathroom,” Verona said.  “Caught wind of her before she disappeared.”

“So if Lis doesn’t show up and concede, we go after her?”

“That’s the plan,” Verona said.

Lucy nodded.  “And if she goes with us, or if we remove her, what happens?”

“Probably what she said.  New guard dog.  We find a way to deal with the guard dog.  Probably… kids go looking for the next person to back them up.  One of the trusted teachers, maybe.  Or Rook.  She’s hung around them.”

Lucy nodded.

Lis was dressed up like a St. Victor’s student, male but feminine in frame, a bit like Anselm, cigarette in his mouth.  Probably copying the St. Victor’s group.

“Was that okay, by the way?” Verona asked.  “Pushing?  Calling the bluff?”

“Yeah,” Lucy replied, voice soft.  “I think that caught him off guard.  But it’s the most immediate problem, right?  Kennet, and the state Kennet is in?”

“Well, Avery.”

“Right.  But like… most immediate problem we can answer, right?  If anyone told me a way to get to Avery, or find her, or anything-”

“Absolutely,” Verona agreed, before the thought was done.

“If there was anyone to ask.  But Chase looked and came up blank, and Gillian read the stars, whatever that means, and Zed hasn’t found anything, and Nicolette’s turning up empty.  We’ve got messages going out…”

“Not sure if they’re being received though,” Verona said.  “The Aurum’s against us and he manages stuff like tech.  I wouldn’t rule out interference.”

“Noted,” Lucy said.

Lis looked around, and then buildings started to shift, closer to the Arena.  Even from the distance they were at, blocks away, Verona could hear the grinding of stone dragged against stone.  Or stone over road.  Or road over road.

The location wasn’t all that far from the House on Half Street.  Buildings parted, and a space was created within, and that space expanded, like a circular concrete lot, ringed by a short ledge with broad, long stairs at the cardinal directions, allowing access from above ground to that ring.  Clouds around it suggested it was heavily spirit.  Probably shielding it from view from Innocents.

That circular space began to lower.  It spiraled, becoming a pit, with a spiral staircase leading the way down along the exterior wall.  Darkness billowed out, then wafted away.

“Think I saw that in a movie once,” Verona said.

“Same,” Lucy agreed.

“Not very original, Lis,” Verona heckled Lis, knowing the name-call would get Lis’s attention.

“Not a good idea, going this route,” Lucy added.

Lis shortened the distance between where the St. Victor’s kids were and the pit she’d made.  They hurried in, taking the stairs down.  Teddy and Kira-Lynn in the lead.  Harri and Adrian were at the rear of the group.  Harri was the smallest and youngest, now that Stefan had bailed, and Adrian her cousin.

Lis remained where she was, near the Chateau, watching as Harri gripped Adrian’s arm with both of hers.  Adrian seemed to hold back, only for Harri to tug him forward, and then Harri oddly had second thoughts…

They lagged behind even more.

“Come on,” Verona whispered.  “What was Harri’s nightmare again?  Why’s she freaking out again?”

“Horrifying,” Lucy replied.  “I appeared when her room was dark, kept to shadows, splashed her with curse liquid.  Then dumped it on her.  The darkness of the room was a pretty big part of it.  I guess the pit’s too dark for her right now?”

Lis was still on the outside porch of the the cordoned-off Chateau, smoking.  Watching everything with eyes that had glowing irises.

“What’s she doing?” Lucy asked.  Her head turned.  “Putting the pit away.  With kids inside?”

“There’s probably another way out,” Verona said.  “Maybe she’s thinking?”

“Or she’s decided not to.  Helping those kids is pretty not great,” Lucy murmured.

Snow fell around them.  Lis kept her shape from the group of St. Victor’s students.  Wearing that uniform, cigarette in her mouth, eyes aglow.

“You want to go?” Grandfather asked.

Lucy sighed.

Grandfather walked up to stand by Lucy, looking at the distant Lis.  “I’m worried she’s setting up a trap.  If she can collapse this building, moving the edge of the rooftop like that…”

“I’m betting that cost her a lot of capital,” Verona said.  “And she had to be here.  Without that, we claim this building by occupying it with our forces.  The other guys haven’t gotten that far.”

Tashlit gestured.

“Yet,” Verona added.

“Still worried,” Grandfather said.

“Valid,” Lucy said.  “Let’s trust those instincts.  Alright, then…”

As they turned toward the door to the building interior, they saw Lis, wearing a guise that reflected most people on the rooftop.  Like an aged up version of who she’d been before, with the light brown skin, wavy black hair in a short ponytail, but a little more Dog Tag.

“I had to ferry them where they wanted to go.”

“And they wanted to go to the Abyss?” Verona asked.

“Yes.  I said something earlier, I would’ve been gainsaid if I didn’t take them where they wanted to go.  Considering your offer…”

“Yes or no?” Lucy asked.

“Neutrality,” Lis answered.  “I’ve been in the background this long, I-”

“No,” Verona replied.

Lis fell silent.

“Nah,” Verona added.  “Nooo, hell to the fuck you, no.  No convenient neutrality.”

“Even if it puts your father and her mother at risk?  Avery’s dad and her family?” Lis asked.

“I think you’d better reconsider that question real fast,” Lucy said, anger edging into her voice.  “Because if you’re going to cave, we may not want to cooperate with someone who just threatened our families.  And if you’re not going to cave, that’s a surefire way to upgrade ‘we will destroy you’ to ‘we will destroy you with prejudice.'”

“Those kids are angry now.  They’re scared, they’re going to be more reckless.  They’re weaker.  This is the prime time to act.  You said if I helped you unfuck things, you wouldn’t come after me.  By not interfering, leaving the door open for you to act, with Charles recuperating power and Maricica away, that’s helping.”

“Not being an asshole for a little while isn’t helping,” Verona said.  “You sound like my fucking dad, saying ‘I’ll get out of your way’, like it’s a favor.”

“It’s not a favor, it’s offering to not be an obstacle,” Lucy said.

“Fuck you, Lis.  We’re serious, here,” Verona threw in.

“It’s not helping,” Doe said.

Tashlit gestured.  Grandfather added his voice to the chorus.

It was majority rule.  Mob justice.  Giving them just a little more clout in the face of everything.  At the same time, it was also giving a voice to more people, shouting down ridiculousness.  At its core, it worked because it was true.

Lis stood there, facing them.  The wind blew the locks of hair on either side of her face off to one side, one lock crossing her nose.

“The decision you make right now determines how we move,” Verona said.

“You talked about being brought low and fighting your way back up.  We’re offering the fight,” Lucy said.  “How sure are you that you’re going to come out ahead?”

There was screaming on the street below them, Abyss-tainted people fighting dogs.

Verona had improvised a lot of this.  It kind of tracked from the way they dealt with Fae.  Being blunt, being forward.  Lis was a schemer, she worked best as a background character, pulling strings.  She’d answered their call ready to drop a threat.  Now they were challenging her directly.

What was the closest thing to that that she’d ever dealt with?  Had she dealt with that?  Maybe taking on Ken.  Or killing the Witch Hunters from Montreal well before she’d ever come to Kennet, slitting throats as they slept, or whatever.

“I’m offering neutrality,” Lis repeated.

And if we take that, you get to be in the background, you end the neutrality when it’s convenient… no.

Lucy shook her head.  Probably thinking the same thing.  “You stood by and maybe even helped as they did what they did to Edith.  How sure are you they’ll back you up?”

“Seriously, Lis,” Verona said.  She spread her arms.

“I want a magic school.  I want to shape the town around it.  Once we get enough sway that we can shape the practitioners and the people who come to us and then go back out into the world?”

“I mean, I sympathize,” Verona said.  “I want my magic bookstore.  I want my market.  But you’re kind of fucking with us there.  Seriously.”

“It sounds like you’re saying no,” Lucy said.

“Neutrality is as far as I’m willing to go, otherwise I’m jumping from frying pan to frying pan, and I’d rather not break my momentum.”

Lucy nodded, then turned to Verona.  “Anything else to say or ask?”

“Uh,” Verona replied.

There was a lot communicated in that eye glance.

“That portal you made for them,” Verona said.  Lucy turned away from Lis, sighing.

“What about it?” Lis asked.

Verona saw Lucy’s eyes flick over to Grandfather.  Lucy blinked, and it was a forced blink.

“Is that the plan for Kennet?  To have-?”

By some unspoken signal, the Dog Tags reached for their guns, and Snatchragged lunged.

Lis acted too.  The entire rooftop tilted slightly.  It meant that the Dog Tags that pulled their guns had a harder shot.  Snatchragged, moving on all fours, smashed her piercing-laden arm across the back of Lis’s ankles, raking flesh twelve ways from Sunday, hooks catching on spirit-flesh.

All across Kennet, Verona could hear tires squeal and horns honk.  Car alarms went off.

“Wound, don’t-!” Lucy shouted.

That sound was drowned out by the report of three different guns firing.  Tashlit put arms around Verona, and Verona wasn’t sure if that was to shield her from the guns or to be ready to jump off the roof and onto the street or snow below, in case the rooftop kept tilting.

“-kill!”

Lis was clipped at the back of the head, at the shoulder, and elsewhere.  The clock above the town hall went from an orange-y glow to dark gray, stopping.  If there was other damage, Verona didn’t see.

And then Lis was gone.

The rooftop creaked more, then stopped.

Jabber screamed somewhere below, and there were more flashes of gunfire as Dog Tags below continued to fight the Abyssal soldiers.

“Horseman!” Grandfather shouted out.

“Falling back!” Horseman called out from the street below.

Verona could only barely see over the roof’s now-slanted edge as three goblins, including Biscuit, their best Jabber handler, steered Jabber away.  Dog Tags began shifting their positions.

Tashlit still had her arms around Verona’s shoulders and lower ribs.  Verona reached out to pat the arms, and Tashlit let go.

Grandfather had a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, in a slightly less elegant hold, with similar sentiment.  It wasn’t until Lucy turned that he seemed to realize what he was doing.

Verona pulled out a spell card, and drenched the chalk diagram on the rooftop.  Only got about half of it with the splash.  She used another.  Lucy picked up the wards and connection blocks.

“Hurting her hurts the town?” Grandfather asked.  One of the car alarms still rang across Kennet.

“Some,” Verona said.  “But she doesn’t have all that much claim.  She has two thirds of Kennet, abstractly, but then Charles has a bit and Maricica has claimed a chunk of it herself.  She doesn’t represent one hundred percent of Kennet.”

“So if we kill her?” Grandfather asked.

“We kill maybe a third of Kennet’s infrastructure and everything.  Which is obviously still not great, but if she’s talking about being brought low and then fighting her way back?  Lis!?  If you’re talking about being brought low and fighting your way back?  Cuts both ways!”

“But don’t kill her,” Lucy said.  “Wound.  If you can really get her, we can call her with a forced summoning and then bind her.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Grandfather replied, opening the door.

There was no fire escape on the outside of the building.  The stairwell was concrete and rebar, and the shift in the building had cracked a lot of it.  Enough that some stairs were really shaky.

Tashlit took Verona’s upper arm in a firm grip.  Her hand wasn’t big enough to encircle Verona’s arm with a long sleeved shirt, big sweater, and duffel coat, so she gripped the sleeve and held it tight.

Verona was grateful.  They navigated their way down, hopping past one bad section where the middle of a stretch of stairs didn’t seem connected to the stairs above and below.

A crack on the wall made a grating sound, and a puff of concrete dust poured out.

Not because it was breaking, but because it was healing.

Verona wondered if that was a power move.  Telling us we need you?  You’re our only way to fix what’s broken, so accept your shitty neutrality, which just buys you time and lets you do what you were doing already?

Tashlit gestured, pointing up at the roof.  She mimed shooting a gun, then karate chopped over where her heart would’ve been, before pushing that down.

“Uhh, she kind of moved against us first,” Verona said.  “When she dropped that one corner of the roof.  So I think it was karmically okay to shoot her.”

“And we spelled things out,” Lucy said.  “So did she.  Terms were set.  She left, she came back of her own free will, knowing we probably wouldn’t like the answer.”

They navigated another tricky part of the stairwell.  Horseman jumped it, then waited on the far side, ready to catch those that Tashlit handed over.  Verona felt like a little kid.

She thought about Avery and how Avery would probably navigate this no problem. Fuck.  Didn’t want to dwell.  Avery was strong, Avery had Snowdrop.  She had tools, practices.  Maybe she was gainsaid and in an awkward spot.  Or she was pulled into the Abyss and using practice to- no, because Chase would’ve caught that, Nicolette had said.  Something.

Easier to dwell on Tashlit, which said a lot, because Tashlit wasn’t ‘easy’.  Tashlit was someone who, yeah, like she’d been thinking, wasn’t a Hooligan in the House at Half Street.  She wasn’t someone who could mess around with Mal or poke fun at Oakham.

“Hey, Tash?” Verona asked.

Tashlit squeezed her arm a bit.

“The others said you might be leaving.  I want you to know it’s okay if you need to.  No hard feelings.  But stay in touch?  Leave me a location and time to reach out to you, so we can figure something out?”

Tashlit mimed the brim of a baseball cap.

“Yeah.  Like your dad.  And we say I’ll reach out at so and so a time, you plan to be at your dad’s place at that time, we figure something out.”

Tashlit lifted Verona over the gap.  Twisted rebar and broken concrete marred the ‘landing’ of that flight of stairs.

“Maybe we make it a thing where we go on vacation together every year?” Verona asked.

Tashlit let her go.  Horseman helped Verona get onto safe ground, and Verona backed away from the gap, pressing back to wall- or backpack to wall, looking at Tashlit.

Tashlit nodded, and thumped heart to chest.

“Of course,” Verona said.

Horseman waited on the ground floor.  “Back door.”

They followed him.  Horseman, Grandfather, and Doe went out first.

Outside, it was chaotic.  The attacking group was out there, and it wasn’t just them attacking.  That Abyssal taint spread, stretching out this part of Kennet.

“What’s our plan?” Horseman asked.

“Getting out of here first.  I’m worried about what those kids were doing, I think they wanted to get away from us before strategizing.  They knew I was listening, but didn’t know how.”

When they’d managed to get a sleep effect on the St. Victor’s kids, they’d called on Alpeana.  Using one of the rooftops where they’d had the bands for the Christmas concert playing, they’d camped out, with the soldiers from the Carmine faction closing in on them.  Setting up measures.  Connection blocks, wards.  And sending out Peckersnot with spell cards.

Two notecards on a nearby shed.  One to act as a conduit for a practice.  So if Verona wanted to do something spur of the moment, she could create a paired card here, then have the effect come out of the card way over there.  Nothing major, just a distraction.  One for Lucy’s hearing, listening in from a right angle.

“So they’re making plans specifically against us,” Verona said.

“We caught them off guard this time.  But if they’ve got some way to know if I’m listening in… hm.”

“Might want to watch out for an ear-based Nettlewisp,” Verona pointed out.

There was a surge from the Abyssal guys.  Verona’s eyes widened as the Dog Tags fell back aggressively, guns flashing but not making noise, with the papers around them.

It was a slog, getting out of this stretch where areas of downtown had expanded to accommodate the temporary Abyssal effects.  Looming buildings with people that looked way rougher than anyone in Kennet below sat in places they shouldn’t have.  In one alley, there were stairs that seemed to lead into an underground area with more city lights, with a big old bloodstain with graffiti around it on the wall.

And as they got out, there were bystanders here and there, looking, but those faces leered, smiling, laughing.  Affected by Jabber.  Verona watched carefully, making sure they weren’t in the line of fire or getting trampled by the bad guys.

Some of the Abyssal guys in the lead were gunned down, and they fell.  Cracks began to open up.

“Move, move, move!” Horseman shouted.

More running.

Tashlit still holding Verona’s arm helped.  Like being a kid and being supported by mom and dad.  Tashlit was strong, and it meant a part of Verona’s weight was being handled and she had to keep her feet under her while putting in a modicum of effort.

The darkness billowed out around them, threatening to encapsulate them.

That was the real danger.  Getting surrounded, stuck in a fight where even wounding one of the ten people around them would create this Abyssal muck.  And then getting out and away required covering three times as much ground, giving the other guys more time to collect and surround them.  Take out another, that spread out the territory.  Or, Verona supposed, it could deepen it.

Apparently they’d only interacted with the shallow portions so far.

Then, when the fight was done, everything would shrink down, the darkness would recede.  Mostly.  There were always faint cracks and dark stains left behind, however small.

As they got to the one end of downtown, near the road that ran north to south and led out of Kennet, Verona could see that traffic had stopped.  Some tires had punctured, and cars blocked the way, especially around the bridge.  Looking down as much of the road that extended from here to the west of Kennet, where there was another road out, Verona could see a lot of red lights of stopped cars.

Toadswallow waited by an alley, and not a creepy Abyssal alley, either.  There was a box, and Jabber ran straight into it face first, making Toadswallow grunt and step back.  The box fell down, Jabber landing face first, and Toadswallow kicked the lid closed.

“Well?” Toadswallow asked.

“We pissed off Lis, hurt her,” Lucy said, indicating the cars.

“Hurts us.”

“I know.”

“Make it count,” Toadswallow told them.  “Got a plan?”

“Yeah.”

“More importantly, we got information,” Verona said.  Wasn’t information on Avery, but…

We know what they’re scared of now.

“I figure they’re going to prepare, they’re going to prevent us from taking action,” Lucy said.  “If not because we might actually go down that road, it serves double duty.”

“Double duty?” Verona asked.

They were walking through the town-hall-slash-library that was Miss’s base of operations.  A multi-layer administrative office with shelves of reference books and records, books, and more.  Miss was on the upper level, working with foundlings, and here and there, papers were thrown down, to be caught and sorted, or more often, now, just gathered by foundlings upstairs, organized, and then taken to the right places.

Miss turned to look at them as they entered.  Verona saluted.

“It’s not as busy as it was,” Luna whispered.  “It was so hectic when this realm was new.  Mostly it’s approving television, features, businesses, and community events.”

“Where can we work?” Verona asked.

“How big a room do you want?”

“Big as we can get.”

Grandfather had said they shouldn’t be predictable, so instead of going to Verona’s demesne, they’d come here.  There was an upside, Verona saw, as Luna led them to a side room and had them wait, that the room here was bigger than Verona’s war room.  There, the table took up a good chunk of the room that had once been a dining room, and that ‘table’ was only really big enough to seat four.  Six with elbows bumping into one another.

Not that it could seat anyone, since there wasn’t room to put your legs under.  It was a big block of wood.  But still.

Here, there was room to get books and notes out without obscuring the image on the table.

“What do you need?” Luna asked.

“Maps,” Lucy said.  “Of Kennet.”

“On it.”

“We need some details on the St. Victor’s kids, too,” Verona said.

“What details?” Miss asked.

She’d come downstairs, and stood by the door.  Luna Hare was on her way back, some cardboard tubes tucked under her arm, and stopped, giving Miss her space.  Miss was just tall enough that the top of the door blocked the view of her head.  Her hands were clasped behind her back, and she wore a blue sweater with a black pleated skirt, knee-high boots with a single set of buckles at the tops,  and heels.

“Location.  But anything’s good,” Verona said.

“If information is online, we probably know.  I’ve also had spies keeping an eye out.”

“Creepy and cool,” Verona said.

“I won’t say that’s the atmosphere I’ve tried to cultivate, but it’s the one that’s found me, I think,” Miss said.

She stepped out of view.

Luna came through, giving them the tubes.  They pulled out maps of Kennet.

This was the part that would’ve been easier in Verona’s Demesne.  She could call up maps and change the table’s surface.

Miss returned, and Luna ran to the door to take the binders.  Miss remained by the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching.

To Verona, hanging by the doorway, leaning against the frame like that, it made her think of her and her dad.  How she’d been emotionally invested at first, how at the very early stages, after the divorce, Verona had sobbed alongside her dad, and that had been some weird-ass probably-unhealthy bonding thing.  Then weeks had passed and she hadn’t been crying as much and her dad had been almost offended.  And she’d sit on the bed for an hour or three every night while he moaned and sobbed about his life and the divorce and her mom.  Or she’d lie beside him on bed and they’d put some TV on, and she’d tolerate a show or movie that was an A for her dad and a C for her.

The way he kept asking her to join him and lie beside him to watch a movie, he probably thought it was the time they’d been closest.

That went on for almost a year.  Crying fits and complaints and her dad being upset, and the movie or TV thing.  Then it wouldn’t be her lying in bed beside him but her sitting on the end of the bed, hearing him out, or standing at the end of the bed while he just unloaded about everything around the house that needed doing.  Couldn’t walk away mid-conversation or he’d blow up at her, get more upset, even to the point of telling her to go to her room because they needed to sleep, but picking it up right away the next morning.  Dishes, laundry, fold his clothes right, hang up his underwear, shake out his shirts, make dinner, mow the lawn, rake the leaves, shovel the snow, clear out the basement, drywall the basement, dishes, laundry, do the clothes right, mowing, raking, leaves, dishes.

All punctuated by her being cried at.  Sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes, sometimes for hours.  Sometimes him just moaning about his lot in life, sometimes him just unloading on her about her failures to do her part.  Monday, tuesday, friday, sunday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, saturday, sunday, monday, wednesday, friday, saturday, monday, tuesday, friday.  That was a month.  Then the next month was the same.  And the next month, and the next month.

Until Verona had gone from being beside him to being near him to being at the end of the bed, sitting or standing, to being in the room.  And then being in the doorway, leaning against the frame.  There but not there.  At that threshold.

“Is something wrong?” Miss asked, standing in the doorway.

“Let’s get you your Kennet back,” Verona said.

“That would be nice, but it’s not your responsibility.”

“Making it really hard to not gainsay you, Miss,” Lucy said, opening one of the binders, placing it down to hold an unrolled map flat.

“Magnets, weights, or tokens?” Verona asked.  “To mark our targets.”

“On it,” Luna replied, before darting through the door.

Julette came through almost right after.

“You made it,” Verona remarked.

“Saw Tashlit going out.”

“Standing watch.  We’ve got a lot of people going out, trying to keep tabs on stuff.  How’s the House on Half Street?”

“Surrounded.”

“We can get in and out through Kennet found, though?”

“Yeah, but you’ll get followed.  I had to take a weird route, close a gate, to block ’em.”

Verona nodded.

“Hate to break it to you, but you might have to go home to rest.”

“Any word on that?  They’re not bothering my dad?”

“Dunno.  I think it’s okay,” Julette said, standing beside Verona to look over her shoulder.  “Grades and addresses.”

“Power, water, traffic, business,” Lucy mused aloud.  “Her veins, arteries, muscles and bones, kind of.  Feels weird to be thinking of ways to attack Kennet.”

“It’s a problem,” Verona agreed, looking at the maps Lucy was poring over.  “But we need to handle her, or we can’t recover this.  And she’s a pillar the St. Victor’s kids can lean on… we gotta remove that.  They really felt like they were teetering, but the moment they hit this certain point-”

“They go to someone like a mentor or Maricica or Lis, now.”

“In the case of Kira-Lynn, she really went to Maricica.”

“Was it a horny sort of go-to?” Julette asked.  “Or-”

“Nah,” Verona replied.  “Less of an ‘oh mama’, more of a ‘mommy’.”

“Huh.”

“With a side of everything being blood soaked, screaming in the background.  Stuck in a dark, bloody meat pit with your goddess and all the other thralls at your feet.  But hey, she got a hug and praise and the whole ‘you’re down here forever with me’ thing didn’t really work on her.”

“She seemed a bit shaken when she came back.  I’m not sure what that was, though,” Lucy said.  “Like… is that because she realized how fast she fell into that line of thinking, or is it because she had to leave?”

Luna came back through, carrying a box.  She put it down and held out a little slate puck and some chalk.

Verona wrote down the name.

Cameron Grace Merson.

“It feels weird that they’re so mingled with us.  Their neighborhoods are our neighborhoods.  Their school is a walk through the field, hospital parking lot, their parking lot,” Lucy said, watching as Verona put the puck down at Cameron’s house.

“What did you find out, from the nightmares?  What they’re afraid of?  We saw a hint of that with Harri.”

“We know they go to and from Kennet below and some Abyssal space around it.  The churches are the main vector.”

“So we hit the churches of bloody glory?” Grandfather asked.

“Might not be a bad idea.  But that’s where most of their people will be.”

“They all had tools,” Lucy observed.

“Saw that.  Mangled, twisted stuff.”

“I think they have dragonslayer weapons from Joel.  Harri went straight for hers.  Adrian and Travis were armed with them too.  Teddy couldn’t pull his, because his nightmare went after him from an Innocent angle.”

“Dangerous to get into,” Verona said.  “Because the moment we cross that line, breaching that truce…”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.

She unrolled another map.  “This is accurate?”

“To the best of my spies’ knowledge, as of tonight.”

The map showed locations with magic circles and protections.  They were protecting their own houses.  And the church of bloody glory.

Verona leaned over, craning her head, and Julette almost climbed onto the table to do the same, but from a further starting point.

“Can we get more details on the wards and circles?” Verona asked.

“I’ll call Sootsleeves.  She was directing the spies.”

“Who are we moving against?” Lucy asked.

“Everyone on their side,” Verona said.

“But priorities?”

“Everyone,” Verona replied.  She met Lucy’s eyes.  “Find weak spots, make weak spots when we can’t find them.”

“Pierce the weak spots.”

Verona nodded.

“And we’re dealing with Lis while we do it?”

“Yeah.  We need to be ready when she makes a move.”

“Tell me about your targets, and who had which nightmare,” Lucy said.  She tapped the puck with ‘Cameron Grace Merson’ on it.  “What was the nightmare and how can we make it come true?”

“Making it come true would be hard.  She was at the Blue Heron, with Seth.  I think she was Forsworn, and she got a glimpse of who he really is.”

“That crosses a line, I’d think.”

“Not like that.  He didn’t go after her.  Just the opposite.  He abandoned her when she needed him.  Went after a girl that… yeah.”

“How can we bring that home?” Lucy asked.

“Hmmm.  We need a phone.  And a computer.”

“I love scavenger hunts,” Luna said.

“Here,” Miss said.  She guided someone into the room with a not-hand.  An urchin from Sootsleeves’ group, with a pigeon mask and scarf of matching colors.  “One of the spies.”

“Tell me about the spellwork you saw, if any.”

“It was in the frost.  Tracing the lines.  Hard to see…”

The meow was loud.

Verona knew she didn’t have long.  The moment she was in Kennet above, that ward was lit up and any disguise, block, evasion, or whatever else would quickly wear down.  She got minutes and then the alert would go out.  After that, Marcica’s soldiers would come after her.

The town moved, and it breathed.  Verona could see it in subtle ways.  Lis was ready to move things.  So not only would Verona be quickly surrounded, but the streets and buildings wouldn’t cooperate.  Features would move.  Everything would get harder.

Then if they got her, then they’d blow up or try to drag her down.  They’d taint the area, spread the darkness, bog her down, put her further away from escape routes.  Giving more time for her to be surrounded, compounding the problem.

Again, she felt that void.  Because Avery was killer at navigating that shit.

A part of her wanted to take out Lis because she wanted their enemies to feel what she felt.  Missing something critical.

A louder meow, now.

Mrs. Merson was the volunteer mom, so omnipresent at events that she was a known face even around a school her kids weren’t in.  She was a known face practically running Canada day celebrations, did inter-school bake sales, book fairs, always did up her yard in a big way for Halloween and Christmas, though Verona hadn’t connected the ideas there until she’d realized this was Cameron’s house.  The annoying thing was Mrs. Merson would do this thing where she’d spearhead the anti-drug P.S.A.s and other stuff, bringing it to Kennet.  Like, running a big bake sale and then using the money to bring a motivational speaker to awkwardly hype up the kids, while the assembled third-to-twelfth graders sat on the hard gymnasium floor.

Which was mostly cool, better than the alternative, Verona supposed, except that Verona had the sense that this woman subtly sabotaged or took over anything that wasn’t hers.  It probably really chafed her clit that Lucy and Verona had arranged the rooftop concert thing, and the Kennet below arcade…

Nah.  No way.

But if there was any way that an Innocent could even find the arcade and report it, it’d be Mrs. Merson.

The woman stopped in her tracks.  She was in the middle of bringing in a load of late-night groceries when she spotted the cat, white with long fur, almost invisible where it curled up in the snow.

“Oh sweetie,” she said.  “You’re shivering.”

She bent down, reaching out tentatively, and the cat went right for her, past arm and to chest.  She hugged him, and he trembled violently, head finding the ‘v’ of her coat, before worming his way inside.

“Oh honey, beautiful girl, who do you belong to?  What were you thinking, coming out into the cold like this?  The snow’s so wet…”

Verona didn’t hear the rest.  She saw the cat peer over Mrs. Merson’s shoulder, and smile in a way cats shouldn’t be able to.

Julette was nearby, and gave Verona a nod.

They circled around the house together, Verona black with white bits, and Julette white with black bits, and found vantage points to watch through windows as Mrs. Merson took the cat to the living room.

There were big windows at the one corner of the house, which was a pretty nice place- not far from Paul’s last known residence, or from the rest stop that led west out of town.  Not that ‘pretty nice’ was all that special compared to houses in the city, but eh.

Mrs. Merson might’ve been an annoying person, but she wasn’t a bad person, judging by her treatment of Blankshanks.  She was gentle, and caring, and turned the artificial fireplace on, before removing her jacket, and leaving it there, bundling up Blankshanks in front of that heat source.

She jogged across the house, wearing hat, gloves, and sweater, but no coat, and went to get the last of the groceries.

Blankshanks stood, shifting to hind legs, and stretched like a human might, smiling.

The house was warded.  The ward was set in deep and was invisible to anyone without the Sight.  But Blankshanks was a strangeling, from the cat lady’s collection of weird-ass cats.

There were places in the world where the rule about invading homes was a matter of Law in the practice and behavior of Others.  Strangelings, frequently acting as mercenary agents of the Fae, would invade those spaces, even when those protections were in place.  The standard setup was that they’d pose as pets, play games and lay groundwork, and eventually open up the space and undo its protections.  When there was no ward or Law involved, sometimes they were still necessary, to open the way for a Fae to enter a home, when civilization repelled that Fae.

Similar deal to goblins.  It was only because of Toadswallow’s work to create spaces and efforts from Ken that the goblins could navigate the city interior, though they sometimes had to take roundabout routes.

And when there were protections, well, it looked like hiding in the woman’s coat as she passed the threshold worked to get him inside, and as he moved through the inside-

Verona turned on her Sight.

-he moved past the gossamer strands that glowed almost red hot as they got close to him, weaving, tracing weird routes through the house as he walked paths that let him avoid the stands.  Searching.  One paw reaching for a watch on the coffee table.

“Blankshanks, Blankshanks, Blankshanks,” Verona whispered.

Startled, he dropped to a sitting position and started self-grooming.  In the process, he looked for her and found her and Julette on a branch across the yard, looking over at him.

She shook her head.

No stealing.

He could probably get away with it too.

The glamour was starting to fray.  Verona figured they only had a minute.

Just do the job, she thought.

Blankshanks gave her a look, and then reached a paw inside the big ruff of fur at his chest and pulled out a phone.

As Mrs. Merson came back, Blankshanks dropped to all fours and pounced on the phone, sending it skidding across the floor.

“We should go,” Verona told Julette.

“I want to see.”

“We know what she’s going to see.”

Mrs. Merson saw on the second pounce on the phone, and Blankshanks hurried to pounce on it again, sending it skidding under the couch.

As the woman bent down, reaching for it, Blankshanks did an about-face and dashed across the house.

“Scary guy.  Good at what he does,” Verona said.

“Is it weird if I find him attractive?” Julette asked.

“Blankshanks?  The cat?”

“Just a little?  Long hair-”

“Fur.”

“Either way.”

“Dude, Julette, you can mess around with Anselm or another boy any time you want.”

“And I do.  But if a guy’s attractive-”

“A fairy cat.  A strangeling.”

“Nevermind.  It’s like a sub-twenty percent attraction.”

“Twenty percent?  That’s implying- if you’d said it was sub ten percent that’s one thing, but you chose twenty?  That- twenty is a lot with an animal!”

“A thinking, sapient animal.  The whole reason animals are wrong is because-”

“Because they’re animals!”

“-because they can’t consent.”

“Gods and spirits, Jesus, no.  God.”

Oh gods and spirits, what had she brought into this world.  Her reputation…

“I’m totally fucking with you by the way, that’s why I phrased it as a question,” Julette said.

Verona bit Julette on the neck and they wrassled and fought in the snow for a few seconds.

Blankshanks was at an upstairs window.  He undid the latch, opening it, then crawled out, and closed it again.

Verona’s Sight let her see the ward flare as he jumped through it.  The gossamer inside blossomed and multiplied, striking out.

Her own glamour wasn’t doing any better after Julette had scratched, pawed, and bit at her, and it was already fraying from the pressure.  She hurried on her way before she had to abandon the cat form, heading toward the trees and that little church where they’d fought Musser briefly.

She took one look back, and saw Cameron’s mother looking through the phone.

Verona had the same pictures on her phone.  A glamoured up Anselm, who looked like Seth, and a glamoured up Julette, who looked like Cameron.

Plus other pictures.  Enough to imply it was Seth’s phone and to paint a picture of who Seth was.  That Cameron was one among many girls.  That many of the girls were unsavory.  Drinking, smoking, all the things a parent would hate.  They’d had Mal round up some girls from around the undercity with a certain image.

Verona picked a picture and used the phone Zed had given her to text that phone while Cameron’s mom had it.  A girl with messy mascara, closer to their age than Seth’s, with a sultry pose, arms pushing cleavage up and forward.

So we’re making things out like he’s with your daughter and he’s also getting photos from girls like that.  Now ground Cameron into five kinds of oblivion, please.

Thing was, none of it was a lie, exactly.  This was Seth.  Seth had made gross comments to Snowdrop.  He’d messed around with girls in the town a couple kilometers down the road from the Blue Heron.  He’d gone after a girl he was teaching.

While it was sure to ruin Mrs. Merson’s night, it was a much-needed wake-up call.  Hopefully being confronted with the nightmare and being confronted with Cameron’s mom would give Cameron a clue.  Because she was a shitty, shitty person who’d been there when Gillian Belanger-Ross got horrified, and even she didn’t deserve being afflicted with Seth.

Verona shrugged off the glamour, standing to her full height, aware that the ward was now buzzing, fully aware of her, drawing attention their way.

Blankshanks caught up with them.

“What’d you do when you went across the house?” Verona asked.  “You didn’t take anything, right?”

“It’s in my right,” Blankshanks said.  “I hate the snow.  Carry me?”

“If you were good.  Tell me first.”

“I didn’t steal.  I made another deposit.”

“The way you phrased that… you didn’t drop a dookie or-?”

“I’m not a goblin, please,” he protested, affronted.  “I’m a trickster, my girl.  A mischief-maker, who opens the doors for bigger troubles.”

“What’d you do?”

He motioned for her to carry him.

Verona sighed, and picked him up.  Julette hopped onto her shoulder at the same time.

“All the right kinds of contraband,” Blankshanks said, settling into Verona’s arms.  “A flask, cigarettes, condom wrappers.  Standard strangeling business, if you have a teenage older sibling you need to bench for a while.”

“I was going for truth,” Verona said.  “Keeping it honest, making this a fair attack.”

“According to the spies, none of this is a lie except perhaps the cigarettes.  She smokes other things.”

“Then it’s warranted, I guess.  Okay.”

Verona wondered if Cameron would realize the pictures were fake.  Or if it would matter.

She hurried, trudging through snow, toward the nearest way down to Kennet found.

And it was taking too long.

She strained her legs, pushing forward, picking up the pace.  People would be heading for her now.

Didn’t even matter there was nothing Abyssal happening around her now.

Space was expanding.  Kennet was shifting.

A fence blocked the way that shouldn’t be blocked, barring the way between backyards and the line of trees that was meant to block out the noise from the busier road to the north.

Verona picked up the pace, and, helped by the snow below her, she hopped up onto the fence, then jumped down to sufficiently flat ground.

Past snow, and into frozen pond, feet punching through the layer of ice.  She was drenched to the mid-thigh.

“Fuck,” she swore.  “Fucking-”

“Don’t you dare drop me,” Blankshanks told her.

She waded through ice, sharp edges jabbing at thighs, boots finding little traction on the floor of the pond.  She tossed Blankshanks to clear ground, then crawled out, Julette jumping forward and then offering her a hand.

“Trouble,” Blankshanks called out, from the fence he’d jumped up to.

She dug in her coat for a pocket of glamour she really hadn’t planned to use, and started to dress herself up as a bird.

The pressure from the ward undid everything she was building with it.  She had the talent to put it on quickly, but the power wasn’t there.  They’d drained Kennet for a plan that wasn’t working.

Her legs felt numb, muscles like rocks that she had to drag forward, instead of things that helped her.

Ice water in minus-whatever weather.

The soldiers were on their way to her, now, moving along the fence.

Julette supported her, and got her standing, while she pulled tags from her neck and threw them down.

Elvis and Pipes emerged from the snow as she trudged her retreat away.

“Try to distract them?  If they pull that Abyss shit…”

“Got it,” Pipes growled.

“I’ll pretend to be you,” Julette said.  “Draw them away.”

Verona nodded.

Julette went with Elvis.  Pipes went the other way around.  Verona tried to not draw attention.

The exit was moving further away.

There were no great, fancy tricks to get her where she needed to go.  Frozen, hurting to the bone from the cold, she moved away, and let the others try to handle the pursuit.

“Fuck you, Lis, Fuck you, fuck you,” Verona said, three times.

A bit of America’s trick.

She didn’t know if it helped, but she did reach the point she needed to get to.  To Kennet found, to where she was safe.

She collapsed there, on the other side.

Ow.  Fuck.

“Blank-” Verona grunted out the word.  Fuck, this kind of cold really hurt.  Water had gotten on her coat and crept up her back, making it worse.

“I’ll go get help,” he said.

She dug for spell cards, something that would warm.  Or a blank card, if her writing hand-

Her non-writing hand cramped, and she dropped the packet into snow.  It punched a hole.

With gloved fingers, she fished down in the snow for the cards.

And Maricica’s people were right behind her.  A pair of men who came into Kennet found by the same passageway.

Another way through that was burned.

They couldn’t hurt her, she couldn’t hurt them.

But they could grab her.

Picking her up.

Blankshanks, partway down the street, perched on a railing, looked back at her.

He dashed away.

“Help!” Verona shouted, as loud as she could manage.

She was a bit surprised it wasn’t even that loud.

“Help!”

A hand covered her mouth.

But others had heard.  Foundlings came out of nearby houses.  A group.

As the men hurried to carry her toward the portal, some of the people with masks on came her way.

The men carried her through- and foundlings followed.

On the far side, the men could fight, and they were stronger.  Two of them, carrying Verona, against four or five people, and the two men were winning.

So Verona fought too, pushing, struggling.

Until it was too much hassle.  One man fell back, giving up, and dropped to a kneeling position, three fingers at his mouth.

“Get me through, get me through, get me through,” Verona rambled, struggling.  “All of you get through-”

A hand pulled at her bag.  The other man.

She punched awkwardly at his face with an overhead, downward motion of her fist, more like she was knocking on a door than anything.  Knocking on his nose.

He was a better fighter, but he wasn’t stronger than her and the small group of foundlings who’d come running to help.  She got through the passage between Kennet above and Kennet found, just in time.

That Abyssal darkness spread, unfolding, and obliterated that passageway.

“Everyone get through?” she asked.

There were nods.

A hand reached for her bag and got her mask, and put it on her face for her.  Like that was the priority.

“Thank you,” she said, collapsing onto her side in the snow, frozen legs not strong enough to hold her.

“You’re okay?” Lucy asked.

It was getting close to morning.  Still that same night.

“Not one hundred percent,” Verona replied.  She still hurt in ways she couldn’t fully articulate.  “This is ass.  But we gotta keep pushing, right?”

“Right.”

“Gotta… Avery’s out there.  Maybe she’s fighting her ass off, or struggling, or building something, or gathering forces, or something.  But there’s no way we let her do all that and get back to us and we haven’t done as much.”

“Good thought,” Lucy agreed.

Verona mixed the contents of the jar, then held it up.  “More or less viscous?”

“That looks about right,” Lucy said, noting the thickness of the liquid.

“Biscuit?  I need some of your supply,” Verona said.

“Wha?  What lovely words,” Biscuit said, looking up at Verona, doing a little jig of happiness.  “I never thought you’d say it!  What do you need?”

“Doll parts.”

“Wha-?” Biscuit started.  She visibly deflated, and then gave Verona her best puppy dog eyes.  “What?  That’s silly.  That’s not that fun.”

“You keep using dolls as accessories, little doll heads as toppers for your drugs, sometimes you wear a stork bindle baby dress, you had a doll hairclip before… come on.”

Biscuit pouted some more.

Verona stuck out a toe, prodding Biscuit.

“What parts do you need?” Biscuit asked, about forty percent dejection and ninety percent resentment.

“Arms.”

Biscuit waddled off, out of sight.

They weren’t crossing the threshold to Kennet above just yet, and instead they observed.

Verona had taken a few hours to recuperate, with a hot shower, a nap for purely healing purposes, but then she’d woken up on her couch, Anselm and Julette and McCauleigh talking softly in the other room, and she’d been too restless to sit still.

They needed to keep up pressure and there was no guarantee that Maricica would be gone all night, or that there’d be another opportunity anytime soon.

Biscuit returned, bag in hand.  “Twenny dollars a handful.”

“Biscuit, get real.”

“Wanna make it twenny five?” Biscuit asked, all resentment, glaring.

Lucy forked over the dough.

Money from Avery’s deal with the Garricks.

Biscuit forked over the doll hands of varying sizes, some a little chewed up.

Verona arranged them inside the jar of black liquid, shaking it to lightly coat them.  She held it up to the light.

Black liquid with a horrifying collectino of tiny limbs reaching out from it.

She put it in the little box she’d had Mal buy at the drugstore, a small Christmas gift box on discount because Christmas was over.  She packaged it.  Then she signaled Mal.

“The number on the street is one-twenty-one.”

“Got it.  Drop it on the porch, ring and dash?”

“If you can.  Be safe.  Watch out for ambushes.  Call if you need help.”

“Wimp.  Caring about what happens to me.”

Verona wrinkled her nose and made a face.

Verona had to stand at a weird angle.  The space that led from Kennet found to this part of Kennet above was a bit convoluted, and so she had to look between two buildings and then past that, between a light post and a fence, and then past that, between a parked car that hadn’t moved in forever and a mailbox.

Had to go right, left, right, left, and the slice of view to track McCauleigh going that way was really narrow.  Verona could hold up a finger and block the entire view.

She heard a voice.

“Harri,” Lucy said, grabbing Verona’s arm.

Her legs still felt fucked up from the freezing.  Her hand kept cramping too, enough she had put the fucking hard brace on, and she really didn’t trust her hand.

But she ran.

Right, between buildings, left, between light post and the fence that was too close to it- had to really step up onto the ledge of the fence and then down again to navigate that way.  Then right between car and mailbox.  Then left, generally speaking, because carrying on right wouldn’t get you all the way to Kennet above, and you’d just sort of get turned around in Kennet found instead.

Mal was there, by a house with a fenced yard and gate with the number 121 on the plate.  Harri was opposite her, standing on the far side of the street, weapon out.  A wand with some fist-sized ball of tangled metal at the end.  Holding something elemental inside, at a glance.  Four thugs from Kennet below were with her.

She tensed when she saw Lucy and Verona.  She turned to aim that weapon at them.  The thugs had weapons for close-ranged fighting.  Knives and bats.  They started forward.

“Bangnut, Bangnut, Bangnut,” Lucy said.

The power all across the block died, plunging them into darkness.  Verona used her Sight, and saw Harri backing up, panicking.

“What’s the package?  Is it like what you did to Cameron and Teddy?” Harri asked.

She might not’ve known that she was being watched, but she knew they could hear her, and Verona had to admit, that for all that Harri was a jackass, she did have pretty good nerves.  When they’d taken Jabber to St. Victor’s, Harri had held up okay until Stefan had given them away.  She hadn’t given anything away when questioned.

And now, in the dark, when the nightmare had made her afraid of the dark, faced with enemies, she kept her voice level, betraying very little of the nervousness she clearly felt.

What’s the package? Verona remembered the question.

“A reminder,” Verona said.

“If I open it, will it blow up in my face?”

“No,” Verona said.

“Put the weapon down?” Lucy asked.

“I thought you said the last time was the last chance I had to back down?”

“This is an extension of that,” Lucy said.  “Weapon down?”

Harri lowered it, but only barely.

“Bangnut, Bangnut, Bangnut.”

The street lit up again.

Harri took stock, looking at them.

“Guys?” Harri asked, looking at the thugs who she’d had with her.  “You can go.”

“Seems like a bad idea,” one of the thugs said.

“You were supposed to walk me home.  I’m home.  What do you think happens now?  You go after them?”

“Why not?”

“Just go,” Harri said.  “They’re trying to prod us, push us to act and do something stupid.  So don’t be stupid, go.  Let me handle this a smarter way.”

There was clear hestiation.

“Now,” Harri said.  “Tell them whatever.  I’m betting these guys will be gone before anyone gets back to me.”

The men walked off.

Harri sighed.

Verona watched her carefully.  That stick with the elemental business… Joel the Dragonslayer really liked powerful tools.

“Was it meant for my mom or dad to see it?” Harri asked, motioning toward Mal and the package.

“Sure.  They’d ask you what it was about.  But if you found it, that’s okay too,” Verona replied.

Harri clapped her hands, holding them out.

Mal checked with Verona, then tossed it over.  Harri caught it, then opened the little box.

She saw the fluid and dropped it.  Then she scrambled back away from it.

“It’s water, flour, and black dye I used for this coat,” Verona said.  “Doll hands.  But like I said, it’s a reminder.”

“I hate this,” Harri said, voice small.  “I really do.  There’s so many things I want to say to you but I can’t.  It keeps coming back to the thing with that girl, Gillian.  We crossed a line, right?  And you’ll keep reminding us?”

“There are a lot of lines that got crossed,” Lucy said.

“You know if I could back out and forget everything?  I would, now?”

“Too easy,” Lucy said.  “You don’t get to alter the trajectory of someone else’s life and then bail out.”

“I didn’t do it.  My mentor did.”

“But if we weren’t pushing you?” Verona asked.  “Would you have bailed?  Would you leave?  If there wasn’t this constant reminder, would you have, I dunno, edited what thoughts needed editing?  Figured out a justification, somehow?”

“They’re the corrupt establishment.  I’m not justifying, I’m saying- that’s the justification.  I mean, that’s the justification we would’ve used.”

“Harri,” Lucy said.  “I made you an offer-”

“Yes.”

“Go to Yiyun?”

“Take me, show me.  I surrender.  No tricks, no lies, no traps.  Okay.”

“Who else would probably say yes?”

“Adrian.  Maybe.  Losing his mind, even just in a nightmare, it scared him so bad.  He’s so scared of it, even now, it’s like… the being scared part is making it sorta happen.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, then,” Lucy said.

“You know I’m afraid of the dark now?  And it’s all really dark, you know?  Like what the fuck?”

“Mal?  Take her back through?  We’ll take her to Yiyun in the morning?”

“Sure.”

“You should know,” Harri said.  “While you’re doing this?  You’re coming after us, and that’s… spooked Teddy a bit, but really screwed Cameron.  You don’t even know.  And me, and- yeah.  You’re coming after us and that’s working, but our guys are after you, too, you know?  After people you care about.”

“We took measures.  Guards,” Lucy replied.

“Yeah, well, so did we, right?  Look how well that works against a dedicated practitioner.”

Verona’s heart sank.

There it is.  Grandfather’s line, from Lucy.  In War, it’s like a compromise, but we try to make the other side lose more in the long run.

We need you back, Avery, Verona thought.  That absence felt like a sledgehammer had hit her in the chest, punching through ribs and leaving a vacancy that hurt all around.  How would this have gone if you were here?  What would you have said?  It feels like you could’ve swayed LIs where we failed.  Maybe we wouldn’t be in a situation of mutually assured destruction.

There were adaptations to be made.  They needed to figure out ways to incorporate the best parts of Avery, the mercy, the kindness.

But with the implied threat here?  What Harri was saying?

That could wait.

We need to break your ranks and destroy your supports enough that there’s a gap, and we need to seize that gap and get past everything, to rescue Bracken and Bag.

And maybe, if we find a clear enough route, we carry on past that, and see what we can do about Charles’s number one support.  Maricica.

Next Chapter