Author: Wildbow

Go for the Throat – 23.1 | Pale

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“It doesn’t change as long as it’s observed and I’m close enough, right?” Avery asked.

“I’ve seen it happen,” Snowdrop said, looking at the door.

Avery backed up, keeping an eye on the door.  Not that there was a lot that she could do if it changed out.  The Promenade was one of the places that gave a view of the real world, so she was able to go to the railing and look down through the space beneath the constructions- currently the rusty one from Hazel’s books and the transient one, and watch what was going on with half an eye.

She pushed some attention through Snowdrop, and felt how wobbly she still was.  Giving up just a bit of herself… she leaned into the railing.

“Fall,” Snowdrop said.  “It’d be fun, after all this.  And we can work it into our plan.”

“Yeah.  I hear you.”

She looked, following the action, still ‘looking’ at the door through Snowdrop.

It’s like a game on the ice.  You can’t keep your eye on the puck all the time.  When you know the puck is going to a teammate, sometimes you need to go for it.  Know where they’re going, know what they want, know what the other team is doing…

Except here, ‘going for it’ was something that’d take minutes.  If she was too early, she’d tip off key people, Maricica chief among them.  If she was too late, she’d lose her friends and Kennet.

“You shouldn’t eat,” Snowdrop said.  “Don’t want a full stomach before any trouble.”

“I feel so wobbly I’m worried a fuller stomach might make me fall over and be unable to get up.”

Verona and Lucy were in the church now.

“I went out of my way to give you real, physical share of me,” Snowdrop said.  “It makes no sense you’re this weak.”

Avery paused.  “Uh.  Oh.  Because you’re partially spirit.”

Snowdrop clucked her tongue.  “You don’t get it.”

“Seriously, though, even if I eat, it might be an hour before I process it and it fuels my Self.  In the meantime, it makes me feel ick.”

“I wouldn’t know, definitely not an expert,” Snowdrop said.  “It’s okay.  Don’t eat.  There’s no chance the fight lasts more than an hour.”

Avery hesitated.  But she did owe Snowdrop, and Snowdrop had to know about the process of fueling Self, after everything.

“I owe you a lot, Snow,” Avery said.  “I get it.  All the good things.  Snacks, cuddles, scratches…”

“I’m willing to be swayed.  It’s okay.  You don’t have to eat.”

“I get it, seriously.  I was already going to.”

“Pshht.”

Avery got her bag, and dug out some of the few remaining snacks, after Snow had raided her bag.  Snowdrop had hurried off to go get snacks while Avery was setting up here, taking in the Kennet situation.  There were a good few weird Lost foods.  Among them were colorful snacks looked like Bonky Donks or other hyper-processed convenience store desserts, with strings of weird symbols instead of text, and when she’d bit into them, it was seaweed and flecks of seafood instead of the raspberry sugar filling, or sauerkraut.  One hard chocolatey-biscuit shell had warm, fruity tea inside it, and had spilled all over her when she bit off a corner.

Which would’ve been a lot of fun, she liked exploring, and exploring unique foods was part of that.  She could experiment, with Snowdrop snickering over her reactions, eating the stuff she didn’t want to.  Thing was, she was feeling on edge, felt about five kinds of awful and weak, and she was desperate about making sure this all worked, it was hard to fully enjoy it.  So she’d borrowed Snowdrop’s ability to eat literal garbage to get some of it down, and had eaten mindlessly.  Now she did it again.

She kept her attention split between the door and the ongoing fight in the church.  She pushed up her wolf mask to take a bite of the Umami-Donk.

Felt like a bad omen to have the mask on, but with nothing else sufficing…

The lights came back on in the church, seizing her full attention.  She worried she’d lose the door, but Snowdrop was staring it down, and Snowdrop had a bit of her, for lack of a better word, ‘gaze’.

The Alabaster.

On a situation where sanctuary had been claimed and violated?  Okay.

“If we need a starting gun, or a reason to expect Maricica’s going to stay in one place, that seems like a good one.”

“We’re going?” Snowdrop asked, not turning away from the door.  But Avery was already there, by her side, Umami-Donk crumbling in her mouth as she put a hand on Snowdrop’s shoulder to push-guide her forward.

To the door.  She pushed it open.

Into the Rolling Aisles.  It had been a grocery store in an earlier iteration, and now it was a vast Paths gift shop, set inside a cylinder that was constantly rotating.  Things fell and shifted, moving.  Racks of sunglasses, cut-outs of recognizable figures from the Paths.

Like the Paths themselves were saying ‘thank you for your extended stay, would you like a souvenir?’.

The constant movement reminded her that her head wasn’t entirely clear.  The use of the gate of ivory meant that when things moved, her mind played tricks on her.  Pieces of a complex Promenade chess set fell out of their box, rolling on the floor in her peripheral vision, and the conclusion her mind jumped to was that it was a spidery, scrabbly thing.

A clump of falling things got her thinking some Lost was lunging at her, at a completely different trajectory.

Snowdrop reached for and clutched her hand.

While the way was mostly clear, Avery pulled off the wolf mask, and glamoured it into a charm, which she put on her charm bracelet, before pulling the other off.

Mr. Stockman, the same as ever in his vast dimensions and presence, was wearing a Hawaiian style shirt, board shorts, and sunglasses.  Halfway between tropical vacation and poker, maybe.  The shirt had patterns of various card suits, ranging from spades to wands.

Even like she was now, or maybe because she was the way she was now, the Path was easier to run, not harder.  Like having Snowdrop’s Lost-ness in her was helping with the flow.  Or not having the natural hesitation and human presumptions that came with being fully okay and alert helped grease the wheels.

Mr. Stockman multiplied the amount of goods on the shelves.  Things exploded out, doubly as chaotic.

She wove through it.

Either way…

The hard part was what came now.

She kept her goal fixed firmly in her mind.

Avery hurried forward, kicking a box into place, to move things along, so she wouldn’t have to wait for the right configuration with Mr. Stockman on her heels, and she brought an opossum-form Snowdrop up to the door that was suspended in the center of the far wall.

The Rolling Aisles exited into any closet, larder, or pantry.  With the view from above, Avery had been able to find a burned building in Kennet below that was open to the elements.  It meant Avery was able to go through the door at the end of the Rolling Aisles, find herself here, open this door, and be on a piece of incomplete floor, charred at the edges, overlooking the other three-quarters of the ruined house.

She held images in her mind, of who had been where, with the directions she’d decided on.  Down.  Between houses.  Across the street.  Through trees.

Approaching the church from the back end.  Over a fence.  Slowing her pace.  Mask off, walk normally… there were people with vantage points to see her, but only at a distance, from balconies.

Here, in the back lot of the church, she could reach into her coat, and pull out the Loser’s Jounce.

She’d switched perspectives until she got a Path aesthetic that had what she needed.  Scrap metal and the means of moving it.  Magnets.

She hopped over the fence, throwing the Jounce as she did.

The giant piece of construction equipment appeared as the ball bounced.

Avery lobbed opossum-form Snowdrop toward the door.  Snowdrop became human in time to grab onto the doorframe.  She slid into the seat.

Avery, meanwhile, caught the Jounce, then reversed course, hopping up onto tread, then part of the rotating base, and then onto the crane-like arm that the magnet dangled from.

Papers out.  Some to protect herself.  Didn’t want to get hauled off her feet because the charms of her charm bracelet were magnetic.

Some to protect the people inside, and the building.

She dropped down onto the disc-shaped magnet, and placed the papers.

Looking through the big stained glass window at the back of the church, with the lights glowing on the side of the church closest to the entrance, Avery could see the shadow of Maricica’s head.

Her unspoken signal to Snowdrop communicated through the familiar bond.

Snowdrop hauled on the requisite levers.

The magnet came to life, making the air hum, and half the papers she’d put down burned out, glowing until the paper crumpled and fell off.

There was a thud as Maricica moved.  The magnet swung out, pointing more at the building now, instead of hanging straight down.

The exterior wall of the building cracked slightly.  From the shadow, Maricica was leaning against it.

Avery borrowed from Snowdrop’s Sight, to better look around corners and see what was going on through the window, where glass was cracking and rustling as the metal framing around the individual colors was being pulled at.

They had her.  Blood ran down Maricica’s chest.

“You’ve got some iron in your blood there, Maricica?” Avery asked, for the benefit of nobody in particular.  “Okay, now for that window…”

Maricica lunged, and the force of the movement with the damage already done made the window shatter.

Avery tapped one foot three times, then leaped, with the benefit of air spirits.  Onto the windowsill.  Getting a view of the church interior.

She bent down, signaling Snowdrop, as she got her fingers around the spike the magnet was pulling into the wall.  An iron railroad spike, slick with Maricica’s blood.

She held it high, so friends and enemies could see.

Maricica, bathed in shadow, slick with blood, turned and looked at Avery.  Or so Avery figured.  Maricica’s eyes were hard to see with how thick the blood was.

“Woooo-haahahaha!” Verona whooped.  “Our girl!”

Lucy pushed up her mask, like she couldn’t see clearly enough with it on, when she could, and then flashed a wide and very relieved smile.

“Is my karmic penalty over with?” Maricica asked.  She touched the hole in her chest, then dropped her hand.

“Mostly,” the Alabaster Assembly said.

Didn’t really come up with a game plan-

Maricica lunged, a blood-streaked hand as large as Avery reaching out.  Avery jumped back and away, more interested in getting clear than anything else.

It was only because she still had some Lost Sight active that Avery could see Maricica explode.  Flesh became gore, a tidal wave, like she’d been shot by something massive.  It sprayed at and through the window.

-for after.

That spray of gore congealed into a massive human shape, slender and streaked in blood.  Her hair, soaked through, was whipping through the air, spreading out, with the momentum of inhuman movement, both in how fast it was, and that she’d been blood, not humanoid, moving at weird angles.

The church parking lot cracked and split beneath Maricica’s materialized body as if Maricica weighed a thousand times more than she should, even with her size, more blood spraying out of the cracks.  Placing herself ready to catch Avery.

Snowdrop hit the switch.  The magnet pulled, and Avery held tight to the spike.  Pulled away, off trajectory.  Snowdrop hit the switch again.  Releasing Avery.

Avery hit the ground, caring more about getting and keeping her feet under her than rolling or anything else.  The ground rippled with the landing, absorbing her fall.

Maricica straightened to full height, standing there, as tall as the main body of the crane, if Avery ignored the extended arm.  Twenty feet tall, maybe.  Very naked, very big, very intense, but somehow, with the blood and the really crummy personality, it didn’t really do it for Avery.

Maricica moved her hand, and the parking lot crunched, everything dropping another few feet, the individual slabs of pavement breaking up, liquid blood spraying from the gaps.  The construction vehicle tilted, blood flowing beneath the treads, helping to pull it over.  Snowdrop leaped her way free of it from the far door.  Avery moved to the edge of the affected area, arms out, to help catch her, so Snowdrop wouldn’t be swallowed up in the blood and bits of parking lot.

We’re not in view of innocents anymore.  So she can act.

Avery, huffing for breath a little, looked around.  Maricica stood in the middle of a crater that was filling with blood that oozed in through the cracks.  Her chest had a hole in it Avery could probably put an arm through, bleeding a stream independent of all the other blood that streaked her.

The Lost electromagnet landed on its side beside Maricica, and it broke down and crumpled, pulled to pieces, as if invisible hands were tearing at it.  Segments that were peeled away from other segments gushed blood from the gaps, like the blood had always been there, under high pressure.

Maricica moved a foot to one side with lazy ease, stepping on a piece of machinery.  Avoiding a harpoon fired at her from behind.

Avery could see a bogeyman on a nearby rooftop, with a vicious looking contraption on his back and shoulder, and a maniacal grin on his face.  The chain stretched from the place where the harpoon embedded to the bogeyman.

Maricica glanced back over one shoulder, and a tendril of blood reached out of the pool at her feet, seizing the chain, and hauled the bogeyman down off the building.

“Why dodge it?” Avery asked.  “Maybe you could use that spike instead?”

“I don’t need either.”

“Okay,” Avery said.  “Because-”

Maricica stepped forward and broke up into a spray of gore again.  Avery bolted, tugging Snowdrop behind her, with Snowdrop going small.  Her bracelet was going wild, beads flicking around, telling her of Maricica’s focused intent and loose direction.

Spell card.  She blew up a piece of fence, then hurled herself at the gap, toe of her shoe scraping on ice and snow.

She drew knees to chest, rolling awkwardly, almost rolling over Snowdrop.  Black rope-

Maricica smashed through the fence, materializing into humanoid form, but Avery was already up on the heavily damaged rooftop of the church, looking down on the goddess.

“I forget what I was saying,” Avery said.  Her voice felt small, with the distance, the fact she hadn’t paused for a full breath, and how big Kennet below felt around her.  “But let’s pretend I had a really cool quip for right now.”

She clapped her hands three times, then threw the spike into the air, like she was throwing it to Maricica.

It disappeared at the high point of its arc through the air.

That would be the pruning gloves.  Good stuff.

Wondered if you’d flinch, Avery thought.

Another harpoon fired.  Maricica took a slight step back, letting it sail through the air just in front of her chest.  Chain rattled as it fed through the contraption he had.

Some other bogeymen had left the church too.  One of the false angels with the metal fused to their skulls, wings weighing them down.  A younger bogeyman with flesh partially blasted away from skeleton, blackened and hard, holding fireworks.  A very tall woman with ragged clothes and two long needles.

Only the last one was fixated on Avery.  Maricica drew the attention of the rest.

Backlash?  She had some control or influence over them and now that’s gone, so it’s coming back at her?  Avery wondered, keeping one eye out as the woman stabbed the outside wall of the church with the needles and began climbing with them, eyes wide and unblinking.

“Avery!” Verona called up from the middle of the church.  “Lucy’s-”

Hands erupted out of darkness, pulling at Verona.

Doe was with her, and helped, combat knife in hand, cutting.

Verona managed to point.

Avery moved.  Maricica was being swarmed, sloshing blood over the firecracker kid before he could throw anything, maybe putting out the fuses.  Three harpoons shot out from a place Avery couldn’t see, not just with chains trailing behind them, but with chains attaching them to one another.

She hopped from the rickety, crumbling church roof to the next building over.

The woman climbing the side of the building barely hesitated, putting a foot high, almost between the two giant, sharp knitting needles that were stuck into brickwork, and then sprang off the wall and onto the same rooftop, landing in a crouch.

“Hey, uh, I’ve got other things to stress-”

The woman moved forward, holding the needles and using them as forelimbs, closing the distance to Avery on all fours, faster than she’d moved on two legs.

Avery backed off, glancing down to see Lucy exiting the building on the side Verona had pointed to.

“Coming to you,” Avery murmured.  “Be careful, Maricica’s all intense.”

Lucy glanced up at her and nodded.

Avery jumped off the roof, landing on the snow-covered back lot behind the business.  The bogeywoman followed, leaping after.  Her landing was harder, with a tumble and roll, but it stopped with her in that same position as before, hands gripping the needles, with points down, toes on the ground, body poised.

Lucy’s exit from the church was followed by a mob.  Avery didn’t know if they still believed in Maricica, but they didn’t like Verona and Lucy, at least.  Lucy had Grandfather with her, and he was helping to fend off the worst of it.

The woman with the needles burst into action, and Avery backed off, shifting into a sprint when it seemed the woman wouldn’t chill.  Running full blast, looking for an opening in the Maricica situation, Avery noticed the woman with the needles was keeping pace, periodically surging forward a few extra feet to close the gap, when there was ground of the right sort to move on.

Black rope… Avery used a car for cover, black roping away.

The woman leaped.  Easily fifty feet, eyes bugged out and unblinking, black hair trailing behind her, bony, muscle-less limbs bent, needles poised overhead.

Avery black roped again, before the woman could land.  To a place the woman wouldn’t be able to see with those eyes.

I need to deal with Maricica.

Because Maricica was dealing with her new problems.  She broke and smashed the bogeymen attacking her.  There weren’t any bogeymen replacing those, just yet, and nobody leaving the church had gotten to her yet, and they didn’t seem strong enough to hurt a goddess.  Which meant-

The bogeywoman landed in front of Avery.

“Okay,” Avery said, looking at her.  “Hi.”

“Avery!”  Lucy called out.  She and Grandfather had the mob to deal with, that had followed them out of the church.  “She’s tethered to you!  Like Verona told us about, with the wraith!”

Avery switched Sight.  She could see connections, and this one was fixed to her.  An Abyss-stained connection stretched between the staring bogeywoman with the needles and Avery.  With how stained and clogged up the connection was with black Abyss guck, and how it had started out as most of Avery’s Sight-viewed connections did, looking like film negatives with parts cut out, it ended up looking like a black chain.

The woman shuffled forward, moving a few inches closer, and the chain got shorter.

Avery moved, dashing, and the woman moved parallel to her.

Avery, Avery, Avery.

Lucy’s voice.

Avery made a beeline for one of the harpoons, that had punched into fence.  She had to circle around the wide, blood-flooded depression that surrounded Maricica.

The harder she ran and the more she pushed herself, the more she felt like- like a snowball to the side of the face would level her.

Spell cards.  She got them out.

Maricica saw her moving, and even though she was dealing with the firecracker bogeyman, she turned some focus to Avery.

Exploding into gore- way more than before, with what had flooded the space around her.

“For Kennet!” Avery shouted.  Because she did not want to spend more Self on these.  Avery used a card to create a flash-smokebomb, shaking her sleeve to free the fireflies, who helped guide her.  The moment the bracelet went fully quiet, she black-roped.

Maricica slammed into the place where Avery had been headed.  Avery, skipping ahead, was able to pull on that tether.  The bogeyman leaped for her.  Meeting Maricica mid-flight.  She leaped onto Maricica’s shoulder, stabbing with every movement of the needle to pull herself forward, then leaped off, still pursuing Avery.

Damn.  Thought that might bounce the bogeywoman onto her, like bouncing a curse.

Firecrackers exploded around and behind Maricica.  Avery felt a nail or something sharp dig into her arm, and she was about as far away from that bogeyman as anyone.

One of the firecrackers went off, and flooded the entire church and back lot behind the neighboring building with light.  Avery felt skin prickle.

“Brightest light!” the voice sounded delirious.  “Then forever darkness!”

Avery, being further away, already moving away, not facing the flashbang firework, with a cloud of smoke between her and Maricica, was a little faster to recover.  Only a little- she figured that being as drained as she was wasn’t helping.

Still, she had the woman with the needles after her.  She got a moment of reprieve, because that woman was closer to the flash, but it was only a few seconds.

Avery black-roped again.  This time with the idea of going through the fence.

Over to the harpoon.

She rolled onto her back, awkwardly, tapped her shoes against one another, and then kicked the fence on either side of the harpoon.  Air runes.

The harpoon was kicked free and out of the fence, moving through the air, blown by residual wind.

Another harpoon was shot out by the bogeyman with the harpoon crossbow contraption.  It speared the chain of the harpoon Avery had kicked loose, which formed a loop of sorts.  Then both reeled in.  They encircled one of Maricica’s shoulders and her neck, pulling her back and off balance.

Hadn’t expected that.  She’d figured she’d kick it, maybe then she could pick up the slack and trip Maricica or something.  Or tie it around the needle bogeywoman, lead her in a circle around Maricica to tie her up.

Maricica kicked the blood, and blood splashed up in a spray, and that spray was like a giant razor, shearing through the chain.

Okay, so the original plan wasn’t so great.

But the bogeyman with the harpoons seemed to have some rule it operated by, like this one with the giant knitting needles.  Because Maricica was shot by two harpoons, which embedded in flesh.  She turned into blood, letting them fall away, and got shot by three more.  The bogeyman was surrounded by the things he’d offloaded and fixed to the ground around him, and he aimed them with kicks and pushes, dropping fresh ammunition into them, before firing them.

Avery had to fend off the other bogeyman, now.  Who was close enough to start jabbing out.  Avery could back up, avoiding the jabs, but if that woman closed in further-

Avery, Avery, Avery.

I know, Lucy.

Avery dashed straight for Lucy now.

The bogeywoman kept pace.  Running alongside Avery now, chain just a few feet long.

She dropped back and away.  The chain of connection strained… elastic.

And the woman lunged between Avery’s legs, face-up, and brought the needles up, poised, each point aimed for Avery’s eyes.

Avery pivoted right, and the points moved unerringly, now.

Until Lucy crashed into the woman, a hand grabbing one needle, a knife parrying the other.  Grandfather simultaneously grabbed Avery and lifted her up.  Pulling her away, with one foot extended, stopping the bogeywoman.

“No,” Lucy grunted, as she strained , pushing sideways against those needles.  “Avery’s not your victim.  Right over there is a goddess who had sway over you and lost it, and she’s steadily losing her fight right now.”

The bogeywoman looked.

“No,” Avery added her voice to Lucy’s.

“No!” Verona joined in, last.  She was at the back.  She, Doe, and Mccauleigh were pushing through.  “Not our Avery!”

Avery, still held by Grandfather, head dangling lower than her feet were, upside-down, reached out, touching the bogeywoman’s shoulder.  She pushed, lightly.

The chain shattered.  The bogeywoman dashed toward Maricica.

“You’re lighter than you look,” Grandfather said, as he put Avery down.

“Pretty drained,” Avery said, like that explained anything.

With Lucy turning her attention to the mob, making deliberate effort to give them an avenue to back off instead of pressing the fight, and McCauleigh screaming and tearing into the crowd on the other side, clearing a path ahead of Verona, while Doe helped fend off Verona’s rear, the group between was sandwiched a bit.

Lucy had a lot of cuts on her arm.  She wasn’t using the weapon ring, and the knife wasn’t all that.  Avery had seen the back of her arm get cut, but she’d taken a beating.

Verona ducked through, with Grandfather stepping in to help clear the way, and threw herself at Avery, hugging her.  Cat-form Julette leaped out from Verona’s hood and became human, ugly stick in hand, ready to help Grandfather and Doe with anyone who was slipping past them as they held the alley between church and neighboring building.

Avery didn’t have it in her to really stand up to Verona.  Stripped of Self, she was reduced to her core traits, and all the other stuff was pretty worn down.  So she could run, but standing up when someone pushed even a little bit hard against her?  She managed to stay standing for a few seconds, then she toppled, Verona toppling with her.

Lucy backed off, while the Dog Tags held the line.  She reached out like she was going to put a hand on Avery to reassure, or help Avery up, but the hand clenched, really tight, gripping some of Avery’s top and hood, and not letting go.

Lucy’s hand was shaking.

Tears reached Avery’s eyes.

“I-” Avery’s voice broke.  “I thought I’d go for her weak point, but I didn’t have a plan for after.”

Maricica was still a problem.  Fending off bogeymen, who were more nuisance than anything.  Harpoons embedded in her, the blood would splash up, and it would cut through the chains.  Then more would fire.  The woman with the needles stabbed for vitals that didn’t exist, but forced Maricica to take a second to heal up every time her jugular started spurting or a three-foot long knitting needle stabbed her in the heart.

“Heads up!” Grandfather barked.

Some of the thugs they’d allowed to run off instead of fighting weren’t playing fair. It looked like they’d circled around the one building and were now coming around.

Church and mob in front of them.  Maricica and her pool of blood behind them.  Bogeymen to the right.  Thugs scattered to the left.

Lucy shifted her grip.  This time, she helped Avery up.  Verona let go of her.

“I’m pretty drained,” Avery said.

“Okay,” Lucy said.  “You said.  Got it.”

“I mean… real drained.”

Lucy paused.  Then in a different tone, said, “Sure.”

“Gloves,” Verona said.

Avery looked at her friend.

Verona clapped her hands.

Avery pulled off the pruning gloves and gave them to Verona.

The thugs who’d circled around weren’t attacking.  They were grouping together and watching.

Maricica fought.  The firecracker bogeyman had been splattered into the pavement and was being swallowed up by the expanding crater.  The woman had been broken by a backhanded swing from Maricica, but was pulling herself up off the ground.  Relentless.  And the harpoon guy hung back.

Helen Kim was on the rooftop near them, now.  She had hands in pockets, and her breath fogged, as she took it in.  She could have ordered the thugs forward, and Avery felt like they were on the fence enough that they might’ve gone with it, given one voice of authority.  Or she could have attacked Avery and the rest of the group, and they were kind of cornered, so that would’ve sucked.

“She took a karmic hit, a little,” Lucy said.

“Who?” Avery asked.

“Helen.  So she’s weaker.  Maricica took one a lot, but it mostly left her open to you doing what you did.”

Avery nodded.

“Sanctuary thing really panned out,” Verona said.  “Could’ve stood for it panning out way more though.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Ave?”

Avery nodded.

“What happened?”

“I got shot.  Pretty bad.  Managed to get onto the paths, left behind the layer of skin I’ve been putting checkmarks on.”

She hooked a thumb into her belt loop and pulled her top up, forearm holding her coat back.  The scar looked like someone had taken a cigarette lighter from a car and pressed it in until it had burned its way three-quarters of an inch deep.  It looked pretty gnarly, and weirdly circular, as scars went.

“Played dead really hard.  Opossum spirit stuff,” Avery said.  “Then I recovered- Snowdrop took care of me.  Really good care.  She’s a good opossum.”

If she’d been asked, at the start of all of this, if she could imagine saying the words ‘good opossum’ and have Verona and Lucy look as serious as they looked right now?

She couldn’t help but smile, wistful, sad.

“Good job, opossum,” Verona said.

“So good,” Avery said.

Verona said.  “Luce?  Let me see your spell cards?”

Lucy handed them over.  Verona picked through some, took a bunch, then handed the ‘deck’ of cards back to Lucy.

Avery looked over at Helen Kim.  “She keeps these clones or somethings that look a lot like her nearby.  There’s one a block away.  It’s like, constantly keeping someone in reserve, to bail her out.”

“That might explain things.  Is that how she got out of the binding?  Or- you wouldn’t know?” Lucy asked.

“I saw,” Avery said.  “She exploded out of the building.  Tore up Pipes and Black.”

Grandfather huffed out a ragged breath.  He’d been stabbed, but kept fighting.  The sound seemed to be more of a response to the Helen thing.

“By the way, Ave?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can I text the parents?  I kind of promised I would, as soon as I knew you were okay.”

“Oh.  Maybe-”

“Lives were sacrificed in my name,” Maricica said, her voice low.

“-maybe a minute?  Because as long as we’re dealing with this, we don’t know for sure?”

Lucy nodded.

Maricica had shaken off most of the bogeymen.  She held out one hand, catching harpoons or letting them impale her palm.

The wind turned, blowing cold.  It went straight through Avery’s coat, and her body didn’t have any resistance to the temperature.

A man had appeared.  He had deep brown skin, white hair and beard, and a kimono-style robe that pooled at his feet, with a very intricate print.  He looked around the surroundings with distaste.

Others began to appear.

“Now they show?” Verona asked.

“The spike,” Avery said.  “It’s cold iron, which is a weapon against Fae.  I figured it had the power of the Abyss and the power of a goddess running through it, and Carmine power for extra mojo.  It’s like a ward against them.  And with a ward gone…”

“Snapback,” Lucy said.

Which was a very polite way of saying that the Wild Hunt of Winter hadn’t wanted to pick a fight with Maricica while she had that as a tool, and while she could dip into the Abyss, which was pretty mucky.

Too easy to look bad.

Maricica looked around herself as the Wild Hunt gathered, with a lot of figures who did not look like fighters finding places to stand and perch.  She turned around, and Avery could see the hole in her back where the spike had been pulled all the way through her.

Maricica laughed, and it wasn’t the titter or giggle of before.  It was maniacal.

Even her ex-followers crouched, put on their guard, uncertain.

The blood beneath her shone, like light was coming through it.  “Souls given over to me.  Here.”

She moved her harpoon-less hand.

Human silhouettes rose up out of the blood.  Blood soaked and naked.

“Souls I call on now,” Maricica said.  “The Abyss may have turned on me.  Bogeymen pick at me.  The Wild Hunt stalks me.  My followers and allies waver.  My backers… you know by now.  They’re indisposed.”

“Gainsaid,” Avery murmured.  “Carmine and Aurum, I think.”

“I thought so,” Lucy said.

“Oh.  I kept thinking of ways they could be playing a long con,” Verona murmured.

“Issue of being an imaginative skeptic,” Lucy said.  “Like the day you awoke.”

Verona clapped her hands three times, wearing the pruning gloves.

Maricica’s spike, notched and rusted, appeared, landing in Verona’s hands.  Maricica’s speech paused, as she looked.

Verona pressed a spell card to the blood that still soaked it.  The paper turned red, soaking up the fresh blood.  Then, in another wave, like something else was waiting its turn to soak in, it turned black, ink foaming and turning that blood red color.

“And you’d curse me, with that blood connection and power source,” Maricica went on.  “More insult than injury.”

Verona grinned, toothy, putting another curse on the spike, where it could soak up the blood and Abyssal-ness.

“You gnats would stand against me,” Maricica said, her full focus on the three of them.

“Fox, not gnat,” Lucy replied.

“Cat,” Verona said.

“Deer,” Avery said, not minding this once she was going last in the rotation.

“And to top it all off… you.”

Avery wasn’t in a position to see.  She risked walking forward and turning her back a bit on Maricica to have a view of what Maricica was looking at, above them.

On the same rooftop as Helen, different corner, were the Alabaster Assembly and Sable.

“If I am against you, that is only because of your own failures,” the Sable said.

“My power doesn’t work near that church.”

“You abdicated it.  Abandoned your claim to it,” the Assembly said.  “That will last a little while.  That and the lingering traces of the karmic penalty are the last consequences we’ll impose for earlier tonight.  The innocents and locals who asked for sanctuary and who aren’t here right now are on their way to safety.  My light shines, and anyone who would interfere finds themselves blinded and held back.”

“With bad karma, you’ve limited me to half power, right now.  Half strength, half speed, half the resources.  But I’m strong,” Maricica said.  She moved her foot and blood sliced the chains that were at her palm. She pulled the harpoons out of her hand, then hurled them at the source, impaling him twice.  “You can set karma against me, hold me back in six different ways, and I’m still strong enough I can win here.”

She said it with confidence.

She turned to the first of the Wild Hunt who’d appeared.  “Tell me I can’t.”

“It’s a false power.  Your compatriots created your followers to give you the faith you reaped.”

“But it’s power enough.  Say it isn’t.”

The Wild Hunt was silent.

The Wild Hunt thinks she can win, even with all of this?  Avery thought.

“You violated sanctuary and tested the limits of karma,” the Sable said.  “Whatever comes from that can’t be an easy victory.”

“It feels targeted,” a woman said.  “What you’re doing, Sable.”

The Alabaster moved, light flaring.

A woman in blue stepped out.  She was older, in her sixties, not so old that she flipped that mental switch of Avery’s that got creeped out by the elderly.  She wore it pretty well, too, like some rich woman.  She was thin, though, in a way that made Avery a bit uneasy.

“Representative,” Lucy whispered.  “Or did you see that too?”

“I missed that,” Avery admitted.

“Neutral, Maricica asked for her.”

Avery nodded.

“We’ve held back from what we could do, to push through something that wouldn’t be appealed as easily.”

“But it feels targeted,” the woman said.  “Doesn’t it?”

She was asking someone else Avery didn’t have the angle to see.

“Reserving judgment,” a male voice said.

“Second rep,” Lucy murmured.

The guy stepped up to the roof’s edge.

It was a man, who looked like a Lord.  Big around the middle, and dressed nice, with a fancy black coat with gold buckles.  Avery had done the circuit around the territory, she’d seen or heard of a lot of the powers around the Carmine’s region, and she didn’t recognize him.  Or maybe he was pulled from the Alabaster’s region, which was bigger.

“May I?” Lucy called up to the rooftop.

“You have input?”

“If someone acts like an asshole, they shouldn’t be able to turn around and play victim if people have issues with the assholishness.  She broke rules.”

“Thoughts?” the Alabaster asked.  “I’ve been accused of bias, so it’s best if you give your opinions on matters of Law, and I reserve my word for clarification and what is necessary and inarguable.”

“You can respond to the rules the goddess broke without crafting the response to be overly destructive to the wrongdoer,” the woman said.

“Is it overly destructive?” the Alabaster asked.  “Overly?”

“Any input?” the woman asked the man with the gold buckles.

“It’s better if this is a two out of three vote, and I hang back, staying objective.”

“Is it?”

“That’s the call I’m making.”

The woman sighed, exasperated.  “It feels over the top.  Weakening her just in time for someone else to make a move.”

“I didn’t do that, exactly,” the Alabaster said.  “I had a sense she was there, and adjusted my penalty to the bare minimum.  But Avery Kelly planned her move to take advantage of possible weakness.  It’s not that I weakened Maricica to set up Avery Kelly, but that Avery Kelly made her maneuver with the idea Maricica would be weakened.”

Avery nodded.

“Hmmm.”

Cracks were spreading behind Maricica, and they were bleeding, with light shining up through the blood.  Her ‘souls’ that she’d brought up through the blood were fanned out in front of her.  All of them looked… buff?  Or beautiful?

“Can I add something?” Helen asked.

“You’re gainsaid,” the Alabaster replied.

“Only a bit.  And only because I put stock in a higher power’s word.  Maricica’s.”  Helen kept her voice level, unconcerned.

Maricica didn’t seem to love that.

“Say what you will,” the Sable said.

“Maricica?  You can win.  But like they said, they’ll throw obstacles in your way, the church isn’t good ground for your divine power, we don’t have all our resources.  We don’t have all of our allies.  Add the Hunt, and there’s room for this to fall apart.  We can get our easy victory, but this isn’t the way.”

Lucy nudged Verona, and rifled through the curses on spell cards until she found one.  Verona put that on the bloody railroad spike.

Maricica glanced at them, coming very close to rolling her eyes.

“What was that?” Avery whispered.

“Limited reach,” Lucy murmured back.  “More likely to screw up measurements, fall short when catching something.”

“Makes me think of Cussins on my lacrosse team.”

“Really missed you,” Verona muttered.

“Sure,” Lucy murmured.  “She’s spreading influence across Kennet below… we don’t want that.  That should help.”

“Goddess,” Helen said, dipping her head.  “Bloody and glorious.  This scrap is beneath you.”

“I”m not that easily manipulated, Helen,” Maricica said.

“And you should be careful,” one woman in the Wild Hunt said.  “To say we are beneath her?”

“The scrap.  The part that happened before you arrived, and that will continue.  My apologies for the verbal misstep,” Helen said, bending down lower.  “Maricica, bloody and glorious, I’m not wrong.”

“No you’re not.  Some of my followers are listening.  Think hard, disciples of bloody glory,” Maricica said, her voice carrying.  “If you’d abandon me so soon, your faith is weak, and weak faith has consequences.  Know that whether you attend the next services or not will matter a great deal.”

She sank into the crater of blood.

“Maricica!” Lucy shouted.

Maricica didn’t stop.

“You owe Oakham!  Be gainsaid!”

Maricica was gone.

One member of of the Wild Hunt brought an instrument to her lips.

The sound was like a horn, but higher, like a giant’s flute.

And they were gone a moment later.  Blood cleared away, broken ground that had been floating in the soup of blood crumbled, falling.

“Do we stop her?” Verona asked.  “Go after her, while she’s got them on her heels?”

“I don’t think we’re in great shape to,” Lucy said.  “She’ll regroup, but so can we.  And I think we really need to.”

She glanced at Avery as she said that last bit.

Avery nodded a little.  The weariness was setting in.

Helen whistled.  Getting the attention of the group of disciples.  She motioned for them to come with her, as she stepped off the roof and dropped out of sight.

Avery could see the hesitation.  The consideration.

But the group went with Helen.

The Judges arriving to oversee this and apply their subtle pressure had been a good reason to stop, when neither side really wanted to keep going.

“Do me a favor, and check on Oakham?” Lucy asked Doe.

Verona clapped her hands and then threw the spike with its curse papers into the air.  It went up and disappeared, not coming down.

Everyone going their separate directions.

“We should be careful,” Lucy said.  “Keep an eye out for anything subtle.  If she’s extending control over Kennet below… or something else, we want to know and counter that ASAP.”

“I can put men on that,” Grandfather said.

Avery got her phone out, and began to type a text.

Parents:
heya

The message wasn’t written out in full, and she didn’t send it.  Just one word, that was insufficient and wrong, in the text box.  She wasn’t sure what to say that was appropriate, weighty enough to match the gravity of everything.

“Let me send?” Lucy asked.  “To fulfill my oath?  I think it counts if I hit the button.”

“I- don’t send this.  Gods, spirits, architects of the Path, I thought Sheridan texting me ‘Ya’ in response to the whole thing with my dad hearing I’m gay was bad.”

Avery laughed lightly, but it didn’t stop after four or five iterations, of soft, barely audible ‘heh heh’s.  Like it was a nervous thing.

“Are we safe?” Julette asked.

“You have the benefit of sanctuary until you’re home,” the Assembly told them.  “Don’t thank me.  This is policy.”

Don’t thank her.  She needed to preserve impartiality.

“About the gainsaying.  Oakham.”

“I suspect she would make an argument similar to the one she’s made about the poison elemental Gilkey.”

“Melissa Oakham isn’t immortal.  She won’t live forever.”

“She probably won’t,” the Assembly said.

“The longer she goes without a healing, the lower the value.  It gets extra complicated if her family knows she’s hurt right now.”

“Agreed,” the Assembly said.  “Sable?  Give your input?  In case of allegations of bias.”

“It’s valid.  The more time spent without healing Oakham, the worse her karma will become.  If the healing is knowingly and willfully refused or interfered with when offered, the karmic debt will fall on the shoulders of the person interfering.”

“I wonder if I screwed up, giving an ex-Fae access to Melissa, and reason to access her,” Lucy said.  “Sable?  Would it be possible to have a meeting with you?  Nothing aggressive.”

“You know how.”

“But without the twenty-four hours of travel?”

“No.  That rule exists for a reason,” he said.  “For many reasons.”

“I’ll have an eye on things here as I tend to other affairs,” the Alabaster said.

That was her goodbye.  The Sable didn’t even give them that.

Avery looked down at the phone.

“Ave.  I think anything you write is going to be fantastic to them,” Lucy said.

Avery’s hand shook.

Parents:
heya. I’m okay.
coming to dads.

She held the phone out for Lucy.  Lucy hit ‘send’.

“Want to go see ’em?” Verona asked.

Avery nodded.

McCauleigh was drenched in blood and a little worse for wear.  Julette supported her on one side, Verona on the other.  Oakham and Bracken were sitting in the pews with Doe by them.  Bracken gave Oakham support, which wasn’t exactly a fix for her fucked up ankle, but knowing her, Oakham wasn’t that upset at this moment.

The streetlights illuminated as they approached the street, glowing white.  People and bogeymen by the side of the road shielded their eyes, while the light wasn’t bright enough to make Avery flinch… and Avery felt like most light would make her flinch at this point.

People inside apartment buildings at the eastern end of downtown looked out through their windows, watching.  Non-combatants.

“They didn’t side with Maricica?” Avery asked.

It took a second for Lucy to follow Avery’s gaze and realize what she was talking about.

“No.  But they didn’t help the Bitter Street Witch either,” Lucy said.

Oakham went with Bracken to Bracken’s place, that he shared with Doyle, because her house had been leveled.

Then the rest of them went to Avery’s house.

There were footprints on the front porch, like her mom and dad had been waiting outside, but they were gone, and looked out through the window.  The moment they saw Avery, they disappeared from the window, going to the door.

“I’m glad your house is okay,” Verona said.

“If we’re going to visit the Sable, we should organize stuff,” Lucy said.  “A list of the gainsayings, violations, and other things.  I think he’d be receptive… and that really doesn’t matter right this moment.”

Avery broke away from her friends as she approached the house.  Snowdrop dropped off her shoulder and became human, standing behind Avery, almost like she was nervous.

Her dad wore slippers and didn’t even care as he hurried down the mostly shoveled, salt-dusted steps of the house.  He swept her up in his arms.

“You’re so light,” he said.  “What happened?”

Her mom had taken the time to pull on boots, and wanted in on the hug, but her dad wouldn’t relinquish her, so he turned his body toward her mom, and they hugged her between them.

“What happened?” he asked.  “Are you okay?”

She wasn’t, and couldn’t answer that she was, because a part of her had been shaken by the close call.  So she buried her face in his shoulder, feeling like she was six years old again, being held and comforted like this.

“Snowdrop saved me,” Avery said.  “Verona had a healing potion.  It still took a bit.  I went away, to the Paths.”

“You couldn’t use magic words to message your friends?  The Garricks communicate.”

It was so complicated to explain.  She didn’t want to say it was strategy, or get into any of that.  She couldn’t lie and the truth was damning.  She’d done it to wound a goddess and buy them a chance.

So she told a different truth.

“I think I need a hospital.”

Avery lay on her side, hurting in three different ways, from what the hospital had done to get her stomach clear.  She’d been given a hospital gown, and it felt a little chilly, with the way the cold seeped in through the walls of the hospital.

Jasmine had come in, in a non-work capacity, and knew people, and maybe had used personal connections to hurry things along, in a busy night where there’d been multiple fires, houses had been torn down, and there’d been riots and worse in the streets.

They’d attacked Kennet.  They’d attacked Kennet in even a way that Musser’s group hadn’t.  They’d attacked Verona’s dad, they’d burned her house.  They’d attacked and raided businesses associated with the market, including Mr. Black’s.  They’d attacked landmarks and other things.

The Blue Heron was occupied.  Maricica had demonstrated some interest in taking over Kennet below, extending divine power over it.  She’d only stopped because of the collected opposition against her.  But she had extended those cracks out.

They’d even raided Kennet found.  They couldn’t attack people, but they could grab them and drag them off.  Now Kennet found was locked up, with gates between sections and members being conscripted to confound and slow down opposition until something else could be done about it.

The texts came in on her phone, and she read the updates.  When there were no updates to read, she was left with nothing except her own thoughts, the feeling of how close she’d come, and the hurt in her stomach and throat.  When they’d pulled the tube out, it had torn some tissue, and she’d coughed and retched blood.

Jasmine hadn’t seemed impressed about that, but… yeah.

Her mom was curled up in the chair by the hospital bed.  It was awkward for Avery to twist around and look at her while laying on her right side, and tubes pulled if she lay on her left side, but every time she checked, her mom was dozing, rousing to ask if Avery needed anything, or they’d make small talk which was worse, so she didn’t check too much.

“Knock, knock.”

It was Sheridan and Rowan, with her dad.

“Heya,” Avery said.

“Brought your bag with some special stuff in it,” Rowan said.

“That sounds so sinister,” Avery said.  “Like you’re a drug dealer or something.”

“Ha.  I wish.  I’d have more money.”

“You don’t wish,” their dad said.

Avery took her bag.  It wasn’t really any practice stuff.  Just opossum form Snowdrop.

She checked the coast was clear and moved Snowdrop to her front.  She still lay on her side, because she’d been ordered to, and she moved the covers to hide the opossum tucked in the crook of stomach and upper thighs.

“What the hell, huh?” Sheridan asked.

“You guys didn’t have to come.”

“They made it sound like we did,” Sheridan said.  “Jude came.  He’s talking to your friends.  Dropped us off.”

“Oh that’s cool.  Where’d you go?”

“He blindfolded us.”

“No kidding.  Very responsible,” Avery said.  She felt a little detached, like she was being polite, making small talk.  Staying away from bigger things.

“I talked to Lucy and Verona.  They told me to say stuff,” Sheridan said.  “Because you can’t?”

“Ah,” Avery replied.

“This is for real, huh?  You start us out, saying oh, this is a big deal, blah blah blah, here’s some monsters from the before-times outside the window of a train car, there’s invading enemies, you’re exploring weird places… but this feels like a step up.  Like it’s not supposed to affect real stuff, but it did, tonight.  Or days ago, if you got hurt.”

“It is real stuff,” Avery replied.  “We negotiated to protect our families and stuff, I think they were only able to attack Verona’s dad’s house because she’s not really treating him like family anymore.  It’s sorta mutual, I guess.”

“So, what, we gotta be all lovey dovey, you’re the best sister, can I pour you some O.J.?”

“Come on,” their dad said.

“I’m serious!” Sheridan said.  “Is this some convoluted blackmail crap, and I’m in danger if I’m not a better sister?  If Rowan isn’t a better brother?  Because if that’s true, like, he’s real fucked, isn’t he?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” their dad said.  He paused.  “Is she?”

This all felt so heavy.

“Just be normal,” Avery said.

“What happened?”

People kept on asking that.  Avery felt a little woozy, because she’d been given drugs to treat the healing potion she’d taken a lot of, in a roundabout way, and she’d been given treatment that needed more drugs, like stuff to make her a little out of it, and keep her from gagging and throwing up while the tube was put down her throat to pull out what it could, flushing weirdly cold water into her stomach to liquefy what was in there, before pumping more out.  Rinse and repeat.

“Got shot.  Went after someone who needed confronting.  Took a bullet.  Slipped away, fooled them into thinking I was dead with a little opossum magic.  Went to the Paths.  Snowdrop took care of me until I was okay to go.”

“Are you done?” her mom asked.  She sat behind Avery, so Avery couldn’t really turn to see her.

“Done?” Avery asked, twisting as much as she could.

“Done with all of this.  You took a bullet, you nearly died.  Nobody knew what happened.  They weren’t running out to rescue you.  The absolute least they could do would be to say you’re done.  You put in way more risk than you should ever have, you helped, so they can leave you alone to let you live out your life.”

Jasmine came in, wearing a black coat and scarf, still.  She hadn’t changed out of her winter gear.  Probably because she was going out to talk to people outside, or driving the others around.

“Jasmine,” Connor said.  “Thank you for helping out so much.”

“They keep asking me to work unofficially tonight, but the nurse’s union doesn’t want me going over my maximum, no matter what.  I can’t say for sure, but I think the doctor’s coming in to ask questions in a couple of minutes.”

“On it,” Sheridan said.

“Upside is, things are so awful tonight, they’re not going to give you their full attention.  They’re wanting you in overnight for observation, Avery.  I can’t promise it’ll be quiet, but you’ll be looked after.”

Avery nodded.

Jasmine gave Avery a long, intense look, like she was considering a whole lot of things, in a pretty similar way to what Avery’s mom had been saying.  Except with Lucy in mind.

Then, jumping off from that thought, maybe, she said, “Brett Hayward has no clue what’s happening.”

“If you told him it would make things so much worse,” Avery said, pushing herself to sit up a little.

“I know.  But Verona’s becoming a feral child, and that’s, considering everything, considering the fact that you have your parents and siblings and Lucy has me, but Verona…”

“She has us.”

“Honey,” Jasmine said.  “You put yourself in a position to get shot.”

“Technically it was the Aurum Coil who set me up, let me get shot when I thought I was clear.”

“Should I be covering my ears and chanting ‘la la la’?” Rowan asked.

“Not if you don’t get it,” Avery said.

“Should- are you going to cover your ears and drown everything out?” Rowan asked Sheridan.

“I want to be a loser.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve picked something up and had people telling me I could be good at this shit.”

“Your podcast got good reviews,” Avery’s mom said.

“It’s mediocre.  I know it’s mediocre.  It’s fine,” Sheridan said.  “I’ve got one superfan but from what Avery’s said she’s so sheltered she can remember every single movie she’s seen.  It’s weird as hell thinking I might be good at this stuff.  Do you think it’s possible?”

She was asking Avery.

“I don’t want you involved in this.”

“I don’t want me involved in this,” Sheridan said.  “I don’t want Avery involved in it.  This stuff seems to suck a lot.  I just want the magic.”

“That’s the dream,” Avery said, feeling awkward, all the focus on her, her forced to lie on her side, awkwardly, with not everyone in easy view.  She stroked Snowdrop.  “You know, when I was shot, Snowdrop couldn’t move me.  So I was lying in this place where the world was ending, basically.  Explosions and things flying everywhere, and buildings falling down, and then there were missiles and storms, and fires, and all this other stuff.  The way that place works, you’re okay if you don’t move, and I couldn’t move.”

“This doesn’t make me feel better,” her mom said.

“It’s not meant to.  I don’t want to lie and say all this is okay, because I don’t feel very okay,” Avery said.  “But Snowdrop went through there, and went through a weird superprison, and all these other places.  And there was a prisoner who could’ve given her a hard time and he gave her a pass, and made it easy for her to get through twice.  She went through there, all the way to this… like a chessboard train station strip mall.  It was dangerous, y’know?”

“We’re grateful,” her dad said.

“But that’s the thing, right?  Because when she got there, there was a barista at a coffee shop who fed her and gave her stuff.  And someone helped carry her and kept her out of danger when she was too tired to move, because she was tired, going back and forth.  Getting food to me, basically.”

“Can we see her?” Avery’s dad asked.

Avery moved the covers and let Snowdrop out.  Snowdrop became human, biting her lower lip awkwardly, eyes with dark circles under them.

Avery rubbed her head.

“I think they gave her food cheaper than she should’ve bought it for.  And they brought… basically the medicine dispenser, all the way through all that danger.  They protected her, and fought, and they did everything, and when they got back to me, they sat through the world ending.  Moon exploded, chunks fell, but they were safe as long as they sat still, and they had to sit still a while.  They did all that for me.”

“Then I guess we owe them too.”

“They’re people,” Avery said.  “They’re weird but-”

“I’m not weird,” Snowdrop muttered.

“-But they’re people, and Snowdrop and I helped them out in a big way, when a big company was going to take over their lives and livelihood, and maybe even enslave them.  But some of them helped without even realizing that’s who I was or who Snowdrop was.  I want a world where there’s magic and cool Others and cool places, and where we’re helping each other out.”

“Enough you’re willing to get shot?” her mom asked.

“Enough-” Avery started replying, moving over to lie on her back so she could see her mom.  She cleared her throat and felt the pain where the hose had dragged through soft tissue.  “I’m willing to get shot.”

“Even if it means never seeing that dark and gloomy girlfriend of yours again?” Sheridan asked.

Avery groaned.  “Don’t talk about- not with family.”

“They know.”

Avery groaned.  She found it was very easy to do a good groan with the post-tube soreness in her throat.  But it did make her cough eventually.  “She’s not gloomy anyway.  More anxious.’

“I’m anxious,” her mom said.  “You don’t know how affected we were.”

Don’t make me think about how you were affected, Avery thought.  She sighed heavily, not sure what to say.

There was some back and forth and conversation, and talk about the trip over.

Then the doctor came in.  Jasmine frowned.

“Avery.”

“Okay, I’m copping this one,” Sheridan said.  “We were roughhousing in the garden, I knocked her over, I guess I didn’t realize we had those rebar studs from the tomato plants.  And she fell on one, I guess?  And didn’t want to tell anyone?”

A little too much detail all at once, Avery thought.

“I couldn’t tell people,” Avery muttered.

“You’re not one of our doctors,” Jasmine said.  “You look familiar, but…”

The man smiled.  “You have doctors coming in from out of town, with everything going on.”

“Lis?” Avery asked.

“Am I so obvious?” he asked.

“What’s a Lis?” Rowan cut in to ask.

“One of the people who asked you to risk getting shot?” Avery’s mom asked.

“No,” Jasmine said.

“Lis was on the list of people who were helping, or-”

“Betrayed them.  At the end of summer.  She’s- or he’s one of the people who would’ve shot Avery,” Jasmine said, tense.

Avery studied Lis, trying to read his expression.  It was unreadable.

“I thought you’d want to know,” Lis said.  “Charles has left Kennet.”

“He’s-?”

“Gone.  So is Maricica.  So is Edith.  So are the Red Heron mentors and students.  They’ve taken everyone loyal enough to stay with them, after Maricica.  The Lords are refusing access through their territories, fighting viciously if anyone tries.”

“They’re regrouping.  Gathering together…” Avery said.  “They’re vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable enough they’re coordinating now, instead of pursuing their individual agendas.  They’re layering and preparing measures against things like the Abyss and the Wild Hunt,” Lis said.  He paused for a moment, then added, “And you.”

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