Author: Wildbow

Go for the Throat – 23.3 | Pale

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“Baptized in bin juice.”

“Please don’t baptize my opossum in bin juice,” Avery muttered.

“It’s fine, my dear,” Toadswallow told her, reaching up over his head to pat her arm.

“Ringed in trash fire!”

The fires were lit.

The orange-red light and thick black smoke filled the back rooms of Toadswallow’s speakeasy.  Snowdrop sat atop a precarious pile of furniture- sitting in a chair with legs crossed, hands gripping ankles, given an ominous light.  The fire framed the stray hairs that stuck up and away from her head.

She was wearing a t-shirt dress with black leggings underneath.  ‘Ticking and Screaming’ was emblazoned on the front.  She wore a jacket over it that recurred and seemed to have more patches on it every time Avery saw it, headphones with the extended, opossum-ear rims around the earpieces, kept around the neck, and torn up old shoes that were perpetually unlaced, but never seemed to trip her up.

Not really dressing up, but that seemed to be the point.

Avery could feel Snowdrop suppressing a cough as the smoke reached the upper part of the room, and pulled on the familiar bond.  Avery discreetly did the coughing for Snowdrop.

“Let’s see your shitty offerings!” Tatty screeched.

Offerings were put forward, where the trash fire didn’t reach.  Bits and bobs.  Pretty things, improvised weapons.  Maybe a few minor goblin magic items, of the lowest quality.

Snowdrop couldn’t carry a lot of things, even with Avery suppressing that Lost tendency, but she could stow things in a personal area, and she’d have her own quarters after this.

Some goblins, not finding a good place to give their gifts, tossed them up to Snowdrop.  A few got the bright idea to try pelting Snowdrop.  Snowdrop caught a few things- a small flask of something that wasn’t liquor, a dead mouse or something painted in neon blues and greens.  Something banged against the leg of the chair that was precariously perched up high.  Another something bounced off the seat and landed in the trash fire, like Snowdrop might if things went wrong.

“Let’s hear the words!” Tatty screeched.

Snowdrop had a battered old microphone that Avery was two hundred percent sure she’d seen at the crummy old record store across from the motel.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa!” Snowdrop screamed, arms above her head, microphone unnecessary.  Avery saw the chair shift slightly, scraping a half-inch to the side at the shift in weight, and tensed.

Goblins picked up the cry.  Cherrypop was barely able to stay standing, kicking and punching at the air in her excitement.  Avery could feel how much Snowdrop was enjoying Cherrypop enjoying herself.

Snowdrop dropped her arms.  The room went quiet, except for the noisy pop of the fire.

“I’m going to be your old fogey sage,” Snowdrop told them, speaking into the microphone.  The sound quality was terrible, but it kind of worked.  “I’m going to be your retired warlord.  I’m going to be your slimy monster in a dark alley, so weirdly goblin I can barely do anything except spit random wisdom at you all.”

There were nods.  Cherrypop was nodding especially eagerly.

“You need advice?  Get bent, I’m no trashy dear crabby advice columnist for goblins,” Snowdrop told the room.  “Market stuff?  Forget about it.  Market’s done for.”

Snowdrop’s voice took on a darker edge with the smoke congestion.  Avery did her best to absorb the worst of it.

“I’m basically her familiar,” Cherrypop told a goblin, who kind of stuck a foot out sideways to nudge Cherrypop to be quiet.

Avery bent down, picking up the little red goblin, and stepped forward, arm around her lower face, to pass Cherrypop up to Snowdrop on her high perch.

Snowdrop put Cherrypop on one knee, where the goblin sat, looking as happy as anything.

Snowdrop leaned forward, which shifted her balance in an already precarious position.  “You want my sagely wisdom and guidance?  It’s time you all get serious.  I’m talking mindless violence.  Let’s cut this group down to almost nothing as we wean out just about everyone.  No place for the weak.  There will be no Liberty or America Tedd guest stars.  There won’t be anything cooler than the slide or the arcade… fun’s over.”

Avery idly wondered how many goblins didn’t get Snowdrop’s gimmick.  The ones who didn’t didn’t seem to have the memory to really remember most of this, at least.

Snowdrop held out the microphone in front of her.  Fires crackled.  The microphone’s audio popped for unrelated reasons.

All the goblins were tense.

She dropped the microphone, and it was like the starting gun had gone off.  Goblins started partying, pushing at one another to try to sneak-grab some of the offerings that had been left.  Snowdrop took advantage of that moment of confusion and of how bodies between fire and furniture blocked some of the light, leaping from the chair.  Startling the hell out of Avery.

But Snow became opossum, rusty fork clamped in teeth, and Avery caught her.

To the goblins who weren’t paying attention, Snowdrop had disappeared.  For the ones who were, Avery supposed it was still kind of cool.

Toadswallow was navigating the crowd, and picked up some offerings, while Avery, tears in her eyes from the foul smoke, retreated back into Toadswallow’s speakeasy.

It looked like the chaos was becoming a bit of a party.

“That alright?” Avery asked Snowdrop.  She could already tell, but it’d be a weird familiar bond if she and Snowdrop stopped talking because they could sense answers through the internal back-and-forth.

“Nah.  Look at them having fun now, I wanted to sell them more on my no-nonsense, bloody warlord approach.  That would’ve been a lot easier if I wasn’t covering you for your wimpiness with the smoke.”

Avery gave Snowdrop a half smile.  “You wanted this, we’re doing this as a partnership, I want you to have it.”

“Temporary partnership.  You’re bound to bite it sooner or later, sooner if I can help it, and then I’ll keep going,” Snowdrop said.

“Good enough?” Avery asked Toadswallow.  He’d climbed a pile of plastic crates to get onto his stool, then from stool onto the ledge behind the bar, where he could face Avery more directly.

“Good,” Toadswallow said.

“Gives goblins a reason to come in, get involved?”

“Get our market going again,” Toadswallow said, He nodded, chin dipping in and out of his neck fat.  “I’m stuffed things worked out this way, in the long run.  Way I’d originally planned it, I’d have my Sage, get everything lined up, then kick it off.  But messier is better.  We went off-plan, I made it mine, first, kept a card close to the vest, and now we get to play that card.”

He stepped onto the bar as he talked to clap a small clawed hand at Snowdrop’s shoulder.

“That’s you,” Avery said.  “Tricks in your vest.”

“And Warrens mud in my trousers.  She’ll be around?”

“I’ll be coming back and forth as we prepare.  But I’m going to Thunder Bay, so it’ll be a bit of traveling.  I’ll- yeah.  Yeah?”

She directed that last ‘yeah’ at Snowdrop, who’d brought Cherrypop out of fork form again and who was trying to bite her.

“We’ve had enough of each other, so I’ll stay here,” Snowdrop told her.

Avery messed up Snowdrop’s hair.  She looked at Toadswallow.  “Evenings?”

“I can sell that.  This lot mostly sleeps through the days, anyway.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to… just trying to think of ways to make this work.”

“Appreciated,” Toadswallow replied.

“…Alpeana?  If we’re getting the midnight market going, maybe a ticket system?  I might’ve been listening to my dad talk about his work too much.  Or a screening system.”

“For nightmares?” Toadswallow asked.  He tilted his head.  “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking, like… goblin passes on that they need advice, or sagely counsel.  They write something up or-”

“Goblins write great,” Snowdrop said.

“Or, I dunno, whisper into a specific crack in the wall.  Someone or some magic takes the words down.  Alpeana connects Snowdrop to goblins, spooky weird opossum nightmare time, Snowdrop gives counsel?  We’d obviously pay Alpeana for her trouble.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Toadswallow said.

“Lots to figure out,” Avery noted.  “Stuff’s still crazy with Charles, even if they’re busy picking themselves up and getting organized too.  There’s the plan-”

“Let us worry about that,” Toadswallow said, with subtle emphasis.

“But…”

“Please.”

I know you’ve got your plan and we’ve got ours, and I’m not supposed to tip off Charles, but if we’re doing that, then shouldn’t we at least pretend to help out?

“This feels weird,” Avery told him.

“As an expert in weird feelings, I’m willing to listen if you’re willing to talk,” Toadswallow said.

Snowdrop, one hand messing with Cherrypop, pinning her to the counter, put her chin in hand, looking at Avery.

“Hmmm… I screwed up, got shot, and now it seems we’re being punished, like you guys don’t trust us, or you’re only now considering other options because of me.”

“It’s not because of you.  Many things have been leading up to this.  When my plans for the market first came out, I told you three I was willing to adapt to any circumstance.  I’m older for a goblin.  I could have my own sprogs with my lady Bubs.  I’ve traveled realms, I stand somewhere between Miss and Rook in worldly experience.”

“Hmmm.”

“I know we might lose.  I know things might go bad.  But goblins are tenacious,” Toadswallow told Avery.  “It’s always been buried somewhere in this thick skull of mine, that I need to make plans for if it all goes wrong.”

“Plans, huh?”

“From the moment I brought up my market with you all, I was talking about the shapes it could take, if we lose every fight.  If we lose key people.  Now, I certainly don’t want that to happen, but if it does, there can still be a market.  And Miss, Rook, and all the rest, they’re starting to do the same thing.”

“It feels like giving up.”

“It’s measuring up,” Toadswallow told her.  “If you’re taking responsibility for something, part of that responsibility is being ready to cut your losses, give up the dream to preserve what you can of the reality.”

“Heavy,” Avery said.  She paused.  “Worrying.”

“A heavy place we’re getting to.”

“When we kind of eked out a win despite me going and getting shot like a loser?”

“Don’t get down on yourself.  Does this have anything to do with you losing those glitterninny checkmarks you were giving yourself, for confidence?”

“Not how it works, I double checked,” Avery said.  “It’s more like how my Grumble, after his first stroke, got really depressed for a few years.  He didn’t have my Gran.  It was really a letdown in a big way.  Got him reflecting on life.  Getting shot, even if I’m okay, it has me doing the same.  Kicking myself a lot.”

“You should,” Snowdrop said, head and one shoulder now on the counter, arms outstretched.  She used both hands to ‘fight’ Cherrypop.

“You shouldn’t, the furball is right,” Toadswallow said.  “Killwagon told me something once.  If you’re towing a load and it starts wobbling, what do you do?  I know you’re not a driver yet, Avery.”

“It’s going to be a problem when I am, because that’s when the Zoomtown boon will really start itching me, I think.  But yeah.  I… don’t know?”

“If you stop, your load gets rammed up your tailpipe,” Toadswallow said, smiling wider.

“That’s fun,” Snowdrop murmured, half her focus on Cherrypop.

“Slow down and try to play it safe?  Your load wobbles more, because you’re wobbling, in the heart.  Try to steer with it?  You’re liable to flip your load and yourself with it off the side of the road.”

“It strikes me you probably don’t drive or tow loads either, Toads,” Avery told him.  “You can’t see over a steering wheel.”

He laughed.  “I learned from someone who does it well.  That’s all we can do, with our different experiences.  Do you want to know how you handle it when your load wobbles?”

“I really don’t,” Avery said.

“Double check your connections, you don’t want to spill that load everywhere, but you tow that load harder, faster.  Show it you’re the boss.”

“Go harder huh?” Avery asked.  “That’s definitely goblin advice.”

“If you’re asking a goblin, I think you know you want this advice.”

“How come you’re not a goblin sage, Toadswallow?”

“Because those saps in that room, they don’t like me.  They don’t understand me.  I understand them, they’re not very complicated.”

Ramjam wandered into the room.  He smiled a crooked smile at each of them.

“There’s only so many times I can tell them what to do, before they start pushing back.”

“You need something pushed?” Ramjam asked.  “I’m good at pushing.”

Ramjam coming through and talking to them had drawn some eyes, which meant other goblins were filtering in from the other room.  Snowdrop hopped down from her stool to engage with them and distract them.

Toadswallow moved across the bar, until he was sitting on the edge, closest to Avery.  His voice low, he told her, “Goblins don’t open up unless you crack them open, or you give them a good excuse.  Some goblins will come from far away to talk things out with a sage, because otherwise, nobody listens.  And there are others who’ll come for a fun and interesting sage, then realize later they can open up.”

“I mean, it’s good they’re opening up, I don’t want to say that’s not important, but… is that important?” Avery asked.  “For your plans, I mean?”

“I’ll focus on changing the goblins in the big ways.  Market, jobs, focus, distractions.  Bread and circuses.  They don’t have to like me for that to work,” Toadswallow said.  “Your girl?”

Snowdrop had climbed up onto the barrier that separated two booths.  Goblins were climbing over one another to get to her.

Avery glanced at Toadswallow, then followed his gaze.

Cherrypop.  She looked like she was having the best time, even though it was Snowdrop who was goblin sage of Kennet now.

What exactly that role would mean, Avery was sure she’d find out in coming days or weeks.  Some of it was bound to be a headache, or a logistical nightmare, but so many things were.  School, Nora, Avery’s family.  If she had to pick one to deal with, she felt it was Snowdrop’s turn already, especially with how Snow had saved her.

“Lonely.  Not being the one that’s liked.  Sorry, Toadswallow.”

“Pshah.  All of us are lonely,” Toadswallow said.  “Some of us, it’s some of the time.  Some of us, we know what love is, but we have business that takes us different places.”

“You and Bubbleyum?” Avery asked.

“Your mother and father,” Toadswallow said.  “But even Matthew and Louise, they’re together most of the day, but he has his work, she has her business.  They have to part.  The loneliness is sharper, knowing what they’re missing, every moment.”

“Yeah.”

“Even when they’re side by side, even when Bubbleyum and I are sticking tongues down each other’s throats, even when your parents are putting odds and ends together to make the new member of the Kelly family-”

“Toad,” Avery said, taking her eyes off Snowdrop and looking at Toadswallow.  “Off limits.”

“They’re lonely even together.  We’re different souls, trying to align.  Coming different places, going different places, with different reasons.  When we’re at our best, we’re walking the same road together for a while.”

“Hmm.”

His voice got even lower, living in the croak that his voice could dip into when he got serious.  “I resigned myself a long time ago to the fact I may be one of the scattered few who think the world of goblinkind, and I won’t be more than a footnote in their stories, I won’t be someone they get excited to talk about five years after I pass.  I may start something, maybe because of me, goblin markets will be a thing, and goblin glamour and murmurings of the eighth court will be dangerous secrets that certain goblin princesses and those they deem worthy will teach…”

Avery nodded slowly.

“Or you three.  There could be a few others over the years.  I plan to be around for at least as long as any of you three.  Maybe I can do that.  But I daresay I won’t get the credit.  I’ll live like a pig in the shit, a duke in his duchess, I’ll back up my new Sage if she needs it, so don’t worry about that.  Then I’ll be forgotten like a friendless beggar.”

“Toads, no.  That’s… that’s really sad.”

“It’s how they are.”

“Change that too, then?  Maybe we can have Snowdrop nudge them, using her role as Sage?” Avery asked.

Toadswallow chuckled.  “That’ll be a good lesson in pushback.  But let’s save that for a little later.  There’s other business to see to.  I’ll start up my market.  She’ll take her baby steps as Sage, I’ll help with that too… and you?”

“I’m heading back to Thunder Bay,” Avery said, more decisive than she felt.  “I’m drained, but it’s not something I can fill up on back here.  Self.  I’ll be going back and forth a lot.  My mom’s cutting me a lot of slack if I break curfew.  She’s cooperating with that whole idea, about you guys not wanting to have another fight.”

“Tightening things up some,” Toadswallow said.  “It’s better than everyone having tricks up their sleeves, last reserves, and whatever else, saving them with different timelines in mind.”

Avery nodded slowly.  “I still don’t like it.”

“I know.”

“But my mom and dad do, so… I dunno.  I’ll restore my Self, maybe I’ll do what you said, establish those connections.  Like you said with the towing stuff.  Check connections first, make sure nothing’s going to snap…”

“They missed you terribly, you know?  I talk about loneliness, but your parents were distraught, your friends’ souls were wounded.”

Avery’s eyes went to the side, staring at a random tear in the wallpaper.  Snowdrop sensed something and turned to look, which was the opening Ramjam needed to tackle her to the floor.  Tatty grabbed her hair.

Playful roughhousing, even if it looked like murder was happening.

“That’s not a condemnation, my girl,” Toadswallow croaked.  “I’m only saying, time with them is time that heals your Self.  I know that much.”

“Lucy left for the Sable, that’ll take a while.  Verona’s digging into her sort of stuff.  I’ll use the time right now to… I guess to be more centered, more me.”

“Find your confidence?”

Avery nodded.

He clapped a hand on her shoulder again, leaving it there.

She signaled Snowdrop, who began to pull away from the goblins.  Snowdrop put Ramjam between herself and the mob, then gave him a little push, which made him the target of the goblin depredations.

Panting, with a black eye and blood at one nostril, Snowdrop grinned toothily at Avery.

“Have you hit the shrines, or do you need to make time for that this morning?” Toadswallow asked.

“I did.  With the rotation, we’re doing Verona tonight, Others tomorrow morning, me tomorrow night.  I can bring Snowdrop over tomorrow night?”

“Not tonight?  Even if you’re not visiting shrines?” Toadswallow asked.

“If you need her, yeah, or if she wants to go?” Avery asked.

Snowdrop shrugged.

“But we’ll have the council meeting, I think, and other stuff.  My mom likes to do these sit-downs in the evening,” Avery said.

Toadswallow passed them the choice items from the offerings that had been given and then seized up in the aftermath of Snowdrop’s sagely announcement.  A few minor magic items.  “Tomorrow night, then.  We’ll manage.”

Some minor magic items, goblin candies, trinkets, odds and ends.  One rock from Cherrypop.

“They’re yours, but you want me to hold onto them?” she asked Snowdrop.

“Nah.”

“You’re not taking on too much?” Toadswallow asked.

“Go hard, go fast, right?” Avery asked.

Doors slammed as Avery jogged down the street, Snowdrop running ahead with a silence rune to make it so they wouldn’t disturb any of the foundlings in the houses.  Avery sent Snowdrop ahead to the far side of the street to check doors there, then followed, letting the doors change.

She backtracked to the side of the street her family was on, walking at a decidedly more placid pace.

Her mom walked behind her, periodically nudging Rowan and Sheridan, who were blindfolded.  Not that they were blindfolded well.  Sheridan kept peeking.  She made brief eye contact with Avery, then scrunched her eyebrow down so the blindfold would cover her eye again.

“Mom,” Avery said.

“Snitch,” Sheridan told her.

“You don’t even know for sure what I was going to say.”

“I can guess.  And you are a snitch, even if you aren’t snitching right now.  When you were ten-”

“When I was ten?” Avery asked, turning to walk backward and face Sheridan while talking.

“The copper candle thing?  Snitch.”

“Watch where you’re going, Avery, please,” her mom said.

Avery spread her arms, continuing to walk backward, onto a stairwell.  She walked down the stairs without looking, glancing at doors as she passed them.

“It would be great if you fell,” Sheridan said, peeking.  “Acting all cocky like that.”

“You’re looking?” their mom asked.  “Sheridan, seriously.”

“Can I take the blindfold off?  I’m in this, I’m wanting to do this, so let’s just ease me into it.  I’ve seen shit at the Garricks and in our freaking kitchen, anyway.”

“You want to do this, even knowing what happened to Avery?” their mom asked.

Avery turned back around, before her mom locked her sights onto her, and jogged ahead a bit.  Her mom and Sheridan had their back and forth.

Doors.  Doors, doors, doors.  She shifted her focus, trying to recall what symbol meant what.  Bell, pen and ink pot, weird indistinguishable blob- she cracked that door open.  There was a steep drop from door to the sandy wasteland below.  Below a deep blue-black sky, multiple buildings drifted twenty or thirty feet above the ground, creaking as they did, dilapidated, abandoned, and vaguely haunted looking, each with trailing ‘roots’, like plants that had been pulled up.  The sand had a glow that illuminated everything from below, the only light available, but didn’t really reach high enough to shed any light on the silhouettes of the Lost sitting, standing or riding on the roofs of the towers, houses, and other buildings.

She had an ominous feeling about that one.

She pulled the door shut and made a note on her phone.

“How long is this going to take?” Sheridan asked.

“You know, there’s a Garrick who’s taken on the job of figuring that out?” Avery asked.

“Convenient!  Let’s call them!”

“In a general way.  Making and opening doors, taking notes, what’s known, what isn’t… how many are known to be easy or safe to cross.  What ones are common, what ones aren’t.  You’ve seen the glamorous side of this-”

“Have I, though?”

“But you could sign on to all of this and be assigned a boring job while you’re learning the ropes.  Taking notes on a spreadsheet.  Figuring out the running odds of getting a good door, finding trends in the doors?  Research?”

“There’s a thought.  I wouldn’t mind either of you on a desk job,” their mom said.

“I’d rather a desk job about putting data about freaky dream spaces into a spreadsheet than one where I’m, I dunno, reviewing social media.”

“Valid,” Avery replied.  “Except don’t call them freaky?  It’s like going to, I dunno, Africa, and talking trash about Africa.”

“This is Kennet though,” Sheridan said, fake-scratching her head so she could nudge the blindfold and peek with one eye.  “Weird Kennet but it’s still Kennet.”

“La la la la, can’t hear,” Rowan said.

“It’s a Kennet with a lot of people in it that are from, in this analogy, Africa.”

“La la la la.”

“We should really have a serious sit-down with your dad before we okay you taking off the blindfold, Sheridan.  The fact you’re not listening worries me.”

“Oh my god.  In what universe is anyone going to say, hey, magic, cool, I’m going to turn away from it, get back to the boring?  Except Rowan, he doesn’t count, he’s committed to being lame.”

“I’m not committed to being lame.  I’m committing to other things.”

“Which I think is admirable,” their mom said.

“So much for la la la, huh?”

Avery opened another door.  Teacup.  Tea meant tea shop, which could be more chill, right?  She popped it open.

A city, dark and gritty, to the point of being noir, but in tints of brown, not black and white, with steam rising from manhole covers, and men and women in old fashioned gangster suits, with Lost features.  Several had shadows instead of skin, and the shadows they cast were various textures like grass and loose boards with nails sticking out.  Others had animal heads, with cheap and battered top hats propped on top.

In the distance, Avery could see, was a harbor, with what might’ve been a great lake or ocean.  Massive teabags and cages with teabags in them bobbed in it, some dangling from cranes, and the water had a tea color, and a strong tea smell.

They gave Avery sharp and wary looks.  Several of them had cups of tea they casually held.  Some had knives and batons.  Some had both.

“Oh!” someone shouted, across the street.

Avery turned, hand holding the door open.  A man in a suit with very white skin and a very black mask ran across a bridge, across the road, and to the door, disappearing through.  As he did, his skin turned to shadow, and his shadow turned to the texture of white paper.

A dozen paces into the Path on the far side of the door, he stopped in his tracks as he saw the gangsters.  “Oh.”

“You need help?” Avery asked.

But he was already running.  Gangsters picked up and moved powerful lanterns so their shadows would sweep in his direction.  He tripped on one wet shadow, stumbling and falling.  He picked himself up and ran to places Avery couldn’t track from the doorway, the gangsters starting to run after him.

“Good luck?” Avery suggested.

“Me?” Rowan asked.

“Oh my god, you’re so annoying,” Sheridan said.

Avery started to close the door, and bumped into her mom, who was looking.

“Hope he’s okay,” Avery said, shutting the door as soon as her mom moved aside.  “I bet they have tea better than anything we have, there.”

“We have to get a move on,” her mom said.

Avery took a second to make a note on her phone.  She could sense Snowdrop waiting.  “Yeah.”

One door with a chair at an odd angle.  She popped it open.  It looked like an opulent dining hall, with food all down a long table, but tables, chairs, and just about every fixture were tied with ropes.  There was no floor- just a drop into darkness that went hundreds or thousands of feet down.  All the furniture was suspended.  Nope.

She shut the door.

Another, not that dissimilar.  It was a rich building, with lots of animal heads mounted on the wall, and a velvety rug with gold trim running down the length of a long hallway.

“Coursing mounts,” Avery noted.

“Hm?” her mom asked.  “Safe?”

“No.  And… politically problematic,” Avery said, frowning.  “Because that’s a Path that got locked down by someone else.  Like how the Garricks locked down the Promenade.  The… either the Latimores or the… shit, name escapes me.”

“Language,” her mom murmured.

“Whoop, sorry.  One of the non-family groups.  They’re doing some research, locked it down temporarily, but ‘temporarily’ became a year and a half, I still think I’d make enemies if I were caught wandering through there.  Not that I would.”

“What happens, theoretically, if you steal something?” Sheridan asked.  “Could I just get, like, an elephant head for the wall in our apartment?”

“I’m a vegetarian, I don’t like leather, you think I want a giant elephant head in our room?”

“My room.  Technically everything on my half of the shower curtain… it’s fake, isn’t it?  It’s… abstracted, from symbols and stuff, changes when a different person looks at it?”

“La la la,” Rowan started saying, hands at his ears.

“It’s maybe fake, but I’m not really a vegetarian or disliking leather because I care about animals, exactly, it’s-”

Snowdrop snapped her head around to look at Avery, saying something, that was muted by the sound rune.

“I’d tell you to shush if you weren’t already muted, Snowdrop.  You know what I mean.  Shush your familiar connection whatever.”

Snowdrop laughed silently.

Avery turned back to Sheridan and her mom.  “It squicks me out, and…”

Avery bent down to grab some snow, packing it together into a snowball.  She lobbed it into the room.

A fireplace that was set halfway down the hallway roared out a blast of flame, stopping just short of charring wall and floor, but covering just about everything else.  Pictures of men with rifles fired their rifles, sinking bullets into the opposite wall-

Avery flinched a bit, at that.  She felt papers she’d stashed on herself go hot.

-and a blade on a pendulum slid out from between two bookcases, sweeping the hallway.

“Badass,” Sheridan said.  “Could you get to the other end of the hallway if you tried?  I dare you to go to the other end of the hallway.”

“I can’t, I won’t, I’d make enemies with finders I might like to work with someday, and-”

“And you might die or come close to dying,” her mom said, in a pointed way.

Avery shut the door firmly.  “Yeah.”

“You said we could spend more time with Kerry, Declan, your Dad, and Grumble, and you’d get us back in time.  Can you?”  Her mom was getting antsy.

“It’s a luck thing,” Avery said.  “Recognizing the right doors we can use.  It’s just a series of bad luck right here, that we’re not finding a great door.”

A few houses down, there was a door with a window inset into it, that partially obscured the symbol, and it had a vertical bar down the middle.  Black on either side, gold down the middle, black… chains?

She opened the door.  She could see a town, with chains stretching this way and that, like clotheslines, connecting buildings.  Rain came down in a downpour.

“Oh.  This might be a place I know.”

“Wet,” Sheridan noted.

Avery flipped up her hood, peering through the door at every possible angle, to see as much of the area as she could.  It was behind a house.  Maybe the viewpoint from a shed.

Snowdrop came over, with the spell card in hand.  Avery turned, looking, and pulled Sheridan’s blindfold down before she beckoned for Cherrypop, who followed their group, keeping rough time with the doors slamming.

Avery bent down to take the paper from Cherrypop, who resisted unnecessarily before letting it go.  She tore the papers.

“Hmm.  This looks like the Commons’ Thread, maybe, got lots of ‘threads’ tying stuff together,” Avery observed.  “The areas that are like Lost marketplaces and bits of civilization tend to be more chill.  So… let’s see…”

She stepped through, Snowdrop at her side, and paused.

Not the Common Thread.

Her breath caught in her throat as she turned- there was commotion.  Sheridan had poked her head in, her mom had tried to stop her, but her mom was guiding Rowan behind her.

Avery turned to say something and stop her mom, but couldn’t talk.  Rowan bumped into the door with enough force it bumped into the corner of a house near it and then banged shut.

Avery could see her mom’s eyes go wide, as her head turned.

Meant for you to hang back.

There was no air.

Rowan turned the knob on the door.  It rattled, but it was locked.

Avery turned, breath frozen in her throat, and scanned the surroundings.

On a clothesline-like chain high above…

She stomped three times, then leaped, going high.  Even with the wind shoes, she didn’t get that much clearance.  She fell.

Sheridan, leaning back against a wall, seemed content to suffocate while giving Avery a ‘really?’ look.

Snowdrop slapped her hand into Avery’s.  Then became opossum.  Sensing Snowdrop’s intent, Avery leaped again.  Wind stirred her coat and hair as she went high, about thirty feet up.  When she was high enough, she tossed Snowdrop up.

Snowdrop became human, flailing arm and foot sort of catching on the chain.  She grabbed two keys that dangled from it, then dropped.  Becoming an opossum again.

Avery caught her, while simultaneously pushing some of the ‘fall protection’ boon onto Snow.

As rain came down heavily on top of them, she could see that mist from the spray of the pelting rain.  And in that mist, ahead of Snowdrop’s mouth-

She did Snowdrop.  Key to that keyhole in the air.  Nothing.

Second key to that keyhole in the air.

She did her own.

She went to her mom, who’d dropped to a sitting position, back to the wall, and motioned, fingers flicking.  Her mom blew air that wouldn’t come, and the keyhole clarified.  Avery inserted it, then turned.

Then Rowan, who seemed to be dealing with the lack of oxygen the worst, then Sheridan.

“Whooooo,” Sheridan said, as she got her breath again, eyes wide.

“In the future?  Wait until I signal before coming through,” Avery said.

“I was in a rush,” her mom replied.  “I didn’t think.”

“And I should’ve been clearer,” Avery said, panting for breath herself, not just because of the brief patch of exertion, but because she’d nearly offed herself and her family.  Her hood had fallen down and her head was already soaked.  She ran fingers through wet hair.

“I saw three things I shouldn’t have,” Rowan said, groaning.  “You jumping, the opossum shape-changing acrobatics, the keyhole.”

“Seriously,” Sheridan told Avery.  “Next time, wait until Rowan has his blindfold fixed before you save our lives.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Rowan said.

“In the future, we can stick to using the car,” Avery’s mom said.

“I’m not- I like not having a three or four hour drive in the morning,” Rowan said.  “But can’t we walk the middle ground?  Be more careful about getting into situations where lives need saving?”

“Let’s,” Avery’s mom said.

Avery groaned.

“So,” Sheridan said.  She turned and jiggled the door.  It was still locked. “We locked in?”

“We are, and the way to get from one place to another is locked, and so is just about everything here,” Avery said.  “Welcome to the Keyways.”

“Are we in trouble?” her mom asked.

“No,” Avery said.  She walked down a ways to a stone washbasin that was set into the middle of a space between four different buildings.  There was a staircase off in the corner, behind a locked gate, that led up to a higher level of the town.  A claw mark had gouged the wall, like someone or something had casually dragged claw-tips through stone while walking by.  She dropped her bag and fished inside it, pulling out a length of rope.  She put it around Rowan’s waist, and then did the complicated knotting required to secure it.

“Sibling bondage,” Sheridan commented.

“Gross,” Avery said, at the same time her mom said, “Really-”

“-gross,” her mom finished, picking up what Avery had put up there.

Sheridan grinned.  Rowan just rolled his eyes.

Avery gave the rope a firm tug, which produced a faint mechanical sound.  She pulled hard, and Rowan took a step toward her.  She put a hand out, keeping Rowan put, then pulled tight again.  A fiercer mechanical sound.

The knot was blocked.  A keyhole shape appeared in the space between the portions of rope.

She freed Rowan of the rope and put it away.  The little alley from this little washing area between houses and the road was sealed with a metal gate.  “Hmmmm.”

Walking over to the washbasin, looking past the surface of the water, which was frothing with rain, she could see a key at the bottom.  The sign on it seemed to match the gate.

She reached for it, and her fingers crashed into the water’s surface.

She pushed, and there was another mechanical sound.  Pushing hard, a void appeared in the frothing water’s surface.  Keyhole shaped.

Air key was pretty easy, they’re common, usually up in the air, she thought.  This gets trickier.  Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s six layers deep.

Snowdrop nudged her.

Some of the long chains above them had closed in a bit, dipping lower, moving to be closer to them while they weren’t looking.  Those would need to be addressed too.  A different key for each one.  A security measure put into place after the Wolf had torn through, once?

“But we should maybe plan on missing morning classes,” she told her family.

Basketballs drummed on the floor.  Two large carts of well worn basketballs had been wheeled out, many imperfectly inflated.  They practiced shooting hoops while waiting for the proper gym class to start.

In the end, she had only missed the first half of the first morning class.  She’d spent the other half of that period sorting things out in the front office and figuring out her class schedule.  Then she’d come here.

Avery was reminded of what Lucy had talked about.  How things had gone with Wallace.

Nora was in her gym class this semester.  Locs tied back, wearing a black gym shirt and baggy basketball shorts.  She hadn’t approached Avery, which at first was like, okay, changing in the locker room, especially weird for the two of them, and Avery didn’t mind being able to stand in a corner and not have everyone see the bandage taped to her hip.  Except it had carried on after?  Avery wasn’t sure if she should approach Nora.

So Nora shot at one end of the gym and Avery shot at the other, and Avery felt like her heart was on the floor and someone had their foot on it, and that someone was steadily, slowly increasing the amount of weight they were putting on it.

She focused on shooting baskets.  Aim was something she needed to work on.

“Avery Kelly?”

Avery turned her head.

Her gym teacher was a very petite woman with a polo shirt, clipboard, and whistle at her neck.  She could be mistaken for a senior.  She apparently recognized Avery because Avery had missed a couple classes already.  The one face she didn’t recognize.

“The name behind the legend?” the woman asked, with a tone like she wasn’t impressed, her eyes scanning her clipboard.

“Huh?”

“Mr. Artrip sings your praises.  You’re the reason Jeanine’s going so hard lately, huh?” the woman said, eyes on the papers.

“Jeanine?”

“The tall one.  You don’t know her?”

“I know her,” Avery said.  Jeanine wasn’t hard to miss, running around in the background.  She was significantly taller than the next tallest girl.  And kept glancing at Avery.

“She was the fastest in your cohort, didn’t even have to try.  But now she’s got a rival, she’s actually trying.  Artrip’s happy.”  She’d turned to the last page.  “You were away, came back with a doctor’s note?”

She showed Avery.  The doctor’s note Avery had brought from the Kennet hospital had been photocopied and handed out, apparently.

“Yeah.”

“Shattered hip, according to the note.”

“It’s all healed.”

“That’s what the note says.  Shattered and healed.  I’d love to talk to your doctor.  How’d you manage to shatter your hip and get back to where you’re standing in front of me, between your last practice with Artrip and today?”

Avery shrugged.

“You weren’t attending lacrosse practice with cracks running through your hip, were you?  It wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve seen, but it’d be one of the stupidest.”

“I wasn’t.  That happened after.”

“Still got that indestructibility of youth, huh?  Or the doctor’s prone to exaggeration.”

I don’t feel indestructible, Avery thought.  Plus I feel like my heart is being stepped on, but that’s a whole other thing.

She just shrugged.

“Okay,” the gym teacher said.  She held the clipboard by the bottom and tapped Avery’s shoulder with the top end, almost like she was knighting Avery.  “We’re keeping it super light for you today.”

“I was hoping to really go hard, work out some stuff.”

“You’re that type, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Too bad.  Part of my background is in physical therapy.  Let me see you walk?  There to there.”

Avery walked between the two designated points.

“Hike up your shirt and do that again?  Just enough I can see how your hips are moving?”

Avery did.  Aware the bandage was on display.

“Jog in a circle around me.”

Avery sighed and jogged.  She caught Jeanine looking.  Jeanine had turned hostile with the party at her place, and Oli wasn’t really fielding that or stopping it.  So it was a thing constantly going on in the background at school.  The looks.  The feeling that every weakness was something that this person who now hated her was willing to pounce on.

“Okay,” the teacher said.  “Nothing’s jumping out at me.  Your gait looks fine.  I’ll keep an eye on how you’re moving.  Overcompensating for pain or weakness on one side can lead to problems as you put excess strain on the other.  Let’s keep you at a light jog at the fastest, and if I see you go any faster, you’re sitting down the rest of the class.”

“I really, really, really, really want to run.  Actually run.”

“I’ve got a doctor’s note in front of me I have a lot of questions about and little other information I trust.  I really, really, really don’t want to see a promising young athlete do permanent damage to herself because her pain tolerance is higher than her body’s tolerances.  Light jog or nothing.”

“What if I say I’m going to go run anyway, later, and it’s better if I do it while supervised?”

“No blackmail.  I’m serious.  Artrip said you liked hockey?”

“Yeah.”

“I work with the coach of the local team, I’m who she calls if a player gets injured, and I’m around every night the team’s playing, for the more serious games.  That means I’m one of the people you want to keep happy if you want a place on a local team.”

Avery nodded.  “Until?”

“Until I decide otherwise.”

“Okay.”

What the hell? Avery thought.

It struck her that she was a little more Lost than not right now, and she was starting to worry that she was feeling the consequences of that now.  If Aware could be shunted away from careers and things where their talents could see them excel, and Avery’s trip into the Paths, hospital stay, and heavy draw on Snowdrop had seen her take on more Lost-ness, did that mean that reality would contrive to give her a teacher with a specific focus on keeping her from running her fastest, being the excellent athlete she could be?

That was scary.

She really needed to recoup her Self, then.  The human stuff.

And she couldn’t run.

Nora was barely looking at her.

She started to walk over to Nora, and the whistle blew, shrill, behind her.

“Okay, guys, let’s get started!  Balls in the carts!”

She really hoped Nora wasn’t also a thing that she lost as she moved further away from humanity and Innocence.

Putnam burst into the locker room of a gym class she wasn’t in.  Putnam, pretty and dramatic and like some immature half-fae, great in a lot of ways, but also not very chill.

“Nora, Nora!” Putnam set her sights on her target.  “Can I steal you?”

“Right now?  I’m changing.”

“When you’re done.  I’m trying to get everyone together, it’s like herding cats, and you’re the quietest, most evasive cat, so I’ve got to find you where I can find you.”

Avery kept her back turned.  It was hard not to feel like multiple eyes were on her, watching to see if she so much as glanced at someone else, since she was quietly ‘out’, with a flag on her backpack.  Mia back home had said that it was fine, she’d back Avery up, whatever.  And she probably would’ve, but it took so freaking little for one problematic person to get really problematic, and Avery didn’t have it in her to deal with anything more problematic today.

Nora had talked about something similar, but it had to do with worrying that one unconscious glance or bit of awkwardness would be the thing that outed her.

Then having this happening?  Putnam and Nora.  Avery changed quickly, rearranged the contents of her bag, and kept rearranging as she left the locker room.

She was halfway to the cafeteria when she heard Putnam.  “Avery!  Holy shit!”

Avery turned around.

Putnam ran up to her.  “You’re here, you made it.  We missed you.”

“I’m here.  Missed you guys too,” Avery said.

She glanced at Nora, who hung back, glancing left and right, awkward.  Not moving from where she’d been when Putnam had run forward to Avery.

“Hey, look, you know how I am.  Brutally honest.”

“Uh oh.”

“If you look great, I’m going to say you look great.  And you look like shit.”

“Not sure how to respond to that.”

“It’s good, you’re still dashing.  But it’s very end-of-the-movie, hero’s covered in scabs, a little gaunt-”

“Scabs?” Avery asked.  “Gaunt?”

“It’s like that.  You’re not scabby.  That I can see.  But you’re a bit gaunt.  And you wear it like a movie star, don’t worry.”

“I’m worrying a bit.  This isn’t making me feel better,” Avery replied.

“Come.  We’re eating lunch together.  Lots to catch up on.  Actually not that much, but we only have thirty minutes.  Where-”  Putnam turned around and put her hands on her hips.  “Nora.  What are you doing?”

Nora ventured closer, expression unreadable.

“What’s going on?” Putnam asked, looking between them.

I don’t know, Avery thought.  But the fact I can’t tell Nora the whole deal might be souring things.

“Nothing,” Nora replied.

“Something’s going on… and… neither of you are talking.  Okay.  Can we eat lunch together?”

“I thought you wanted me to talk with the band.”

“This is more important.  I can talk your ear off about some band stuff, Nora.  But I also want to hear everything from Avery.”

“I’d like to eat lunch together,” Avery said.

Nora paused, then said, “Sure.”

They headed to the cafeteria, finding an empty table.  Putnam sat across from Avery, and Nora sat to Avery’s right.  With four short bench seats on each side of the square table, there were two people’s worth of space between herself and Nora.

A hand messed up Avery’s hair, then pulled away.  “Ew.  Why are you damp?”

“I just had gym,” Avery said, turning around, while fixing her hair.  “Sheridan.”

Sheridan looked down at her.  She glanced at Nora.  “Hey.”

“Heya,” Nora replied.

Avery kept fixing her hair, feeling the awkwardness steadily increase.  “Why are you here?”

“Ooh, wait, big sister?” Putnam asked.

“Not engaging, I left my lunch over there, I don’t trust people not to mess with it.  But I thought I’d warn you.  Snowdrop packed us lunch.”

“She packed- what?” Avery asked.

“Snowdrop… the opossum?” Nora asked.

Avery could see Sheridan’s brief ‘oh shit’ moment.  She’d thought she was being clever or subtle when she really wasn’t.

“Inside joke,” Sheridan said.  “When something strange happens or the parents get weird.  Blame Snowdrop.”

“The opossum, who’s not supposed to be this far north,” Avery said.  “Which is weird.”

“Thought I’d warn you.  Have you eaten that stuff?”

“What stuff?” Putnam asked.

Avery got her packed lunch out.  Sure enough, it was extra heavy.  She remembered Snowdrop feeling guilty, them mischievous through the familiar bond.  While Avery was sorting out her growing collection of Keyways keys, Snowdrop had eaten some of Avery’s lunch, then probably realized Avery needed all the food she could get, and had given Avery some Lost food she’d saved up.

Sheridan too, for some reason.  Maybe Snowdrop had eaten some of Sheridan’s lunch, but why would she feel bad for doing that?

Sheridan left without so much as a goodbye, while Avery was focused on her own deal.

Avery put the colorful, indecipherable packages on the table alongside the half of an avocado club sandwich that Snowdrop hadn’t eaten.  She craned around, finding where Sheridan was sitting.  It looked like Sheridan was getting attention for her weird food, too.

Which Avery was too.  Some members of the team were already coming over, but the weird food had them extra curious, enough that some other heads were turning too.

Damn it, Avery thought.

“Is this, like, Indonesian?” Putnam asked.  “Korean?”

“I… couldn’t tell you,” Avery said.

“Hey, Dang!” Putnam exclaimed, leaping to her feet.  She hugged her friend.  “Heyyy.”

“Why are you being weird?” Dang asked.  “Huggy.  Are you high?”

“Putnam’s always like this,” Hui said.

Putnam said something Avery didn’t catch, then, “Sit, sit.  Here, totally unrelated to the hug, is this Indonesian?  Or whatever?  Do you know what it is?”

“My family’s from Vietnam, not Indonesia and I only speak French and English.  That doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.”

Others took their seats too.  The team.

Members of the team who weren’t sitting milled around.  Which, in its way, was a nice distraction from the awkwardness with Nora, and a bit of bolstering of Self.  People kept picking up the packages and investigating.

“Glad you’re back,” Hui told Avery.

Avery smiled.

“You look worn out.”

“Can you guys stop saying that?  Really bruising the ego here,” Avery told them.

“Where did you get these?”

“I didn’t.”

“What are they?”

“Surprises.  I bit into one the other day and it was chocolate with coffee inside.”

“That’s not that weird.”

“No, actual liquid coffee,” Avery said.  “I spilled it all over myself after biting in.  I also bit into one that had meat, which I don’t eat, so… if you guys want to work out a deal?”

“A deal, hm?” Putnam asked, hovering over the table.

“Taste test, take the risk, you get half.  But I need some for my lunch, since I apparently only got half a sandwich.  So if it’s meat free, I want the other half.”

She sent a signal to a dozing Snowdrop, who was in the apartment with Avery’s mom.  Snowdrop startled awake with enough force that Avery’s mom noticed.  Snowdrop seemed to connect to what Avery was bothered by, then felt guilty.

Glutton.  Troublemaker.

Sorry, was the reply, in wordless sentiment.

“Scoot,” Putnam told Nora, urging Nora to move over.  Nora did.  “Now scoot more.”

“What?”

“Unless there’s a reason you shouldn’t?”

Avery glared at Putnam a little.  Meddler.

“I unpacked my lunch, and Dang and Hui took the spots there,” Putnam said, pretending to be reasonable and subtle when she was being very obvious.

“You told me to sit here,” Dang said.

“And you haven’t unpacked your lunch yet, so it’s easiest for you to move,” Putnam told Nora, ignoring Dang.

Nora and Avery gave Putnam their annoyed, unimpressed looks, but Nora did scoot over to the next bench down, sitting by Avery.

Putnam sat down in the spot Nora had just moved from, looking very satisfied.  “Three packages.  Who tries what?”

If being in gym class with Nora with things being weird felt like having her heart stepped on, pressure steadily applied, then being next to her was a whole other ball game.  Avery would have leaped to her feet and bailed, maybe, if she thought she could get away with it.  Could she get away with it?

“So what’s up?” Nora asked, quiet.

“Up?” Avery asked.  “Uh.”

“Why do you look like my brother does when he’s hung over?” Hui asked.  “Are you hung over?”

“No.  I was in the hospital-”

Which was more attention grabbing than the strange snacks.  Because everyone was concerned, everyone was talking over one another.

“This is why you were so low energy in gym?” Dang asked.  “I thought you were intentionally fucking up.”

“I was.  Not fucking up, but the teacher told me to go easy.”

“What happened?”

“Fractured pelvis, passed out from blood loss, where people couldn’t find me.”  A bullet shattered pelvis is fractured, right?

“How?”

Which put Avery in the position of trying to explain what had happened without actually saying what happened, which was really not her skillset, and the only saving grace was that she had six other girls at the table- seven if she counted Nora, who was silent, and the questions came in pairs, or overlapped, or they asked for details, and yet at the same time if she shied away from answering something they didn’t get too on her case.

So she could just kind of fumble around and paint a picture without telling a coherent story that would have its obvious gaps in the narrative.

Maybe she could thank Innocence for something today.

“This is why you didn’t call?” Nora asked, in a moment where enough people had taken bites of their food at the same time that they weren’t talking over each other.  The first question she’d asked, in the chaos.  The one question Avery did want to answer.

Was that the problem?

“I- I was incapacitated for a few days.  Then I had to get my stomach pumped because I had a side effect to medication.  I did send a message pretty much as soon as I could,” Avery said.  “I had to wait for my phone to charge, then fell asleep while it was doing that, and then when I woke up, I didn’t want it to happen again, so I sent a quick message.”

“Really quick.  Didn’t say a lot,” Nora said.  “And I wanted it to say a lot.  I figured you might be backing off.”

“No,” Avery said, quick.  “Definite no.”

Nora touched her arm, smiling.

It felt like that stepped-on heart of hers was now doing the opposite.  Like how an arm that was being pushed down could feel buoyant when the pressure was relieved.

Avery glanced at the team, who were all looking at her and Nora.  She moved the arm Nora wasn’t touching, batting the snacks closer to her friends.

“Let’s see these snacks,” Putnam said.

Avery’s right hand was on the table, and Nora’s hand was near her elbow, hanging on there, Nora sat next to her, shoulder touching Avery’s, and everyone pointedly ignored all of that, pretending to obsess over the snacks.

“Cake-y exterior, inside is… soy sauce but not soy sauce.  Vegemite?” Hui guessed.  “With ginger.  And… crab?  I have no idea what this is.  Meatier than crab or lobster.  But seafoody.”

“Do you eat seafood?” Putnam asked.

“Fifty-fifty on seafood.  Maybe less.  Take it.”

Her friends portioned stuff out.  Putnam had some cucumber and nori sushi in her bought lunch, so she gave some to Avery to compensate.

“Best guess: dehydrated strawberry and basil.”

Avery clapped her hands.  Half the package was slid onto a napkin for others to share, while the other half of the package was slid over her way.  Avery shared with Nora.

“I think you pull this key thing…”

The tinfoil package inflated, to the oohs and ahhs of others.  Steam began to come out as the food cooked in the little package.

“I hope it’s not actually explosive,” Avery said.  I’m not one hundred percent sure this is all edible by humans, actually.

Someone had a plastic spoon and pried the tinfoil package open.

“Dumpling with citrus smells… and- and very yellow contents.  Looks like someone drowned a canary in yellow paint.  Tasting…”

“Godspeed,” Hui muttered, wincing as a bite was taken.

“Beans in lemon juice.  It’s actually good.”

Avery didn’t end up getting half, despite the deal she’d struck.  But they tried to compensate, so she got a medley of things, and that was kind of alright.

“Do you at least feel a bit more human?” Lucy asked.  “Self recharged?”

Avery was on the snowy patio, Snowdrop sitting across from her.  They kept the chairs and stuff covered when not in use, so they were snow free, if still cold enough for skin to stick to.  But it was quiet and she could look up at the stars.

Lucy was in a similar environment, but a good distance away.  The background was a dark green tent, and there was a fire burning nearby.  Avery had plugged speakers into her phone so Lucy’s voice wouldn’t be too low quality or quiet to hear, using those same speakers to prop the phone up.

“Some,” Avery said.  “I’ve got the meeting with the local council in about an hour.  So I’ll be cutting this short.  But I wanted to call.”

“I’ll fill you in later.  I should keep this short too.  Even if it’s Zed’s phone and even if we’re protected… there are Technomancy Lords out there.”

“Yeah.  The Rot thing and the Dropped Call.”

“Yeah.  I’m good.  Mostly I wanted to stay in touch.  Because I need to recharge too, you know?  And you recharge me, you know?”

“Thanks,” Avery said.

“How’s your recharge going?”

“Feels like a lot of stumbling blocks.  Like I can’t get my footing.  I don’t know if things worked out at school because of luck or some other factor, or if I’m just feeling down and then taking all the bad stuff that’s happening and calling it karma, or Innocence or something else.”

“Down because of the injury?”

Avery’s hand went to the bandage that was covering the gnarly scar.  “Yeah.  Some.”

“Makes sense.  Did you get in touch with Ronnie?”

“Briefly.  I think she feels pressured to come up with something here.  Plus her mom’s in town.  Stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“Are we okay?” Avery asked.  “Us, as a trio?  Are we a team?  Are we coordinated?”

“Or, in our weird little dynamic, do we all feel like we’re falling behind and we need to step it up and really do something right now?” Lucy asked.  “While we’re each tackling a lot?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s see, I’m camping out in sub-zero weather with a few embodiments of War, while on my way to talk to the arbiter of death, passages, passage to death, dreams, nightmares, the heavier realms, yadda yadda, to see where things stand in a big war situation, and I feel like I need to do more, so I’m reading some stuff.”

“Yep.”

“And Verona is busy balancing the three sides of Kennet, doing her end of starting up the market again, plus she’s learning new practice and possibly working out a play against Charles.”

“Yeah.  But then me?  What- I’m maybe talking to people later?  I took a bit to help make Snowdrop goblin sage?”

“Woo!” Snowdrop whooped.

“You’re healing.  Reconnecting with family.  Supporting your familiar, who is basically family.  That’s key, that’s important.”

“That’s-” Avery huffed out a quick laugh.  “It’s nothing, compared to you guys.”

“Ave, you just did your own maneuver from the back foot, it- it’s like an injured player scoring three goals back to back and pulling a victory out of what looked like certain defeat, and then people ask the next day, ‘what’s that guy bringing to the team?’.  Bull.  Shit.  Fuck.  That.”

“If you’re using sports metaphors to make me feel better, you should know I’m not that easy.”

“Damn.  But seriously, Ave.  Maybe look at it as a part of your flanking deal.  If my role tends to be that I’m charging forward, and Verona’s is that she hangs back and then pulls out big practice, and if your role is that you circle around, come in from the odd angle, for the rescue, or catching them off guard?  Maybe timing’s a part of that.  You just had your big moment, don’t pressure yourself to have another.  Or do, but don’t get down on yourself for it.”

“Okay,” Avery mumbled.

“The tone of that okay could not sound more unconvinced by what I said.”

“How’s things on your end?  Camping, hanging out with the Dog Tags?”

“Changing the subject, are we?  Yeah.  Good.  It’s good, camping and hanging out with the dog tags.  I did a bit of practice to keep the campsite warm.  So far it’s clear, we’ll see though.”

Avery’s mom came outside, saying the words, “Knock knock,” rather than actually knocking.  “Coast clear?”

“Yeah, just catching up with Lucy.”

Her mom hadn’t knocked because she had steaming cups in each hand, with spare fingers balancing a plate.  Avery jumped forward to grab some of it.

Cider, and leftover Christmas cookies Kerry had made.

“I’m leaving before super long,” Avery said.  “But thank you.”

“Council meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to come.”

“Alright,” Avery said.

“Lucy, you’re doing okay?”

“So far!” Lucy said, over the video call.

“I’ll tell your mom that.  Am I interrupting strategy?”

“I’m bitching and moaning,” Avery said.

Her mom smoothed her hair down and back with a hand.  “What about?”

“The Nora thing.  Not feeling useful.  Feeling like I failed everyone by getting hurt, and now the Kennet Others are treating us different.”

“I didn’t get the impression you failed at all.  You were hurt by a horrible, desperate enemy and you triumphed despite that.”

“Lucy was saying that, sorta.  That last part.”

“I tried to convince her!” Lucy’s voice came over the speakers.

“And the Nora thing, well…”

“I know I’ve postponed talking to Leona Garrick, she knows a bit about that stuff.  But I don’t feel like it’s going to be useful, and I think she dated Peter Garrick when she was an adult, and the turnaround on being made Aware and then later Awakened is, you know, way tighter.  I don’t have that with Nora.”

“Do you need it with Nora?” her mom asked.

Avery struggled to convey just how much she did probably need it with Nora, yeah.

“It’s basically marriage,” Lucy stepped in, supplying the words while Avery floundered.  “The weight of what you’d be doing or sharing, or whatever.  It’s a lifelong commitment, responsibility.”

And when there’s a responsibility, and there’s a wobble in the load, I’m meant to tow harder, faster?  Avery thought.

It was a lot harder to process that thought when there was a face to put to the responsibility.

“She’d need to be eighteen, but after four years of this strain, I feel like our relationship wouldn’t survive,” Avery said.

“Leona might be able to help with that,” her mom said.

“It won’t be the magic bullet, though,” Avery said.  “I can’t see how it would be.”

“We’ve got lots of magic bullets here,” Lucy said.  “Hey guys, guys.”

She was talking to the Dog Tags.

“Any romantic advice?” Lucy asked.

There were grumbles and moans and someone threw a wadded up ball of paper Lucy’s way, hitting the tent behind her.  Lucy smiled, and Avery half-smiled with her.

“Seriously though, um,” Lucy said.

“It might not be a magic bullet,” Avery’s mom said.  “But maybe she can tell you about enduring that strained part.”

“For four years though?  Nothing fixes this until I treat the symptom and the symptom is a huge lie.”

“Did you agonize this much over telling me, did Lucy over telling her mom?”

Avery’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, coming to the rescue again.  “Honestly, yeah.  Except it’s different.”

“Is it?” Avery’s mom asked.

“Because you love us to a much more… I hate the word unconditional, tougher?  Tougher love, tenacious love.  Avery’s not there yet with Nora.  I dunno-”

“Really freaking early in the relationship to be talking about love,” Avery muttered.

“-but it’s different.  The stakes are higher because the love’s weaker.  Like a baby bird you want to cherish and treat gently.”

“I’d never eat a baby bird,” Snowdrop said.

“Or eat, I dunno how that metaphor works,” Lucy said.

“I understand,” Avery’s mom said.  She rubbed Avery’s shoulders.  “I guess I could flip it around.  I had rough patches with Avery’s dad and work which coincided with taking care of kids young enough to unconditionally love me.”

“Still tenaciously love you, I think,” Avery told her mom.

Her mom made a small grunt of happiness.  “Thank you.  You know, if you do happen to find any books on Awareness and that sort of thing, I’m curious myself.  If I’m allowed to read them.  It’s kind of important for me, for the kids who haven’t done the ritual to awaken.  I don’t know how it works, exactly.”

“Mmm,” Avery grunted.  Her mouth was full of hot cider.  She swallowed, despite it being a little too hot.  “It has vague areas.”

“But areas you’re pretty certain are locked in stone?  You seem to be implying it’s like marriage, you don’t want to clue Nora in until she’s eighteen?”

“Hmmm,” Avery grunted again.  “That’s more… that’s not a rule.  It’s more like I’m changing her entire life by introducing her to this stuff.  I don’t know how long I have to wait or how committed I have to be before I do that to her.  With Sheridan and Rowan and you guys it was kind of forced or accidental.”

“That’s where I’d want a good book to read on the subject,” her mom said.

“Convention and establishment,” Avery murmured.

“What’s that?” her mom asked.

“There are things we do because of really ingrained patterns, because it’s how we’ve done them for a long time.  And there are things we do because of really ingrained patterns, entrenched over a long time, that became capital-L Law.”

“Capital-L Law.  Right.  When we were talking to Miss, months ago, trying to wrap our head around that, I would’ve liked to know about that.  It would’ve made it easier to categorize things in my head.”

“Yeah?” Lucy asked.  “Was my mom part of that?”

“Yeah.  Your mom was part of it.  Your dad too, Ave.”

“Hmm,” Avery grunted, sipping her cider.  She wanted to finish it before she left.

“Miss was talking about changing Awareness, all that time ago, which might tie into our conversation about Nora, and how to judge that,” Avery’s mom said.  “Was she talking about changing convention, or was she talking about changing the capital-L Law?”

“Depends what she was saying,” Lucy said.

“Making Awareness something where it was pretty much the default in and around Kennet.  And it wasn’t penalized or bad to be Aware.”

Avery sat back heavily in her chair, head bonking against the metal rim at the very top of it.

“That, I think,” Lucy said, “would be convention, for ninety percent of it, and the penalization part would be the capital-L Law, that she wanted to change.”

“Got it,” Avery’s mom said.  “Still want any books you can find.  If I’m allowed.”

Lucy said something, but Avery’s thoughts were mulling over that whole deal.

She’d already touched on the subject of Awareness when talking to Clem and the Witch Hunters, but the way the conversation had gone with Samaniego, she hadn’t gotten much out of it except a contact for the markets.

There was too much in the way of assumptions here.  About Awareness, how Awareness was bad.  They were already in a situation where they were reconfiguring that.  Anyone who brought someone across that threshold had to navigate that.

What if they simplified that?  What if they changed the game?

It was what Charles’ approach had been.  Take the things that were established but not convention- essentially assumptions, and use those things to challenge, bend and break the conventions.

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