Author: Wildbow

Go for the Throat – 23.5 | Pale

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Lucy watched as Toadswallow got settled.  He cleared his throat loudly to be heard over the crowd, then cleared it louder, then began hacking and coughing loudly enough that the crowd quieted and turned to listen.

Goblins from Kennet were at the center of the room, afforded a bit of space.  Strange goblins who were assisting the market were gathered throughout the room.  Some were as small as Peckersnot or Cherrypop.  Others were as tall as Lucy.

He coughed up a fair-sized amphibian, which landed on the floor.  While it was there, stunned, some goblins reached for it.  One smallish goblin snatched it out of a larger goblin’s hand before that goblin could bite it in half, then found herself hugging a toad nearly as large as she was, standing in the midst of five or so larger goblins who had interest in the little creature.  For food or other nefarious purposes.

The little goblin, naked, with thin, very limp hair and a mouth set so low on her face it looked like she didn’t have one at first, gave the stunned and confused amphibian a pat on the head, turning to shelter it with her body.

“I gotchu.”

“Ahem,” Snowdrop cleared her throat.  She sat in a decorated little area just to the right of Avery, Lucy, and Verona, wearing a shirt that had a opossum hanging by its tail above the words ‘I’m over this’.  “Toadswallow has his usual nothing to say.”

The crowd went properly quiet, turning to look.  More for Snowdrop than Toadswallow.

Lucy, edging to the side, quietly put a foot out and slid the little toad-rescuer to one side with her foot, then slid her back a bit, blocking her from view and immediate attack by the other goblins.

“Arright, ladies, gents, those who are both, those who are neither, those who can be either, the unladlylike, the unladylike, the ungentle, the outright objectionable, the detestable, the motherless, the soft-mothered teat-sucklers, the motherfuckers, and everyone else,” Toadswallow addressed the room.  “I’m going to say some words, lay out some offers, and Goblin Sage Snowdrop is in the house to help make those words matter, conferring the full extent of her sagely magic on us.”

Which is nil, right?  Lucy thought.

One of the goblins realized the toad-rescuer had slipped away, saw her peeking out from the side of Lucy’s leg, and scowled, prowling forward.

Lucy put her leg forward, blocking it.  He looked up, and Lucy gave him a serious look.

He backed off.

“…She’ll be here all night, so hang around, give your offerings, ask your questions.  Business, pleasure, madness, treasure, murder, birth, romance, or self-worth, she’s here.”

“Romance especially, I’m an expert,” Snowdrop told the assembled goblins.  “Sometimes you need a wise master with decades of experience and zero interest in opossum-related bestiality, so if you want it serious, I’m here.  But if you want a mean laugh at someone’s expense, my loser practitioner Avery is here to dispense absolute uneducated nonsense on the romance front.”

“Hmm,” Avery made a sound.  “What?  And also, hm what?  What?  Snowdrop.”

“You should see how badly she’s messed up with this drummer girlfriend,” Snowdrop said.  “So uncool, both of them.”

Lucy leaned over, past Avery, and whispered, “Maybe ask before including Avery, Snow?”

Snowdrop discreetly flipped her the bird.

“But that’s a later thing.  So’s our grand festivities,” Toadswallow addressed the goblins.  “The market’s opening up properly again.  Bubbleyum’s going to be showing up, so don’t mess around.  The way we do this, we make such a badass market that fairies will beg us to be involved.  We’ll have loads of things that offend their delicate sensibilities, stuff they turn their dainty little noses up at.  Loads of things that I know you all love.”

Now that Snowdrop had gotten things smoothed over, goblins were getting into it.

“You want to sell?  Run it by me and my crew.  You cause trouble that gets in the way of the business?  You’re paying for it.  This is the crap that puts us on the map.  A chance for the smallest of us to shine, and if our bigger goblins are still ten times better than them?  They’ll be bosses.”

He looked over the group, giving them a moment to think about where they could be.

“The reason most of you are here is there were whispers you could get your hands on merchandise, and you wouldn’t be any poorer for it, right?”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“I’m going to tell you about a man,” Toadswallow told them.  “A man who came into this very speakeasy with bags of spare weapons.  Guns.  Grenades.  Knives.  Traps.  Military grade, scavenged, stolen, bought, and made.  As a gift.  A man who could drink like he wouldn’t die from it.”

Lucy caught Biscuit off to the side, doing the goblin cross.  They weren’t very consistent in how they did it, but it was recognizable anyway.

“A man who dueled a noble Fae of High Summer, one that was a so-called fighter, dueled him multiple times, and went hard enough he slapped that glittery derriere down, multiple times.”

There were goblins nodding.

“Here’s the deal,” Toadswallow told them.  He lowered his voice some.  “Buy shit, buy your weapons.  Get loans and get tricks, get whatever you want.  We’re picking a fight, day after tomorrow, so get your dicks in a row.  If you join in, you come to me after you did something, say honestly you helped?  I’ll pay you back for whatever you bought and used.  That shit becomes free.  And that’s not all, darlings.  There’s more to my offer.”

Toadswallow definitely had their interest now.

“The reason we’re doing this?  We’re going after Charles Abrams.  Carmine Exile.  Also known as the dickless fuckspittle who killed that faerie-dueling, drink-you-under-the-table, arsenal-toting, motherless son of War herself.  Killed my friend.”

Lucy closed her eyes.  Moisture was trapped between eyelashes, ready to fall the moment she opened her eyes.  So she didn’t, yet.

She felt the bonk of Verona’s head against her shoulder.  Avery rubbed Lucy’s arm.

“You make him bleed, suffer, annoyed, you interrupt him, you distract him, you ruin his shit?  Any of that?  Using shit from this market?  Come tell me about it after, I’ll give you a free drink, and I’ll pay you back double, instead.  Work as a gang to do it?  Deal goes for the whole gang.”

“Cheat him,” Snowdrop said.  “This is ripe for abuse, and it’s right and just if you screw him over it.”

Lucy opened her eyes and rubbed at her cheeks.  She double checked the little goblin with the toad was okay.  The goblin was nodding, looking very sincere, while patting the toad.

Lucy was glad that Cherrypop was in what seemed to be a minority of one who didn’t know about Snowdrop’s rule of discourse.

“I don’t even care if you lot try to cheat me,” Toadswallow said.  “I want Charles Abrams to bleed in places he’d be embarrassed to show his doctor.  You lot go and do that.”

“Cheat him,” Snowdrop stage-whispered.

Goblins around the room nodded.

“If you’ve got shit to sell, get it to the market and get it sold, if you’ve got shit to buy and plans to make, get your gangs together, get going on that,” Toadswallow said.

He paused, looking around the room, eyes narrowed.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?”

The crowd dispersed.  Lucy had to move her leg to block one goblin who casually reached for the toad-rescuer as she walked by.  Lucy stuck her toe into the goblin’s leg as she did it, and she stumbled.

“I should get out there before too long,” Verona said.  “Manage the market some.”

“Give me a recap and show me around while you’re at it?  I should shop, too,” Avery said.

“Sure,” Verona said.  “And we’ve got to get you more involved in Kennet found.  Lost are showing up here and there, now.”

“Cool.”

“You guys get yourselves ready,” Toadswallow told them.  “You know the deal goes for you too, right?”

“Cool.  Time to get stocked up on goblin tricks,” Verona said.

“You going to be able to afford all this, Toad?” Lucy asked.

“I’ve been running a market for months, with surprisingly high demand and a lot of goblins and others who are bad at math.  Yeah, I’ve saved up enough.”

“You know you might have a better chance of getting this market thing to the next level if you don’t cheat your customers and sellers?” Lucy asked.

“Honestly, Lucy dear?  They wouldn’t respect me if I didn’t.”

Lucy sighed, then considered that, and nodded.  She crouched down.

“What is this?” the Cherrypop-sized goblin asked, wide-eyed, still patting the traumatized toad Toadswallow had horked up.

“Before I tell you, I’m going to make you a deal,” Lucy told the little goblin.  “Do you have a name?”

The goblin shook her head.

“Didn’t think so.  I’m Lucy, I trained with Bubbleyum.  Ask, and people will tell you she’s a boss.”

The goblin nodded.  “I’ve heard of her.”

“That is a toad, I think.  And in a year, if you’ve raised that toad to be big and healthy and happy, and we meet again, I’ll give you a name.”

The goblin nodded eagerly.

“Or my friend will.  Or she’ll help,” Lucy suggested, as a just-in-case.

“I’m pretty good at it,” Verona said.

“Pretty sure toads eat bugs,” Lucy said.

“So do I,” the small goblin said.

“And they don’t like the cold.”

“Neither do I.”

“Go on.  Good luck,” Lucy said.

The goblin ran off, carrying the toad.

“Don’t be mean to helpless small animals, okay Toad?” Avery asked.

“Some newcomers came in and dropped that into my open mouth while I was sleeping, before anyone could tell them the rules,” Toadswallow said.  “Did you know my given name isn’t even Toadswallow?”

“Huh?  I almost forgot,” Verona said.

“But nicknames can have power.  Including inspiring goblins to find toads to feed me when I’m not paying sufficient attention.”

“Hm.  Thanks for trying, I guess.”

“Yup,” Toadswallow said.

There was a look in his eyes.  Like baring his soul and showing how angry he was to the goblins had really drained him.

“Come on,” Lucy said.  She pulled on her coat from the Dog Tags, and then hung her mask on a clip she’d sewn to the shoulder, so it was in easy reach.  Her claim to it kept it from falling.

“Hey Snow, I’m going to shop and get familiar with everything that I couldn’t get filled in on over Christmas or the chaos after.  You good on your own, being Sage?”

“For a long while.”

“I’ll loop back around then.”

They went outside, into the cold of Kennet below.  Turning to head toward the thick of it, Lucy nearly tripped over Gashwad.

“Hey there,” Verona said.

He was malingering, hanging out by the door.  Too ‘cool’ to be a part of the mob inside.  He might as well have been scuffing those bare, clawed feet of his in the snow.

“Need something?” Lucy asked, because a lot of things she could say would prick his pride and scare him off.

“Here,” Gashwad said.  He held up a fistful of makeshift shivs- bits of scrap metal with red cloth wrapped around the handles.  “No saying they work more than once.”

“What do they do?” Verona asked.

“S’like the Dog Tag tags,” Gashwad said.  “Stab something, I’ll be there, I’ll fight it.”

“Hmm,” Avery said.  “Cool.”

“It’s whatever,” Gashwad said.

Lucy couldn’t shake the notion of him scuffing the ground with his toes.  Lucy thought of it as the boy who laughed at the girl’s clubhouse, until it got bigger and cooler than he’d ever imagined, and now he was left looking in the windows, with only his facade.

Speaking of, Gashwad wasn’t a great fighter, according to multiple sources.  Mean, armed, sure, but she put his general danger level on the same tier as a very angry dog, trading out foot speed for climbing ability and tool use.  Which meant he was even further from where he wanted to be, when his ambition exceeded his ability on that front.

He did have other talents.

“Gash,” Lucy said.  “I don’t suppose you could tweak these?”

“It’s a free gift, you need help, I want to cut smirks off faces.  An’ you want changes?” Gashwad growled.

“The Thorn in the Flesh,” Lucy said.  “It’s in the Family Man, but it was really useful.  You made that, right?”

“Yeah,” Gashwad replied.  “I can’t make another yet so fuck off if that’s what you want.”

“The Thorn was cool,” Verona said.  “Got a lot of mileage out of that one.”

“No, no.  Just… I remember training with Guilherme, and you came out of the trees and you went after the god baby tree thing.”  Which wasn’t a fighter.

Gashwad nodded.

“And at the Blue Heron,” Avery said.  “You had a way to break into the building.  Am I on the right track, Luce?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Look, this is great.  Thank you.”

“Pagh,” he grunted, dismissively.

“But what we might actually need is someone who’s really good at…” she searched for key words that’d work with Gashwad.

“Perverting?  Blaspheming?” Verona suggested.

“This is you bringing up what Toadswallow talks about!” Gashwad raised his voice.  “No!  Get fucked!  You want to give those back!?”

This was Verona’s natural penchant for brainstorming tripping them up.  Lots of ability to fill in blanks, recall details, and come up with ideas or answers on the spur of the moment.  Less immediate judgment when it came to sensitivities.

“No, Gash,” Lucy tried.

“You want to give those back!?”

“Gash!” Lucy raised her voice.  He tensed, glaring.  “Same thing, different angles.  You fuck things up.”

“Ooh, I like that,” Verona said.

Gashwad narrowed his eyes.

“And what we might really need is the ability to stab, I dunno, a practice, or a barrier.  A living thorn in the flesh.  Get through that practice or barrier and then maybe you cut smirks off faces.  I reserve the right to veto that.”

“If you use the sticker, you know what you’re asking for.  Give it here.”

Lucy was genuinely unsure if he’d take it and walk away or if he had plans.  She handed it over.

He coughed up something, dug a finger into the back of his throat, and then put the nail of his claw to the shiv’s side.  Etching the blade with an angular little scribble.

“There.  Signed it.  I’ll do like you asked.  You stab it, I’ll be there to fuck it up, but there better be a fight in it for me.”

He took the other two and signed them too.  The signature wasn’t very consistent.

“There,” he said.  “Don’t fuck around.  If I can’t cut something living, don’t use it.”

“Okay, Gash.”

Gashwad stalked off.

The market was busy now.  Stalls were being set up.  Some locals had a thing going on where they’d help by storing stuff for stalls in their apartments, in exchange for a small cut.  New goblin came along, looking to set up a stall?  There was a stall there.  It did get to be a small problem when some things smelled up an apartment or ruined a surface.

Lots of security too.  It had only been a few nights ago that Maricica’s people had controlled these streets.  Some were still around, she figured, watching but not interfering, because now they were slightly outnumbered, and there wasn’t much to gain.

“You were nice to the little goblin,” Avery said.  “Offering to name it?”

“Hm?” Lucy grunted.  “Yeah, I guess.”

“I’ve already got some name ideas,” Verona said.

“Of course you do.  Give me a chance though?”

“Sure.”

Lucy watched as things picked up.  It was starting to feel like Toadswallow had initiated a goblin Black Friday.  Stalls weren’t even open and goblins were cutting one another in line.

“Things I talked about with the Sable,” Lucy said.

Avery turned her head.  “Hm?”

“Me helping the little goblin.  Reframing a lot of things.  I’ve been wrestling for a long, long time, about…”

She looked down at the shiv.

“About knives.  War.  What I want to be.  Things fell into place.”

“That’s good,” Verona said.  “You going to share?”

The market was getting noisier.  Things weren’t settling down.

“Let’s sneak around back and take stuff while he’s putting that next bit together.”

“Yeah, probably.  but later.  Come on,” Lucy told her friends.  “Things are getting messy.”

The noise of the crowd only got worse as they walked into it.  Hundreds of overlapping, excited voices.  People, friends, businesspeople talking up their wares before they were even on display, different cultural groups mixing and playing off one another.  There was even some music, led by one member of what might’ve been Liberty’s crew of ‘most annoying sound’ contestants.

Lucy made a beeline for the goblins who were conspiring to rob a stall, Verona went to talk to some Kennet below citizens who had a lot going on, and Avery went to follow, with some Lost or Foundlings intercepting her to gush or talk about something- Lucy would have listened in, but other things were already pulling at her attention.

Chaos and noise.

Silence and stillness.

Lucy was aware of a tall man in dark clothes stalking them as they walked through a dark hall of the Sable’s realm.  He had a thick black beard and hair that was all curly locks, and deep brown skin – middle eastern, maybe.  The beard, though very full, didn’t hide how gaunt he was.

The Sable seemed to notice her noticing.

“Ali,” the Sable said.  “Do you need to stop to rest?”

“No,” the tall, gaunt man replied.

“You might.  There is a group of tenebrous undead that are multiplying.  Take the afternoon, eat, visit your sons, get stronger, or the shadows might beat you.  See to it tonight or tomorrow.  Once you’re done with that, go see Marianne.”

“How do I find them?”

The Sable moved a hand.  “I’ll give you a second shadow.  It’ll point the way.”

The gaunt man left without so much as a farewell.

“Ali lost his sons,” the Sable said.  “He fumbled the attempt to bring them back.  I sorted out that business, and I give him the ability to visit them in exchange for him helping me sort out business.  Sometimes it’s as much work to manage him and his ilk as it would be to do things myself.”

“So he’s like you, hard to manage,” Grandfather murmured to Pipes.

Pipes chuckled softly, but even the normally loud Pipes was subdued here.  The place felt oppressive.  The darkness crushed inward, and it was silent, to the point every word and footstep echoed.

The interior of the place was like a manor, but with ceilings five times higher than any non-Church building Lucy had been in.  Books in black leather sat on slate-like stone shelves, the floor was black, the drapes were charcoal gray.  If anything moved, Lucy wasn’t sure if it was a lingering echo of the now-distant force of the heavy front doors closing or her eyes playing tricks on her in this arrangement.

“I do it because I was originally spirit, not human.  They provide perspectives I can’t, and many of the ones I select are people who might be pressured to take the Sable throne, because of circumstance or other things.  It’s easier to provide a solution or partial solution, a taste of the role.  If they do eventually take the position from me, they’ll be more prepared for it.”

“Good mentality,” Lucy said.  “It seems like he was thin, and you had to tell him what to eat?”

“Yes.  He doesn’t, unless given a reason.  He won’t visit his sons as often as he wants to, either, despite the deal.  Marianne is good for lifting his spirits, so that will help too.  I do not think Ali would take my position or be good in it, but time will tell.”

“Hmm.  Does that bother you?  Being replaced?  Dying?”

“I would prefer it doesn’t happen.  Sometimes spirits don’t have that spark of whatever required to give them self-preservation.  It should be little surprise that those spirits don’t tend to last as long.”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s good you noticed Ali’s state and what I was doing.  Given a few years and pressures to grow in the right direction, I think you could be a good Judge, Lucy Ellingson.”

“It seems like a miserable job,” she said.  “Lots of frustrations, lonely.  I don’t think I’ve seen a happy Judge.”

“That is the nature of the role.  In the hierarchy of powers, it occupies a difficult position.  Not powerful, but required.  It is hard to invest yourself in any one thing, because there are many forces that can supersede you.  What use taking on a pet project, if a Lord may take it over?  What use any goal, when you could be Lawfully challenged and removed at any time?”

Lucy nodded.  “I’ve compared it to being the janitor of the building.  What the bosses say goes, but you’ve got the keys and full access to things, you’re there after hours, often not even noticed, you’re still required to keep things running smoothly and stop the messes from piling up, still responsible for emergencies.”

“That summarizes things.”

“I don’t think I’d want to be a Judge.  I don’t think John wanted to be a Judge.”

“I hold the opinion that the job is best suited to forces like higher spirits,” the Sable said.  “That may be one of the few biases I allow myself, and to argue against that bias, the Seal as outlined is meant to allow for others to step in.”

“It’s a bit problematic, sometimes,” Lucy noted.

“Necessary, to allow others to audit things, perhaps.  If it was closed to spirits, some spirits would run away with the power.  I know you’ve discussed the idea of a ‘vent’ in practice, such as your glamour work.  An intentional outlet, to keep pressure from building.  I’d posit the role itself can be a vent, catching individuals and issues before things get too extreme.  I can only theorize, I did not know Solomon or his intent.”

“I think someone threw a metaphorical stick of dynamite through the vent and blew things up,” Lucy said.

“That in itself may be the vent at work.”

“Or maybe it’s better to say the vent is a weakness, and someone crawled through that metaphorical vent, through the metaphorical air ducts, and got into the building, got the metaphorical janitor’s keys to the building, and is now wreaking havoc.”

“Say what you will, Lucy Ellingson, Charles Abrams did achieve his position Lawfully.  He went through the front door, metaphorical keys handed to him.”

Lucy frowned, giving the Sable a look to show how not cool with that idea she was.  “I’ve said how I don’t think that’s exactly true.  The Ephing bird only got out because of you guys, cooperated with Charles, and stole Yalda’s ring.”

“John Stiles may have been denied a tool he could have used to fight Charles, yes.  The tool arguably shouldn’t have been introduced late in the tournament.”

“Seriously?” Lucy asked, a little angry now.  “It’s fucked how Charles was introduced late in the proceedings-”

“Perhaps, but still Lawful.  The tournament allows for it.  John knew that from the start.”

“-and if the bird can get out to fuck with things, then the ring should be able to go in.  That’s fair.”

“It’s unfair to John that it didn’t, which is a different thing from the Lawfulness of Charles Abrams’ position.  The Alabaster handled the boundaries of the arena and allowed the so-called Ephing bird to escape, the impact of that was a key reason your challenge against her worked, and she paid that price.”

There was a sound behind them.  Lucy turned.

Grandfather had punched a wall.  It looked like he’d broken his hand.  The blood was so bright it looked iridescent in the darkness of the hallway.

“This is my realm.  You’d find it difficult to damage the wall, if that’s your intent,” the Sable said.

“I’m punching the wall because I might punch you if I didn’t,” Grandfather said.  “That’s a whole lot of bullshit.”

It wasn’t like Grandfather to lose his cool.

He hadn’t been around for the talk with the Alabaster.  That might’ve been worse.

“If you wish to try and change it, become or find someone willing to be a Lord and make different decisions.  You or they will find Law ties some hands,” the Sable replied.

“Hey, Sable?” Lucy ventured, stepping between them, putting up a hand partway to signal for Grandfather to ease down.  “It can be both bullshit and Law.  I don’t think it’s quite fair for you to punt all of the blame to the Alabaster.  Especially with the other factors, like the deal you struck with John.”

“She oversaw those boundaries and those matters, and I kept to the deal,” the Sable said, matter-of-factly, and then he turned.  “Follow me.  With the current state of things, the Carmine and Aurum still recovering their power, many tasks are falling to my purview.  I can manipulate things to manage more in less time, but I’d rather not.”

The place felt big, and for such a big place, the decoration was minimalist.  In place of plant life, there were collections of the spears of onyx or obsidian that the Sable had created when showing off in front of Edith, when they’d accused her.

There weren’t any people, either.  No animals, no rustling of branches, no wind, no insects.  Only the white firefly-like motes.  They walked down the full length of the long hallway to what Lucy supposed was the center of the Sable’s domain.  Double doors of black stone parted, sliding aside with a dull and echoing stone rumble.

It looked a bit like a practitioner’s sanctum, but there were things missing, and the windows punctuating the room gave a view of the spirit-world-like space beyond.  The chamber floor looked like a puzzle box, styled after a magic circle, with black stone in inset rings that worked and wove around one another, some pedestals and circles in fixed and measured positions.  As the Sable entered, every part of it moved, sliding through or over other segments, except for one part- the Sable’s throne.

Two people were present-

Lucy heard a wet sound, and looked up.

Three people were present.  A third person was sitting on a balcony on what would’ve been the third floor, with legs through the rungs, looking down, a black archway behind them.

The first of the two on the ground floor looked vaguely like an echo, her black hair bleeding out wisps and blurring into itself, as it moved faintly, but was wearing solid clothes, a long black coat, and a good portion of her body was solid.

Another was wearing a white mask of a human face, with heavy, old fashioned clothing with a lot of belts cinching things tight, and barbed wire here and there where they’d maybe run out of belts.  Not a trace of skin showing.  Lucy might have figured them for a bogeyman, but everything except the mask was black, so it was hard to make out if there was any staining.

And the one up above might’ve been a… vampire?  They didn’t look well, their facial structure was altered, vaguely cat-like or bat-like, their hair was matted, and they were chewing on their own fingers, suckling the blood out.  They were too high up for Lucy to clearly see.

As the doors they’d come through started to close, the one with the metal mask turned to go, walking past them.  Lucy caught a whiff of perfume, that smelled like it was covering something else up.

“Ostreon?” the Sable asked.  The room was still moving things around, pedestals arranging into a grouping behind the black throne.

If he was talking to the perfumed, masked figure, they didn’t acknowledge it, and didn’t slow down.

“Don’t get directly involved.  Use intermediary and subtle forces.  It’s best if the fate he meets is by his own hands.”

Foggy was kind of in the way, and wasn’t paying enough attention to move clear, so Angel tugged on his arm to make him move.  Lucy figured the guy was big and burly enough he probably had gotten used to people going around him, and dopey enough nobody had learned to be considerate.

The figure didn’t acknowledge the Sable or Foggy, and quickened their pace to get through the doors in time before they shut.

“What’s he handling?” the echo-woman asked.

“The neglectful realm-maker,” the Sable replied.

“Thea?” Lucy asked.  “From Thunder Bay?  The Blackforester?”

“No.  Theodora Knight takes existing realms and ties them together,” the Sable said, he ceased walking in front of his his throne, and put hands in his pockets.  “A young practitioner made some of his own.  He was arrogant, smart enough to be bored with regular education, frustrated he was made to study at a school of Innocents, he occupied his time by trapping fellow students in a magical magazine.”

The rearrangement of the room finished.  A single circle, level with the rest of the floor, with only a thin rim of silver at the edge, was placed in the center of the room, in front of the throne.

Images began appearing above it.  Ontario and some of Manitoba.  Then that image split.  Ruins, overlapping.  Abyss, running through at jagged angles.  Spirit world, overlapping at first, then bleeding out like mist.  Fae, adjacent.

Things centered on a magazine with a scantily clad teenager on the cover, thong riding high enough it was visible over the top of her low-riding jeans, her top torn.  It looked like she was holding a door shut against a zombie.

The title read “Teen Pulp”.

Lucy startled slightly as the eyes on the cover suddenly moved, looking at her.

The image of the magazine vibrated, then shook, and eventually came apart, exploding into a scene, contained within the scope of the circle.  Different, similar magazines with the same title rotated around the circle’s edges.

“Sixteen students in total were captured in the pages.  He would take their hair or blood by some mechanism or another and then trap them within.  The fact only three were boys is suggestive of his motives.  They live out the stories of teenage dramas, fantastical and not, but rarely true to life.  It’s dramatized for an audience.”

“Shlock,” the echo-woman said.

“School shootings, sex, sexuality, love, betrayal, bullying, suicide, zombies, drugs, cults, family drama, business, sports… the people captured within are actresses and actors in these stories, sometimes in scenes only lasting minutes, sometimes lasting days, and any ego or will they manage to dredge up is ground down by the constant changes and adaptations.  When he began, it was a way to get access to girls he coveted, or to punish the occasional rival he was jealous of.  To force them into roles in stories that the world would engineer and flip between.  He’d pick storylines and prolong them, customize them.  A god and sometimes a main actor in his realm.”

“Past tense?” Lucy asked, her own arms folded.  “I’m sort of hoping he’s dead, after all that.”

“No.  He lives,” the Sable said, sorting through the scene.

“If you want him dead…” Angel murmured, trailing off.

The Sable answered before Lucy could tackle that problematic suggestion.  “He was arranged to marry, he moved on, cleaned up his act, so to speak, if that’s the sort of act that can be washed clean.  He turned his focus to other realms.  But he did not undo what was done, he stowed it away and put it out of mind.  The Teen Pulp magazine was left to languish in storage.  An Aware looking for her high school friend tracked it down, broke in, and was consumed by it.  The item has become something ambulatory, seeking out more victims.”

“Seems like it really should eat the creator and then be locked up for good,” Lucy said.  “From a pure justice standpoint.”

“In that, we agree.  I fear Ostreon is too blunt a stick for this.  They’re interested because it’s such a bloody subject matter.  Hm.”

“It’s a weird intersection,” Lucy said.  “But Raquel Musser is very interested in some teen drama stuff, she knows the tropes, she’s good at handling magic items, and she has the subtle touch- I think her magic items go for subtlety and the less confrontational stuff.”

“You may be right.  Except she’s her own individual.  I must use my agents.  Dakota?”

The suckling above stopped.  Lucy looked up at the person on the balcony.

The figure briefly met Lucy’s eyes, flinched, averting eyes from Lucy’s, and then bit fingers again, fiercely, suckling on the blood again.

“Go by Immaterial routes, bring Ostreon with you.  You only need to nudge things, put the magazines in the way of key players, so they can handle it.”

The person on the balcony stood.

“Maybe arrange for the magazine to puke out its victims?” Lucy asked.

“At this point, a decade into things, that would cause more problems than not.  Perhaps the Aware can fight free, if the borders are thinned…”

The Sable moved a hand.  The image rearranged.

“I’ll give you the tools, Dakota.  Do your best,” the Sable said.

The person on the balcony got up and headed through the archway behind them.

“Asking a rabid chihuahua to be a guide dog for a murderous elephant,” the echo-woman said.

I’m not the only one comparing them to a dog, huh?

“It should do,” the Sable said.

“Vampire?” Lucy asked.

“Dakota?  Yes.  Vampire,” the Sable said, stroking his chin and the scraggly beard there, as he looked through the realms.

“And they’re hungry?  Still craving blood?”

“Many of the ones in this region fall to me eventually.  It’s unfortunate, but the patterns of failure and wretchedness that dog their kind are entrenched enough, I cannot raise them up or stabilize them, even if I can ease their thirst, so their services are short-lived.  Dakota sucks her own blood to self-soothe.  It’s habit, nothing more.  I don’t begrudge her it, any more than I begrudge someone their drinking or smoking.”

“I take it I can smoke, then?” Pipes asked, voice unnecessarily loud in the room.

“As you wish,” the Sable said.

He moved a hand.  Looking through realms.  Points where realms overlapped glowed, then the glows erupted into little collections of images and diagrams.  A point at the edge of the circle exploded into a whole collection of images and diagrams, all interlinked.

“Someone keeps making gates between realms, and there’s a lot of doors opening on the horizon,” the echo-woman said.

Avery?  Or the intersections opening in Kennet? Lucy thought.  She glanced back at Grandfather.  “Um.”

“Not your friend, or anything like that,” the Sable Prince murmured, stroking his chin.  “Avery Kelly and the Garricks close doors behind them.  This is someone else doing something similar, moving between realms, and not closing the doors.  Innocents are finding some.  The problem on the horizon is something else, I suspect.  Milagro, are you alright to handle the door maker, and venture past my realm, and look into things?  My protections will falter.”

“That’s fine,” the echo-woman said.  “Do you want me to clean up the person poking holes in the walls before or after?”

“Your choice,” the Sable said.

“Before, then.  In case I run into trouble.”

Lucy watched the woman go.  She didn’t wait for the door to open, but became fully echo, ‘splashing’ apart on collision with the door, then having the ghostly echo-stuff seep through the crack.

“The Alabaster is knocking on my door.  I think the business is brief.  With your leave, Ms. Ellingson?”

“I’m sort of curious why it’s okay that your agents are around but you’re worried about the Alabaster coming in.”

“You asked that discussions be kept private from Charles Abrams.  The Alabaster would see and hear everything here, in a way my agents can’t.  She could theoretically report things to Charles.”

“I think it should be fine.”

The doors opened.  The Alabaster walked through.  She dipped her head in a nod to Lucy.  “Sable.”

The Sable indicated an intersection point between two realms in the image that was between him and the Alabaster.

“I saw.  I noticed your assistant going there.  If you weren’t doing anything about it, I would’ve handled it,” the Alabaster said.

“It’s handled.  That’s not why you came.”

“One of the inversion points near a church, it’s overlapping a demesne.  Closed space.”  She said a word or two, but the Sable chose that moment to raise a finger, then lower it.  Lucy was deafened with the raised finger, given hearing again with the lowered one.  The Alabaster continued, “-pushing for it to be inverted.  An anti-demesne for something to live in.”

“And you want a second opinion?”

“It’s a move coming from someone known to argue hard about these sorts of things, and as much as demesnes are my purview, realms are yours.  So sure, give me a second opinion.”

“It’s fine to say no.”

“Okay.  Changing subjects, the Bardanes realms?”

“Blocked.”

“That’s simpler.  Gets less simple if people start invoking connections to it.”

“It’s blocked.  If they try to invoke it and fail, they’ll say it’s because of distance.  No need to overthink it.”

Lucy frowned.

“A family overseas devised a trick, and the powers of that region allowed it,” the Alabaster explained.  “The family’s practitioners claim demesnes linked to one anothers’, give full access to family, and then before they die they make themselves immortal, living statues.”

“Reminds me of something a Witch Hunter had.”

“One and the same recipe.  The Witch Hunters use it as a form of binding the visceral.  The family uses it to their advantage.  The result is a fairly extensive realm, at this stage, getting more extensive as the family grows and leaves a more or less permanent legacy, grafting each new demesnes to the last, like an endless, forking collection of bridges extended over void.  There are entire segments of the Bardanes family who never leave, intermarry and breed with family.”

“Isolated, weird locations, interbreeding… Oddfolk?” Lucy asked.

The Alabaster nodded.  “Yes.  Some.  It’s become one of the larger practitioner-made realms that interconnect with the rest of the world.  Tendrils extend past the ocean and toward us, and are even invited to extend, and…”

“And we say no,” the Sable said.  “Simplest.  Your third ask, Alabaster?  You tend to wait until you have three points of interest before paying a visit.”

“The senior Musser is dead.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows.  “Abraham Musser’s dad?”

“Yes.  And his things must be dispensed of,” the Alabaster said.

“That’s my sphere of interest, not yours,” the Sable said.  “Demise, in its original rendition of meaning.  The transfer of property and claim after death.”

“Mercy is mine.  It’s merciful that certain things go to their original owners.  The Mussers would normally contrive to keep such things in the family, passing them down.  Except now the Musser claim is broken, the family is weaker.”

“Your predecessor wouldn’t have bothered.”

“I’ll bother.  I wanted to get to you before you handled it.  You’ve acted on certain things before I could even get a metaphorical word in, with assumptions like that.”

“In this instance, I won’t.  We should discuss his demise, we’ll list his things and investigate the claims, discuss together.  But after.  I have business to attend to.”

“Another blow to the Mussers.  One they wouldn’t have even blinked at a few months ago,” the Alabaster mused.

“I don’t care to dwell on name and sentiment like that.  It introduces bias.”

“Sure.  I’ll come back later.”

“Very well.”

“Hey,” Lucy told the Alabaster.

“Hello.  Ms. Ellingson, are you well?”

“I’m okay.  But if we’re talking about mercy, there’s that magazine thing…”

The Alabaster glanced at the Sable, and maybe because of unconscious pressures, the image in the center shifted, showcasing the Teen Pulp thing again.

“…With an Aware inside, at the very least.  And a lot of victims.”

“Do you mind?” the Alabaster asked the Sable.

“I sent some agents to handle it.”

“I’ll send one of my own as well?”

“Very well.  It’s minor, in the grand scheme of it all.”

“Alright,” the Alabaster Assembly said.  “Anything else?”

“This deal with international powers,” Lucy said.  “You’re agreeing to it?”

“I’m leaning that way.”

“How does that work?” Lucy asked.

“The leaning or the deal?” the Alabaster asked.

“Either.  Both.”

“The Alabaster Assembly, as she was formed, represents a large proportion of Ontario and a share of Manitoba, Nunavut, and America,” the Sable said.  “Skewed in disposition to favor caretakers, the responsible, and the Alabaster-like.”

Lucy nodded.

“…Even with that skew, she is representative of a largely self-interested population.”

“That’s an annoying way of saying I want to protect the people,” the Alabaster said.  To Lucy, she said, “I haven’t made a firm decision yet.”

“Okay.  Can I ask about that decision?”

“I fear we’re straying from your stated goal for seeing me,” the Sable said.

“I’m trying to get a read on you.  How you handle a major decision that deals with Charles is part of that,” Lucy said.  “It might even be most of it.”

“Very well.”

“Am I right in interpreting it as, what, Charles agrees to stop being an asshole by expanding his borders and threatening big rules, and gets huge concessions, power, security, enough that he’ll be hard to budge?  He doesn’t get to keep pursuing his agenda, but he gets to stay?”

Lucy’s earring caught a wet, grinding sound.  She glanced back and saw Grandfather with arms folded.  The grinding sound was bones of his still-broken hand moving against one another as he clenched his fist.

“More or less.  There would need to be free passage through the area.  We would need to curb certain behaviors.  The mass inversion of the area that Maricica started would have to stop.”

“Would you have to remove Maricica?”

“That was not discussed.”

“No,” the Alabaster said.  She drew in a deep breath.  “She would be free to carry on as goddess of her domain.”

“Does she lose the followers she literally created to worship her?”

“I came here to see if maybe there would be a way to get one more judge either on side or neutral enough they’re not helping Charles,” Lucy said, quiet.  “But… everyone’s helping Charles again?  Is that what we’re doing?”

“The forces arrayed against our region are powerful,” the Alabaster told Lucy.  “The likes of Ottawa, Winnipeg, and some American cities have been worried enough about Charles pressing them that they reached out.  Worldly powers answered.  Now, we have a choice, and the options aren’t good.”

“If we agree to their deal, Charles is fixed in place.  He may resent it, struggle, and be slapped down.”

“He may resent it, struggle, and find ways to keep doing all the things we don’t want him doing,” Lucy said.  “At least for a while.  He was Forsworn.  He literally had the Seal and, what, basically the universe and every realm aligned against him?  And he managed to get where he is.  Now he’s where he is, we’re looking at Paris, Rome, all those other guys being aligned against him, and what, we’re going to say he can’t pull it off?  I don’t want to underestimate him.”

The Alabaster shrugged one shoulder and looked at the Sable.  “That’s a fair take.”

“Perhaps,” the Sable replied.

“The problem is that any decision that isn’t agreement with those powers is an intervention by those powers,” the Alabaster said.  “You fought tooth and nail, literally biting and scratching at several points, to avoid a Musser Lordship over Kennet.  I don’t have the scope of knowledge or resources to say for sure, but I think if worldly powers sent nieces and nephews, the result wouldn’t be far off from that Musser lordship, and it would extend over Ontario.”

“And the easiest days of fighting and resistance would be as vicious as the hardest day you faced,” the Sable said.  “Potentially for years.  They wouldn’t even mind a war if it meant Charles was suppressed and distracted enough.”

“The Sable has interacted with some of those families,” the Alabaster noted.  “They passed through the region while he was a power.”

“Can you give us a chance to go after Charles?” Lucy asked.  “Before giving a decision?”

“That would not be us making that decision.  It would be the world powers, and the world powers aren’t people you call.  They call you.”

“Ran into that while staying with Zed,” Lucy said.

The Sable nodded.  “The timetable is theirs, and their patience is short.  As I said, we were the subject of a five minute conversation.  They’re not inclined to have another.  They’ll call, I could not tell you if it will be in a day or a week, and if we do not have our answer, they’d likely dismiss us, say a few words to key people, much as I directed my followers, not even a minute of discussion in total.  Much as I trust my agents to do their work to establish order in my realm of interest, so it would be for London England, Paris, or Rome, sending their agents.”

“Who you compare to Musser.”

“That would be my instinct,” the Sable said.  “But humans vary.”

Lucy ran her hand over her hair at the top of her head, smoothing it.  “So either Charles wins or he gets this war against the world that he wants?  I don’t think it’s even possible to do what we need to do to get everyone involved, in that tight a timeframe, we’ve got people who literally aren’t in this realm who won’t show up in time.  We’re supposed to rush more?”

“I know the Sable said it could be a day or a week, but I would warn you not to average that out and tell yourself it’ll be four days,” the Alabaster told Lucy.  “It’s likely to be soon.  I don’t think you have a day to wait for your friends, and another day to launch your attack.”

“This isn’t us telling you that you have a narrow time window to act and that you should rush,” the Sable told Lucy.  “That would be biased.”

Lucy had to resist rolling her eyes.  She shook her head.

“It’s us telling you that the time window was from the end of summer to the end of the year, and the rest of the world wants resolution now,” the Sable told her.

“Are we-” Grandfather started.  He glanced at Lucy.  “Sorry.  Interrupting.”

“No, no.  Go ahead.  You made the journey here too.”  And if you do become my familiar, I want you to have a say.

“Okay.  Are we expected to leave things where they stand, with what happened to Carnivore?  To John Stiles?  Charles gets to continue?”

“It was the prior Alabaster’s decision and that Alabaster bore the weight of it,” the Sable replied.

Again, that grinding of bones as Grandfather clenched his hand.

Angel and Pipes didn’t look happy either.

“You agreed it was unfair.  What happened to him,” Lucy said.  “Bringing this up again, for the record.”

“Fairness can be a matter of Law-”

“A balancing factor,” Lucy said.  “It’s rarely enough to decide something or change a practice on its own.  But for karma, weight of actions, nudging things… like you wanted to nudge things with the magazine toward other people, for them to deal with.  That asshole preyed on women and used his little realm to punish boys he didn’t like, and it’s fair if his creation eats him, right?”

“Yes,” the Sable said.  “Things would naturally progress down that path if he wasn’t careful.  He is careful.  We’ll see how Ostreon and Dakota do.”

“You…” Lucy paused, trying to take all the ideas in her head and pull them together.  “If John Stiles were alive, he could argue there’s a throughline here.  Implicit promises were made and he was repeatedly let down.  Not by the old Alabaster, either.  By you.”

“Are you here to destroy me after all?” the Sable asked.

“I’m here to know you,” Lucy said, and Grandfather’s anger behind her was contagious.  “And I’m here to say that John Stiles was asked to kill Yalda.  He did it because of the implicit promise that he’d get to put her to rest.  That she wouldn’t have to hurt anyone again.  Intentionally or not.  He was asked to be Carmine, and he did it because of the implicit promise you guys would help him out, give him the win.”

“As we attempted to do, but the furs supercede.  We’re going in circles, Lucy Ellingson,” the Sable told her.

“No, because I’m going somewhere with this, this time,” she said, still pissed.  “I saw into the arena, you know?  I got a peek, after he called the Dog Tags out.  I saw his coat.  It had turned red.  Like the one they gave me.  They won’t tell me the details.  I think they can’t.”

She looked back at Grandfather, who gave nothing away.  She looked back at the Sable.  “Yeah.  To me, a red coat screams ‘implicit promise’.  John played by the rules, he played along with what you wanted, he sacrificed, and what do we get?  The Sable doesn’t clean up the body, the Alabaster Doe lets the bird go, the Aurum helps Maricica fuck up the market and everything else John wanted to protect.  You three- Doe, Prince, and Coil, you helped Charles thrive after.  And you’re going to cave to world powers to confirm Charles into his position, so he can’t be budged?”

“It would be difficult,” the Sable Prince told her.

“So what-” Lucy started.

Then she had to pause, because emotions were getting in the way of words.  Her breath caught in her throat and came out as a small whimpering sound.  She let tears fall, glaring.

“-what the fuck else is left on the list, guys?  Are we close to done spitting on every last fucking thing he wanted?  What’s next?  Me?  Them?”  She indicated the Dog Tags.

“Lucy Ellingson,” the Sable said.  He crouched down in front of her, sitting on his heels, so his face was level with hers.  “You came here to know me.”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“The emotional appeal may be lost on me.  I am not and was not human.  I find fleeting moments of connection or humor, but far less than most would ascribe to me.  My empathy lies with echo, spirit, and those who straddle thresholds, far more than it could lie with humans.  I think, in quieter times, you might agree it’s good that they have someone to speak for them.”

“You’re going to tell me to fuck off, huh?” she whispered to him.

“I’m only telling you where things stand.  I judge every case on its individual merits, weighing context and greater need.  I obey Law.  If you want confidence that I, as a judge, will side with you every time, I’m sorry, but I must disappoint you.  I cannot be won over to one side or another, and I think every party in this conflict has been caught off guard at least once because they expected it of me.  I will continue to judge cases on their individual merits, hewing close to Law and the perspectives of spirits.  If you don’t want that, remove me.  Champion the person who would best represent your ideals.  That is your right.”

“There’s not exactly enough time to pull that off, is there?”

“It would be a task,” he agreed.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  “Nicolette Belanger told me of when Alexander forswore Seth.”

“Yes.”

“Alexander inherited rights and responsibilities from Seth’s… grandmother?  So that’s a thing, huh?”

“It is a thing, yes,” the Sable agreed.

“John Stiles is gone, he can’t argue about the injustice.  But I would say that because these guys are his legacy- all the Dog Tags of Kennet, they’re picking up where he left off…”

“At that point meanings get looser.  I talked about demise earlier.  Technically, no words were said handing down any karmic rights.”

“You said, when I came here, what was it?  I started from a place of war, I had war as companions, I fought, and if I came with war in mind, I should be shipped off to the Carmine?”

“That would be my inclination.”

“John started out with these guys, he was with them throughout.  He did what he did for Yalda, for them.  Up until the end.  Then he sent them out with… I don’t know what messages or instructions.  I’m firing blind here.  But they at least left that Arena and had a reason to stay and help Kennet, after.”

“Most.  Richard Miles and Joe did not.”

“Semantics,” Lucy said.  The word made her think of Tatty.  She almost smiled.  “What you’re doing?  Your idea of ‘fairness’?  It hands victories to the likes of Musser, who had the weight of family behind him, so many victories under his belt he gets to rewrite the rulebook.  Or to Charles, who cheats and bends rules, undercuts.  And then you- you punish the guy who listened to you, who did things by the book?”

“Punish may be a harsh word.”

“Fuck off.  Like I said, there isn’t a lot John wanted out of all of this that you didn’t fuck with before, during, or after.  And if you get mad and gainsay me or whatever, that’ll only be adding more to that scale.”

“That’s not what I am, who I am, or how I do things,”  the Sable said.

“You let Musser actively fuck with things and when Verona dropped a tree, you put her in a life or death situation.  So, forgive me, but I don’t fucking trust you,” Lucy told him.  “You can do things on your case by case basis but your idea of ‘fair’, of ‘neutral’?  Nah.  What is it, where does it get us?  Win most battles of fairness, lose the war?”

“Got us here,” Grandfather said, behind Lucy.  “Big cities calling.  We don’t call them, they call us, and if they don’t like our response, they’ll do what they want.  I’ve got soldiers from multiple sides of a conflict in me.  Gotta say… I’m getting tired of that.”

“I hoped to reveal who and what I was,” the Sable said.  “There’s no deceit in me.  I would then turn things around and ask you, Lucy Ellingson, who and what you are.  You awoke with knives, you haven’t been able to convince yourself to put them down.  You’re with the Dog Tags, you wear their colors.  The red of War.  I said you could be a Judge one day.”

“Don’t want it,” Lucy said.

“The role may be best suited to the people who don’t want it.  Your friends tasked you with finding a suitable Carmine.  I think you know, deep down inside, that if you wanted a swift and efficient resolution to this crisis, challenging Charles Abrams yourself, taking the Carmine Throne, and defeating Maricica’s attempt to counter that taking, it would resolve everything to your satisfaction.  The contest would give the Lords of major cities around the world a legitimate reason to wait and see how things are unfolding, if we can confidently say the Carmine Exile is likely to be replaced.  Your placement would be a decade or two premature, but you could grow into the role.”

“I don’t think the answer is as elegant as the Sable Prince paints it,” the Alabaster told Lucy, pausing to study the Sable’s expression, as he crouched in front of Lucy.  “But I don’t think we have many elegant answers.”

“Much in the same way as I might have liked to ease our way through that discussion and reach that offer.  But I think the direction the conversation took and the nature of your challenge don’t allow for it.  So I’m putting that in front of you now,” the Sable said.

Lucy felt Grandfather’s hand on her shoulder.

“You said you wanted to show him.  You wanted him to feel it.  As you set the contest, you could make it about that.  It’s a succinct solution to many problems before us all.”

“Oh hey, running back to Snow.  Getting pinged,” Avery said.  “I think we’ll head back to Thunder Bay right after, but I’ll be in touch a lot.  We’ve got a lot to organize.”

Lucy accepted Avery’s hug.

“Your ear is cold,” Avery told Lucy.  “Your cheek is too.”

“It’s okay,” Lucy replied.  “I like the cold.”

“Okay.  Get inside if you get any colder though.  It’d be really awful if we had everything riding on what happens the day after tomorrow- is it the day after tomorrow?  Is it past midnight?”

“No,” Lucy said, as Avery tried to pull off damp gloves with damp gloves to get to her phone.  Lucy turned to the clock over the town center.  “Not quite.”

“It’d suck to get a cold, huh?” Avery asked.  She flashed Lucy a smile.

Lucy smiled a bit as well.

“Talk to you soon,” Avery said.  “Still getting pinged.  Love that opossum, she did me a huge favor by saving my life, wasn’t easy at all, I know that.  I thought she deserved this, but holy crap, is it a pain.”

Lucy nodded, jamming hands into pockets, shoulders hunched up a bit for warmth.

Avery ran off.

Lucy texted, and got Verona’s location, and then walked from gritty, intense downtown to Kennet above.  It was dark out, and there were places around downtown Kennet with Christmas lights still up, giving everything a magical gleam.  After all the chaos and hurt that had come with Maricica lashing out, people were only now emerging to really meet.  A bunch were around one church, maybe getting out of a late-night service.  Others were dining, visible through cracked windows.

She saw goblins, and she saw one goblin of a human being, Oakham, with Bag and no Bracken.  It might’ve been that Bracken was picking something up in a nearby store, or she was babysitting.

Grandfather fell in step beside Lucy, hands in his own pockets.  She turned and smiled.

She wasn’t sure what to say.  They’d spent a lot of time together, going to and from the Sable’s domain.  The weight of everything they’d talked about while they were there had meant conversation had been thin on the way back, which was good, when they were worried about more attacks from Lords and forces like the Black Scalpel.  Easier to be quiet, digest-

Digest everything.

-and listen out for trouble.

She was glad for his company though, as they walked a few blocks.

He clapped a hand on her shoulder, and she looked over and up at him and nodded.  He stepped away, walking over to where two Dog Tags stood guard over the area, ready to protect it.

She spotted Verona.  Verona and McCauleigh were with Mia and Sharon.  Mia would be thrilled to have McCauleigh as a Dancer.

That was, assuming McCauleigh made it through the next few days.

All of this, like the Christmas lights, felt like it was right and okay, and it felt like it could break apart with a sharp tap, it felt like it could all go away.  Packed away into a box, forgotten until being resurrected in a slightly different configuration another time.

On a timescale of generations, not annually.

Lucy, standing by the road, waiting to go across the downtown street, had a car slow, preparing to stop in the middle of the road to give her the space to go across.  And she opted not to, turning and walking a bit more.  Pacing.  The car continued on.

Mia laughed at something McCauleigh said.

Verona smiled, then turned her head.  She met Lucy’s eyes directly, and then rubbed at her sleeve.  Pushing it up.  Showing Lucy the wooden bead bracelet, that notified them when they were being spied on.

Like an ‘I see you watching me’.

It wasn’t meant to ping off of one another’s attention, or it would be going off all the time, but Verona might’ve tweaked it, knowing her.

Lucy sighed, and she got out her phone.  She went to her contact list, and hovered her finger over Booker.

What would she even say?

She thought about the Sable’s offer, again.

“Yeah, no,” she whispered, to herself.

“No?” the Sable asked.

“I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying.  Because big picture?” Lucy asked, angrier again, now.  “I don’t trust you.  You could promise me all sorts of things but I’m going to think of John and how badly you let him down.  Technically, maybe you were mostly fair, but in general?  This conversation doesn’t end with you proposing a tidy, neat solution.”

“Ah.  How would you suggest it ends, then?” the Sable Prince asked.  He straightened to a full standing position, a fair bit taller than Lucy.

“I mean… I’m inclined to tell anyone who’ll listen that your word is worth very little, even if you don’t technically lie.  That your deals are hollow, that you might keep to the technical letter of the law but you’ll metaphorically piss on the spirit of it.”

“Ironic, for a guy who says he was a spirit,” Pipes said.

“Yeah,” Lucy said, “yeah.  Ironic.”

“Is that your intent, then?  A petty revenge?”

“My inclination is not only revenge,” Lucy said.  “But getting John what he was owed.  These guys are his legacy.  They’re what he left behind.  If I remember what happened during my time in the Carmine Alcazar right, you took John apart for power.  Dismantled him until he was gone.  You want to say the system’s open for auditing?  I’m calling you out and asking you to pay up.”

“Does that balance the scales, then?”

“It doesn’t even begin to,” Lucy told the Sable.  “Because the irony is, the little wrongs you did to John fed other problems, and it all worked against the Seal and against Law.  By all rights, you guys should be scrambling to make things right.  I’d even say that if London or Paris or Japan come sweeping in to install Lordships and displace you guys, it’s to manage your mistakes.  Doe, Sable, and Coil, for the record.  Carmine too.  You’re mostly fine so far, Assembly.”

“Mmm.  Up until they sweep in and remove me, hm?”

Lucy pulled the corner of her mouth back, expression apologetic.  “About-”

“The-” Grandfather started talking in that same moment.

“Go ahead,” Lucy said.  “Or is it something that can wait?  About to move onto another point.”

“New point to make about an old point,” Grandfather replied.

“Cool.”

“I’m not sure what giving a bit of John’s power would mean, honestly.”

“Power plus interest,” Lucy murmured.  “Plus some karmic weight.  He was wronged, he was shortchanged.  So let’s give some extra change to the Dog Tags, please.”

“Sure,” Grandfather said.  “Not sure what that means either.  But she pointed out that this coat-”

He grabbed the side of Lucy’s hood, by her shoulder, with enough suddenness that it startled her a little.

“It’s John’s.  And this?  If you-”

He motioned.

Lucy moved a finger in the general area he’d motioned to, until he nodded slightly.  She pulled at the chain at her neck, drawing Dog Tag and the little ring out from under her shirt, bringing it into the ‘light’ of the Sable’s black palace.

“-that’s his legacy too.  I can’t say everything he said to us, but I’m not leaking anything special if I say he was fond of her and she was fond of him, and that was as obvious as anything when she was looking through the door, upset to be losing him.”

Lucy closed her eyes for a moment.

“Her too.  Power, karma, weight.  The other girls, while you’re at it.”

“If someone can come here to ask to correct a Forswearance,” Lucy said, “I can come here to argue against a wrong.  You wronged John.  The scales tipped against him, you took away things he sacrificed to protect.  Tip the scales back.  Give back.  And tell me you at least won’t let him pull his forswearance bullshit without helping push back.”

“Charles Abrams remains in my debt,” the Alabaster said.  “He probably will until the call comes from overseas and they give him that power, security, and other assistance.  Let’s say that the Alabaster Throne owes, even if it wasn’t me, specifically, much as it is owed, when it wasn’t me.  If he owes me and I owe you, we can agree that you can demand your payment from him directly.  I won’t contest it.”

“You’re making my life harder,” the Sable told the Alabaster, “Agreeing to this.”

“It’s right,” she said.

“Power to the Dog Tags, and Lucy,” the Sable said, considering.

“And my friends.  We’re connected by Awakening anyway.”

“Very well,” he agreed.

“And what I was saying, before Grandfather was making his point?  I’m asking you not to agree to this deal, if they do call.  Because that buys us time.  Say we’re handling it.  Say… say anything that isn’t giving Charles this win.  The others need something like a day, at least, to get organized and sort out their stuff.  We need time after that.  If you say no, it still takes the Lords overseas time to give marching orders, get their people on planes, or teleport over, take stock of the situation, or whatever.  But the words, the agreement, that they’d give Charles?  That’s too fast.  And things are over, then.”

“We’ll discuss,” the Sable said.

“I don’t trust you, you know?  For all the reasons I said,” Lucy told him.  “So you say you’ll discuss, but…”

“We will discuss.  We will weigh the options, with everything you’ve said in mind,” he said.

Lucy frowned.  She looked at the Alabaster, who nodded.

Lucy was cold.  She’d said hi and bye to Verona.  Verona had led her mom to believe she was staying with her dad and she’d led her dad to believe she was staying with her mom, and she would stay at the House on Half Street, cramming late into the night on practice stuff, doing alchemy, and writing up spell cards.

Lucy had walked with Mia and gotten a bite to eat at the Burger Bin.  Mia’s mom hadn’t wanted Lucy to walk home alone, with everything that had happened, but Lucy had slipped away.

Then Lucy had walked a little further south, on the treacherous shores.  Icy slate and icy water in the dark looked very similar, and it was hard to trust she wouldn’t slip or step through ice into freezing water.  Snow deceived.

Through the trees that made an arch.  Hard left and a little back, a route not a lot of people would instinctively take.  Then she approached the cave that revealed itself.

There was no illumination of ice or anything.  No moonlight shone through to catch on blades in the dark and reflect onto other blades until the cave was bright enough to see in.  Nothing gradually brought anything forth.

It was empty.

Lucy leaned against the doorway, back to the trees, and the shore and river that indistinctly bled into one another.  She frowned, her heart feeling hollow.

“Lassie.”

“Hey, Alpeana.  You haven’t started your rounds?”

Alpeana kept to the darkness.  “Ah’ll be daein’ tha midnight merkat t’nicht.”

“Cool,” Lucy murmured.

She stared into the dark, empty cave.  Alpeana crouched in the darkness by the entrance, the only occupant.

“Ah’m sorry, Lucy.”

“The Wild Hunt came and went,” Lucy said.  “Supposedly after Maricica?”

“Oh, aye.  He said he’ll hulp, t’morra nicht.”

“The emptiness feels like it means something.  He’s not coming back?”

“Na.  He’ll ride wit’ tha hunt o’ cauld January, then fin’ his way tae th’ court proper.  Fae what he said, he’s taught ye all he kin teach ye wi’out hurting ye.”

“Okay,” Lucy said, because saying more was too hard.

“Dae ye want company?”

Lucy shook her head.  “You were headed out to the market, right?”

“Aye.”

“Are you helping tomorrow night?”

“Aye.  All of us are, Lass.”

“Got it,” Lucy said.  “Okay.  Let’s see what we can do, then.”

“Aye.”

Then Alpeana was gone into the night.

Lucy ventured into the cave, starting to use her phone flashlight at first, before instead reaching for and using glamour, to create a mote of light she could hold in her hand.

She found some swords, and she had an instinct Guilherme had put them aside.  They could break them down and they’d be a good bit of glamour.  She’d have to see them in the light to know if any of it was residual High Summer stuff.

Improvising a way to carry them was a little harder.  In the end, she used a canvas bag she kept in her backpack for snack shopping, so her homework wouldn’t smell of dry pepperoni sticks, and she knotted it around handles to have something that she could sling over her shoulder, blades dangling behind her.

She was put in mind of Booker leaving, off to university.

Not just Guilherme.  Alpeana was going to war.  The goblins were gearing up.  Everything was different.

War and aggression had started her on this journey and it had dogged her the entire way, and now it would end in what?  Charles’ defeat?  How many Others from Kennet would they lose?

Kennet soaked in blood from the start of that to now.

She took a route that didn’t intersect with too many people.  Not that this route had a lot.  Past the factories, toward the bridge.

“Lucy!”

Chloe.  No Nibble.

“Hey,” Lucy said.  Her eyes traveled over the surrounding ground.  Just in case.  She hadn’t been that far from here when Chloe had attacked her.

Chloe unzipped her winter jacket and pulled it open.  She was wearing a white sweater beneath.  “I love it.”

A gift.  Same as the other.

“I’m glad,” Lucy told her, as she walked up the slope.

“If you only ever gave me the one, that’d be more than enough,” Chloe told Lucy.  She offered a hand, sticking it out to Lucy.  Her fingers were like knives, and were doing a number on the gloves she’d pulled over them already.  Lucy caught her wrist and used that for the leverage.

“I’m just glad you like it,” Lucy said.  “Went with a different glamour, to not make something you’re allergic to.”

“I noticed.  Can I give you a hug?” Chloe asked.

Lucy hesitated.  “Can you?  Sorry, but-”

“I’m okay,” Chloe said.

Lucy paused, “Uh.”

“You don’t have to,” Chloe said.

“No, uh.  I’m carrying swords, so just… careful.”

“And I’ve got bones like blades,” Chloe said.  “Always careful, when I’m there enough to be.”

Lucy nodded.

“But I’m there, here, now.  Am I making sense?”

“Sure,” Lucy said.

Chloe wrapped Lucy in a tentative hug, then squeezed super tight when she was sure neither of them would get sliced up.

“Thank you,” Chloe said.  “Thank you.”

Lucy nodded.

The tight hug was something she needed, and not because that empty cave felt like an ache.  The Sable had so naturally assumed Lucy for the Carmine seat, and she’d wrestled for a long time with whether she’d carry the knives.  He’d planned a whole argument and the fact he’d even brought it up meant that in the back of her mind, that argument was raging.

She’d told him, at the meeting’s outset, she wanted justice, she wanted Charles to see what he’d done.  But she didn’t want to become Charles as she did it.  Except what would she become?

The Sable had seemed to think it would be another Carmine, just of a different flavor.  A lonely, angry thing, dwelling on blood.

The tight hug made that angry argument quiet down, like someone had a volume control and was holding the volume-down button down.  In a way, she hadn’t realized how loud it had really been until she felt what it was like in quiet peace afterward.

She could be this.

She sighed.

“First person since Nibble I’ve hugged in a while, sorry,” Chloe murmured.  She flashed an awkward, toothy smile.

“Don’t be sorry,” Lucy told Chloe.

She almost asked if Chloe was going, tomorrow night.  Except she knew the answer, and she really didn’t want to spoil this moment, by returning it to something Carmine.

They were all going.  All of them, their allies, and every resource they could tap.  Everyone except Lucy, Verona, and Avery.  They’d feint, suggesting they were participating, but they wouldn’t actually follow through on that.  They’d pull back, then prepare to engage after.

They had to decide this.

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