Finish Off – 24.13 | Pale

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“Any outcome where I don’t walk away unobstructed, no pursuers, no conditions beyond what I’ve already stated, you don’t get what I’m pledging,” Miller told Lucy.

“The Belangers deserve a say in this, at least,” Lucy said.

“If that say leads to anything but me walking away free and clear, except for what I’ve already offered to you tonight, then you don’t get my help,” the alchemist said.

The Titan roared.  They’d hunkered down near a copse of trees, and the fact the Titan was focused elsewhere meant they were clear- for now.  But it was looking for trouble, pacing, with Liberty flying around it, and Black in Mrs. Flowers’ clothes a bit off to the side, ready to set off bombs, trying to turn it aside if it started moving toward anyone vital.

Now it seemed like it might be coming for them, so they tensed, retreating back a bit-

It swung an arm, and a whole hail of ice spears came loose from what might’ve been arm hairs- except each spear was as long as either of Lucy’s legs.  Most hit snow, but one hit a tree, shattering explosively, leaving just the tip embedded, the shattering bad enough to have stripped away bark from the tree and its neighbors.

The Titan stomped a few steps toward them, then Black set off a bomb.

“What are the odds the Belangers can read the future and figure out what he’s proposing?” Lucy asked her friends.

“No idea.  If it’s something on him like some magic item or alchemy he’s ready to use, they could find it, maybe, figure out how to use it,” Julette replied.

Lucy studied Miller’s expression, trying to tell if he was worried about that.  He had some lines on his face that someone his age shouldn’t, maybe because of the stress of having been forsworn, but maybe he had a good poker face for the same reason- emotional numbness after trauma.

“Did you have Cameron and-or Seth check this?  Is it some greater ploy?”

“I did,” Miller said, with a sigh.  He paused, examining Lucy’s expression, one eyebrow slightly raised, then said, “I wanted to ensure you wouldn’t murder me on sight.”

“Question: is that the full story?” Julette asked, pointing at him with both hands.

Miller replied, but the Titan went after the ruined cabin where the other group was huddled near.  The St. Victor’s students, the remaining teachers.  Lightning struck ten times in eight seconds, and the thunder of it drowned Miller out.

That group retreated toward one of the more intact, more distant cabins.

“No,” Miller repeated himself.

“Are you trying to drag this out?” Lucy asked.

“With my creation out there?  Haha, no.  I’m measuring and carefully choosing my responses… any delay is a side effect.”

“What is the full story with what the Augurs said, then?” Avery asked.  She was sitting down, one arm raised over her head, elbow bent so her forearm was horizontal, so she could get patched up by Mrs. Flowers.  It kept getting interrupted when they had to move.

The ice spears had come with a blasting of winter, like they’d given the cold permission to intensify here, or because the shards of ice that now littered the outermost treeline, closer to the Titan, were just so cold they turned freezing rain into sleet.

“If you do this, the way things stand between the sides?  It breaks even, slightly favoring our side.  If you don’t, you fall behind, more-than-slightly favoring our side.”

“Why the fuck does it break even?” Lucy asked.

“No comment, for now, but I’ll give something if you give-”

The Titan was stomping closer.  Ice fell from tree branches, and the cracks in the ice flashed, becoming arcs of lightning tracing the surface.

Like cold was developing some warped relationship with lightning, somehow.

“-Something.  Give me something in exchange for the information.”

“Fuck this,” Lucy snarled the words.

“The only reason I could do this and justify it to the Carmine Exile, should he win, is that the augurs say it works out the way it does.”

“What do you want?” Avery asked him.

“You’re the Finder of the group, if I remember right?”

“You don’t know?” Lucy asked.

“My focus was never that heavily on the fighting or strategy.  I preferred to be in my lab, except for practical tests, and I wouldn’t want to make assumptions about-”

“Enough,” Lucy cut him off.  “Really not trying to stall?”

“This is how I am,” he said, shrugging.  “Point is… you got some attention for a major accomplishment, a major Path, tied to something foundational.”

“You want something relating to the Promenade?”

“No,” he said, sounding exasperated.  “Perhaps in days, weeks, months, years, or a decade, you or the Finder group that helped you with that may unravel something foundational and important to the Paths and the practice as a whole.”

“And you want something from us then, if that happens?” Avery asked.

He looked exasperated again, and seemed to decide to ignore her.  “There’s a practice called ‘gardening’ that is seeing a surge of interest, where areas where the power of one realm is concentrated, they bury items there, let them take on that magic and become magic items.  Sometimes it’s putting items in the hands of the right individuals, but I won’t digress.”

“Aren’t you already?” Lucy asked.

“It can happen naturally but they can do it intentionally.  The reason it’s seeing a surge is both because our understanding of realms and power are coming together, and because there’s a widespread sense that our understanding of power, realms, and how ambient power is granted may leap forward in a major paradigm shift, be it in days, weeks, months, years, a decade.”

“Do you want to combine the ideas?  Do something with the Promenade?  I could see that being a concentration of power,” Avery said.

“My work with Alchemy is the same,” he said, still ignoring Avery.  “The nature of Others, the foundation to how they are put together and the power they draw.  I’ve done something that could get me international attention, creating a facsimile of a Titan.  My next versions may be stronger, or I may explore adjacent ideas.  In days, weeks, months, or years of experimentation-”

“Paradigm shift?” Lucy guessed.

“There you have it,” he said, shrugging, before jamming hands in pockets… and removing them, fingers spread, as Lucy and the Dog Tags tensed.  Grandfather patted him down again, turning pockets inside out and leaving them that way.  “What do I want?  The freedom to try and be close to that, be a part of it, even.  A chance to pursue my own paradigm shift, a chance to be close to the Carmine’s paradigm shift, if he gets properly underway with that.”

“When I asked what you wanted, I meant for the tidbit about why this breaks even,” Avery said.  “Not some greater life philosophy.”

He reminded Lucy a bit of her grandparents, Barbie and Ran.  The way he was so tied up in his own stuff that he kinda forgot how to human.  Except with Barbie and Ran it was being family and supporting a daughter-in-law and granddaughter after their son, Lucy’s dad, had died.  With Miller it was war negotiations.

She imagined that if she just got him talking about his passion, he’d forget everything, even the Titan and the faded Storm that still kind of lingered around it.  Maybe it was a good thing they had Julette here.

“You aren’t trying to tie us up and buy time?” Lucy asked.

“Genuinely not.”

“What if we said you spending the time saying all that about gardeners and whatever-”

“Mmh,” he cut Lucy off with a grunt.  “Rather than you try and gainsay me on top of the karmic shackles already placed over me, thin as it would be, let’s say you hearing me out about what I’m after was your favor.  Maybe, years down the line, you hearing me out on that means you, seeing a paradigm shift imminent, will do me a favor and reach out.”

Yep.  So up his own ass and obsessed with his own shit, he didn’t get it.

Lucy gave him a look, that she hoped made it clear how unlikely that was.

“-I’ll return it with a detail, nonetheless.”

Lucy paused, then dipped her chin in a half-nod, glaring at him.

“If you accept my compromise, the waves of minor Others coming from all directions stops, good for you, you also lose some favor with the Belangers, Nicolette included, bad for you.  They’ll be mad you showed me mercy.  If you don’t show me that mercy, especially if you reject my surrender and use it to hurt me, then you show the rest of the group and a number of people on the sidelines you aren’t to be trusted and your offers for surrender and truce mean nothing, it burns you hard.”

“And if we delay, debating this, then we lose ground?” Julette asked.

“Don’t know, didn’t ask,” he said, shrugging one shoulder.  “Is giving the Belangers their revenge worth the lives lost to common goblins and bogeymen?  Lives you brought into this mess?”

Avery protested, “They were already in this mess, abstractly speaking, already in danger, generally, day to day, without a chance to know it was happening or that danger was out there, it was just drawn out, unchanging, and we have a shot at doing something that sucks for right now, but smooths things out in the long run.”

“The question stands,” he said.

Avery looked unhappy with that response.

“Hold on,” Lucy said, cutting Avery off before she could start again.  To Avery, she said, “Hear you.”

“Yeah,” Avery said, frowning.  Tense.

Maybe Miller had poked a little too deep, raising the subject of Innocents.

We’re too tired, been at this too long.

Julette hugged Avery, who put a hand on her head.  Snowdrop became human and hugged Avery from the other side.

Lucy could’ve done with a hug too.  If only because it was cold as shit, and there was energy in the air, so there was a safety thing about it too.

Mist and obscuring snow was accumulating, which the Titan seemed to like.

It keeps getting stronger.

“Putting it out there, I’m asking people on my side to please argue with me, find holes in this, tell me if it’s too fair, unfair, whatever,” Lucy said, being careful with her words.  “Miller.”

Miller was distracted, looking for the Titan, who was getting more riled up.  He met Lucy’s eyes.

“Proposal: you go.  But, by this proposal, if we change our mind, if your conduct in the near future draws our attention, if there’s anything in the way of a catch here we realize you didn’t tell us, we reserve the right to come after you.”

“Not very free and clear is it?” he asked.

“It’s as free and clear as you’re likely to get if you’re genuine.  Also, we’d inform the Belangers.”

“That goes even more against the spirit of things.”

“You don’t think they’d know?” Julette asked.  “They’re augurs.”

“With only so many eyes, lots of outside groups and individuals wanting information, which they broker?  No guarantee they’re watching me, especially when I’ve had the benefit of Seth’s anti-augury knowledge,” Miller said.  “I think I can get a bit of distance before they think to check in on me again.”

Lucy heard the Titan’s growling, and saw that while Liberty had his attention and was trying to pull his attention toward the no-man’s land between the Kim manor and the Allaire buildings closer to Charles’ personal setup and Crucible arrangement, he wasn’t being that easily baited.

The way energy was building up made her uneasy.  Like snow and ice were being steadily and slowly electrified.  Maybe it was ineffective because it was grounded, or too diffuse, but she didn’t like it.

“I’d feel a lot better if we could draw a line on the ground, create even a basic barrier,” Lucy said.  The snow and sleet that was coming down was brighter than it should have been, in the gloom.

She motioned, and the entire group of them moved further from the Titan again, still keeping an eye on it.

“I understand if you feel the need to skew things more in your favor, with the way it’s outlined, but that’s not how this works,” Miller said, with a touch of condescension in his tone.  “This is a win-win.  It pushes this entire situation closer to a conclusion.  A faster end to this struggle between you and the Carmine.”

And more problems tomorrow? Lucy thought.  She looked at Julette.  “Thoughts?”

“I say yes.”

“Ave?”

“Yeah.  We can try to smooth things over later.”

“Or come after me later,” Miller added.  “The threat being spelled out is a problem, still.”

“Grandfather?” Lucy asked.

“You’re asking me?”

“You’ve been on the perimeter, keeping those lesser Others at bay.  Where are we at?  Are they tapering off?”

Miller was already shaking his head when Grandfather said, “No.  We might be in for trouble later, even.  We’re whittling down the idiots, but the cannier, more evolved ones aren’t throwing their lives away, they’re organizing, getting some direction from afar.”

“Saw some of that,” Avery murmured.

“I’d say yes, agree,” Grandfather said.

Lucy turned to Mrs. Flowers, who was dressed in Black’s Dog Tag stuff.

“Yes, but I really don’t understand.”

“Sounds good, except for the part where the threat hangs over my head.”

“I’m only stating what’s already there, we’re not going to swear to leave you one hundred percent alone.  Not when we know what you are, morally.  Not knowing the kind of work you do and how reckless it can be.”

He glanced at the Titan.

“There’s a whole mess of Alchemists from this area who’ve kinda caused huge problems and then bit it, or bit it in the course of causing huge problems,” Julette said.

“And then there’s me,” Miller said.

“Are you so different?” Julette asked.  “How come?”

“I’d say there’s two differences.  I pulled off the Titan there.  That’s no mean feat.  And I’m alive.  I don’t think anyone can argue that sets me above that group.”

“Doesn’t change the moral question,” Lucy said.  “They crossed lines, they got into trouble-”

“All I’m saying is I don’t want the threat.  Free and clear, thank you.”

“If you’re making an issue out of something that isn’t one, in hopes of trying to get a more favorable deal…” Lucy trailed off.

“Seems like you’re stalling,” Avery picked up where Julette had finished.

“You’re insistent on twisting my arm with that weak bit of gainsaying.  There’s worse your Finder could try on others if she wanted, with what she overheard.”

“Was too busy trying to survive to sort out truth from lies,” Avery said.  “Not sure of my ability to remember what was said.”

“I am,” Snowdrop said.

He sighed, sounding like he was so put out by this whole business of being threatened and compromises in wartime, but the tension of the Titan was clearly getting to him.  He might’ve been sensing what Lucy was, in how the environment was being charged.   “Fine.  Give me until Dawn before you and yours come after me.  Belangers, I’ll trust they’re busy, I’ll take measures…”

His eye fell on Alexanderp, who was inside Julette’s hood, chin on her shoulder.

“…Ones with less than the bare minimum quality of primordial clay.”

“Fuck you very much,” Julette said.

“We’ll let them know,” Avery said.  “Fuck, this doesn’t feel good.”

“It’s war,” Grandfather replied.  “If releasing an enemy soldier who is swearing noninvolvement saves lives…”

“Doesn’t feel good, but I get it,” Avery said.

Lucy looked at her friends, Grandfather, Mrs. Flowers, and then Miller.  “I swear, as my part of this exchange, to leave you be tonight, to let you walk from this battlefield and find your way, unobstructed by us and any allies we’re able to inform in a convenient and reasonably efficient way, so don’t go walking through our people and expect them to play nice… not done, by the way.”

“I’ll head through the trees,” he said, scrunching up his nose as he said it, then he smiled a bit.

Fucking gross, untrustworthy asshole.  Lucy glared.

“…and you’ll, until you breach truce or fail in your end of the deal, enjoy a truce where we won’t come after you until the next sunrise.”

“On this planet, in this timezone.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.

“So sworn,” Julette echoed.

“So sworn,” Avery said.

“…contingent on your end of the deal,” Lucy said.

“I swear to the same truce, of the same duration, I’ll leave this battlefield and trouble you no longer, and fully intend to never cross paths with you or your allies again, so long as I can help it.  Depending on how the Carmine situation resolves, I’ll head overseas, or he’ll have thoroughly won and I can reside here.”

Avery’s expression changed in the middle of him saying all that, quizzical, but she didn’t interrupt.

“And I’ll give you information necessary to resolving a large share of this conflict as part of my end of the deal.  So I swear.”

“In a timely fashion.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“Mr. Joel Richardson, when twisting his metal, often tried to emulate shapes that evoke War-related forces.  Warfare, Murder, Duel… he knows how to call on those forces.  Across from the Kim manor, there’s an empty lot big enough for a house.  He twisted metal into the shape of a sign for Assembly, took some of the Carmine’s blood to feed it directly, and dropped it into snow in the center of that lot, let it boil and steam its way down to the bottom, filled in the holes, covered it.  Snowfall and rain covered the rest.”

“Break the rune-”

“They’ll stop coming this way.  At least, until the Carmine exerts power to start that up again.”

Lucy nodded slowly.

“Settled?” he asked.

“Sure hope so,” Lucy said.  “Is this the point where you start up some bullshit?”

“One thing,” he said.

She tensed.  Grandfather raised his gun, aiming it at Miller.

“Verona?” Miller asked, looking at Julette.  “Or should I say ‘Verona’?”

He made quotes with his fingers.

“Say what you want,” Julette replied.

“You gave away the show when you passed around word to your compatriots that you’re not really Verona.  It slipped, the augurs caught it.”

“It’s okay,” Julette replied.  “That doesn’t matter much.”

“Might as well tell you and trust that if she gets in touch with a bright idea on how to exploit what I just told you… don’t.  Don’t take that metal-wrought sigil and try to stick it to the Titan and have the lesser Others come in a perpetual tide to attack it.  You’ll have an enraged Titan with endless fodder, a sigil so heavy with elemental energy no mortal will be able to budge it, and everyone is worse off, until the Carmine can handle it.”

“Didn’t even cross my mind.”

“It potentially crosses Verona’s, according to the augurs.  Destroy the sigil, lure the Titan to the Crucible, feed it to the thing.  Only way I see you dealing with it.”

“Empowering the Crucible, helping Charles?” Lucy asked.

He shrugged.  “Or don’t.  It’s-”

The Titan roared.

The air crackled.  Lucy could feel every bead of moisture where her skin’s warmth had melted snow or kept rain from freezing.

“-yeah,” Miller said.  “That sums it up.”

He headed deeper into the trees, moving the opposite direction of the Titan.

Lucy took stock of the situation, getting her bag out, and pulling out some of the alchemy Verona had prepped her with.  Emergency stuff.

“Makes it hard to dwell on what you said,” Avery said.  “Distracting.”

“How are the cuts and stuff?” Lucy asked, while trying to figure out a way to carry two large jars without risking dropping them.

“I’m… it’s not too bad.  Thank you.”

Avery was thanking Mrs. Flowers, who nodded and pulled gloves back on.

“You did good, pulling the Titan away from everyone else,” Lucy noted, gauging where it was, compared to where the Kim house and Charles’ setup to the north were.

“Sucks they’re onto me,” Julette said, stretching.  “Thought I did better than that.”

“Doesn’t change anything,” Lucy said.

“Still sucks.  Point of pride.”

“Are you with me for this next bit?” Lucy asked.

Julette nodded.

“Okay.  We don’t have the spare glamour to do a big repair if you get hurt, so… careful.”

“Yep.”

“I’ve got fur poking out,” Lucy noted- little tears in her gloves and jeans had tufts of black-orange foxfur sticking out.  “I think I can smooth some of it…”

She did a standard gesture for glamour manipulation, like she’d been taught.  It didn’t work that well.  Maybe it was possible, Daniel certainly had figured some of it out, but…

“…Not sure it’s worth the trouble.”

“The Titan thing is a bit more anxiety-inducing,” Avery said.

“Yeah.  So… distance?” Lucy suggested.  “Julette, Dog Tags, with me.  Ave?”

“Way back means going past the Titan, pretty much.  Or around.”

It might.  Lucy wasn’t sure how dense or easy to navigate things were if Avery cut through the woods- there might be cliffs dipping down toward the lake, or thicker vegetation, or mountains.  Avery was pretty nimble, and had the black rope, but even so… that’d be slow.

“You going to be okay?”

“Hope so.  I get the sigil?”

“Please.  Then do what you need to do, regroup with others.”

Avery nodded.

Lucy turned to look at the Dog Tags that had come with.  Grandfather, Horseman, Midas, and ‘Black’.

“Dog Tags?  Since we’re leaning on fragile glamour here, can you be our front line?”

“Given the option, I’d want to be your front line as a regular thing,” Grandfather said.  “You’re putting yourselves out there too often.”

“Now you’re sounding like Matthew did,” Lucy told him.

“Oh?” Grandfather asked, his voice creaking slightly instead of cracking, where a teenager’s might, giving that word its nuance.  “Did Matthew have a habit of sounding right?”

“I’m going, before this gets worse,” Avery said.  “Will think on what you mentioned.”

“Avoiding saying it out loud?” Lucy asked.

“Just in case they’re watching on and off.”

“Sure.”

“Hey?  Puzzle bracelet?  I promised Clem.”

Julette pulled the bracelet off, handing it over.

“Got the matchbook, bracelet.  I’ll let the Belangers know what’s up with Miller, maybe through Nicolette.  Not imagining her as being super happy.  Okay.”

Lucy gave Avery a pat on the shoulder that was also kind of a push and kind of permission to go.

“Come on, Snow,” Avery said, though Snowdrop was already perched on her shoulder.

Avery’s boots squeaked and crunched on snow as she ran off, back toward the camp, winding the black rope around her hand.

There was an awkward no-man’s-land to cross, where the trees broke up, becoming a treeline so thin the lake could be seen on the other side- or would be, if the snow and mist wasn’t so thick in the air.  Lots of field, then the buildings of the northern setup, with the Allaire forsworn’s cabins and the Crucible crowning all of that toward the end of the peninsula.

Everything was a nighttime dark, because it was so overcast, muddled with the mist and snow, with that dull orange light and regular flashes coming from the Titan’s direction.

“Hey, um,” Mrs. Flowers said.

“We’re going to where the last remaining kids are,” Lucy said.  “I’m not asking you to be part of that front line, don’t worry.”

“Okay.  Going to the kids sounds good.  You girls are really in this kind of danger a lot?”

“Too often,” Grandfather said.  “Hopefully this is the last time for a while.”

“I can’t imagine for your parents,” Mrs. Flowers said.

“My mom’s been vocal.  You might’ve seen some of that.”

“Good.  Vocal is good.  I was talking with the others, we were all wishing we’d been more vocal before any of this happened.  More aware, more… anything.  I can’t imagine knowing what’s happening and letting my daughter do this.”

“Enh,” Lucy grunted a syllable.  “Yeah.”

“You’ve got to come out of this okay.  Speaking as a parent-”

“I know,” Lucy said, stressing the ‘know’.  “I do.  I want to come out of this okay.  I want to survive.  But I also want to stop the bad guys.  And help the not-so-bad guys who got roped into all of this.  But for right now, can you let me focus?”

“Focus, okay.  I’ll, um-”

“Hang back, keep your head down?  And don’t say anything for a bit.  I know if you see your kid-”

“Or Cameron.”

“Right.  Either-or.  If you see ’em, you’ll want to reach out, but… give things a chance first.  When we get in, if you go straight to trying to convince them…”

“Tried, on the phone.”

“…I think they resist.  But if you ask at the right time?  I think you have a better shot.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a chance there’s no shot,” Lucy said.  “That they say no, they want to stay, they won’t surrender.  Some of them are like that.  Kira-Lynn, maybe Cameron, Teddy.”

“So I hear.”

“With the Dogs, Blast dogs like Black, who focus on fire and bombs, they destabilize things at a crucial time.  Did Black give you some?”

“Got some.  Wouldn’t even know what to do with it.  We’re- the kids are out there?  I don’t want to blow them up.”

“There are other things out there,” Julette said, eyes scanning the mist.

Lucy looked at the field.  The snow was luminescent, taking on that energy that rolled out from the Titan.  The distance they had to cross here was like the distance between her house and Verona’s.  It was open, exposed…

“Wish there was a good way to handle those black branches,” Lucy said.

“Use us as shields,” Horseman said.

“Might put you down for longer than you’re used to.”

“Right.  Better us than you three, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Ready to run?” Lucy asked.  “All together?”

“Less ready than ever,” Julette said.

“Want to stay near that?”  Lucy gestured toward the Titan.

“No.  Not particularly.  You know, if my head wasn’t filled with sticks and twigs, I might opt for a third route?”

“If you have one…”

“I don’t.”

“Then we’re running.”

Julette sighed.

The Dog Tags moved up to be in front of Lucy, Julette, and Mrs. Flowers.

They checked the Titan was preoccupied- it looked like it was heading slightly away.  As good a chance as any to make a break for it.

“Now.”

Horseman led the way, Grandfather and Midas behind him.  Seeing Horseman running was like seeing Avery sprint.  Lucy had been running around since last spring, had probably done a hundred full laps around Kennet, which wasn’t limited to shrine stuff.  She’d been on battlefields, she’d been moving constantly, it felt like.  She understood the mechanism of running, she’d been taught proper form by that asshole Mr. Bader, who was a jerk but did know his stuff, and with practice and training and everything else she just didn’t get how Avery could cross three blocks in the time it took Lucy to run two, or how Horseman could pull ahead like he was.

People stepped outside.  Lucy saw Seth at the back, with two newer members of St. Victor’s out in front of him, holding those black wands.  Cameron, Teddy, Kira-Lynn, and Griffin stepped outside shortly after.

All that remained of Charles’ defensive force.

The black lightning shot out, like cracks in reality.

“Can we fucking shoot them!?” Midas roared.

“Do not!” Grandfather called out.

“To wound!?”

“Doesn’t work that way in reality!”

“Does when your aim is good as mine!”

“Only if you have to!” Lucy called out.

One of the bolts arced toward them, going overhead like a rainbow, but aesthetically the opposite, crashing down to ground, carving an ‘S’-shape across ice and snow as it curved their way.

Horseman twisted, pulling off the bag he had strapped to his back.  He threw it at the fast-approaching furrow of darkness.  The bag caught the brunt of the effect, cracks embracing it for a split second, running through it, pulling out all color.

The bag split, contents alternately exploded, tore, were scattered, or were crumpled.

But it put the brakes on that one.

Seth’s eyes flashed the same blue as the glass windows of the Blue Heron academy as he looked over at the Titan, then at them.

“Shoot Seth!” Lucy shouted.

Midas and Horseman both raised their guns, but at that same time, one of the younger kids, maybe Mrs. Flowers’ kid, crossed in front of the group.

Getting momentarily in the way.  Buying Seth the chance to bring hands to his face.  His eyes.

He clenched fists, then ‘exploded’ hands open, fingers splayed.

The blue of his eyes exploded out to consume everything, becoming white as it did.

“Flashbanged!  Can’t see!” Grandfather roared.

There were cries of agreement.  Lucy added her voice to the chorus.

Her vision cleared relatively fast, though she could see some Sight-ish alteration around the edges of her vision, where everything concrete that wasn’t Sight was absent, and only watercolor staining and swords remained.

Was there more to that practice?

She looked over her shoulder, trying to get to grips with the situation and where everything was.

Yes, probably, there was some nuance to Seth’s Sight-flashbanging, maybe something Lucy wasn’t affected by because she couldn’t See while effectively gainsaid.

But also yes, there was more to this.  Seth did it again while Lucy’s head was turned, so she wasn’t affected nearly as much.  Others shielded their eyes, by the looks of it.

The snow that had been lit up by the flash remained bright, shimmering, barely like snow at all, now.

Black lightning crackled around them, tearing up snow.

Lucy felt her skin tingle, her teeth stung her, where they were slightly parted, maybe with saliva between top and bottom tooth.  The texture of the air changed.

Seth did it a third time.

The Titan roared and didn’t stop.  The air shuddered, light itself tremoring.

Whatever the Titan did, Lucy didn’t see, exactly.  She focused on hurling the jar down at the nearest patch of ice.  She didn’t even give herself the time to check the contents.  Two jars were tucked under one of her arms, one smoke, one air.

She got the smoke.  Suffocating, blinding smoke, all over her and the rest of her group.

Air, she knew, would’ve been better.  A buffer.

Snow on the ground turned radiant, arcs dancing at exposed edges where footprints had crunched down, or where ice met puddle.  Only the smoke obscuring vision saved Lucy’s eyes.

Snow and rain that were coming down became like stars, maybe 5% of them every second, randomly, changing from flecks of ice to falling stars that produced arcs of lighting on contact with a surface.

It didn’t get to one hundred percent.  When it got to maybe the sixty percent mark, the hundreds of thousands of motes of energy were joined together by thousands of bolts of lightning.  Snow on the ground changed from frozen water to one big, fat, flat-to-the-ground lightning bolt, that flickered, squirmed, and lay low to the ground, the part of it that successfully dissipated into soil and grass charging that surface so heavily that it couldn’t absorb more for precious, dangerous seconds.

The thunder was immediate and did about as much damage as everything in sight being electrified did.

Lucy saw it all through the cloud of smoke she’d created.  A sea of squirming lightning extending outward, centered on the Titan, who was now a black figure wreathed in flashing, flickering light- a lightning strike that wasn’t ending.  Everything cast in a stark, devastating white that seemed to eat every last bit of oxygen around them.  They, in the smoke, and the cabin with the still smoking remains of Miller’s alchemy lab were exempt, because whatever this was ended at the smoke.  It made a kind of cover for the St. Victor’s group, who were some combination of behind that burning alchemy lab and distant enough away that they weren’t touched.

Seth probably wouldn’t have provoked that the way he clearly intentionally had if it would’ve obliterated his allies.  Probably.

Then the lightning was gone, and the world, cast into a darkness far darker than the gloom from before, reeled.  The Titan, still roaring, a dull sound that seemed to replace silence as a concept with something guttural and eternal, was no longer framed in an unending, skyscraper-thick lightning strike.

Chunks of ground that had been blasted were pelting the earth now, dry, even burned or actively burning in places.  Some came down in fist-sized clumps, other clusters came down with enough force to cave in a car roof.

More of that was close to the Titan than to them, at least.

But trees toppled on either side of that Lucy’s-house-to-Verona’s-house wide no-man’s land.  Some trees were shattered, coming apart in three pieces that slid apart from one another.  Grass that had been under three or four feet of packed snow was now exposed to air, blackened, even burning in some cases.  In other places, snow was returning, converting from residual energy back to snow again.  It left strange patterns as it followed flows and patterns Lucy wasn’t privy to.

Leaves and pine needles that had been blasted by the lightning were coming down as ash and blackened, burning greenery.

The very air felt hard to breathe.  Even with her mask.

The ground began to become watercolor, as rain started to come down again.  It was artificially bright, and exploded into little arcs of electricity on impact with the ground, instead of splashing.  Almost like tiny lightbulbs were raining from the sky and shattering on impact.

“Woaugh,” Mrs. Flowers groaned, voice altered by the mask she wore.

“You okay?” Lucy asked.  When the woman nodded, leaning on Lucy as Lucy offered help to stay upright, she added, “Good thing you’re insulated.”

“You’re not.”

“Smoke helped, I think.  Come on,” Lucy said, helping Julette to stand.  An uncooperative Julette felt heavy.

The Titan’s roar mingled with the wind, which became a howling, blustering wind, whistling over bleak, dark landscape.

“Come on, come on!” Lucy repeated herself.  Horseman was helping Grandfather stand when more of the black lightning began to strike.  They were firing blind into smoke.

Guilherme had drilled positioning into her, and right now, with everything going on, with the smoke from the alchemy jar expanding out and thinning out as it expanded, there was only one position she was especially comfortable with.

That position just so happened to be in the faces of the St. Victor’s group.

And once they were in the thick of it, a lot of things would be easier.

Trick was getting there.

Lucy’s smoke was dissipating, the alchemy stuff wasn’t.  The renewed Storm was picking up again, taking a different shape than the one from earlier.  With it, the Titan was coming their way, plodding, rolling his shoulders.

Had he tired himself out, doing that?

Grandfather got clipped by a black bolt that had forked into two, one ‘prong’ of the fork raking his chest, tearing jacket and flesh.  Lucy tried to support him in continuing to run, keeping him between her and them, but he collapsed, and she sprinted the rest of the way.

Seth was directing Others to come over from the trees.  Cameron was out front, hand near her bracelets, flanked on either side by the boy and the girl in the St. Victor’s uniforms.  They’d started shooting those black branches more, but had slowed down.  Their arms kind of looked fucked.

Cameron would be a problem.  Lucy had seen what Cameron had been doing with those and Avery.  The Dog Tags had reported on it too.  Some kind of protection effect.  A strong one.

Teddy and Kira-Lynn hung back closer to Seth.  Kira-Lynn had taken four black branches and tied them into a square, which she laid out on the still-snowy ground in front of her, because the Titan’s ice-to-lightning conversion hadn’t reached quite this far.

Kira-Lynn’s eyes turned black, veins spreading from them, as she began to recite something.

A silhouette began to form, standing in the square.

“I’ve fought enough bogeymen today!” Lucy shouted, pulling the second jar out from between the crook of her elbow and her body.  Weapon ring gave it shape.

Carbonated drinks became a single-shot pistol.  A six-pack became a rifle.

A jar of compressed, elemental air?

She didn’t know guns well enough to identify what she held, but if it was a heavy duty shotgun or grenade launcher, the purpose was the same.  The gun’s housing was made of the same tinted glass as the jar.

She took aim at Kira-Lynn.

Cameron, standing by, seemed to be ready to extend her arm with the bracelets, but held back for a second.

Kira-Lynn got blasted with a sudden, forceful gust of air that sent her about five feet up and fifteen feet back.  She landed awkwardly.  The sticks were sent flipping through the air and came undone where they’d been twined together.  The Abyssal energy lanced out and obliterated one stick, while other arcs of the same energy carved furrows into the ground.

Lucy got close enough to be out of that sizzling, sparking rain, instead standing in the faint smoke of the burning alchemy lab.  Which was probably not ideal, but she had her mask, with its smoke protection, Mrs. Flowers had her gas mask, the Dog Tags didn’t really need to breathe, and Julette was made of sticks and twine.

This was as close as they got to being out of the swelling Storm.

Lucy closed in on one of the two who were wielding black branches.  It was a boy, hood up, eyes wide, and he aimed at her.  Lucy used her weapon ring to bat the branch’s tip aside, turning pen into rapier.  She moved fast, but didn’t charge in, didn’t rush or try to provoke panic.  She did use the boy as partial cover from the other members of that group.

Grandfather had fallen.  Midas had been clipped and lost his gun, and went to bend over Grandfather, trying to pull Grandfather’s gun from the holster, instead of fishing through blackened grass and dirt for a black handgun.

Except he got hit again.

When she was close enough, Lucy grabbed at the boy’s wrists.  She held them.

He was younger than her, and he looked terrified.

“I can’t go back to Kennet,” he whispered.

“Is this really that much better?” Lucy asked, shifting her grip, pulling him a bit away from everyone else.  He was kind of a human shield, but kind of not.

“Yes.  You don’t know what I’m running from.”

“I don’t but-”

“No,” he said, and he said it like his heart was breaking as he said it.

She didn’t realize what that meant until he pulled free of her grip- she reached for his wrists again, grabbed the branch, and cast it aside.  He came at her, and she made a gladius-style short sword, edges on both sides, no real guard, to ward him off.  It seemed to have the opposite effect, because he came at her harder, smashing both fists and arms downward, forearms striking the blade.

Like he was willing to be cut twice to try to slam the other edge of that blade at her to cut her once.

He wasn’t abyss-tainted or drugged, that she could tell.  He reacted with the exact same pain and alarm any twelve or thirteen year old kid would, having the sides of his arms cut bone deep, one cut curving and sliding against bone to cut an inch up toward wrist, to boot.  He screamed, pulling back.

And a second later he was coming at her again, unarmed, bare-handed, against a sword.

Everything she was trying to do became harder.  She had to go out of her way to pull the sword back, so he wouldn’t run his belly across it as he tried to leap on her, tackling her to the ground.

Lucy managed to get a foot between them and kick him back and away, and he stumbled.  Mrs. Flowers had moved around to the back corner of the cabin, and as he stumbled, she grabbed at him, trying to bear hug him and restrain him.

He pulled free, elbowing her in the gas mask, knocking it ajar enough she was blind.  He got back to a standing position, breathing hard, one hand clutching the worse wound, blood leaking out in thick dribbles.  The Storm intensified around them.  Raindrops like shooting stars, the ground a tapestry of tiny explosions of electricity and light.

“We let Miller go.  You’ve done way less bad stuff than him.  Go, cut through the trees, go back to civilization, ask for help.  You don’t have to go to Kennet, but you can’t stay here.”

“If you leave, Gerard,” Seth raised his voice, “I have the tools to find you.  I’ll find you and I’ll use augury to send you back.”

Lucy fell silent, attention divided between the kid and Seth.

“Really?  I was on the call when Helen pulled that with Freeman,” Lucy said.

“Works,” Seth said.

“Is there an original bone in your body, Sethy boy?” Julette asked.

“Is there a bone in your body, Fetch?”

Julette paused, then smirked.  “You’d be surprised how much bone gets in this body.”

“No accounting for bad taste,” Seth said.

Lucy glanced back at the kid.  Mrs. Flowers was crouched behind him, still, looking unsure about what to do.

The girl was a short distance away, holding a black branch that could’ve comfortably fit in one hand with two hands.

“Hey, Gerard?” Lucy asked, voice quiet.  She spread her hands.  “You don’t have to do anything, don’t leave, don’t fight.  I’m going to turn my back on you to focus on other issues.  Please don’t attack me from behind.”

“Hey Gerard,” Seth called out, echoing Lucy.  “If you don’t attack her?  Similar deal, I’m going to-”

A gunshot rang out, cutting him off.  He put his hands to his ears.

Grandfather.

Lucy wasted no time, while Seth was distracted.  Approaching at a run, she could see more of what others were doing.

Griffin had used a practice on Horseman to bind him, levitating him into the air and splitting him into three- a Horseman that was man, a Horseman that was a blurry, vaguely camouflage-patterned figure, skin of smudged warpaint, holding a gun that was more clear than the rest of him, a red sword emblazoned on it.  A third version of him had him mostly naked, wreathed in tattered flags and standards with insignias that were held in place by wind.

That would have to wait.  Seth was her focus.

Lucy swept her foot through a puddle for the time slowing effect, and what she got was something altered.  She’d expected a few seconds of things around her moving at a third or less their normal speed, but everything else became blindingly bright and stock-still instead of slow.

She ducked beneath Cameron’s backhand with the bracelet gripped in one hand, held so it looped around the back of the hand, which seemed aimed at protecting Seth.  Lucy lunged, striking Seth in the lips with the heel of her hand.

A thunderclap marked the abrupt end of the effect.

Seth toppled backwards, head whipping back with enough force that the blood spurting from his lower lip traced a half circle in the air.  He’d been split from lip to the base of his gums, forming a ‘v’-shaped part, by the looks of it.

Cameron backhanded in Lucy’s direction again.  Lucy’s retreating steps took her out of alchemical smoke and further into the Storm.

The bright lightbulb rain stung like licking a battery, but it accumulated fast, each new droplet renewing the pain from the ones before, carrying them forward.  Lucy stumbled to the side and forward, to the most open area that was still kind of out of the Storm.

Closer to Mrs. Flowers’ kid.

Kira-Lynn was reaching for fallen black branches and her hand wouldn’t close on one.  Lucy saw Kira-Lynn’s hand- and at first, it looked like she was wearing a stained glove.  But the hand was blackened, like it had been burned to a charcoal-ish texture, with skin split and grooves deep enough to hide a pencil inside.  Veins ran up to the cuff of her coat and they were angry enough that it was hard to tell a vein apart from another crack in blackened flesh.

After two attempts to grab at a stick and failing, Kira-Lynn screamed her frustration, brief and intense.

“Do not-” Seth mumbled, hand pressed to his lip.  “Fffuuck, ow.”

“No screaming one of Lenard’s special screams, okay?” Griffin asked, before flashing a smile her way.

Seth, one hand trying to stop the blood from flowing out of his face, pointed at Griffin.

“Wasn’t going to, until you two started trying to order me around, now I’m tempted,” Kira-Lynn said.  She turned slowly as Julette circled around, brandishing her weapons.

“Gareth,” Seth mumbled.

“You want me to smash you again?” Lucy asked.  “Fuck you, leave the kid alone.”

“You don’t even know, do you?” Kira-Lynn asked, laughing.  “What’s fucking Gareth over there up?  This isn’t a kid you can rescue.  Not like this.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes.

Where’s Teddy?

He was gone.  He’d been near the back, she’d lost sight of him…

They were all pretty heavy dabblers, but Teddy was Miller’s apprentice, and that meant alchemy.

“Some of the parents came, Cameron, um, they’re still around, wanting to back you up.”

“I don’t fucking want pity,” Cameron said, her voice dangerously low.  “Fuck-”

“Donh-” Seth mumbled, blood dribbling out between his fingers, which were cupped over his mouth.  “Donh geh rihed uff.”

“Don’t get riled up again,” Griffin translated.

“I’m so done,” Cameron said.  “And the more I feel like this, the more I want to pulverize you and call this done.  Pulverize you and take care of Seth’s face and then hole up somewhere hiding away from the world.  Forgetting everything.  I don’t want people caring, I don’t want more shit piled on.  I don’t wanna-”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

“I’m not a bad person,” Cameron said.

Half the people were were broken, it felt like.  Gareth, Cameron.  Lucy had broken Seth’s face.  Kira-Lynn and whatever the fuck was going on with that series of double-downs.

Griffin smiled and looked at Lucy and it felt like he was looking through her, in a way that made her shiver.

The Titan lumbered closer, arms outstretched, face turned skyward.

If the equivalent of an exaggerated camera flash could provoke him, then Lucy wasn’t ruling out another use of the black wands, a gunshot, or some other practice getting the Titan’s attention.

The only ones with weapons that could fire at range right now were Mrs. Flowers’ kid, the girl, who had the black wand, and Dog Tags, who had guns.  Neither side seemed to want to use them.  The people who did want to go on the offensive weren’t equipped to.

Making this a grim standoff with a Storm raging outside the scant shelter the smoking lab provided, a Titan looming nearby.

Others creeping out of the woods.  The ones Seth had been calling out to.

“I’m not a bad person,” Cameron repeated.  “I hit my limit, I tried to stop, put a pause on everything, but everyone and everything kept moving forward, I got dragged, and pushed, and pulled… I don’t want to be dragged or any of that.  Why can’t it be easy?  No expectations?  Magic was supposed to make all this easier and it’s harder.  Worse!”

“I feel you,” Lucy said.

“Fuck you!” Cameron retorted, angry, spitting the ‘fuck’.  “No.”

“Fuck you!” Lucy came back at her.  “You don’t think I’ve been through ten kinds of shit, trying to meet expectations, trying to juggle living two lives, with all of this?  Dealing with you all!?  Fuck off!”

Cameron scowled, looking like she was going to use that bracelet on Lucy, even with friendlies nearby.

Some of those friendlies backed away from her.

“Cam,” Kira-Lynn said.

“Don’t call me Cam.  I swear, if you say some bullshit-”

“Nah,” Kira-Lynn said, voice low.  “Cameron.  It can be easy.”

Cameron was breathing hard, eyes on Lucy, but her focus clearly on Kira-Lynn.

“There’s a way forward, where the chains fall off.  No more drag, no more push and pull.  The weight of the bullshit and burdens you leave behind is fucking orgasmic,” Kira-Lynn said, voice low.  “Probably different for you than for me, but I’m betting the way you get free of it all is the same.”

“Just say it,” Cameron said, trying to sound casual, sounding broken instead.

“The expectations, the bullshit?  Key is realizing how much comes from you.  Stop getting in your own way.  For me, it was numbing, hardening.  Bit of self-Spirit Surgery.”

“That sounds horrifying and miserable,” Lucy said.

“Say the word,” Griffin said.  “We wrap this up, then I do some spirit surgery.  Take out whatever’s bothering you.”

“All those memories of your mom, all those expectations you’re putting on yourself,” Kira-Lynn said.

“Horrifying,” Lucy repeated.

“It’s not just that,” Cameron said.

“Everything that throws up walls between you and Seth.  I think you were pushing yourself to get there when I implanted Abyssal stuff in you.  Pushing past those walls.”

“Wash good,” Seth mumbled.

“Horrifying,” Lucy repeated, trying to hammer that in, not even sure what to say.

“You want Seth?” Kira-Lynn asked.

“Parts,” Cameron said.

Seth shot her a glare.  She broke eye contact.

“I don’t think we mesh.  He made eyes at other girls.  He’d be happier with one of them,” Cameron finished, eyes on the ground.

Kira-Lynn went on, “We can edit you, Cameron, cut away burdens, make you someone perfect for Seth, someone Seth is perfect for.  Loved and fuckable and no longer alone.  He cheats, we make it so you love that.  Do you get it?”

Cameron shook her head slightly.

“I’m saying no more running.  We can edit out the bullshit, every part of you that wants to cry.  Every weak part.  We can edit out the lack of confidence.  I think… to me, that’s how the Fae happened.  A long time ago, people started doing what I’m talking about.  It’s how Maricica became what she was, before she was a goddess.”

“Deluded,” Lucy said.

Hair-thin lightning bolts struck periodically through the Storm, it gave everything an ambient glow.  Tears and rain on faces were illuminated by the light flashes.

Kira-Lynn seemed to be waiting for a response, but when she didn’t get one, she continued, “I detest you, Cameron.  But I think you detest you too.  Big things are on the horizon.  Fae things, Carmine things.  Miller talked about paradigm shifts.  Hell, I think those assholes were after a shift of their own.”

Indicating Julette, then Lucy.

“I hate you-”

“Same,” Cameron cut Kira-Lynn off.

“But we can be done with this bullshit.  We can go down a path that Fae ancestors might’ve walked, pick up immortality on the way-”

“Deluded,” Lucy repeated.

“-a path that ends in being goddesses, even.”

“Being a poisoned goddess crammed into a box?” Lucy asked.

Kira-Lynn shrugged and smiled.  “Maybe we do better.  But it’s gotta be better than all the rest of that bullshit.  Teddy?”

Lucy turned.

Teddy wasn’t Teddy anymore.  He moved without sound, wearing a coat that wasn’t what he’d worn before, because it was much bigger, with a sweater stretched thin across broad chest, the bottom of the stretched sweater an inch above belt.  He was taller, more muscular, features altered to give him a chiseled jawline.

He’d gone around the building, through the alchemical smoke, and had come up behind Mrs. Flowers.

His hands were extended, a diagram circle extended between fingertips, so it intersected her throat.

He released it, and it snapped to the insulated material all around her neck, drawing a pattern there.

“You were basically gainsaid, I thought,” Lucy said.

“Cheated,” he said, smiling.  His voice was way deeper.  He held up a playing card.  “Magic item, and by not quite being Teddy anymore.”

“Same idea, different path,” Kira-Lynn said.  She opened and closed a fist and it looked like flesh was cracking and bleeding rather than really bending.  “Maybe it’s the three of us, we say fuck it.  Fuck everything, fuck our old selves.  Us, together, friends, you and Seth if you want it, no mom, no bullshit.  Maybe the paradigm shifts, but if you do this, you won’t feel dragged.”

“That sounds so nice,” Cameron said, barely audible.

Kira-Lynn smiled.

“It sounds like you won’t feel much of anything.  Or it won’t be you doing the feeling,” Lucy said.

“Sounds nice,” Cameron echoed her prior words, with a shift in volume and tone that made it sound like she was down a well.

“Hey, Flowers?” Lucy said, voice low.

The girl with the black branch looked at her.  “Del.”

“Del.  Hi.  Are you really-”

“None of that!” Kira-Lynn raised her voice.

“I listened to your whole sales pitch, I can’t-”

“No,” Kira-Lynn said.  She bent down, and she’d worked out enough of her hands to reach for a branch.

Lucy moved, keeping Cameron between them.  “You up for this, Flowers?  Editing your personality and emotions away?”

“Probably not, but I’m not planning on backing off or turning coat either.  I can’t- you don’t know what’s at home.”

Lucy resisted the urge to glance at Mrs. Flowers, who had the spellbinding circle around her neck.

Kira-Lynn being armed made this way more volatile.  Lucy’s hand moved, gesturing for Julette to back off.

Julette did.

Grandfather was recovering slowly.  Midas was there, armed, but he had a handgun, and as good a shot as he was… if he shot, two people would be shooting back with black wands.  Horseman was transfixed by the spirit-surgery diagram thing that had sections of him floating in the air, midway through a running leap, weapon in hand.

Lucy allowed herself a delayed glance at Mrs. Flowers, now that it was less likely she’d risk drawing a connection between Del Flowers and her mom.  Lucy could see the glyphs on the diagram as it shifted against the material at her neck.  A red sword, a flame, a dog’s head, a chain.

She scrambled, running, as Kira-Lynn lunged past Cameron, black branch in hand, firing.

Teddy stepped away from Mrs. Flowers, approaching her.

Lucy made a weapon, a hammer, and swung it.  He stepped easily out of the way, stepped in close, jabbing.  He wasn’t practiced, but he was quick.  He’d altered himself, maybe with spirit surgery, maybe with alchemy, toward some kind of personal ideal.

They had two quick exchanges.  Lucy found a puddle and kicked her foot through it, stopping time, buying herself a chance.  Maybe it was a skew from what the Titan was doing to the environment, but the effect was sharper, lasted less time.  It bought her one strike.  Not even.  Time to close the gap, ducking beneath his fist, hammer swinging for his calf.

Time resumed before it connected.  He moved, leg pulling away, pivoting off of the toes of one foot.  One hand grabbed her upper arm, pulling it up.

She changed her weapon into a pole, let it extend into her own stomach, pushing her out of the way, moving at an angle that let her slip her arm out of the way of the two arms that were closing around it.

She tumbled to the ground, and was on her feet a second later.

She took a step toward Mrs. Flowers, and Teddy stopped coming after her, moving closer to the prisoner he’d secured.

Lucy abandoned that.  She circled around the building, letting the walls of the cabin separate her from them, buying herself a chance to think.

Cameron, Seth, and Kira-Lynn walked around too, rounding the corner at the same time she did, the back of the cabin that was furthest from the road stretching between them.  There was barely any protection from the Storm here- just the eaves of the cabin roof, and trace amounts of smoke that pushed the energy out of the rain.

Kira-Lynn was focused on keeping Julette at bay, black branch pointed.  Her arm dripped black, thick blood.

Teddy blocked Lucy’s retreat back the way she’d come, features twisted to some masculine caricature.

Cameron seemed to hold herself higher, and she reminded Lucy of Griffin, with that thousand-yard stare, that artificial brightness.

Three kids, five if she counted the newer members, just fucking themselves up.

The people with doubts had been given a chance to go.  Miller had been given a chance.  Others from that contingent had been weakened and scattered.  Helen had been dragged off to some strange, far realm by Pauline, Lenard had been cast off to the Paths.

But at the core of it, there were these people.  Broken people.  Broken ex-forsworn.  People who’d been through shit.  Kids running away from home, or from the dreariest, most hopeless aspects of Kennet.

Verona joked about being the one who could’ve gone wrong.

Day one, Lucy had joked about cursing Avery.  She’d gone after Paul.  She’d found her center after, but with a different roll of the dice, she could’ve been one of them.

The Titan meandered closer.  The Storm intensified, the smoke did less to override it.

It started stinging Lucy’s arm, furthest from the protection of the eaves.

Bothered the others too, by the looks of it.

But Lucy was more bothered by the very nature of this fight.

There was no justice in a victory here.

Charles had started on his journey getting angry about prisons with Alexander, rehabilitative justice.  And he’d ended up here, making this.

Lucy had fought bad guys, and people here were bad, especially Teddy and Kira-Lynn, Seth, and Griffin.  She’d fought people who were wrong, like Musser, like the Family Man.

Something about this felt a lot like she’d be hurting hurt people if she did anything… and she wasn’t sure she could do anything.

A black branch fired.

“Teddy!?  Problem!?”  Kira-Lynn hollered.

Lucy looked.  Teddy wasn’t standing under the eaves, blocking her way back anymore.

“It’s fine!” he called back.

But he wasn’t far away.

“That was Del!  Keeping one of the Dog Tags down,” Seth said, his eyes glowing that blue color.  “Teddy’s binding it.”

“Okay.”

Lucy wasn’t sure it was okay, because the Titan had noticed.

The Storm intensified.  Rain was becoming electric, the effect when rain hit that blurry, watercolor ground becoming more pronounced, warping the watercolor, shifting ground underfoot, especially where it had already been blasted.

Lucy flinched, pulling back, as a crackle ran down the arm of her coat.

Kira-Lynn whipped the black branch out and fired it again.  It raked the length of the cabin, right for Lucy’s face-

A fleck of Abyssal energy jumped from the cabin, banked off the surface of Lucy’s mask.  Saved her face.  Lucy pulled back around the corner, only to see Teddy marching straight for her.

“Watch for the Fetch!” Kira-Lynn barked, pushing Cameron’s arm, to turn Cameron around.

Teddy’s bull-rush forced Lucy to retreat from the safety of the eaves.

Runes on her skin glowed, while a mark on Teddy’s chest appeared and glowed through his sweater at the same time- it looked like some scratchy Dragonslayer mark.

Lucy wasn’t wholly protected, while Teddy seemed to be managing better.

Ice water charged with light and energy made arcs of electricity leap all across her arms, legs, and body, as she fended him off.  He moved, she guessed, like she did when using the normal fogged watch, like the world was in slow motion to him.

The Titan was bright, luminescent rain running down his brassy skin.  He raised a hand-

Lightning struck, fingertip to ground.

The flash and thunder were enough that just about everyone except for Lucy and Teddy were bowled over.

Lucy saw an opening, though, not to really hit Teddy, but to swing for his face, force him to step back, step onto wet ice, and lose footing.

Buying her the chance to retreat about ten quick steps back.

He reacted, reaching into his coat, lobbing vials at her.

They cracked on contact with the ground, and detonated, slightly out of sync with one another.  Half-formed and wretched, broken bodies exploded out of a mess of bloody mud, from the explosion closest to her, claws and fangs reaching and snapping for her.

They died as fast as they’d sprung to life.

One of the others had maybe been something Fae.  She could see the dust the rain was washing away, the slender and beautiful arms and features- sloughing apart because bodies were only partially intact.

The third was something deeper, darker, bubbling up in bright orange sacs that stretched balloon thin, filled with fluid, forms within.  They popped and ghoul-like humans with soggy skin like they’d been in a bath for a thousand years, many without lower bodies, only spines trailing behind, crawled out toward her.

Teddy came at her in a sprint.  Kicked one right at her- she created a pole that she moved to help direct its flight off to the side, butt of the pole planted where her foot met ground, but the force of the incoming hit- she managed to keep it from shattering her glamour but she couldn’t do it gracefully.

Lightning crashed.  The Titan reached down and reached for the cabin.

Too close.  Too much.

Lucy jabbed at some of the crawling alchemical ghouls who got too close, driving them back, navigating her retreat.

A series of distant explosions made the Titan pause, crouched dangerously close to all of them, lightning jumping from fingertip to roof, leaving webworks of burn marks and frost where it touched.  Water ran off his back, shoulders, and head in torrents, and lightning and motes of light jumped from the places they splashed to ground.

Teddy closed the distance to Lucy, stepping on one of the ghouls in the process.

The exchange was brief, violent, and futile.  It felt like fighting Guilherme, with minor differences.  Less skill backing what he was doing, more willingness to hurt.

She reached into a pocket for goblin stuff- some candy, useless.  A firecracker.

She tugged the cord and threw it.

He swiped it out of the air, threw it behind him.

It exploded harmlessly behind him as he closed in again, grabbing for her.

“Fetch!” Cameron called out.

Teddy, mid-stride, paused, then took a step back.

Julette had slipped under the building, and was ready to use rasp or knife on Teddy’s passing leg.

She pulled back out of sight.

It still bought Lucy a chance.  An opportunity to put distance between herself and Teddy.

The Titan loomed dangerously close, his back to them, his attention on distant explosions.

“Are you going to dance all night, or are you going to wrap this up?” Kira-Lynn asked Teddy.

She wasn’t that far behind Lucy.  Seth and Cameron were with her.

“Honestly?” Teddy asked.  “Way it’s going?  My alchemy might run out or the Titan might blow this place up before I catch her.”

“I like this new you,” Kira-Lynn said.  She’d pulled her lantern out, and it glowed softly.  She pushed at Gerard’s arm with a hand that was mostly destroyed, “Watch for the Fetch beneath the building.  There’s less bullshit to this you, Teddy.”

“All the bullshit’s in how strong and fast I am,” he said, without much humor.  “Got any ideas on wrapping this up?”

“Couple,” Seth mumbled, hand at his lip.  “Your shpellbindin’ any gooh?”

“Already bound some of them earlier.”

Seth tried to whistle, gave up, and motioned.

Ah.  Teddy had stepped away for a few seconds, earlier.

A wounded Grandfather was bound, diagram set into the flesh on his neck.  He struggled to his feet, gun in hand.  He’d been disarmed by Midas, but-

Midas was down and out.  Horseman was transfixed, still, with Griffin watching him.

Could Lucy get Griffin?

Going through Seth, Kira-Lynn, Cameron with those bullshit bracelets, past Gerard and maybe even Del Flowers?

Probably not.  Might not even break the effect.

Cameron… surrendering, Lucy figured, had shifted dynamics.  She’d hoped to find them broken and divided.

Lucy looked past the group to Del.

Your mom’s here.  Your cousin Nectar backed out.

“Don’t look at her,” Kira-Lynn said.  “She’s got shit going on at home like you wouldn’t believe.”

Del looked away.

Teddy picked up a broken piece of wood, testing it, and decided to hold it by the flatter, stronger end, the broken part tapering to a point.  He approached Lucy.

Lightning jumped from ground to her wet pants leg.

“I got fed up with our guys getting scared and running,” Kira-Lynn said.  “Too much work to make them brave, so I made them scared of something else.  I dug up some real dark shit, torture and other messed up shit.  Surgically implanted it in them.  Tied it to their idea of home, family, and Kennet.”

Lucy’s eyes widened a bit.

“Isn’t that right, Del?”

“What?” Del asked.

“What I just said?  Repeat it for me?”

“I don’t…”  Del trailed off.

“With some added security,” Kira-Lynn said.

Lucy looked over at Grandfather.

Teddy was getting too close…

So she charged Kira-Lynn, roaring.

Kira-Lynn scrambled back, grinning like a maniac.

Cameron stepped forward, glancing either way, to check the coast was clear.

Lucy gave Cameron as wide a berth as was possible, remembering how Avery had been hit earlier.

Cameron gave up on the idea of using the bracelet.  Teddy, who’d pulled back to avoid being clipped, rushed forward.

But the mad scramble had bought a chance for Julette to come loose.

Running past Grandfather.

She rasped him, and in the process, messed up the diagram work on his skin.

Freed, he took aim, firing at Cameron.

The bubble exploded outward, as automatic protection.  Teddy, running by Cameron, was sent flying.

“We’ll need Black’s kind of assistance when we get a chance!” Lucy called out.

“Trickery!” Cameron called out, her eyes glowing.  “What she’s saying is deception somehow!”

Because ‘Black’ was already free.  Wasn’t bound properly.

If identifying Others correctly is the first step to handling dangerous encounters, realizing you’re not dealing with Others in the first place seems like a pretty key thing.

“Now?” Black asked.

“She shouldn’t be able to speak,” Kira-Lynn said.

Grandfather pointed.

“But-”

“Trust!” Grandfather barked.

Mrs. Flowers, fumbling with the thick gloves she wore, managed to pull a pin from a grenade.

She lobbed it at Horseman.

“And get back, watch for the Titan!” Lucy shouted, while the grenade was airborne.

Chaos.  Chaos and pain and hurting hurt people.

The grenade went off, and the effect was dashed to pieces.  Griffin staggered.

The Titan turned-

-and immediately turned back, because someone had already been ready with more explosions.

One nearby, or twenty distant ones?

He was more interested in the distant ones.

“Del!” Mrs. Flowers called out.

Del turned.

She’s been altered.  Shit’s been put in her head.

Gerard too.  The kid looked so scared.

“I love you.”

“Mom?” Del asked, looking bewildered.  Lucy could see the doubt creeping across her face.  Memories that weren’t hers.

“Del!” Lucy called out.  “Your mom came across a warzone for you.  Your aunt came for Nectar.  Your dad- I think it was your dad, he lost an arm, earlier.”

“Is he okay?” Del asked, wide eyed.

“I don’t know, but we might be able to heal him some.  But he was willing to do that,” Lucy said.

“First thing he said,” Mrs. Flowers added, “I went to his side, he told me, help you.  Help the other scared kids.  You, Cameron.”

“Fuck you,” Cameron replied.

“But- no, I don’t-”  Del shook her head.

“They acted out of love, they’re here for love for you, Del,” Lucy said.  “Trust that.”

“The stuff I’m remembering-”

Kira-Lynn, still holding a black branch, aimed at Del.

Lucy moved- ready to sprint over…

Horseman beat her to the punch, taking aim, gunshot ringing out.  Maybe he’d aimed to shoot the black branch out of Kira-Lynn’s hand.  Maybe he did, but when it broke, it took her hand with it, charcoal-like lumps with flesh sticking out of them crumbling away and falling to ground, her arm disintegrating, fingertip to elbow.

Kira-Lynn screamed in agony and horror.

Del dropped her black branch.

“They implanted lies in you, Del.”

Del didn’t seem to hear Lucy.

“Del, it’s not real.”

“Feels real.”

“Please come home,” Mrs. Flowers said.

Del looked at her mom with terror in her eyes.

Kira-Lynn continued to scream.  Lucy had a sense she knew where this was going.

“You have a phone?” Lucy asked.

Mrs. Flowers pulled a glove off.  She pulled a phone out of her belt.

“The number we gave-”

“Pre-dialed, waiting for a button.”

Lucy lunged, dashing for Del.

Del, eyes wide, didn’t realize what was happening until she saw her mother approaching.

She tried to run.  Lucy got in her way.

And Lucy managed to shove her into her mother’s arms.

Del shrieked, her cry joining Kira-Lynn’s.

“I want Cameron.”

Lucy looked.  The bracelets.

“Not sure that’s doable.”

“Gerard.”

“Be ready to get out right away if that scream becomes something else.”

It looked maybe like Kira-Lynn was hurting too much to even pull herself together for the Abyssal howl.

The Titan had been distracted, and a line of fire in the air made it clear how.  But Lucy, as she tried to figure out how to get past those who remained to get Gerard, someone who’d let himself get sliced up to avoid any chance of going home, saw what Seth was doing.

Kira-Lynn was wounded, Cameron hung back, bracelets ready, looking lost- she’d leaned on Seth earlier, maybe, then Kira-Lynn once Kira-Lynn offered a way out.  Now she was missing her support.  Teddy had been flung aside, and the wounds he’d sustained- abrasions to the face and maybe a smashed nose, were healing, but at the cost of the alchemy’s benefits fading early.

Griffin had retreated a bit.  It looked like he’d suffered some backlash from the practice being disrupted.  Seth was near him.

Del whistled- feebly at first, then sharper.  She managed to get fingers to her mouth, her mom bear-hugging her from behind.  She produced a sharper whistle.

“No!” Cameron and Seth shouted, at the same time.

They’d had the Others in the trees, waiting in the wings, holding them back.  Maybe they’d known there was a danger to bringing them out, through Augury.

Because there was.

Others, beckoned, came tearing out of the woods.  Griffin and Seth, who’d retreated back the furthest, were choice targets… because the sigil had been destroyed, and whatever tuning or practice kept them from going after Kims or St. Victor’s mentors and students was no longer in effect.  An eight-limbed ghoul pounced on Seth, three different Others went after Griffin.

Lucy, backing off, urging others to do the same, wasn’t in a position to see what followed.  She couldn’t even read Cameron’s expression, because Kira-Lynn found it in herself to let out that Abyssal howl.

Storm lingered, even though the Titan had been pulled away.  Storm and Abyssal howl- it frayed every sense, it tried to crush Lucy from every angle.

Her thoughts dissolved into doubt and misery- Mr. Bader crossed her mind and then he was here.  Logan was a St. Victor’s student.

She drew a weapon out with the weapon ring, and felt it pull out too much of her Self.

Flesh cracked and threatened to crumble.

Threats pressed in- those Others from the treeline, now here, many not even bothered by the scream.

Forcing her to use that weapon.  Every swing a danger.

She stabbed one through the belly.

It hugged her.  Wrapped arms around her.

Its body twice the size of hers, especially with the way she’d disintegrated already, chunks of flesh drooping toward ground, hanging on by strings of muscle and dissolving Self.

It walked, her in its clutches, arms around her, while she twisted the blade, trying to drag it sideways-

Grandfather.

It was Grandfather.

She withdrew the weapon.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Already healing.”

The scream died.  Distance from the source of the scream helped.

Mrs. Flowers had bailed.  She’d taken her daughter.

Blood streaked snow where Other had attacked Other near the trees, but they hadn’t come closer.  Now they fled before the scream could happen again.

Maybe there’d be added danger, in this neck of the woods.  Maybe there’d be more danger to Aware.  Lucy wasn’t sure.

The light in the sky had been Liberty, and Liberty had dropped Avery off sometime in the last few minutes.  Lucy could see Liberty doing a big circle around this whole… situation.

No sign of Seth or Griffin.

Gerard sat, head in arms, flinching anytime anyone moved closer to him.

Cameron was crumpled.  Losing Seth, the scream affecting her mind… yeah.

Teddy collapsed, trying to get into a comfortable sitting position, but looking shaky, one hand at the side of his head.

Julette stood between those two, weapons drawn, and neither seemed to care much.

“Do we take the Titan to the Crucible?” Avery asked.

Broken people breaking down, dangerous systems and practices they’d built backfiring- the black branch.  The Titan, to some degree, the Others in the woods.

She hated that she’d stabbed Grandfather.  Her skin crawled as she remembered what it felt like to disintegrate.  Bad feelings boiled up from five different directions.  It didn’t feel like a victory.  It felt like Grandfather’s definition of war.

Letting Miller go, all of this, now feeding the Titan to the Crucible?

“Let’s get a team together, see if we can drag it off to the middle of nowhere,” Lucy said.

Avery turned her head.  “The lake?  Actually…”

Lucy raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s see if we can get some help from the Lord of my city.  Okay.”

Then Avery ran off.

Lucy took a moment, pulling herself together.  Grandfather stood by her, hand at her shoulder.  Violent images hung heavy in her mind.

“The Kims?” Lucy asked.  “Think they’ll be a problem on their own?”

“No perimeter for us to hold?” Grandfather asked.  “You’d know better than me, but…”

“No perimeter.”

“Yeah.”

Thunder rumbled, thick in the sky.

Horseman, equipped with a phone, went after Gerard, outran the kid, endured the fierce, tooth-and-nail fight, and dialed out.  Zed’s practice picked him and the boy up.

Leaving the three students.  Kira-Lynn, lying on her side.  Her left hand was gone, her right arm destroyed to the elbow.  Neither wound bled much.  Her eyes were open, blinking, staring.

Teddy, hunched over, saying something snide to Midas.  Midas saying something snide back.

Cameron, defeated in every way.

The Allaire Forsworn had stepped outside.

Aches ran through Lucy as she paced forward.  Teddy was closest.

He snorted as he looked at her.

“Swear you’re out.  Don’t have to side with us, but you swear, I’m thinking you can go with the Allaire Forsworn.”

“I swear I won’t do anything for forty-eight hours.”

“That’s not exactly what I was looking for.”

“It’s what I’m offering.”

Lucy paused, thinking about it, then nodded.

Cameron didn’t even look up.

“Swear you won’t do anything?”

“What would I do?” Cameron asked.

I’m not sure I care.

No, that wasn’t true.  Lucy was glad she hadn’t said it out loud.

Avery black-roped back over, boots scraping across scorched ground behind Lucy until she came up to her side.

“Passed on instructions.  We’ll hear how that goes, or we’ll see it, maybe,” Avery murmured.  “Got people on it.  Scobies.  Deb’s awake.”

“Get him out onto the lake, try to use the Lord of Thunder Bay?”

“And other Lords with territory bordering the lake,” Avery said.  “Yeah.”

Lucy nodded.

“I’m sorry you lost someone you cared about,” Avery said.

Lucy was glad she hadn’t said that, because that would’ve been a gainsaying, for sure.  It was hard to be sorry over Seth.

“Am I supposed to tear myself apart until I find the part that cares?” Cameron asked.  “Keeps happening.”

Lucy nodded to herself.

“What did you want me to say?” Cameron asked.

“Swear you won’t come after us,” Lucy said.

“So sworn.  Now can you leave me alone?”

Lucy fished in a pocket, found her stack of curse cards, and then dug out one.

“Here.”

“What?”

“It’s a sleeping curse.  You’ll have to power it yourself.  I don’t have practice right now.  Use it on yourself.  When you wake up, I think things will be better.”

“Am I sleeping beauty now?” Cameron asked.  “It’s that easy?”

“Don’t know if it’s easy.  Don’t think it’ll be a prince charming.  But I think it should be better.”

Cameron took the paper, bit the end of her thumb sharply enough to draw blood, and touched it to the card.

Lines glowed.

She touched it to her own chest, and promptly fell asleep, falling onto her side.

“What do we even do?” Julette asked, walking over, prodding Cameron with a toe until Lucy made her stop.

She was talking about Kira-Lynn.

“Restraints,” Avery said.

“Handcuffs won’t work,” Julette noted.

“I’ve got zip ties,” Grandfather said.  “Here.”

He bent down.  Kira-Lynn barely resisted as he nudged her.

“We’ll want a gag, in case she gets screamy again,” Julette noted.

Avery dug in her bag for a towel and some tape that would work.

Not that it mattered.

The three of them stood back, taking things in.  Snow was falling, trying to coat the blasted landscape in snow once again.  The Titan’s glow and the movements were visible off in the distance, cloaked by the Storm that surrounded it.

“How are you for glamour?” she asked Avery.

“Got some goblin gunk checkmarks, now.”

Lucy nodded.

She looked over at the Allaire forsworn and Teddy, who watched as Grandfather lifted a bound and gagged Kira-Lynn over one shoulder, then Cameron over another.

In an ideal world, they could be dealt with.  Dangerous ideas and ideology.  Teddy was a scary dude.

But they had other focuses.

Kims had given up the fight when the forces at the perimeter had turned against them.  Offering surrender.

The pit was gone.  The way to the room was there, as it had been before.  The Aware and immediate locals had gone back to town to recuperate and talk.  Fire engines had retreated, the fires they knew about all put out.  Only a few damaged cars remained.  A few stray dangerous Others lurked.  The Titan was off to the northeast.  No alchemy from Charles’ faction to steer it, it was more easily baited.

But there was another obstruction, now.

Lucy didn’t recognize the faces.  She didn’t know the names, couldn’t even guess.  But she could tell who they were by their style of dress.  They were Mussers.  They were Alexanders.  Florins… of a higher standard.  Three men, one woman.

Everyone from her side was on guard.  Even Anthem.

Grandfather put Kira-Lynn and Cameron down, laying them on the hood of a car which had had its tires torn up.

“Representatives?” Lucy asked.

“Pledges were made to the Carmine Exile, that he would enjoy security and power,” one man said.  He was about thirty, very blond, very pale, in a way that looked washed out in this winter climate.

Lucy nodded, taking that in.

“Are we in trouble?” Avery asked.

“You’ve drawn the attention of members of the international community.  What do you think?”

“You know what he’s building, right?” Julette asked.

Dumb question, Lucy thought.

“We know.”

“And you’re not concerned?”

“No.  We can handle what arises, if it comes to fruition.  Our concern lies with pledges made.”

“Can we consult?” Lucy asked, indicating some of the practitioners at the fringes.

“Our time is not to be wasted.  Be fast about it.”

Lucy nodded.

She motioned to Avery and Julette.  The group of them walked off to the side.  Some members of that group, Anthem, Sebastian, Matthew, Zed, and Toadswallow included, approached.

“They’re minor members of their individual families,” Anthem said.  “Most are stronger than Musser.”

“Any rules, any precedent to watch out for?  Manners, behavior?” Avery asked.

“No,” Sebastian said.  “I think people in your shoes tend to not broadcast their working strategies and approaches to handling this sort of thing.”

“That’s good and bad, I guess,” Lucy said.  She felt very weary.  “Okay.  They said not to keep them waiting.  Let’s hear them out.”

They, joined by the group they’d just talked to, approached the collection of representatives.

“Being respectful of your time, I’ll be brief.  What if we offered the same sort of deal?”

“As?” one man asked.  German accent.

“Charles?  The Carmine.  Your concern was splash-back, right?  Problems from this region leaking out.  He said he wouldn’t.”

“He did.”

“He’s a self-destructive asshole who was willing to provoke everyone and die to make a point,” Julette said.  “Except nobody came to kill him, so he stepped it up.  Seems like he plans to violate the deal you made with him, brew up a problem here that then goes beyond the borders.”

“That may well be, but we’ll have generations to plan accordingly.  What he wants to do won’t be fast, or necessarily successful.  The damage would be contained, still.”

“And if we offer to keep things in bounds for, say, ten years?  We deal with him in a way that doesn’t cause much mess for you?” Lucy asked.  “Any changes we make to status quo stay mostly contained?

“Maybe a few Aware go out on vacation… but we’d tell them what’s up,” Avery said.

They didn’t even exchange glances or talk among one another before one responded, “He’s pledging more than ten years.”

“While planning to violate it,” Julette murmured.

“As we’ve accounted for.  But he was also in a position of power.”

“I’m guessing you’re not going to hand us heaps of power like you did him,” Lucy said.

“That would be redundant and counter-productive.”

“So… smaller scale deal.  We’re not as scary, we’re not pushing as hard, but we’re still playing ball.  Either he succeeds and you’ve got the stability you want… or instability you can plan for.  Or we win, and you’ve got stability, still,” Lucy said.

“If we finish this conversation on that note, us accepting that kind of term, then you do not want any visits from us in your lifetime,” the blond man said.

“Noted.”

“One judge of old murdered.  One judge to be confronted here.  Any other similar plans?” the woman asked.

The Aurum.  Lucy glanced at Avery, who mouthed words that might have been ‘no idea’.

“Maybe.  Depends.”

“It always does.”

“We might have the Beorgmann on our checklist for later-”

“We’ve been informed of that conversation.  No need to reiterate,” the blond man said.

“Keep it contained,” the man with the German accent said.  Then he told Avery, “Milton is expecting a visit.”

“From Wonderkand?  I know.  Been busy,” Avery said.

“So long as you know.”

That seemed to be the parting words.  The quartet started walking, heading south, down the road out of town.

Kims who’d surrendered got up and started walking with them, one or two older members talking to one of the representatives.

There was no justice in that, either.  The Belangers would hate it.

Zed was here, but Nicolette… Lucy didn’t know.

The Titan had pulled the Storm far enough away that the precipition had stopped.  Lucy pushed her hood back, and moved her mask.  The dark clouds of the sky had just a bit of light peeking through.  Given that it was the afternoon now, though, that wouldn’t last.

The others were talking, now, Zed with Anthem, trying to work out what to do if the Titan resurfaced as a problem.  Seals and things.  Sebastian had a question for others about the representatives, which sounded like he wanted to double check he hadn’t missed anything, with the deal that had been struck.

And so on.  Others were patching themselves up, regrouping.  Most were getting ready to leave.  The rest would leave a bit later.

Lucy’s eyes fell on that room with dark, red-stained wood boxing it in, with the staircase leading up to the door.

She checked her phone.

Less than an hour and a half before the meeting ended.

Before Charles stepped out to face them.

She found a place where the ground wasn’t wet or snowy, where her back could rest against a wall.  She sank down into a sitting position.  Avery followed suit, and rested her head on Lucy’s shoulder.

Both of them exhausted, soul-weary from constant compromise.

Sleep was impossible.  The tension didn’t leave them.  They had to be ready.

That door would swing open and things would be decided in a matter of seconds.

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