Author: Wildbow

Loose Ends – E.6 | Pale

Verona, 3 Years Later

“We can hit one more venue before circling back to Kennet for a light exterior refit for a couple months,” Verona said.  For the benefit of Hudson, she said, “Mobilizing into an area gets easier if we do certain things.  Asking for permission’s the big one.  Page-on flies out and gets permission weeks in advance.  If there’s negotiation and it takes more than a week of back-and-forths, I call it off.  Then there’s the exterior refit.”

“You mentioned it,” Hudson said.  He was a teenager, a year younger than Verona at sixteen, Japanese, with an exaggerated downturn to the outside edges of his heavily hooded eyes and his jaw set to a perpetual sideways skew with thick lips parted.  It left the impression he’d rested one side of his jaw on his hand for so long it had pushed things out of alignment.  He kept his black hair buzzed short, and wore the bookstore’s apron, neat and tidy over a worn hooded sweatshirt and old jeans.  After a pause, he said, “I don’t know what it means.”

“It’s easier to slot seamlessly into a place if we match the architecture.  So when we hit Kennet, we’ll change the outer walls from wood panels to brick.  So long as I’m there and watching, it should go fast.  That’ll do for nine or ten towns and cities, with some more minor adjustments.”

“Expensive?”

“Only a little.  So long as I keep the material in my Demesne, it’ll keep for a long time.  Technically it’s right outside right now.  It’s just paying for the labor, and that’s pretty painless if it’s done in Kennet.”

Hudson nodded.  He reached out to stroke Julette.

Julette was lounging on the counter, eyes flicking from Verona to the computer screen on the counter, which she read at an awkward angle, her head tilted ninety degrees to the side as she lay there.  McCauleigh was on the far end of the shop floor, lounging on a reading couch, having a doze in the dappled light coming through the window.  Squire-l was upstairs in the kitchen-lab, with Peckersnot, Dish, and the homunculi.

It was a good mood.  It was pouring outside, but it wasn’t so overcast that it was dark, and the light streaming in through the windows was enough that Verona could use the Demesne to turn the ambient light level up ten percent or so, and that did it, without the lights needing to be on.

The shop was closed, so there were no customers.  Bookshelves in Black Forest wood had their assortment of books, with the nicer books behind glass cases at the wall furthest from the door, and the most questionable and esoteric books in a side room that people wouldn’t notice without Verona’s prompting… which bought her time to shuffle and adjust the contents to put the one they would be interested in front and center, when she did prompt.  The vibe was meant to be cozy, with two large windows with curly bits of iron framing the glass, each with padded benches to sit in and side tables next to them, for extra books or tea to rest on.  There were two couches -McCauleigh was dozing on the one- and then a cluster of armchairs and benches in a corner enclosed by bookshelves for four or five people to sit, six at a squeeze, and chat quietly.

A little customer-access bathroom separated the side room with the more complicated books from the little room at the back, which tended to be used by the senior employee, currently Georgia, kind of, who also used the customer bathroom.  Verona had the space tweaked so there was a shower in there when a customer wasn’t in it.

The second floor was the kitchen, lab, living room, and worktable and-or war room table, depending.  Then the top floor was her bedroom-slash-private work area, McCauleigh’s space, one spare bedroom, currently occupied by Hudson, and the proper bathroom.

The light shining onto the grey ash floorboards had the patterns of rain in it.  Verona watched for a little bit as the shadows of rain traced paths across the floor.

“You have one more stop before you should decide what you want to do, Hudson,” Verona said, breaking her own silence, folding her arms onto the counter and leaning on them.  “If you want, there’s a spot in Kennet for you.  If you stay, you’re semi-committed to another circuit before we hit Kennet again, unless you really need out.  If you need to use the proverbial ripcord, you can, you can be out of here in minutes, but it sucks to ask for permission to be somewhere, leave, re-ask, I’d be leaving a spot early, and if we’re going from A to B to C, jumping from B to K-for-Kennet makes the jump back to C to get back on schedule a big jump too, it costs.  It just kind of sucks, you know?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“But the option’s there.”

“You keep saying it, it makes me think you want me to do it.”

“No.  I want to make it clear it’s an emergency thing, but it is an option.  You have that power.”

“Right,” he said.

“If you do decide to stay, we’ll be changing things up a bit,” she said.  She sipped some of the last of her tea, and picked off one of the last chunks of the top of a lemon cranberry muffin.  She gestured with it.  “You can’t stay here all the time, not for a whole ‘nother circuit.  It gets too cozy, it gets harder to leave.  So I’d be wanting you to find something else.  Get out to a movie a few times each week, or go to clubs, leave this bookstore and go to a damn library, if you’re demented like that.  Doesn’t matter.  So long as it’s a break from here.”

Hudson nodded, smiling a bit at the ‘demented like that’ comment.

“So it’s stay-but-with-regular-breaks, leave, or a long bus or train ride.  Or ripcord, again,” Verona recapped.

“What’s Georgia doing?” he asked, his tone a bit sullen, subdued.  But he sounded sullen a lot.

“Buddy, I think she’s going,” Verona said.  “She got what she needed to out of this.  She’s barely been around, anyway, and she’s supposed to be my senior employee, she took a lot of her stuff when she went out last time.”

Hudson, jaw set sideways, turned his head, looking away.

“You’ve got one more stop and the two month stay in Kennet to figure it all out.  I think she’ll ask for her stuff to be sent out or left in Kennet for her to pick up.  A bunch do that.  It’s probably not a good idea to stick around another circuit just for a shot at seeing her and saying goodbye.  Or making a move.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, gloomy, his focus very intently on Julette, now, who he put a lot of attention into stroking.  “I asked what she was doing, that’s all.”

“People don’t say goodbye, a lot of the time.  I don’t mind, or I’ve stopped minding after the first couple.  I bet you won’t say goodbye.  Jerkass.”

He looked up at her, briefly meeting her eyes, startled.  Then he smirked a bit.

“Not that I mind a bit of jerkass.  Do put some brainpower toward deciding, though.  I will mind if you don’t figure out a plan, make a last minute decision, change your mind later, and then get mad at me or the situation.”

“Okay.”

“Because I can imagine you doing that.  Jerkass.”

He smiled again.

“Sorry about Georgia.”

“I asked a question, that’s all I did,” he said.  “Don’t be like some fucking grade schooler, someone pays attention to someone for five seconds, it must be fucking love or something.”

“Yeah.  Gotcha.”

“Fucking stupid,” he muttered.

She nodded, not sure what to say.  Maybe a change of subject?

“McCauleigh!?” Verona called out.  She nudged the floorboards, so they bumped upward, jostling the couch.  McCauleigh, too long for the little couch, lay there in a white tank top and jeans, bare feet propped up on the armrest, body and head on a level, one arm draped over her eyes.

She flipped Verona the bird with the other hand, leaving eyes covered.

Verona called over, “How much are you listening in?  Do I have to go over the schedule and route with you later?  Before movies tonight?”

“Listening,” McCauleigh replied, arm draped over her eyes.

“Any objections, thoughts, concerns, ideas?”

“None.”

“Hopes and dreams, secret fears, ingredients to pick up, shopping you need to do, old vendettas to wrap up at any places nearby?”

McCauleigh flipped her the bird again.

“Are you staying for another circuit after the stay in Kennet?” Verona asked.

McCauleigh dropped her arm from her eyes to shoot Verona her best ‘get real’ look.  “You know I am.  Platonic life mates.  Until you kick me out.”

“Why would I do that?” Verona asked.  “All my childhood, I wanted cats, and now I’ve got Julette and I’ve got you, and you’re basically a cat.”

“I don’t catch mice.”

“You catch shoplifters.  When I’m not paying attention.”

“I guard the place too.  I’m more of an attack dog.  Buy time against anyone or anything big enough to take you on.”

“I like cats more than dogs though.”

“Mmm,” McCauleigh replied, sounding sleepy.

Verona gave the floorboards another bump, making the couch jump slightly.

“Do you want me to give you a wedgie?” McCauleigh asked.  “Because I will.  I’ll ruin your ‘I’m a calm, collected, mysterious shopkeeper vibe’.”

Verona smiled.  To Hudson, she said, “I don’t need to remind her to get out.  She’s an outdoor cat, basically.”

“Next stop, when I go out, I’m taking you with me,” McCauleigh said, from across the empty shop.  “Let’s go out together.  Look for boys, maybe.  I want to do something so I can tell people I did more than sleep, read, and hang around the shop.”

“It’s the life,” Verona said.

“Sure, but it leaves me feeling like a grub when I’m talking to other people and they’ve done stuff.  I want to do enough I can tell more than five stories on repeat.”

“Like… any ideas in particular, or, say, we offer the local council to go out and problem solve an issue, earn some political currency?”

“Sure.  Works for me.  And boys, besides that.”

“Okay,” Verona said.  She looked down at the paperwork, then at her computer screen, checking stuff.  She made a few notes.  “Knowing what you guys are doing, strong guess about what Georgia’s doing, that’s enough information to start thinking about a route for later.  I’ve got a light university courseload online starting the cycle after that, so… for sanity’s sake, I’m thinking maybe that cycle is a greatest hits, chillest places.  Or shorter, with a stop back in at home base for exam time.  Um, do need to stock up on texts to resupply the store.  Gotta talk to the elf, see who has what in Kennet found.  Um.  I got an invite to talk big fuck-off Astrology and Technomancy stuff with the Driscolls, but that’s me possibly getting help getting over there with Avery during the timeframe we’re in Kennet, Dom coming with…”

“You say that like it’s nothing,” Hudson said.  “You’re teleporting.”

“We are in a wandering, sorta teleporting shop.”

“But then you teleport too.”

“Yeah, well, kinda, my friend’s better at it and it’s not really teleporting.  More like taking a shortcut through very weird places.  Back on track, there’s that librarian animus Nina mentioned, wouldn’t mind finding and talking to them, just to talk, if they happened to want to take a look at things, that’d be cool… should hit the bank, food, supplies and clothing that we can get in Kennet that we can’t get elsewhere.  Goblin supplies, warrens plants, fae plants, uh, reminds me of gardening stuff.  I stuck some tools in the dirt, I wanted to do diagnostics on that, see if they picked up any energies.  I actually meant to grab those on my last stop in Kennet, plain forgot.  It’s been bugging me.”

“Do I need to remember all this?” Hudson asked.

“No.  Gods and spirits, no.  I’m thinking out loud.  If there is something you want in Kennet you can’t get somewhere else, that’s worth paying attention to, though.”

“I wasn’t there long enough to find anything like that.”

“Plan is to be there two months, me on primary with the magic school and council stuff.  You can look in if you want.  Then we’d go, one stop, see Lucy at Uni, extended stay in Montreal there, almost three weeks, Avery would be on primary, watching Kennet and handling school and council but she can pop in and out to hang.  Some scattered towns in Quebec, Halifax, more scattered towns, see Tashlit, her mom and dad at the coast, then summer, Lucy me and Avery together July and August, Lucy technically on primary, then figure things out from there.”

“Do you know where Georgia’s going?” Hudson asked.

“I don’t think Georgia knows where Georgia is going.  But I figure she’ll be okay.”

He nodded.

“I won’t tie you up any more with standing around while I figure stuff out.  Thanks for the input, do think about the stuff I said to think about.  You’re free and clear.  I’ll open up and watch the shop, get us moving to the next location soon.  Go grab a snack, watch a show, chill.”

“You need me later?” he asked.  “How clear am I?”

“Maybe watch the counter tonight with Julette?  I’ll probably be going out later, checking in with locals before we go.  Or they might come here, and my focus will be on them, not the counter.”

“Okay.  Overtime?”

“It’s regular time.  It’s an evening shift.”

“With late notice.”

“That’s the job,” she retorted, leaning over the counter again.  “Time and a half, but only because I’m asking for best behavior if local council come over as guests, for a browse.  Maybe wear a nicer shirt, sweep and shit.”

“Okay.”

“What am I forgetting?” Verona asked.  “McCauleigh?”

“Mrrgh.”

No input there.

“Julette?”

“Quarterly taxes,” Julette told Verona, while still in cat form.

Verona scrunched her face up, then unscrunched.  It was okay.

She made a note.

“If we’re doing a ‘greatest hits’ run while I’m taking University classes, might be good to figure out how to do faster retrofits,” Verona mused, quietly.

She could hear Hudson laughing upstairs.  Through her space, she could tell he was interacting with Peckersnot.

He never laughed around her, or around other humans.  Traumas.  She hadn’t pried, she didn’t know the full details about why or what had happened, but she’d pieced some of it together.  When he’d been new here and she’d been talking to McCauleigh about a show she was excited about, he’d shit on it in a way that hadn’t sounded like him, implying the creator of the show was a sexual predator and just tearing it down.  He’d done it because that’s what he’d experienced and grown up with.  She’d worked out from side comments and stuff that anything he liked or enjoyed got ripped away, first crushes and toys targeted and taken by siblings, anything he could smile or laugh at denigrated until he felt like shit for liking it, by siblings and parents.  Something to do with him being the one bastard child out of his siblings, or who his dad was, with sketch circumstances around that, or both, or something similar but unrelated.

Now Georgia was leaving- was pretty much already gone.  Verona was honestly kind of surprised he hadn’t acted out yet.  Maybe he didn’t feel like it was happening yet.

She figured she needed to give Hudson some special attention and emotional backup, but she wasn’t sure what that even looked like, when the guy was as guarded as he was.  He didn’t even talk to her about the TV he watched or music he listened to.

It had been months.  Tough nut.

She snapped her fingers.

The lighting changed in a subtle way, and music began to play throughout the house.  Julette stirred and nodded.

The signal to all house residents.  No practice, nothing problematic.

That done, Verona opened the shop, flipping the sign, turned on a handful of lights, got a refresh on her tea, more biscuits, and then sat, poking into her quarterly taxes, making sure she had what she needed.  Two customers came in, browsed, one bought a collection of used books, but it wasn’t a special case.

Then, a bit closer to lunch, a stream of customers found her store and came in.  It was busy for a bit, then slowed at the peak of the lunch hour, and got busy toward the end, people peeking in to see what was up between stopping somewhere for lunch and getting back to school or work.

Most of the books sold were from the section that was just used books.  She’d been here a couple days, and someone who’d come in before to ask about trade-ins came in with a cardboard box of dusty old books.  She managed the customers and sorted through those books quickly while the person who’d brought them in browsed.

“Three for one is fine… but I’m not taking these,” she said.  She stacked a collection of books, Pygon I through Pygon IV, and the Son of Pygon books.  “I’ve got two copies of each of them, at least, and a bunch of the unwritten Pygon books.”

“Unwritten?”

She pointed to the shelf with the ones from Kennet found.

He went, found some, and brought them over.

“Can’t three for one those, though,” she told him.

He did end up paying, and he decided to leave the Pygon series with her for nothing – no trade-in, no cash.  He just wanted them gone.  She took them to the corner with the armchairs and stowed them there.

After sorting out the new books and shelving what people had pulled down, she spent a while puttering around.  She contemplated opening the shop and sitting behind the counter drawing, but, in the quiet, heavy rain pattering on windows, she felt like she could doze too.

Except she didn’t want to bother anyone.

Close up over lunch?  She debated it.  The rain was coming down hard enough now that it was scaring people off.

She flipped the sign around, then walked over to where McCauleigh still napped.  Halfway through that walk, with a flick of her fingers and a bit of winter glamour, Verona became a cat.  She hopped up onto the couch with McCauleigh and snuggled in for the warmth there.

She’d just closed her eyes to start dozing off when Julette joined in, startling her with a sudden, nearby impact.

“So spoiled,” McCauleigh murmured, and Verona wasn’t sure if it was her being spoiled with the cats nearby, or the other way around.

A stirring caught Verona’s attention before she’d even begun to settle back in.  A tickle of a whisper, from air that had traveled from further away, carrying spirits.

She extricated herself, then became human, standing by the couch.

McCauleigh lunged, one arm wrapping around Verona’s waist, while the other grabbed down the back of her jeans for her underwear, to start to give her the wedgie mentioned earlier, or just to pretend to.  Verona sat down hard on McCauleigh’s stomach, which helped break the hold, and then managed to get away, dodging the worst of it.  Half-wedgie.

She glared at McCauleigh, who stared back at her.

“Jostled me,” McCauleigh said.  “Gotta commit, snuggle or don’t snuggle.  I warned you.”

“Uh huh,” Verona replied.  She tugged at the back of her jeans to try and fix that half-wedgie.  “I guess that’s fair.”

McCauleigh made a satisfied sound, and turned her back to Verona, knees almost to chest, Julette between her and the back of the couch.  Leaving her own lower back vulnerable.

Verona decided against it.  Even if it wasn’t bait, it was still a bad idea, and with the power dynamics of her being the boss and the owner and controller of the demesne, she kinda veered toward giving people more wins than not.

Other things had her attention, anyway.

She used her Sight to witness the ongoing ritual of her peddler shop, based in her Demesne.  The diagram highlighted many spots within the shop, including the register, side room, shelves, front door, guest room, stairs.  Within each of those highlighted spots were sub-diagrams with their own emphasis. They were represented with meaty things wreathed in shrouds, the lines of the diagram marked out in gold wire, framing features for meaty things at key areas.

For each of those sub-diagrams, she’d allocated a strategic mixture of cards she’d gotten from codifying key peddling and sales, tokens, and spell cards with connection blocks.

There was a stirring of spirits to the guest room, making the diagram work there flare, the gold wire glowing hot.

She walked over, touching a hand there, had the closed sign flip around to open, to help open connections and flows, and murmured, “Bring them.”

The meaty thing nodded.

Her hand twinged as she lowered it, and she rubbed at her palm.

She turned the shop music back on well in advance, topped up her tea, and massaged alchemical oil into her hand.

She kept rubbing at her palm well after the oil had been rubbed in.

She’d meant ‘them’ as a gender neutral term, but as it happened, it was them, plural.  A boy and a girl, out in the rain.

She watched them walk by the window, glanced at the spiritual flows, to verify it wasn’t the time, just yet, and let them go.  She did a light augury –wounds and apples- flipped through her card collection from past peddling, and set out an arrangement of wounds cards and apples cards, with gaps highlighted that fit the pair.

She set that into the diagram above the guest room.  The meaty thing there lost facial features as she pulled the previous cards away, until it was a stump with a gawping, jawless, toothless mouth, then gained features as she set the cards into the wire around it.  It became something like a chubby grandmother’s face, a counterpoint to the cards.

There were arrangements that guarded, some that encouraged certain behavior, some that pushed away, some that pulled.

This was an arrangement that pulled in those who could fill the gaps in it.  Because she was constantly filling gaps, every person would be someone new.  A different slate of problems, forcing her to stay on the ball.

It wasn’t a strong pull.  They came back of their own accord, without even needing that- they were lost, or wandering, but because of the lack of pull, they didn’t come in, instead lurking around the area.

Verona walked outside, just far enough out she wasn’t pummeled by the pouring rain.  “Heyy!”

They turned their heads.  Thirteen or fourteen.  Drenched, even with the cheap ponchos they wore.  Siblings.

She waved them over.

They came.

“Need directions?” she asked.  “You were wandering.”

“We’re trying to find the train station,” the brother said.  “We have one phone but it’s dead.”

“It’s close, I’ve heard the trains, but I don’t know where it is for sure, off the top of my head,” she said.  “You want to come in?  Warm up, plug that phone in?  I can look that up for you, print it out.”

The guy, slightly older, in charge, hesitated.

“Your sister’s shivering.  She’ll get sick,” Verona told him.

“Yeah,” the guy said.

Verona moved out of the doorway, giving them the space to come through.  The plastic of the ponchos rustled, boots shuffled.  They wiped their feet on the welcome mat, taking in the space.

Verona made it warmer.

“Quiet day,” Verona told them.  “McCauleigh and Julette are napping on the couch, don’t startle when you see them.  There’s armchairs over in that corner, if you want to have a sit.  There are two outlets there too, so you can get all plugged in.”

“We’re dripping water,” the kid said.

“That’s what happens when you come in from the rain,” she replied.  “It’s fine.  I’ll get you towels, give me a bit.”

She went upstairs, got towels she’d quickly warmed up, put in an order for snacks and beverages, and went back down to them.  She could follow the trail of water and slightly muddy footprints to the corner they’d hunkered down in.  It had three escape routes with the nearby bookshelves, two along the walls, and one where bookshelves didn’t meet, and given the augury, she figured it was important.

They’d shucked off the ponchos.  They looked very similar, despite the different genders and not being twins.  She was put in mind of Raymond Sunshine- tall heads, narrow frames, hair straight and even with the hoods they’d had up, plastered to their heads with rain.  A bit greasy.

“Excuse me,” she said.  She did have to work her way past them.  She moved a chair, stacking it on another one, and cleared the corner.  A tiny wood stove, barely bigger than a microwave, was sitting there.

She started it up, used one of the Pygon books as firestarter, and got a little fire blazing.

“Metal’s hot, don’t stick your leg into it, but that should warm you up.  Snacks?  Drinks?  While you’re warming up and drying off?”

“We don’t have a lot of money,” the brother said.

“I’ll take that as a yes to snacks and drinks.  Don’t worry about money.  It’ll be a minute.”

She’d already asked Dish, Squire-l and Peckersnot to put something together -Hudson had gone up to his room- but went upstairs a bit to not be weird.  Then she went through bookshelves.  Between the light augury, the arrangement of the peddler ritual, and the demesne, she could use vibes to feel her way to some good books.

For the sister, the book that fit was ‘Bion: A Robot In Pieces’, a young adult book from Kennet found about someone finding pieces of a robot in a junkyard and putting it together, figuring out the best fits and best look, then eventually uploading their consciousness to it.  Not just finding oneself, but building a new self, and dealing with naysayers, eventually becoming strong enough to fight the people who’d turned the world into a giant junkyard in the first place.

The brother’s was ‘Estward’, where the dialogue was in a nonsense language that couldn’t be understood by the reader.  It featured a boy marching and fighting ever eastward in a perpetual, bitter, and seemingly endless progression and shift of the frontlines, in a war that had been fought by his parents and his parents parents, for reasons unknown.  Verona had read it a bit ago, and figured if she could identify the themes of cycles of abuse, and if this book was this kid’s book, then there might be common ground.

She gathered up some others, so it wouldn’t be too on the nose, and then went to get the tray of snacks and drinks.

She carried it over.

“Hot cider, toasted roast beef sandwiches with mustard, pickles, chips,” she said.

The girl looked to her brother for confirmation this was okay.  He looked wary.

“And if you want to pay me back, since you don’t have money, read and tell me what you think of any of these books.  I can’t read everything, and an informal, basic book report can help if a customer asks.  There’s some napkins, but you can wipe fingers on the towels too… just don’t get the books gross, please.”

The brother nodded.

Verona felt another tickle.

Another incoming.  She hadn’t taken down the arrangement.  Someone else who fit the same pattern in a card of wounds or apples she didn’t have?  Pain or discord?

She went out to the door.  The rain came down in heavy sheets.

A man approached.  The light caught his eyes in a funny way, and the blur of the rain around him cut into his silhouette in an interesting way.

“Echo?” she asked, quiet.

“I don’t know.”  The answer was echo quiet.

“You can string words together, without repeating memories?”

“Yes.”

“Say camel humping toads?”

“Camel… h-humping toads.  It’s hard.”

“Yeah.  It will be.  You dead, or did something bad happen?” she asked, leaning into the doorway.

“Yeah,” he replied, still quiet.  “And yeah.”

“Oblivion dogging your heels?”

“Is that what it is?”

“Eyeless thing?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what it is.  I’ve got Innocents inside who might notice if you came in and hung around.  I’m betting you can sense them.  Sometimes it feels like you shouldn’t go somewhere, or there’s a pressure, a wall.”

“Yes.”

“Can you come back in the small hours of the night?  Aim for two or three in the morning?  They shouldn’t be awake, I should be done with other business.  We can figure your situation out.”

“Yes.”

“You need help getting away from the thing dogging you?”

“Yes.”

“Come on through, keep my body between you and the people in the corner, to block their view, if they peek between shelves.  Past the counter, up the stairs.”

He came.  She gave him access, while making the eyeless in the dark outside go the long way around.

He was covered in claw marks and bites.  The edges of some blurred, but he was very coherent for an echo.

She used her body to help block the view, walked him to the stairs, and walked partway up with him.  “Through the kitchen, out the back door behind the war room.  Should give you a head start.  Don’t go walking into another eyeless.  Find a good place to stop, sort out your thoughts, pull yourself together, figure out what you can do now that you’re not so physical.  Explore yourself, not the environment.  Yeah?”

“Yes.  Yeah.”

Verona contemplated having the back door open out into Kennet below, but decided not to.  The wandering bookstore thing was a bit shaky.  Either it would work, which would be great, or it wouldn’t, and she’d be grounded and she’d have to change a lot of plans.  She’d been reasonably careful but she could also get gainsaid by a bad schedule shift.

Something for the future.  The changes to the rules and nature of the Demesne had to be rationed out.

“Thank you,” the echo said, from the top of the stairs.

She winked, shot him with a finger gun, and clicked her tongue.

“Is it weird that was hard to say?”

“Maybe you weren’t someone who said thank you enough in life?”

“I try to show my thanks, not say them.  I’m not the only one.”

“The only-?”

“The only new… ghost?”

Verona nodded slowly.

She wasn’t sure if she could feel more tickles or if it was her head playing tricks on her.

“Go,” she said.  “Come by to haunt this doorstep at two or three o’clock.”

He went.  Dish, occupying a human-sized doll body painted in the blue flowers of fine china, was a little startled, and seemed to startle the echo too, but they got out of each other’s way.  He went on through and out the back.

Verona hurried downstairs to take the cards out of the diagram inviting similar people in.  The spot above the guest room was keyed to people in need.  People with nowhere to go, hungry, cold, and lost, who could get a book and a chance to catch their footing, here.  She’d left it running, because she was preoccupied.  Gotten a two for one.  Three for one, basically.

She’d give the echo his book later.

Georgia had been the same.  So had Luna, Bowen, Wren, Sammy, and Josh, before her.  So had Hudson.  People in need, some of whom stayed two weeks, some staying a year.

Hudson’s book had been an unfinished work by the author of that Gosh Golly Gosling thing Avery had mentioned.  In that book, a boy from an abusive home found and befriended a fighting dog, and the two kept fighting together until they’d been torn to shreds.  Each time he reread it, he’d get new meaning, raise new questions inside himself, find new value in it.  Each of the others had received books like this.

The two kids sitting there with hot cider, warm towels, and a fire would find theirs in the stack of five or six books Verona had given them to browse through.

The eyeless pursuing the echo had gone the long way around, only for Verona to shuffle things a bit and block its route.  It retraced its steps, circled the property the other direction, finding an opportunity to go around front, down the other alley on the other side… and by that time it had lost the trail.  It retreated back into oblivion.

Cards put away, diagram re-fit with something with a lighter pull, Verona got a sandwich of her own from Dish, topped up on tea, and went down to the counter to return to her quarterly taxes and keep an eye out for customers.

The downpour meant there weren’t many customers.  Verona worked for about an hour, more to get stuff in place so she could do the taxes than to actually get the taxes done.  Something for another day.

McCauleigh got up and walked over, bringing Julette.

“They’re not as quiet as they think they are,” McCauleigh said.  “Moving over here to give them space.”

“Yeah.  I don’t want to pry.  If they have something to share, they can.”

“Girl’s crying.”

Verona nodded.

That happened.  She could kind of sense the vibes of things.  It wasn’t that unusual for someone to get here and, finally able to stop fighting or stop running, the defenses came down.

McCauleigh was looking at the sandwich.  Verona gave her half.

“How are you?” Verona asked.

“Good.  Real good.  Except the nightmares.”

“Now?  While napping?”

“Nah.  Past few nights… more than a few nights.  The Anvil.  Family.”

“I’ve had a few iffy nights lately too.”

“We could go bug Alpeana.”

“We’re out of her region, and she’s been focused on market stuff anyway.  Meeting cosmological quotas while varying stuff up.”

“Could still go bug her.  Get her to help us find who to yell at.”

“Mmm.”

“Was that an echo at the door?”

“Yep.  Coming back later tonight.  Pretty similar experience and emotions to the kids, there, pulled here by the same focuses.  I figure that means any echo-ness would hit them pretty hard, so we should throw down some salt before then.”

“And you’ve got the kids.  Not super great as employees either.”

“Oh, that’s what you’re getting at?  Yeah, not so great, no.  There’s options.  Could drop them in Kennet.  But let’s give them time and hear them out, first.”

“You figure they’ll stay?”

Verona nodded.  “Want to pop upstairs and ask Hudson if he’s okay moving to the senior employee’s room?  Or if he’s already thinking about moving on, we pop the kids into there.”

“Can do.  Is there more sandwich?  You want more, since I ate half of yours?”

“I’m good.  Go easy on the guy.”

“I heard enough, I know.  You figure he’ll glom onto one of us, with her gone?”

“You, maybe?”

“Yeah?” McCauleigh leaned over the counter.  “You don’t think he’ll be into you, the quietly confident, nice one with those, leaning over the counter like you do?  You don’t think he’ll have ideas?”

Verona gave McCauleigh a look.  McCauleigh was indicating her chest.

“Just saying,” McCauleigh said.

“They’re not that big.”

“Bigger than average and he’s an emotionally raw teenager.  That has a magnifying effect.  You’ve been an emotional support, you’re a year or so older than him, you’re nice to him when he’s barely had that, all his life.  If people fall for therapists, why wouldn’t they fall for you?  You know it happens.”

“I don’t have flings with employees.  I swore an oath.  Too sketchy, especially when this is my turf as much as it’s my turf.”

“Not saying you should or you would.  I’m saying if you don’t want to break his heart, start making gentler moves now, instead of scrambling later.”

“Mrrrg.  I was thinking earlier that I needed to be nicer, with Georgia leaving.”

“Might have consequences.”

“Balls.  I know it’s shitty, not a girl’s job to manage a guy’s feelings and all that-”

“Except you asked for it.”

“Mrrrggghle.”

“Yep.”

“Urk.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I put this ball in your court?” Verona asked, slumping forward.  She gave McCauleigh her best winsome look.

“I was lying awake for a bit there, cuddling Julette, wondering if the reason for all my Anvil dreams these past few months was because Hudson’s been around.  The expressions, the way he carries himself, the raw-ness?  Reminds me of people there.  Reminds me of me there.”

Verona sighed, heavily.  L’incudine.  The Anvil.  Where McCauleigh had been sent to get hammered into shape, made more steely, even if it meant grinding the light and personality out of her.

“Yeah,” McCauleigh said, answering the sigh.

“So that’s a no, I can’t put that ball in your court.  Unless I want you to have shitty nightmares.”

“Nah.  If you need backup, I can give you backup, but I don’t think I can handle that ball, sorry.”

“No, fair.”

“No fair, I know.”

“This is hard.”

“Yeah.”

Verona sighed.

McCauleigh headed over to the stairs, paused.  “You were calling yourself a girl, a minute ago?  Over there, that girl called you a lady.”

“I’m a what now?”

McCauleigh shrugged, then went upstairs.

I don’t feel like a lady, Verona thought.

Her hair was damp from stepping out to talk to the echo, and she ran fingers through it to tidy it.  The Hudson issue.  Ugh.  Was it best if she made the employer-employee line overly clear?  Ducked out to spend time with McCauleigh while having him work here, then shooing him away when she was behind the counter?  Was it worth dwelling on, if he might opt to stay in Kennet?  Or go somewhere else?

She wanted to get into some projects.  Technomancy, lately.  Dollmaking, for Dish.

Crows had gathered outside, pressed up against the glass to stay out of the rain.

Omen, psychopomp, guide, curse…?

Herald.  On a day where the weather was such a bitch nobody seemed to want to go out, even in cars, someone approached.  The bell on the door dinged as she came in.

Elderly, but back ramrod straight, powdery makeup giving her skin an even and normal tone, but no blush or care for color.  She wore a black dress, but it didn’t make her look washed out.

Verona reached upstairs through the Demesne and put the kettle on, and dropped a teabag from the shelf to the cup poised below.  She could feel Peckersnot scampering over to her kitchen counter, sorting things out, pulling a serving tray over.  Dish came over as well.  Tea on the way.

“It’s been a while,” she told Rook.  “Mrs. Rook.”

“Verona Hayward, sorceress,” Rook greeted her.

“Am I pulling it off?”

“When someone calls you sorceress, nobody argues.  You have your various studies, you’re sought for counsel on projects unrelated to your primary subjects of interest.  You’re respected for your standing in the wider community, for the school in Kennet, and when you roam from location to location, you are above most politics.”

“Somehow I had the impression it’d be more glamorous.”

“Some mighty beings sleep for centuries at a time in wet caves deep in the earth.  Glamor and power don’t necessarily go hand in hand.  You have an eccentric and beautiful little bookstore-”

“Thank you.”

“-and I think you did nicely for yourself, by comparison to some of those mighty beings.  May I?” Rook asked, indicating a stool outside the counter, that McCauleigh sometimes sat at, that doubled as a stepladder for some shelves.

“Please.  Sit.  Bread and green tea on the way.”

“Thank you kindly,” Rook said.  She rested her heavy iron cane against the counter, then sat, legs one way, knees together, hands in front of her, folded.

“Haven’t seen you since the fight against Charles.”

“Well, I didn’t fight.  I made my overtures to him, parted ways with Hollow Yen, who wanted to stay with Kennet when I wanted to go.  I threw my lot in with the Carmine, gave counsel, guided.  You won.  I lost, as I’ve lost many times before.”

“I think Miss misses you.”

“We’ll meet again.  Three years is not a long time when you’re as long lived as she and I.  I’m more a friend for times of crisis, in any event.”

“Was there that much crisis when she was wandering and you were wandering, and you’d meet up?”

“I’d think, with guests and employees like yours, you’d appreciate what a crisis it can be, to be unpinned from everything and wandering,” Rook said.

“Have you been spying on me, Rook?” Verona asked.  “Keeping tabs?”

Before Rook could answer, she turned to the window.  “Have any of you birds been tattling?”

A crow on the far side of the glass cawed, muted.

“In my lessons to Hollow Yen, I told him the best question to ask is one where you know the answer, and where the response achieves your ends.  The best fight is one where you know the strike will land.”

“It landed.”

“So I’ve been informed.  The best victory is one where you know the cost.  The best loss is one where you know how you’ll turn it to your advantage in the long run.”

“Can’t always work with knowns.  I kinda like the unknowns.  Studying.  Delving into stuff.”

“Perhaps that’s why it needed to be you fighting.  A crisis of that magnitude, it formed a great unknown.”

“Means I didn’t know the cost, or how things would land, in the event of a loss.”

“No, you’re right.  Hopefully not too costly.”

“Lost friends.  That sits heavy.  Mal and Anselm.  McCauleigh took Anselm’s last name.  One more reminder, like a bucket of cold water to the face, whenever I hear about it.”

“Warm too,” Rook said, lifting tea to her mouth.

“Fuck, though,” Verona said, quiet.  “If I could do it all over again and not lose them, I’d be okay without that warmth.”

“Of course.”

“Lost my childhood home, that sits weirder with me the longer I sit with it.  Lost innocence.  Lowercase ‘i’.”

“I know.”

“Lost a whole lot of nights of sleep.  Fucking… had a guy sleep over, lying next to me, and then I wake up freaking?  He has no idea, so he freaks.  Scare the already scared teenager sleeping down the hall, who thinks something happened?  Entire house freaking out, then.  Because my dreaming mind went down the wrong road and I was back there fighting Charles, digging into something terrified and primal, all over again.”

“With luck and effort, those moments get fewer and further between.”

“Lost skin.  Scars.  Guys ask questions.  One guy when I was on top of him.  Like, what the fuck, dude.  Sorry if that’s TMI.”

“I can eat and dine with goblins as well as I can eat and dine with Faerie.  It’s not TMI.”

“Lost the chance to fix my hand.  I’ve found ways to make it less bad but that’s… the whole rest of my life. That doesn’t seem like it’ll get fewer and further between.”

Dish came down the stairs, carrying the tray of tea, bread, and cookies.  Verona got up and met her halfway, to avoid risking the chance that the guests in the corner or anyone passing the window would see a life-sized doll.

She served herself and Rook.  “One second.”

“Of course.”

She took some of the cookies on a saucer over to the kids in the corner, then returned to her seat, behind the register, Rook sitting across the counter and diagonal to her.

She paused, taking a bite and drinking.  Not sure how to resume that conversation.  She wasn’t sure why she’d dumped on Rook.  Maybe out of frustration, that Rook had, in some ways, taken the easiest route, leaving so much on Verona’s lap.

“The entire course of my life altered.  They don’t talk about that in movies and TV shows.  That you walk away from it all and the direction you walk is different, the way you think is different.  You lose the old you.”

“Not always for the worse.”

“No.  But you still lose it.”

“Which is all to say, that fear of failure, the costs, the lost friends, the lost home, lost innocence, lost sleep, lost pride, lost skin, lost chances, lost Selves?  Victory.”

“I see you, Rook.  I hear what you’re saying.  I get it.”

“Of course.  You were picked for your potential and you rose to it.  All three of you did.  I should hope you ‘get it’.  I will say, you won, and while I recognize you lost much as the price of that victory, you’ve forged a nice little spot for yourself in the wake of it all.”

“I modeled it after your rooftop garden, a bit.  And Kennet found, a bit- the windows.”

“I had that impression.  Are you happy?”

“I’m at peace.  Go in to see my mom, there’s peace in that.  Happiness is harder to put a finger on, though.  Past baggage and stuff.  Coziness, watching a movie or show with McCauleigh under a blanket, Julette dozing with us.  I laugh.  Peckersnot.  I feel… pride, I guess?  Feels like peace, but fatter in my chest.  Helping people.  My girl parts get happy, some boys.”

She paused, seeing how Rook reacted to that.  Not even a flinch.  No fun.

“I get excited as fuck, really happy, seeing Lucy and Avery.  Looking forward to seeing them, even.  Talk to them on video calls, but the actual face to face stuff is cool.  But ‘happy’?  As a perpetual state of being?  Dunno.  Peace as a state of being is good.  I can do stuff, stuff’s in arm’s reach, or a call away, or whatever, that makes me happy, sure.”

Rook sipped her tea.

“Are you happy?” Verona asked.

“For now, there is peace, as you say.”

Not ‘I’m at peace‘, but ‘there is peace’.

Verona sipped her tea, and her eyes went to the black feathered harbingers at the window.  “You didn’t so much as say hi in three years.  Didn’t say goodbye, for that matter.  Now you’re here.  This isn’t purely a social call.”

“Is this a ‘Verona’ handles shit type of job, or is it a ‘call Avery and Lucy’ crisis?”

Rook didn’t reply, gazing at Verona over the cup of tea as she took a sip.

“Bigger,” Verona said.

“How weird would it be, if I went to the local council meeting just to see how business is done?” Booker asked.  He carried a laundry basket of Lucy’s stuff through.

Grandfather walked past him to the bed, hopping up there to sit at the foot of the bed, one eye on them, one eye on the world outside.

“Montreal’s council?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah.”

“Just you saying ‘I want to take notes on the process?'”

“Sure.”

“Might be weird.  As if you were spying.”

“I can tell them I swear I’m not, right?”

“There’s tricky parts to it.  Five different ways you could phrase it where there are strategic holes in it.  What you’re not saying in each phrasing can mean a lot.”

“You two,” their mom said.  “My loves, my dears.  My individual tests of sanity.  I thought I asked, even came close to begging, that this be something nice for the family, instead of Booker asking-”

“In the car,” Lucy said, as Booker said “That was-” and finished “-in the car.”

“How did I raise you two, that you ended up like little lawyers?”

“I’m not little,” Lucy said.  She gestured around her.  “I’m moving out.”

“I’m sure there are parents who dream of their kids going to law school, who would pay for the privilege of knowing how to instill this kind of way of thinking in their kids.”

“Might be genetic,” Lucy said.  She popped a box open.  Her album artwork, posters, and other things from the subscription were organized inside.  She put the box on the top of a dresser, to be unpacked and put up later.

“Can I beg for a bit more of a reprieve?” their mom asked, hands pressed together.  “Some people dream of getting married.  I’ve dreamed more of you two getting to University than I dreamed about wedding dresses.”

“You wanted to get rid of us that bad, huh?” Booker asked, putting his arms out.  He hugged their mom, her head against his shoulder.

“I don’t want to get rid of you at all.  But if I can get you off to University as a well rounded human being, educated, capable, ready for the world, after everything we’ve been through?  Your dad, your individual struggles that came up after that?  Paul?  The ups and downs of school.  Then, for a curveball, a magic war.”

“You got me here, you’re over the hump, you’ve done it, is that it?” Lucy asked.

“A little bit.”

“Whole slate of new worries, in new flavors,” Booker said, ominously.  “What are they getting up to out there?”

“I trust you,” their mom said.

“I’m worried about you on your own,” Lucy said.

“Not for you to worry about.  I’ve got work, I’ve got friends, like Irene.  I’ll stay involved with peripheral council stuff.  Talking to parents of the other Awakened and Aware.”

“I’m still interested in how a big council does things,” Booker said.

“Killing me,” their mom said.

“You brought it back up.”

“It’s tricky,” Lucy said.  Let’s just- real quick, Ottawa is very big on procedure and roles, trying to force people to shift positions and adopt new lines of thinking.  Lots of capable minds being made to look at things from new angles, pretty rapid-fire, so it covers nine out of ten bases.  And they’re good enough they can cover the last tenth.  Montreal is forces of personality.  Three Lords, picking up where others leave off, the only time everyone meets is a major crisis.  Lots of sub-councils.”

“See, I want to see that, though.”

Lucy put a finger to her lips, head turning.

“Knock-knock?” a male’s voice said.  He had light brown skin and an easy smile.  “English, Francais?”

“English.  Très peu de français.  J’apprends vite,” Lucy said.  Earring helps.

“We should immerse you.  Is it you, then, or…?” he pointed at Booker.

“Oh good.  I was worried it was a pronunciation, like Lucie, and we would be surprised.  It’s better if genders are split by floor.  I’m Malo.  I am downstairs, northwest corner.  Jean is southwest corner downstairs.”

“Two other girls, right?” Lucy asked.

“Two, yes.  You’ll meet them soon, they’re out to buy shared bathroom supplies.”

“I should chip in for that.  Sorry if I’m later than others.  We drove.”

“That would be good.  Tonight we were thinking we would cook together, light party, don’t worry, mom, we’re not drinking.  Three of us five are freshmen.”

“I know my daughter doesn’t over-drink,” Lucy’s mom said, glancing at Booker.  “I trust her.  I’m a little more worried about the boys in the house, but I trust her on that too.”

“And if the boys try anything we’ve got Grandfather,” Booker said.  “Right?”

Grandfather, silent, met his eyes, then lay head on paws.

“That’s a big dog,” Malo said.

“I asked permission, the girl I talked to said it was fine.”  People usually do, it’s the familiar bond letting us stick together.

“It might be.  He doesn’t bark?”

“Not unless there’s actual danger.  He’s a military dog.  He takes things very seriously.”

Malo looked over at Grandfather, who had raised his head and was trying to look like a dog who took things very seriously.  “I see.  And music.  You have a guitar.  Are you a music student?”

“Hobby.”

He looked a little wary.

“Want to try seeing how the sound travels?” Lucy asked.

She picked up the guitar.  Booker ushered Malo out of the door.  She quickly scribbled down a sound dampening rune on the whiteboard she’d already hung on the back of the door.

She did a little riff on the guitar.  Partway through the noise, Booker opened the door and smudged the rune.

To Malo, it would be that there was near-silence, then as the door opened, actual noise.

“Huh.  Okay.  It’s hard to object to that.  So long as the door stays closed?  We were thinking loaded nachos for lunch, pesto mac with spinach for dinner.  Can you grill chicken for the nachos?”

“For sure,” Lucy said.

“We’ve got one housemate, who for the time being shall remain unnamed, not me, who is only now learning how to use any appliance more complicated than a microwave, and even that’s shaky.”

“I can do simple meals, meat, veg, do my own laundry, shop, clean.  Basic skills, and a heap of non-basic ones.”

“That’s a relief.  One is enough.  We can split up the job of getting them caught up.”

There were shouts of greeting from downstairs.  The other two girls, from the sounds of it.

Lucy ventured out.

“There she is,” one of the girls greeted her.  “You made it, we worried you’d disappear on us and leave us hanging.”

“I’d still be obligated to pay the lease, right?”

“Only goes as far as their ability to enforce it,” Booker said.  “Have to chase the person down, and if they’re a poor student… can be hard.”

“How did neither of you go to law school?” their mom asked.

“Not ruling anything out yet,” Lucy said.

“Don’t get my hopes up.  But that would be one way to make me feel like we made it through.”

“But let me get a year in first,” Lucy said.  To the girls, she said, “Sorry I was late.  Missed orientation, I guess?”

“Yep.”

“We dropped in to see family and drove the rest of the way.  The highway was out, the drive took a while.”

“You’re here, that’s all that matters,” the girl said.  “I’m Carmen, that’s Ellie.  And holy wow, that’s a big dog.”

Grandfather communicated some anxieties to Lucy.

“He’s quiet and disciplined.”

“Ex-military dog,” Malo said.

“It might be nice,” Ellie said.  “Crime in the neighborhood.”

“Don’t say that around any parental figures,” Carmen shushed Ellie.  “They’ll pull her out of school or something and then we have to find a list minute replacement.”

Voices overlapped.  Lucy nodded along, chimed in.  She remembered to pay for the third of the shared toiletries.  In the hustle and bustle, her family started to edge toward the door.  She broke away long enough to hug her mom and Booker.

“Be safe,” she told her big brother.  “Maybe skip the proposed idea you had of going to Montreal?”

“Yeah.”

“Learn more in Kennet.”

He nodded, then hugged her tight.

She said her goodbyes to them, then went over to the group.

“Apparently Lucy plays guitar, but the sound doesn’t leak out of that room, so we’re good there,” Malo said.

“Guitar, okay.  What else?”

“Some martial arts,” Lucy said.  She left out the weapons training.  “I ran and helped manage events back home.  Helped run an Arcade with modified consoles, punishment games and ‘death traps,” Lucy said, making quotes.

“That sounds fun.”

“Until it got shut down, but it was cool.  Uh, helped with a surprise rooftop battle of the bands.  Mayor was pleasantly surprised.  There was a fake slasher horror thing that spiraled out of control, couple years back.”

“Horror’s a recurring beat.”

“I love horror movies.”

“Wouldn’t have thought.”

“And indie music.”

“That’s something one of our other friends could introduce you to.  He’s tapped into the local music scene.  Theater, mostly, but some music gigs too.”

“Color me interested.  I’ve never been to a show or concert or anything.”

“Never been!?”

“I lived in a small town,” Lucy protested.  “I feel like we’re talking about me a lot, though.  Fill me in on you guys?”

The conversation rattled on like that, with introductions, then courses, then segueing into the need to do a shopping trip for food, this time.

Looking out the window, she could see someone.  Using her Sight… active practice, light and minor, wreathed him.

“Tell me what store you’re going to?” she asked her housemates.  “I should talk to someone real quick, I can catch up with you there.”

She extricated herself, then, Grandfather walking beside her, went outside.

“Ellingson?  And Grandfather, I presume.”

“Yes.  Is this the standard, ‘don’t practice, come in to see the council, let’s figure out where you stand’?”

“Do you need that treatment?  Are you a danger?”

“No, not unless someone’s a danger to me.”

“You’re a known entity.  Vouched for by multiple families.  Residents of Montreal send their children to attend your school.”

Lucy was glad they’d managed to get a building up for the school.  Even if it was a little under-furnished, they could say that was to have space for rituals.  Everything a work in progress.

“Several sub-councils and locals would like to individually ask for your company over food and drink as a respected guest, in hopes of getting insight into practice, the events of the past few years, and to more social ends.”

“Social ends?  Being friendly?”

“Yes, among other things.”

“Positive?”

“And political.”

“Arranged marriage?”

“You’re eligible, we understand, one of Kennet’s primary practitioners is uninterested, the other attached.  It would be crass to reach out to them.”

“This soon?  When I’m not even eighteen?  No.”

“I will pass that along.”

But there were political purposes to these things.

“I’m not saying no to meeting peers and possibly dating, with an eventual family alliance with Kennet as part of the deal,” Lucy said.  “But I don’t want it to be weirdly formalized or forced.”

“Good.  And other social engagements?”

“Happy to accept some around my schedule.”

There was a brief negotiation of how to get in contact, and information about the local sub-council.

Lucy wrapped up the tail end of that just in time to get free of all that, then hurried to where the five roommates were piling into a car to go shopping.  She let Grandfather into the house to have space of his own, then went with the group.  She was glad she was skinny, with the squeeze in the back.

There were a lot of other students living on the block, moving in, or getting ready to party.  A lot of international students.

It was maybe the first time in her life she hadn’t been one isolated person of color in a sea of white faces.  The first time in her life she had people reaching out to her, interested in her, wanting her acceptance, on this level, from that level.

Lunch was done, they were still socializing.  It was a good wavelength.  Malo had his girlfriend over.  With limited seats in the relatively small living room, Lucy sat on the floor, a combination of throw pillows and a patient Grandfather, who lay on the ground and let her lean back against his side.  He seemed comfortable, even with the jokey older teens and twenty somethings- she could feel that sentiment and mood bounce off him, and it felt a bit like the cameraderie in the barracks, maybe.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.  A smile crossed her face at the sender.  She stopped smiling on seeing the message.

Verona:
Rook stopped in.

She and Verona exchanged a few texts.  Avery came in too.

She parted with her housemates, went, and got things together.  Then, with Grandfather by her side, no leash, wearing her red coat, her fox mask hanging off the side of her bag, she walked out into the light rain that was coming from out west and swiftly getting worse.

It was actually a bit awkward, to go from a place bustling with fellow students to finding a place she could reach Avery.  Near the house, it was backyards and stuff she couldn’t exactly duck into.  So she was left to walk toward the street with the corner store, laundromat, and other businesses.  Every alley seemed to have people standing in positions they could look in, every place was busy.  People who’d moved in with parents were taking their parents out to dinner.

Lucy’s breath fogged.  Her hand easily found Grandfather’s head and scratched behind his ear and collar.

“Rook,” she said, for his benefit, once she was sure there was nobody in earshot.  “Something’s up.”

He responded with familiar vibes only.  Acknowledgment.

Lucy closed her eyes, and she let down some walls.  It wasn’t the familiar bond, but on a lot of levels, it was similar.  She, Verona, and Avery had done a ritual before they’d parted ways, Verona going to go take her semi-gap year and wander with her bookstore, Avery off to explore realms, and Lucy gone off the school.  A triumvirate ritual.

It meant that in a similar way to how she could feel Grandfather, she could feel Avery, as Avery popped in, finding a way to Lucy before Lucy found a way to her.  Lucy walked around a building.

She didn’t slow her stride or anything, practically walking into Avery, arms out to wrap her friend in a hug, picking her up for a moment.

She could feel the vibes through the bond.  Happiness.  Relief, in a way.

Nora, hanging back a bit, on the other side of the open door, smiled.  Lucy flashed a smile at her.

Avery looked and felt wilder.  Her freckles stood out in sharp relief, brown on pale skin with a bit of red, with strands of sun-bleached hair across her face that she didn’t bother to sweep away, extending down to her shoulder blades, looking like it had been combed with fingers only and washed in salt water.  Her coat had started a darker brown with lighter bleaching for the antler pattern, a little crisper at the edges than the last version, but again, there’d been enough sunlight, the shoulders had that faint quality like it had bleached a bit.  At least four bracelets crowded the space between the end of the coat sleeve and the base of her thumb, and a white ribbon wrapped around her hand and between fingers.

If some people looked like they had a perpetual rain cloud following them around, Avery looked like she had a bit of sun on a windy day as a thing she carried with her.

Nora still wore mostly black, but her locs were longer, and her facial expression had changed some.  Her eyes remained overly animated compared to the rest of her, but there was a smile in those eyes, not anxiety.

“Aren’t you watching over Kennet and the magic school?” Lucy asked.

“Yep.”

“Did you spend eveyr free moment off on a beach?” Lucy asked.  “You look like you got sun since I last saw you, and you’d already spent the summer getting sun then too.  On the last video call, I thought it was maybe a filter or the camera being weird, but your freckles are dark brown.”

“We did duck off to a desert, though, left Matthew in charge of the school.”

“That’d do it.”

“It was a temple in a crossroads,” Nora added.  “Intersection of where a bunch of realms crashed together.”

“Temperature was surprisingly nice,” Avery said, bright.  “We did stop in at a beach, but mostly for a picnic lunch and pictures.  It’s tricky, we gotta get photos on Go Foto Yourself, so her parents think we’re traveling a bit.”

“Which we are,” Nora said.

“We are.  But we’re also managing the school.  Or I am.  Nora’s learning.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Whatever works.”

“It works so well,” Avery said, flashing a smile.

Nora got her phone out.  She showed Lucy.

The beach.  Avery and Nora on a beach with two other girls.  Avery was wearing a tankini, tattoo on her arm.  Three women in falling positions, framed by a circle of empty space, a trail of meaningful objects behind them, like a meteorite, the trail spiraling up her arm.

Nora, in the photo, looked more at ease in a bikini, sitting on a beach blanket, than Lucy had ever seen her.

“You got a tattoo too, didn’t you?” Lucy asked Nora.

Nora, eyes widening, leaned in closer to look.  “It doesn’t show, right?”

“Hiding that too?”

“There’s no way I’m showing my parents,” Nora said.  She pushed up her sleeve.

Not a matching tattoo to Avery’s, but there were similarities- same artist or studio?  A woman rising out of the water.  A selkie, if Lucy remembered right.

Avery hugged Nora from behind, and radiated good feelings through the bond.

“And there’s Snowdrop,” Lucy greeted the opossum, who was hanging back, a bit distracted.  Snowdrop looked startled at being called out, like she’d done something wrong.  She trotted over, bumping into Avery.  Snowdrop had gotten to where she looked about fifteen, and she had a bit of that feeling, like there was more wildness in her, but it looked good on her.  Salty hair, by the looks of it, which made it look messier than usual.  Three goblins were perched on her shoulders, the source of the distraction.  Cherrypop was one.

“You brought goblins with?” Lucy asked.

“I keep trying to get rid of them,” Snowdrop said.  “I’m so done with this Goblin Sage nonsense.”

“Brought Cherry with.  We pick up some here and there, as part of Goblin Sage errands,” Avery said.

“Ping ponging around,” Lucy said.

“So much ping ponging.  It’s great.  Umbral spirit world in New Zealand, Kennet, beach in Spain, Kennet, desert temple in a crossroad realm, Kennet, much colder beach in France, then here.”

“Keeping up?” Lucy asked Nora.

“Trying.  It can be a lot, but it’s worth it.  I like the moments we stop to take it in.  Scenic, alien vistas, or places with lots of Lost or Others.”

“Not so much mindless undead,” Avery said.

“The mindless undead at the temple weren’t so great, yeah.”

“Go easy on her, eh?” Lucy asked Avery.

“I try.  I make it up to her when I don’t, or I try.”

“You do okay,” Nora said, voice soft, smiling.  She tugged on Avery, arm around waist, pulling her into a half-hug.

“How are you, though?” Avery asked.  “Living the superhero life?  Living among mortals, knowing you could crush them all with your pinky?

“I think the local practitioners and the three Lords of Montreal would take issue, but a bit.  Making friends already.  Local council was nice about things, I think.  I’ve been invited for bread and tea, I guess, and ‘here’s my child for you to date’ meetings, maybe.”

“Weird.”

“I don’t mind it, I guess.  Biggest thing is, I didn’t know how much I needed to get out of Kennet until I was really out of Kennet.”

Avery nodded, falling silent.

“Maybe you get that.”

“Maybe I do.  We’ll always be part of Kennet though, you know?” Avery asked, very seriously.

“I know.”

“Gotta find the good out there and bring it home,” Avery said.

“That’s the plan.”

“Not in a colonial, stock our museum with other people’s stuff way, though.”

“I figured,” Lucy said, smiling.

“Other side of it,” Grandfather said.  He’d become human.  “Finding the bad out there and dealing with it before it reaches Kennet’s borders.”

“Hi, Grandfather,” Avery said.  “Looking after Lucy?”

“Causing more hassle than I fix, I think.  People keep asking why she has a dog with her.”

“There are benefits to an opossum you can keep in a pocket or a bag,” Avery said.

“Sometimes I eat all your snacks,” Snowdrop said, seriously.  “Or I’m completely useless.”

It was always a little bit funny, to have the triumvirate bond and then the two familiar bonds.  With the barriers down and proximity, Lucy could feel Snowdrop through Avery, a bad recording of a blurry image on the far side of glass.

Her own familiar… Grandfather was pretty reserved.  A constant presence, easy on her heart, taking over keeping watch so she could let her guard down more.

“Are you bringing up the bad stuff out there because you’re anxious?” she asked him.

“Wouldn’t mind knowing,” he replied.

“Yeah.  Let’s go get Ronnie,” Avery said.

They crossed through the door, onto the Path.  It looked like a big, rickety treehouse, held together with old ropes, tape, ribbons, and prayers, connected not to branches, but other sections of itself.

Far below, a colossal woman with a distorted face, like a caricature of a woman drawn by a child who couldn’t draw straight lines, had mouth yawning open, and she was big enough she could’ve swallowed this entire treehouse without even chewing.  Her hands groped for them, but came a quarter-mile short of reaching them.  Which, given the scales involved, felt like not enough.

“Follow me,” Avery said.  “Carefully.”

Avery’s hair and coat billowed with enough force from ambient wind that Lucy worried a bit she’d get lifted off and carried away.  The ribbons and things at Avery’s left arm extended in the wind, until many were three or four feet long.  Even the charm bracelet extended.  Avery reached forward, and the ribbon wrapped around her hand snapped out, binding a section of treehouse.

It collapsed behind them as they walked on.  The collapse hit other sections, and pulled further ones behind it.  Avery didn’t seem concerned.

They walked far enough to get to a wall, and Avery drew a door in chalk, drawing a glyph at the center, before doing a bit of practice to turn it into a door.  The door had a mark on it like the same doors she summoned with the promenade boon.

The collapse was catching up with them.  Nora, hands in pockets, stomped.  An ‘earth’ glyph appeared beneath her feet and expanded out.

The collapse stopped about twenty feet shy of them, not touching where the glyph had extended out.

At the very edges, parts that had started falling down floated, even reconnecting.

“Ooh, good one,” Avery said.

“Trying to show off a bit, I guess,” Nora said.  “Might tire me out, paying for every second of this with Self, so it might be better to hurry along before it gets too costly.”

Lucy gave Nora a light punch on the arm as an acknowledgment, before walking through the door after Avery.

Verona pulled off her work apron and hung it up on a cabinet knob as she walked through her kitchen.  For all that Verona had talked about being thirteen forever, by being Other, and the body she’d had was the body she wanted to keep, it hadn’t been.  She’d grown into this body like she’d meant to be it, picking up enough of her dad’s height to be a few inches taller than her mom.

More than Lucy or Avery, Verona looked like an adult.  At ease, quieter.  She didn’t look like she was hiding in her oversized sweaters anymore, even if the style had stayed mostly the same.  In a way, it made Lucy think of how some guys would wear suits off the rack, but a fitted suit could make them look like a professional.  Quiet confidence and a bit of grace helped Verona carry it.  Maybe the grace was learned from McCauleigh, the dancer.  The confidence… Lucy couldn’t guess.

Until Verona let the walls down, lighting up, like a kid on Christmas morning.  She closed the gap, hugging Lucy.

Not that grown up.

Hugging Verona felt like home.  Peace and familiarity.  Stilling things that were agitated.

Lucy motioned, and Avery joined in.  They hugged, then huddled, heads touching for a second.

Mostly by unconscious process, they found that silent equilibrium.  Maybe, because Avery and Snowdrop had some aches and pains, Lucy and Verona supplied some of what Snowdrop couldn’t, and rounded off the edges of those aches and pains, eased them that five to ten percent, to bring Avery closer to center.

Verona hadn’t slept well and was a little emotionally worn out, so Lucy and Avery gave her energy and support.

Lucy hadn’t tapped into practice, her focus on school, friends, a whole mess of firsts.  She could only vaguely feel what she was giving the others, what they were pulling on.

She could feel the two brands of peace given by Verona and Avery.

“We might have to meet up more often,” Lucy said.  “Except that requires more ping-ponging around from Avery.”

“I like ping ponging.  I just don’t want to be annoying.”

“You’d have to try a lot harder to do that,” Verona said.  “I miss you guys.  Look forward to video calls and visits like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Then we meet up more often,” Lucy said, seriously.

“Yeah.  No objection.  Please.”

“Is Rook around, still?” Lucy asked Verona.

“Left after giving me the address.  I rigged up some technomancy.  I was waiting for you guys, figured it’d save us the time it’d take to cross the Paths.”

“Badass,” Lucy said.

“Gotta live up to my title of Sorceress.  Master of shadow, half-light, and shape, peddler of unwritten texts, hatcher of the moon, crucible breaker, speaker for the voiceless…”

Verona didn’t finish so much as she drowned herself out, starting up the computer program, which made the computer squeal for a bit.

The old projector cast out an image of a hallway, which sparked and fritzed at the edges.

“Look after the kids?” Verona asked.  “They’re looking for a shelter, but they’re afraid of it.  Offer them a bed, I think they’ll take it.  If I’m not back in time, let the echo in?”

“For sure,” McCauleigh said.

Avery shied away as the edge of the proejction on the wall sparked.

“I wonder if Paths are safer,” Avery asked, wary.

“Given how unsafe they are, that’s a scary wondering,” Lucy said.

“They’re not that unsafe.”

Verona walked forward, stepped past the threshold, and into the black and white image of a long hallway.

Lucy followed.  Grandfather, a step behind her, helped Snowdrop and Nora, who weren’t quite as tall, for stepping up onto the hallway, four or so feet above the ground.

The hallway kind of roared, to Lucy’s earring, the projector sounds becoming something distant and vast, churning on the other side of the walls.  Every time the image of the projector flickered, she felt like she’d missed a step and dropped, stomach jumping.

Then, passing through the door, they moved into stone silence.

Grandfather’s hand rested on Lucy’s shoulder.

She, smelling blood in the air, drew out a weapon with her weapon ring, using a piece of paper she’d drawn a diagram onto.  With Grandfather’s help, drawing on the War in him, she was able to turn the piece of paper into a rifle.  A glowing diagram she’d learned from Anthem hovered around the barrel.

The scene was bloody, walls streaked in blood looming tall ahead of them.  Blood in grass, squishing underfoot, despite the low temperature making the ground hard.

The way the walls folded up, it felt like… like a pop up book, almost.  Lucy had experienced something like it when they’d investigated the Carmine.  Another time when she’d gone diving into a cursed item that had been brought into Kennet’s market and sold to an Innocent.

“An Alcazar,” Avery said, double checking the city magic pin at her shoulder for more information.

Evening sky, darker than it had been in Montreal, because they were a bit further north, wet grass, the raised walls of the alcazar, erected into something that felt like a church without the religion.  Lucy turned.  She could use her Sight and See Miss’s tower spearing up from Kennet on the horizon, out to the southwest, and place them geographically.

Crows were gathered on branches all around the edifice.  All were silent.

“Echo passed by, clawed up,” Verona said.  “Apparently a lot of others were too.  I was figuring that was from here.”

Some others from nearby councils and towns had come.  Thea was here with Deb, probably because they traveled the fastest overland, out of anyone in Thunder Bay.  There was the ghost merchant, a few fairies.

Nobody spoke up or moved to help as they came through.

The dead lay all around them.  Bodies big and small, in various shapes and sizes.  It sounded to Lucy’s earring like some might be alive, making wet bubbling sounds with inhalations and exhalations, but when she went looking for the source of that sound, it would be illusory.  Blood dripping, a bit of skin sliding slowly against wall, forming a brief vacuum, which then bubbled out from an opening at the edges.  It wasn’t even that things were that fresh.  It was that there was enough carnage that stuff was still settling, well over an hour after the fact.  The light rain that came down around them helped stuff slide, kept blood from congealing easily.

Lucy used her Sight, and analyzed the stains and swords.  She knew a practice that could turn a scene like this into a recreation, but even without pulling that out of her pocket, she could read the patterns pretty well.

They stopped at the center of the church.  Miss was already there, the view of her face blocked by a light, goopy waterfall of blood that came down through a hole on the roof, from something larger.  She was still building her tower.

Matthew had caught up to them.  Louise beside him.  He’d started out managing a whole cadre of Hosts, but that hadn’t worked out all that well.  Too draining on him, and it had pulled him away from Louise.  After Dish’s host had not done so well, they’d extricated Dish from her, given Dish a doll body instead, and Matthew had settled down to having only one apprentice, Dorian, who stood off to one side.

Then there was Toadswallow, tall as Verona was, each about a head shorter than Bubbleyum, who stood by Toadswallow, and Lucy.  A few more goblins around them.  Some Lucy knew, others she didn’t.

Others came in time.  The Bitter Street Witch, Nicolette, Gillian.

Freak and Squeak, the Principal.

Mr. Smoke from the factories, Montague, Turtle Queen, Sootsleeves.

Mia.  Jeremy.  The two Aware who’d Awakened so far.

At the one end of the church, by the entrance, was that familiar crowd.  Kennet had sent out key people.

At the opposite end was the Redcap Queen.  Gerhild.

The back end of the church into a macabre scene.  Macabre architecture that looked like fancy steeples and railings mingled with seashells.  A woman’s head was drawn out large and knit into the architecture with bits of bone that unfurled like lace and connected to the surroundings.  It was outsized in proportion to other things- the core of the Alcazar.  Hair as red as crimson flowed down from it down and was arranged into plaits, part braid, part hair, part curtain, sectioning off back areas, framing the windows.

If Lucy looked past all of that, sorting out the scene, imagining how it fit together, when this pop up book was closed up…

The Redcap Queen, Gerhild, had been slain, her head removed or removed enough, then turned into the focal point for the Alcazar.  Thus the exaggerated proportions.  Her name had come up time and again.  Bluntmunch had been fleeing her.  The Sword Moot had been tracking her.

No point to any of that now.

The building wheezed.  Air whistled through windows that had bone forming lace-like lattices, but no glass.

Lucy tuned her earring, tilting her head one way, then the other.

She passed the gun to Grandfather, using her familiar bond through him to help it keep its shape, then reached for the others, hands out.  They approached her.

“Awareness?” Matthew asked, on the sidelines.

“No Awareness tied to this, not here,” Miss said. “A small mercy.  The area is unpopulated.”

“No people?  None?” Louise asked.

“Few enough I could glance in on each of them to make sure.  No collateral damage of that shape,” Miss reported.

“Anything unaccounted for?” Toadswallow asked.  “She’d have weapons, tools, resources, batteries of power.”

“Still to be determined,” Miss said.  As she walked, the blood that flowed through battle damage in the roof stopped flowing through one hole, flowed through others, shielding her mostly from view.

Avery took Lucy’s hand.  Verona did the same.

We’ve been through so much together.  We can handle this together, Lucy thought.

Her ability to hear this… to notice it was a pattern that could maybe be heard in the first place.  Pushed out to the other two.

Avery’s ability to connect.  To notice the little things, find the starting point, nudging Verona.

Verona’s ability to riddle things out, to interpret without words.  To start piecing it together.

A refrain.  Words, etched into this place and its architecture, so when the wind blew through in just the right way, it would say words.

It wasn’t flowing through that way.  Maybe it was meant to, in a week’s time, or when a condition was met.  They didn’t have that long, didn’t want to dedicate that time or focus.

They took my blood, they took my fire, they took my darkness.
Now they bring them to the people.
I wish I could see what they do with it.

Lucy shivered.

When it had repeated a third time, Avery broke the connection, walking away, Snowdrop quick-trotting beside her.

“They took her blood, her fire, her darkness,” Lucy recited, for the benefit of the others from Kennet.  They’re taking it to the people.  She would’ve wanted to see it.  Seems like the bones of her skull were turned into this place, to repeat her final words.”

“Sounded wistful,” Avery said, as she walked to one set of stairs that led to a higher bit of floor, almost a stage.  “Like she really wanted to see those bad things happen.”

“If she wanted to see it, I doubt it would have been anything good,” Toadswallow said.

Avery had gotten where she was going, and her finger ran along a section of railing.  She rubbed fingertip and thumb together.

Then, flicking, Avery made a flash using the same dust.  The bone white of so much of this Alcazar glowed momentarily in the wake of it.

“No question who did it,” Lucy said, quiet.  “Broadly speaking.  The Fae.”

“The New Fae.  Like I said.  Nothing good,” Toadswallow said.

Outside, a group that looked like they were from Ottawa had gathered.  Some had been here before.

“We’re breaking it down,” Hardeep said.

“You got the message?  That whistles through?” Lucy asked.

“Her last words.”

“No other evidence?”

“We used practice, did our paces.  There might be more evidence to be had when we take it down.  We’re worried if the rain gets worse, it’ll wash away further evidence.”

Lucy nodded.

She moved out of the way, moving with the other members of Kennet.  Grandfather beside her, holding the rifle, Avery and Verona close enough to put an arm around.

The white of bone began to crumble into dust.  Blood flowed thin, like water, and meat slipped down.  Everything began to fold in, back together.

“So what do we do differently, this time?” George asked.  “Is this a repeat of the last thing?”

“Not when we know who did it,” Matthew said.

“One could say there are different types of war,” Miss said.  “I’ve talked about it with Rook, in the past.  Gerhild’s behavior fit the pattern, as far as what she was doing, and why.  As you said, blood, fire, and darkness.”

“As brands of war?”

“As shapes a war of practice could take.  We had a bloody fight against Charles.  This would be war of a different nature.”

“Darkness?” Verona guessed.

“Yes, that would be my inclination.  We know how they operate.  A war fought in the margins of innocence.  Not at the periphery, we know they’re doing more than that.  Cities.  Institutions.  Applying pressure, finding the weak points.  This would be a war of subtleties and definitions.”

“Oh, criminy fuckit,” Toadswallow groaned.  “Don’t talk like that.”

“What’s this?” Mia asked, in the background.

“Subtleties and definitions sounds a lot like the Oni Accords type stuff,” Verona remarked.

Toadswallow nodded, chin dipping into neck fat.

“It crossed my mind,” Miss said.

“Humans pushed too far, and the Oni pushed back, with enough numbers and the right mindsets to relabel and redefine themselves, mess with practitioners, some even messed with the Seal,” Verona explained, for Jeremy and Mia, and anyone who might not have done the reading.

“We had the blood, Miss thinks we got the darkness,” Avery said.  “What’s fire?”

“Some went one step further than messing with the Seal,” Lucy said.  “Think hellfire.  Crossing those lines.  That even Charles didn’t seriously consider.”

Verona blew out a near-whistle of air out of her mouth.

People still inside found gaps in the walls or pushed their way through bone-lace, whistling windows before the heavier parts of roof and ceiling could come down on them.  Glamour disintegrated.  Lucy watched warily to make sure there weren’t any traps hidden or ambushes waiting in the larger pieces.

When the heaviest piece of the head hit ground, all the crows around them took flight, going from silence to a loud outcry that blended in with the flapping wings and rustling branches.

The dust cleared.

Gerhild’s body lay draped against a tree, covered in wounds.  A good twenty paces separated it from the rest of her army.

Her head lay another few paces away.

“So small,” Verona said.  “Lonely.”

Lucy thought of John as she looked at the body, the head.  She reached through her sweater and top to grab the dog tag and Yalda’s ring.

“Nobody’s going to shed tears of blood over this one,” Louise said.

Lucy nodded slowly.

That was the difference, wasn’t it?

“What do we do, then?” Avery asked.  “What’s our starting point?”

“Two things,” Miss said, walking through the trees, now.  “Avery, Verona, Lucy.  For you in particular… I doubt they’ll seek you out or confront you directly.  It’s about finding weak points, and you’re not weak.  Verona told Rook about- may I share?”

“I… I think I know what you’re saying.  Sure.”

“About her frustrations.  That winning meant losing so much.  This is the flip side of that.  Sometimes when you win a battle, it’s the perpetuation of a cycle.  Sometimes, like it was for you, you win enough.  Enough that your enemies scatter, enough that you’re secure.  Targeting you means risking exposing vulnerabilities, it means risking your allies fold in on them.  There’s a reason Gerhild was targeted and Ottawa wasn’t.  Kennet wasn’t.”

“Anti-goblin racism among Fae?” Bubbleyum asked.

“Perhaps inevitable.  But not what I was thinking.”

“Connections,” Lucy said, looking down at the head with its limp, bloody hair.

“So we can’t do anything?” Verona asked.  “That’s a weird take.”

“You can do everything.  My first point was that this won’t be your fight, as it unfolds, this first gauntlet thrown down.  It’s fought by the weakest and most vulnerable.  You’ll need to be vigilant.  Be wary for traps and subversion.  They are fae.  My second point is that there is no starting point, Avery, because you’re already underway.  By instinct or luck, you’ve been empowering, educating, preparing.  You’ve created sanctuaries, in Kennet, in the bookstore, in the school.”

“She so adroitly dodges admitting that Kennet found is that, too,” Sir Toadswallow croaked.

“It is.  To their credit.”

“And yours,” Matthew prodded.

Through the triumvirate bond, with the proximity of Verona and Avery, Lucy could feel the other two as wavelengths, emotion and state of being as shaky things.

“As the world gets darker, bloodier, and a worst case scenario sparks on the horizon, it’s education, reaching out, reaching down, the things we build, the things we hold onto, that’s what will see us through.”

Lucy could sense the others easing up just a bit, finding emotional footing in the face of something so ominous here.  She could feel herself doing the same.

She raised her eyes to look at Miss, and Miss was gone.  Back to Kennet.

Verona snorted lightly when she noticed.

Lucy’s earring caught a partially formed word.  She turned her head.  Louise, their council leader, with blood in her eyes that wasn’t flowing down her cheeks, instead rimming the bottom lids.  She’d started to say something, then stopped.  Their council leader, representative of Kennet above.  Who’d started them on this journey.

Lucy got that.  There was so much to say, and she wasn’t sure how to encapsulate it.

Louise met Lucy’s eyes, then did it for Lucy.

“We carry on.”