Pale: 6.2 - Avery
Author: Wildbow

Cutting Class – 6.2 | Pale

Avery had woken up before Lucy and Verona, and had spent a while deciding if she should wake them up.  She checked her phone, considered, debated the fact that the classes could be over soon anyway, and that they’d be waltzing in late.

“Verona,” she called over to the other bed.

“We’re late for class.  Did you want to attend?”

“Which ones was it again?” Verona asked.

“Uhhh.  Realms, Alchemy, and Language.”

She waited for a response for a minute, then propped herself up for a better look.  It looked like Verona had fallen asleep again while she was answering, or didn’t care enough to really stay awake.  Not that it was easy to tell, as Verona lay with her back to Avery.

No afternoon class then.  Probably for the best.

Avery shifted position, and Snowdrop’s four legs went out, bracing against her stomach, claws pricking through her shirt.  She picked Snowdrop up and as she adjusted position, settled Snowdrop on her stomach.

“You’re getting heavier,” she whispered.

Snowdrop tried to bury her nose and eyes beneath the bottom edge of Avery’s shirt.  Avery pulled the sheet up around her, blocking out the light, and Snowdrop went still.

She checked her phone again, then, anxieties stirring a bit, checked social media.

No messages from Sheridan.  Sheridan’s page was desolate, with a quote from when Sheridan had been Avery’s age, and dead links to music on woobtube. The message from lunchtime was still there, from Sheridan: I’ll try to find a moment to ask.  Mom’s back from the work thing and took Dad shopping.

Nothing on mom and dad’s pages except some thumbs-ups fired off at a colleague’s vacation photos and a picture of a watercolor-y Canadian flag shirt bought for Kerry, forty-five minutes ago.

Rowan had hit the beach with Laurie and wasn’t going to be home much for Summer.  There were pictures of Laurie rocking a bikini and then Rowan with a sunburn that had turned him red-pink everywhere but where his swim trunks covered him.  Dumb.  Avery wasn’t really sure why they were together, when Laurie seemed really cool, nice, and pretty, with a lot of interests and passions.  When they spent a lot of time together they got snippy with one another, and when they were apart, it was like Rowan didn’t even miss her that much.

Declan’s Gamecouch page was more active.  It looked like Amber, their neighbor from three houses down and Declan’s friend from early childhood, had been ghosted by Declan.  There had already been a bunch of incidents in the past year or two where Declan, Declan, and Declan had been this tight-knit group and the dickishness ramped up to eleven when a girl was in the picture.  They’d had the one group member who was nice to a girl and got kicked out of the quartet, and Declans Two and Three had been caught checking out porn on Declan Two’s computer after not clearing the internet history.  Declan had been teased a lot about his friendship with Amber for a while now, and apparently dropped her as summer started.

Sucked.  Amber and Cal were decent, as far as Declan’s friends went, and Avery was left hoping it was a phase and not a long-term thing.  With luck he’d probably regret it in a couple of years.  With bad luck, he’d stick with the other Declans over the long term.

Avery weighed the risk of screwing with the already fragile connection break to Kennet, and sent Amber a message: Sorry my brother’s being dumb about stuff.  I’ll give him a hard time over it when I’m back in town.

The reply came back, just a heart emoji.  Avery smiled.  At least it looked like Declan’s now-ex-friend Cal was sticking by Amber.

Touching all the bases at least told Avery that the thing with dad’s coworker hadn’t upended her whole life, and that Sheridan was being cool.

Avery wasn’t sure what else could screw up her life at home as badly as mom and dad not taking it well.  Maybe if the magic stuff was found?  Maybe?  She wasn’t sure what the policy for that was, but it was the same kind of grey area where she could imagine them being relatively cool about it, maybe really worried.  Probably really worried, now that she remembered her mom talking to her in the parking lot about Verona’s dad… and she could also imagine a scenario where they handled it badly.

Was that weird?  That she didn’t get her parents?  If she really thought about it she felt like they were tired a lot of the time because they had so much going on, and mom had some awful friends and dad had the coworkers who she knew nothing about, and they were a bit religious but not in a way where they went to church.  She could imagine a situation where the wrong person in their immediate circle talked to them or took a stance and it wouldn’t matter what she said.

The two extreme options were her parents being worried about her and her parents being not okay about her, and she had no idea if she was thinking about practice or about being gay, anymore.  But whatever it was and whatever happened it probably changed how they treated her and that sucked.  The more she thought about it, the more it sucked, from the big to the small, like holidays and stuff that had nothing to do with anything getting tainted or changed by the big and little changes in attitude.

“Ugggh,” she muttered, under her breath.

Snowdrop, eyes half-lidded, nuzzled at the bottom of Avery’s shirt until she found bare skin, then gave Avery some licks, prompting a stifled laugh from Avery.  She whispered, “What are you doing?  Stop.”

Snowdrop gave her one more lick, then closed her eyes again.

“What was she doing?” Lucy asked, from the other bed, Verona blocking Avery’s view of her.

“Mm.  What time is it?”

“Four fifteen.  Haven’t heard anyone walking around so classes might still be in session.  It’s late enough I don’t think there’s any point to trying to go.”

“I’m not the most upset person in the world, after hearing that,” Lucy said.  “Probably not the most upset person in the room.”

Verona mumbled something inarticulate.

Avery started to check social media, seeing if Sheridan had replied, then made herself stop.  She fired her mental starting gun, swung her feet over to the edge of the bed, and got going, as she had for many early morning practices, and on days she hadn’t had practice, so she’d have a shot at getting time in the shower.

Cradling Snowdrop, she walked over to the other bed.  “Want an opossum to snuggle?”

Avery, looking down at Verona and Lucy, saw them lying over the covers, foreheads touching, eyes closed, though Lucy was semi-awake.  She felt very conscious of the fact those two were best friends, seeing that.  Her mom had a similar picture with Kerry and Kerry’s friend that had gone to St. Victors.

She deposited Snowdrop between the two.  Lucy dropped her hand down to give Snowdrop a scratch.

“Don’t sleep too long or you won’t sleep tonight.”

“Mm.  Right,” Lucy said, without making any motion to get up.

Avery went to the door, and found the tray there.  Lifting the cover, expecting cold food and moist bread, she found three empty plates, an empty bowl, and two empty glasses, with a third only partially filled.

Did the Brownies take it back?  Why leave part of the drink, then?  There was zero way that Verona would eat that much, and Lucy didn’t seem like the type.  Which left…

Avery walked over to the other bed, and looked down at Snowdrop, who lay on her back, stomach distended.

“I thought you seemed heavier, Snowdrop.”

The little opossum began to sort of laugh, mouth open, punctuated by sneezes.

Snowdrop turned human, which elicited noises of protest from Lucy and Verona, as they were pushed aside.  Snowdrop pulled the bottom edge of her oversized t-shirt down, to make the image clear.  It read: “Apex Scavenger” and had a trash can with a little opossum paw extended out the top, giving a thumbs up.  “I’m fighting my nature, I swear!”

“You’re going to risk losing snuggle rights if you do stuff like this,” Lucy said, working her way to sitting up as she extricated herself from a position between the wall and Snowdrop.

Lucy scooted over to the bottom edge of the bed, and sat up.  She hadn’t wrapped up her hair, and it was a bit of a mess, with strands having pulled out of the ponytail. Many held their shape, arcing along the sides and top of her head.

“I like the hair,” Avery said.

Lucy fumbled for her case of toiletries at the top of the chest at the foot of the bed, and got a mirror, looking.  “Mmm.  Frig.”

“I do like it, though.”

“It won’t stay like this, and it’s going to be a pain to untangle,” Lucy grumbled, looking grumpier than her usual.

“Could use glamour,” Avery suggested.  “Faerie magic like a really good hair product.”

“Verona suggested that before.  I’m worried that if I do that and then something goes wrong, it could shatter the glamour and shatter my hair with it, giving me bald patches or something.”

“That’s scary, don’t even say that,” Avery said, eyes widening.  “I’ve been putting it on my skin.”

“If you talk about it, it’s more likely to happen!” Verona called out, a bit sing-song, still lying down.

“Ugh, ugh.” Avery gave her arms a shake, skin crawling a bit.  “Um, speaking of hair and skin… we’re long overdue for showers, I think.  And since we missed class, and we need to research stuff… library after?”

“Let’s find books that teach about the classes we missed,” Verona said, sitting up, eyes now wide, like she was forcing herself awake.  She had strands of hair sticking out sideways.

“We can do that,” Lucy said.  “Plus stuff we need to research.”

“Come on, Snow, I know this is like, your five in the morning, but your hair is a mess.  Shower.”

“I love human showers,” Snowdrop said, not moving.  “Way better than standing out in the rain like I’m used to.”

“I’m a civilized animal, all domestic and crap.”

They managed to get sorted, grabbing everything they needed, and hit the showers.  It was nice, not having to worry about holding other people up or navigating the crowds and the awkwardness that they’d run into yesterday.

Avery washed Snowdrop’s hair, and for all that Snowdrop had protested, the kid did seem happy to be preened over by Lucy and Avery both, as they took care of super-basic hygiene at the sink.

They dressed, dried off as best as they could, ordered snacks that they wolfed down quickly, to tide them over until dinner, and then made their way to the library.

“Love this place,” Snowdrop said.  “Cozy, welcoming, very nice, not-terrifying librarian.”

“I’d let you ride in my pocket,” Avery said, “But I think you’re a touch too big, and you’d pull my shorts down.  Maybe it’d work if I was wearing winter clothes.”

“Your pig-out is coming back to haunt you,” Verona teased.

“I have so many regrets,” Snowdrop said.

“I’ve got a sweatshirt pocket, kinda,” Lucy said.  Lucy wore a super lightweight, sleeveless, moisture-wicking top with a pocket at the stomach and a hood.

“Mmm.  Maybe,” Snowdrop said.

They entered the library.  Nina was there, sitting in the corner, cutting leather, looking happy as a clam.  She gave them a smile as they entered.

Lucy pointed a finger at Verona.  Quietly, she asked, “Ronnie, want to track down some textbooks about today’s classes?”

“Cool,” Verona replied, matching her volume.

“Avery?  We need stuff on possible things we might end up binding.”

“Are we going to give too much away if we do that?” Verona asked.

Avery rocked back and forth on her heels, thinking as she talked aloud, “I can grab some extra stuff to throw people off the trail.  But they might know anyway.”

“Let’s make it as hard as possible,” Lucy said.

“What are you getting?” Verona asked.

“We might be monitored,” Lucy said.

Avery, looking around the library, could hear the quiet murmur of conversation.  She walked through the shelves, looked over, and saw that an impromptu class was in session at the bottom end of the library.  Quietly, she told the others, “I think Alexander is teaching.  That’s his voice.”

“He wasn’t scheduled,” Lucy said.

“Maybe he just likes teaching?” Verona suggested.

“If he’s teaching he can’t watch us.”

“But his cronies can,” Lucy replied.  She pressed a finger to her lips.

They took up residence at one of the big tables in the library, and found a rhythm as they worked out what was where and how things were organized.  Avery found some stuff on Alchemy, picked out one book, then handed it to Verona, pointing and giving her a light push to put her on course for the rest of the books in that department.  She went to the table to drop off the books: Fae Courts Across History, A Circle of Cold Iron, and Dark Somnambulism. While there, she investigated what Lucy was collecting.

A minute later, she found some books with menacing looking eyes on the cover and directed Lucy to them, to better sort through it.  Apotropaic Protections.

She found more for the Kennet Others.  Vessels, The Rusty Nail, Anima and Animus, Other Soldiers.  To throw any observers off the trail, Avery gathered some more books on different kinds of Other: Dying Giants, Divine Hands: Servants and Messengers, Hardest Bargains: Envoys, and At the Threshold of Death.  They covered giants, divine servants and messengers, envoy incarnates, and the undead, respectively.

The process of just finding the books was taking a while, but there was a kind of security blanket feel to it.  It felt good to know the information was out there.  It just had to be found in the midst of all the other stuff.

There were sounds out in the hallway, and it sounded like at least one class had ended.  Nobody was coming into the library, though.  Good.

The librarian came over to look.

“Is it okay if we chat a bit about what we read?” Avery asked.  “It’s empty, right?”

“Don’t disturb Mr. Belanger’s class, and be silent if and when students come in to browse and study,” Nina told them.  She placed a Garbage-Man comic in front of Snowdrop, then looked over the books.

“Can you not disclose what we’re reading to others, too?” Lucy asked.  “Obviously, you’d record what we take out…”

“The ledgers do the recording on their own, for what you take out of the library and tracking the books.  I can’t imagine they track what you’ve brought to this table, and I wouldn’t dream of telling others about what you’re reading, myself.  Your reading is about your relationship to the written word.  I don’t feel others should interfere with that.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said.

Verona had found the Alchemy, Realms, and Rhetoric texts, organizing them into three stacks.  Avery had found various books on Others.  And Lucy… Avery looked over the books, to verify what she’d suspected once she’d seen Lucy’s initial picks.

Deft Deflection, Apotropaic Protections, A Practitioner Alone, Walls of Chalk, Blinded Eye, Curse Lifted…

Avery paged through the initial stuff there.  Counter-practice, countering the evil eye, dealing with large numbers and forces, warding diagrams, counter-augury, counter-curses.

She had to walk around the table to Lucy’s other pile.

Famulus: The Familiar Bond, Implementum: The Practitioner’s Tool, Demesnes: A Place of One’s Own.

“Essentials?” Verona suggested.

“In our class with Ray, about general Practice, he said we could skip ahead a lot because the class was sufficiently grounded in the basics,” Lucy said.

“Even if we each read a book a night, this is a lot of reading,” Avery said.  Some of the texts were hundreds of pages.

“You have to skim,” Verona said.

“What Ronnie said.  Like, for yours…” Lucy said.  “Check the table of contents…?”

Avery opened the book on undead.  She found the table of contents, sandwiched between some woodcut prints of skeletons and echoes.  Lucy joined her, standing beside her, and ran a finger down the list.

“Summoning and Binding.”

“And for this one…” Lucy grabbed the Dark Somnambulism one.  “Nightmares… just the table of contents tells us there are a lot of types.”

“Yeah,” Avery said.  “And again, summoning and binding, except there’s a chapter for each.  Chapter five, summoning.  Chapter six, dangers.  Chapter seven, binding.  They split them up and stuck a big warning chapter in there, it looks like.”

Verona plunked herself down in a seat.  “Probably because each subtype or whatever has to be explained on its own.  And some summonings are really dangerous, if they’re slippery and stuff.”

“Looks like,” Avery said.  She sat down too.

“We can do deeper research as needed,” Lucy said.  “But for now, we can work out the basics.”

“Do we each do our own thing with the books we grabbed?” Verona asked.  “I do new practice stuff, Avery figures out the Others, and you… work on countermeasures?”

“Maybe not permanently,” Lucy said.  “But it really bothers me that someone came after us with the strife thing, that they might be watching us now, and we can’t even talk in our room without worrying about being overheard.  We can focus later, when we can talk in our room at full volume.”

“Follow our instincts for now?” Avery asked.

“Boo, instincts,” Snowdrop said, not looking up from her comic book.

“Follow your instincts,” Lucy told them.

“Cool, cool,” Verona said, already hunched over the Alchemy text.

“And take notes?” Avery asked.  “I’m curious.”

Verona gave her a thumbs-up.

Avery kept reading the book on the Others that were related to bad dreams.  Nightmare seemed to be a really broad category that covered a lot of things.

Tadra Ikati, or Night Echoes.  Echoes, often driven by the unresolved, could find connection to dreaming friends and family who shared some similar unanswered questions or needs.  Some, broken, would be incomprehensible, and drove their targets mad.  Others found resolution, disappeared, sometimes leaving their targets gifted as they imparted something, or otherwise Aware.  In yet other cases, they used the connection to invade the sleeper.  In those cases, the best scenarios led to sleepwalking, the Echo acting every night to try to achieve something, often doing as Echoes did and repeating actions or getting caught in loops.  In the worst cases, they invaded and set up shop permanently, a little mad and broken.

Night Slashers were Bogeymen who acted within dreams, gaining enough momentum and power to transition into reality.  Simple enough.

Dark Riders were Others, sometimes Fae, who found the displaced with a minimum of connections protecting them, like orphans and refugees, and ‘rode’ them while they were still asleep.  The afflicted would have vivid nightmares and then wake in a strange place, hurt and exhausted.  The Dark Rider would then take them further and further each night, unless the afflicted found connection or found the right superstition to scare them off.  Given a chance, the Dark Rider or group of Riders would steer them from this world to another, to be sold or given to an Other.  Only those without connections could be preyed on, because a secure and connected home would ‘tie them down’ for all of the Rider’s intents and purposes.

Night Hags were Others, sometimes Aware or Innocent, but most often Practitioners, who subsisted off of nightmares, prolonging their own life and well being.  Hags of other types subsisted on different things, but they tended to be Heartless to start and became Other.  As the Night Hag got stronger, it got better at crafting and magnifying nightmares, and more thoroughly destroying the victim to get a bigger meal.

Avery was penning down some limited notes, mainly names and five word descriptions.  But before she could pen out the full Night Hag thing, she had to look over at Verona, who was busy reading, and wonder what Verona would think of that.

She moved on.  Majnūn Jinn were one of a variety of Jinn, which were some really powerful Others that were once ‘architects of creation’ or angels, but were theorized to have been brought ‘down to Earth’, or they finished their work, started to fade, and ended up bolstered with elementals or other forces.  Then they continued indefinitely, so long as they could keep sustaining themselves on spirits, elementals, incarnate stuff, or whatever.  The Majnūn type were an angry variety that stirred up nightmares and psychosis.  When they worked, they affected whole regions.

There were Nightmare Incarnates, and a variety of subtypes.  ‘Nightmare’ as an outright Incarnate, a human-shaped figure who represented Nightmare itself, and furthered the spread and effect of Nightmares in the world, built a personal kingdom of Nightmares, and surrounded itself with Nightmare-related Others.  Then there were subtypes, like the Envoy of Nightmares, which was a sliver of Nightmare that made bargains and deals, in what looked like a Ritual Incarnate, but more of a one-on-one deal with the devil, always around a theme.

Design a fate for your worst enemy.  Endure variations on that fate in nightmares for a year and a day, asking for it each night without breaking or failing to ask for a night, and it will be so.  Change yourself or your life however you desire, but for the rest of your life, the inverse will hold true in vivid and dark dreams; gain beauty for soul-crushing ugliness when you would rest, wealth in exchange for dehumanizing, humiliating poverty when your eyes close at night.  Gain the person you love, but in your sleep, they will be your nemesis, hating you from the bottom of their soul.

Incubi and Succubi, Others of shadow that corrupted their targets by changing their dreams and using those dreams to alter the Self.  Some did dark things to turn the Self evil, or devoured the Self and weakened or eventually killed the victim, and victims wouldn’t fight the process because the dreams were, um, really pleasant.  Others edited the brain through nightmares to corrupt the Self to be salacious, wanton, or just corrupt in a way that had the wantonness and lack of inhibition as a consequence, which apparently created a sex-focused label that might have shaped the Succubi and Incubi that came after.  Once confused with demons, because they were so insidious.

Avery continued to flip through.  She was looking for something that screamed ‘Alpy’ to her, but as she thought on the particular things she’d be looking for, she ended up going back a bit, reading more.

Night Hags had an initial uphill climb with their practice of consuming dreams, because it involved preying on innocents.  They had to pick carefully, and once they started they had to continue, or they got sickly and died.  As they continued, the universe came to accommodate them, which was said to be a common thing with Hags, especially when those Hags were disciplined about their patterns.  They left their humanity further and further behind as they carried on.

She placed her pencil so it rested on the book, then pushed it over to Lucy.

Lucy read it, nodded, then pushed it over to Verona.

“It’s hard to imagine,” Verona said.

“Maybe she doesn’t know what she is?” Avery asked.

“Maybe,” Lucy said.  “Wouldn’t she be, what’s the word?  Flesh and blood?”

“Visceral,” Verona said.

“They leave humanity behind as they go,” Avery said.  “Maybe to the point there’s no solid form?”

“Is there anything on summoning and binding one?” Lucy asked.

Avery stood and walked around the table, reading over Verona’s shoulder, now that Verona had the book.

“It requires a lot of specifics to summon,” Avery noted.  “Like, each one has a name you need to call, and specific objects in a specific order in a circle.”

“Because they start as an individual with a soul, that’s a lot of complexity and individual things you need,” Verona said.

“Take out that book,” Lucy said.  “Good find.”

“I’m still not convinced,” Verona said.  “I get the vibe it’s similar, but she skipped the predatory, hurting people part.”

“Could be,” Avery said.  “Some Others start out as someone who’s missing something, and the Other stuff fills them up, then takes over.  If someone’s lonely or hungry or sick then-”

“Yeah,” Lucy cut in. She pressed a finger to her lips.  “Good line of thinking.  We’ll talk about it later.”

Avery nodded, taking a piece of paper and putting it in as a bookmark.

There was a way to bind Alpy, if this was the right track.  It was hard to say for sure if it was the right track or not, when she had some doubts too, and she wasn’t sure if Alpeana wasn’t like, an accidental hag, who was hollowed out by being ignored and who just learned to take what was there, instead of stealing or hurting people to take it.  Maybe?

She really, really hoped they wouldn’t have to bind Alpy.

She read about Others of War.  There was something about Dogs of War.  Mostly it was things Charles had told them.  There were details on how they evolved as they got kills… they started out without names or faces, and got both gradually as they took lives.  That suggested John had killed a lot of people.  She’d kind of known that, but it felt different in black text on a white page.

There were other details.  A Dog of War like John got stronger and more focused as the conflict got worse and more intense.  There were details on binding them, and it was scarily easy.  Name them, either giving them a name or stating the name on their tag, while there was a closed circle around them.  There was no mention of how the circle was harder to draw as the source conflict got stronger, but it did say that the binding automatically broke after a set time, if the Dog of War and the binder were both on the battlefield after.  Other dog-types complicated binding further.

She paged through the rest.  Red Swords were Others who were derived from Incarnations of Battle and War, and were complex, nuanced weapons with souls, carried by faceless Others that wielded them.  Warborne were those born into places where war held more sway than life, death, or any of the other pillars of creation, and if they could hold onto that precedent, they could gainsay the other forces that might have sway over them.  Through fighting, they could find love, wealth, and other things.  Mortally wounded, they could fight on for a while, and if they could kill before they expired, they would survive.

There was a note attached to that entry that Avery found interesting.  She showed the others.

“I’m pretty sure we already know what-” Verona started.

Avery leaned forward and tapped the page.

Gore-streaked.  It had come up in the student handbook, that four of their classmates were from the ‘Gore-Streaked’ Hennigar family.  Practitioners who emulated the Warborne, or artificially created that Warborne state.

“I wonder if there’s any that aren’t War,” Lucy mused.  “There are other pillars too, right?”

“War’s a big one,” Verona said, leaning back.  “Maybe the other big ones?  What are they?  Time?  Nature?  Fate?”

“I’m thinking of that thriller movie where the woman lives her life backwards,” Lucy said.

“Works.  Or someone caught up in a big prophecy from birth?” Verona guessed.

“Part of the reason I pointed this out, is if someone’s slinging Strife around, some of our classmates feel like they’d be good targets,” Avery murmured.

Lucy nodded at that.  She puffed out her cheeks for a second.  “That’s good.  It’s good we’re thinking about who we might need to plan around.”

“Same idea as a Dog of War, maybe?” Verona suggested.  She tapped the page.  “De-escalate?  End the source conflict if possible?”

“I don’t think they’d make it that easy,” Avery said.

“Good find, there,” Lucy said.  “Put it with the ones we want to take out of the library.  Do you want to move on to the Undead one?  See if there’s anything about vampires?”

“Ghouls,” Verona cut in.  “Vampires aren’t a thing. But there was concerning stuff with the ghoul last night…”

Lucy put a finger to her lip.  She made eye contact with Avery, and it felt like it had intent behind it.

Avery opened the text, and it was a tough read.  It was better written than the last one had been, the art was higher quality, with illustrations for everything.  In one woodcut, a pair of vampires were weedy, emaciated things with bat features and wings and other stuff all mixed in, huddled in a nook while an onlooker held a lantern, shining it into the alcove.

There were ghouls, far more common, who could thrive because unlike Vampires, they could eat the dead, who were plentiful and not innocent.

There were Banes, Revenants, Widows, Dirge-things, Dirge-beasts and…

…And that was the point she realized her eyes were starting to glaze over and she wasn’t digesting what she was reading.

It wasn’t just the fact that it was irrelevant, but she was tired, and she was tired in a way that felt like she hadn’t slept enough and she’d just napped too long.

“I’m not sure I’m up for too much of this,” Avery admitted.  “I like the idea but I’m pretty wiped, still.”

“Do you want to switch books?” Verona asked.  “Read about the fascinating world of flame colors and what they mean in the transmutation of materials?”

“Not really,” Avery admitted.

“There’s a cool trick you can do where instead of using a certain material to turn something into something else, with the light blue flame telling you it’s working, you use practices to turn the flame blue and kick start the process,” Verona said.  “Except, bummer, the book doesn’t actually explain that.  It’s a secret held back by many families.”

“Like the binding of Night Hags,” Lucy said.  “It requires specific steps but I don’t think the book names them?”

“Nope,” Avery said, “Not unless I missed something.”

“The good knowledge is going to be family secrets.”

“And stuff taught in some classes, maybe,” Verona said.  “Maybe not stuff on this level.”

“What else is in there?” Lucy asked.

“Solids to liquid, liquid to gas, gas to solid, and so on, at the beginner level.  Basic potions and mixtures.  Want to make an acid that can eat through metal?  It costs about two thousand dollars in materials.”

“Really glad we aren’t being forced down that road,” Avery said.

“And you can’t do it where innocents will see, because it uses spirits and the karmic backlash can make the thing explode in your face.  At the upper level you get into transmutation that’s less solid to gas, and more like… flesh to spirit, and changing the spirit to change the flesh, or stones you can make that have really, really condensed powers in them, like healing energies or slowing time to slow your metabolism, or not needing to sleep anymore.  And chemicals you drink to try to form those stones in your body for more intensified effects that don’t wear out after two weeks.”

“Is it stuff you’re going to dive into?” Lucy asked.

“Too expensive, I think.  And really exacting.”

“Then maybe move on to another book?” Lucy suggested.  “It’s good to figure out you’re not keen early, but…”

“In a minute,” Verona said.  “Even if I’m not going to use it, it can teach me things about how this all works.”

“Pretty much anything you read can teach you that,” Lucy said.  “So why not read something you’re willing to get more into?”

“Because if I’m not going to come back to this, probably, then I should make sure I’m not looking back a few months from now, wondering about something I read but never got my head around.”

“I’m going to stretch a bit,” Avery said, standing and stretching.  “I might be done.”

“Can you just skim the books, pick out the ones that are relevant?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t think there’s a limit.  Let’s take them all back.”

“That’ll be heavy.”

“I’d rather figure out heavy than tire my head and eyes out,” Avery said.

“Okay,” Lucy said, shrugging.  “Okay.  Good.”

Avery walked away, leaving Lucy and Verona to their resumed debate over Verona reading a text she wasn’t all that interested in.  It looked like Nina was chafing a bit at the ongoing debate, but there wasn’t anyone else present, and she had given permission.

She found herself wandering toward the bottom end of the library.

“It’s an amazing investigative tool, when you can find the right time and place,” Alexander was saying, on the other side of the glass door.  He sounded animated.  “Not looking forward, but back.  Many of the Sight-focused practices, the research-rooted practices, and the practices focused around awareness have some form of it because… it’s all there.  Spirits remember, the forces of this world leave tracks where they tread.  Trace back those tracks, put in the right power, and you can ask.”

“It’s not that easy, though,” a guy said.

Lucy and Verona joined Avery, standing by the glass door.  They seemed to have noticed she was paying attention to Alexander’s class and came looking.

It was good to have backup.  Which made her think of Snowdrop.  She looked back-

Lucy nudged her, then pointed to her sweatshirt pocket.  There was an opossum-sized lump in there.

Alexander was already midway through his answer.  “It’s not easy, Zed, no.  If you want a clear, focused picture, with details, or any kind of control, then you need a lot of preparation and a steady hand.  You also need to account for the power you’re putting into it.  How are you doing it?  Is it casting your sight out, with power driving it further back?  Are you opening a door?  Recreating the scene by having spirits and other forces re-enact?  Each has its strengths and drawbacks.”

“My instinct would be to use tools.  Technomancy, ideally.”

“You’d need the right machine.  I know Raymond has dabbled in that.  I feel like I’d be belaboring the obvious in saying you could ask him-”

“I’ve asked.  He said to ask you about the Seeing part of it.”

“-Of course.  Then it would depend.  There are some where you outright seek out a signal.  Turn the dial, focus the image.  But it can fight you.  Scenes with emotional weight, a deep meaning or significance to them might make that fight harder.  You may end up with the device wrenching the dial one way, plunging sound and audio into incomprehensible static at the most critical moments you most wanted to see.”

“Does it hurt to try?” Zed asked.

“It can.  Echoes can come roaring through the static.  But I know you have Mister Kurtz’s radio, and you’ve run into that very thing.  But more important-”

“More important than murderous echoes and vestiges?” Nicolette asked.

Alexander stepped into sight, right by the glass door.  For a second, Avery thought he was going to shut the blinds.

He popped the door open, giving it a push.  Avery and her friends backed off a bit, to let the door swing in.

Alexander beckoned for them to come in.  To Nicolette, he said, “When you go back, you tread over what’s there.  The patterns and muddled images overwrite, as memories do.  Welcome, you three.  Did the other classes end?  I know Raymond said he might run late.”

“We don’t know for sure,” Lucy said, obviously wary.  “We were studying our own stuff.”

“Well, you’re welcome to join us,” Alexander said.

Avery looked around.  A few of Alexander’s apprentices were here.  Seth, the guy who was either Tanner or Wye, Nicolette, Zed, Brie, and Jessica.  Mostly senior students, with Brie being a weird case who was both older and new to the school.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Avery said.

“It’s a thrown-together thing,” Zed said.  “I had a question, it became a study group.”

“My favorite kind of exercise,” Alexander said, smiling.  “Zed asked how one might turn the Sight toward the past.  To recap, briefly, there are many, many ways, and it helps to know as many as possible, so you can choose the one that works best.  If you choose the wrong one, you can end up hurting all future attempts to look back.  This does, by the way, complicate looks at very distant history.  Too many practitioners have tried Seeing, astrally projected, opened Ways, or whatever else, and tracked mud over the great tapestry of history.  But Zed, I believe, was asking about something in our lifetimes.”

“My lifetime,” Zed answered.  “If it’s associated with echoes it’s probably too volatile for a turn-the-dial type machine, then?”

“Yes.  You would want something crystal-clear.  Something you can arrange to target a specific place and date.  I do believe Raymond had something.  I don’t know if he’s lost or sold it.  How hostile is the echo?”

“Good.  That would be a worry.  Again, as in many things to do with Augury, if you look, things may look back, or even form a connection to you and act.  Personalities great enough to remain intact through decades or centuries can reach through and possess you, even if it’s only for a brief moment.”

Lucy’s hand touched Avery’s back.  Avery looked at Lucy, then followed Lucy’s gaze to the Belangers.  Seth, and the other one.

Someone had sent Strife after them.  Those two were possible culprits.

“Can you intentionally muck up the picture?” Lucy asked.

“You can.  But that, I feel, gets away from the original question Zed wanted to ask.”

It was Jessica who spoke up, “I want to find the echoes that fled from that point.”

“I guess we’re doing away with the charade of it being me asking,” Zed said.

Alexander smiled. “It wasn’t a masterful sort of charade, Zed. Jessica, if you want to pursue an echo using a view into the past as your starting point, then you’ll want an approach that is driven by connections.  A personal appeal, using personal objects.  The more information you have about the moment, the better.  It’ll anchor what you’re looking for.”

There was some noise elsewhere in the library. Lucy broke away to head to the table where their stuff was.

Avery hesitated, in part because she was curious, and because she liked Jessica as a person.

“It looks like all classes of the day have ended, and we’re not so far away from dinner,” Alexander said.  “Would you like to make this a project, tomorrow?  Bring Eloise.  She’s quite adept at connections.  And bring Zed.  Zed?  The machines we talked about.  If we’re going to do this, we should do this well.  We can discuss over dinner, if you like, but I’m picturing three devices, each one something that can look into the past.  Then Eloise for connections, Zed for the visceral, and yourself, Jessica, for the immaterial.”

“What’s your price?” Jessica asked.  “Nothing’s free.”

“Goodwill,” Alexander said.  “You paid tuition to be here, as one of my students.  Acknowledge that, be glad of that, and that will be all I ask.”

Jessica gave him a wary look.  It almost looked like she was going to say no.

“Come on,” Zed nudged her.

“Okay,” Jessica said.  “Fine.  I need to bring things?”

“We’ll talk about it after dinner.  Meet me in my study.  I’ll draw up some notes, refresh myself on psychometric practices, and we’ll go from there.  But for now, go, eat, rest, enjoy each other’s company.  It’s been a long day.”

That was leave to go and get ready.  It looked like a lot of students were wandering around now.

“Avery, Verona.  I see Lucy’s disappeared. A word?” Alexander asked.

They waited, as the rest filtered out.  Avery tried not to direct too much suspicion at the Belangers.

Then it was just him, Avery, and Verona.

“I heard you attended morning class.  You can tell Lucy Durocher was impressed with her.  A high compliment.”

“It’s been a long twenty-whatever hours,” Avery said.

“I can imagine.  And you handled the situation with Bristow and his Aware?”

“We’re aiming to take a neutral position,” Verona said.  “It might be better if we don’t comment.”

“Ah, I see.  I won’t argue that, then.  What do you think?  Any interest in psychometry?  Seeing past events?”

“I’m not not interested,” Avery said.

“Speaking for myself,” Verona cut in, “I’m interested in virtually everything practice-related.”

“You’re welcome to look in if you want, tomorrow.  I do hope you’re well.  It must have been a long night.  Zed was tired and he didn’t have his day or night disrupted to nearly the same extent you three did.”

“Are you fishing for information after we drew a boundary?” Lucy asked, rejoining them.  She had two books under each arm.  Snowdrop held three more, as a stack.

“I may be, I’m a curious personality and I’m probably seeking information, whatever I do.  But it wasn’t my intent.  I’m thoroughly enjoying your presence at my school.  I do enjoy my refined pet students, but there’s something fun about three young ladies stomping through and challenging convention, threatening Mrs. Durocher with a gun, brazenly visiting the library in the company of an Other that set the building on fire.”

“I’m innocent,” Snowdrop said.  “No idea what he’s talking about.”

“You don’t even seem slightly worried, Alexander,” Avery said.

“Bristow was too,” Verona said.

Lucy elbowed Verona, as best as she could, while carrying her books.  “Let’s go.  Nina was kind enough to bag the other books, but this is heavy.”

“You can find me if you want something,” Alexander said.

They left, Avery collecting the extra big bag of books and slinging it over her back.

“Seeing the past is interesting,” Verona said.

“But there are people who can see back,” Lucy pointed out.  “There’s a chance that we could go looking, see something, and then they know we know.  Then what?  And don’t answer that.”

“But on that note-” Lucy said.  The library wasn’t far from their room, and they were already at the door.  She had her arms less full than Verona or Avery, so she struggled to open the door.  “-Did see some stuff in reading.  There are very few ways of far-seeing that don’t have some tells.  If you know what to look for, it could be a shadow of a reflection peering through the mirror, a mark on the wall, or an eye in a painting following you.  In the tricky cases, they might hide it or do it in a way you can only see with the Sight, but it’s really obvious then.  I don’t think we’re being watched all the time.  So we just have to figure out what it looks like when they are looking.”

“We could split it up,” Avery said.

“If we did, one of us might need to use their Sight a lot,” Verona said.  “A lot a lot.  And if that someone just happened to be naturally talented with the practice, and figuring stuff out-”

“We can do shifts,” Lucy said.  “Let’s not break your Sight by making it an all-the-time thing.”

“Fifty-percent-of-the-time thing?” Verona asked.

They dumped the books on the beds, then arranged them.

“Nettlewisp?” Verona asked.  “So people don’t go looking at what we borrowed from the library?  Protecting Kennet?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said.  “Okay.”

She began to gather the glamour, while Avery turned the books cover down, setting them so the spines weren’t easily visible.

“Nettlewisp, nettlewisp, nettlewisp,” Lucy murmured, tracing the rune into place.  “Should we be away and others pry, could you put something sharp in their eye?  A little prick for the good-intentioned snoops, a gouging for menacing nincompoops.”

Verona jumped in, “Stain their skin and stain their hand, if they trespass, do as we command.”

Avery struggled to think of something to add, but she had to complete the set of three.  “And fill the air with a choking mist.  Cover the details until you’re dismissed.”

A trail of glamour from the stash Lucy had pulled from to make the charm extended out, feeding the diagram they’d just grown.

Seemed like Lucy had been too conservative, so the charm took more glamour.

Avery rubbed her arms, aware that in another situation, that could mean it’d take the glamour off her skin.  Right.

Lucy withdrew her hand with care from the rune etched in dust.  Then she moved the sheet, gently moving it so it was over the charm without touching it.

“Food,” Verona said, once they were done.  “Can we get an early dinner?”

“Finally hungry?  Are you going to eat more than a half portion?” Lucy asked.

“I- I was going to say something snarky, but maybe, yeah.”

“I’m not hungry,” Snowdrop said.

“How?” Avery asked.  “How?  You ate one and a half deli sandwiches, and I- they were pretty big, weren’t they?”

“And you ate my wrap, and you ate Lucy’s salad and fries, and two and a half drinks, and you’re hungry again?”

“I’m saving up for winter.”

“That- exactly!  It’s the furthest time from winter.”

They got sorted out, dropped off some things, put all their things they might need over dinner, like notebooks, into the one bag, and then headed out.  Students were mixing and mingling, talking.  The hallway was about as crowded as it got.

“I wanted to ask Zed who was our age that we could get along with,” Avery said.  “Like… okay, trust and friendship between practitioners clearly gets weird, but it’d be nice to talk to someone who isn’t four years older than us.”

“I liked Yadira.  Seemed like a peacekeeper,” Lucy said.

“That whole deal seemed exhausting,” Verona said, looking back over her shoulder, to make sure the people they were talking about weren’t right there.

“It’d be nice to do something tonight that isn’t crazy and practice-heavy.  Like sitting around a fire or whatever.  Like a swim?”

“For me, that depends how bad the bugs are,” Lucy said.  “I think the campus has some protection but once we get out that far…”

“Fair,” Avery said.  “I think bugs like the taste of me.  I always seem to get it worse than others.”

“I hate bugs,” Snowdrop said.  “They’re so unsatisfying to snack on.”

“I know, right?” Snowdrop asked.

“Contributing member of society,” Verona pointed out.  “Keeping us tick-free.”

“I’m so bad at that,” Snowdrop said.  “And when they get blood-engorged that’s just the absolute worst.  Nothing like those shrunken head candies Verona eats.”

“I might never look at those candies the same way,” Lucy muttered.

“I love it,” Verona said, smiling.

The crowd seemed to thicken, people pressed closer together.  It took Avery a minute to realize why.  Too many students were older and taller than her, and they were protecting the smaller, younger ones.  In particular, Talos and Tymon were guarding their little sister Jorja and her friend Talia.

It was two girls their age, and Avery didn’t know their names, but she recognized one of them as the annoying and demanding Fernanda’s friend.  Fernanda had loudly demanded that Mrs. Graubard help her with the doll across class yesterday, and her friend had seemed to be on a similar wavelength.  It looked, at least from a distance, like Fernanda was the queen bee, and this girl her lackey.

“Laila and… Melody?” Verona murmured.

Laila was the lackey then.  Who wasn’t acting lackey-like.  Intense, stalking forward, she pushed Melody up against the wall.  Laila’s eyes glowed and her breath fogged.

“You’re misinterpreting me,” Melody said, holding the back of her hand over her nose and mouth.

“You’re always playing the victim, Melody,” Laila said.  The wisps that escaped her mouth took shapes, like clawed hands, and snaking tendrils.  “Stop.  Stop playing up the act where you’re the nice girl, oh you’re so cute and nonthreatening, you’re the victim so much of the time, you’re helpless, you’re ignorant.  You’ve been studying here for two years.  You’re not that much less educated or weaker than the rest of us.  But you pretend to be because it lets you be sneaky about stuff.  People underestimate you and you use that.  Undercutting me behind my back?  To my parents?”

“You’re misinterpreting!”

“How!?” Laila raised her voice, pushing Melody back harder.  “Tell me!”

“You’re-” Melody hesitated.  A moment later, she choked, as a wisp of something snaked into her nose.  When her mouth opened, more traces of whatever got into her mouth.

She doubled over, and Laila pushed her to the ground, putting a knee on her chest and leaning over.  Now the wisps cascaded down over and around her face and head.

“Mel!  Let her go!” a boy shouted.  Fernanda got in his way.

“Let them hash it out,” Fernanda said.

“She’s using practice on her!  What the hell is she doing!?”

“Shut up!” Laila snapped at them, before turning to Melody and gripping her collar.  “And answer me, ‘Mel’!  Tell me, how am I misinterpreting?”

“I can’t-” Melody managed, struggling and failing to cover her mouth.

“You’re having to think about it.  But I have zero interest in that.  Don’t construct a clever bit of wording.  Say it.  If it’s honest you can just say it!” Laila said.  “You’ve been nipping at my heels for the last year, you talk crap about me and Fernanda, and I’m done with it!  If I’m wrong then tell me, simple, straight, and without thinking about it!”

Every word was punctuated by more ghostly things spilling out of her mouth and nose, swamping Melody.

“Should we step in?” Avery asked.

“I have no idea,” Lucy said.

“Teacher’s coming,” Verona said.

It was Raymond, jogging over.  The students parted to let him through.

Laila released Melody, backing off.  Melody, coughing, sat up, then immediately faltered.  She tried to speak and couldn’t.  Her brother went to her side, crouching by her.

Raymond stopped, looming over the scene.

“This is the kind of thing that results in expulsion for both parties,” Raymond said.

“It was a spat,” Laila said.  “Stuff was simmering for a while.”

“You cursed her.  Withdraw it.”

“Now.  Or there’ll be no further discussion and you’ll be treated as a hostile entity.”

Laila opened her mouth wide, tongue out and extended toward her chin.  The wisps came as a surge that made Melody gag as it emerged, thick around as Avery’s leg, smokey, and winding through the air before returning to Laila’s throat.  Laila’s eyes glowed briefly.

“We’re fine.  We dealt with it ourselves,” Laila said, after swallowing.

Melody looked up, coughed, then nodded.  “We’re fine.”

“We’re not.  This isn’t acceptable conduct for this school.  Let’s go to my office, and we’ll call your parents about picking you up.”

Avery had to crane her head to look and see, one hand on the wall for balance as she got on her tip-toes.  Lucy put a hand on her for balance while doing the same, and both Verona and Snowdrop didn’t even try.

It was Alexander, near the library entrance, far side of the crowd.

“Disperse,” Alexander told the assembled students.  “I’m not impressed, seeing students gawking at a common brawl.  I’ll be less impressed if you’re spreading rumors or gossip about it tonight or late this week.  Raymond, I hate to undercut you, but there’s more to this.  Girls, Raymond, my study, please.  We’ll talk it over.”

The students reluctantly scattered.  Avery, Lucy, and Verona waited until there was an avenue to travel, then headed outside, halting as the crowd started and stopped, or students entering their rooms made people have to take detours, choking up the flow of people leaving.

“What was that about?” Verona asked.

“Lots of stuff beneath the surface.  More strife?” Lucy asked.

“Or… kind of the opposite,” Avery said.

At the far table, where the teachers had sat on Sunday night, Bristow was sitting, wearing a polo shirt and khaki shorts, a bit sweaty and red faced by default, with a walrus-y mustache.  He laughed at his companion saying something.  But as goofy as he looked, he had narrow eyes that were watching everything.

One of the men who sat with him looked disinterested in the conversation.  Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, with a bad scar up one arm.

And the other, narrow, with a longer chin, and old fashioned medium-length blond hair where his hair was gelled or hairsprayed to the point of rigidity, had very very green eyes, and a smile like he was proud of himself.

He spoke, and Bristow laughed.

Avery pushed the others, and when they didn’t move fast enough, carried on and tugged them.  Once Lucy and Verona realized what Avery wanted, they cooperated, walking away from the tables and everything, out toward the woods.

The fact the bugs got worse as they got away from the school’s protections was a good hint that they were further from the observation and watching eyes.  Clear to talk.

“You think he-?” Verona started, struggled for a term, and settled on, “Evil-eyed them?”

“Fernanda is Chase’s little sister and Chase is Alexander’s apprentice and Nicolette’s superior, right?  So is it sorta reasonable to think Laila’s in Alexander Belanger’s camp?” Avery asked.

“That’s a lot of steps you’re taking to get there.”

“But?” Avery pressed.

“So this is two people who want this place, each using students as their pawns, destabilizing the others?” Lucy asked.  “Or is Alexander not even using strife?”

“Could be, right?  Either way?” Avery asked.  She looked around.  “We should have a game plan.”

“We didn’t want to take sides, remember?” Lucy asked.

“I know,” Avery said. “But someone came after us, strifed us, right?  So… at the very least we should know what’s going on and keep an eye out for them.  If this keep going this way, there’s a chance we could find them.”

“If things keep going this way, the school could become a warzone,” Verona protested.  “We’re supposed to take classes in the middle of this?”

“We have to,” Lucy said.  “The Others are protecting the perimeter at home and we’re here, learning what we need to, to put up a better perimeter and carry out our duties.”

“They’re doing that for us, we do this for them,” Avery said.