Pale: 7.6 - Verona
Author: Wildbow

Gone Ahead – 7.6 | Pale

The bullet that had penetrated the body of “Ms. Durocher” skittered across the floor as if kicked.  John pointed his gun in the direction it had been kicked from, but he didn’t pull the trigger.

“No hesitation in pulling the trigger,” Shellie said.  Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

“You’ve killed before.”

“So have I.  My last was a pretty little Fae thing, challenged herself by working her way up in human society.  For them, it’s like swimming up a waterfall, because our world isn’t for them.  She made it as a patron of the arts, picking musicians and funding them.  My brother sniffed her out, I told him to ignore her.  Then I found her and I made sure there wasn’t a square inch of her skin that the glamour could hold on to.  Then I sat with her for a week, offering her fruitless hope in exchange for information.  She didn’t take the offer.”

“Was she evil?” Lucy asked.  “Did she really deserve that?”

“Can you afford to be asking questions?  The way this works is that I do the stalling, telling interesting stories to see if you bite, and you rush through a series of plans to try to find me and defeat me so you can escape or prepare.  If you’re asking questions, you’re flipping it around.”

Verona was listening without listening, her eyes switching easily over to the Sight.

In the movies, it was the cloud of flour thrown into the air that betrayed the movements of the invisible hunter.  The paint on the floor.  Every movie with something or someone invisible had that scene, which never really sat right with Verona.  Bending light was wild and complex and it always felt like a huge oversight.

“Since when do you care about story conventions?” Lucy called out, her head turning.

But here, like this?  She felt like it should work.  Her Sight cast a loose sheet over everything, a wisp of cocoon, a sheet of foggy plastic.  Seeing past the veil was a hidden trick she’d had from the start, just for her.  Lucy had her earring.  Avery was sensitive to seeing fine movements.  John had spent a bit of time talking about  being watched by Augurs and burning through connections with Avery.

Verona nearly jumped out of her skin when something darted through the broken, shattered space, Lucy made a pained sound, flinching, and John whipped around, pointing his gun at air, head turning.

Lucy held hands to her lower face, and Verona saw a flash of blood beneath fingers.  She’d been hit in the face.

Verona’s hackles raised.  Nada.  Nothing.  She felt like the flayed things that hid under benches and by bookshelves should be perking up and looking. Not so.

Lucy normally liked to meet things head-on.  Avery flanked.  Verona had had it in her head for a bit now that that would be how they’d organize one another whenever they were in doubt.  Lucy in front, Avery circling around.  Verona just had to hang back, support the two of them, and work on getting answers when they didn’t need the support.  Like hanging back to get the answers from Brie, flinging the occasional flash card out.  Or figuring out how to get past the defenses of Zed’s car.

But their opponent was on her turf, invisible, and there was nothing for Lucy to face directly or for Avery to flank.  That loose system of organization fell apart.  Verona’s world narrowed to focus on the triangle of space between Lucy, Avery, and herself.

That really, really bothered Verona and she didn’t like being affected on that level.

“Aren’t you going to keep asking questions?” Shellie asked.  “Throw out quips.  Like, oh, you’re so much worse than they were, Shellie.  And I can tell you that no, I’m trying to be worse.  Or bring up Daniel.  I’ll give you fifty-fifty odds on it being a thing I can laugh off or something that makes me flip my lid and go off on you.”

“Wouldn’t the best way to change up the narrative be for you to surprise everyone by changing your way of doing things and having a rational discussion?” Avery called out.

“That’s a good quip.  Congratulations.  You found the magic words.  Yes, that would be a way to be random enough the Fae couldn’t get me.  You’ve solved the Shellie riddle and you win!”

“Aaah!” Snowdrop shrieked.  There was a clatter as Snowdrop fell and a bench fell over.

Shellie slipped out from behind one sliver of altered, programmed reality in this space she’d broken with Ray’s computer, ducked low around in between Avery and John, and gripped the fabric at Avery’s shoulder to control where Avery was in the moments John had her in her sights.  He couldn’t put a bullet through Shellie without risking that it would pass through and hit Avery.

“Avery!  Don’t move,” John barked out.

But Avery stumbled back, trying to pull away from the hand that gripped her, and Shellie slipped in behind, arm lashing out with a blade in it, not to cut but to strike the side of Avery’s neck with a forearm, and block her retreat with the blade.

Now behind Avery, controlling her movement, moving fluidly despite the fact she, a grown woman, was crouching to match her height to a thirteen year old.

“How good is your aim, soldier boy?” Shellie asked, taking Avery hostage.

“Good,” John answered.  He pulled the trigger twice.  The second shot came so fast Verona didn’t have time to cover her ears before the sound blasted out.

Shellie’s knife hand shattered, the blade flying away from Avery’s neck with a violence that matched a spray of blood.  As Shellie pulled away in the opposite direction, she seemed to move directly in the way of the second bullet.  It clipped her eye, shattering bone.

Shellie fell, draping herself over the back of a bench, hand and upper left region of her face in ruins.

The ruins disintegrated by the second, like they were a careful arrangement of dominoes that had been tipped, or a house of cards that had started to collapse on the one side.

The fake Shellie disintegrated.

“Glamour kindly and unwittingly provided by the Vanderwerfs and by generous donors such as yourselves.  Are you kids old enough to have taken science classes?  Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have the most well-rounded education.  I didn’t even get a bed of my own to sleep in, a lot of the time.  Poor little Shellie Alitzer, younger than you kids when she was released back into your world and told to find interesting, relevant things that her Faerie masters could then decipher or sell.  Can’t get caught by the authorities, can’t leave a trail, not a dollar to my name, but if I could pick the right things to steal, make it back in time, then maybe they’d let me sleep at the foot of another slave’s bed, curled up around a woman’s cold feet, borrowing the end of the covers.  Or they’d remember I’m actually a mortal who needs to eat, or they’d give me some cash to make my next trip out easier.”

The way she’d stepped out from behind the scenery.  It was like how animated shows used to work, with layers of clear plastic and things drawn on each sheet, but her sheet was out of order.  She was behind the stack more than she was invisible.

Was there a flayed human Shellie lurking behind the film?

“My education was breaking into someone’s house while they were out, sitting on their living room floor, and watching Backyard Science Club with Sciencella.  Furiously devouring snacks and studying, so I could go back with some Backyard Science Club tapes and walk a Faerie through making some tapes with similar vibes.  To trap other kids like me.  There was a principle I covered and I have no idea if they teach it to you guys in third grade or tenth, but conservation of energy?”

The last of them to speak had been targeted.  Lucy had been attacked, then Snowdrop and Avery.  They were silent now, while Shellie rambled, from that everywhere and nowhere perspective.

Except wasn’t that a trap, too?

“You throw around this glamour without realizing it’s still out there.  It might change forms but it doesn’t just disappear.  Like all this I’m hearing about glitter and microplastics?  It’s out there. Stuck in the ceiling of that place you were sleeping.  In your rooms, in the grass and in the woods.  And just like this Brownie trick that Bristow’s about to turn back on you all?  It’s way more effective if you take glamour that’s been taught how to work with three little witches and use it against those same witches.”

“You’re just out there on your hands and knees with a glamour magnet, sucking up all the glamour-y iron filings?” Verona called out.

She’d broken the silence because they had to, it felt like.  But also because she sensed that Shellie wouldn’t repeat herself by going after the person speaking three times.

The fact she was going with her instinct on that and in a way protecting herself from being targeted and hurt felt cheap and unfair.  Like she was betraying her friends by not provoking the next attack.

She had to refocus.  What were her options?  What was here?

That bike was there, but she didn’t think she could use it.  Complex spirit.

There was the tea set, echoes, but… they weren’t hostile.

The cassette player with the ghoul attached was still sitting on a shelf.  Musette was unsummoned, the circle wrapped up.  Too specific to turn against Shellie, so she couldn’t hope to bait Shellie inside and then flip it on.

Verona fixed her eye on the broken computer on the floor.

“I had to learn to use this stuff.  The leavings and dust of other people’s work.  In a way, the fact you leave it behind makes me hate you.  They didn’t give us clothes or shoes.  We had to spin those things together out of dust, or I’d go to the lost and found at some school or kid’s gym.  They’d drop us back into our world, knowing we had to come back, for various reasons.  For me, that was Daniel.”

Lucy’s bag was in that nook where Lucy had been with Avery.

Verona backed up a bit, then ducked down to grab Lucy’s bag, and Avery’s too while she was at it.

“No bed, no home to call our own.  If another one of the scavengers they were training shared bread with me, that was something they could use.  The next time I was too slow or too unproductive, or if I couldn’t think three steps ahead and figure out what the other four scavengers were bringing back on this trip and avoid bringing the same things?  They’d punish her instead of me, take her solidity and form and leave her a writhing bit of shapelessness, and drop her into a box with the other scraps and snippets for a weekend, to latch onto and lose her grip on bits of bug, bits of animal, bits of horrifying faces until they gave her her shape again, a bit worn out and misshapen because something nonhuman had been wearing it and stretching it out.  Because I’d been slow and she’d made the mistake of being friendly to me a month ago.”

“And?” Lucy asked.  “Do you want us to feel sorry for you?  Because I do.  I won’t lie.”

“It’s how they get your soul. They get you by holding onto something you can’t let go of.  For me that was Daniel.  But your soul?  They pry that from you.  And the brownies that are due to come?  What do you think they’ll do to you?”

“I figured they’d make us eat something grotesque,” Verona said.  “Or something so delicious it makes all other food pale in comparison.”

“They’ll treat you worse than my captors did me.  They’ll take you three and turn you against one another.  You don’t even have any conceptualization about what they are and how they’ll act.  You’re so far off I love it!”

The computer on the floor was broken.

What if she broke it more?  Or broke everything?  They had the jammer.  The big red button they’d confiscated from Brie back when she’d come back to Kennet and the goblins had brought her into custody.  They’d just used it to free Avery, that morning.

She pressed the button, firm.

She viewed it with the sight, and peered past the now-translucent button to the lifeform within, withered, curled up into the foetal position. and drawing in energy.

It still needed to recharge, apparently.

Verona brought Lucy and Avery’s bags, and headed back to Lucy’s side, perpetually looking around.  John flinched as Verona passed into his peripheral vision, like he was ready to hit her or turn and shoot her.

She found Lucy’s wallet, and in the wallet, the card with the red centipede printed on it.  Same one they’d used to break into Sharon’s computer.

“Got a plan?” Lucy asked.

Verona shrugged, holding up the card for a moment.

The card with the computer bug?  It helped pull things out, helped hack.  Could she use it to hack the broken pieces of the computer into a semblance of working order?

Problem was, it was on the other side of the room, by the stage.  And Verona was on this side of the room, halfway down.

She passed Lucy her bag, then reached for her own.

Three things that each made her a bit stronger.

Being closer to Lucy made her stronger.  Lucy was donning her stuff as well.

Avery moved closer, hopping up onto a bench to walk on it, giving her a higher vantage point.

Avery wasn’t joining them in putting on her mask, hat, or cape, though.

Verona’s eye fell on the charm bracelet.

Hat, mask, and cape were bound up into charms.  With glamour.  Avery’s hands were tied, unless she wanted to start slinging glamour around the Bright-Eyed Shellie.

“Got any assblasters?” Avery asked.

“No.  Used them saving Daniel!” Lucy raised her voice with those last few words.

“They used Daniel to entrap me.  You think that wins you points?” Shellie asked.

“We’re not in the Faerie realms, Shellie,” Lucy called out.  Her upper lip had split and was still bleeding.  “We’re on Earth.  Where doing someone a favor and being kind tends to get a thank-you or a favor in return.  I’m not going to force you to do anything, but-”

Lucy stopped.  She turned a bit, and Verona could see where a metal blade, like a fine knife, was sticking out of her arm.

“Ow!  What the heck!?”

“Careful,” John said.  “Don’t pull it out or it will make the bleeding worse.  The blade is filling the wound.  Put pressure around it.”

Verona’s eyes darted this way and that, searching for any sign.  She had to refocus, staring out past the things on the surface.  How deep was Shellie, moving beneath all those layers?

Was she breathing something that wasn’t air?  Was she drinking and breathing glamour as she moved through the literal background?

“My line of thinking is that we need to make a door,” Avery said.  “It’s part of why I asked about the assblaster.  I figured a goblin firecracker could bust open a way.  But we might need to draw something.”

“Her entire plan right now is not letting us.”

“I know,” Avery said.

“She’s listening,” Verona murmured, searching.

“She’s better at this than some,” John said, doing much the same.  “I could beat her in a fight, but she wouldn’t fight just me.  She’d go after you.”

“What are those brownies going to do to you, once Bristow sends them?” Shellie asked.  “Sell you, like I was sold?  Worse?  I could imagine them turning you into food.  Cutting into you every night, to serve you to fellow students.  And every morning you could spring back to a mostly-whole shape, never quite intact enough to get away…”

“Hey Shellie!” Lucy raised her voice.  “You do realize that Bristow’s manipulating you?  He’s manipulating Ted, he’s messing with Daniel… keeping you on the hook using rent and other magic tricks!”

There was no response.  But it felt like there should be one.

“Eyes!” Verona called out.

She reached for, marked, and threw a light card, inscribed with a circle.  It flipped up into the air, then activated.  A bright flash to consume the entire room.

She’d hoped for a shadow, a glimmer of something.  It did disrupt the visual effect of the computer, that hid the door, hallway exits, and windows.

She’d timed it based on instinct, like, according to the way this had gone, it felt like Shellie would attack right then.

But Shellie maintained her own tempo.

It would be so easy to burn through essential resources.  And what happened when the Brownies came?

She wasn’t sure she had a great answer to give them.  A way to turn them back on Bristow again.

They needed a way to get to the man.

“We need out,” Verona said.  “I can think of one possible way, besides Avery’s.”

Shellie reached out from under a bench, grabbing Lucy’s ankles.  Lucy toppled as she was pulled.

John leaped over the bench, then over the next, as Lucy was pulled toward the other end of the room.

Avery went after Lucy and John.

Verona hesitated, then headed in the opposite direction.  For the computer.

She’d trust them.  She hated this, she hated it, she hated it.  She didn’t believe in abandoning Lucy, but was it abandonment if they were helping?  It wasn’t like Verona was the type to catch up.

Computer.  And there was a disk drive.

She booted it up, then popped the drive open.  She slipped the card in, then slapped it closed.

The centipede slithered out of apertures in the computer, winding its way around.

“Don’t!  Don’t!” Lucy called out.

“What are we supposed to-”

“Don’t!  Don’t talk.  Where’s- where’s Verona?”

“Here!” Verona called out.

Avery and John weren’t moving.

The laptop screen was cracked, and it threw up a blue screen, an error screen in white text on a black background, then another blue screen, in rapid succession, followed by the centipede in red against a crimson background.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Verona whispered, adjusting her witch’s hat.

“You’re a puppet, Shellie!” Lucy raised her voice.

“Don’t provoke her,” Avery urged.

“Bristow’s got you dancing on his strings.  You’re right back where you were, except you’re slaving under someone who is way less cool than any Faerie!”

Come on, computer, give me access to Raymond.  Or Zed.  Or shut down these doors.  Give us an escape route.

“Lucy!” Avery’s voice was a hiss.  “Not while-!”

Verona looked at the computer, saw progress bars with bends and curves in them as the centipede got them.  She saw windows popping up in sequence, doing their own twisting and winding.

She had no idea if it was almost done or one percent of the way.

She grabbed the laptop and clambered up onto the stage the laptop had been thrown onto, to get a higher vantage point.

Lucy was sprawled against a bench.  The Nettlewisp was back, needle-lined vines wrapped around the same arm, and around the end of the bench.  Trapping her arm there against the wood.  The flower was there too, bristling, with four spiky needles the length of Verona’s arm sticking out.  One at Avery, one at John, one at Snowdrop, and one at Verona.

Verona set the laptop down on the makeshift lectern Raymond had been using, making sure it was still running.

“You’re just one cog in his machine!  It’s pathetic!” Lucy raised her voice.  “You have to know it!  That you’re just another servant for another arrogant tool, while you’re working for him!  Just like how Daniel and Clementine and Ted and everyone else is serving him!”

“She’s trying to draw attention from you two onto me,” Shellie whispered, into Verona’s ear.  Verona jumped a bit.

“Yep,” Verona answered, without moving.  The laptop buzzed and flickered at her right.

“While you’re tooling around with this computer, and Avery over there is subtly trying to draw out a magic circle, using her toe to indicate where, while the opossum does the drawing.”

“Look at the screen, so they don’t realize we’re talking.”

Verona didn’t take her eyes off of Lucy.

Lucy went on.  “You’re gutless!  Attacking kids for a cut on your rent!?  Then you say you don’t care, it’s predictable what we say?  That’s not a way of arguing against us or our arguments, Shellie!  That’s a clear frigging sign that you can’t even argue it!”

“Look at the screen, hands on the keyboard.”

Something sharp pricked Verona in the lower back.

“You act like you’re above it all, you’re divorced from the stories, but then you go and act like you’re putting on a show!  Seems like a pretty obvious and bad performance, Shellie!” Lucy called out.

“What will she say or do when that barbed charm goes off and chooses you or your friend to sting?  Or worse, one of the Others?” Shellie whispered.  “One of you dead or maimed by her hand?”

“I think she’d be very upset for a very long time.  I don’t think it makes a good story and I don’t think it makes a very good anti-story,” Verona said, stiff.

“That’s not a good way to convince me when it’s exactly what I want,” Shellie whispered in her ear.  “Did you know there’s a little trick to that charm?”

“A trap,” Verona murmured.

“Yeah, a trap.  Did the Faerie who passed it on to you tell you?’

“Yep,” Verona murmured.  At the very least, Avery was drawing.

“Then that makes this hit much harder. The only way to get rid of it is to have it go off.  You could slip into another world or travel halfway across the globe.  When that goes off, it should take one of your lives, at a minimum.  It drinks the bitterness that follows.  That’s why the glamour stirs so readily into that prepared little charm, don’t you see?  It waits for the chance to create a situation like this, just like the Brownies and their warning not to give thanks.”

“Yep,” Verona said, swallowing.

“And if we don’t get rid of it, then she’s stuck there.  Caught on a bench for a few Faerie lifetimes.  Can’t cut that bench apart.  You’ll find a subtle little vine in the woodwork and once you sever it, the rest sets off.  And the closest one to her?  Skewered.”

Verona nodded, staring at Lucy.  Her eye moved to Avery, who stood by a bench across the aisle, stricken, and then to John.

“Why us in particular, Shellie!?” Lucy called out.  “You said you did this of your own free will, which I really don’t believe.  But you picked us.  Why?  Because we’re friends, and you’re friendless?  We’re kids and you didn’t get a childhood?  I’m actually sorry that happened to you and Daniel-!”

Shellie talked over Lucy, whispering, “She thinks if she says the right words that my position will unravel.  That I’ll realize how wrong I was and I’ll concede.  Or I’ll show some vulnerability you can use, or I’ll hesitate when it counts.”

“Yeah,” Verona mumbled.

“It’s so arrogant, to think that way.  My position won’t change.”

“Maybe not,” Verona answered.

“I don’t think she could run from the brownies at this point.  So I can go back to my landlord and say I’ve done my job.”

“You could also go suck on a wet fart,” Verona said.  “It’d be a cooler thing to do than what you’re doing right now.”

“You’re not tormented enough by this.”

“A little bit dead inside, maybe,” Verona answered, eyes still forward, body still not moving, as Shellie dwelled somewhere behind or around her, out of sight.

“Or maybe… do you think someone down there is expendable?”

Verona avoided glancing at John.

“Not the little one.  No, Avery there was too upset when I pushed her.  Not Lucy.  It couldn’t be Avery.  And I don’t get the sense of a deathwish from you.  The tall, rangy soldier boy with the wounded look in his eyes.”

Verona didn’t budge, her eyes going to the screen.

It looked like the centipede had more of a hold on things than before.

“Thank you for telling me.  I’ll deal with him.”

Verona remained silent.  Absorbing the emotional hits, keeping it together-”

“…But I’ll deal with you first.”

Shellie seized her.  Verona seized Shellie’s wrists, then twisted around, fighting to avoid being shoved or tossed.  Her back was pressed against the lectern.  Shellie was more than six inches taller than her, adult, and stronger.  Verona was just barely over ninety pounds, and just a hair under five feet.

“John!” Verona shouted.

Shellie ducked behind the lectern, pulling Verona on top of her.

Verona managed to dig her elbow into Shellie.

“Do you know how I set up that Nettlewisp charm so easily?” Shellie asked.

“It’s really simple.  Repetition makes things easier, at least when it comes to glamour.  Keep doing stuff and it responds better.  Did your Faerie teacher tell you that?”

“Yeah.  Less to me directly, more to my friend.”

“I do believe there’s another trap you’ve overlooked.”

“Two big ones, apparently.”

“The wisp’s shadow was on her arm, and you… you smell like cat.”

John’s footsteps were approaching, running as he tried to get around or onto the stage so he’d have a clear shot at Shellie.

“I saw this with a pet werewolf.  When someone changes often enough, it becomes trivial to make them change.”

Shellie’s hand stroked Verona’s face, hair, neck, the fur at the ruff of her neck.

“If you like being a cat so much, why don’t you become one?” Shellie whispered.  “And stay one for a little while!”

She threw Verona.  Verona flipped through the air, upper and lower body twisting independently as she caught sight of the ground and then locked the fluid motion of her body to it, twisting, adapting, using her tail to help control…

John caught her.  She’d been thrown directly at him.  He fired the gun, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

In any other circumstance, that shock would have jarred her back to reality.  In this circumstance, it just made sensitive ears hurt, and she lacked the hands to easily cover them.

Okay.  She’d adapt.  She’d wanted to live like this and now she had to, at least for a few minutes.  There were priorities.  The laptop-

Crashed to the ground.  It had been thrown not long after she had.  She watched as it went to pieces.  Fragments of monitor scattered along the ground, along with casing, keyboard keys, and the fan part of an internal fan.  The CD drive popped open, and the centipede card sat within.

Her head twisted around to Lucy.  Lucy had her one free hand gripping the spikes of the Nettlewisp, holding them back.  The inside edge of one of her fingers was bleeding.

John started moving, carrying her in the cradle of his arm.

“You’re using glamour now, Verona?” Lucy asked, panting for breath.

“It didn’t seem as if she choose to,” John said, voice hushed.

To indicate, Verona shook herself as violently as she could, in an effort to shed the glamour.

“Same as me, then,” Lucy whispered.

If Lucy was okay, then…

Avery was in the benches on the other side of the aisle.  Snowdrop at her feet.  Shellie behind her.

There was a danger in making too much noise if it might set off the Nettlewisp.  If the nettlewisp was real, but Verona was willing to believe it was, after the cat thing.

But their collective reaction seemed to tip Avery off.  Widened eyes, shifts in stance, alarm.

She moved, and escaped Shellie’s reaching hand with the piercings driven through and under fingernails, and through the small bits of webbing between her fingers.

Shellie ducked down, and what followed was… something of a chase.  Avery stumbled, crashed into a bench, fell, stumbled…

Until she ducked to one side… and emerged at the far end of the room.

Using the fact the black rope didn’t work if she was being observed to know if she was in Shellie’s sights.

Verona hopped from John’s hand to the nearest bench Lucy wasn’t on, then hurried over, jumping down to where Snowdrop was crouched, holding a piece of chalk.

If she could finish this-

She took chalk in her mouth, and it turned out cat teeth and mouth-parts were horrible for the task, putting aside the bone-shuddering that resulted when her rasp-tongue ran against the chalk.

“Pull the trigger, big guy.  What’s the matter?  You seem like the type who’s shot more than a few different friends.”

John was tracking the ongoing skirmish.  Someone that was pretty much invisible chasing someone who could teleport if she could slip out of everyone’s sight.

Verona decided not to make the task any harder.

She judged the diagram in progress, then began drawing with chalk, as best as she could.

Snowdrop, who was about as graceless in movement as cats were graceful, traipsed her way around, trying to get in Verona’s field of view.

Verona scratched the floor with a single claw.

Snowdrop became human and chased the scratch with a line of chalk.

Verona drew, scratching when she didn’t trust her way of holding the chalk so that Snowdrop could follow.

It was a copy of Jessica’s diagram to open the way to the Ruins.

But there were a lot of problems.

John shot the gun.  Both Verona and Snowdrop flinched.  Both Verona and snowdrop messed up their lines.

He’d shot while sitting on the bench beside Lucy.  Ready to take the needles.  From the shadow on the back of the bench, she could tell that two were aimed right at his torso and stomach, pointing at Snowdrop and Verona, respectively.  The other was pointed at Avery, with his elbow stuck in the way.

It wouldn’t work, Verona was pretty sure.

He wanted to throw himself on this particular grenade and it wouldn’t work.  If it had gone off, those needles might have punched right through him to get at them.

Verona leaped up onto the bench, her entire body working to carry her aloft, four feet and fluid joints catching her on the landing, nearly as soft as a feather.  She was pleased, even as she was tense.  She hopped up onto the top of the bench in front of her, and nearly slipped.  Less pleased.

There was no needle pointing at John anymore.

She hissed, looking around.

John looked at her, then turned.  He leveled the gun-

Lucy caught the side of his shirt, clutching.

“Two of you, tied up in a neat little bow.  I had to borrow this needle so it wouldn’t choose you to gun down, Mr. Soldier.  Our cat here seems to think you’re expendable.”

John could die and come back.  If that was the cost of lifting this hostage situation and getting Lucy back on her feet, that was good.

“I’d like to get the third before they come.  It’d really annoy them.  But you’re slippery.”

While Avery paced, moving away from Verona and Snowdrop again, Verona resumed drawing.

“I’m good on my feet.  It’s a strength of mine.”

“You dress yourself up in strengths.  To me, it looks like you stuck a whole lot of motivational posters and post-it notes on yourself.”

“Are you really one to talk?” Avery asked.

When this portal opened, if it opened successfully, then it would probably disturb all the glamour.  That could break the nettlewisp, and make it target a victim… it’d get wet, it’d explode, and it’d skewer at least one of them.

No.  This had to be the way to go.  Making an exit.  Then they had to go after Bristow, and find that key weakness.  Bristow talked a lot, which…

Verona wanted to reach for her phone, but she didn’t have a phone, nor hands to reach with.

They just had to escape this.  Then maybe there was a chance.

It was like a nested puzzle.  One thing after another.

And at the top, if they could finish this diagram…

She hurried.  It was a crescent shape, with craggy raindrops nested in side the crescent.

She leaped across the aisle, onto the other bench, and landed beside Lucy.

“Careful,” Lucy whispered.  She looked scared to even breathe.  Her fingertips were black and trembling, and every minute movement radiated out to the flower, the harpoon-like stingers quivering.

Verona looked from Lucy to the diagram, to the flower.  Diagram to flower, flower to diagram, she met Lucy’s eyes.

“John,” Lucy whispered.

Avery was still dodging Shellie.

Lucy’s whisper was urgent.  “John, when it goes off, it’s going to wash away glamour.  And when this nettlewisp gets washed off, it’ll fire, I think.  Or it’ll get way worse and then it’ll fire.”

“What do you need?” John asked, tracking the skirmish.  Avery being evasive.

There was a crash.  Avery’s bag had fallen to the ground.

A little creature, goblin-ish, but uniform, with coppery hair and four eyelids all coming together to blink into an ‘x’ shape, a mouth full of needle teeth, had dragged the bag down.

There was another already inside it, butt and legs sticking out.

Verona’s senses tracked the other creatures.  Her ears twitched, her whiskers catching the sensation of wind, like doors were opening and being closed.

More were scaling the bookshelves.

“I don’t know,” Lucy said, head turning.  “Just preparing you.  Can you shield one of the other-”

She believed what Shellie had said: that that wouldn’t work.

Bouncing up to the back of the bench and ventured perilously close to the Nettlewisp.  The flower turned to remain poised where it could aim at her, Snowdrop, and Avery at the same time.

Balancing on back legs, which was hard considering she’d spent the majority of her life as a biped, Verona put her front paws out, forming an ‘x’ over the Nettlewisp.

“Block it?  Cover it?” Lucy whispered.

Verona nodded, dropping her paws.

Verona nodded again.  She raised a paw and extended a claw.

John pointed a gun at the nearest brownies.  They didn’t seem to recognize or care what it was, because they didn’t stop pacing, circling around as their numbers grew.  More were crawling out every second.

They’d fixated on Lucy because Lucy couldn’t move.  It seemed like they hadn’t realized Verona was Verona, and they were more focused on getting arranged by the dozen than they were in actually chasing down or catching Avery.

Shellie had changed tacks, though, making some use of the shrinking territory Avery could safely navigate.  Avery couldn’t use the black rope anymore either, so she was using her shoes.

But the shoes weren’t infallible.  The shoes had wind spirits in them and they could pull the rug out from under Avery at any moment.

Avery’s shoes squeaked on the stage.

And Shellie turned, striding toward Verona, Lucy, and John.

John raised his gun to shoot again, and Lucy shook her head.

It was almost certain the Nettlewisp would fire off with the next disturbance.

In the background, Avery was crouched, tense, watching as the Brownies circled her.  More were circling Lucy, but because John was there, they were taking the back routes.  Moving along the back of the bench, climbing up, sneaking.

Verona had only a few free moments.  Shellie was striding this way.

With her teeth, she pulled out her phone.  Punching her two front paws rapid-fire against the phone, she got past the lock screen.  Internet app.  History button.

She’d looked up stuff last night.  She hoped it wasn’t too much scrolling.

Stupid checks of her email, to see if Jasmine had reported anything on her dad.  Stupid searches for Jeremy.  Stupid browsing of artist Spottr galleries, stupid videos.  More searches of her email… it was so slow to scroll.

There were the language and translation apps, helping neurodivergent kids communicate.  Voice transcription and notetaking… she saw an app in the latter category and set it to download.  Stuff from when she’d been working through stuff with Tashlit.

Not what she needed right now but she liked it and she might want it later.

“The phone-obsessed cat is Verona Hayward,” Shellie said.  “I know your type don’t like cats, but cats do not act that way.  Get over it and get what you’re due.”

No less than fifty coppery, x-shaped eyes went wide, the four triangular eyelids pulling back to create bulging spheres.  Mouths went wide, baring tiny teeth.  There were women and bearded ones, little ones and elderly ones.

They chattered.  The language like nothing humans spoke.  They approached,but hesitated here and there as she met their eyes.

Why did so many Others not like cats?  It was so unreasonable.

“Mess with my friends…”

It was Avery.  She’d pulled on hat and cape.

And she’d taken to the air.  Or the wall.  She’d leaped, her shoes working to keep her aloft, and ran across the wall, to circumvent the ground that was festooning with Brownies, now.

“…And you get the prongs!”

Avery leaped onto Shellie, mask in hand, smashing the antlers of her mask across Shellie’s head.  The landing was a heavy one.  Avery stumbled as her feet met ground.  Shellie stumbled too, but was faster to recover.  Some of the prongs had caught on piercings and pulled them free.

Shellie’s thumb hooked on a ring that was sticking through her skin near the wrist and pulled.

About five feet of silver chain that was beneath her skin slithered out, slick with blood.

She whipped Avery with it, drawing blood at the shoulder and neck.  It was relentless, not even finishing a full swing of her arm before flicking, reversing direction, making the fine chain seem to hover in the air, tip dancing and producing violent impact.

Avery stumbled back, into the waiting hands of Brownies.  They seized her lower legs, piling on each other to work.  They were fast.

They opened doors behind her, fingers gripping shoelaces.

Snowdrop stabbed Shellie’s calf with the rusty fork, went small, ducked through Shellie’s legs, and went human again, her bulk making Shellie stumble.  Snowdrop caught Avery’s hand and yanked her away from the Brownies.

Verona scrolled through her phone with cat paws.

This is in a really intense, meaningful way, she promised the spirits.  Don’t give me a karma hit for doing this.  She had to use her nose and slide the phone across the floor, batting at it with paws as she tried to simultaneously escape the encroaching Brownies and navigate.

“Washing of the lonely walls…” the phone blared.  “…Shaking of the tower falls…”

She was risking breaking Shellie’s tentative innocence in this but she was pretty sure there wasn’t much to break.

“…Shall we walk cross the crack-ed sways?…” the phone chanted.  “…beneath the rains of yesterdays?”

Shellie marched closer, limping slightly.

It wasn’t for Shellie, but for the Brownies.  They scrambled back at the sudden aggression, getting a bit in Shellie’s way.

The chant she was using was the result of searching in texts, but this place didn’t really put much focus on the Ruins.  She wished she’d saved or recorded what Jessica had done.

Avery hopped up to the wall, then leaped down, hard.  Landing just in time for the ritual to erupt.

Brownies hesitated, then ran in.

Some were getting dangerously close to Verona.

Getting dangerously close to Lucy, who John couldn’t even properly defend as water sprayed up and cascaded down in a heavy rain.

Verona dove in.  Because she was useless like this.

Being a cat wasn’t sufficient if she wanted to help Lucy.

Brownies seized her, hesitated as she became human, then dug needle-sharp claws into her.

“It’s not enough,” Avery sounded distant.

Her dad was fresh out of the shower, towel around his waist.  He leaned hard into the sink to peer into the mirror as he rubbed shaving cream over his face.  His face was red, his eyes redder.

“Not right now, Verona.”

There was a thunk from the other side of the house.  She turned, then turned back to her dad.  His face was redder than before, and he looked like he was in pain.”Dad… what’s happening?”

That look of pain crept across his face by increments.

Until he crumbled.  Shaving cream on one cheek and on the roll of his neck, he sat on the toilet, and he began to cry.

She gave him a hug, tight.  He hugged her back, sobbing.

“What’s happening?”

She rubbed his back as he cried.

“Ask her!” he barked, loud enough she jumped.

“Ask her!  Make her tell you!  Ask her what she did!”

He shouted between sobs, and it was a broken back and forth of sad and angry that made her own eyes well up.

“Ask her!  Ask her why!”

Across the house, down the hall.

Her mom bent down and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“What’s happening?”

“Your father didn’t say?”

“Well, don’t blame him.  He and I are taking a bit of a break.  I’ve been busy with work, we’ve drifted apart, I suppose I’ve been unfair to him.  And to you.  I do love you, you know.”

Her mom put folded clothes in a third thing of luggage, closed it.

It thunked, loud, as she set it down.  Because the luggage was big and her mom was small.

“I don’t understand,” Verona said, quiet.

“Do you know what a separation is?”

“Do you know how a break-up can sometimes happen between a boyfriend and a girlfriend?”

“A divorce?” Verona asked.

“It’s not a divorce.  It might become one, but for right now it’s not, it’s something different.”

Her mom lifted up some more luggage.  She put papers and stuff in that one, first.  Books.

“So you’re going to come back?”

Her mom put some books in the luggage.  Then some more papers.  Then some plates, which she wrapped in t-shirts.

“I’ll…” her mom started, trailing off.  “I will always be here for you if you need me.  I’ll always be your mom.”

“But you’re going to come back?”

“No, honey.  I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I don’t think I am.  But that doesn’t change anything about you and I, okay?”

A door slammed upstairs, on the other side of the house.

Verona helped her mom get books and bring them to the luggage.  Her mom pushed Verona’s longer hair behind her ear, then kissed the top of her head again.

“Can you be here tonight, then?” Verona asked,

“I think that would be hard.  I can talk to you dad about it, but I think it would cause more stress overall.”

“I don’t think he wants to talk.”

“No.  Do you want to spend the night with me?  It’ll be at a hotel, we can talk everything out.”

“You’re going to stay at a hotel from now on?”

“No, no honey.  Just until I get an apartment.  For now it’s a bit like a vacation, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.  Not really, I guess,” her mom said, giving her head another stroke.

Ask her what she did! her father’s voice rang in her head.

Verona put books in the luggage.  Her mom reorganized how they were arranged.

Verona didn’t put any more books in the luggage.

“Do you want to come?  I’ll pitch it at your dad.”

It felt like leaving would be a betrayal.  And staying would be more convenient for her mom.

“I think I should maybe stay.”

She saw a flash of something like hurt or something in her mom’s eyes, which her mom promptly covered up.

Had she been wrong, about this being more convenient for her mom?  Or was it something else?  Or what?  What was it?  What?

Verona was silent and still as she watched her mom finish.

“I wish I had more boxes.  I’ll have to arrange a way to get the rest of my stuff. Figure out the rest later.”

Tears welled up.  Verona wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“I’ll be in touch.  Nothing changes between you and me, okay?”

“Nothing about this is easy.”

Her mom dragged the luggage across the floor.  Verona brought the one case.

As she got closer to the front stairs, she could hear her dad.

“Don’t blame him,” her mom said.

She watched from the door as her mom carried the luggage out to the car, one by one, because taking them down the stairs required both hands.

Her mom drove off, stopping to wave.

The house seemed so dark.  Usually at night, the living room lights were on and her mom was working at the dining room table, in her makeshift bedroom-office, and the kitchen lights would be on and the upstairs lights would be on.

Now it was just upstairs, and only partial light.

She walked down the length of the hall to her dad’s room, where the television flickered.  And he was there in bed, on his side, back to her, sobbing.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his back.

“I bet she did.  You okay?”

A nonsensical answer.  But it got a nod from her.

She wasn’t very large for her age, but there wasn’t a lot of space to sit between the edge of the bed and his back and butt, so it was an awkward perch where she had to stick her foot out to stay where she was, her back to his, her hand stroking his back while he cried.

Her own eyes on the wall, looking at nothing in particular, her thoughts in bewilderment and numb at the same time.

They fell amid broken floorboards, where rain was torrential enough to pool in the dips and bends of the shattered floor.  Benches littered the area around them.

Musette stood in the background, so pale she seemed to glow in the dark.

“Why did we go deeper?” Avery asked.

The Brownies were here.  They struggled to pick themselves up.

She shoved some away, moving quickly so they couldn’t bite, but they were sluggish.  When they fell, they seemed to have a hard time rising up again as the rain drummed down atop them.

Snowdrop growled at some and they overreacted.

But the real world was, kind of, and Lucy was still there.

Snowdrop turned human.  She shook herself violently.

“Okay, that works for now, but we’ve got to-” Avery started, at the same time Verona said, “Lucy’s still-”

The downpour became a drenching, like a dam had broken and the force of a river poured down on the center of the space.

Shellie hurried across the street.

“Watch it!” a bird-headed woman snapped at her.

Shellie bent into a curtsy.

Past some goblins in glamoured makeup who were cooing and pretending to be pretty.  She had to pause, then time running between the feet of a passing elephantine, so it wouldn’t kick or step on her.

There was a new stall with row after row of human skin draped out.  Some supple, some diseased.  Old and young, in all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes.

“Selling fates on credit.  Exchange your fate!” a barker shouted from the corner.  “If you don’t like the outcome, you can have your money back!  We trade up, up up!”

“We sell tours in the circus, so you can technically tell the children that if they run away with you, they can join the circus.  Sell them on clowns, candy, interesting people.  It’s an escape…”

“Help me!  Please, help me!” a mouse in a cage begged.  “They feed us to the expensive birds and snakes like we’re a delicacy!”

She made a face, pressing a hand to her heart, turning around to face the mouse as she walked past it.  It was the closest she could come to expressing sympathy.  They kind of didn’t like it here if someone made a prayer sign with their hands, and that would’ve been her first instinct.

“Shellie, Shellie!” Basil called down from a window.  “Meet me downstairs!”

Basil was short for a Fae, with hair like white wool, a tiny mouth, and eyes spaced too far apart, black as night in the light and like fish’s eyes in the dark.  He paid a lot of attention to light and shadow.  He came down the stairs, buttoning up his vest.  His shop was so narrow that she could touch the shelves on the left and right side at the same time.  Customers who came had to do so at even hours of the clock, and customers who went did so in the odd hours.  Anything else led to issues in traffic.  Real estate on the creek-lit road from Spring was precious and Basil made the most of what he had.

“Make the girl some tea, Nascence.  And bring her some cake.  Nothing owed that you weren’t already going to give me, Shellie.”

“I wanted to make a proposal.  I’ve been keeping track of trends and everything and I do think that if a concerned adult were to follow you through certain passages…”

“Bas, no.  It costs too much.  There are fees, the responsibility commodified…”

“There are certain roads you could take.  They aren’t patrolled often, I can cover some of the costs if you get caught.  We could use more fodder.  There are people who would buy.  You could buy your freedom weeks earlier.”

She changed in the middle of the store, kicking off her slacks and pulling off her vest.  She took the tea from the overly-long-limbed Nascence midway through changing.  “I could also condemn myself to debt.  The Wild Hunt April is on the prowl for trespass and smugglers.”

“I wouldn’t dream of smuggling a dear thing,” Basil said.  He picked up the cake, popping spoonfuls of cake through gaps and into her mouth as she pulled the corset over her head.  Her dress was a maze of interlocked leather belts.  “But if some buffoon were to happen to follow you and you happened to take certain roads and he or she happened to arrive at my storefront…”

“We’ll see, Bas… perhaps we’re more likely to see if a certain door cost a little less to open?”

“Five baby’s sighs.”

“Two,” she said, taking the plate and cake.  That was heaven.  With the tea, it was like it had been stale and it had become freshly baked in her mouth.  A journey like that, but freshly baked had been the starting point and the tea elevated it to something more.

“I’m being generous as it is, giving you a certain discount for a possible deal.”

“A possible deal is a foothold to a scoundrel like you,” she said.  She took a bone splinter and arranged her hair.

“My dear.  I’m a businessman.  And you and me, we have a relationship.”

“Cheater and willing victim.”

“I think of you as a friend.”

“And I am presently thinking of you as an alicorn’s horned manhood.  It means nothing.”

“It certainly means something if that is where your mind goes, my dear.  Certainly!”

She drank her tea and ate her cake as they walked, with Basil holding up a hand to let her rest her plate on as they walked down the hall.  Doors and wagon wheels and manhole covers riddled the back end of the very narrow, winding shop that had been erected between two buildings that hadn’t been set up to have a shop stuck between them.

She finished dressing herself up.  It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it made the difference between her being a stranger in a strange and hostile land and her being a stranger in a strange and hostile land that was dressed in a way that made her stick out as a tourist or guest.

“Give it some consideration.”

“It takes time to take other routes, Basil.  And time is so precious to mortals.”

“I can’t remember what your original face looks like-”

“Nor I, Basil.  I imagine it’s traded hands so many times it would be nigh impossible to track down.”

“And you wouldn’t want to wear the thing even if you could.  Who knows where it’s been or what enemies it’s made.  What I was going to say was that the face you’ve ended up with-”

“-for the time being.”

“-for the time being, yes, it wears those years well.  And I do think there’s a part of your mortal self inside that does impact that.”

“Thank you for saying so, Bas.  All the same.  It takes time and I don’t have all that much time.  So it has to be an especially tempting deal.”

“We’re business partners.  We’re friends.  We have tea together.  You can’t extend-”

“I can’t, I can’t.  And I only have a few turns of the wind before I have to be back to get my next contract and ensure I don’t lose my claim on my dingy one-room hovel.”

“My dear, you always have a hovel here.”

“At such costs, Basil.  Not sighs, mutters, wails, or tears, but costs all the same.  You’re greedy.”

He gave her a pat on the cheek.  “Enjoy your so-precious time.”

He hauled open the obsidian door.  She slipped two glass beads with the promised winks within, reflected only in the right light.  He shot her a look, and she tapped her head.

After the bustle of the fae market, the other side here was… stark.  Quiet.

Light snow fell on black cobblestones and black buildings.  Figures glided more than they walked as they went this way and that, dressed largely in black.

She smiled, turning, searching.

She looked right past Daniel in her attempt to find him.

He’d changed so much.  Gained some height.  His hair was darker, his expression darker still, even as he smiled.

“Daniel,” she greeted him.

They hugged, and she hugged tighter than necessary.

“I thought I’d meet you here.  It’s usually you making the time to come see me.  I can manage this little.”

“It’s such a nice surprise,” she told him.  “How is the singing?”

“We invented an escalation of the dissolution of form on the spur of the moment.  That was so fun, and it embellishes things nicely.”

“Pads them out, I imagine.”

“Imagine!  But hush!  One wouldn’t pad out such a great epic, years in the singing.”

“I’d never,” she said, with great insincerity.

He shot her a warning look.

“I brought you a present,” she told him, conspiratorially.

“Did you!?  What joy.  You’re too kind, sister.”

They walked over to a bench.  Daniel dusted off the temperature-neutral snow and sat, playing at being eager.  She drew out the process of retrieving the present.

She handed it to him.  Amazement crept across his face.  He met her eyes.

“You shouldn’t have!  You’re the absolute best, really!”

“I got batteries as well.  Of course.”

“Amazing.  You’ll have to remind me, they go…”

She showed him.  Then she showed him how to put the batteries in.

Her eyes bored into his face, as he stared down at his gift.

“It’s got switches, and buttons to press.  That’s so grand.”

“Yes?” he asked, looking up at her.

“You’re supposed to ask about the cartridges.”

“There’s more parts to it.  I’m dazzled.  It’s so great.”

“You do know what it is, don’t you?” she asked.

“I- It is very plastic.  And it has glass.  And buttons and switches.  And batteries, and more parts to it.”

“Daniel.  It’s an advance gear.  You used to own the color gear and you loved it.”

“Did I?  I vaguely recall-”

“Do you?” she asked, quiet.

“I have shadows of memory, you have to understand, I’ve been singing extra this week, and the escalation we devised is- I won’t say it’s padding, it does make things easier, but the improvisation as we launch into it-”

“There were days, I remember, where it was all you talked about.  Color gear this and color gear that.  You’d stay awake at night playing.”

“Then this is an especially lovely gift.”

“Do you know how to turn it on?” she asked.  “Here’s a game.  You slide it in… there.  And turn it on?”

“One of these buttons on the front?  The cross, I have to imagine.”

She put her hands over screen, over his thumbs, making him be still.

“I’m so sorry, dear sister.  I’m not myself this week.”

“And I’m an especially rude sister this visit, I’m afraid.  I need to leave.”

“Terribly soon.  I know.”

“If you’d walked all the way to the amphitheater then you wouldn’t have had more time to say anything but a hello, here’s a gift, and goodbye.  This is scarcely more than that.”

“I know.  But… but the situation calls.”

“You, ah, you’ll have to tell me more stories next time to make up for it.  It’s so important that you stay sharp, even as my head fills up with music and distraction.”

“I know.  Yes, more stories of our old life next time.”

“Be well, Shellie.  Be safe, be sane, be whole.”

“You too.  Try,” she said.

They gave each other kisses on the cheeks.

Through that obsidian door.

“Who is- no entry in even-numbered hours, if you’d wait just another fifteen- Shellie?”

Shellie stumbled in, closing the door behind her.  There were customers in the winding path of the shop, with Bas at the counter and Nascence doing the business.

Bas had to climb on the shelves to get over and past them all.

Shellie dropped to her knees so she could hug Basil, dissolving into sobs with her face buried in his shirt.

Shellie rose to her feet as the rain poured around them.  What little light there was glinted off her piercings.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” Avery said.

“And how will I feel after I cut your throats and leave your bodies in this dark ditch between realms?  I don’t think I’ll be sorry in the slightest.”

“Cool.  That’ll be fun,” Snowdrop said.  “I like you.”

Verona was quiet, drenching wet, watching, thinking.

In the time since they’d first had to come here to the Ruins with Jessica, she’d wanted to come ready with emotional memories, because they were contracted to return and help look for Jessica’s cousin.  She’d had to think back to bad moments and realize that numbness was an emotion unto itself.  From there, she’d dug up that memory.  Numb and a bit sad but mostly she’d filed it away under ‘numb’.  Emotionless, except not really.

But it was possible to paint the line between that old her and the her of today.

Shellie… Shellie was so different.  And she couldn’t see where things had veered off track.

“Are you really Shellie?” Verona asked.

Shellie began whipping the chain around.  It glinted in the dark, slashing through raindrops with every upward pass.  “What do you mean?  Is this another sad attempt to riddle your way out of this situation?  Decipher Shellie, find the right thing to say, and she’ll bow to you, she’ll be your friend, she’ll crumble unde the weight of emotion?  One of those?”

“I mean… maybe the key phrase or solution to figuring you out is that there is no key phrase.”

“And here I’ve been insisting the sky is blue and someone finally admits it.  Do you want applause?  Because this is so blatantly obvious you should be ashamed of yourself for taking this long.”

“Are you really Shellie?  Or are you Shellie… as part of Bristow’s arrangement?”

“What’s the arrangement?” Avery asked.

“Like Daniel and his singing, everyone playing a part.  The way people like Bristow or Kass work is they give some signifier to people and objects.  I don’t- I don’t think I’m breaking a lot of new ground for you Shellie, am I?”

“We all give signifiers to objects.”

“It’s like each person, broken down into arbitrary labels and symbols, colors and whatever, can be assigned a number and a suit.  Or whatever, but let’s say it’s numbers and suits.  And by having the right arrangement of people… he can kind of make a straight.  Or a full house.  Or whatever.  This is from books I read while Lucy did her thing.”

“Is your goal to get me to fall asleep?” Shellie asked.

“You’re part of a set right now.  And I think the metaphorical hearts and clubs and swords and wands are getting mingled.  You and Ted and Kevin and Rae.  And you’re complementing one another.  Bits of one another are shoring each other up.  Lucy asked why you were after us and maybe a bit of the intense jealousy of a guy so jealous his eye messes people up… maybe that’s it?”

“And Ted?” Avery asked.

“Single-mindedness?  Or maybe how incredibly competent Shellie is is getting a boost from him?”

“Or both,” Avery said.

“If you want to needle me, girls, then you’ll need to remember that we’re in a dark place, you have no friends here, and I’m armed.”

“I’m not,” Snowdrop said, brandishing the fork.

“I don’t want to needle you,” Verona said.  “But I will challenge you.  I think the reason you’re so hard to budge is that you’re not you.  I bet you’re borrowing strength and you don’t even realize it.  I bet you’re borrowing bitterness and jealousy and it’s pretty clear you’re not strong enough to fight it or recognize it for what it is.”

“Daniel had the same thing happen,” Avery said.  “Bristow mixed in some Clementine and some Sharon into him, to make him wilder and more out of control.”

“You can’t step in?” Verona asked.  “This time, at least, you’re in a position to help him. Fight Bristow!  Fight Bristow or you’re a bad sister!”

“You think I care!?” Shellie shouted, through the rain and the darkness that drenched them.  The only thing around them were broken floorboards and crumbling church walls.  A yawning darkness filled with rain extended out in every direction past those walls.

“If you don’t care then you’re not a very good sister,” Avery said.  “And if you’re not a sister then all you are is…”

“An awful, violent, half-person,” Verona said.

“…I was going to say weak,” Avery said.  Rain dripped off her hat-brim and beaded her deer mask.

“And if I thrash you some more with this chain, proving I’m stronger than you, then what are you?”

“Right now?  Going to help my friend like you’re failing to help Daniel,” Verona said.

She dashed into the darkness.  Snowdrop and Avery followed.

She found an upward slope and climbed it.  Avery got her toes in further and ascend, helping Verona climb.

Shellie was nimble, but when the slope was broken up only by wet roots and mud, the extra helping hand or the reach of two people contributed a heck of a lot more.

It only took a couple of minutes, but they made their way up.

Her legs were sore before they found another ramp.

Shellie reached the entryway to this deeper level, accessed with Verona’s memory, just as they found their way up to the Ruins shallows.  Some brownies were waiting for them.

Some brownies weren’t a huge threat, in small numbers.

The real tide was up there.

They escaped past with only minor cuts and scrapes.  Back into the church.  Into reality.  With only a minute of head start on Shellie.

Getting down had helped shed some of the brownie pursuers, but there were a hundred more here, waiting, perched and standing outside a ring of fire that John or Lucy had managed to set.  It was loose, haphazard, and there were gaps, but not many brownies wanted to brave those gaps.  John could kick at or throw aside any that did.

John and Lucy both were sweating.  Lucy coughed.

The Nettlewisp twitched, finding its targets.

Verona went for her bag before the Brownies could converge.

She needed a good way to do this, a way to buy time until, ironically, Shellie could catch up.

She had cards.  Stuff like what she’d used in the practice duel before the weekend.

Just had to wait.  Had to hop up onto and over a bench.  Kick a brownie who came for her.

One moved a section of wood in the bench, and her foot disappeared into a space far below.  She strained the inner thigh of her other leg and scraped her shin as she fought to keep from dropping through.

Tiny hands grabbed her.  She kicked as they tried to wrap chain around her ankle.

She had illusory cat cards, but she also had ideas, and it felt like it might be more important to hold onto those cat cards, just in case.

Verona reached for the glamour she could scrape off illusory objects she’d put into cards.  Glamour drawing an object that could spring to life if she’d needed it.  It had taken time.

She used it now, not for the object, but for that glamour.

To smear her own face.  To smear Avery’s.

Turning their faces into smudges of color and texture like a painter’s easle.

She did the same for Snowdrop.

Shellie stepped through and Verona was ready.

Shellie, head ducked low, water streaming off of her, hadn’t even raised her head when Verona’s spell image hit her.  A lot of that image dissolved when it came into contact with the drains-image.

But enough aspects remained.

It didn’t have to be great.  It just had to be the best available target.  And it probably helped that she’d just attacked Shellie’s self.  Just made Shellie out to be less, or mixed up with the others.

Verona’s own face, stuck out in front of Shellie.

Giving Shellie glamour, yes, which could be manipulated, yes-

“Nettle-!” Verona shouted.

But Lucy had already acted.

Activating the nettlewisp, moving her hand into the drains water that had settled on the bench and breaking the glamour.

The needles were so eager they went for the first visible target they had.  The fake Verona.

The placement of the image didn’t line up with where Shellie’s real head or heart were.  But it did slam into her shoulder, driving her back and into the wall.  The chain dropped from her hand.

Brownies had hooked chains on Verona’s belt loops.  Onto her shoelaces.

More floorboards had been moved away to reveal reddish, lantern-lit spaces below them.  More brownies milled this way and that as they prepared.

“John!” Lucy shouted, coughing.  “Try to bring us with you!”

John charged the diagram of the Ruins.

The water gushed out, expanding, washing Brownies aside and buying Verona, Lucy, Avery, and Snowdrop the opportunity to follow.

Verona glanced at Shellie before disappearing into the darkness once again.

“You are a child and your heart is heavy,” John sang.  “I want to fly, fly so high.  But they want to cut my wings off…  I’m your son, I’m suffocated, and I beg your pardon…”

Yalda sang along in Pashti.  Her voice was way better, and the song was way better in the original language.

John scrubbed a dish and handed it over.  He switched languages, and it flowed far better, but the singing still lacked.

But he smiled.  Yalda, standing on short stool, smiled back.

Their voices joined together.

They had to dive deep to emerge somewhere safe.  Students from Bristow’s contingent surrounded them.

A door appeared in the side of the school.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Bit beaten up,” Lucy said.  “Got bitten about ten times.  Those teeth are… tiny.”

Brownies were appearing all over the field, and out of the side of the school, crawling out of the garden.  Stones were moved aside like they were secret passageways.

“As de-facto headmaster of the school, I’m telling you now,” Raymond said.  “You have no ground here.  The rules are explicit and whatever Lawrence Bristow may have told you, you have to run it by the headmaster first.  I must be informed.  It was a flimsy claim to justice to begin with, and you’ve forfeited it by failing to adhere to the rules.”

A brownie with a beard growled.

“Do as you will.  But do it with justice,” Raymond said.

“Is that number three?” Lucy asked.

“No.  You sent once, and with my help, you rebounded once.  Bristow rebounded the original sending using Ted Havens, in much the same way I just rebounded it.  He’s looked over the contract, I provided him the documents as I could not fairly refuse them, and he’s got a refutation ready.”

“We’re two for two?” Avery asked.

“We’ll see what unfolds next,” Raymond said.  “Whatever possessed you?”

“I figured it would be an inconvenience,” Verona said.

“It is,” Raymond said.  “For everyone.”

“Speaking of inconveniences,” Lucy said.  “You may have a small fire, flooding, a bit of damage from gunshots and a whole lot of dead and wounded brownies…”

“And a broken laptop,” Verona said.  “Tried to get in contact.”

“Tymon!” Ray called out.  “If you would, the main classroom.  Find a way in.”

“We used the Ruins,” Avery volunteered.

“Use the same then,” Raymond said.  “Here I was trying to hack my way in.  It was evident there was a shell around the place.”

“Broken laptop,” Verona said, again, pulling out her phone.

“Nothing to hack.  That’ll be a task to clean up.  I imagine some artifacts might erupt from the jagged mess there.  It will take a while to get things in order.”

Verona looked down at her legs.  There were so many cuts and scrapes.

Lucy had a wound at her arm, wrapped with a scrap from John’s t-shirt.  More cuts, and bites at her arms and legs.  They’d tried to make her move.  She coughed periodically, and it looked like it hurt, especially with her split lip.

Avery had been clawed at, but most of it was from being shoved around and stuff by Shellie.  A lot of dark bruises.  The chain had cut her, with long and thin cuts here and there, barely skin deep, at the side of her neck, her shoulder, and her forearms.

“I cannot intervene or take a side, more than I already have.  Ted Havens said ‘no’ and that was enough to scatter them the first time, sending them to you.  I don’t think that trick will work again, nor will my knowledge of the rules.  You’re on your own for the third round.”

Verona joined Lucy and Avery in nodding.

She saw Shellie emerge from the main classroom.  Limping in the direction of a group of students and others who were emerging from Bristow’s little building in progess.

“Be ready for the third round.  He’ll come at you directly, with some of his soldiers.  While you’re working out your plans, please spare me from having to explain to non-practitioner parents what happened to their practitioner daughters.”

The three of them nodded once again.

They joined the other Anti-Bristow group, and then retreated to the woods, where the other Others they’d brought waited.