It felt better to be in the deep woods than it felt to be at the school, but not by much. At least the people here were ostensibly friendly.
“Sit, sit!” Toadswallow urged the other kids. He moved with vigor. “Sit, make yourselves comfortable, young gentlemen, ladies, and esteemed guests. We’ve carved out this dank little corner of the woods, and you’re welcome to it.”
Liberty sat herself immediately upon a rock, acting every inch the good little girl she might’ve once been, when she was half her age. Lesser goblins gravitated toward her. Only Gashwad and the unconvincing Goblin Sage with his plastic bag beard hung back.
“Hey Snow,” Avery murmured.
Snowdrop looked up. Lucy looked back over her shoulder.
“The little dude with the beard. What’s the deal?”
“He’s not very old, and he’s not very wise.”
“Oh? Toadswallow and Gashwad seem to treat him as the leader.”
“Definitely a leader,” Snowdrop answered. “He hasn’t been around for long, and he lives a very carefree life for a goblin. Doles out responsibilities to others, collecting goblin-relevant magazine pages and stuff.”
“And nice Christian books out in the woods. Nothing rude.”
“It sucks that he’s around.”
He’s a Cherrypop-tier goblin with a fake beard. Am I the only one who sees that?
She looked at Lucy, and Lucy rolled her eyes.
Okay, great. I’m not going crazy.
“What are you up to, Toad?” Lucy asked.
“Nothing, nothing, only being hospitable. I love to teach wayward young souls, and it’s clear you’re very wayward, all of you. Beleaguered, hungry, chased into the woods. Speaking of! Would you like to eat? I do think Gashwad killed a goblin-deer-rat type thing in the shallow Warrens.”
“Mine!” Gashwad barked. “It’s mine, you saggy bunghole.”
“Come now, Gash. This is the same mindset that kept you from becoming one of my goblin apprentices. A minor service done now…”
“It’s friggin’ mine!”
Toadswallow sighed and shook his head. Like a dog shaking, the side-to-side motion traveled the length of him, to neck, then chest then belly.
“If you want,” John said, “I can go hunt.”
John was hanging back, his attention out in the direction the Blue Heron practitioners were likely to come from. Tashlit was out there too, but she was in the water, protecting two of the other three directions that trouble could come from. The last direction, at least, they had a fairly clear view of.
“Maybe after?” Lucy asked. “Let’s make sure we’re safe and things are okay here before we split up?”
“Alright,” John said.
“Sit, sit. Squat a rock, squat a log. There’s enough seats for everyone and then some,” Toadswallow said. “You’ve been deprived. You came for classes and what’s happened?”
“It’s a bit frustrating,” Verona said. She was drawing up some anti-augur stuff in the dirt. Not that it had really held up even when they’d had half an hour to get all the details right. This was more rushed.
“I think I have some-” Toadswallow half-crawled over a tangle of branches, his butt and legs in the air as he reached down. “Gremlin candy. Like socks lost in the dryer, they’re the bits eaten up by vending machines. No promises there aren’t screws or springs in there.”
Liberty Tedd clapped her hands. Toadswallow threw a bag at her, the plastic wrapper so generally damaged and aged it had lost most distinguishing features.
“And…” Toadswallow’s voice was strained as he bent down further. His legs kicked. He threw some dusty wrappers over behind them so they landed in the middle of the clearing. “Wall treats, vent bites, and bed nuggets. Kids find hiding places for candy and things they shouldn’t have, in the walls, heating vents, and under their beds, and then they forget them. Shoplifted gum, excess Halloween candy, cookies they snatched from the jar, and treats from gram-gram.”
A lot of the candies looked like they’d partially ripped and torn, the candy leaking out of or becoming one with the wrapper, or the weird environments they’d been stored made dust bunnies and paint chips adhere indelibly to the wrappers. The ones that didn’t look outright cursed only made Avery more wary. It’d probably look like an ordinary chocolate bar up until someone took a bite and got a mouthful of chocolate-covered hair.
Snowdrop started forward, reaching, and Avery caught Snowdrop’s by the back of the collar. Snowdrop made a small choking sound.
“Don’t eat that,” Avery said.
“Geez, I can’t eat anything!”
“It’s fine, it’s good. Puts hair in your armpits,” Toadswallow declared, as he dropped back down to the ground, throwing a few more wrappers out. “Something to tide you over until John can hunt and cook something for you.”
“What’s the deal?” Verona asked. “Being all nice, making us at home, feeding us- are you aiming to take over for Bristow as headmaster?”
“Doing a better job,” Liberty said, around a mouthful of chocolate. She sucked on, then spat out a tooth that wasn’t hers. A smaller goblin scrambled to snatch it up, popping it into its own mouth. “Let it be known, Sir Toadswallow is a better headmaster than friggin’ Lawrence Bristow! They’re even similarly proportioned!”
“I dare say I resent that, Liberty dear,” Toadswallow told her. He was getting settled on a short, flat rock. “Not that you’re privy to all my proportions.”
“Don’t start playing off each other or anything,” Lucy said. “You’ll ramp each other up and we won’t get anything done.”
“Quite right,” Toadswallow chuckled while Liberty laughed a bit.
Those two were so easygoing, but some of the other students who’d come with were looking like they couldn’t relax enough to sit, or even stand still.
Avery started to reach out, hesitated, then kicked herself for hesitating. She touched Laila’s arm. Laila jumped a bit.
“Relax?” Avery said. “John and the smaller goblins are keeping an eye out.”
“This is the first time I’ve been… when I haven’t really known what might happen,” Laila said. “The closest I’ve come is when I was pushed into going after Melody.”
Melody and Corbin were another two who hadn’t quite settled. Both stood over Verona, watching her draw her diagram. Melody bent down to give some tips, and handed over some nearby stones for Verona to set into the diagram. Corbin turned and went looking for more little stones.
If the students’ past experience with combat situations and true danger were any indication of how easily they could take the opportunity to settle and rest, then Liberty was head of the pack, uncaring. Talos, Tymon, and Jorja joined the three Eastern Practitioners and Brie in being able to at least make themselves sit.
Xerxes and Erasmus had done okay in the duels, but looked out of their element here, in the deeper woods beyond the Blue Heron Institute. Zachariah and Salvador hadn’t done okay in the duels and looked even more out of their element.
“I’ve only been in… I’d guess six or seven really serious, dangerous situations, since I awoke this spring,” Avery told Laila.
“Jesus pete,” Zachariah said.
“I’m not- even if that’s unusual, it’s been recent enough I can remember what it was like, at the start. I get it,” Avery elaborated, trying to find her stride. “But I’m going to use a tortured sports metaphor here…”
Verona turned, perking up. “If you like your sports metaphors so much, why don’t you make one your familiar?”
“That’s not even clever,” Avery told her.
“It’s a little clever.”
“Bite her,” Avery said, giving Snowdrop a push.
“No- no, I’m drawing! I’ll bribe you. Have some scary candy!”
“Do not feed my opossum scary candy!” Avery warned.
“Ahem!” Toadswallow raised his voice. “You’re being disruptive, Avery, Opossum.”
Snowdrop froze, wearing her opossum form now, her teeth set on Verona’s neck without breaking skin.
“Sports metaphor,” Avery told Laila, ignoring the faint ‘heh’ from Verona. “As you play a sport more seriously, you realize the moments where you’re not on the ice aren’t just moments you’re supposed to catch your breath and rest. You use that time, to talk, to get your head in the right place, to figure out strategy, remind yourself you’ve got friends, and listen to the coach. Ideally, anyway.”
“I like how you started talking about sports as a thing in general and immediately went to ‘ice’. It’s obvious what your favorite sport is.”
“You weren’t in the NHL, you played junior league hockey. What’s all this high level stuff?”
“Says the girl who barely pays attention in ninth grade gym, or eighth grade gym, or seventh grade gym,” Lucy cut in.
“I’m not the most athletic,” Lucy said, “But I like that high level stuff. Are you saying you don’t look at the super high-end art stuff, or practice stuff and want to chase it or copy it?”
Verona made grumbling sounds, ignoring Snowdrop as Snowdrop mock-bit her neck and shoulder.
“Yeah?” Lucy prodded.
“Yeah, sure, sorry,” Verona muttered. “Take Snow? I need to wrap this up.”
Lucy did, lifting Snowdrop away. Snowdrop stayed bitey-mode for a few seconds, until some full-body scratches made her settle. Verona resumed work on the diagram.
“Gotta use these moments,” Avery told Laila. “I think that’s the difference between top practitioners and lesser ones. Top athletes and lesser ones. Probably top business types and the people who don’t rise in the ranks.”
“Helps to be a sociopath,” Lucy noted. “Which is, I guess, a big reason why we’re squatting on rocks and logs in the woods as it starts to get dark, hungry. Two people fighting to be in charge, tied into the worst parts of this practitioner culture and power games.”
“Do you want me to remedy that?” John asked.
“You keep bringing up food,” Verona told Lucy. “Hungry?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, voice soft.
“And,” Toadswallow cut in. “Yes, it’s dark, yes, you’re hungry, yes, it’s violent. But one other thing is that you came to this school for education and now it’s my time to educate. Sit. Sit. Listen to me as I stand in as coach and teacher.”
“Are we going to regret this?” Lucy asked.
Toadswallow snorted. “The brownies are coming. I’ve dealt with Brownies before. And as a matter of fact, I’ve dealt with men like your Bristow, and I’ve faced down goblins not unlike your Musser, who collects tools. I’ve dealt with various things similar to the Bright Eyed vandal, Gashwad being among the least of them.”
“Go gag down a cow plop, fish tits,” Gashwad growled.
“Gashwad is like Shellie?” Avery asked.
“Slip in, wreck things, pick fights?” Toadswallow asked. “Yes.”
“And Ted?” Lucy asked.
“I know a certain oversized Faerie who you wouldn’t want to fight fairly against, and who is hard to corner into an unfair fight. I’ve been around to various courts.”
“Hit us with that brownie knowledge,” Verona called out.
“Do you interrupt your human teachers this much?” Toadswallow asked, hands on his hips.
Verona pressed her hands together, pleading.
“Brownies come from the crossroad Goblin and Fae, Summer and Fall. That’s the reason for their cross-eyes, you see. They were a common fairy who found a good trick. Do a task, help with a quest, or grant a wish, but tie it to a restriction. The markets boomed all of a sudden. It seemed as if every other boy who was tired of sweeping the barn was getting an offer; his chores would be done for him every day, but if he ever lifted a hand to do a chore in the future, the help would stop and he would feel the task twice as bad.”
“How big of an idiot do you have to be to mess that one up?” Verona asked.
Toadswallow waved her off. “A girl who thought if she met the local lord’s son, she could win him over, was told the meeting could be arranged, but she would have to choose a curse to wear: her nose would become that of a pig, she wouldn’t be able to speak, or her clothes would secretly be as fish-hooks digging into the skin for as long as she wore them. If she could win him over, the curse would be lifted. In some versions of that tale, three sisters each choose one curse. We don’t hear much of the failed experiments, but some stories persist. The Broomfield Wager. The full tale of the Wee, Wee man. Black Crack Anne’s Barrow. Efforts by powerful Fae and a few rare goblins to make a great play for land, power, or lives. But the small efforts aimed at small, lower-class dopes prevailed.”
Toadswallow rubbed his hands, smiling. It looked like the students were listening well enough.
“They worked out a system and then they locked it in enough they became locked in as a group. Chandlings, in some tongues, of which Brownies were a large subset. Guilds of brownies with fences and sellers for the lives, happiness, and other qualities taken as part of the bargain. Families of the little blighters would compel the their lot to work family service into the deal. ‘I’ll milk the goats,’ one will say, ‘and if you wish it I’ll have my brother tend to the kitchen.’ Done enough and the numbers stop adding up, and the family grows. That’s one part of how the little peckers got organized, see? But the other? The best deals they could offer were ones tying to high society. Lord’s sons, ladies, the chance to be noble. To taste wealth, to get an education or to see the world beyond the hamlet the peasant schlub was born in. The better the offers and arrangements they could make, the better they could do. But all good things come to an end.”
“Was it really a good thing?” Lucy asked.
“For them it was. I’d even say it’s a good thing for mankind. Even if the deals are unfair, it’s a chance for those who had none. None at all. For most, the station of life was a crushing, unavoidable pressure. Born a peasant schlub, die a peasant schlub. No time or chance to do anything else. The deals gave a way. Or they did. See, to start with, your practice and most things Other like to build things or destroy things, but it doesn’t like to downsize. The forces we operate by? They like a good pitch, a good show, a rising star, and a dramatic fall. But if we say our family of brownies is too large for the amount of work there is? They don’t have a language for downsizing.”
“You can send your extras off to die in a pointless war,” Liberty said. She was still acting like the teacher’s pet, young and eager, and it was dawning on Avery that it wasn’t a joke.
“You can, Liberty sweet. But they can’t, not easily, as Brownies are not the strongest fighters. It’s why they worked with goblinkind.”
“And in fact, the ability and even the very propensity for goblins to cull our own numbers with outside violence is why we can grow in number without too much risk. Faerie courts can’t and I’ve heard suggestions that more Faerie Courts have crumbled over their own hubris and scale than over specific plots and designs and I believe it. And the brownie guilds and clans? Closer to the Faerie in that. Many crumbled when travel became easier and the allure of travel to another place faded, and when the lowliest schlub had more time or stood closer to the lords they were once so tempted by.
“How does that help us though?” Avery murmured to herself.
Snowdrop, back at her side, looked up. “Toadswallow doesn’t know. He’s dumb.”
Avery pressed her lips together.
“Brownie business is going the way of the bloomer, and many large groups of brownies are becoming dust. They’re a one-trick group of blighters, see, but there’s less of a market. The cost of setting up is higher, the organization just isn’t there. It changes things. Before, they focused on the rules. Setting up the pattern, maintaining respect as organizations. Now they need the payout. You could have argued your way out more easily before. They would have gone home empty handed. Now you have a task.”
“How long do they have?” Verona asked.
“Abandoning their staff duties here? They’ll want that payout,” Toadswallow said.
“But how long? Hours? Days? Weeks? Centuries?”
“Not hours, not centuries. They’ll chase you for that payment they’re owed.”
“But if I ran? Or stonewalled?”
“They’d call in help.”
“Which adds to their desperate situation? Is there a chance they’d refocus on Bristow? Distance helps with entanglements.”
“So does power, and that man has power. This is not about you and the brownies, Verona. It is about you and that man.”
“I know. I’m just working out possible plans and options. I can stall, maybe?”
“You can. Fresh green wood, egg, milk, and wheat will serve if you need a circle.”
“Or the Ruins-gate,” Verona said.
“Or that, indeed. The critical thing to recognize is that this group is large. They’ve been surviving when others failed. And if a share of their number were to die, they’d weep, gnash their teeth, sure, but it culls their number and makes the future easier to navigate. You won’t scare them off with violence.”
“They get their payment or pretty much nothing,” Lucy said.
“Good to know,” Verona said. “I didn’t think it would be so high-stakes.”
“They’re fairy and they’re goblin. Excess should be expected.”
“Speaking-” one of the three Eastern practitioners started. He stopped and put up his hand.
“Speak, boy,” Toadswallow said.
“Speaking of fairy and goblin… I was taught once that labels don’t matter as much as we think they do.”
“They matter exactly as much as we all think they do,” Toadswallow told him, pointing one clawed finger at him. “Your name? Who and what are you?”
“Davion Reese. Reese for friends. Oni knife throwing.”
“Oni,” Toadswallow said. His face settled into a smile that was widened by how his chin sank into his neck, so the roll of chin extended the corners of his mouth. “Yes, that explains it. Knife throwing? Did an Oni teach you one or two tricks and you made that your entire plan?”
“No,” Reese said, defensive. “…four tricks.”
“Labels, by their very definition, matter as much as we let them matter. That’s not to say it’s weak or flimsy. Money makes this world go round, even if it only has value because we think it does. Oni tried to shuck and confuse labels and got saddled with another one instead. Brownies and Chandlings benefit if the uninitiated can get a feel for what they are in their hearts, and are then open for the discussion and deal, but they’re also tied down. When the rubes stop lining up, they lose their raison d’etre. The poop for their scoop. But that’s good to bring up, Reese, boy. Labels.”
Toadswallow’s mouth and head emerged some from his neck, but his smile remained wide. “I said before, I’ve seen these things before. Things and people like who you’re dealing with now. And the big one you all seem to be getting stuck on? I don’t think you deal enough with the Aware. They’re kicking your little patooties.”
“We’re kind of managing,” Zachariah said.
“I said I’ve dealt with things like Bristow. I’ll tell you, the leaders of those crumbling Brownie guilds? The goblin warlords who try to gather armies and seize places for their own, like Bristow here is gathering students and taking the school? They take on a responsibility. It might even be as much as if they awoke them.”
Verona, done drawing the diagram, milled around, looking for a spot to sit before deciding there wasn’t really any that wasn’t just sitting on damp ground. She walked over to lean against a tree between Avery and Lucy, messing up Snowdrop’s hair a bit, and prompting a lazy few seconds of play-fghting from Snowdrop after.
“What’s your plan?” Avery whispered.
“To start with, buying time until Alpeana can arrive.”
“You think she can help with the Brownies?”
“I dunno. But she’s comfortable in the Ruins and they’re weak to that. But mostly-”
Verona stopped as Lucy joined their huddle.
“Don’t stop for me,” Lucy said. “I heard the first bit.”
“Right. Mostly, I’m thinking if we buy enough time, it becomes night. A whole bunch of options come up. Like Bristow needs to sleep-”
“So do we,” Avery said.
“-and so do his students. Like Kass and Mccauleigh.”
“You want to reach out?”
“I want to try. I’ve got four ideas and I figure if we can make three happen we can weaken him and bounce the Brownies back his way with prejudice.”
Avery shook her head. “It’s a long, long time until it’s nighttime or bedtime. It’s six or so now and the sun doesn’t set until, what? Eight thirty?”
“Nine or something,” Lucy said.
“Girls!” Toadswallow raised his voice.
They stopped, looking over.
“You’ll want to hear this part.”
They shifted position, giving him their full attention.
“I’ll build on what I was just saying, I think we run into lesser Aware more than we think we do. If you’re an Other lurking enough around non-practitioners, you’ll find one in ten or one in twenty might trip you up, depending on where you go and how much you should be there. Want to go after a villain of a man or a kid who throws rocks off a bridge? Way’s mostly clear. Mostly, because some are Aware.”
“Yes, girl in the deer mask.”
Avery hadn’t even realized she was wearing it. She pushed up the mask so it sat on top of her head, pulling off her hat in the process. “Kids and the sick?”
“No, no. Those are still innocent. Their eyes are open but there’s no guarantee they’ve seen anything or been given any nudges or powers. No, some of those people who trip you up? There’s something that makes them different. Usually it’s a little something. A kid you can’t ever seem to sneak by because he’ll pop up awake. A lady with fifty cats and a good idea what they’re communicating. And it’s almost always minor. The Aware are weak. They’re easy pickings for any pickers, directionless, and so busy trying to keep afloat they can’t do much of anything, except ruin some days or ruin some lives along the way, usually.”
But Bristow’s Aware aren’t like that, Avery thought.
“Bristow’s group doesn’t act like that,” Lucy called out.
“Very true, yes, they don’t,” Toadswallow smiled. “They’re strong, driven, and they work well together. The power they display is essentially his.”
Avery had to sit with the fact that Lucy had voiced her thought. She was pretty sure it wasn’t mind reading. Just similar experiences. But if she’d spoken up…
She admired Lucy, being that forward, that confident. She wanted that.
“What does that change, if true?” Tymon asked. “You’re saying the Aware are his responsibility, so they’re a weak point, and if anything really bad happens to them he may have to own it.”
“Mayhaps,” Toadswallow answered, adjusting his monocle.
“…But at the same time, their power comes from him. Is it really a difference if we change our outlook from the Aware being obstacles we’d have to get past if we wanted to go after the man, to instead being weak points that aren’t so weak because we’d have to get past them to go after the man?”
“Lad, I dare say it’s critical. You’ve already laid some of the groundwork as a group. Now it’s time to discuss operating as goblins operate.”
There were titters and whispers from the lesser goblins.
“They like the idea,” Toadswallow said. “Having some big boys and girls to give them muscle, access, and help.”
“Sir Toadswallow,” Liberty said, “I don’t disagree with anything except does it really matter if they like the idea? Some of them have got brains the sizes of pencil erasers.”
“It’s not the size of what you’ve got in your bone dome, Liberty. It’s how you use it. And when all else fails, scarcely-bridled madcappery, malice, and a willingness to do as you’re told by those bigger and smarter than you will do quite nicely.”
He smiled, showing off teeth. Smaller goblins followed suit, where able.
Avery spoke up, “Verona thinks the way Bristow set this up, the Aware are all interlinked.”
“Goblin warlords will do this. Goblins tend to come random,” Toadswallow said, getting to his feet with a grunt. “But if you pick out a good assortment that looks like they belong together, all with similar faces or matching names or… I don’t know, a farter-light, a spitter, a belcher and a big guy to match the four elements. It starts to look like this crapsack world of ours is starting to bend to your will. Goblins are random but you’ve got a nice matching collection? Must be meant to be, so you better get on board, little nuggets. Then the more they believe it…”
“The more it actually happens?” Avery asked.
Toadswallow nodded. “Same with your man, I’d think.”
“I think it’s more planned than even that,” Verona spoke up. “The traits bleeding into one another. If you get something like ‘really good at stuff’ from Ted and give it to the others, and then Kevin’s assholishness…”
“Levers their master can pull to get them to move as he likes,” Toadswallow said.
“Maybe,” Verona said.
“If they’re that under his control, should we really hurt them?” Avery asked.
“Yes,” Liberty said. She looked at Toadswallow. “Yes?”
“Hurts can heal,” the goblin said. “But if you want to agree not to take their lives, we could set that rule for the little ones.”
“The little ones being?” Brie asked.
“The goblins,” Toadswallow said.
“Okay, because I think- maybe her big brothers will override me, but Jorja should maybe sit this one out.”
“No objection,” Tymon said.
“I think we should spare the Aware, for sure,” Lucy said. “Even Shellie.”
She looked at Avery as she said that.
“Absolutely no objection. Why do you think I’d object?”
“Girls,” Toadswallow cut in.
“You’re smart, you’re good, you’re strong. We’ll get you squared away. But for right now I want to hear from these others you’re working with. We’ve got two jobs right now, and I don’t have many ideas about the first. Yours. So I want to make sure we’ve got a plan for bringing the big man on campus low. That’s for them.”
Lucy, Avery, and Verona nodded.
“I love you, Uncle Toad.”
“I’m counting on you for this. We don’t want direct confrontation. We nettle, we harass, and we use the little ways we’ve found to get inside. I’d surmise that right now our enemy is going to be thinking about meals. The brownies are going after the headmaster and they’ll be coming back our way. While they’re doing that, they’re not cooking. Kids are going hungry. He’s going to want to look after that, and we’re going to want to get in his way.”
Liberty nodded with enthusiasm.
“Gashwad,” Toadswallow said. “Your turn.”
“Talk. Plan. You’re good at this part of things. Doing damage and stirring things up.”
“You then. The boys,” Gashwad said, pointing at Tymon and Talos. “What do you do?”
“We’re callers of urban drink and drug spirits,” Tymon said. Dreg crawled up to his shoulder.
Talos’s perpetually drunken naiad had flown up to the trees above John and then turned human. She sat there, hair perpetually damp, swaying, and keeping a look out. She twisted around.
“But what do you do? I don’t care about what you call yourselves.”
“Be nice, Gashwad,” Avery said.
Tymon glanced at Avery, then Lucy, then Verona, before answering, “We use divine channels to access greater spirits that don’t really recognize or pay direct attention us. We call down slivers of their greater whole, flood areas with their power, uhhh…”
“Simplify!” Gashwad barked. “Some of those little abortions have brains the size of pencil erasers. You’re going to be working with some of them. Speak on their level.”
“We summon big drug awfulness,” Tymon said.
“And alcohol badness, here,” Talos added.
“Big booms,” Tymon elaborated.
“Can you do small?” Gashwad asked.
“We’ve got some tools. I’ve got a taproot. It’s actually a torn-up bit of steel pipe, but you stick it in somewhere and it bleeds out.”
“I know what a taproot is,” Gashwad’s tone was derisive and offended. “Good.”
“Our familiars can channel some of the power. Taints what they do.”
“Taint is a good word. Alright, next! I know you’re the knife thrower. What about you?”
“Damaryon Steyn. I can summon stuff. Most of it’s from a catalogue of Western Others.”
“You’ve got four tricks?”
“I’ve got a bunch. But it costs a lot.”
“Hmm. We’ll talk. And you?”
“I’ve got a couple of Oni tricks for fighting. And a sword I stuck a big spirit into,” Mikey said, patting the tube-shaped case he was carrying across his back.
“Lame, but at least you can fight.”
“I’m still working on getting experience in actual fights. Part of why I came here.”
“Then you’re very lame.”
“Be-” Avery started, at the same time Lucy raised her voice, “Gashwad!”
Lucy glanced at Avery, and with a small motion of her head, gave the go-ahead.
“Be nice to our allies here, or we’re going to have differences, Gash. No treats, no games, no fast food…”
Gashwad spat, then looked at the two Hosts. “Next! You?”
Lucy was nodding, seemingly satisfied that Avery had laid down the law. It felt good. Avery just wished she hadn’t needed the go-ahead to do it, this time.
“Erasmus. Host of a warrior spirit. She sleeps inside me, we change places sometimes.”
“Stupid name, sounds real friggin’ cozy,” Gashwad growled. “You can fight?”
Erasmus nodded. “I’m okay.”
“Same deal, but I host Bloody Money. Like the urban spirits Talos and Tymon have, but much smaller.”
Xerxes gave Tymon the finger. His arm changed, skin ‘flipping’ like othello tiles, revealing bloodstained dollar bills. The bills became a sleeve, and his hand became so inkstained and bloodstained no skin showed. His fingers were longer like that.
“You mess with money?”
“If they’re ordering that food, you can do something? Can you let it out?”
“Laila Throop. Large-scale curses. I can’t use them on the staff or students, really. Bristow would expel me and my parents would- it wouldn’t be good.”
“Curses are fun,” Gashwad said, crawling partway up a tree to get a better look at her, his already small eyes narrowing. “You hit big groups?”
“If you can’t use it on the school, that leaves two things-”
“Three,” Toadswallow said.
“Three things! Two things too, but there’s also a third. Either go for the delivery drivers and people in the nearby town, stir some shit up…”
“The karmic backlash could eat me alive.”
“Or the Brownies,” Gashwad said. “Slow them down some.”
“Or the Aware,” Toadswallow said. “Small group, but still a group.”
“We need to deal with the Brownies,” Gashwad said, moving from tree to tree like a chimpanzee. When he disappeared into the shadows his tiny eyes glowed red. “We don’t have many good options for that.”
“We don’t. You’re right,” Toadswallow said. “I’m listing the options.”
“You had your turn to speak. You two!”
“The Kierstaads,” Lucy said.
“Generalists. We do a bit of a lot of things,” Melody said. “I do a lot of practice stuff and do what I have to to make it stick around a bit longer, make it harder to crack.”
“I do sneaky stuff, make practice and stuff harder to detect,” Corbin said. “Same deal, big bag of tricks.”
“I’ll use you both. You! I know you!”
“I’m guarding the kids,” Brie said.
“Or,” Gashwad said, “You can eat people.”
“Or I can guard the kids. Thank you.”
Toadswallow left the conversation, and he approached the three of them, motioning. Liberty hopped to her feet, following. Toadswallow pointed at Laila, directing Liberty to the girl.
They joined John, who was still watching out, his eyes scanning the woods. He didn’t turn to look at them as they caught up.
“How’re you managing?” Lucy asked.
“I’ll let you know when this is over and I give myself the chance to decide how it sits with me. I’m thinking a lot about my old comrades in arms.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to shoot anyone and I think I’ll have to at some point, the way this is going.”
“I hope you don’t have to,” Avery said.
“So do I. But I’m being realistic. Kids are being threatened, and I might not enjoy shooting the living like some of my old comrades did, but I’ll still do what’s necessary.”
“Sorry we roped you into this,” Lucy said.
“No. It’s good I’m here.”
“What were they like?” Avery asked. “Your friends?”
“Many weren’t friends,” John said, touching the tags at his neck. “Comrades in arms. Some were scary, some quiet, some funny. Many didn’t have faces. They didn’t get the chance to grow into individuals, and were closer to being shadows of people. Yalda would-”
“-She brought out what little was there.”
Toadswallow adjusted his vest and tie. Behind him, Laila and Liberty joined the group.
“If you want me to step in, John, I can deliver the final blow. I can’t promise it will be humane.”
“I’ll make do,” John said. “And I might be making do soon. I think they’ll come soon.”
“You see something?” Lucy asked.
“No. But things feel quieter out there. It’s not the same as when the Augury hit, but it feels meaningful.”
“You guys know Toad for real, then?” Liberty asked Verona.
“It’s nothing against you, Liberty,” Toadswallow said. “Someone like your father wanted me on a full-time basis. A complete and total binding, maybe as a familiar. I wasn’t interested, so I had to drop away.”
“It sucked, seeing that the pages for summoning you were missing from the books.”
“I’ve missed you and your sister. We’ll find a way to stay in touch. Catch up.”
“She’s out there?” Toadswallow asked.
“Or she’s in the big building Bristow is building. I think she’s fully bound,” Liberty said. “Keeping her out of the way.”
Verona nodded. “Gashwad has a way of getting into the building, and we can get others into the school, same way we got Alpeana in.”
“Get organized. Leave us to talk,” Toadswallow told Liberty.
She gave him a pat on the head, then went back to the main group.
“You want to buy time?” Toadswallow asked.
“I think if we do, there’s a chance we can do stuff,” Verona answered. “But if we don’t buy time then I don’t know what response to give or what to do.”
“Ruins circle?” Avery asked.
Verona nodded. “Works, and it’s also an escape route.”
“It’s one they know about,” John warned.
Verona hesitated, then conceded, “True. But what else works? They have to expect the Warrens.”
“Avery,” Lucy said. “You’re better at making portals, right?”
“A bit. I think because I’ve walked the Trail.”
“Do the core bit? And I want to do a starburst around it.”
“Tidal wave?” Verona asked.
“Something that pushes them back, buys us time. I really hope your ideas are good, Verona.”
“It’s more like they’re not good, but I have four. Three mediocre ideas together works, right?”
Neither John nor Toadswallow volunteered an answer.
“Let’s hope,” Avery said.
They split up. John stayed on guard. Avery looked for a clear spot nearby and found one big enough to do a circle that was about fifteen feet wide. Snowdrop pulled weeds and stomped on the earth to flatten the ground.
Sweat rolled down Avery’s back, and it wasn’t all the summer heat. Bugs settled on her and took off after getting a bite of her.
Lucy took a minute longer with John, then came to do the starburst. It seemed like she was stuck using the earring’s decoration style as part of the diagram style, but she was faster in drawing out and spacing out the points, like rays of a sun, but geometric.
“You’re getting along with John,” Avery said.
“Yeah. It’s nice, having him around in a bad situation. With Verona and even you sometimes, sometimes I want to slap my hand to my face because I feel like we’re on different wavelengths. Like, life or death situation and you’re having Snow mess with Verona?”
“Laila was anxious. I guess I thought a little bit of lighthearted messing around might help.”
“I don’t know if it did. That might be me. I guess I like a bad situation to feel under control. John’s like that. Reliable.”
“Would you take him as a familiar?”
She didn’t immediately respond.
Avery focused on drawing the rough teardrop shapes inside the crescent of the moon that was most of the diagram. “Whatcha thinking?”
“That I’d worry I was always trying to measure up to Yalda. I can’t sing, for one thing.”
“I can’t do it anyway, until you guys have made your choices for the big three. It unbalances things.”
“That was just an idea. If you fit…”
“I don’t know if we fit. So maybe I’ll sit on it for a while. You guys pick your demesne and familiar, then when we start making our second choices… I guess he’s a big consideration.”
“Gotta get him through this Summer, though,” Avery said, quiet. “If he takes over as Carmine, pretty much everyone seems to think he won’t hold that spot for long.”
Lucy nodded, her expression serious.
“Maybe, um, if you take him as familiar, it rules him out for that?”
“If it does, you two are going to need to decide fast,” Lucy answered, drawing out the lines by pouring out thin lines of chalk from the bag onto dirt, pressing the bag down to tamp it down so it wouldn’t blow away.
“Hey Toadswallow?” Avery called out.
Toadswallow was observing Gashwad and the other group. He hurried over.
“About familiars and implements…” Avery started.
“I’m touched at the notion you would think of me, dear Avery.”
Toadswallow smiled, more smug, somehow, at being rejected.
“Musser’s out there, we haven’t seen a lot of him. There’s only some notes about his family and his kids. Who are also out there.”
“The tall one with the woo-woo hair and fancy clothes?”
“Yeah, you crossed paths with him for a moment. Do you have any ideas? He has multiple familiars and a lot of implements.”
“Some familiars pair up naturally. If you get a tweedle dee and a tweedle dum, you’ll get the set, because they’re linked. Same for a Black Jack and Lily White.”
“We already know about that. But I don’t think that’s what he did. Blackhorne and Drowne aren’t part of a set, I don’t think. And the implements…”
“I do have one idea on what it might be,” Toadswallow told them. “An approach some Goblins use, but Guilherme could tell you more about it.”
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.
“Set up the right sort of duel with the right terms… you can take next to anything you want as a prize.”
“Including someone’s implement?”
“I wouldn’t rule it out, and I wouldn’t pick a fight with him while you have that pretty little thing at your ear,” Toadswallow told Lucy. He looked down at the diagram. “Anything else?”
“Then here. It won’t last long, but it’ll buy us time to do what we need to, at the start,” Toadswallow told them. He held out two bits of what looked like wet lint.
“Do I want to know?” Avery asked, making a face.
“I didn’t want to know.”
“What does it do?” Lucy asked.
“It makes you smell something that’s between wet dog and hot garbage,” Toadswallow told her.
“As a side effect?” Avery asked.
“Nope. It’s the desired effect.”
“And we’d do this why?” Lucy asked.
“Because I’ll flood the entire area with something much more malodorous,” Toadswallow told Lucy. “Smelling wet dog and hot garbage will be a relief. Just don’t open your mouth if you can help it.”
“Does that malodorous smell wash off?” Lucy asked.
Toadswallow cackled. “With enough scrubbing. Now I should go tend to Liberty. She misses her sister, and she’s also an envious type, if things haven’t changed. I can’t remember which sister it was, but one made the other eat sand from a sandbox another child had peed in, because their father spent five dollars more on birthday gifts for the one than the other.”
“And that was before I got to teach them anything. Such good girls,” Toadswallow said.
“We’re not done talking about the stink you’re going to make,” Lucy told him, but she said it to his back. He was already walking over to the other group.
“I didn’t tell you,” Snowdrop talked as she carefully picked her way across the diagram, lifting her feet higher than necessary. “He’s a bad teacher, and he’s dumb and lame.”
“It’s a little startling,” Avery admitted, quiet.
“Feels less like he’s been that knowledgeable about stuff all along and we’ve ignored it, and more like he’s been keeping a lot up his sleeve.”
“That’s unfair,” Snowdrop told Lucy. “He doesn’t do that sort of thing.”
“Seeing more of this world like we are, I’m feeling like it’s a necessary thing for survival,” Lucy said.
Avery nodded. She looked at Snowdrop. “Maybe we’ll keep your tricks secret for the future, just in case?”
Snowdrop smiled and nodded.
Avery drew some more lines, then stepped back It felt right, at least. But the fact it was the Ruins made her nervous. It’d be their third time using this diagram.
“Verona wants to time any moves around what the other group or Alexander are doing,” Lucy said. “When Bristow is busy. That’s not one of her four arguments or plans, but it’d help if we caught him off guard.”
Avery nodded. She fixed up a part of the diagram she’d brushed with her hand.
When the drawing was done, she was left to study it, seeing the countless minor deficiencies. Places where the lines were thicker than on the opposite side, or where a teardrop was a little square.
She fixed some, but left others. Bending down was starting to make her arm and upper chest hurt, where Shellie’s whip had slashed her across the collarbone. It felt like she was pulling at it.
The quiet only let the anxieties and stresses of the past few days land.
Snowdrop gave her a one-armed hug, ducking her head and shoulders under Avery’s arm, then holding onto her wrist to keep Avery’s arm there, returning the hug.
One by one, conversations died down. People prepared in silence. Mikey was running his katana along a whetstone, back and forth, then the other way. Then that sound stopped.
Like how the woods had gone quiet.
Goblins moved without needing a signal. Disappearing into cover. Where they found their perches and hiding spots, red eyes peered out of the deepest patches of gloom.
Further down the closest thing there was to a path that led down to the school, dots of red-gold appeared, then became ‘x’ shapes. Some opened wider, into orbs, but mostly it was the ‘x’ shapes.
They appeared in many of the shadows. Then in most, down the path.
More followed, at the flanks. Behind. Nearby, far away.
They didn’t charge in, and they didn’t try anything. They only stared, and they turned every hiding place in the immediate vicinity and then some into a place an enemy was laying in wait.
“I wish I could give you a confident yes,” Verona said. “This may seem a little crazy…”
“The whole Brownie thing was pretty out there. Some of the sub-plans sound workable.”
“This one won’t seem workable, but it might buy time.”
Avery looked down at the lint in her hand, then shoved it up one nostril.
It smelled way worse than hot garbage and wet dog. She coughed.
Verona seemed to suffer too. Lucy was better at rolling with it.
Three men were coming down the path. One short and squat and dressed like he was a teacher going to get his picture taken at school for picture day, one tall and stylishly dressed in a way Avery sorta wished she could emulate, and one bodybuilder-muscular, dressed in relaxed clothing.
Lawrence Bristow, Ted Havens, and Musser.
Eyes winked out as the men walked by them, then opened elsewhere, sometimes crowding in, two to three to a hiding place.
“Don’t waste breath trying to convince Ted about how he’s being manipulated,” Lucy said. “I think we’ve tried that three or so times, and it never really works.”
“Maybe four times,” Verona said. “Daniel, Clementine, Sharon, Shellie.”
“He’s a really scary guy who’s stuck in a rut and he’ll roll us over if he can catch us in that same rut,” Avery said. “He’ll be nice about it if it’s convenient.”
Lucy nodded. Verona was very still, her expression blank.
The ‘x’ shaped eyes were all over the place now, to the point the dark recesses seemed brighter than the patches of dappled late-afternoon sunlight that came down through the trees overhead. They didn’t reveal much about the brownie’s faces though.
“Not one step closer!” John shouted. His voice echoed through the woods.
They kept advancing. Musser raised his hand, wrapped in a leather glove that left the fingertips exposed.
John fired. It might have been a warning shot.
Musser’s hand jerked. The bullet hit him smack dab in the palm. He flinched, shaking his hand, and dropped the lead.
John fired three more times in quick succession.
He wasn’t aiming for Musser’s hand, but all three bullets hit the same spot. The third even flashed visibly as it struck and sparked off of the second, as the second bounced off.
“Don’t waste bullets,” Lucy said, quiet.
John lowered the gun a bit, holding it in both hands, and retreated some.
“Verona Hayward and associates,” Mr. Bristow addressed them. “Let me open by saying I have no regrets yet. Where do you stand?”
“In your way, a bit, I hope,” Verona told him, sniffling a bit. “But I’m willing to make a concession. If you’ll let the other group go, I’ll let you win that little competition. You can gainsay me.”
“Verona,” Lucy hissed.
Oh yeah. Verona had said she had one idea that was crazy.
But how was this a good idea?
“I don’t need that. I’ll win without your concession and it’ll be all the better,” Mr. Bristow told her. “But it does give me an edge in this tug of war between us, that you’re willing to admit losing is a possibility. It’s good of you to do so, when I have no intention of doing the same.”
The other group was hanging back, behind a partial cover of trees. Toadswallow had the stink trap planned.
But it still felt like a bad thing that the three men could approach like this.
“Nicolette passed on my deal, didn’t she? I thought it was gracious,” Bristow said.
“Was it?” Lucy asked.
“Considering that you three are so much of what we’re trying to put behind us, in practice? Even Alexander doesn’t know what to do with you, and my views are different from his.”
“Are they?” Lucy asked.
“Are you stalling for time?” Bristow asked. He smiled, mustache turning up. “It’s fine. Alexander likes problem solving. He thinks that if he can elevate great minds and put them together, the knowledge and solutions will make their way down to the people on the ground. But we’ve been doing that here and there for centuries. He tears apart his own for advantages then wonders why it’s not sustainable. My way? It does work. It does give us the organization and means of stopping what needs to be stopped, and building what needs to be built.”
“You talk so much,” Verona said.
“And you’ve provoked a force of brownies two hundred strong, then given me grounds to gainsay you in a small way twice over. If I can come back to you a third time and tell you that I have no regrets, that I’m happy to inconvenience Alexander? Will that matter? If I’m glad that I’ve thrown you into disarray, when you’re an equivalent to barbarians, at the same time I’m trying to bring civilization to the practice? Will that decide things?”
Avery paced, because she couldn’t bring herself to sit still. She kept close to the diagram.
“Stay, stay and be ready,” Gashwad urged the others in the back. He was hiding from the Aware.
“Alexander comes in an hour or two. Then things should end promptly. He thinks so, and so does my new collection of Augurs. The only difference is that we disagree about what the outcome will be. All of my Augurs, the forsworn one excepted, seem to think he’s finished.”
“Stay!” Gashwad barked.
He was saying it because Laila’s nerve had broken.
Laila ran for a gap between the brownies. A pretty obvious trap.
Avery ducked behind a tree, tried to black rope, and failed.
Hands reached out, trees shifted, and bark parted. Brownies converged on Laila, who was a straggler.
Avery’s Sight helped her keep track of brownies and the running girl. She weaved between reaching hands as more brownies chased her.
Laila was heading for the water.
“Tashlit!” Verona shouted, a bit nasal.
The water bubbled and boiled. Tashlit emerged, twenty feet downriver. Avery headed after Laila, little hands grabbing at her hair and shirt. She used what she’d picked up in Zoomtown to slip between them, used her shoes for boosts of speed when she was confident she wouldn’t hurl herself into a tree trunk or branch.
With her Sight, she could see the mist getting darker, the connections around Laila more tattered, like acid rain was pouring down around her and eating into things. Every inhalation felt poisoned but that was Toadswallow’s nose-plug. It made it hard to breathe.
Laila ran down a slope, and she didn’t manage to stay upright. She fell, and Avery couldn’t reach her.
Laila hit the rocky riverbank, hard, five feet from Avery’s reaching hand, five feet from Tashlit, as Tashlit rose from the water at the bank.
Bristow said something in the background.
The darkness and melty-ness dissipated. There were just the tattered connections now.
Brownies were still chasing, and Avery had to whip around, her focus in five different places at once.
Tashlit slapped a hand against the water, getting Avery’s attention. Then she pointed, urging.
Avery didn’t go. She looked back, watching as Tashlit laid a hand on Laila, then pulled it away. There was no glow, there was no healing.
Was Kevin there, in the woods? Avery looked, aware the brownies were closing in, that chains were being dragged out and stretched out along her escape routes, trapdoors opening.
They were so much more numerous than they’d been in the school.
She touched the pendant she wore, with the dog tag for summoning John and the protection against Kevin’s evil eye. She halfway expected that protection to be disintegrating in her palm.
Tashlit slapped the water again. Avery didn’t need to turn around to see this time.
Avery broke into a run, hurdling a chain with her wind shoes, ducking under a branch. She weaved through hands, and tiny nails scratched her. She pressed on and her eyes started to sting, and she would have blamed the nose-plug and that choking smell, but she could see the brownies slowing down.
Musser, holding Lucy with one hand, was covering his lower face, coughing. Avery picked up speed, then leaped, pulling her mask off her head and using it as a weapon again. She would have shouted something to drive it home, but she didn’t want to open her mouth while Toadswallow was doing his thing.
He caught her with that gloved hand, a complex rune flashing at his palm and wrist.
Directly into Ted’s way.
The man looked so sad as he stood over her. He didn’t choke, he simply seemed to be holding his breath, his eyes watering a bit, as he looked down at her.
Snowdrop hurried to her side, grabbing her arm.
There was no speaking in the midst of all of this. Verona probably would have quipped something about Bristow not being able to talk and that being good.
But it felt oppressive. Brownies, cloths around their lower faces, were starting to forge forward.
They’d bought a little time, and now what?
At least- it looked like the other group had run.
Ted grabbed her by the shoulder, firm. She fought back, but he pushed her hand aside what felt like three times, for two quick scratches. Two more times for one punch, trying to break his hold. Like he was putting her two steps off position for everything she tried.
Something slashed out, and he pulled his hand back, freeing her. He almost immediately went for a grip again, and caught her shirt collar
Something caught the back of her collar, like she’d caught Snowdrop.
Lucy, holding a cane or something. Pulling Avery back, over to the side. Her shirt, already torn a bit from Shellie’s whip, tore from Ted’s grip. Lucy put a foot on Avery’s hip, then kicked.
Avery tumbled. Into the middle of the Ruins diagram.
And that chant that opened the gate started to play from Verona’s phone. Verona was looking too.
Snowdrop jumped in as the water exploded out, washing over everything around, and swallowing Avery up, taking her elsewhere.
Brownies chased and they seemed a lot less bothered by the Ruins this time around.
Giving her no choice but to descend.
Descending into a scene fresh in her memory, watching a fellow student slip and fall down a riverbank, head and face smashing into rocks. What would Fernanda think? Was spoilt rich girl Fernanda the type to crack, when faced with that?
Enough to change sides again?
What would Laila’s family think?
What would Avery’s family think, if she went off to camp and never came home?
The scene washed over and around her, the fruitless chase after one person who hadn’t had the courage to stand her ground.
They’d chucked her in here alone, because things had gone bad. Sending her out alone, ahead and away from the rest of the group. They probably saw it as salvation, a chance for them and their group. But she couldn’t help but feel it was a kind of rejection.
She fixed her collar as best as she could. The tear wasn’t that bad. She’d liked the shirt.
It gave her something tactile as ghosts haunted her. One off in the distance looked like Laila, following.
If she squinted, she could imagine a Gabe.
She searched, zig-zagging, looking.
Snowdrop meandered, splashing through water with rain boots and a shirt that had a prone opossum on it, crawling with text assuring the person looking that she was very, certainly, undeniably and unquestionably dead and deceased, not fainted. Even Snowdrop looked a little down, a little jittery as the twentieth ghost or gaunt figure came at her from the darkness.
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
Avery pushed tired legs into a run.
Jessica. Who didn’t even like her, probably. But Avery crashed into a hug, and Jessica didn’t push her away.
“I was looking,” Avery answered Jessica’s question. What are you doing all the way out here. “I thought if I could find your cousin-”
“-it might make things better,” Avery said. She hadn’t thought things through that much.
“I take it Bristow’s winning?” Zed asked.
“Or he’s won already,” Avery answered. “Brie was okay, last I saw, but…”
She wasn’t sure how to end that sentence.
“Everyone’s okay,” Snowdrop told him.
“A student just died,” Avery clarified. “Laila.”
“Okay,” Zed said. “Shit, okay, okay, I’ve got to go back, then. Jessica, I’ll try to come back another day to help with-”
“I’ll come,” Jessica cut him off.
Avery squeezed Jessica harder.
“Can you endure the return trip?” Jessica asked.
“She’s a wimp, and she’s tired,” Snowdrop said.
Avery let out a half-note chuckle, then nodded.