She pulled out her earbuds, put her phone aside, and made herself get up. Once up, she checked she was decent enough to answer the door, and unlocked it, opening it.
Raymond Sunshine stood on the other side, tall, narrow, long hair combed close to the scalp up to the point it no longer touched the scalp and went a bit wild. His eyes were hidden by his red sunglasses and the rest of his expression gave nothing away.
“I’m doing rounds, checking on every room of students who haven’t woken up already and started breakfast,” he told her.
“We’re alive. We’re mostly intact. Tired,” she told him.
“Good, acceptable, and a bit of a shame, respectively,” he told her. “Ms. Durocher is holding a class on healing practices this morning, starting late, at ten. We thought it would be a good chance to make sure our students are in tip-top shape, physically or otherwise.”
“Okay,” Lucy said. She felt a bit weird, giving such short answers, so she elaborated, “I’m sort of interested in that one. The way things have been going, it would be a nice skill to have.”
“Yes,” Raymond said, absently. Some students were in the hall behind him. Lucy felt a bit anxious, hair uncombed, wearing a rumpled t-shirt and sleep shorts.
She wasn’t sure what to expect from a healing class, but a part of her had hoped for a distraction, or a class they could skip. This wasn’t really either. With the ambient mood, the injuries, the resentments, it felt like it’d be a drag.
“Are your friends awake?” Raymond asked.
Lucy was standing in the doorway, and leaned back to look. Avery was sitting up, propped up by elbows. Verona kept her head on the pillow, but raised a hand, thumbs up.
“Yes. They’re up.”
“There are some other things to discuss,” Raymond said. “If it’s no trouble, could you meet me in my office before class? Say, in ten minutes?”
She glanced back, verified, then ventured, “Fifteen?”
“That’s fine. Whichever is convenient. Finally, while I’m here, I thought I’d let you know, we’re stepping up security, activating some wards at the perimeter of the property, and putting the augurs on shift duty to avoid further trouble. I reached out to Alexander this morning and couldn’t find him. I don’t know how concerned you are about him, but you should know that we’re keeping a close eye out and I don’t think you should have any immediate worries.”
Lucy had worried about this, or about something like it. The inevitable questions or prodding. She’d thought panic might grip her, or she might say or do something weird, or flinch, her expression giving something away.
Her expression didn’t change at all from its default, slightly-pissed-off frown. She inhaled, then exhaled slowly.
Lucy turned her head, then shifted her position, pushing the door open so Raymond could see the others on the bed.
Avery asked, “Is he the type to do something like that? Retaliate, when we weren’t even directly against him?”
“Yes,” Raymond said. “I could dodge the question or talk around things, but yes, he would and I’m guessing he will. I’m a longtime friend of the man, and he made some preliminary moves against me last night.”
“What kind of moves?” Avery asked.
“Political ones, with political types who sometimes eliminate their political problems. But that’s not a topic for when you’re barely awake. Shower, dress, eat, do whatever you need or want to do. I’m going to check on other students and then head back to my office. Barring emergency, I intend to see you there in ten to fifteen minutes.”
Raymond moved on. Lucy let the door close by its own weight.
“So we have that Alexander thing happening, I guess,” Verona said, mushing her face into a pillow, and dragging Snowdrop halfway across the bed to hug against her chest. Snowdrop stretched out all four legs toward the ceiling for a moment before relaxing.
“I want to say sarcastic things right now,” Avery said, stretching.
Lucy visualized Alexander lying in the dirt, body unable to lie even completely flat because an arm and a tree branch were beneath him. The damage from the gunshot was more than just about any movie she’d seen, and she’d watched a lot of horror films.
She didn’t want to visualize it, but she did.
She’d tell them after. It was calculating and awful but them having no idea made selling their non-involvement easier.
The mental image had a vivid nature to it that beat out even that crisp mental picture of her mom sitting on the edge of her bed, after Paul had left.
She’d slept with her earring on and somehow it hadn’t gotten sore or bothered her. Now she could hear Raymond across the way. Talking to Jorja and Talia. The way the two girls talked, voices almost overlapping as they answered questions, no hesitation, no barriers, it sounded like they’d made up.
One good thing to come from last night’s resolutions.
To get the mental image out of her head, she turned to music, getting her phone and headphones, and sticking one of the earbuds into her ear. It was a purring, grungy, goth-y sound, percussive sound, heavily processed and loaded with lyrics her mom wouldn’t be happy about. Might even get her grounded.
It was good, though. Distracting from the visual, the lyrics pulling her brain away from things. It didn’t fit the mental image, and was almost like she was attacking it.
“Come on. Meeting with Raymond shortly, then class,” she told the others, leaving no room for disagreement.
The others picked themselves up. Lucy put the other earbud in.
Drowning out the visual with music.
She got her clothes and her hair and makeup stuff, then headed to the showers. Verona caught up with her a short distance down the hall, stole an earbud, and popped it into her own ear, prompting a look from Lucy.
Lucy glanced back, saw Avery trailing behind, carrying an opossum-form Snowdrop.
Including Avery was important. She pulled out the remaining earbud, rubbed it clean on her shirt, and held it out.
“Ah, I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Be bolder about what you want,” Lucy said. “I can handle me.”
Verona took the phone and Avery put the earbud in, sharing the cord with Verona. Lucy pulled off her earring, tapped it against the phone, and murmured, “listen.”
The earring picked up the music. As well as any earbud, to both ears.
Lucy’s head bounced with the music as she led the way. She smiled when she looked back and saw how scandalized Avery seemed to be.
“You seem so pure,” Verona teased.
“I’m not that pure.”
It felt like nothing fit. That everything was at odds. The sexy music warring with a mental image that was almost fighting to stay in Lucy’s mind’s eye. The school so tidy when it had so recently been at war. The playful banter between the others, when students kept giving them sidelong glances.
Like glances Lucy had gotten all her life, just… condensed into one short walk to the showers.
There weren’t many stalls open, but with one open, the others encouraged Lucy to take it, because she took longer. She did, and kept listening to the music through the earring.
Midway through pulling her sleep clothes off, she got a good look at her arm in the light that came over the door. It looked bruised, and still had traces of the coloring from the Nettlewisp, and she wasn’t sure which was which.
Her lip was still split, tender as she touched her tongue to it. She’d been knocked to the ground, pushed around, grabbed by the throat… and fatigue settled into her, settled into all those sore points, real and imagined.
She might normally have stood under the stream of the shower, taking a few minutes to rinse and think about nothing. Instead, she used every moment of the shower to do self-care, to take care of hair and skin, her mind thinking forward to what she might anticipate from Raymond.
She dressed in the clothes she’d hung up just before showering, any minor wrinkles smoothed out by the humidity and a pass of her hand.
The others were in the shower as she emerged. She dried her hair using a t-shirt, because it was gentler than most towels, and produced less frizz, then covered bruises with some of the same concealer she used on her face. Couldn’t do anything about her lip, though.
Yadira took up a spot at a sink, further down, pulling her hair into a ponytail at the same time Lucy was doing the same.
Lucy was very aware of how cold Yadira’s sidelong glances were.
If it weren’t for the music, then Lucy might have snapped at the silence, and that fact surprised her.
The others caught up, and Lucy gathered up her stuff.
Some students were already camped out in the main classroom, more than half an hour before class, sitting on benches and talking, some eating or finishing off juice and tea.
The western hallway of the school, at least, was for senior students and staff, and was fairly empty. A bit of reprieve from the staredown.
Lucy knocked on the door to Raymond’s office. The door opened.
They layout had changed somewhat. Furniture was arranged in the center of a main room, surrounded by floating screens.
Raymond was talking to a mannequin-like figure, who stood on a pedestal. He beckoned them in. “Yes. If you can, just get back to me with availability, and any fees. The school can provide, up to a point.”
Lucy, Avery, and Verona took seats in the cushioned chairs. Snowdrop hung back, standing behind Avery’s seat.
“Thank you. I have students to attend to. Excuse me.”
The mannequin nodded, then fizzled out of reality.
“Sorry,” Raymond said. “Phone call. The holograms and things are a trapping I fell into at an earlier age that I haven’t bothered changing.”
“It’s cool,” Verona told him.
“Ahem,” he said, smoothing out shirt and slacks as he took a seat. “Thank you for coming.”
“I can’t tell if we’re in trouble or not,” Lucy said.
“I can’t either,” Raymond answered. “Which is why I asked you here. Part of why. Some concerns have come up, I thought the best way to handle them would be to be straightforward. I’ll tell you right now, this is between you three, your opossum, and me.”
“Concerns?” Lucy asked.
“I’ve been awake all night, trying to reach out to some people who may be suitable headmasters. The people who are most suitable to take over and carry on some form of the school’s mission statement are also very particular individuals. Two candidates stand out, and to ease their transition and ensure I’m prepared as I engage in these hours of phone calls, I’ve been familiarizing myself with the school and how it’s being run. Some I already knew, some I’m just now learning.”
“Sounds like a lot,” Avery said.
“If you’re doing all this, why not just become headmaster?” Verona asked.
“Because I would like to have some semblance of a life when I’m not working. This is manageable for a few weeks or months, but I’d shorten my lifespan if I kept it up for long.”
“Especially with those all-nighters like you’re describing,” Lucy said.
“My brother’s talked about having to do those.”
“Alexander kept me and Ms. Durocher informed about things like the teachers we’d invite in as guests, resources and trips we’d carry out, and the renting out of workshops to graduate and senior students. Sometimes we take on bigger projects as a school and use workshops for that, committing students like Reid, Wye, or Amine to oversee them and bring in necessary individuals. Deciphering threats, remote bindings, and scholarly work that standalone families can’t do.”
“Super interesting,” Verona said.
“Perhaps. Alexander managed other things himself, including incoming student lists, reaching out to new students, sponsorship from larger families, interactions with Lords and other powers, whenever we might be taking any action that would draw their attention, staffing, funding, and general finances.”
“Oh,” Verona made a sound.
Yeah. The fact that he’d chosen that note to end on…
“Your reaction tells me I’m not mistaken,” Raymond told them. “There’s a discrepancy in paperwork and funding, with a short note from Alexander saying to contact him if there are any questions. I’ve set Tanner to the task of finding the man, and intend to include those questions on the long list I have for him. But until he figures out how to find an augur who doesn’t want to be found, the only way to get answers about this is apparently by talking to you.”
“From the way you responded to Alexander wanting to have a vote for the school, I think you know,” Lucy said. “His… cheat? Kind of?”
“I couldn’t volunteer that information if I did know.”
“He set up the demesne here, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?” Verona asked. “He tied it to the school itself, serving students and that left some pretty big loopholes.”
Raymond reached behind his chair, to a space where there wasn’t a table, shelf, or anything, and picked up a tablet. He tapped on it a few times.
“He messed with Avery and our hometown,” Lucy said. “We called him out on it. Said we had a right to be students, because of that loophole. Then he couldn’t really come after us or leave Avery out to dry like that.”
“I see. Even if you aren’t paying tuition. He could argue the point, but if he does, he damages his demesne and claim, if worse doesn’t happen.”
“Our leverage for being here was that we could tell other students they could technically attend for free,” Avery said.
“I’m glad you didn’t. That makes my life easier. I do have to tell you that I’m afraid this leverage only works if Alexander is headmaster.”
“Crap,” Verona muttered.
“Thank you for your honesty. You could have evaded, and I have enough minefields to deal with, without you three being another set. Two possible headmasters are lined up, and I know them well enough that I don’t think this tuition concern will be ignored.”
“Double crap,” Verona said. “How much is tuition?”
“For the three of you, twenty-one thousand dollars a term.”
“Okay,” Verona replied, blinking in rapid succession, her eyebrows going up until they disappeared behind her bangs. She looked at Avery, “Want to rob a bank?”
“What does that mean?” Lucy asked Ray. “That it won’t be ignored?”
“What it means depends a lot on your answers to my other questions,” Raymond said, putting down the tablet. “I don’t know you. I have some sense of you from our past interactions, and from how you conducted yourselves last night. Zed likes you and I like Zed, but he’s sworn to secrecy, as is Brie. Nicolette has run into you but won’t say anything, and she won’t let me talk to Seth, who is forsworn and could tell me, even if oaths still hold some sway over him.”
“What happens if we give the wrong answers?” Avery asked.
“Wrong answers could be cause for expulsion right here and right now. The Blue Heron Institute might try to handle you, at least until we can extract more information and some necessary oaths from you.”
“Extract as in torture?” Avery asked.
“Extract as in extract. We have a number of Augurs still in attendance at this school,” Raymond said. “But given the severity of an attack of this potential style and scale, I wouldn’t rule out torture either. I’d argue against it, for what it’s worth, but I wouldn’t necessarily be in charge.”
“What the heck kind of answers would those be?” Verona asked.
“Zed mentioned to me at one point that students were speculating about you. They thought you might be Oni-related. Oni and practitioners don’t traditionally get along, and it would make some sense if you were actually here specifically for what happened last night. The removal of one headmaster.”
Lucy’s thoughts went to Alexander, before she reminded herself that he was talking about Bristow.
Raymond lifted up his sunglasses, and he was looking at her, studying her with eyes that looked as tired as she’d felt when she had been getting ready for her shower, feeling all her sore spots, injuries, exhaustion, and little traumas in one total feeling.
“I’m glad it bothers you,” he told her. “That it happened, and that you had a part in it.”
“It’s pretty spooky,” Avery said.
Lucy pressed her lips together. The split on her lip stung. She licked it.
Verona shifted position, but she maintained a pretty serious poker face otherwise.
“Do you believe that?” Lucy asked, quiet. “That we came here for that reason?”
Raymond Sunshine shook his head.
“Good, because we didn’t,” Lucy told him.
“But I do worry,” he said. “You might have been directed here unwittingly. Oni or other forces like Oni might want to hurt the school. Certain practitioners or ex-practitioners would want us out of the way.”
That word, ex-practitioners, it said a lot about Raymond’s train of thought. Lucy tried to keep her expression still, but her eyebrows drew together and she wasn’t sure how to put them back to normal, that wouldn’t be too far in the other direction. Concerned or worried.
He went on, “You awoke relatively recently, you have a lot of power and a large number of contacts, and your arrival was followed by the handling of the Devouring Song.”
“Hungry Choir,” Lucy said.
“Convention has sway, and both urban myth sites and practitioner circles have been calling it something else. Either way, you struck very close to the heart of this Hungry Choir, very quickly. I worry you’re striking at the heart of this school in a very similar way.”
“Which is how you get to us being imprisoned, bound, sworn to oaths?” Lucy asked.
“If true or close to true.”
“Well,” Lucy said, looking at the others. “Let’s try to make it clear that’s not the case, and soothe those worries.”
“I’d love to,” Raymond said, leaning back, setting one ankle across his knee. With his long legs and the framing of the chair, it was pretty effective. He set the sunglasses back in place. “What can you tell me?”
“That’s a pretty big question,” Verona told him. “A lot of practitioners would be protective of their family stuff and secrets, I think.”
“I don’t like how early it is in the day right now,” Verona said. “My head’s not all there.”
“I’m not interested in power, or on preying on practitioners. I want to ensure the school is safe, that things transition smoothly to a new headmaster, and that students are safe. I want Zed safe, and I know he talks to you more frequently than many students.”
“Would you swear oaths?” Lucy asked. “To keep stuff secret?”
“Depending. I’m limited in what I can do.”
“Then maybe it’s better that you ask questions, and we try to answer?” Lucy tried.
“Alright. Then I’ll start with one of the most pressing questions. Lawrence Bristow. You played a significant role in what happened to him. I’ve looked in, and the man is as good as dead.”
“Not what I aimed for,” Verona said.
“What did you aim for?”
“You have thoroughly done that. Yesterday, today, and every day for a long time.”
Avery sighed audibly. Snowdrop reached over the top of the chair back and hugged her.
“Nobody really spelled out what the brownie thing was,” Verona said. “He kind of- you know he came after our hometown, right?”
“Easy,” Lucy murmured.
“I know,” Raymond said. “Clementine explained. I intend to verify other facts with her before she leaves, after our talk.”
“He came after us, and if he hadn’t then we wouldn’t have had that ammunition to use against him, and start the Brownie thing,” Verona said.
“Was that a motivation then?”
“We wanted him to back off and leave us alone,” Avery protested.
“We told him,” Lucy jumped in, a little firmer. “That he was off target. He was aiming big guns at us, our town, our friends, and our families, just to inconvenience Alexander. We gave him a chance to back off, and he made it clear he wouldn’t stop.”
“We don’t fit what he wants in his school,” Verona said, before correcting, “didn’t. Wanted.”
“Did you want him dead or, for lack of a better word, gone?”
“No!” Verona’s voice raised. She lowered her volume. “No. When Alexander said we could have gotten the Brownies to back off, I was all for it.”
Lucy frowned. “But Bristow wouldn’t back down. I think that shows there wasn’t a better way. He had the chance to back off, and he wouldn’t. He would have kept coming for us, and we can’t- we swore oaths.”
Raymond nodded, leaning back. His chair wasn’t adjustable, but it adjusted, reclining slightly. He folded his arms. “When you say you were all for it, was that because you worried about the audience?”
“Because I’m not super happy about doing what- what Shellie said. That he gets kidnapped and gets sold off or whatever.”
“Or whatever,” Raymond said, absently. “Something of a relief, to get this confirmation. But these oaths you mention, Lucy. I think I need to know more. About who you are, where you’re from.”
Lucy nodded, tense. She was glad she’d put herself together earlier.
“Kennet. Charles Abrams is there.”
“He lived outside of the town,” Lucy said. “After Alexander went after him, he was offered sanctuary.”
“Taking on specific ailments, curses, and things, until they could be handled.”
“Was this part of a greater experiment, design, or the refinement of a form of attack?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Lucy said.
“Keeping things clean. Healing an innocent. Some stuff, ummm…” Avery hesitated.
What else? Oh. John and Yalda. Lucy tried to figure out how to phrase that.
“Stuff tied to jobs done for major powers,” Verona jumped in.
Think of this like a police investigation, Verona. Don’t volunteer too much, Lucy willed.
“Major powers. Are these gods? Great spirits? Incarnations?”
“I don’t know,” Verona said. “And it was a while ago.”
“You can’t append a label? An incarnation would be a force like Death herself, or Poverty.”
Verona glanced at Avery, then Lucy.
Said a lot, that it was in that order. It wasn’t that Lucy was insecure, really. But Avery offered a different sort of backup to what Lucy did and if Verona was looking for that, then Verona wasn’t doing all that hot. It was hard to tell sometimes, but things like this were clues.
“I could offer an oath, but that’s dangerous ground, especially considering the scale of things that a major power may interact with. Let me instead provide more context. I gave Zed his foundation in technology and technomancy. Most technological know-how can be a problem, when you’re trying to bring somebody into the fold and get them thinking in the right ways. I would rather start with a luddite than with a career programmer. But it’s best to start with someone very young. In any event, I taught Zed most of what he knows and I took responsibility for awakening him. In exchange, he helps me, he allows me to guide, direct, and inform his research, and he owes me a token from whatever power or position he gains. I know he was looking into the Devouring Song, for example. I know he’s avidly curious about the three of you now.”
“I suspect you three may have inklings already, but sometimes what is not said can be as telling as what is said out loud. Zed stopped keeping track of specific data after he negotiated with you for details that let us conquer the Devouring Song- Hungry Choir. Nicolette has similar areas she declines to talk about.”
“Not very fair,” Verona’s voice was barely audible.
“It may not be. What would you say if I asked if these greater powers are judges? Carmine, Alabaster, Sable, and Aurum?”
The three of them exchanged glances.
“Yes,” Raymond said. “No need to say. Alexander took specific files with him when he left to target Lawrence. There were similar absences there. I know that what Lawrence would have built here would have overridden the position of the four Judges.”
“What would that mean?” Avery asked.
“That the Judges would have less sway. Lords and… whatever we would have ended up calling Bristow, leader over this swathe of unclaimed territory, they would have made the final judgment calls on things such as forswearing, the Others that may exercise full power or allowed leeway under rules, and how the landscape changes. Mr. Bristow seems to have timed what he did to take advantage of the fact that the four judges are currently three.”
“By that same token, I think Alexander may have thought he could bait Lawrence into the position, or used the current situation with the Judges to upset his rival’s plans. And I think, if you’ll excuse my speculation, that we have a confluence of factors all coming together. An empty Carmine seat, Alexander, Lawrence, the emergence of the Devouring Song, Charles Abrams, and, of course…”
He extended a hand even as Lucy beat him to the punch. “Us.”
“You,” Raymond said. “Less surprising, now, that a lot of power has been invested in you. Which leaves me with the pressing question… why?”
“You said, before, if we gave you the wrong answers, you might capture us or come after us,” Verona reminded Ray.
“And I think we gave okay answers, to avert that worst case scenario?” she asked.
Verona nodded. “What’s our best case scenario? What comes from this meeting, if we give really good or important answers?”
“If you’re going to kick us out,” Lucy followed up, “then maybe we should leave now? If you’re satisfied we’re not malicious?”
“Stay,” Raymond said, firm, gesturing. “If you’re in over your heads, and this is as big as I’m starting to think it is, then the best case scenario may be that I help you. I can provide guidance, shelter, pull you away from being made pawns in something big and malicious.”
“What if we’re not in over our heads?” Verona asked.
“If you’re not, then I’d have a hard time believing the incident with Lawrence and the brownies was pure accident and naivete. But that’s unfair. Let me ask, was it Charles Abrams who spearheaded this?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re sponsored, according to Durocher. Others provide you with diverse power. You do something for the Others. What? And for who?”
“We’d need oaths,” Lucy told him.
“I can’t. Not in my current position, not in general. Not when it’s peripheral to Zed and the young woman he fell so fast and hard for. If the Judges are involved it involves all practice in the region. Another tack, then. I’d like to meet the Other who led this endeavor.”
“That’s hard,” Avery said. “But we could arrange it if we had to.”
Avery’s instinct was to be helpful, and to go easy. She softened every blow. That was tricky.
“Are they sworn to the seal?”
“We have good reason to believe they are,” Lucy said.
“I can confirm, simply by re-binding. Temporarily.”
“I think that would… not go over well,” Lucy replied.
“I see. That sort of situation. Zed reported to me that there were areas he was being kept away from. Distractions, interference, some light violence. Around Kennet. Your hometown. Liberty and America recognized one of your friendly Others by name. Uncle Toad. He reportedly said he’s been hiding away.”
Lucy nodded. The others did the same.
“I have strong suspicions but I need to know,” Raymond said. “Small details may have big impacts. I’m willing, not to swear an oath of silence, but to pledge my goodwill. I have little to do with judges and thrones and I’m not looking to hunt or prosecute Others, unless given cause. I’m only interested in this because it affects everything, a little bit. If Alexander were to make a play for the empty seat, or if the wrong Other took the spot, it affects the school, every student in the region, my practice…”
Lucy shook her head a little.
“I will only step in or share this information if it’s necessary to protect good people,” Raymond told them. “Frankly, I’m happier to ignore it, with everything else on my plate right now.”
“I don’t know-” Verona started.
“You swear it?” Lucy said, at the same time.
The two of them exchanged looks.
“Do you need a moment?” Raymond asked.
“I made a similar promise when I awoke,” Lucy told Verona. “To step in for the sake of justice, protecting innocents.”
“Good oath,” Raymond said.
“It’d be hypocritical of me to deny Raymond the same.”
“I agree with Lucy,” Avery said. “I don’t know about you guys, but I do feel like I’m in over my head. I don’t want to do what we did last night, ever again, and I’d love to have an adult we can go to that isn’t, like, Brie or Zed.”
“What a thing to think about, imagining that Brie and Zed are adults,” Raymond said, wistful, shaking his head a little. He removed his glasses to rub at his eyes.
“You have no, uh, what are they called? Ulterior motives?” Verona asked.
“None large enough to spring to my mind. Among the minor motives, I think there is some curiosity, some frustration, some desire to know what my apprentice is entangled in.”
“I’m okay with that,” Lucy said. “If the others are.”
“Yeah,” Avery added. “It’s a big thing we’ve lacked, for a bit. Someone we can trust.”
Verona nodded. But time passed, Verona’s eyes moving like she was looking for something, until she finally relented. Ten or twenty seconds before her quiet, “Okay.”
“We’re trusting you,” Lucy told Raymond.
“Okay,” he told her. “Thank you.”
“We were awakened to serve as practitioners for Kennet. To tell anyone who started poking their noses in that the area’s covered, it’s our territory.”
“Benefiting from general rules we put in place, to defer, leave things alone if asked to,” Raymond said. “If they wanted to intrude, settle down, or start tapping the area for power, they’d really need to go to the local Lord.”
“No Lord in Kennet,” Verona said.
“The Judges then. I see.”
“We were asked to investigate the missing Judge.”
“And we have some good ideas, I think,” Lucy said. “We’re at school to figure out what we need to do to bring in the perpetrators.”
“What about Charles?”
“Peripheral. He may have helped. Or summoner-type practices were used.”
“Relating to the Choir?”
“Who told you to come here?” Raymond asked.
“The Other you can’t easily talk to,” Avery said.
“She told us the trick to force Alexander to let us. We had to use it when he stuck his nose in, trapped Avery,” Verona told Raymond.
“And how did she learn this?”
“We don’t know,” Lucy said.
“She knows a lot about a lot of things,” Avery said.
“We think others allowed us to be picked because we’re children,” Lucy said. “And they thought we’d need a lot of help or we’d be likely to fail. But she- she picked us because she thought we’d be very good at this.”
“We need to study a bit more, without distractions,” Verona said. “Then we do our job, bind the perpetrator or perpetrators, and that’s it. That’s our big plan.”
“I believe you,” Raymond said. “My concerns lie elsewhere. Students described this Uncle Toad as very canny, and world-wise. Your patrons seem to be evasive, hiding away from the world. I don’t know what they’re plotting or doing, and my efforts to find out have been mostly stymied.”
“I don’t think it’s that nefarious,” Avery said. “Except for the murderers but we’re handling that.”
“I want to ask you, then. One of my last big questions before your first class of the day begins. Is it at all possible that, even if you had no such intentions, you were led to come here to cause this kind of mayhem? Could that have been part of a scheme, plot, or plan, on the part of your patrons?”
“I think-” Avery started.
“Think about it before answering,” Raymond said.
“I think the ones who would have had to scheme that up care too much about us to use us like that,” Avery said. “And the ones who would be willing to let stuff happen to us didn’t want us to come.”
Lucy nodded her agreement.
“Which group does Charles belong to?” Raymond asked.
“I don’t think Charles is capable of doing much,” Lucy told him. “Scheming or doing anything. He didn’t even want us to Awaken in the first place.”
“A new headmaster will be installed in one to three weeks,” Raymond told them. “Either Maurice Crowe or Mr. Abraham Musser. Neither is likely to miss or overlook the tuition issue, and I don’t intend to keep it a secret either. I’ll assume you don’t have the twenty-one thousand dollars or equivalent services to render.”
Lucy shook her head. Matthew and Edith had said they’d pay for the demesne, but that was different. The Kennet Others hadn’t wanted them to come, and shelling out that kind of money for lessons in how to bind Others, among other things, probably wouldn’t go over that well.
“You have a bit of time. Not the whole summer, as you might have hoped, but some time,” Raymond told them. “You’re going to want to make the most of it. In exchange, I want you to keep Zed from getting too entangled in this. Come to me if you need help, but…”
“But you’re busy, right?” Verona asked.
“I was going to say there are political considerations. I can’t be seen as taking a side and apparently Alexander has notified outside forces that he thinks I did. You’re not wrong, in any event. I will be busy. I’ll try to make time.”
“Thank you,” Avery told him.
“I’d like to see Charles. Will you go home to Kennet after you leave here?”
“That’s the plan,” Lucy told him.
Verona made a gurgling sound.
“I’ll be in touch, then. To arrange things.”
“A lot happens at the end of summer,” Lucy confessed. “Apparently that’s the deadline for the Carmine Throne to be filled. The judges will force someone to step in.”
“Before then, then, so I’m not in the way,” Raymond said. “In the meantime, as I was saying, I imagine you’ll want to study and use the facilities, but I do have another recommendation.”
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.
“Mend fences and build bridges. There are a lot of hard feelings over what happened these past few days. And practitioners are, as a general rule, very wary about anyone who would do what you did to Lawrence Bristow. Even considering the circumstances. Your stay here might not be easy as things stand. I intend to keep the peace, but I can’t make guarantees, and I can do little to nothing about much that happens if your tuition lapses and you’re no longer considered students of the Blue Heron.”
“You think they’d do that?” Avery asked.
“Bristow had friends and you now have enemies. Reverse this trend while you can, or it’s something that can follow you well into the future. Now, I do think class is about to start. We’ll be doubling up on teachers and teaching assistants to make sure we have everything square, so I’ll be sitting in for this one.”
He stood, and they followed suit. Avery lifted a sleepy Snowdrop to her shoulder.
Her stomach was clenched, worrying they were providing too much information, setting themselves up to fail later.
She had to avoid rubbing at her arm, and had to work doubly hard to keep from replaying the conversation over and over again in her head, wondering what she’d done wrong, that she could regret just as much as any enemy she might make.
Class, at least, was a little easier on the nerves.
The god walked across the stage, past his sister, his head ducking low so he wouldn’t bang it on the beams that supported the roof, and took a seat at the stage’s edge, hunched over a bit. Lesser Others peeled away from him, taking to the air, grabbing onto beams, and cavorting around him, humanoid figures with heads like lit matches, their ‘hair’ a dancing and flickering glow, their heads too golden-bright to have faces. His hair was similar, but his face was defined, etched more severely than a statue’s, his eyes bright. Each bend and sudden turn in his blazing mane made the air in the rest of the room stir. His steps, though gentle, made the room shake.
He wore only a cloth, and it wasn’t even draped on him like a toga might be. It was more by accident, volume, and design that it shrouded him. His posture was casual, one foot flat on the ground, the knee of the same leg higher than any of the bookshelves that lined the classroom, while the other leg was folded under him. His face was framed by long flickering hair as he looked down on them all, while lesser entities appeared like the sparks from a fire, taking to the air or gracefully navigating his head to drag locks of hair behind his ears and away from his face, so it wouldn’t be covered.
“Yo,” he addressed the room in a deep voice.
Lucy, as she’d been instructed, kept her head bowed a bit, studying him before dropping them to the floor. Her hand gripped the bench’s edge.
The wood was new. It was fresh cut, sanded, polished, but it was new. So much of this room had been trashed and it had been put back together again, just about everything set in order. Maybe too much order, with papers too neatly stacked, nothing left out of place.
Just yesterday, she’d been bound to a bench on the other side of the classroom, threatened. They’d deliberately sat as far away from that spot as they could, but it didn’t really help shake that awareness.
Easier on the nerves. Right. Right. Yeah.
“We appreciate your attendance,” Durocher told the god.
“No problem,” he said. His voice was loud, at the same time he was very obviously keeping his volume down. The acoustics of the church-style building carried the sound. “They’re worn out.”
“They are. It’s been a long couple of days,” Durocher said. She walked around at the foot of the stage, past Raymond, who was sitting in on the class.
“Very few come to visit my ilk when times are good, so I’m used to it,” the god said, before laughing. The laugh should have been painfully loud, but it wasn’t.
Lucy couldn’t have been more shortsighted, thinking the class would be easy or calm or boring. She’d wondered if the class would be distracted or too tired to focus, and how Durocher might handle that.
Silly her. Durocher didn’t do easy and the woman always commanded attention when she wanted it.
From their meeting with Raymond to class. Then, in the first minute of Ms. Durocher talking, she’d shouted out an invocation, and then this. Inviting a pair of gods into the classroom. The sister of the god who sat at the front of the stage was as dark as he was bright, her hair like a waterfall of black-feathered birds with feathers longer than some people were tall, diving in glacial slow motion, weaving past one another. Her skin was the grey of storm clouds, she was bare chested, and her lips and nipples were silver. A night-black cloth sat loose around her waist, extending around and down her legs to the floor. Black-furred beasts lurked in the folds and emerged here and there, only to disappear again, giving glimpses of silver eyes and silver-y-er claws and talons. The things that peeled away from her were less immediately helpful or fanatical to her and looked more like they were intent on slinking off into dark corners to wait.
“The morning’s topic is an elementary lesson in healing,” Durocher said. “A springboard to discussion of structural practices, which, I’ll note, are different from realms practices.”
“Sounds fun,” the god said.
“Gods tend to send splinters or aspects of themselves to tend to minor matters,” Ms. Durocher addressed the class. “You’ve done so, yes?”
“I wouldn’t fit in here at full size,” he said, laughing through the sentence.
“Tell us about yourself. What do you do? Who or what are you?”
“Metaphaos, I’m not one of your gods from the books, and very few of the gods who practitioners will deal with are. Being bound up in history is too constraining, too formalized, it comes with too much baggage. You only find the best gods if you go looking in places unknown.”
Durocher looked up at him. “And many are like yourself, others are, hm, what would we call them? Raymond? Glitches in the system?” She looked to Raymond, who sat off to the side.
“Emergent gods,” Raymond said. “Sometimes we’ll term them cosmic rounding errors. Complexities of a deific scale?”
“Complex, in that case, being used in the same sense we talk about complex spirits, elementals, and such?” Durocher asked, pacing, looking at the class and not Raymond.
“You have to be careful with that lot,” Metaphaos said. “Messy. Interesting, but not fun.”
“Why?” Durocher asked, pointing at him, without turning around.
“They don’t always have humanity and humanity’s faith giving them a push from behind from the outset. You can get less human forces, and that gets out of control fast. They might not speak your languages, they might not have very good aim, or they might not care either way. Guy travels to a temple deep in the woods that wasn’t built by man, where a deity of civilization has risen. He wants wealth and gets kids instead, and before the hour’s out, his great grandkids have great grandkids. The poor little explorer is now wading through birthing-muck and the bodies of descendants who are fast-tracking their way through learning how to crawl, walk, and talk, trying to get far enough away that it all stops. Meanwhile,the god there is happy as can be, starting a deific civilization from the singular seed of one man. Then the cleanup crew arrived, I played a small role in that.”
“It’s easier than it once was. To hear the older forces talk about it, it used to be lawless out there. But you know how lawless things were, teacher.”
Durocher smiled. “That’s for later in the class.”
“Sure thing. Right now, those of us who are canny enough are changing roles. Used to be we provided definition and structure. Now your species is doing that for itself. We’re smaller, we keep more to our own selves and family branches, and we game the systems if we’re smart.”
“Structure, you said?” she asked. “We put gods under the broad umbrella of structural practices.”
“Your call. It works.”
“Because we build, we create from raw clay, beams of light, and from ourselves.”
“Create what?” she asked.
“Life. Weather. Rules. We don’t create-create, but you can cut a statue out of raw clay and say you made that, can’t you? Creating from scratch is a dying art, left to other forces.”
“And this is how you heal.”
“Sure thing,” the god said. He smiled. “Blow a bit of life into a vessel, doesn’t matter if they’re a man or a clay dog. Or do a bit of repair to their fundamental structure, patch a hole, carve something out. Most gods get to be gods because they have that faith backing them and they have the tools to do that creating. Sometimes it’s one and the other follows, other times? We’re like this, right out of the tin. Grown and gorgeous.”
“Will you help us with the class exercise? I’ll cover any deficits you find yourself at.”
“No need, Ms. Durocher,” the god waved her off. “I’m not that minor.”
He held up his hands. A glowing sign began to form in the empty space before them. “If you wish to mend or heal, say some words to that effect, and call on my name. We’ll get it done somehow.”
“Pair up. Find the injured. If you can’t, then find someone to watch,” Durocher said.
Verona turned to Avery, tapping her own collarbone.
Avery reached up to her collar and pulled it down. The cut was bandaged there. She’d placed the bandage against it and haphazardly taped it down.
Verona laid her hands down there, palm against the back of one hand. Avery winced.
“Sorry,” Verona said.
“What are the risks of divine power and direct prayer?” Durocher asked, at the front of the room.
“That’s a big question. If you have less awesome gods, they might give you something you didn’t ask for. Or they might get pissy,” Metaphaos said. “Can I say that, in front of a classroom of kids?”
“Please don’t,” Durocher said.
The god’s voice filled the room, “By deific decree, ignore the rude word, children. I’ll warn, less great gods will get irritated, or very particular about how you can ask for things and what barriers must be met. Especially if you’re asking a lot. That’s how you ask for healing from a war god and get them deciding nah, have a dozen undead soldiers, instead, churl.”
“Gods will do what they want while the door is open,” Durocher said.
“Hm,” Avery hesitated, leaning back out of the way of Verona’s hands.
“Relax,” Verona said, putting the hands back, gentler this time.
“Metaphaos, bright haired cool god-”
The god laughed at the front of the room.
“-heal my friend of these cuts.”
Light shone beneath Verona’s hands. She stroked the length of the bandage, then pulled her hand back.
“Ow, ow,” Avery said, as she pulled on the bandage.
“Did it not work?” Lucy asked.
“It’s taped on, it’s pulling at my skin, ow. It worked.”
There were some exclamations from others around the room. More glows. Metaphaos laughed and it was a bit like the evil villain, heady on his own success.
“One healing for each of you!” Metaphaos addressed a group of boys. “Don’t be greedy. If you want more, talk to me. I only ask for a symbol branded on the arse, thigh, or upper chest, a three week fever dance, or a moderate animal sacrifice, to start!”
Avery reached up, a bit shy, toward Lucy’s face. Lucy crossed the last inch, pressing lip to fingertip.
“Plesh,” Lucy said, lip movements constrained by the touching fingers.
“Metaphaos, um-” Avery said.
“Fluff him up a bit,” Verona told her.
“Fluff?” the god asked, from the front of the room.
“In the most respectful, appropriate ways,” Verona hurried to say. “You’re the coolest god I’ve ever met, I wouldn’t be fake about this, don’t worry.”
“Way to go, Ronnie,” Avery muttered.
“I didn’t think he’d hear.”
“You said my name,” Metaphaos boomed. “I listen.”
“Stop irritating the nice, awe-inspiring god when Avery’s about to heal me, you moron,” Lucy muttered at Verona, her lips moving against Avery’s fingers. It stung, reminding her of the cut.
“Metaphaos, exercise your divine glory, please, and heal my friend who thinks you’re nice and awe-inspiring, ignore our other friend who’s a moron sometimes,” Avery said.
Verona sniffed. But light shone. Warmth leeched into Lucy’s face, like her face was close to a fire, but at no risk of being burned.
She opened her mouth, then moved her lips. No cut. She traced a finger at her lip’s edge to check.
“Thank you, Metaphaos,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I was a wimp, but that was bothering me an awful lot. You’re too kind.”
The god glanced at her, smiled briefly, then turned his head, looking at another group. “I’m not healing that. Be good, girls.”
“Other forms of healing have their own risks,” Durocher said, stepping up onto a bench, because the stage was pretty much entirely occupied. “Look at what the source of practice is when weighing the value. The powers I tap originate from an age of primordial chaos. When light, land, sea, and sky mingled freely. As those things settled into layers, animals and other forces took form from the chaos. Gods gave it structure. The powers I tap don’t necessarily know I’m drawing on them. The trick is tapping the right place in the right way, and the result is a flood of whatever it is I’m reaching for. If I can successfully heal, it’s rarely pretty. You may get some of that chaos in you, a bit of scale, fur, or wood where you once had flesh. But it will almost always get the job done.”
“You have any healing you need?” Lucy asked Verona. “Maybe we can cure that longstanding mental deficiency?”
Verona gasped, poking Lucy in the stomach. Lucy gave Verona a playful shrug.
A few benches down, some students did another healing.
“Goblin healing is surprisingly effective, but difficult to bear. Spit and a slap of mud, and it must be taught or done by the right goblins. Find the wrong goblin and they’ll surprise you with an amputation. Faerie healing is surface level and fragile, and I wouldn’t recommend it. Glamour paves over the injury and you could just as easily end up with a mystical abscess as a healing that reaches below that surface. Echoes can patch up the Self if matched well, but rarely mend flesh and they may even slow that healing. Better to turn to spirits, who repair from the inside out, giving you fuel and fire.”
“Wonder how that works with Edith,” Lucy mused.
“I came out of yesterday mostly unscathed,” Verona told her, unrelated. Replying to the earlier offer.
Durocher went on, “Put something elemental into a wound, and it’s more likely to brew as a small storm within than to truly mend. A replacement spark of life, sometimes, if you have nothing else.”
“You could heal Snowdrop,” Avery told Lucy. “She’s not too hurt, though.”
“Maybe after?” Lucy asked, as she looked back. “If she needs it.”
Snowdrop turned human, reclining on the bench, head in Avery’s lap. “I’m dying. I need healing now. Mercy.”
Yadira was at the back of the room.
Lucy stood, giving Avery a pat on the shoulder, and giving Snowdrop’s foot a waggle.
She walked over. Durocher kept talking, “…and in fact, the Abyssal may be related to the same kinds of primordial chaos I tap into, simply refined by time. The effects are very similar. Healing is possible, but it leaves scars in much the same way my healing might leave inhuman flesh…”
Yadira locked eyes with Lucy.
Yadira was injured, her wrist wrapped, and she was alone. Kass was in the middle of the room. Raquel had left when Musser had. Nobody had walked over. Yadira’s stance and expression might have scared off anyone willing.
To Lucy’s Sight, it looked like the wrist hurt a whole lot. Threads of dark red watercolor shot up and down Yadira’s arm, bleeding out to the point it colored a lot of her in darker shades. It swelled around the wrist in particular. The wrapping seemed to be keeping it rigid.
“Can we not be enemies, glaring at each other?” Lucy asked. “I think we each get to perform one healing. Will you be mine? That wrist-”
“You have no comprehension, do you?” Yadira asked, looking at Lucy. She shook her head a bit.
“Bristow? The damage you three did?” Yadira asked. Her expression changed three times, so fast Lucy could barely follow. Bewilderment at Lucy’s reaction, then frustration, then anger. “Get out of my fucking way.”
Lucy wasn’t in her way, but she still stepped back.
Yadira stormed off back in the direction of the dormitory rooms, leaving class early. The god at the front of the classroom watched, but said and did nothing.
Lucy ducked her head a bit, as he glanced her way. She didn’t need more enemies.
There were a lot of others watching her, too.
They didn’t have a lot of friends here. One of the people she was most familiar with was Yadira, and Yadira was more willing to have a wrist that sore than to make things okay again.
They’d played games before, intimidating a bit, trying to look strong as a just-in-case. They’d scared off the sorta-friendly types, like Yadira’s group. Now they looked strong, and they had no friends.
Raymond, at the front of the room, talked to Durocher but his head turned toward Lucy.
He was right. They were in a position to walk away with too many enemies and not enough friends. She’d underestimated how hard that would be to fix.