She frowned, looking genuinely disappointed.
I changed the subject. “If we’re going to hammer this out, we need to find a way to hold on to any victories and avoid future conflict. The longer we stretch this out, the better.”
“If we can hold out two days,” Fell said, “The weekend will be over. The Sisters will either have or want to return to work. Conquest will lose that resource, on a morale front or in manpower.”
I nodded. “I didn’t even consider that.”
“Defensively, we can set up walls and wards,” Fell said. “We can misdirect, and we can cross our fingers. Problem is, I’m not confident it’ll work long-term. They’re going to change things up, and the Lord of the City has generations of experience dealing with my family and our magic. He’ll know how to deal with me.”
“We need another way to duck out of sight,” I said.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Rose said. “When I was looking at the notion of limbo, the stuff that was going on with Midge, I had something of an idea.”
“What sort of idea?”
“Guerrilla defense, right? We need to be petty, strike from a location where they don’t expect us.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Is there anything saying we have to stay here?”
“In this building?”
“In the spirit world.”
I glanced at Fell and Maggie, then Alexis and Ty, who were sitting off to one side.
“Morals,” I said. “We’ve already done a lot of incidental damage. I’m not sure how this world is reflected by the real world, or vice-versa, but…”
“But Conquest picked this battlefield because it keeps his subjects out of the line of fire,” Fell said.
“And because it probably gives him an advantage,” Rose cut in.
“That too,” Fell admitted. “It’s more his medium. More yours, too. You’re more flexible, Rose Thorburn, but you’re also more vulnerable.”
Rose touched the cut on her chest. “It’s shallow.”
“It’s meaningful. You’ll need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. You’re stronger here, but you’re safer over there. Decide.”
“I take it you’re saying we need to decide where we want to set up camp,” I said.
“I’m saying exactly that.”
My friend piped up for the first time since we’d entered the apartment and recapped him on what was going on.
“Why not both?” Ty asked.
Why not both?
■
Doorways. Passage from one world to the next. Not easy to set up, but we had time, and Rose had access to grandmother’s books.
My friends would stay on the other side, keeping the defenses up and tend to the gates. At least for now. If they needed sleep, we could take shifts.
We would roam the free world.
Back in the city. Among the regular civilians, who were oblivious to what was going on.
Or so I thought.
There were sirens.
As a group, Fell, Rose, Maggie and I stopped by a store display. Televisions played, showing surveillance camera footage and cell phone video. A crazy obese woman in the middle of a city street, flinging glass at fleeing shoppers. The news caption on the bottom read ‘Drug-fueled rampage?’
The pattern was the same, the path she took, amid cars that had stopped in the middle of the street.
Until she was gunned down. In the same spot where Rose had banished Midge.
We watched as the screen changed over. Changing topics. Arson, fires throughout the city. Car accidents. Property damage. Deaths.
Conquest was applying his own pressure to us, in his own particular way. He didn’t actually care about the residents of Toronto. He knew this would bother us more than it bothered him and his people, with the possible exception of the Astrologer and the Sisters.
I wondered what he thought, after seeing Midge’s rampage. I hated to think it, but he could almost think we were shoving it back in his face, showing we could do just as much incidental damage.
This changed things, and it made our strategy that much harder to follow.
I turned away.
6.09