“Dramatic irony at its finest,” she said. “Your goblin queen friend can’t and won’t come, and your other friends are preoccupied. You left no other meaningful allies behind you. You’re alone. I’m your last hope, and you can’t let me go… unless I prevail on your wisdom and self preservation.”
“You’re threatening me?”
“I can’t have you following me out,” she said, “And I’d rather not make waves by leaving more dramatically. People aren’t the only things that come to this place to be worn away. Many a Demesne or forgotten god have fallen through the cracks, nothing to tie them to the world above. I would rather not disturb the more powerful locals.”
“You’re saying there’s an exit.”
“I’m saying this conversation is over,” she said. “I’m not here to hand you a solution. I’m saying farewell, that I’ve dealt with worse individuals, and I’m choosing to refuse your request in person, rather than leave you to keep wondering. I’m sorry it has to end on this note, but if you follow me, I will speak a name and you will regret making the choice.”
“I’m not-”
“As I said, this conversation is over,” she told me.
My divided hand clutched my wounded wrist as I stood on the rickety, piecemeal bridge, watching her leave.
When she said she would make me regret it, I believed her.
Frustration, rage, horror and a measure of panic boiled up within me.
Impotent emotion. I wasn’t dumb enough to follow.
But what the fuck was I supposed to do if I stayed?
I watched her disappear into the darkness, onto some ledge or path out of reach of any of the flickering lights.
My heart pounded. My mouth and throat were dry, even though my entire body was damp and numb with cold.
The darkness pressed in. I couldn’t shake the idea that the darkness was as solid as hard earth, and it extended for miles in every direction. Any progress I made was at the expense of scratching in dirt.
There was only this little patch of reality, and then only constant resistance that cost me more than it was worth to make headway against.
Seeing Carl had fucked me up.
Bystanders were staring. Others and people who weren’t a hundred percent people anymore. Broken down individuals who’d been shored up by whatever they could scrounge up from this place. Animal parts, grit, rags, flesh bloated with water.
I turned my back on the bridge that Ms. Lewis had taken, limping back in the direction of the small settlement.
I would have been lying if I tried to convince myself I managed to compose myself, but fuck it, I was allowed to lie now.
■
Hard shoe heels struck the tiled floor. The church was dim, with some multicolored light streaming in through stained glass windows.
Sandra stood in front of the altar, not at the altar. It loomed behind her, but the fact that she wasn’t using it as a stage to speak from suggested this wasn’t a proper assembly. Her familiar was perched across her shoulders, body bent to accommodate her neck. She wore her hair in a braid that draped over one shoulder, and a long coat with a fur ruff around the hood. Her family was arranged on one side of the aisle.
Mags sat on the edge of the stage, to Sandra’s left. Three goblins sitting or standing in her immediate vicinity. Her dark hair turned away from her head in twisted little curls, and only the metal hairband kept her from looking shaggy. Her t-shirt was black, with a bloody cartoon character on it, her jacket too small for the deep winter. Her denim skirt had threads hanging from the hem, and her legs were in black tights, jammed into sneakers. She looked painfully out of place with the modern clothes, and she looked worn out, with dark circles under dark eyes, little injuries everywhere, but the goblins around her were obedient, and formed a kind of unconscious tableau.
Andy and Eva stood leaning against the stage to Sandra’s right. He looked just similar enough to Eva for them to be obvious relatives, but their style of dress and demeanor were completely different.
Duncan sat with the Behaim family, his jacket draped on the back of the pew behind him. He wore gloves that extended inside the sleeves of his long-sleeved shirt, had one foot propped up on the seat of the pew. One finger tapped a relentless metronome beat on his knee.
A younger Aboriginal girl sat on a pew, all alone. Nobody sat next to her, but the Briar Girl and the Briar Girl’s familiar sat in the row behind her.
The Faerie had taken seats behind the Behaims. Ev and Keller. Padraic was absent.
Johannes was the last major player, sitting a little ways back, his familiar beside him.
Other Others were arranged at the edges of the room.
Eyes were on Rose. Alexis, Ty and Tiff had joined her, and each one of them was backed by a summoned Other. Alexis had a knight in rusted armor, Tiff was joined by a small child with white hair and pale pink eyes, lower face hidden by a scarf, and Ty was accompanied by both a mangy-looking Evan and a hulking brute of a man draped in what might have been necrotized flesh or seaweed. It was hard to tell.
Rose was accompanied by James Corvidae, and her style of dress -still wearing clothes from Grandmother Rose’s wardrobe- matched his in a strange way. Corvidae met the eyes of the small Aboriginal girl who’d partially turned around. He smiled, a slow, wide smile. The girl twisted around, sitting back down, eyes forward, but she smiled a little too.
Rose wasn’t in a position to see either smile.
“The diabolist has a cabal?” Sandra asked.
“No,” Rose said. “A circle. I haven’t taught them anything that would qualify them as a cabal, not yet.”
“You’re not doing yourself any favors, talking like that,” Sandra said.
“I know. Can I sit?”
“It’s your prerogative,” Sandra said.
Rose stood by while Ty, Alexis and Tiff filed in to take a seat on the pew. Their individual others moved into the row behind them, not sitting.
Rose took her seat at the end of the pew closest to the middle of the church.
“I must say,” Ev commented, her voice light and airy. “It is quite refreshing to have an active Thorburn around. Say what you will about the last one, she just wasn’t that interesting. We’re happier to be rid of her.”
“If you’re trying to bait me, it’s not going to work,” Rose said. “I wasn’t fond of Molly either.”
Mags shifted position, uncomfortable.
“For the most part, we’ve made our initial forays,” Sandra said. “Testing the water. If I suggest that an outright war is looming on the horizon, I don’t think anyone’s about to correct me.”
Nobody did.
“I didn’t think so. This may well get very unpleasant, and I’d like to manage how unpleasant it gets. I’ve touched on the subject with Johannes, and I believe he’s on the same page as me.”
“Geneva conventions?” Mags asked.
“In a sense,” Sandra replied. “I don’t want this to devolve into the same sort of mess that apparently occurred in Toronto. I would propose a series of rules, to keep this contained and to keep it private.”