She liked boys.  Objectively.  Aesthetically.  Boys got her curious and revved up.  But when it came to dating she… there was nothing.  She wanted to date even a guy like Jeremy about as much as she wanted to date Lucy, or Melissa, or Gabe, which was not at all. He’d ripped an outlet out of the wall and shorted it.  The television was destroyed, and there was no phone, of course.  That would be too dangerous to leave in the hands of someone involved in an ongoing conspiracy. This had started as a clearing in a bit of forest, touched by ephemeral twilight, their turf, kind of.  She’d shattered that. She could see everything moving.  The Witch Hunters outside.  The sure approach of Maricica and Charles Abrams.  She could see the moving pieces of Ondvarg’s plan.  All of this was in her realm. “He followed orders from Edith, he did it recently, and Edith was following Maricica’s orders.  To me, that points in a clear direction.”. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Toadswallow said.  He nodded.  He slipped it into a pocket. “Don’t choke,” Verona said.  “What would happen if you did choke?”, “There are people nearby,” Brie murmured.  “Careful about the what-ifs, you might be overheard.”. First chapter and they already have a body count.” Wildbow, please forgive me if I pegged this all wrong. Snowdrop was napping nearby, and stirred a bit at the sound of her name. That cry earlier-. if you’re going to trip yourself up.”, “Hi,” Avery said.  “I’m the case in point.”, “Good,” Verona replied.  “The day was solid.”, “Saving Jer for tomorrow, recharge my batteries before stuff.  Nah, I tooled around with alchemy, the gainsaying is starting to shake loose.  Got some new magic items identified.”. Avery followed up, touching card to ground.  Soil flowed forward in a loose wave, bowling him over onto hands and knees, partially burying him. Tattered skin caked in clotting blood was indistinguishable from ragged and torn clothing, and the woman stood at a slight angle, leaning just enough to the right that it looked doable, but like a fall in the next moment wasn’t impossible.  There were traces of echo-ness at the edges of her, dark and faint. The light had changed, so they changed their route.  Avery indicated the route with a motion of her hand, and Lucy followed. The stick shuddered, and the bits of ceramic flew right back to the stick, finding their place and reconstructing it. He placed everything in her cloak, bundling it around the various odds and ends. “Let’s figure out what the heck happened,” Verona said.  “There might be clues there.”. Or if they didn’t, then the fact they helped and Musser didn’t come back would be a problem. Verona and Bristow have a little chat over the phone. “Sure,” Verona said.  “Sure, yeah, no, I bet.”, “I mean there’s more to it that’s… me dealing with crap.  I’m going to try to go easier on you.  I talked to John some, and Dr. Mona, and there’s stuff I haven’t let go of, that had me more…”, “…Kneejerk protective of Jeremy than I should’ve been.”, “Okay,” Verona said, feeling for a moment like she was floundering, like she wanted to keep being annoyed and mad and now she couldn’t.  “That’s great.  Thank you.  But it doesn’t change the fact you were getting on my case when I already had some mega huge stuff to stress over.”, “No, no, it’s- fuck, I hate being a complainy-pants.”, “Sometimes being a complainy-pants is totally necessary,” Avery said.  “If I wasn’t one, then my parents might never have known how lonely I was.  Well, maybe eventually.”, “Me crying in front of Aunt Heather and losing it with Paul opened the door to like, me getting to talk to Dr. Mona and Booker about stuff.”, Verona nodded.  “Frig.  I barely slept last night, I’m all over the place.”, “It’s okay,” Lucy said.  “Sorry we were hard on you.  Just like… all of this is hard, y’know?”. The goblins cheered with just as much enthusiasm. Avery nodded, and then she pulled the mask off.  It was so heavy in her hands.  Her ears hurt where the ribbon had pulled down on the tops of them, sawing in a bit. “Gross,” Raquel said, turning and shielding her eyes. Found inside – Page 12The "breathtakingly brilliant" novel by the author of Infinite Jest (New York Times) is a deeply compelling and satisfying story, as hilarious and fearless and original as anything Wallace ever wrote. So they didn’t count. Was this what they wrote about, when describing the forsworn as offputting? “The person is dead, the bindings were selfish.  I have no more complaint.”, “Bindings are meant to be for the greater good, so the most dangerous Others may be secured,” the Alabaster told him.  “There is little doubt that the dogs of war, of flame, and of famine are dangerous.”, “I would have them as peacekeepers, or lieutenants.  Bring them back for that purpose,” John said.  He looked up at the Sable.  “But if I do not make it today, they go free, regardless.  They’re unbound, they leave with my express wishes to have them be protectors and keepers of the peace against more malevolent Others.”. She looked at Zed, who looked up at his work, frowned, and nodded. A bird swooped down out of the sky.  Lucy readied herself, slipping the weapon ring on, trying to judge with the vague night vision provided by her mask-, Verona.  Lucy hurried to back away.  “Warded!”. “Except it’s not wind.  It’s a turn in the streets, a road that loops back on itself,” Ken said.  “Putting obstacles in their way, police, construction.”, “Might be,” Ken said.  “I’m not good at…”, “This.  If I was, I wouldn’t be a slowly dying town.  I don’t know what gets results, what the results are supposed to look like.  There’s a bit of what I do, it’s throwing shit at the wall and seeing if it sticks.”, “Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” Verona said.  “Well, Ken’s been doing that with the animals and it works better, but that raises a bunch of questions, y’know?”, “Oh yeah,” Avery replied.  “Raises feelings.”, Lucy nodded, hair bouncing behind her head.  “Like we’re playing chess with a bunch of animals and they’re thinking two steps ahead.  So when they back off, it feels like they’re doing it on purpose, and not because we made it annoying enough that they had to stop.”, “Besides, Maricica is behind them and she’s way more than two steps ahead,” Avery said.  “Which gets us here.  Having this conversation.  I’m worried we’re being listened to, especially knowing Guilherme said the animals can spy and stalk prey despite some practice-based protections.”, “If you give me a minute, I can set up a room or a space,” Zed said.  “And I’ll need power.  Some power poles and streetlights have outlets, if you go looking…”, “Here.  I’ll bring us to a safe point to talk,” Ken said.  “This way.”. The woman shrieked, running to go pick up a broom.  Snowdrop used the moment her back was turned to flee out of sight.  On the televisions that were still intact, the goblin was on display, holding the camera in one hand to show off the bicep he was flexing. They checked for cars and crossed the street at a non-intersection.  If she was out with Avery and Lucy, they had a way of leaving her behind, where they’d go to cross the street and they’d start crossing, and with Verona as the slowest, she’d react late, then be slow to cross, and what was a clear opening for them would be an awkward crossing for her.  Lucy had been better about that after Verona had remarked on it, with the occasional reminder, but Avery would probably always pull ahead like that. The Atheneum Arrangement was up for discussion across two competing networks of eastern practitioner families.  Discussion was heated, to say the least.  He had established a monolith of sorts in English speaking countries, which was now extending outward.  Europe and some English and French speaking parts of Africa were on board.  Now the major networks in China and Japan were left to decide, would they sign on and contribute? He put the mugs aside, unlocked the door, then opened it. Avery looked at Annette.  A reflection of her parents in some ways. “Rabbit Killer!” Raquel raised her voice.  “Uncle gave you orders.”. The man asked a question.  His voice was too smooth, too rich.  It could only belong to the Beautiful Man.  The second of Maricica’s pawns, that Guilherme had predicted she’d use. “They’re fighting, they’re scared, they’re frustrated,” Avery said.  “I think if I told them right now it’d just… distract.  They might even take all that scaredness and frustration and… I mean, it’s already part of why they’re fighting, I’m pretty sure.  I’m trying to put all my energies into getting stuff sorted and getting ready, so at least Kennet’s in good shape when I leave.”, “Very well.  Shall we continue talking about the Garricks, then?  The negotiation, things you might want to ask for?”, “We keep running into the fact we don’t know the basics about some stuff.  Like Realms practices, according to Zed.”, “Ah.  I see.  I think there’s a balance to be struck in how much you want to work with them in the future.  There are ways you could ask for information about certain paths, that you could then use to share information about those paths.”, “Kinda paving the way for stuff I can later sell hints and answers about?  If you’re helping me out?”, “Yes.  Though if you’re leaving, we’ll have to arrange a-”. “It’s temporary.  I hope,” Verona said, freaking out internally as the Other moved, a little more aggressive than before, more animated, more eager to get at her.  She glanced at the table and the Other. Her heart hurt.  It really felt like her heart hurt, the indecision and doubt driving right into her chest, where she was shaky from John. Lucy snatched the curse from his fingers.  She slapped it onto his bloody chest, and raked with fingernails to set it. “We think, uh, they’re not going to waste any time.  Sacrificing Charles to the Carmine Throne, so he can, I guess, immolate himself, to pull some big changes.  I think, uh, maybe destroying most practitioner families, somehow.”, “Forces would be forced to step in and act against him, remove him from the throne,” Miss said, “Or remove the validity of the throne altogether.  Lordships would be declared, the fights over those lordships would be vicious, and families that weren’t destroyed in the initial moves on Charles’s part would destroy one another in the infighting.  Once made irrelevant or once successfully challenged, Charles would be unseated.”, “And, if you’ll accept my cynical take,” Toadswallow murmured, “without change on a real, heartfelt level, we’d only trade the old set of families for newer ones, and the equilibrium would find itself once again, with only the smallest necessary changes needed to prevent another Carmine Charles from arising again.”, “Rook and I have come to similar conclusions.  She thinks those changes would include a more aggressive attempt at uprooting small communities like ours, to make sure there isn’t another similar plot fomenting within,” Miss said.  “More lordships in general, more fighting, more wariness about Others and independent practitioners.”, “Reminds me of Bristow,” Avery said.  “He wanted to prune out the bad students, forge these intense bonds between families, arrange everything in a really harsh, structured way, with himself in a prominent position, of course.  I can see that being like you’re talking about.  Lordships, fighting, wariness, treating anyone who isn’t part of the network as a problem.  Saw some of that at the end of the Blue Heron thing.  All to get the practitioner community ready for some vague distant threat.”, “Perhaps not so vague and distant?” Toadswallow asked.  “Perhaps a young man with a knack for putting Others together, who’d bought him drinks and lent him a listening ear?  A friend forsworn by another friend, angry in his exile?”, “If he really was talking about Charles then we’re going in circles,” Avery said.  “He’s worried about Charles so he cracks down, Charles makes big changes in his brief time in the seat, things get worse, practitioners crack down?”, “I do believe that’s a cycle that’s been playing out for a few centuries now,” Toadswallow told her.  “In varying forms, shapes, scales, and places.  In fact, they don’t even really need an excuse.”, “Yes, it’s nothing so specific as a real threat or Charles in particular,” Miss replied.  “Other groups point to a future doomsday, but when the time comes, they shrug and name a new date.  Or they speak of their so-called benevolent dictator sweeping in to rescue their government.  Or of rapture, their good and blessed rescued from the earth, the evil left behind.  It’s a tool for those at the top and a crutch for those at the bottom.”, “All of us ladies, gentlemen, and assorted others need something to look forward to,” Toadswallow said.  “For myself, I’ve been brewing a bit of gas that would make even a goblin weep, and there are goblins sleeping upstairs.  Will I wake one this morning with a belch or a tear of flatulence?”, “You dream of bigger things too, Toadswallow.  You told Rook of it, and Lucy, as it happens.”. “It feels like we’re losing,” Lucy said, quiet. John picked up his stuff, bringing the beer, and got a knife from the bag.  “Had this one the longest, Gash.  Probably used it to kill more animals and people than I did with any of the other knives.”. A spattering of gunshots chased that figment.  Ribs used his makeshift flamethrower to illuminate the area, and burning fuel painted stairs, providing dull illumination. Horseman was excited, smiling, kept stretching. “If we want to try to pin her down, what are Maricica’s motivations?” Verona asked. Harry Potter sits at around a million words. “Cheers,” Toadswallow said.  Various other goblins picked up the cry. Rarely aggressive. He tried to use his nose, the feel of wind on skin.  If he intuited the direction of the trees, the sound of branches, even, he could rake that direction with lasers.  He could at least keep Charles and Seth from running.  He had to buy time. He ran other routines.  Figures stepped out from around the corner.  Others he’d found in the digital wilderness.  Brutes, tricksters. “The goblins are going to hate her,” Snowdrop said. You heard that.  You’re pressing it.  Why? In their attempts to save some, they may just doom all. Jude gave his head the smallest of shakes.  This time the Aunt saw it. He was better at judging how long it took to walk places.  He’d come about this far out on some patrols around the perimeter.  A forty-five minute walk back.  Maybe longer.  He didn’t recognize this particular road, and there could be bends or other obstacles. “If they’re one and the same, is that self-abuse?” Lucy asked.  “I don’t like it.”, “Guys,” Avery said.  “Can you be nice to… yourself?  One another?  Whatever?  No extreme violence, at least?”. Lucy felt like she’d eaten something off, hearing that. “I worry we hurt our friendship,” Verona said. Thanks for all the work you put into the beauty. “Maybe go easy on the magic item stuff?” Avery suggested, more out of deference to Brie than out of any actual worry. “What the fuck are you all competing for?” ‘Rocky’ asked.  The Alabaster could see the connection between her and Clint.  Romantic, as far as people as broken as them could truly be ‘romantic’. Breastbiter sat on the ground, looking up.  His goblins began to spread out, gathering at different points around the stands.  Those in the darkness were visible by the way their eyes glowed in the dark. Then, sitting in the computer chair, she got out spell cards.  She didn’t know what else to do, except to prepare.  She had some glamour from Guilherme she’d been stockpiling, but she had to be careful with how she used it.  Maricica would manipulate it better than she ever could. “Sorry, no need for that!  I can black rope us!”. His mate was lying down near his feet.  Not nearly as big as him, her fur was black near the body but red at the tips.  Everything about how she was shaped suggested, like… gender?  Avery was sure there was a term for it, but real life dogs were hard to distinguish the gender of, unless you looked between their legs.  Here, the female was slender, the male muscular, in ways that changed their very frames.  She was only half his size.  This was weird and different. There were tasks to be done, even in the midst of this. “Just around me!” Lucy shouted.  Once she was sure Verona wasn’t overdoing it or underdoing it, she voiced a calmer, “just around me.”, Verona settled on the lip of the roof, wearing a crow body.  She shrugged out of the glamour, becoming Verona again.  “Word on your mom?”, Lucy exhaled, heart beating hard.  She was glad Verona hadn’t just smacked into her defensive warding with two spirits powering it.  “I don’t know.  Stuff.  Zed’s asking Eloise.”, Verona plucked a feather from her striped camisole top, then jumped as her phone buzzed.  “Oh.  Message.”, “We’ve got Witch Hunters to the west, goblins and ghouls are on task.  I think I saw some possible Witch Hunters southeast.”, “Oh, the message is from you, just now.  I was flying.  Um, yeah, they shot out Zed’s tire.  Zed and Brie pulled out all the stops, he glitched in a new tire, he’s going to be a minute or so, I’d guess.  Has to change direction again.”, “We’ve got Witch Hunters around, huh?” Verona asked.  “They kinda beeline right for any big practice stuff a lot of the time.”, “Something like that.  If magic or something tries to push them away, they push back harder, run against the headwind, swim upstream, or something.”, “Darned Witch Hunting salmon,” Verona said, deadpan.  “Sorry I couldn’t stop him.”. “Definitely not what I’m doing,” Verona replied, terse. “I don’t know how it went,” Verona replied. “I don’t think you ever could.  Or if you could you wouldn’t be human anymore.  We’re flawed.  Those flaws stand out.  A Fae like her will find your vulnerabilities, find ways to get to you, ways that put you off balance.  Keep your balance, if you can.  Try to keep a clear head.  In the heat of the moment, I believed Charles.  Thinking back… he could’ve lied.  But the moment I believed made it real.  Like how glamour works.”. Until Raymond had to be the bad guy when it came to demanding his apprentice be an apprentice, and that he give something back to Raymond for the time devoted to educating and enabling him. “Okay,” she said.  “I’d wish you luck but I really hope you don’t make it to that arena.”. She could feel him on her heart, like a weight had been placed atop that hammering organ, both literal and emotional. They approached, but a goblin was throwing poop, apparently, other goblins were complaining and hissing, and they stopped just short of doing anything to Durocher herself.  With the electric fence running along the edge of the school property and the thrown poop, they couldn’t really pass or approach. Were Ramjam and Biscuit not part of it, then?  Kittycough?  Tatty wasn’t really a threat, was she? Created with Highstock 6.0.7. Ken finished eating and cleaned his hands before taking the letter. There were other flowers scattered across Musser’s office.  Dark fall greenery.  Laced with curses and tricks. Every week, supplementary material for the story was posted on the site. “Permission to restrain him?” Lucy asked. Verona said, “I think your possible Witch Hunters noticed that.”, “Connection blocker backfiring since it was broken?”, “I guess.  You’re also a big smoke signal right now.”, “Does it make it harder to see me in the middle of it all?”, “Yeah, but I’m not sure I’d trust that when a lot of the Lighthouse Witch Hunters have tricks.  I think the first one that showed would’ve been able to see past it.”. “I think so?” Avery asked.  “I haven’t seen any major red flags, but I’m not the best person at seeing red flags in the first place.”, “It should be fine,” Miss told Avery.  She moved her hands as if she was folding one over the other on the dirty counter, but Avery obviously couldn’t see that.  “But I think you should strive to put a proper value on this information.”, “Some of the value is in making alliances, right?”, “Some.  But asking full price for a service doesn’t take away from the alliance.”, “Doesn’t it?” Avery asked.  “A friendship shouldn’t count who owes what, right?”.
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