Chương 323: placid island; black infinity - 2-1.19

Too much of the night was left for me to while it all away staring into the darkness, especially when the darkness wasn't staring back. Kimberly needed sleep too — real sleep, not whatever facsimile I'd been sucked into down on the floor. She wasn't made of carbon fibre and borrowed memories, so I couldn't expect her to keep me company on the balcony until my knees gave out, and I absolutely should not be doing that alone. She helped me back to my blanket, and I didn't complain.

I was really starting to miss my own bed, with my sister tucked up against me, side by side. That's how I should have been sleeping. It's how I should have been sleeping for the last ten years. With Heather. Instead I had the floor and the ceiling and the pain that was still a long way from going away. My plan needed chewing over, but the pain made it stodgy and thick, like bad pastry. Bland and too filling.

When I was certain Kimberly had returned to sleep — nice smooth even breathing coming from her own blanket rolled up by the door — I considered throwing it all out. Screw the plan, get up again, sneak back into the castle. Make like my sister does, hurl all I have at the problem and hope it works out somehow. But I'm not her. Maybe, even after all this time, I still wasn't entirely convinced. Are you convinced? I think you probably are. I think you get it by now. … Thank you. Don't make me say that again. … Anyway.

Not my sister. Not Heather. I lack more than just her qualities; I also lack her flaws. So I stayed put and stuck to the beginnings of my plan. Eventually I fell asleep again, despite the pain. Or maybe because of the pain, because the sleep wasn't any good. Dreams are bad when pain is so total. I dreamed about Briar, and she was very bad (but not in the fun way.) (Bitch, you were never fun.) It was just a dream, with no metaphysical meddling from beyond the boundaries of sleep, but it was a very, very bad dream.

Briar was skinning me alive. She had me strung up by the ankles in some ancient parish church, the windows all smashed and broken, dark ruddy light pouring in through the gaping stone holes, like the last gasp of a dying star. She used a little curved knife to part my skin from my muscles, then pulled downward, yanking strips off me, cramming each bloody fillet into her maw. Her digestion was a furnace, throbbing crimson through her flesh, consuming each stolen fragment of me faster than she could savour them.

She got no pleasure from the process, but she kept going anyway, had to feed the fires. Took chunks out of my belly, my left leg, my right hand and forearm, my scalp and skull and eyes, digging and gouging and eating and chewing and burning. I came up for air once or twice, spluttering awake, gasping or whining or something worse, patting my face to make sure it was still there. But the dream was just a dream, no trickery from Briar. She wasn't hiding in the corners of the room or looming over me.

This was a solo effort. A Maisie Morell special. Doing it to myself. (Too much like my sister, I know.) The third time I went under it was the same dream again, monotonous and meaningless. But then Briar backed away from me, melting into the air as she turned and fled. A deep vibration, like a tiger's purr, made her fade away and vanish, just dream-stuff after all. The dream-wounds closed up. My skin regrew. The hurt stuttered, stopped, shrank.

The ropes that held me by the ankles slipped loose, and I floated to the floor. I lay there, letting that purr wash over me. The dream was no longer quite so shit. I woke a third time. Tenny was snuggled up against my side, tucked beneath my blanket, purring away. Tenny's purr is a beautiful sound, like a cross between a big cat and the smoothest of engines, a deep, powerful, feathery trill from inside her chest, independent of her breathing, a bigger sound than her body can hold.

The vibrations passed from her flesh to mine, or at least into whatever I was using instead of flesh. The pain ebbed away, like blood soaking into dry soil. Tenny had dozens of tentacles out, extended from beneath the roots of her wings; some were wrapped around my bandaged right arm, others lay across my wounded belly, coiled under my bloodstained t-shirt, while several cushioned my skull. Wherever she touched, the pain retreated, waves swallowed into the pattern of her purring.

Tenny Lilburne is better than any over-the-counter painkillers, maybe better than codeine, perhaps even superior to morphine (especially for me, what with no real veins to carry the payload). (I love you, Tenny. We all love you. You're going to go so far.)" … Tenns?" I croaked, but she was fast asleep, head nuzzled into my shoulder.

"Tenny … Tenn …" A small face with bright pink eyes appeared over Tenny's shoulder, like twin stars cresting the moon; Casma, finger to her lips. Her expression was infuriatingly complicated, but I looked for long enough to understand that this hadn't been her idea, and that it was best to let sleeping Tennys lie. Casma watched until I closed my eyes. I heard the rustle of her lying back. Tenny purred on. Pain stayed away. I dreamed of Tenny, twenty stories tall, more moth than humanoid, dancing in the air. …

Morning came slow and rough and nasty, and none of those in the fun way. The thick grey cloud cover over the castle — over the whole of this strange crack of a dimension — didn't bloom with orange dawn as before; desultory light oozed across the sky, sunrise seen through a veil of watery milk and dusty curtains, a stain spreading through old cloth. For the first time since we'd arrived in this dimension, I felt the cold, enough to stay beneath my blankets while the others got up and stretched.

"Maisie?" Kimberly said, bleary-eyed as she leaned over me.

"Maisie, if you need to sleep more, you can, you should. In fact, I think … I think you probably should do. That's it, that's … that's good. Yes, close your eyes." No arguments there. I lay on my back and dozed while the others talked in low voices, so as not to wake me. Muadhnait went through the contents of her pack, field-stripping her crossbow and putting it back together again. Casma and Tenny swapped soft murmurs; Tenny kept several tentacles wrapped around my right arm, and I kept them close to my heart.

Kimberly said I had a plan, and the plan needed the fairies' help, and it was probably better that I explain it in full, because she would just trip over the details. (No you wouldn't, Kim. You knew more than I did. I was making it up as I went along.) Muadhnait cooked more oats, over a fire made from bits of old furniture. The smell tugged me all the way awake at last, though I hate oats.

For the first time in days I was hungry — truly hungry, like my belly was a hole I needed to fill, with something other than Briar's golden parasite. Tenny and Casma helped me to sit up, get me propped against the wall with the blanket around my knees and chest. I stared at the oats. Treacherous saliva gathered in my mouth with sticky insistence. During my initial 'rehabilitation', the Good Doctor Martense had made it clear I didn't need food.

Nutrients, water, oxygen, a certain temperature range, even pressure — my body didn't require any of those things to keep me existing. I could go for a space-walk without a suit and I'd be just fine. But she'd also impressed upon me that it was a good idea to eat and drink anyway. Why? Why waste resources, when I didn't need them? Because eggs for breakfast taste good. Because water cools and lubricates. Because a bar of chocolate is a nice little treat for a good girl (or a bad girl, in my case).

Because I'm not a robot. I didn't ask for any oats though, not even when Muadhnait offered me some. We were low on food. Oats taste like wet cardboard. Give me chocolate cereal any day. For what felt like most of an hour, we did nothing, sitting around confined by the limits of the once-grand suite, waiting for one of our fairy contacts to show up so we could get down to the business of planning our plans and plotting a murder.

Kimberly searched the room for anything useful, turning up dust and cobwebs and not a single friendly spider. Casma and Tenny stayed close to me, playing some complex game on the floor with bits of Muadhnait's chalk. I managed to get to my feet, which was deliciously liberating, then claimed one of the chairs for myself, re-establishing my blanket mode from my new vantage point.

I watched the game Tenny and Casma were playing, but it was beyond me, unless I wanted to burn more memories so I could understand the rules, and why Casma kept drawing little cartoony versions of Tenny in some of the squares. Only Muadhnait seemed totally loose and hollow. She closed her eyes for a bit, apparently trying to meditate, but then abandoned the attempt, staring into space, cold iron sword held across her lap.

"Muadhnait," I croaked, after watching her for a while.

"Muadhnait. Nun knight. Hey."

"Mm?" That broke her trance, but only the surface tension.

"Miss Maisie?"

"You're not okay. Okay to be not okay." Muadhnait nodded.

"An accurate assessment." Casma looked up from the game with Tenny.

"Miss Muadhnait, Muadhnait the Miss, I wanted to say, or say I wanted, to say that your voice is really pretty. It's a shame you couldn't use it earlier, but using it might have made you less usable. Is that right?" Muadhnait stared at Casma. So I did, because that was worse than her usual. I couldn't follow it either. Casma giggled, a hand over her mouth.

"Sorry! Sorry. This whole situation has me sort of nerved out, and it makes it harder to speak clearly. Clear speaking would be easier with clear hearts." She beamed at Muadhnait.

"Your voice is pretty. That's all I want to say!"" … uh … thank you," said Muadhnait.

"Your face is pretty too," Casma went on, "but that's not a fair thing to say to somebody who was hiding their fairness, so I didn't start with it. But I'll chase with it, because you weren't hiding it for the sake of hiding, only for safety. But you're safe with us now!" Muadhnait's eyes were a thousand miles away. Casma was not helping, as Casma usually did not.

"Casma," I croaked.

"Shut—""Up!" Casma finished — and turned those bright pink eyes on me, burning with something like conviction, but too complex for me to unravel when still in so much lingering pain. How to explain to Casma what Muadhnait was going through? Not the missing sister, or the having her helmet forcefully removed, or even the whole thing about getting thrown into a pit to witness a mad doll carve open her own belly.

How to explain to Casma that Muadhnait was probably having a religious crisis, now that the other crises were on pause? Casma narrowed her pink eyes at me, then turned back to Muadhnait.

"My mum's a god," she said. Muadhnait blinked. Her eyes were so heavy and bag-ridden she may as well not have slept at all.

"I'm … sorry? Pardon?"

"For a certain definition of 'god'," Casma rattled right on.

"And that's a huge question, isn't it? For the sake of this conversation though, let's agree to define 'a god' as anything with a total or near-total level of metaphysical control over their dimension. So, my mum's a god." Muadhnait glanced to me, maybe for help. I shrugged with one shoulder, which was the minimal amount of hurt I could generate.

"Sure," I croaked.

"Eileen is a god. Godlike enough. Not liked, though."

"That's right!" Casma said.

"My mum hurt a lot of people, by being a god, before she understood what it was like to be godlike. Some of them forgave her, like Maisie's twin sister did, but that's because she's kind of her mum too. But lots of them didn't, and that's no reason to blame anybody." Muadhnait glanced at me again.

"Your mother is—""Not my mother," I said.

"Not mine." Casma said, "Apparently she hurt me too, but that was before I was me, and I don't remember it, so it's like hurting me in the womb. Which is also bad, but a bit different, because she didn't know that I was going to be, or that I had not yet ceased to become. Does that make sense?"

"Casma," I croaked. Casma giggled.

"It doesn't, but Muadhnait still understands. Don't you, Muadhnait?" Muadhnait blinked slowly.

"Maybe?" Tenny was looking away from the game as well now, tentacles gone quite still, big black eyes watching Casma closely. Kimberly straightened up from her search of the room, still empty handed.

"But your god, Muadhnait," Casma carried on, "she's not your mum, or your grandmum, or anything like that. Seems like she's more of a kidnapper. Do you think you owe her something? Or anything? Or nothing?" Muadhnait stared at the question, then slowly looked away, into the still-hot ashes of the fire she'd made in the middle of the floor.

"That's a rhetorical question, by the way," Casma added.

"That means I don't expect an answer. And I shouldn't. It's yours to answer. Or not. As you should." The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Muadhnait nodded.

"Right." I had no idea how that was supposed to help, but then again I'd never believed in any god but my sister. Muadhnait stared into the remains of the fire, chewing on her bottom lip. Casma opened her mouth a couple of times, closing it again when she came to a similar conclusion as me. Tenny looked from one to the other, tentacles beginning to wiggle and waggle as she thought faster.

"You don't owe anything," Kimberly said. Everyone (including me) looked at her. But unlike usual, Kimberly didn't quail and quiver under the attention. She stared right at Muadhnait, eyes hard and wide. For her there was nobody else in the room. I'd never seen Kimberly like this before.

"You don't owe anything to a god that isn't worthy of the name," Kimberly said.

"And anything that claims to be a god, or receiving a message from god, is always the opposite. Whatever it was, it's not a god." Muadhnait stared, as if Kimberly had suggested setting us all on fire — then nodded slowly. The moment broke, and so did Kimberly's courage. She smiled awkwardly, cleared her throat, and fought to keep a blush off her cheeks. She covered for it by turning back to the room, feeling for secret passages like we were all in an episode of Scooby-Doo.

Muadhnait's eyes looked maybe two percent less hollow. She drew her cold iron sword and set about cleaning, wiping, and oiling the metal. (Well done, my knightly nun. It's a hard hole to dig yourself out of, isn't it?) Tenny and Casma returned to their game. I watched it for a bit, but there was too much mathematics involved for my empty doll's head to get itself around. Kimberly sat back down on the end of the ancient, collapsed bed, warming herself before the last of the fire.

I shifted in my chair to catch some of that heat as well. I even stuck out my wounded feet, so the warmth would seep through the bandages. A few spires and turrets of the castle's body were just visible through the open windows, beyond the balcony; they started to darken in long speckled streaks. It was raining. English weather had followed us. Typical. Before morning could turn mid, Calderon showed us his bristled face.

He knocked on the door of the chamber with the head of his cane, in an overcomplicated rat-a-tat-tat pattern, to let us know it was him. We all knew it was him already; we'd heard him clomping down the corridor. Hard to walk quietly when you've got hooves for feet. Once he had slipped his generous and bulky self inside and closed the door after him, he doffed his hat and bid us good morning, ladies, good morning.

He looked exactly the same as he had on the previous evening; I wondered in a dull sort of way if the fairies slept and ate and all that stuff, or if they just existed outside those limits, like characters in a story.

"And now," he carried on, after receiving a muted chorus of greetings in return.

"I apologise for getting down to business so quickly, but I must once again put to you fair ladies and gallant gentlemen …" He paused in his bleating.

"Ah, but there are no gentlemen here? Unless, of course?" He gestured at Tenny with his hat.

"Noooope," Tenny trilled.

"Girl!"

"My apologies, young madam," Calderon resumed without breaking his stride.

"Then, fair ladies! I must once again put to you my heart's chief-most plea, my pitiful request, my petition at the feet of your throne! It is also the only way for you to return home. Margaret, the magician who holds together the axis of all the tapestries here — will you slay her, for our sake?"

"Where's Mave?" I croaked. Calderon blinked, flow broken.

"Still … uh … rereading your sister's tale, I believe. She searches for clues in the text. Don't let our Mave fool you, she is less foolish than she may appear. Now, please, Lady Kimberly, will you not reconsider your previous decision? Will you not—""I need paper," I said.

"Lots of it. Enough for a book, book it. And writing implements, to implement this death." Calderon stared at me, his big bushy beard drooping.

"Paper? What … whatever for?"

"The mage," I said.

"She eats stories, doesn't she? Chews them up and spits them out. Something like that. I saw that room." Beneath his bright beard and curly hair, Calderon went pale. His eyes widened.

"You are going to … join us?! Go through the process of becoming one of us? Why?! Why would you want that? Did you not hear a word I said last night?! Can you not see—""It's just a ploy," I said.

"Deployed to get close. I write a book. You get me in a room with her. Clear the way for everyone else. That's how we're going to do it." Calderon shook his head.

"If you feed her even a scrap of your creative self, she will take the whole, like scooping out a shellfish once the shell is breached!" He made a particularly disgusting gesture with one hand.

"Using yourself as bait is too risky. Yes, yes, I know, I know, I am already asking you to put your lives at risk, but … but I would not ask anybody to risk our everlasting fate." Kimberly cleared her throat.

"Maisie, maybe he has a point, maybe—""Can she be tricked with a fake book, then?" I asked.

"Faked out with a blank?" No point in trying, but plenty of point in asking. My plan was another layer deep. Had to keep digging. Calderon sighed, shaking his head.

"She can scent the authenticity of a tale, long before it is presented to her. You would not convince her with a blank book. The only way to get close would be with a genuine fragment of real soul, transcribed onto the page."

"Brrrrt," Tenny trilled softly.

"I's okay," I said.

"I know what I'm doing. Doing what I know."

"May-Mays," Casma said.

"Maybe there's another way? A way that doesn't involve giving you away?"

"It's fine," I said.

"I won't be going anywhere."

"My sister," Muadhnait said to Calderon.

"Has she already undergone this terrible bargain?" Calderon shook his head.

"Only the initial stages. Your interruption yesterday was fortuitously timed. She is due to present her completed manuscript again this evening. Margaret usually sleeps during the day. Her age, I believe, predisposes her to that."

"Perfect," I said.

"We'll do it then."

"Maisie," Kimberly repeated.

"Maisie, I'm not so sure about this."

"I am," I said.

"I'm sure in the one thing I'm sure about." Calderon drew himself up. He cast his eyes around the room, as if searching for further objections. But nobody spoke, nobody dared to believe that I was wrong about this specific and particular element.

"Very well," Calderon said.

"Writing materials. Will a blank tome suffice? I can secure one within the hour."

"Great. Do it."

"May-May," Casma repeated.

"It'll be fine. You know what I'm doing."

"And if the plan goes all fucky-wucky?" Casma asked. (Tenny echoed that 'fucky-wucky' under her breath. Oops.)"Then she'll read something else," I said.

"I know what I'm doing. I'll do what I know. What I know better than anybody." Then I told them the real plan, the plan beneath the plan, the one I hadn't planned until Calderon was there, because I had to be sure it would work, and that depended on how Margaret worked, and I didn't even know her, other than as an eater of tales. I had to be certain she would try to swallow this one. Calderon told me it would work. Then he went to fetch that blank tome, so I could fill it with words.

He wasn't gone for long — maybe twenty minutes, though nobody was counting, because the battery on my phone was almost out. That was good, because everyone was restless and bored and cooped up in that room. Except for me, because I was content to sit and move as little as possible, while bits of me tried to re-knit themselves back into the semblance of a girl. Calderon returned with a big blank book, several pots of ink, and a metal-nibbed dipping pen.

"I can provide more ink!" he said.

"As much as you need, though I doubt you will, unless you can somehow fill that whole book before nightfall." He paused.

"Can you, my lady?"

"I won't. Don't need to. Just enough to get the job done. Done before the job's done."

"Maisie can scribble fast!" Casma said.

"How do you know?" I squinted at her.

"You've never seen me write." Casma just smiled, and suddenly I knew she had. We were getting me settled — book open in my lap, inkwell on an adjacent chair, pen in bandaged hand — when the Pale Doll made its return. It swung in through the window in near-total silence, like a huge pale ape coming down out of a dying forest canopy, announced by the tap of wooden feet on the floor. Kimberly screamed (not too loudly, bless you Kim), and Tenny went all bristles and hissing, tentacles suddenly everywhere.

Casma clapped politely. Muadhnait barely reacted at all — until the Doll held up its prize in one wooden fist. A brace of dead rabbits, freshly killed. Then, Muadhnait was the only one not squeamish about accepting the rewards of the hunt. Rabbits, Outside? I'd ceased to question; what was the point?

"Well done," I said to the doll.

"Well done and thank you. I made the right decision with you. Decided you right." The Pale Doll stared at me with all those painted eyes, body dripping with rainwater. Then it sank down in the corner, squatting like a gorilla, job done.

"Uhhhh." Kimberly stared at the three dead rabbits as Muadhnait held them up for inspection. They had a little blood on their faces, but not much.

"This is … this is good? I think?"

"S'meat," I croaked.

"Told you so. So I told you."

"Y-yes, that's— that's … wonderful. T-thank you, um … does it have a name, Maisie?" I shrugged. The Doll didn't respond.

"Not yet, I guess," I said.

"Unless it wants one."

"And … Muadhnait," Kimberly said.

"Do you know how to … I mean, can you …?" Muadhnait nodded.

"I can skin and gut rabbits. You don't have to watch, if you would prefer not." I spent that whole day writing, filling an empty tome with words, punctuating passages with little naps in the chair, hoping that by sundown both me and the book would be ready. The story did not need to end, and I would not need to run, but we both had to walk to make this credible. Credibility would be everything. Margaret the mage had to buy my bullshit.

The physical act of writing was not easy; my left hand was uninjured, but I'm not like my sister, I can't swap pen from tentacle to tentacle. Right it was, and my right was wrapped in bandages. The pen slipped, my muscles cramped, and the script was more cramped still. But I stuck at the words. The words themselves were easy. I knew them by heart. Muadhnait took over a corner of the suite to deal with the rabbits.

She knew exactly what to do, had their skins off and the inedible parts out in under five minutes each. She used my kitchen knife to butcher and prep them — a first blooding with real blood, rather than the fake stuff that came out of me and the fairies. Once she was done she carefully cleaned the knife and put it back within my reach, on the chair next to the inkwell. The chunks of rabbit went into her cooking pot over a rekindled fire; Calderon provided more firewood, filched from elsewhere in the castle.

A handful of oats gave the stew some body. The whole room filled with a meaty smell, washing away the scent of blood, making my mouth water so hard that I almost drooled on the page. (Drip, drip, drip.) Kimberly, Casma, and Tenny were very thankful for the meat. Kimberly ate like a starving woman. I ate like a doll, but I did eat, because I'd never eaten rabbit, and I felt like I'd never eaten before. Rabbit meat and chewy oats, unseasoned and barely salted, but it tasted like the fruit of knowledge.

Went down greasy and thick, made my insides feel like a furnace that finally had nothing to do with Briar. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. Did my best not to smear the words. When I got too tired, I napped where I sat, and the others would quieten down. Tenny and Casma made their game more complicated, ended up covering an entire wall in chalky scribbles. For want of anything else to do, Kimberly joined in with them, though I got the impression she understood even less than me. Calderon didn't stay.

After he and I and Kimberly and Muadhnait had discussed the part of the plan that involved fucking with the lights, he excused himself and left, saying he needed to keep up appearances. He would return for me about fifteen minutes before sunset, and then we would put the plan into action. (Or would we, Cal? You had no idea what you were getting into. You didn't know her like I do. You didn't know her at all.) Muadhnait didn't join in with the Casma-and-Tenny game.

She cleaned both her swords, went through her pack, and sat within speaking distance of me — though neither of us said anything, since she had nothing to say, and I was too busy going scribble, scribble, scribble. I wrote. I napped. We ate. The soft murmur of voices kept me company. The chill air from outdoors was kept at bay by the low fire in the middle of the room. When I napped and woke and the pain was fresh, Tenny was there to hold my wounds and purr. When I was hungry, we had leftover meat.

I drank more water, and it went nowhere. All used up by my new-found processes. Halfway through the afternoon, as I was pausing in the work and stretching the muscles of my bandaged right hand, I realised. This — this space, with people I knew, this warm room surrounded by others. Was this what I'd been looking for? … Why had I thought I'd needed an adventure? Why could I only define myself by going off on some quest without my sister at my side?

The journey across the landscape, the shared dream with Briar, penetrating the castle, the confrontation with the mage — what was the point of it all, compared with this? Yes, fine, I was wounded, I was tired, I wanted my sister, I needed my bed, I would rather be on the computer watching anime or looking at cartoon girls with their tits out. But this was— Nice? It was nice. How disgustingly bland can I get? Worse than oats.

With my sister I had only a mirror — a mirror with slight differences, that never showed me in the reflection. A mirror that lied and said I didn't exist, that I was only a shadow engulfed by my sister's story, a footnote at the end, defined by my power to speak her name and end the tale. And out here — what had I been trying to define myself against? Hills and forests and castles and fairies? To these things I was not Maisie Morell. I was a role, no different to my sister.

But with Kimberly and Tenny and Casma, I was not Heather. I was me. And Muadhnait had never met my sister. … I must have been staring into space for quite a while, pen hovering over the page, mouth slack, eyes glassy, hearing but not comprehending the murmurs from the other side of the room. Because Muadhnait said, "Miss Maisie?"

"Mm?" I swallowed and blinked and came around.

"Mm. That's me." Muadhnait was seated cross-legged on the floor, not far from me, so she didn't have to crane her neck to see my face.

"Are you growing tired again? We have at least another four hours until sunset. If you want to nap, you should take the opportunity." I shook my head.

"Not tired. Just thinking. Thinking too much." I paused.

"Or maybe I'm thinking just the right amount now, and I wasn't thinking enough before. Wrinkling my brains at last. Though inside my head it's smooth as anything else." Muadhnait considered this for a moment, then said, "May I ask you a question?"

"Mm?"

"This plan you've made, it has several layers. But if the first two layers fail, then your victory relies on your sister, yes? Heather Morell?"

"Not entirely. Entirely not. Not anymore. No more than me." I lowered my eyes to the page, covered in my handwriting, all loopy and big and messy, best I could do with the bandages.

"There are more layers to this now. Layered to unlay the mage. If one doesn't get her, another one will. Maybe the biggest of them all. Can't resist a peek, that one." Muadhnait made a low sound in her throat.

"I wish I could share your faith. I wish I still had faith in anything."

"You will," I said. Muadhnait raised an eyebrow at me. I smiled, and this time it wasn't the kind to make anybody flinch.

"I will?" she asked.

"In Heather," I said.

"She has that effect on people. None of us are immune. Not even gods." Muadhnait looked away.

"I hope you are correct, Miss Maisie."

"When it comes to my sister, I'm always right. I'm shit about most things otherwise. But her? Can't go wrong. Wrong is right. With her and me, up is down and black is white."

"You riddle at me again." Muadhnait almost smiled.

"Half the time I cannot understand you."

"Let's hope the mage thinks so too." Muadhnait's smile won. … Calderon returned as the sun was going down, or as the thing-that-served-the-role-of-the-sun was retreating behind the curve of the landscape for another day. I wondered if it ever refused to move, and hung in the sky until some other vast entity went up there to poke it in the side. But this day it dipped obediently toward the horizon, and the clatter of hooves announced that our time was up. We were ready to go.

Muadhnait was re-packed and up on her feet, crossbow in her gauntlets. Kimberly was breathing deeply to swallow her jitters. Casma and Tenny were holding hands. Tenny had stretched out her wings. I had my kitchen knife in my waistband, wrapped in the maid-pattern tea-towel, and my manuscript under my arm. I was still bandaged and battered and bloody and bruised, but a day of rest had done good for my boneless body, and standing was made possible by pain and willpower.

Calderon brought help — Mave, lurking in the corridor, ready to guide the others in my wake. We would clear the way, distract the Audience, and make sure all eyes were on us. And then Kimberly and Muadhnait would unlayer the most obvious layer of the plan. Calderon had brought something for me as well. He held it out in one big meaty fist. A walking cane, slender and elegant and old, coiled like a living vine, carved from dark wood.

"I have so many that I have lost count," he said.

"This one is from some three or four dozen or years ago, and I cannot recall why I put it aside. All my stories bleed into each other now, and this … lost all meaning to me. So, here, you take it, young Lady Morell. If it helps you slay our jailer, then perhaps it will find new life." He demonstrated the way to twist the handle, to unlatch the hidden mechanism. The sword on the inside was no stage prop; it shone in the dusk, silver like moonlight, sharp enough to cut a grain of dust.

"I've got my knife," I said.

"Knifed pretty well with it, earlier." Calderon's eyes twinkled.

"It can never hurt to have more than one blade about your person. You never know when you might need to cast one aside." He held it out again. I took it in my left hand, because the pressure on my right would hurt. It was light as a feather and seemed to want to jump in my grip.

"Mm," I grunted.

"Walking's gonna be hard. A cane. Sure." Calderon nodded, clapped his hands, and looked up at our assembled crew.

"Ladies, are we ready?" We were.

"Take me to my audience," I said.

"Time for the show. Show's on time. Time to show off." And what did I have to show for myself, scribbled down in that book under my arm? Want me to show you?