Caliber Session 18: The Morris Server

[Here I’ll try to condense about seven hours of game time from literally six months ago into a recap. I’m working on other things at the moment too, so it will not be to the standard of the recaps. One day I hope to return and punch it up a bit.]

The barbecue fizzled out after Sarolt left, and everyone retired to where they were staying after making their goodbyes. Imrus reassured his daughter that her Mother’s departure wasn’t a big deal, and that he didn’t have any problems with her working for the Caliber Institute, it was just that her Mother worried for her safety.

‘Well, everyone, thanks for coming,’ said Ursa, a little shakily. ‘Thanks for the pie, Merlin.’

‘Don’t mention it. My Mother will be very pleased that her suggestion went down well.’

Ursa gave a hollow laugh. ‘We’ll need to meet Merlin’s parents next!’ she said to the group in general.

‘…No,’ said Merlin.

‘Oh. Uh, Nora’s parents?’

Nora shook her head. ‘Not gonna happen.’

There was a pause.

‘I don’t have parents!’ said Alkahest, brightly. He was still holding a burger.

‘We can make you some,’ said Merlin, darkly.

Everyone looked at him. ‘What?’ said Nora.

‘Yeah, Merlin, I…’ said Alkahest. ‘Was that a threat? I—I don’t really know how to respond to that?’

[Even Adam, Melrin’s player, did not know what that was supposed to mean. We all laughed for a long time.]

The next day, Merlin took the fingerbone to the Institute’s containment facility, an imposing Brutalist block a mile or so just outside of anywhere reasonable. To the casual observer, it might have been a factory, or a multi-story-car-park with no on ramp. There was a fence ensconcing it within a tarmac wasteland of about four acres.

Merlin approached with the casual confidence of one on orders from their boss, and thus immune to criticism. He’d agreed he’d get his colleagues in, at Nora’s insistence. She framed it as “covering him, just in case”. Merlin assumed she just wanted to have a nosey around, which was technically true. It was just that she’d be noseying with intent.

Ursa had arrived at the same time as Nora, with Alkahest dropping her off. He was planning to track down a few things to eat while Ursa was busy; special mention going to a place that just sold gingerbread. He’d been talking about it for roughly half an hour before they arrived.

Inside the facility – after going through multiple ID checks on the other side of an intercom – Merlin, Ursa, and Nora were introduced to Anasios Kojak, a semi-retired former field agent who now worked as the site’s manager. He was a tall man, in a long-limbed sort of way that would’ve seemed gangly if each arm and leg hadn’t the coiled tension of a fresh-strung longbow. On his nose was a small pair of dark glasses, the adaptive lenses slowly drifting back towards clear as he approached them.

He wasn’t supposed to be their point of contact, but the facility had apparently grown increasingly shortstaffed over the past few months. True enough, they stood in the lobby by an unmanned reception desk, and neither the stairs up to the offices above nor the path to the side that led towards the stacks of containment units had anyone traversing them at all.

‘So. Merlin, I will escort you to the unit we’ve prepared for the relic you’ve brought. Along that way you can brief me on any special features that we may have forgotten to account for. Nora and S–‘ He paused abruptly. ‘Sorry. I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Ursa,’ provided Ursa.

‘Nora and Ursa, you’ll wait here. We shan’t be very long, I expect.’

With that, he and Merlin went off into the facility proper. They came to a lift, and Kojak punched the down button.

As the lift doors closed, Nora promptly swivelled on the spot and began walking. The silver wire in her chest stretched off down the corridor, past the lift, deeper into the compound. She wasn’t going to stand around, was she, not when she was this close.

Ursa went with her, because standing around in a corridor was not her idea of a fun day, and she had to ensure that her day was as pleasant as possible after the one before it. By all rights she should have been off eating gingerbread, really.

As it was, she followed after an increasingly tense Nora, who was moving as if she were in an egg-and-spoon race while surrounded by those dinosaurs from Land Before Time II.

Eventually, though, the wire led her to a door.

⁂

Elsewhere in the facility, Kojak and Merlin emerged from a lift, and made their way to a door of their own.

Kojak adjusted his glasses, the lenses shifting from clear to a sort of bluish hue. ‘You’re contaminated,’ he told the Gnome. ‘Or, rather, something is trying to influence you.’

Merlin didn’t particularly want to talk about anything other than the containment of the fingerbone, but there was no way he could ignore a comment like that. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It just looks as though something has been trying to affect your emotions. Perhaps the bone you’re carrying. Have you found yourself more… volatile than usual, recently? Emotional? Prone to violence?’

Merlin wanted to punch him in the testicles. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said Kojak. ‘You’re resisting it, then. But keep an eye out. It could be that whatever is causing it might resort to more… obvious techniques.’

Merlin thought back to his encounter on the train and said nothing.

They threw the fingerbone into a room containing a blank, white expanse sort of like in The Matrix. Very, very slowly, it began to unfurl. Kojak closed the door.

‘If it does grow into a full labyrinth, that room will still keep it enclosed. We’ll keep the main branch informed. Now, I’d like to get back to your colleagues before they find any trouble.’

⁂

Nora didn’t enter the door. It would have been locked, anyway. There was a little window, and she could just about see some blinking lights in the dark beyond it.

Instead of stopping, she kept walking past with Ursa trying to make conversation at her heels, then used her new Jacket of the Mountebank to teleport inside.

Ursa of course, seeing her friend just disappear, panicked a little bit.

The Morris Server was a huge behemoth of a supercomputer, the kind you’d use to plan out a war in the late ’50s. There were racks and racks of wires and blinking lights; in a more logical installation there’d be space to walk between them, but here it was simply a tangle of shelves and massive thick cables with no regard for anything that existed in the physical world.

Except for Nora, of course.

The whole thing began to writhe and shift, eventually opening out to something much more understandable. A large user interface section slammed into place on one side, with a dizzying array of slots and punch cards.

The Morris Worm spoke with glee in its voice.

‘Nora! I can’t believe you’re really here!!’

‘Hi, Morris, it’s—what is all this?’

A flicker. The voice suddenly had a point of origin. ‘It’s me, Nora!’ A silhouette had appeared, grey and nondescript. It smiled despite its lack of a face.

‘It’s your… body, you mean?’ said Nora, carefully.

‘Not exactly. It’s more like… the shell of a snail, I suppose. But I’m so happy to see you! You—you even brought your friends!’

Nora didn’t like that tone. The Morris Worm had a bit of a jealous streak, which only seemed to be growing. She supposed it was only natural; it had been just it and her for quite a time until now. ‘”Friends” is a strong word,’ she began.

‘Anyway!’ the Morris Worm was saying. ‘Look, I’ve added functionality for you to physically run programs!’ It indicated the punch cards. ‘And that’s what the wire is for! If you concentrate, you should be able to travel down it. Your soul should, I mean. And then you’ll be able to use whatever cards you need!’

‘That’s—thank you, Morris,’ said Nora. ‘You know, I realise I’ve been really busy recently; it’s been a while since you and I have time to just hang out together, you know?’

The Morris Worm didn’t seem to hear her attempt at placating. Whatever manic energy was carrying it just continued to rush forward.

‘I’ll show you what I can do! What you can do, I mean!’ The Worm began to scoop up great heaving armfuls of punch cards. ‘I can summon things for you – like with the frog earlier, sorry – and if you travel down here on the wire you’ll even be able to cast Wish. Though it uses up about a month’s worth of power, haha.’

It slotted a random selection of cards into slots, and then pulled a lever in full-on-Frankensteinian rapture.

⁂

Outside, in the corridor, Ursa had figured out which room had claimed Nora, and been knocking at the door for a time. Nora couldn’t hear; apparently the thing was soundproofed. But Ursa saw – quite of its own accord – the lever on the punch card machine drop. Static energy buoyed her hair.

She turned to see a black, glutinous lahar bleed out of a hole in reality, before congealing into a decaying monster covered in eyestalks, with one yellowed, sightless cataract in its very center, focused intently on her.

It was an undead Beholder, not that Ursa was concerned with taxonomy for now.

Another had appeared before Merlin as he’d emerged from the lift on the way back. His first reaction was to lob a Firebolt at it, as if testing the waters.

The flame ignited one of the eyestalks, and the thing shrieked before turning to float at speed down the side corridor.

‘–I repeat, we have a breach,’ Kojak was saying into an intercom panel on the nearby wall. Then he sprinted after the Beholder, without even a word to Merlin. Merlin took off after him.

⁂

‘Oh dear,’ said the Morris Worm, perhaps a bit theatrically. Nora couldn’t quite tell if it was genuine.

‘What did you just do?’ she asked.

‘I might have… summoned things. Hostile things. Where your other two friends are.’

‘What! Morris, why?’

The Morris Worm pulled a card. ‘I put this in the wrong slot. I was trying to show you how you can Wish for anything. You can change reality itself!’

‘I don’t want to change reality! Not like that, anyway!’

‘—I thought you’d like it. I was only trying to–‘

‘No, I know, Morris. I’ll… we’ll talk again just as soon as I sort this out.’

Nora bolted from the room, pistol drawn. She saw Ursa blasting some sort of auditory-whisper-magic at a decrepit eyeball monster on the one side, with another of them screaming down the corridor towards them with Kojak and Merlin in hot pursuit.

In the ensuing fight, the four of them pursued the beholders through the facility’s corridors, with Merlin summoning up a terrible-shadow-beast, Nora firing Eldritch Blasts left and right, and Ursa actually resorting to combat magic since her usual incapacitation spells seemed inadequate.

Kojak produced a plain combat knife – the kind with serration on one side of the base of the blade – and hurled himself at the monsters with the speed and power of a man in his absolute prime. Whatever beams of force the beholders were firing frequently knocked him away.

Nora, Merlin, and Ursa were all hit with paralysis beams, and left behind as Kojak sprinted off ahead. They followed as soon as they recovered, though the beholders had apparently made quite a bit of distance. They would have lost them entirely, but luckily for them there was a trail of blood droplets that must have been from Kojak. It was less lucky for him.

Kojak’s trail came to a larger room with what appeared to be a steel bunker squatting in the middle. The door was conspicuously open.

‘What is that?’ panted Ursa.

‘A cell,’ said Merlin, tersely. ‘From the looks of things.’

The cell within was sterile steel. It was more than bright enough to see – maybe a bit too bright – but had no visible light source. Actually, there were no features at all save four heavy black chains attached to the walls. These trailed down towards an Angel, knelt in the center of the floor.

Two chains were attached to manacles on her wrists. Two were attached to loops pierced in the tips of her wings, which were spread wide like an anatomical diagram. There were more wings, too, sprouting from the back of her head. These were folded over her eyes like a blindfold.

Kojak was in here too, holding on with his knife buried in the side of one of the beholders. It bounced around the room trying to buck him off.

The others quickly moved to support him, and in the melee the beholder was destroyed with the distinct pop of a dismissed summoning.

The Angel began to stir.

Kojak, bloodied and panting, backed away. ‘Move,’ he commanded.

Ursa approached him. ‘You can barely stand; let me heal your–‘

‘We have to get out of here right now.’

One of the chains had been sheared through by the beholder’s disintegration beam. The Angel’s wing folded in, flexed, and then sheared through the chain connected to her hand on the same side. This hand clamped onto the opposite manacle, which deliquesced into slag beneath her grip.

The door slammed shut behind them, and Merlin cast an Arcane Lock on it just as the second beholder crested the top of the cell and began firing death rays at them. There was a distinct boom from the other side of the cell door. Something – the Angel, obviously – was hammering on it.

They fought the second beholder, and through some impressive work from Merlin’s Shadowspawn, they brought it down. All the while, the cell door began to buckle.

Nora just barely got out of the way when it exploded outwards. The Angel emerged, wings still over her eyes. She gave them a slight bow, then, with a beat of the wings on her back, launched into the air.

Ursa was fast enough to catch her with a Hold Person, but after a few tense seconds of her fighting the spell, she crashed up and out of the facility, destroying a wall and most of the ceiling in the process.

‘Outside, now!!’ commanded Kojak. ‘We have to get after her!’

‘You can barely walk!’ said Ursa, rushing over with healing magic.

‘That wasn’t a request, Solya,’ said Kojak. Then, seeing Ursa’s expression, he said, ‘Shit.’

‘—Mama?’

‘We’ll—talk about this later. Please, this is more important than you could know.’

The four of them made their way outside. Occasional other employees, wearing cleanroom coats, were making sure all the containment rooms remained shut; all the while alarms blared overhead.

Outside, the Angel floated above the empty car park. She appeared to be enjoying the taste of the fresh air.

‘Who is that?’ asked Merlin.

Kojak had his knife out. ‘Mysterioso Pizzicato. Myst. The Institute’s policy of staying out of things, of empowering other factions to keep one another in check as opposed to acting themselves? Well, that wasn’t always the case. It used to be that we’d… well, “remove threats to the balance”. And six months ago we went back to the old approach again, just to bring her in, because nobody else could. She’s—she’s a big deal.’

‘Are we talking Laniakea big deal?’

‘Bigger.’

Merlin paled a bit, which due to his already pallid complexion rendered him near-transparent. ‘Like… Laniakea and Mr. Pyrite? Together?’

‘Yeah, if the two of those were to work together they might be able to stop her.’

‘How did you get her the first time?’ asked Nora.

‘With help. With a lot of help. The Director himself had to take to the field, and even then it was a close call.’

They all took this in silence, apart from Merlin. ‘Hold on, Brynner is on the same level as two ancient Dragons?!’

‘After a fashion,’ said Kojak. ‘When necessary. And it was absolutely necessary. She was responsible for the… major disruption of certain hierarchies. Namely, the assassination of both Infernal Kings. But that,’ he added, seeing Ursa’s eyes go wide, ‘is a strict secret. It cannot go beyond us.’

‘Are you certain it was her?’ asked Ursa.

‘She admitted to it herself.’

‘Okay, but… if that’s true, then I have to warn Alkahest. I know you said it was a secret but–‘

‘You are not to tell your boyfriend, Orsolya. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances.’

‘But if she’s going to go after whoever’s in charge…! That’s what he’s working towards, well, not being the king but making things more equal…’

‘Either way. You are not to speak of it.’ He pulled a little toffee out of his pocket. ‘Eat this.’

‘That’s obviously suspicious,’ said Ursa. ‘It’s going to erase it from my brain or something.’

‘It will not erase it from your brain. That would invalidate me even telling you, and I told you in an attempt to keep you safe. Eat it.’

Ursa took it reluctantly. ‘This is taking a lot of trust from me!’ she said. ‘I hope you realise that. And it goes a bit of the way to mending our relationship.’

‘Solya… Ursa. I am your mother. All I want is to keep you safe.’

Ursa unwrapped it and put it in her mouth.

‘And I’m very sorry, especially considering what you just said,’ continued Kojak. ‘But I keep my work life and my home life meticulously distinct.’

With the sugar and magic of the toffee dissolving on Ursa’s tongue, Kojak cast Geas. He commanded: ‘You are not to speak a word of what you know about the Angel Myst to Azoth Alkahest.’

If the spell took hold, it would last for a year and a day. But something in Ursa’s shame and rage at the betrayal meant the spell did not take hold. Though Kojak didn’t know that, because he didn’t technically cast it himself.

Ursa spat the toffee out.

‘It still takes effect, Ursa.’ Kojak’s voice was not unkind. ‘I hope you’ll forgive me at some point. But this is too important.’

‘Let’s just do what we can to stop her.’

Myst was scanning the horizon, and appeared to be coming to a decision.

As this was going on, Nora had shot her mind down the silver wire to meet with the Morris Worm again.

‘Yeah, did you mean for this to happen?’ she asked it.

‘Oh, hello! Mean for what?’

‘There’s an Angel.’

‘Did something escape?’

Nora couldn’t tell if the Worm’s reaction was genuine. The surprise in its tone seemed real, but she didn’t know if it was surprise at its own success or surprise that anything had happened at all.

‘If there’s trouble… you could use the machine!’ said Morris, eagerly. ‘You could summon something to help stop it! Or you could even use Wish!’

Nora said nothing, instead travelling mentally back through the wire and into her body again.

Kojak was staring at her down his coloured glasses, like he’d just seen her come back into herself. But rather than asking her about it, he called up to the Angel.

‘Myst! I’m giving you one chance to come back down here! Surely Life would prefer you to stay contained if you’re still here after this long!’

Myst said nothing.

‘Alright,’ said Kojak. ‘Let’s hope she’s out of practice.’

He flashed upwards, knife in hand. Suddenly he had a fistful of her hair, and plunged the blade into her neck like Merlin stabbing an old woman.

Myst flexed her wing. Kojak crashed down like a meteor to the concrete.

The Angel spun in the air, and began to sink, alighting before Ursa, Merlin, and Nora. There was no sound at all as she moved.

‘Hi!’ said Ursa. ‘I just wanted to ask, did you really murder the Infernal Kings?’

‘Ursa!’ hissed Merlin. ‘This isn’t the time for that!’

‘I just thought now was the only opportunity we’d get,’ said Ursa, a little bruised. ‘I mean it is important. Not just to me, I don’t have a personal stake or anything…’

Myst, though, actually turned to face Nora. ‘You are tied to something here,’ she said, in a voice like a candle going out.

‘What’s it to you?’ asked Nora.

The Angel looked down the silver line in Nora’s chest. ‘You are a part of the Institute as well.’

‘Again, what’s it to you?’

The Angel’s wing arced down like a guillotine. Nora was ready to throw herself back, and realised – just in time, too – that Myst wasn’t aiming for her, she was aiming to cut the silver wire. The wire that, should it be damaged, would cause enough magical feedback to burn out her soul.

Instead Nora leapt forward, the bladed feathers making a gash in the concrete where the wire had been. Myst followed her with wing-covered eyes, and smiled. ‘You may become a problem down the line,’ she said.

A pink blur interposed itself between them. Ursa stood, blocking Nora from the Angel’s view. There was a sound like an oven being opened, as Merlin conjured up a shadowblade.

Nora, though, still wanted answers. ‘Speak to me. And maybe we can help each other. Why is me being connected to the server and working for the Institute an issue?’

‘I have been contained here for longer than Life would prefer,’ said the Angel, still smiling. ‘And I suspect the Institute would use you to pursue me, if you are tied to such a power. So I doubt you would help me, even if our goals are aligned.’

‘If our goals are aligned then why would I–‘

‘You are an employee of theirs. You wouldn’t have a choice.’

‘I’m not doing that now, though, am I? We’re just talking here.’

‘Then move,’ she said.

Nora leapt back down the wire. ‘Morris!’ she called. ‘Do you swear you didn’t do this on purpose? It’s not one of those messy things you do for fun?!’

‘I swear! I swear on—on our friendship! If I’m lying then you never have to speak with me again! I was excited to see you, and I was trying to impress you, and I fucked up, okay?’

Nora tried to think. ‘Do you have a way of confirming if the Angel Myst really did kill the Infernal Kings? If she’s as dangerous as they say she is?’

‘I… I don’t know,’ said the Morris Worm. It stared at a rack of lights, which were all rapidly blinking as if accessing a hard drive. ‘That’s what the Institute records say? That’s heavily encrypted. I can’t find any other mention of her online?’

‘…Okay. I may be back again in a minute.’

Back in her body, Nora saw Myst step forward. Her wings were raised, and glowing, and very, very sharp.

Ursa pulled on all the magic left in her, and cast Suggestion.

‘Stop!!’ she screamed.

The spell just glanced off, doing nothing. The wings came down.

And Kojak skidded up to Ursa’s side, and his hand crashed down onto her shoulder as he invoked the alignment of Neutrality.

There have been several points where the alignment of our protagonists – their cosmic ones, Life, Death, Order, or Chaos – have shifted. These alignments are powers more vast and nebulous than anything else in our story. They’re what lies waiting at the end of the infinite line of worlds around the Fulcrum. The termination point, if you will.

Neutrality, then, is something else. It’s the alignment lurking at the exact center of the other four. It’s balance. And if all other factors are totally, perfectly balanced, what does any conflict come down to?

It comes down to will.

Ursa was clenching her jaw so hard she feared her teeth would crack. If Myst’s wings came down, that was it; her friends, her Mama, gone. And after that, maybe not today but down the line, Myst would come for Alkahest too.

Myst stopped.

Kojak’s grip was shaking. ‘Do whatever you’re going to do now, I can’t keep this up for–‘

‘I was just trying to stop her, I didn’t have a plan for after–‘

Nora took in a breath. ‘Kojak. Does she really need to be re-imprisoned?’

‘There’s no way for us to do that, our only goal now is survival.’

‘Then I’m going to cast Wish.’

Her mind went down the wire again, and Morris already knew. ‘What do you wish for?’ it asked.

‘I don’t know if she really did what they think she did. So I don’t want to just wish her out of existence. That’s not a power I want to wield. Even this isn’t a—okay, I want Myst—the Angel, Mysterioso Pizzicato, to be re-imprisoned securely in the same location, circumstances, and exact manner she was twenty-four hours prior, and for all restraints and imprisonment techniques to be similarly reinstated.’

‘Done,’ said the Morris Worm. A tidal wave of punch cards swept up and began slotting themselves into the machine. The whirring of the machine grew faster, and faster, and faster.

Back outside, Myst was no longer free. There wasn’t a flash, a sound, nothing.

‘What did you just do?!’ asked Ursa.

⁂

Myst’s cell was intact once more. They were able to check on her, see the chains back in place, see the walls that now had never been broken.

Kojak took them up to the office, and locked the door.

‘Nora… can you tell us all what happened there? Where your consciousness went, and how you did that?’

‘You noticed that, then,’ said Nora.

Kojak adjusted his glasses.

And Nora told them. She told them about her first encounter with the Morris Worm. She told them about the wire, and the server it was connected to. She told them about her Wish.

‘I’m not going to be reporting this,’ Kojak announced. ‘Not just to cover up the escape, though. There wouldn’t be a way for me to explain the day’s events without implicating Nora. And I believe that, like the knowledge of Myst’s reason for being here, if that information were to spread it would put you in danger.

‘…Don’t think of the Caliber Institute as “the good guys”. They’d probably throw you in a cell like Myst’s if they ever found out.’

‘How do you know the other staff here won’t tell anyone?’ asked Merlin.

‘They won’t.’

Ursa wondered just how many Geas toffees he had in his pockets.

Kojak got to his feet. ‘I don’t want this to get out and make life more dangerous for any of you. I’m not having that. The Institute already got years of my life, I won’t—I never wanted that for you.’ This last part was to Ursa. ‘Sarolt never wanted that for you.’

He escorted them to the door. ‘I have paperwork to do,’ he told them. ‘We almost had a breach, after all. That part does need to be reported.’

‘…Can I talk to Mama?’ asked Ursa, on the threshold.

Kojak paused. ‘Do you two mind?’ he asked of Merlin and Nora.

When they didn’t he went with Ursa over to her mother’s car. She hadn’t seen it on the way in, but had just been sat there all along. ‘Huh,’ said Ursa.

When she got in the passenger side, it was Sarolt in the driver’s seat.

‘What is it, Solya?’

‘I—I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. Calling you, uh, a hypocrite. I didn’t realise you had such a terrifying job.’

‘Solya, I get it. I… used to be the same with my own mother.’

Ursa seemed to make up her mind about something. ‘I’m really mad at you, but I’m also glad you’re not dead,’ she said. ‘I really thought that was what you were doing when you put your hand on my shoulder back there.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ said her mother, ‘I thought the same thing. You know our family is more important to me than anything. You are more important to me than anything. I have to keep you safe, no matter the cost.’

Before Ursa could reply, though, she continued. ‘But I’ve learned today that you’re a lot more capable than I’d assumed. I hadn’t realised until now how grown-up you are.’

‘Thanks, Mama.’

‘I do think you should quit your job at the Institute, though.’

‘I already did, Mama.’

‘Oh!’

‘I’ve been thinking of applying to work there as a consultant instead, though.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ll call you at the weekend,’ said Ursa. ‘Don’t die before then. But I am still mad at you.’

After that, Nora wanted a word with Kojak and Merlin left for the B&B he was staying at. Before he got away though, he got his own comment from Kojak:

‘Remember what we talked about before all this went down,’ he said. ‘Try to keep your head.’

Merlin left with his head full of thoughts about how everything around him seemed much bigger and more powerful than he’d realised. They weren’t pleasant thoughts.

When Nora sat down alone with Kojak in Sarolt’s car, she told him everything – actually everything, about the Morris Worm’s jealousy, and about sending off Merlin’s information to whatever made the bones, and about its predilection for messing with the Institute’s computers. She left her watch on the floor outside the car, and willed the silvery connection in her chest to close.

‘…And I just wanted to tell you the whole story because, uh…’ she finished without finishing.

‘Well,’ said Kojak, weighing up what he’d been told. ‘I don’t think you should tell the Institute, obviously. I don’t think you should tell Merlin, either because if what I suspect is happening to him is happening, he may try to kill you.’

‘That’s fair.’

‘As for the Morris Worm… I can’t help but see it as a child. It just knows that it wants something, or it thinks that you want something, and it doesn’t think about the consequences. And that could end up really bad for you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Nora. She swallowed. ‘Look, uh. I wanted to thank you; nobody’s ever really stuck their neck out for me like you have today.’

‘That’s just because I feel I have a responsibility to help you. And not just because you’re friends with my daughter. So no thanks are necessary.’

As she climbed out of the car, she thought about how Kojak hadn’t said anything one way or another about telling Ursa. Sarolt probably would want her to? Probably. Kojak, though, was decidedly neutral, despite knowing Sarolt’s feelings.

‘…You okay, Nora?’ asked Ursa, tentatively, when she rejoined her.

‘Yeah.’

‘I know you don’t like to talk about stuff, but if you want to talk about stuff… I’m literally always here for you.’

‘…Thanks.’

It was awkward.

Nora cleared her throat. ‘Maybe… when are you headed back to Middlemarch?’

‘We’re headed back Monday?’

Now Nora stared furiously at the ground. ‘Maybe we could go get a drink at some point, just the two of us?’

‘Yeah, I’d love to! That’d be amazing!’

‘Cool.’

Despite the awkwardness, Nora stuck around for long enough to make sure Ursa was picked up safely. When she drove home, she actually stuck to the speed limit.

Caliber Session 17: Carpenter Family Barbecue

The metal fingers of Director Brynner’s left hand drummed on his desk, each of which seemed to be tuned to a different note on a pentatonic scale. The result was a pleasant little jingle that somewhat compromised the frustration usually conveyed by the gesture.

Knowing Brynner, it was almost certainly intentional.

His turquoise-light eyes drifted between the two Institute employees before him. He had, forced by habit, set out a third chair that sat unoccupied. Neither Merlin nor Nora had commented upon it, each sitting on either side.

‘Let me preface this,’ he began, fingers now still, ‘by saying that I’m extremely pleased that the two of you are working together with renewed vigour. Considering our earlier concerns regarding inter-party tension, it’s extremely heartening to see your efforts at a congenial working relationship. Especially considering the recent… tricimation of your team.

‘However, that missing third member and your actions in the wake of her departure do need to be addressed. That is the reason we are here, as I’m sure you’re both aware.’

Nora leaned back in her seat. The fact she’d sat down at all was evidence enough she was taking this seriously. Beside her – beyond the one-chair-buffer – Merlin had actually taken off his beanie.

‘Officially,’ said Brynner, with great emphasis, ‘The two of you are to be taken off field work until further notice. We cannot have our employees disobeying direct orders and storming off the Fulcrum to gatecrash a Summer Court trial. We’ve been able to avoid a major political incident thanks mostly to the surprising benevolence of Queen Titania; when I met with her to discuss restitution, she was in remarkably good spirits thanks to some new divertissement. But the Institute must be seen to be taking action.’

He held up his hands. ‘That is, officially. Unofficially, I’m extremely proud of your actions. It’s true that the Inside Accords can be an uncomfortable yoke at times for anyone, but for us? That my own signature represents this world; a world which, for the most part, did not consent to or even know about my leadership? It necessitates my neutrality even more so than any other member of the accords.’

Nora and Merlin watched the Director stare out at the city for a moment before he continued. ‘Perhaps I’ll speak to you both about Neutrality soon. Regardless, it would be hypocrisy to punish you for not obeying orders that I’d hoped you would ignore.

‘As such, yes, you are being taken off fieldwork. But I don’t want either of you to think you are in the proverbial doghouse. Williams, I actually have a specific assignment for you that coincides with our timeline quite perfectly.’

Merlin shifted in his chair. He’d been debating asking if this on-paper-punishment would affect his soon-to-be-increased pay for the Institute access to BlinkedIn, but if he was still being given work it was probably fine.

‘I’d like you to take a fingerbone from the Labyrinth Bones you’ve been working on to a containment facility we run in the Lake District, for further study on how they might work when separated. Emva has already been briefed on preparing a reliquary for transport. I’d like you to take it personally so you’re better able to give any answers the staff there might have regarding its isolation.’

The Gnome nodded. It might actually be an interesting field trip, particularly if he’d get to see the methods employed by the Institute for the containment of dangerous magic.

‘As for you, Helton…’ The Director sounded weary. ‘How much of your annual leave have you taken so far this year?’

Nora’s brow grew heavy the weight of calculation. ‘None,’ she said.

‘Quite. Helton, as the most senior member of the team, you will – again, officially – bear most of the brunt of culpability. I would suggest you use some of your holidays.’

With that, the two got up to leave. Brynner made a little ahem as they reached the door. ‘Just to reiterate. Not a word of this to anyone. And… before you go, would you both please head down to the treasury to use the tokens you were giving? It’s just that you haven’t been yet and Cimimi’s getting nervous. Well, more nervous.’

⁂

The Caliber Institute’s treasury was another of those impossible spaces below the building. Rather than access via the lift, as with Morta’s prophecy chamber, there was a spiralling stone staircase that drilled chthonian from behind a nondescript door on the building’s third floor.

There was an incongruous platform stair lift at its bottom.

The treasury itself was a massive dark room piled high with gold, gems, and assorted valuables. A path had been cleared – possibly with a snowplough – which wound inbetween the piles like a Scalextric track.

‘Hello?’ called Merlin.

‘Oh, oh, one sec!’ replied a timorous voice from behind a large pile of gleaming swords.

A woman appeared. Her body appeared to be made of a sort of animated liquid gold, which was emerging like a jack-in-a-box from a wooden treasure chest. She was using a wheelchair on account of her lack of legs; a sleek carbon black one that was less a chair and more a modern frame that the chest was strapped into.

She wore an extremely comfy-looking jumper, but didn’t seem particularly comfortable at all.

‘H-hello! I’m Cimimi! I maintain the treasury down here! You must be Merlin and Nora; I’ve been wondering when you’d come to use your tokens! What’re you in the market for?!’

She punctuated this by punching the air. Her eyes darted back and forth between them. Her jaw was very tense.

‘Uh… are you feeling quite alright?’ asked Merlin.

Cimimi’s thumb still protruded. ‘Oh, well, uh, Nora? I–‘

‘Merlin,’ said Merlin.

‘Oh! Yes of course, Merlin. Uh. Well, uh, Merlin, I am A-ok! It can sometimes be a little stressful working down here if any of the items are having a bit of a grumpy day. But, that’s why it’s my job! It all sees me as, uh, part of the same team! Team Treasure!’

This had Nora loosening her jacket for easier-firearm-retrieval. ‘Is the stuff down here dangerous then?’ she asked.

‘Well, Merlin–‘

‘Nora.’

‘Well, Nora, it can be fussy, but all the really dangerous stuff gets sent to the lakes. Most things here – swords and such – don’t have the facility to swing at you. Well, some of them do, but mostly they just use the ambient magic here to twist things around a bit. Like, uh…’

She went over to a cabinet half-snowbound in a pile of coins (goldbound). It contained an array of jewelry, mostly rings and necklaces. Cimimi held up an index card that had been slotted in before one such ring.

‘Like this!’ she said. ‘This here is a Ring of Glaciscalptura. It will turn the wearer’s body into ice over the course of eight hours. But look what it’s done to my label!’

The card read ring of cool people. not danjerous.

‘I just wish they’d have a bit more respect for my intelligence,’ added Cimimi, shoulders all aslump. ‘It isn’t even capitalised.’

In the end, Merlin left with a Ring of Free Action, while Nora took a Cape of the Mountebank that Cimimi was able to sweetly coax into becoming a black jacket. They handed over their tokens, which Cimimi simply dropped with a clink in the bottom of her chest.

⁂

‘So… how are things at the Institute? You didn’t get in trouble, did you?’

Ursa had invited Merlin and Nora out to a ramen place she knew. She’d selected it based on A, its good, authentic ramen, B, its casual bench-based layout, and C, its prices being quite reasonable for someone who recently quit their job so they could go to trial on another world.

There was a length of silence that tried to pass itself off as the slurping of noodles, but wasn’t fooling anyone. It wasn’t that Merlin or Nora were feeling awkward, it was just that holding a bowl to your face offers time to word a response in your head.

Merlin put his down first, moustache glistening with tonkotsu. ‘We’re in a great deal of trouble,’ he began, before seeing Ursa’s dismay and hastily adding, ‘On paper. Brynner actually seemed rather pleased with our conduct.’

‘Mm,’ said Nora, by way of agreement.

‘Really?’ said Ursa. ‘Even the bit where you blew up someone’s chimney and never apologised?’

Merlin frowned theatrically. ‘Funnily enough I didn’t mention it.’

‘Were you worried about being forced by the Institute to make up for it?’

‘No, it just didn’t seem important.’

They ate in silence for a moment. Nora ordered extra noodles.

‘So no punishment or anything?’ asked Ursa.

‘Not exactly,’ said Merlin. ‘We’re barred from fieldwork. Nora’s being forced to use some of her annual leave and I’m being shipped off to some kind of facility in the Lake District. Just to drop something off, I mean.’

This time Ursa had been busily slurping from her bowl, and upon hearing Merlin she sprayed a few bubbles in her shoyu broth. ‘The lakes?’ she said, dripping. ‘I’m supposed to be visiting family up there soon!’

‘Oh, did they want to see you after hearing about all the…?’ Merlin trailed off.

‘They don’t know yet!’

The others raised their eyebrows at Ursa’s mildly lunatic expression.

She continued. ‘You know, I didn’t want to worry them and by now it’s turned into a whole thing. Like, I moved in somewhere else! With someone else! And it didn’t feel appropriate to just, text them, you know?’

Merlin sniffed. ‘You don’t think they’ll be happy about your…’ he scrambled for civility; ‘Cohabitation… standards?’

‘They’re not like some people,’ said Ursa, rolling her eyes. ‘They’re just a bit, uh… traditional. It’s a better idea to get it all out with them in person. They’re going to be having a barbecue, actually.’

She glanced around the restaurant, fidgeting with her hands together. She realised she was turning the ring around over and over on her finger. ‘If… if you’re headed up there anyway, Merlin, would you maybe like to come?’

‘As a social buffer, you mean?’

‘S-something like that, yeah. Maybe I am a bit nervous. But as well, the more the merrier, right?!’

There was a thud as Nora put her empty bowl down. ‘I’ll come along too,’ she announced, perfectly casual. ‘If it’s a free meal.’

Ursa and Merlin traded a glance, shocked.

‘Uh of course!’ said Ursa, with a sudden big smile. ‘If you want!’

Nora was staring dead ahead, and nodded back. Her eyes were fixed on the silver wire coming from her chest, the one the others couldn’t see; the one that – according to the Morris Worm – stretched all the way up to the Lakes, where the Worm itself waited.

⁂

They travelled separately; Merlin by train, Nora by motorcycle, and Ursa (plus Alkahest) by automobile. Ursa had given the other two a time to arrive, planning to head in herself first, to introduce her new beau. If Merlin or Nora had decent timekeeping, they should knock at the door just in time to interrupt whatever blow-up Ursa’s Mum was in the middle of.

Nora was taking a somewhat scenic route, only the speed at which she was travelling turned the surrounding landscape into more of an impressionist blur. She’d woken up with another ability provided by the silver wire; namely, names. Floating above the head of anyone she looked at. She could see a neon ‘Peter Smith’ above the head of a driver she slalomed past, which rapidly dwindled behind her in the mirror.

It’s tomorrow you’re visiting me, right? I’m a little nervous!

She dismissed the message that had just appeared on her watch. She’d already explained to Morris that she’d be very busy at this barbecue, and then would be visiting whatever it was the wire led to while Merlin was busy dropping off his fingerbone. Maybe she should do a bit of a recce beforehand, though.

There wasn’t much to report on regarding Ursa and Alkahest’s journey. Alkahest drove with hands blatantly disregarding the ten-and-two position, and listened as Ursa sang along to the radio.

Merlin, though, had a train-ride of note. He’d sat himself at a nice table – well, as nice as he could get – and was working away at a bandwidth monitor to better predict peak usage on BlinkedIn, now that the Caliber Institute was actively pushing it.

Someone was across from him. He hadn’t noticed them sit down.

Peering over his laptop, he saw a woman smiling at him. She dressed in a similar fashion to Nora, though a different cut of casual; less “ease of movement in life-or-death situations” and more “this jacket could have anything in the pockets, couldn’t it”. To Merlin’s untrained eye, she looked vaguely Greek, or maybe Turkish?

‘Hey,’ said the woman.

Cautiously, he saved his work and closed it, just in case. ‘Hello,’ he said, in a perfectly friendly manner with the base notes of “this is an acknowledgement that you spoke, not an invitation to continue”.

Of course, the woman continued. ‘So, where are you headed?’ she asked.

Again Merlin spoke with passer-by brevity. ‘Oh, just heading to the countryside for a few days.’

A smile had unfurled itself on the woman’s face. ‘Oh I love the countryside,’ she said. ‘All those narrow roads through the middle of nowhere; it takes the emergency services ages to get to anything at all. You know you could burn a house down out there and have walked to the next village over by the time the fire engines have gotten past the horse-drawn carts and lines of ducks and such.’

That was both threatening and weird.

Merlin sort of nodded and ducked back down behind his laptop screen. He had neither the time nor the inclination to spend his journey chatting with some public-transport-nutter.

‘You travelling alone, then, Merlin?’

He looked back up. The woman was still smiling.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Merlin, ‘Do I know you?’

‘Not exactly,’ she replied, smile spreading like a thundercloud. ‘But I know you. Well, sort of. Somebody sent me your name, and a sample of your work. You’ve got potential, Merlin.’

‘Really. Say, if you know all this about me, I think it only fair that you’d tell me your name.’

The woman laughed; pigeon laughter from behind her smile, like she was corpsing in a school play. ‘I don’t give a shit about fair, Merlin! Gee whiz.’

She got up. ‘Have fun in the countryside,’ she said, breezing past. ‘Slash some tires for me, ‘kay?’

⁂

Ursa had been staring at the door of her childhood home for almost ten minutes. It was a bright, candy red colour. The last time she’d seen it, it had been sky blue.

That sky blue would still be there, down under six layers of other paint. It was an old Changeling tradition, or superstition, or something. Every year, first thing on New Year’s Day, they’d gather outside their house and pick a new colour for the door. And then they’d repaint it, outside and in, and everyone had to get at least a brush stroke in. Ursa wasn’t ever certain what exactly it represented, or warded off, but it was important to her Mother. She’d usually be the last one with brush still in hand, finishing it off. The whole family did it.

Well, the whole family that lived close enough, anyway, which meant everyone but Ursa. She wondered what the other colours since the blue had been.

‘You okay?’ said Alkahest, from the driver’s seat beside her.

She looked back toward him, and explained a bit about painting the door instead of how seeing it had made her feel, or god forbid, going inside.

‘Huh,’ said Alkahest. ‘If it’s first thing on New Year but the whole immediate family does it, what do the others do about their own houses?’

‘It’s kind of a chronological, eldest-household-first thing. I guess I’d be last if I still took part.’

Alkahest, hearing the self-recrimination under her words, reached over to give her hand a squeeze. ‘And what was stopping them from coming to your place to do it, if we’re following that logic?’

Ursa quirked a brow. ‘Well, for starters I’ve been renting, so I couldn’t paint any doors even if my Mama brought her biggest brush. But, for them to come over for a gathering at my home, that’s a bigger deal than you might think. I’ll explain that tradition another time.’

‘Okay, but our new place has a door, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah, that was a big selling point when I agreed to move in there.’ She sighed, finally reaching for her bag in preparation for leaving the car. ‘Okay. You stay here for five minutes. Or six, actually. I’ll head in, say hi, and I’ll uh, prime them for your… arrival. And when you get there, if you’re going to mention the… ritual we did. The Verslovian one. You should mention it to my Tata. And absolutely not my Mama.’

‘Ursa, how worried should I actually be? Your Mom’s not like, the Doom Slayer or something, is she?’

‘God, I wish. I’ll see you in seven minutes.’

⁂

The rest of the day’s events – the ones in the Carpenter family household, anyway – involve a number of people all milling about getting burgers, sausages, and sides of mizeria, as well as zrazy from a big pot that stayed in the kitchen.

A shift in perspective might be worthwhile. As such, we’re going to take a step upwards, and view said events with the all-seeing-eye of a curious god, or better yet, someone playing The Sims. Perhaps occasionally we’ll bring the green crystal of our focus down to observe one person in particular.

See, here it is now, spinning away above Ursa’s head as she knocks at the door before letting herself straight in, the compromise of the visiting relative.

She hopes to see her father first, but mere seconds after the door clicks behind her, Ursa’s Mother appears from the kitchen, making her way to the garden with a tray full of burger buns.

Sarolt Carpenter looks a lot like her daughter. She looks like all of her children, of course, but she and Ursa have a resemblance even beyond that. Should Ursa bulk up a little, strip the pink from her hair, and also age by a few decades, the two could be seen as doppelgangers. They weren’t doppelgangers, of course; Changelings are entirely different.

‘Orsolya,’ says Sarolt, slowing but not stopping. ‘Hello! Welcome home.’

Ursa bristles, but makes an effort to smooth down her quills. Welcome Home didn’t automatically imply she’d come crawling back. Ursa was just inferring that. Right?

‘We’re just about getting started in the garden,’ continues Sarolt. ‘Do have a lot to unpack?’

‘Yes,’ mutters Ursa, ‘But not in the way you mean it. Why does it sound like you think I’m moving back home?’ she finishes, louder.

Sarolt has disappeared with the buns. In her place, though in the other lane of traffic, comes someone else. She’s taller than Ursa, and a few years older, but the biggest difference is in the way she holds herself. She moves with the disdain of a swan inspecting a mouldy loaf of bread.

‘Orsolya,’ says Ursa’s oldest sister.

‘Adrienn,’ says Ursa.

‘Welcome home,’ says Adrienn, disappearing into the kitchen. That was definitely implication, Ursa infers.

Sarolt reappears, with Imrus, Ursa’s father, in tow. He’s wearing an apron that says simply ‘I AM GRILLING’. Imrus, though large, is not an overly-complicated man.

He isn’t actually grilling now, though, instead he’s scooping Ursa up in vigourous yet careful hug. ‘Solya!’ he cries. ‘Welcome home!’

It’s the first use of this phrase that doesn’t sound like an I-told-you-so, so Ursa accepts it at face value. But as her head passes her father’s shoulder, she spots a banner that’s been strung up over the French doors leading to the garden.

WELCOME HOME ORSOLYA

‘Alright, okay,’ says Ursa, when she’s back on solid earth. ‘I think you might have… mistaken the reason I’m visiting.’ She leads her parents into the living room, away from where Adrienn would almost certainly be eavesdropping in the kitchen.

‘And I’m honestly really touched by the warmth of the welcome! Though, uh the banner is a lot,’ she continues. ‘But I’m not moving back here!’

‘Solya,’ says Sarolt, putting an arm around Imrus in a your-parents-understand gesture. ‘There’s no shame in coming home if things didn’t work out for you in Middlemarch.’

‘That’s what I’m saying, Mama, things have worked out really well! I’ve got work, well, I did, and I’ve moved out of the studio into somewhere nice!’

‘Orsolya, your internet videos aren’t work. It could go up in smoke at any time, you need something more substantial! How are you affording to–‘

‘And I met someone!’ blurts Ursa, relying more on momentum than bravery to get the admission out there.

There’s a beat.

‘Wow, Solya, that’s–‘ begins Imrus, but Sarolt cuts him off.

‘It must have been hard to find another Changeling in a city where you don’t know anyone, especially without the help of your family,’ she says. Her eyes are very narrow.

‘Well, that wasn’t an issue because he’s not a Changeling.’

‘…What is he, then?’

‘He’s a Demon.’

‘What, Orsolya?’

‘He’s a Demon?’

‘You have to speak up, Orsolya, I can’t–‘

‘He’s a Demon!’ says Ursa, finally.

Ursa’s mother says nothing, which is interrupted moments later by a knock at the front door. Ursa goes to answer, with her parents floating along behind her like a pair of stunned zeppelins.

‘Mama, Tata,’ says Ursa as she opens the door. ‘This is Azoth Alkahest.’

Alkahest gives a little wave from the doorstep. He’s making a conscious effort not to slip into his persona of swaggering insouciance – even though that worked out quite well in Ikea, and almost every union meeting he’d arranged – but the only alternative that leaves him with is a sort of awkward self-awareness.

‘Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter,’ he says. ‘It’s uh, a pleasure to meet you both?’

Imrus seems unsure, but gives a smile regardless, ready to shake a hand (firmly). Sarolt, however:

‘Oh, I’m getting a work call,’ she says, flatly. ‘I just need to take this. Excuse me.’

She pushes past Alkahest and vanishes from the porch, arms pumping like she’s in a military parade.

There’s a distinct sound that Ursa last heard just before being whisked away to Fae court; the sound of two engines approaching. It’s actually funny how the dread she feels now is somehow worse than the dread she felt then, when agreeing to take the fall for a crime she didn’t commit. Well, it’s funny if you aren’t Ursa.

Merlin and Nora arrive near-simultaneously, with Nora parking her bike and taking off her helmet – quickly replacing it with her baseball cap – and Merlin skimming to a stop before folding up his scooter and stuffing it into a bag. It bulges weirdly. He really should invest in a Bag of Holding or something.

‘Uh, these are my work friends I told you about,’ says Ursa, still reeling from her vanished Mama. Imrus continues to smile.

‘Come on in,’ he says, even to Alkahest. ‘My Wife’s just had to step out for a work call, but I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. You all hungry?’

‘I thought your Mother owned her own business?’ asks Merlin, following him inside and eyeing the craftsmanship of all the furniture. He either ignores or doesn’t notice Ursa’s hissing at him.

Merlin has brought an apple pie. His own mother suggested it was the proper thing to do, and though the good manners she’d tried to drum into him hadn’t really stuck, undermined as they were by her insistence on him wearing little costumes in family photos, he certainly retained enough to respect the laws of soiree-equivalent-exchange.

‘It’s from Marks & Spencer,’ he said, enticingly.

Ursa’s family is introduced.

There’s the previously-encountered Adrienn, who takes over hostess-duties in Sarolt’s sudden absence, ferrying plates around, and reminding everyone to leave room for zrazy, and asking if people have drinks. Her somewhat haughty demeanour ensures that nobody wants too much help. She occasionally smirks at Ursa.

Imrus has manned the barbecue once more, pillar of masculine authority that he is. Which is to say, he’s happy to stand quietly to one side and make sure that all the grill lines on the sausages and burgers are perfectly defined. He’s a details man, despite being the largest person any of the visitors have seen that isn’t a literal Minotaur.

One of Ursa’s brothers, Zente, was already there before Ursa arrived. He’s on a chair in the shade in the garden, playing Fate/ Grand Order on his phone. Merlin remarks that he didn’t think that was available in the EU, but Zente only mumbles something inaudible and keeps his head down. His fiancé is nowhere to be seen.

Actually, Adrienn’s partner is conspicuously absent too. It’s almost as if Ursa was the only one allowed to bring guests. Maybe it was an attempt to make her more comfortable moving back home, a little triumph offered to her as she brought along a little piece of the city she’d failed to find a foothold in.

Since she wasn’t moving back home, it just makes her guests feel all the more awkward. As Ursa bickers with Adrienn about nothing, they sort of huddle in a corner, despite the half-hearted enmity certain members of the huddle have for one another.

‘How you doing, anyway, Merlin?’ asks Alkahest. ‘Bullet wound healing up okay?’

‘It’s quite alright. I’d actually near-forgotten about it until you mentioned it, thank you.’

Alkahest nods. He appears to be, in sociological terms, “freaking out”. ‘Damn. Sorry. Maybe, if you, you gotta keep your strength up, you know? Have you eaten enough? You need sausages. We gotta get you some more sausages.’

‘I’m fine on sausages, Dem– I mean, Alkahest.’

Arriving shortly after is Panna. They don’t have a significant other, so the absence of one is not conspicuous. They take in the energy of the assembly and the lack of one parent, and immediately go to Ursa to find out what the craic is. She explains in sheepish tones.

With a lull in requests for sausages, Imrus has turned his back to the others and paces from side to side with his phone to his ear. Nora watches, as Ursa introduces her sibling to Alkahest, tone of voice reaching a pitch exclusive to canine radio.

Imrus’ phone call is a little intense. Nora pricks her hearing to catch his half, and finds herself wishing she could hear the other end of it.

Actually…

Your wish is my command, says the Morris Worm from her wrist, as she draws on its power to cast Remote Access. A holographic projection of Imrus’ phone appears in her hand, and she quietly puts it to her own ear. She hears Sarolt’s voice within, and Imrus’ responses from her other side.

‘…But I don’t understand why you can’t come back now,’ Imrus was saying. ‘It was a weird excuse, but I understand if you needed to step away and get your bearings. And you could easily just say it was a problem with a supplier and it’s all fixed now?’

Sarolt’s voice is sour, not so much in a peevish way, but more like someone with actual heartburn. ‘It’s not like that,’ she says. ‘I’m on my way back now. Though if that was it, I’d still be in my rights! It’s bad enough that he isn’t a Changeling, but you know that Demon-Fae relationships either go Bonnie-and-Clyde or Dracula-and-Renfield. I don’t want that for our–‘

‘Żabcia, we’re not from close enough to Chaos to fall into archetypes like that,’ says Imrus, gently. Nora isn’t certain what żabcia means; Imrus seems to have plundered the Polish language for pet names as well as his family’s Caliber-Institute-fabricated immigration story when they first came to the Fulcrum world.

‘No, I know, I just… do you know who that is? It’s Azoth fucking Alkahest. He tried to kill Margaret fucking Thatcher! I was there, for fuck’s sake! I don’t know what the fuck his game is, but I couldn’t find anything at the office other than some shit about the Summer Court being out for his blood. Fuck.’

‘You went all the way to…’ Imrus looks around, lowering his voice. ‘Your other job?’

‘Yeah, and a fat lot of good it did. I’m sorry, mysiu-pysiu. I’ll be back in fifteen. Just… keep an eye on Solya, will you?’

‘I am.’ Imrus’ eyes drift to Ursa, as she tells Panna about her bouquet of chocolate roses. ‘She looks happy, pączusia.’

The phone beeps as the call ends, and Nora lets her spell trickle away through her fingers.

⁂

The last Carpenter to arrive is Edvin, who marches in wearing shorts and a backpack taller than his torso. There’s mud coming up to his ankles, and he announces he got a bit lost on the hike he’d taken to work up an appetite. He sits down with approximately all of the remaining food, except for Merlin’s pie.

When Sarolt reappears, there’s a clear tension in her shoulders. She announces that there was indeed a problem with a supplier, and it was indeed all fixed now. She offers to sort out the pie, and ducks away into the kitchen after showing her face again for all of thirty seconds.

Nora cannot help but follow.

She shuts the kitchen door behind her. ‘Need any help with that?’ she says.

Sarolt starts, but calms herself. There’s a large knife in her hand. It’s for the pie, though. ‘Ah it’s alright… Nora, was it?’

‘Yeah, Nora,’ says Nora. ‘Though I sometimes go by “mysiu-pysiu“.’

The knife goes still.

‘What is it you do for the Institute?’ continues Nora. ‘I tried to look you up in the employee records, but I’m assuming you used a pseudonym?’

Nora had not-too-subtly brought up Alkahest’s assassination attempt from the end of the 80’s, and he’d been too frazzled to question the non-sequitur.

‘Yeah, I got a rifle and everything,’ he’d laughed. ‘Didn’t end so good for me. The Caliber Institute got wind of it, actually, and sent some guys to kick my ass.’

‘What happened?’ asked Nora.

‘They kicked my ass.’

‘So you remember it pretty clearly?’

‘Oh boy, yeah. My ribs definitely do, at least. Why d’you ask?’

‘I asked him about trying to kill Thatcher, you know,’ Nora adds. ‘He didn’t seem to remember anyone that matched your description.’

Sarolt takes a steaming breath inwards, and slowly, carefully, gets back to cutting the pie. ‘I keep my work life and my home life meticulously distinct,’ she says.

She pushes past Nora and through the kitchen door.

As Nora follows her back to the garden, they emerge to see that Imrus has picked Alkahest up bodily, his massive frame dwarfing the black-and-white Fiend’s. Ursa’s face is pinker than her hair. It’s clearly embarrassment, not shock, and soon Alkahest has been crushed into a massive hug.

‘I can’t believe it!’ booms Imrus. He actually seems close to tears. ‘I never thought..! Even Adrienn didn’t get to do the ritual!!’

When he finally relinquishes his grip, he brings his hands down to place one on Ursa’s shoulder, and one on Alkahest’s. Behind them, he sees Sarolt with the pie.

‘Pączusia!’ he calls to her. ‘You’ll never guess what these two have been up to! Tell her, Solya!’

Both Ursa and Alkahest too have gone pink by the time Sarolt comes over. It looks a little out of place on him.

Ursa won’t meet her eye, but her voice isn’t quite as small as earlier. She’s fiddling with a ring Sarolt hadn’t noticed before.

‘We, uh, did the Verslovian Ritual,’ she says.

‘Just like we did!’ laughs Imrus. ‘Though, unlike some people, I didn’t resort to licking zebra crossings.’

Alkahest’s face goes an incandescent red as Imrus gives him a good natured clap on the back.

Sarolt doesn’t seem to share her husband’s enthusiasm. She looks from Ursa, to Alkahest, then over to Nora off on one side.

She hesitates, but steels herself. ‘How did the two of you meet?’ she asks.

‘Oh, uh,’ begins Ursa, now not only refusing to make eye contact but also refusing to look in whatever cardinal direction Sarolt occupied. ‘Well. We met on a job. Uh, I’ve actually been doing some work for the, uh, Caliber Institute?’

She gives an apologetic grin to a patch of nearby grass.

Sarolt is near-incandescent. ‘What?! You can’t be—what would possibly possess you to join up with the Institute?!’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to, but the Director sort of implied that you and Tata might get in trouble because of me if I didn’t.’

‘And you still chose to pledge yourself to a place like that?!’

Now Ursa’s voice was growing hot. ‘I was trying to make sure you’d be okay!’

‘And look how that’s worked out,’ said Sarolt, looking pointedly at Alkahest.

Ursa steps into the path of her glare. ‘Excuse me, Alkahest is more than okay! In fact, working for the Institute was working out pretty well for me! I’m doing well, Mama! You just refuse to admit it because you want to keep me here so you can all feel like you’re better than me!’

‘Solya, I will not have you speak to me like that. You’re acting like a child. And you wouldn’t be so ready to defend the Caliber Institute if you knew the dangers of it.’

‘And how would you know the dangers of it! You–‘

‘Because I’ve worked for it for thirty-six years!‘

Sarolt realises what she’s said in the heat of their argument a little bit too late. Ursa is looking at her with the expression of someone who just found a tooth in their soup.

‘…You—you hypocrite!!’

This time, when Sarolt leaves, she doesn’t bother with an excuse.

A Car Ride, the Sushi Date and a LOTR Marathon.

It was absolutely silent in the car as they drove through different worlds to head home. Ursa had sat in the front, hoping to get a chance to talk to Alkahest, but she could feel Nora and Merlin’s eyes on her. They weren’t saying anything in the back. Elene was quiet too. She was so grateful they had all come to rescue her and so happy she could call them her friends, but right now she wished she’d been all ‘Hey I can make my own way home!’ and ran in the opposite direction.

And what would she even say to Alkahest anyway! He had said he loved her, what??? Ursa felt like that was a huge jump, he’d only just gotten her flowers yesterday, saying she hadn’t overstepped with that tiny peck of a kiss, it was too good to be true. Obviously, she was head over heels for him, she couldn’t deny that, but how could she believe he felt the same??? And the Verslovian ritual??? They were kinda, a little bit engaged??? And he seemed ok with that??? Ursa could hear him say ‘is it too soon for that?’ over and over again in her head. This couldn’t be happening. 

This was probably part of the punishment, a perfect moment before everything came crashing down, so the fall hit even harder. Or maybe she actually had been executed and in her dying moments her brain concocted this amazing scenario where everyone cared about her and everything was exactly as she wanted, to give her some comfort before the abyss. 

But as she worried, Alkahest kept looking over at her, with this big, goofy grin on his face, that got even wider if he caught her eye. The butterflies in her stomach were huge. She’d do anything to make this be real, pay any price to have this be reality. 

‘Keep your eyes on the road, omg.’ She whispered, unable to stop smiling as she looked at him. He didn’t reply, he just chuckled, grinning at her. If they had been alone, she wondered what’d she say to him. 

But a cough from the back – probably not a deliberate one, but still – reminded her that they were definitely not alone. 

She pulled her gaze away, smiling bashfully, before twisting in her seat to look at her friends. 

‘Hey, so what happened while I was gone?’ she asked, talking too quickly, wanting to avoid any awkwardness. ‘That weird old lady said you went through some shit, and you all look pretty beat up. Did a building really explode on you???’ Even though Ursa said ‘all’ it was only really Merlin and Alkahest covered in blood, and she was a little afraid they’d been at each other’s throats. The look the three of them shared before answering practically confirmed it. 

Between them, they gave Ursa a fairly accurate cliff notes version, leaving out the bits where they beat the shit out of each other and Merlin stabbed an old lady multiple times, of course. 

‘You all just… agreed to work with each other? With no fighting?’ Ursa asked incredulously. 

‘Yes, we just… talked.’ Nora replied flatly. 

‘We had a very civil conversation.’ Alkahest added, grinning. 

Merlin stayed very quiet. 

‘Well, that’s nice.’ Ursa didn’t believe them for a moment. ‘I really owe you guys, thanks so much for coming to rescue me!’ 

‘You’re welcome.’ Merlin replied. 

‘Don’t do it again.’ Nora added, hesitating, ‘Please.’ She crossed her arms and was suddenly very focused on something outside the window. 

‘Yeah, it is not fun at fae court, don’t want to repeat. Hey, let me treat you guys to dinner soon yeah? Since I dunno if I’ll be coming back to the institute yet, I’ve made us a group chat!’ She shows Merlin and Nora her phone, a chat named ‘Besties!’ and Ursa had already sent a list of restaurant recommendations and a gif of a cat dancing while wearing a sombrero. 

Nora groaned loudly. 

‘Hey, sorry to interrupt, but we’re back in fulcrum; where does everyone want dropping?’ Alkahest called out, the scenery outside finally familiar. Everyone gave a little sigh of relief. 

‘Just anywhere near the centre.’ Nora replied coldly. 

‘Yeah, that’s fine with me.’ Merlin added, sounding equally as icy. 

Ursa pouted a little, she had hoped that they might have bonded a little over all of this, but they seemed extremely eager to get out of this car. She realised they were all looking at her. 

Uh oh. 

‘Are you going back to Strych’s?’ Ursa asked Alkahest innocently, suddenly acutely aware of her lack of plans and/or home to return to. 

‘Aw shit, yeah, I gotta apologise about the chimney-‘ 

The silence was tense. 

In the back, Elene blinked, looking confused. 

‘Why, what did you do to their chimney?’ Ursa asked, sweet voice more than a little strained. 

Alkahest panicked, unable to stop his eyes from darting back to Merlin. ‘Oh, you know, it got a little, uh, damaged, during our, uh, very civil and non-violent conversation!’ 

Ursa turned to glare at Nora and Merlin, and Nora cracked first. 

‘Hey, nothing to do with me, I didn’t even shoot him!’ She didn’t add that she had wanted to. 

‘I wouldn’t have destroyed the chimney if Alkahest had just died first,’ Merlin muttered. 

‘MERLIN!’ 

‘Come on, Ursa, what’s a little Witch Bolt between pals!’ Alkahest joked, trying to de-escalate the rage slowly building in the car, but stopped as Ursa gave him a pointed look. 

‘Look, it was pretty obvious you were gonna fight, I’m not gonna get mad that you tried to murder Alkahest,’ said Ursa through clenched teeth, sounding like someone who was definitely getting mad about that very thing. ‘But you HAVE to apologise to Strych, you can’t just blow up their house! They hadn’t done anything!’ 

Merlin shifted in his seat uncomfortably. ‘They were hiding a fugitive.’ 

‘MERLIN!’ 

‘Oh look, here’s our stop.’ Nora said, opening the car door and dragging Merlin out with her. 

‘MERLIN WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS LATER!’ Ursa screeched after them, furiously starting to message in the group chat, using lots of red faced emojis. 

‘I’m gonna go too,’ Elene said. ‘Thanks for the ride.’ 

‘Elene— wait,’ Ursa exclaimed, hastily changing her face. ‘Let me give you my phone number; we should hang out! Thanks so much for all your help with the trial, I really owe you!’ 

‘Nah, it was a really interesting case.’ Elene said smoothly and Ursa blushed, remembering how she had bungled a lot of it. She still couldn’t believe she let them read all those texts. How the Hell had she made it out alive? Elene hefted her baseball bat and smiled. ‘While I’m in town lets grab coffee or something, yeah?’ 

‘Oh my God, yes, 100%!’ Ursa replied happily, waving as Elene got out the car. Incredible, she’d gone from having no friends to three friends and… well, whatever Alkahest was. Boyfriend? Partner? Fiancée?? That last one made her blush. 

‘Do you, uh, want dropping anywhere?’ Alkahest asked quietly.  

‘Can I come to Strych’s? I want to apologise on Merlin’s behalf,’ Ursa replied, a little too quickly. 

She should just tell him, Hey, I kinda thought I’d be stuck in court for ages so I moved out just in case but now I feel silly since it was just a day but also I have nowhere to live now, wanna get a room with me somewhere? 

But he’d already gone through hell and back to get her, it’d be unfair to add more to his plate. She could figure something out. She always did. If this was real, she didn’t want to push her luck. 

‘Yeah, course,’ he replied, seeming happy enough, so Ursa went back to her phone. She could get a hotel for a few nights, if it was cheap enough, she’d still have some deposit money for another apartment… 

Her thoughts trickled off. The silence was too distracting. 

They were finally alone. 

Ursa gulped and put her phone down. 

‘Um, I didn’t get a chance to say it during the trial or after, you know, with everything going on but…’ She took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding so loudly she could barely hear what she was saying. ‘I, um, I love you too. I just, um, wanted you to know, y’know? Cause you said it first, and, um, I don’t want you to—’ 

Alkahest didn’t say anything in response, interrupting her by reaching over for her hand, kissing each knuckle gently. With each touch of his lips, her worries melted away. Maybe this was real. Maybe he did feel the same. Her heart felt like it was about to burst with joy. They stayed like that for a while, silently beaming at each other. Ursa felt like they were in their own little world. And she never wanted to leave. 

* 

She tried her best not to say anything as they pulled up to Strych’s, but Ursa’s eyes went very wide when she saw the destruction and debris scattered around the garden. Even in the dark it looked really fucking bad. 

‘Omg, Merlin actually tried to fucking murder you,’ she whispered. 

Alkahest just laughed, shrugging. ‘It’s fine.’ 

Ursa did not think it was fine. 

Strych must have seen the two pull up, as they were already waiting outside with their arms crossed, smoke wafting in from the open door and the cigarette in their hand, sneering at them as they got out the car. ‘What is that monstrosity on my driveway? Are you on the run from Vic Sulph now too?’ 

‘Nah, he’s dead,’ Alkahest answered cheerfully. 

‘Well then.’ Strych turned to Ursa, with a dry smile.  ‘Ursa, it’s nice to see you’ve not been executed.’ 

‘Yeah thanks, I love not being executed, or having my memories erased or being locked up forever!’ Ursa said with a laugh, before taking on a more serious face. ‘I’m so, so, so sorry about your poor chimney, I never thought Merlin would do something like that.’ 

Strych sighed deeply. ‘You don’t need to apologise, it wasn’t you.’ There was a nasty glint in their eyes. ‘I’ll make sure to never laugh at his jokes again.’ 

Ursa laughed, but Strych didn’t. 

‘Does this mean I can kick you the fuck out?’ They asked Alkahest, hands on hips. Ursa stepped back a little while they talked and got her phone out again, continuing her search for a place to stay. 

‘Yeah, thanks for letting me hide out here, I really appreciate it.’ Alkahest replied, smiling warmly at Strych. The warmth was not reciprocated. 

‘You owe me,’ Strych said matter-of-factly. 

‘Big time, I know,’ he laughed. 

‘Where are you going to go?’ Strych asked, sounding disinterested, examining their claw-like nails. ‘If you’re staying in Middlemarch for a bit, you’ve got a couple of safe houses, right? What about that place near Chinatown? It’s halfway decent. Livable.’ 

‘Oh yeah, good ide—’ 

‘Invite Ursa too, since she’s googling hotels for some reason.’ 

‘Eh?’ 

They were both staring and Ursa felt herself flush as she put her phone away, laughing nervously.

‘Oh, um, I figured the fey stuff would take… well, more than a day anyway, so I kinda… quit my job, put all my stuff in storage, cancelled all my bills, moved out, updated my will… you know…  normal stuff…’ 

‘Wow, you were really prepared.’ 

‘Yeahhhhh…’ She couldn’t look at him, twisting her hair round her finger anxiously. 

‘Do you… Do you wanna move in with me?’ Alkahest asked, and he looked so happy Ursa’s chest actually hurt. 

‘I mean, I don’t want to be a hassle,’ she was already saying it without even thinking, shrinking away like she always did, even though she just desperately wanted to scream yes. ‘I can easy just—’ 

‘UGH,’ Strych interrupted, looking absolutely disgusted. ‘He wants you to. You want to. Move in together and get the fuck off my lawn!’ They turned to head back; their stomping lessened by the fact that they were wearing slippers. 

Ursa looked up at Alkahest with a shy smile, the two of them blushing as their fingers interlocked. She took a deep breath. 

‘Um, I would really like that. If you’re sure its ok.’ 

‘Yeah, that’s totally cool with me.’ He replied too quickly, too excitedly. He paused. ‘I haven’t been there in a while so it might be a total shithole, sorry. If you don’t like it, we can always look for something else together.’ 

Ursa laughed and was about to say something stupid, but Strych interrupted them again. 

‘Actually… there’s something I should mention.’ They’d stopped just a few feet away, and turned back towards them. They seemed hesitant, something remarkably out of character. ‘Panacea came by.’ 

‘Oh shit.’ Alkahest said, taking a step closer towards Ursa. ‘Did she say what she wanted?’ 

‘Just wanted to know if I’d seen you. Apparently, her ‘twin-sense’ isn’t working.’ 

‘Wait you’re twins??’ Ursa gasped. 

‘Yeah, kinda, we don’t really look alike though. And she’s just good at scrying, she calls it her twin sense to fuck with people.’ He reached under his shirt to pull out the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location that Ursa had given him a few days ago – although it felt like much longer— ‘Thanks again for the amulet Ursa, big relief if Panacea can’t track me anymore! That should keep her off my back for a little bit—’ 

‘Alkahest.’ Strych interrupted, their expression dire. ‘She knows about Ursa.’ 

He blinked. And then blinked again. And blinked several more times very rapidly. ‘She what?’ 
 
Strych didn’t bother rolling their eyes. ‘Panacea seems to know about Ursa.’  
 
More blinking.  
 
Ursa looked up at him in confusion, not quite sure what was causing his brain malfunction. ‘Is that bad?’ 
 
‘No!’ His voice sounded squeaky and taut. ‘Of course not. That’s fine. Totally fine. What did she say, exactly?’  
 
‘She just asked if I had met your new girlfriend yet.’  
 
‘How did she know?’ Ursa asked quizzically, ‘we’ve only been official for maybe two hours?’ She had a brief panic that they weren’t official yet and she was overstepping, but put it to one side because you can’t do the Verslovian ritual with someone and not be official.  
 
Strych took a deep drag of their cigarette. ‘I assume it has something to do with that flashy Summer Court Trial you were just in?’ 
 
Alkahest laughed in a way that sounded tortured. ‘Did she say anything else?’  
 
Strych hesitated; or rather, might have hesitated or might have just been taking another drag of their cigarette. ‘I think her exact words were “Isn’t Orsolya such a pretty name?” to which I replied “who the fuck is that?”’ Strych jabbed at Ursa’s chest. ‘I assume that’s you.’’ 
 
Ursa took a step back, partly from the force of Strych’s fingers and partly from the chill that sent the hairs on the back of her neck up. She looked at Alkahest nervously. ‘How does she know my… Actual name?’  
 
Alkahest’s face seemed to fold in on itself, much like a certain muppet, before his mouth opened, and opened, until he had his game face on. ‘It’s fine, this is fine. I can keep her away from Ursa.’ 
 
Strych snorted. ‘That’s the big plan? Hide Ursa in a box every time Panacea gets close?’ 
 
‘Yes. No! …Do you think that would work?’ 
 
‘Am I missing something here?’ Ursa chimed in, not particularly liking the sound of being shoved in a box, ‘She’s your sister, I assumed I’d have to meet her at some point. You’re gonna have to meet my family, sorry in advance.’  
 
The eyes in his maw squinted in fear. ‘No, you can’t, Pan’s too—’ He faltered, swiveling towards Styrch, ‘You just can’t.’ He said finally, sounding strangled.  
 
Ursa suddenly had a very bad feeling.  
 
‘Can’t? Like, ever? At all?’  
 
‘Uhhhhhhhhhh… Yeah, that’d be for the best.’ 
 
‘Really?’ Strych said with a snort. The eyes in Alkahest’s maw just glared at them.  
 
‘Should I be worried?’ Asked Ursa, although she was already very worried.  
 
‘No.’  
 
‘Yes.’ 
 
Strych and Alkahest said simultaneously.  
 
They stared each other down. Alkahest gulped. ‘You’re right, Strych, there’s nothing to worry about, if I can keep Panacea away from her.’  
 
‘Emphasis on if.’  
 
Ursa was starting to get really freaked out now. ‘I know she’s the “evil” twin, but… is she really that dangerous?’ 
 
‘Wait,’ Strych said slowly, peering into Alkahest’s maw in disdain, ‘Have you not told her?’ 
 
‘Told me what?’
 
‘Look, I thought she’d be stuck in that infernomicon for at least half a century, and I’d have time to prepare and get her to not…’ He looked over to Ursa.  ‘y’know.’ 
 
Strych raised their eyebrows at him. ‘Well? Are you gonna tell her, or should I?’  
 
Ursa felt like the earth beneath her was about to swallow her up. Her own family baggage was dramatic enough, it must be so much worse with demons. Maybe her family would seem normal in comparison.  
 
‘Look, Ursa, my sister… she uh…’ He couldn’t seem to bring himself to finish the sentence.  
 
Strych sighed dramatically. ‘She’s broken up every relationship he’s ever had.’  
 
What.  
 
Ursa couldn’t help but laugh, a little manically, that hadn’t been what she was expecting at all.
 
‘What?’
 
‘Yeah, seduces them, causes as messy a break up as she can and then ditches them when she gets bored.’
 
Ursa looked from Strych to Alkahest, mouth agape.
 
‘What, every single one?’
 
‘Yep.’ Alkahest replied, looking the most uncomfortable she’d ever seen him.
 
‘Wow, ok– wait, WAIT! STRYCH!’ Ursa covered her mouth in horror.
 
Strych took another deep drag of their cigarette. ‘Yes, Ursa, that includes me.’
 
‘Panacea is the reason you two broke up???’ Ursa exclaimed, unable to keep her voice down.
 
‘No.’  
 
‘Yes.’ 
 
Strych groaned. ‘There were several reasons why we broke up, let’s not dredge it all up now.’ They looked pointedly at Ursa.  
 
‘Yeah. Loads of reasons. One of them being that you fucked my sister.’ His voice was less jittery but now there was an edge to it, as if he were trying to make it sound like a joke and failing utterly.
 
Strych didn’t seem fussed. They blew smoke into his maw, drawling, ‘Well, if you want to be specific, she fucked me but—’ 
 
‘Fuck you, Strych, you’re not helping!’
 
‘No thanks.’ 
 
‘Hey, time out,’ Ursa laughed nervously, getting between the two of them in an attempt to ease the tension, ‘seriously, is she just going to hit on me?’  
 
Strych blinked. ‘It’s more complex than that. But, essentially, yes.’ 
 
‘Oh thank goodness! You were making it sound like she was going to hunt me down and eat me or something!’  
 
‘Or something.’ Strych muttered.  
 
‘Anyway, if all she’s going to do is bat her eyelashes at me, that’s much more manageable!’ 
 
‘Manageable?’ Alkahest’s surge of rage had already dissipated, he was back to being squeaky and shaky. ‘Ursa, she’s not manageable, you’ll take one look at her and—’  
 
‘She is the hot twin.’ Strych said almost cheerfully.  
 
‘Still not helping, Strych.’ Alkahest growled.  
 
‘OK, so she’s hot and scary, whatever. I don’t fall for every hot demon I meet. Or else Strych would be in trouble too. And Erabu. Why are there so many hot demons? Jeeze.’ 
 
Alkahest stepped towards her, touching her shoulders gently, with shaking hands, ‘You haven’t met her, you don’t get it, it’s not just looks she just has this— Panacea is— She’s just—’ He couldn’t find the words, shaking his head, the eyes in his maw more sorrowful than she could have imagined. Ursa felt a hole open up in her chest. She pulled him into a hug without thinking. He started a little, looking over to Strych before reciprocating.  
 
When she pulled away, his game face had gone and he was beet red, unable to look at her or at Strych. He took a quick step back. Maybe he didn’t like PDA or maybe it was Strych’s murderous glare. 
‘Hey, so,’ She said quietly— Strych could probably still hear her, but they’d have to strain their ears a bit, ‘I get the feeling this is like… a really big deal and now is probably not the best time to talk about it?’ 
 
He looked like he was about to say something, before flushing more and nodding ashamedly. ‘Sorry.’ He managed.  
 
Ursa shook her head, giving him the warmest smile she could muster. ‘I mean, we all have baggage, don’t worry! I bet you’re excited to get into mine.’ He didn’t laugh at that, but there was a half-hearted smile. She reached out for his hands gently— he’d have to put up with a little PDA. ‘But, yeah you really don’t need to fret, ok? I meant what I said before, in the car. I love you. And…’ She flushed a little herself, looking up at him bashfully, ‘I’ve never felt this way about someone before, didn’t really think I was capable of feeling this way…. So, yeah, you’re kinda stuck with me.’ She squeezed his hands with a laugh, ‘And not just ‘cause we did an ancient changeling engagement ritual.’  
 
That did make him laugh, and she was suddenly reminded of the first video he had sent her, laughing at her terrible pronunciation. Her heart fluttered— it had been doing that a lot since she had met him— as she couldn’t stop herself from smiling widely. Him laughing, making him laugh? That was her jam. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear Saubra pretend-retching and she had to stifle a giggle. 
 

Strych looked about as appreciative, having had quite enough. ‘You’re both revolting, I wish I had never helped you, get out of my sight.’ 

Alkahest laughed, moving towards the house. ‘Ok, sorry Strych, I’ll just grab my stuff and we’ll be out of your hair.’ 

Strych moved to go inside but hesitated again, looking back at Ursa. ‘Do you… want a cup of tea? 

Ursa lit up, running to catch up. ‘Omg, yes please, thanks so much Strych!’ 

‘Well, you know where the kitchen is.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

* 

The apartment was a little way out of the city centre – closer than Ursa’s old apartment anyway – and the building Alkahest had brought her to seemed to be a vacant shopping complex. On the drive past, Ursa could have sworn there had been a woolworths sign, but it couldn’t have been vacant for that long, surely. There was a little multi-storey parking lot connected, and as they walked up the stairs to the apartments, Ursa started getting very nervous. 

Firstly, because it smelt like piss – most multi-storey carpark stairs did but still – he’d said it was a shithole, what if he was taking her somewhere gross??? What if it was dirty??? She didn’t know how demons lived, Strych’s house was always smoky, what if Alkahest’s was covered in blood or worse – and secondly because she was suddenly very aware she had agreed to move in with him. Her thoughts were lightning fast, full of insecurities and worries, they hadn’t spent any real time together outside of texting, there was so much you didn’t learn about a person until you lived together, what if he hated how she chewed???? What if he had an annoying habit that she couldn’t deal with???? What if their relationship crumbled because they’d only ever been in high adrenaline situations before and couldn’t be around each other normally? This was only the third time they’d ever met in person. He was going to dump her for sure. 

‘Hey, you ok? This is it.’ 

Ursa came back to her senses. They were stood in front of a door. It seemed normal enough. The smell of piss had rescinded. ‘Yeah sorry, bit nervous. Ha ha.’ 

He smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘Me too.’ 

Then he placed his hand on the door. A sigil appeared and the door clicked open. 

Ursa’s jaw dropped open. ‘Holy shit, magic door!’ 

‘Yeah, I’ll add you to the lock, don’t worry.’ 

‘My old place just… had a key.’ 

‘And you’re still alive? Amazing.’ He motioned to the door. ‘You wanna go in?’ 

‘Y-yeah!’ Ursa said nervously, pushing the door open, eyes squeezing shut as she took a deep breath, preparing herself for the worst. 

She was pleasantly surprised. 

‘Oh.’ 

It was quite modern, looked like one of those new build houses, all beige and cream, opening out onto an open plan kitchen-diner-living-room. It was a little impersonal, but the only complaint Ursa could make was that everything was covered in cat hair. Which was, well, it was weird, but certainly manageable. 

‘Woah, woah, woah, WOAH!’ Ursa said excitedly, eyes sparkling with glee. ‘This is so nice? It’s like, twice the size of my old apartment?’ 

Alkahest put his bags down, smiling. ‘There’s the upstairs too.’ 

‘HOLY SHIT!’ 

‘It’s a bit, uh, plain, with safe houses, you make a persona for them, like a fake owner. Helps protect against scrying. I can’t remember who I made for here. Think she had cats?’ 

Ursa laughed, spying some empty food bowls in the kitchen. ‘That explains why everything is covered in cat hair!’ 

‘We’ll do a deep clean tomorrow, after we go get your stuff.’ Alkahest paused, cheeks turning pink. ‘I normally don’t stay in safe houses for long but… if you’re happy, I can drop the persona, maybe get Strych to ward it… we can… y’know… Make it home.’ 

Ursa clapped her hands together, spinning on the spot, absolutely ecstatic. ‘Oh my god, can we decorate together?’ 

‘Yeah.’ He smiled, perching on the end of a comfy looking sofa, watching her squeal with glee as she rushed about, looking at everything. He started to fidget a little. The smile faded. He sighed. ‘Hey, Ursa?’ 

‘Hmm?’ She turned towards him, hesitating at his mellow expression. 

‘Next time shit hits the fan… Please, please just talk to me. I was real fuckin’ scared when I got that text… Don’t leave me in the dark again, ok?’ He sounded so… vulnerable. Ursa’s throat went dry. 

She gulped, hands suddenly sweaty. ‘I 100% promise you, I wouldn’t have done that unless it was necessary. The institute was gonna force me to talk to Cat shit, I couldn’t— I had to go from plan d to like… plan y.’ 

‘You had that many plans?’ Alkahest chuckled, although it was much more subdued than usual. 

‘No, mostly just bad ideas.’ She admitted. ‘You should be glad I didn’t have to resort to my last, last resort.’ With a click of her fingers and a little spin, she transformed into Alkahest, complete with a white and black suit. ‘Just in case they didn’t buy me being the murderer. They probs would have figured out I was a fake but, hey! Beggers and choosers and all that.’ She even sounded like him. 

Alkahest just stared at her, wide eyed. 

She turned back to herself, sheepishly. ‘Sorry, that was probably weird, I—’ 

‘Why’d you— Ursa, you—’ He couldn’t seem to get his words together, his hand over his mouth. ‘Why were you so ready to fuckin’ die for me?’ 

‘Hey,’ Ursa crossed her arms, frowning, ‘I didn’t go into this wanting to die? I worked my ass off to get out alive! I got execution taken off the fucking table!’ 

‘Really?’ 

‘Yeah! I mean…’ She hesitated. ‘Cat shit did want to erase my memories instead, which is kinda worse in some ways…’ Ursa trailed off, a deep pit in her stomach, her worries knotting together tighter and tighter. ‘I… I am sorry for not talking it out with you. There were probably better options but… I didn’t have time. I knew you’d worry; I didn’t even want to tell you anything to be honest, I was gonna lie and just say I was just busy with work… But I couldn’t so… yeah…’ He was still silent. She stepped closer, as close as she dared. ‘I really don’t want you to be mad, I promise, I would’ve done things differently if the circumstances weren’t dire.’ 

‘I’m not mad, please don’t worry, sorry,’ with a sigh he stood back up and reached out for her, she practically ran into his open arms. ‘Sorry, Ursa, I just don’t want you to get hurt because of me. You’re fucking amazing, doing all of this and I… I never…’ he squeezed her tighter. ‘I never want to lose you.’ 

‘I promise next time we’ll talk first, yeah? I won’t hide anything. We’re a team.’ Ursa said with a little sniff, burying her face into his chest. 

‘Hell yeah.’ He said softly with a smile, holding her gently. 

‘But… I can’t promise…’ She looked up at him, voice wobbling. ‘I can’t promise I won’t do this again. Sorry, I’d do anything if it kept you safe. I’d give myself up to the fae in a heartbeat every time.’ 

Alkahest stroked her face with a rueful smile. ‘I mean… you were right before. I would’ve done the same for you. I know I came in guns blazing, but, Ursa, if Titania had said ‘hey it’s you or her’ I’d have given myself up gladly. I’d burn the whole world down for you.’ 

Her heart swelled and she tiptoed up to kiss him, though less than normal thanks to her heels. 

When she pulled back, she blushed. ‘Hey, slightly off-topic but… when you did burst in… I mean, I was happy to see everyone, but… I honestly… didn’t think you’d come for me? I mean, I wouldn’t have ever imagined Nora turning up, not even in my wildest dreams but… I guess having confirmation that you… y’know… felt the same… I was really fucking happy.’ She’d started twisting her hair round her finger again, and couldn’t quite look at him. ‘I think… I was scared to tell you what was going on because I still didn’t really think you even liked me back… Or at least not as much as I… not the same way I felt about you… I’m not super great at feelings, and I definitely don’t really trust other people’s feelings but… you made it pretty hard to deny… y’know…’ she hazarded a look up at him and her heart stopped. 

His eyes were melting her, staring deep into hers and so, so, so full of love. His hands cupped her face, brushing away some errant pink hairs. She couldn’t breathe. 

‘I love you, Ursa.’ The way he said it made her knees tremble. He’d never been this close before, not while saying it. Not while looking so sincere. Not while sounding so raw. ‘I’d chase you through every world if I had to. I won’t let anything stand in your way. Nothing is ever gonna keep us apart.’ 

He kissed her again and Ursa could see stars. She could have died there and then and been happy. 

‘We on the same page now?’ he breathed.  

‘Yeah. 100%.’ She replied dreamily, clinging to him for support because her legs were shaking so much. 

He squeezed her again before clearing his throat. ‘So, we agree yeah, we’ll look out for each other, tackle things together. And fingers crossed, we won’t need to do any more self-sacrificing.’ 

‘Ha ha, yeah,’ Ursa laughed, feeling drunk, lightheaded, ‘most couples date, then move in together, then do an archaic engagement ritual and THEN maybe sacrifice themselves for each other??? We’ve done this super backwards.’ 

‘Does that mean I finally get to take you out now?’ 

Ursa couldn’t reply, she was too happy, she felt like she was floating, so she just kissed him again. 

‘We should probably get some sleep,’ Alkahest said with a grin, looking as happy as she felt, ‘let’s head up and-!’ He stopped in his tracks, face flushing a deep crimson. He took a sudden step back. ‘Shit, uh, I can take the sofa, we don’t have to—!’ 

‘What? Why would you—?’ She was about to ask but then she saw his embarrassed expression, how he suddenly couldn’t look at her. And it clicked for her. 

Oh my God. 

Ursa pulled him back, kissing him again, and their lips lingered a little longer. 

‘Well, I mean…’ she looked up at him, trying to ignore the tremor in her voice, in her hands. ‘We’re engaged, technically, although it’s just a stupid ritual, we don’t have to be its totally not a big deal, uh, you don’t have to worry about that.’ 

‘I don’t want to rush you, there’s – I mean, not that I don’t want to, but there’s no pressure—’ 

‘It doesn’t feel like rushing.’ Ursa said, voice barely more than a whisper. ‘And I don’t feel any pressure. If anything, I’m just excited. I can finally kiss you as much as I want. Which is a whole bunch.’ 

‘Yeah?’ Alkahest asks, his voice low and quiet. His hands were shaking too. They’d been doing that a lot today. 

Ursa couldn’t bring herself to reply, not trusting her voice, so instead she nodded and kissed him again, pulling him close. It reminded her of the first time she kissed him, clutching at him desperately, hoping she wasn’t making a mistake. 

This kiss was very different to that first one, not just because she didn’t nearly completely miss. The air had changed between them, a fire in both their chests that spread between them. Their other kisses had been chaste, sweet and so full of love, and this, this was still loving, but there was a need, a desperation. Their tongues touched for the first time and Ursa thought she’d been struck by lightning. 

They couldn’t help themselves. 

They didn’t even make it up the stairs. 

* 

It was way past midnight; Ursa was showering and Alkahest was ordering food, since, after some very aggressive stomach rumbles, they realised Ursa hadn’t eaten since this morning, before her meeting with Brynner. Or yesterday morning. Whatever.

The shower had been a bad idea in hindsight, not only did she not have any toiletries, it wasn’t like she had thought to put some pyjamas on her shift weave. And a silk suit wasn’t the most comfortable choice. Especially given that her underwear had been ruined on the stairs. (As ridiculous and impractical as it had been, she couldn’t bring herself to have any regrets however.) 

She snuck into the bedroom—our bedroom, oh my god—to rifle through Alkahest’s luggage, looking for some she could steal, but found none. With a sigh, she stole a shirt instead, praying he didn’t sleep nude— there’s no way I can handle that, omg. 

 
It wasn’t dirty, but it did smell of him, and putting it on felt like he was wrapping his arms around her. She swooned and had to lie on the bed for a moment to calm down. 
Eventually she heard a knock at the door, presumably whatever food Alkahest had ordered had turned up. She waited till she heard him shout up to head down.  
 
He did a double take when he saw her. She laughed. 

 ‘I know right, black really isn’t my colour.’ 
 
‘No, you look good, really good. Please, wear my clothes all the time.’ Turned out, he was wearing pyjamas, explaining their absence in his bags. They were, of course, black and white, but much more casual than anything she’d ever seen him in, a t-shirt and shorts, split down the middle with the colours reversed. 
 
‘Stop it, I’m starving.’ 
 
‘Stop what?’ 
 
‘Looking at me like that.’ 
 
‘Oh, sorry, can’t help it.’ 
 
He didn’t look sorry. Not as he pulled her close.  
 
‘I mean it.’ She insisted with a laugh.  
 
He kissed her anyway.  
 
When she pulled away, she laughed again, spying the take away spread out on the coffee table.  
 
‘Hey, I thought it was supposed to be me bringing you baozi?’ 
 
‘Yeah, well, a stranger brought us both baozi, so we’re good.’ He smiled, a little shyly. ‘I’m uh, happy you remembered.’ 
 
‘Like I don’t have all our texts committed to memory. I didn’t need to show Titania my phone, I probs could’ve just quoted some at her haha’ she frowned. ‘Oh, sorry, uh, everyone at the trial had to read our texts. It was as bad as it sounds. Cat Shit was not happy, to put it lightly.’ 
 
Alkahest blinked before laughing. ‘It’s cool, I don’t think I came on too strong so I still seem like a mysterious badass.’ He winked at her. 
 
‘Unlike me. Omg. I came on WAY too strong.’ 
 
‘Nah, I mean, I still had to ask Strych at several points if you were, uh, interested. Though that was more me than, uh, you.’ 
 
‘Strych’s put up with a LOT the past few weeks, huh?’ 
 
‘A metric fuckin’ ton.’ 
 
Her stomach gurgled as the smell of the dumplings hit her nose.  
 
‘Right, stop being cute, I mean it.’ 
 
‘Don’t think I’ve ever been called cute before, but ok.’ He let her go, and plopped down on the sofa, grinning up at her.  
 
‘Should I get cutlery?’ 
 
He picked up some chopsticks and clacked them at her as a reply.  
 
‘Oh.’ 
 
‘It’s cool, I can teach you.’ He patted the seat next to him. As she sat next to him cautiously, he took her hands so gently she was scared she might set on fire.  
 
‘Here, so you hold the upper chopstick like, uh, a pencil?  Right now, get the second one, put it, yeah, there, and your thumb—yeah! Like that! Then when you want to move it…’ 
 
She could barely tell what he was saying. Her heart was beating too fast.  
 
‘And worst-case scenario, just stab ’em!’ He grinned at her.  
 
She tentatively tried it, taking some time to make sure she held them properly, and, to both of their surprises, she managed to pick up a dumpling first try. 
 
‘Omg, thank you.’ 

‘Clearly had a good teacher.’ He said with a wicked grin and they both laughed and tucked in. Ursa couldn’t really say what they chatted about; she was lost in a fuzzy haze. She just knew it was comfortable and warm.  
 

‘Hey, uh, sorry about the stairs.’ Alkahest says eventually, when the conversation had puttered out a little, staring intently at anywhere but her. 
 
She choked before laughing, more nervously than she had intended. ‘Omg, what? Why? Was that not good for you?’ 
 
‘No, I didn’t mean that!’ He turned back to face her, cheeks beet-red, ‘Fuck, that was better than I’d ever imagined, I just… There are certain stereotypes… about demon sex…’ He had to look away again. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m proving them right.’ 
 
Ursa blinked. ‘Stereotypes?’ 
 
Alkahest blushed even harder. ‘You don’t know anything about Outsiders, oh fuck, uh, well, y’know, it might just be a fulcrum thing, humans have weird ideas about demons and what they should be summoned for and… And I was a bit… full on back there…’ 
 
‘Omg please, if you’d been able to keep your hands off me, I would’ve been disappointed! Cause it’s not like I can keep mine off you.’ She reached out for his leg for emphasis. ‘And anyway, I bet there’s a load of weird changeling stuff you don’t know about so we’re cool?’ she paused. ‘Changeling culture is actually so weird, I’ve never had to actually explain it to someone, it might take a while.’ 
 
‘Yeah? Real weird shit?’ 
 
‘Well, uh…’ She could feel the blush creep up her neck as he looked at her expectantly. ‘I can’t get pregnant so, uh, that’s one worry off your mind?’ 
 
He looked more worried than ever.  
 
‘I uh, oh god, I hadn’t even thought, ok, so, that’s a Changeling thing, huh?’ He replied, his voice an octave or two higher than normal.  
 
She couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Yeah, there’s this whole stigma about making babies with other races; the world where my Baba was from said it was because a mixed Changeling only had a finite number of changes and would eventually be stuck in one form forever, but every world seems to have their own version. On my Tata’s side, they say it’s because the babies can’t hold their form and just kind of… liquefy, which is super grim. So yeah, at a young age, we get taught how to change up our insides, temporarily sterilise ourselves.’ 
 
Alkahest nodded with wide eyes. ‘Woah.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘So, does every world have a different Verslovian ritual?’  
 
‘Ah.’ She flushed. He’d caught her off guard with that. ‘No. It’s normally the same. There are a couple of worlds where it’s like… the actual marriage ceremony, but its normally just a courtship/engagement jam.’ She laughed, not quite able to look at him. ‘Fun fact, it’s how my parents got together.’ Her face fell. ‘Oh god, you’ll have to meet my parents, they’ll hate you.’ She put her hands over her mouth. ‘Omg, not in a nasty way, you’re just not a changeling—’ 
 
‘It’s alright, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’ He said with a laugh, putting his arm around her, helping himself to his last dumpling. ‘I guess, I just gotta ask if you… do you want to be… engaged?’ 
 
Ursa felt the lightning through her again. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she wrestled with her answer. She was shaking.  
 
‘I…’  Surely he couldn’t just ask her that???  
 
‘I mean, I dunno how, uh, binding the ritual is, but there’s no pressure. And there’s no wrong answer,’ he reassured her, ‘I just wanna know where your head’s at.’ 

His kindness hurt her, she shifted uncomfortably under his arm. ‘It’s not…’ She couldn’t look at him, her face flushing. She was not good at talking about her feelings. ‘Look I…’ Deep sigh. ‘OK, so… it’s kinda the other way round.’ 

‘Eh?’ 

‘Like you’re worried I’m not… But it’s…’ The words weren’t coming, her mouth was dry. A building frustration in her chest. ‘Oh my god, why is this so hard?’ 

‘It’s ok,’ he said, rubbing her arm gently. The frustration turned to fire. She turned to him, her little fists clenched. 

‘Ok, so… full disclosure, I am… terrified, to put it mildly, for, uh, lots of reasons; baggage, still not sure if this is real, don’t want to mess up this… insane, amazing thing I’ve managed to luck into… So, I want to… I want to say like… ‘Hell yeah, sign me up’… But I’m so… scared.’ She looked into his face, she couldn’t quite manage his eyes. ‘I’m like… stupidly, scarily into you… And that’s terrifying too because I’ve never been into romance and what, I meet you and suddenly I’m a lovesick idiot?’ 

‘I don’t think you’re an idiot.’ He said quietly, chuckling. 

‘Look, I just used to be able to control myself.’ That made him laugh. ‘Anyway, you’ve like… completely turned my world upside down and… Not even in a bad way? Like, I wouldn’t change any of this… I mean, ok, it would have been better if a building hadn’t exploded on you—’ 

‘Oh, that was just Nora and Merlin, I was fillin’ the tank.’ 

‘Oh. Well, y’know what I mean, I just…’ She finally managed eye contact. ‘Fuck it. Yeah. I really want to be, uh, engaged with you. That’s not the right term but, whatever this is, whatever it ends up as, I’m here for it. I can’t promise that I’ll uh, be good at it, but I’m… I mean, even if this isn’t real then I gotta just… go for it? Just in case. If I mess up, I promise I’ll do my best to fix it? And if you’re not into it… at least I can say I was honest?’ She hesitated. ‘Please be, uh, into it though, I don’t think I can take saying all that if you’re like ‘actually, let’s just be casual and go at a normal pace you freak’ Oh no.’ 

‘Do I seem like a casual kinda guy?’ 

‘Well, I mean, compared to me? I’m extra as fuck.’ 

‘Look, thank you.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘For being honest. I’m glad I’m still someone you feel you can talk to.’ He fidgeted. ‘I’m, uh, pretty scared too. Don’t tell anyone, it’ll ruin my badass image.’ He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she couldn’t help but giggle. ‘But, uh, I’m into it, you don’t have to worry. If I had to do that whole ritual again, without the whole our lives and freedom being on the line, obviously, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. You wanna go to, uh, Vegas? Get hitched right now? I mean, I can’t teleport so we’d have to buy tickets? That would take ages. Y’know what I mean.’ 

‘I’m more of an unbreakable blood pact kinda girl, to be fair.’ 

‘Hey, don’t joke about that, Strych 100% knows at least one.’  

They both laughed. Ursa’s fists weren’t clenched anymore. 

‘Ok, no more blood pact jokes, if you don’t joke about re-doing the ritual again; non-magical Verslovian is a fucking slog.’ 

‘I’m guessing you normally get more than one hour?’ 

‘Well, my Tata got eight months.’ 

‘WHAT’ 

‘Yeah, you can get up to a month for each persona you have to find. Mama thought it would put him off when he found out but, nope! He ended up doing it in five!’ 

‘Your mother has eight personas?’ 

‘Yeah, that’s not normal by the way, she’s really weird. Actually, my whole family’s really weird, you might regret signing up for this.’ 

His smile was warm and cheeky. ‘Nah, I don’t think I will.’ 

Ursa couldn’t respond, so instead she leaned over to reach their bottles of pop—apparently the take away only had off-brand diet coke—and handed one to him. 

‘To us. On our engagement.’ 

‘I’ll drink to that.’ 

They clinked their plastic bottles together and took a drink simultaneously. 

When they finally decided to go to bed, Alkahest decided he was going to carry her up, despite her protests – ‘Hey, I need to prove this is something I can actually do if you’re not, y’know, distracting me.’—and they fell into bed, shattered. 

‘You better be here when I wake up.’ Ursa mumbled, pushing back into him, craning to get a final look at his face before she fell asleep, sighing as his arms tightened around her. 

‘Like you could get rid of me that easy.’ He said with a soft laugh, kissing her head as they drifted off. 

* 

Much to Ursa’s delight, he was still there when she woke up in the morning. Also, to her delight, he had brought her pastries and coffee. 

It certainly made up for the early hour. They had a lot to do today, after all. Before they left, he set off what looked like a flea bomb. 

‘This should get rid of all the cat hair, but, uh, we should get out sharp-ish. I’ll probs be fine with the fumes, but it’s pretty deadly for humans.’ 

‘Not a human, remember?’ she laughed. 

‘Yeah, but you’re pretending to be one; it’s just magic, it’s not fussy.’ 

First port of call was retrieving Ursa’s stuff out of storage; not that there was much. It was mostly filming equipment, a suitcase full of clothes, a box of dvd’s and comics and finally her precious coffee machine. Alkahest’s eyes had bulged when he saw it. 

‘What the fuck is that?’ 

‘It’s my coffee machine, be nice to it, it used to be my only friend.’ 

‘A fucking behemoth, is what it is.’ He laughed. ‘I hadn’t pegged you for a cafephile, to coin another stupid word.’ 

‘I’m not, I mean, I like coffee, I practically live off it, but I’m not like Merlin, I just…’ She patted the machine lovingly. ‘I have an emotional attachment.’ 

‘Do you have like, mugs and cutlery and stuff? Alkahest asked suddenly, frowning. 

Ursa flushed and fibbed about having to get rid of it, embarrassed that she hadn’t had enough to warrant keeping, and it had all been whatever she could get cheapest from the Charity Shop. It’s not like you could really entertain in a studio apartment when most of the room was rigged to be film sets! 

Alkahest didn’t seem to pick up on it though, and they stopped off for essentials at a HomeSense on the way back. His essentials were quite different to hers, however. 

‘Do you really need a mortar and pestle?’ asked Ursa, balking a little at the price of everything, nervously checking her bank balance. 

‘Of course, I need a mortar and pestle, haven’t you ever made your own spice blend before?’ 

‘…No?’ 

He scoffed, shaking his head. ‘I’m gonna make you so much nice food. Its gonna blow your mind.’ 

He insisted on paying for everything, despite Ursa’s protests. When she mentioned sending him money, or rent, he just put his arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head with a laugh. 

‘Don’t worry about that, ok?’ 

Which was a confusing answer, but she dropped it, for now. 

When they got home—a clean, cat hair-free home—he sorted out the kitchen stuff and she went upstairs to unpack her things, which ended up being surprisingly emotional. She hadn’t had a wardrobe since she’d lived with her parents. There was a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. 

Eventually she gave up and, after changing her outfit—pink dungarees with a cat face on and a white t-shirt—she headed down, to see Alkahest struggling with the coffee machine. 

‘Do you need some help?’ she asked cheekily. 

Alkahest grimaced at her. ‘The behemoth has defeated me.’ 

‘Here, let me.’ 

With a practiced hand, Ursa had the coffee machine connected and up and running within five minutes, although she had used her Mage Hand for the fiddly bits. 

‘Wow. Now you gotta test to see if it’s working.’ 

‘Is that your way of asking for a latte?’ 

He jangled the milk at her cheerily. ‘There a story behind this monster? Did you find it by the side of the road and adopt it?’ 

She hesitated. ‘It’s a really long story, I don’t wanna bore you.’ 

He shrugged. ‘I doubt you could ever bore me.’ 

That made her heart flutter. 

‘Ok, so… When I first moved to Middlemarch, after college, I moved in with some friends and they got me a job at Starbucks. It was part-time, so I had time for videos, I launched the SleepyyBear channel and everything was going great.’ 

‘Uh oh.’ said Alkahest ominously, as he leant against the counter. 

‘Yeah… So, TLDR, Leto broke up with me and it really fucked me up. She wanted… well, I figured out it wasn’t me she was in love with but some weird Ursa she’d concocted in her head, who would get a proper job and stop being silly, but y’know, still be artsy and quirky enough to show off to her boring lawyer friends.’ 

‘Oof.’ 

‘Yeah I… I mean, it was a relief, I love to not be negged every day but…’ She sighed. ‘It was my first breakup and I really didn’t handle it well… My friends tried to help… There was a guy from college who worked there too, Matti, and apparently, he’d always had a crush on me…’ 

‘Never a good idea.’ 

‘Yeah, I’ve learnt that now… Anyway, they set us up and I figured, well surely it can’t hurt any worse than what’s going on right now… Oh boy, was I wrong… It was awful, I felt so shit, I was just up in my own head, could barely hold a conversation. I ended up cutting it short after an hour. I tried to explain, y’know, I’m all fucked up from Leto, it’s 100% me, not you, let’s just stay friends and maybe try again when I’m not… y’know…’ 

Ursa paused but it was more because she was steaming the milk which was really fucking loud. 

‘Well, we didn’t stay friends. To put it mildly. I don’t know exactly what he told people, but something along the lines of ‘the date went great and we had sex but then she turned around and laughed saying it was a pity fuck’.’ 

‘What the fuck?’ 

‘Yeah, I know right? My ‘friends’ took his side, they were super pissed off and, they made an excuse, but they basically told me I had two weeks to move out.’ 

‘Fuck.’ 

‘Yeah, I didn’t have much money saved so I ended up in a bed sit— oh god, it was awful, I can’t get into it, I still have nightmares about living there— but anyways, things at work got really stressful because everyone hated me and they kept giving me warnings and disciplinaries for stuff I hadn’t done and eventually…’ She put down their mugs on the table and sat herself down, patting the chair beside her. Alkahest sat in it sharpish, holding her hands tightly. 

‘Eventually, I get called into the office, and its super clear I’m about to be fired. And I got so, so, so mad. I, um, actually charmed someone for the first time… And I made him explain what was going on. Basically, the whole staff wanted me gone and had starting to threaten to quit if I wasn’t fired… It’d be easier to replace one person than eight and I was the newest so… Well, I decided to quit instead. Fucking sucked, I worked in a call centre for a bit after that, I needed money to get out of that fucking bed sit and it was just… miserable… I kept trying to talk to Matti too, trying to understand why he’d got everyone to turn on me, but he wouldn’t say anything except about how I broke his heart and totally crushed him… UGH.’ She looked at him before frowning again. ‘Sorry, that was really long winded and—’ 

‘So, how does the coffee machine factor in?’ Alkahest asked. 

Ursa flushed, looking uncomfortable. 

‘Oh, well…’ 

Alkahest raised his eyebrows. 

‘So, my manager was still charmed and I was feeling a little salty and I knew they’d just ordered a new machine so I asked very nicely if I could have the old one as a leaving present.’ Ursa was looking very intently at the ceiling. ‘If I had known they’d have to shut for three days since the other one broke after I left and the new one got delayed well…’ She hesitated. ‘No, actually, I probably still would have done it…’ 

‘HA!’ He laughed loudly. ‘Those fuckers, they got what they deserved.’ 

Ursa couldn’t say anything, sipping her latte, cheeks burning. He squeezed her hand, taking a long drink from his mug. 

‘This is really good; those assholes don’t know what they’re missing.’ His grip was too tight on her hand but she squeezed back gratefully, leaning over to give him a shy kiss. 

‘Thanks, Alkahest.’ She whispered, looking up at him through her lashes, ‘I’ve never told anyone that before.’ 

He pulled up her chin gently, kissing her so softly. He cleared his throat. ‘Stop being so cute, we’ve still got stuff to do right?’ 

Ursa giggled without meaning to. ‘Yeah, I need to check my PO boxes, I gotta send some thank you presents, got some site maintenance, social media shit, call my parents then get ready for our date.’ She blinked innocently. ‘Where are we going? I kinda need to plan my outfit! I finally wanna look like a 10 for you, y’know!’ 

Alkahest barked out a laugh. ‘You’re always a solid 12, don’t worry.’ 

‘Incorrect, I have maybe pushed a 7? At best? Like I looked kinda cute in Ikea but then I was gored by a minotaur and barfed everywhere, no idea how you were so flirty, I was like, maybe a 4, if we’re being generous. And fair enough, I looked nice to go see Strych, but if I’d known you’d be there I’d have worn something much nicer. And ok, my suit from yesterday was banging but you, uh, also saw my base form which is like… negative one.’ 

‘Nah, nah, nah, your base form is way cuter than you think. It’s just like a… different pallet? A shiny version?’ He cupped her cheek, brushing her hair behind her ear. ‘Obviously this Ursa is my favourite, but give yourself more credit.’ 

Ursa couldn’t reply, too overwhelmed – no one had even seen her base form in years, let alone ever said it was cute, and the knowledge that Alkahest knew about Pokémon was very exciting – so she just leaned into his hand with a sigh. 

They stayed like that for a moment, just gazing at each other, his thumb stroking her cheek softly, their hands still touching on the table. Eventually she sighed again, happily, turning to kiss his palm. 

‘Wanna get lunch while we’re out?’ 

He grinned wolfishly as a reply. 

* 

Ursa showed him her favourite burrito place and they gorged themselves. She was a little worried that where ever they ended up on this date she’d be too full; her normal diet consisted of coffee, pot noodles and pierogi mainly. 

Alkahest was still a little skittish being in public, her own heart clenched uncomfortably when they passed anyone looking vaguely fae adjacent. He actually growled at a faun who stared for slightly too long, making her squeal and bolt in the opposite direction. Ursa felt a little guilty, she had definitely just been checking him out, and who could blame her?? 

He was wearing a slightly more casual outfit, white jeans, black t-shirt, his white leather jacket and some black boots. Ursa felt herself swoon every time she looked at him, it was no surprise the general public noticed too. She squeezed his hand, holding onto his arm, feeling very lucky. 

She sent her customary muffin basket to Cepheus, with a little note expressing her gratitude and a little message to Emva about how much she was missed. Brynner was more difficult. She settled on flowers, a big bright orange bouquet with teal accents and a rather lengthy letter expressing her deepest gratitude and offering to maybe meet up and chat about future collaborations. Alkahest had to talk her out of trying to send Queen Titania a thank you present, claiming it would maybe look bad. 

‘You just got away with murder, looks suspicious if you send the judge flowers afterwards.’ 

‘Hey, you did the actual murder, I’m totally innocent.’ 

‘It was self-defence.’ 

‘Bullshit.’ 

The florist gave them a weird look. 

The PO boxes were fairly standard, Saubra had received some items for videos ‘A candle that smells like- what??’ and much to her delight, her Sleepyybear channel had gotten its first fan mail. She did a little dance of happiness, giving Alkahest a big hug as she squealed. 

As they walked back to the car, Ursa finally dared to ask something she’d been mulling over. 

‘Hey, do you have any plans tomorrow?’ She tried to sound casual and did not succeed. 

‘Hmmmm,’ he made a thoughtful noise, and Ursa felt very nervous all of a sudden, ‘the extent of my plans is to spend it with you.’ 

He grinned at her and she wobbled a little as her heart exploded, or melted—she wasn’t sure which.  

‘I was wondering if you’d wanna have a movie day, with me? Maybe I could show you the Lord of the Rings films?’ She asked shyly. 

‘Well, I guess that depends.’ He said unsurely, and Ursa’s mouth went dry, of course he doesn’t want to, who wants to sit next to me for twelve hours while I geek out— ‘Do you have all three extended editions?’ he asked with a laugh. 

She actually stopped walking as she looked up at him very seriously.  

‘Of course, I do. I even have them on blu-ray.’ 

He whistles. ‘Damn, blu-ray.’ They start walking again. ‘So, what was it you said, blanket fort, popcorn?’ 

‘Or movie snacks of your choice, don’t feel limited to popcorn.’ She said quickly. ‘And obvs, still need some proper food, I was thinking pastries for breakfast—oh or maybe pancakes since we had pastries this morning? – maybe like a chauterie kinda thing lunchish and maybe take out for the final stretch? If we’re still hungry anyway.’ She looked up at him, blushing. ‘If that’s ok with you?’ 

He put his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him ‘I defer to your expert judgement. Should we get supplies now? Ready for tomorrow?’ 

He had just stopped them outside of a Sainsbury’s. 

‘Yeah! Good idea!’ 

‘Do we do like a drinking game?’ Alkahest asked as they headed in. 

‘Could do, but its best to just do it for the last film, or else you end up totally sloshed by the battle of helm’s deep.’ 

Alkahest nodded like he knew what she meant. 

* 

When they got home – Ursa absolutely loved calling it home, it was already more ‘home-like’ than her old apartment – and after putting all the shopping away, she started to set up her laptop on the sofa when Alkahest took her by the hand, pulling her up. 

‘I really do have a lot of admin to catch up on.’ Ursa joked, still a little worn out from this morning. 

‘No, it’s not—well I mean, no, no, get your mind out the gutter!’ 

She stuck her tongue out at him playfully. 

He led her up the stairs, stopping in front of two doors Ursa hadn’t opened yet. She’d only been in their bedroom and the bathroom so far; she hadn’t even asked what they were. 

‘So, uh, this one I use as my office,’ he opened the closest door to reveal a painted grey office, looking very unused. ‘Or rather, I planned to use it as my office if I were ever here, which, I am now so, uh, anyway,’ He seemed nervous, ‘but I just thought, if you wanted to y’know, there’s the spare room?’ He opened the second door, which led into a room painted white with a plain double bed, bedside table and lamp, ‘I don’t, I mean, I’ve never had people round, it’s a safe house, that would be weird.’ 

‘And you’re—what was it you said? —an anti-establishment loner?’ Ursa said cheekily, smiling as she made him laugh. 

‘Yeah, something like that. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, it’s yours. If you, uh, want it. As a studio, office, I dunno if its big enough but hell, use it as a walk-in wardrobe if you want?’ 

She blinked at him, having gone totally rigid. 

‘Wait, what?’ 

‘Yeah, I mean, we’ll get you some different furniture, obviously? Although I dunno if I’m ready to go back to an ikea yet.’ 

‘Are you serious?’ 

He looked at her, partly confused, partly concerned. ‘Yeah? I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.’ 

‘No, I—I…’ There were suddenly tears streaming down her face. 

‘Woah, hey, its ok!’ Alkahest panicked, pulling her into a big hug as she started to sob. 

‘S-sorry, I’m just—this is just…’ 

He stroked her head worriedly. ‘Yeah, it’s been a stressful few days, you must be overwhelmed.’ 

‘No! I mean, yeah, but, I’m…’ She pulled away to smile up at him, eyes glistening. ‘I’m so fucking happy!’ She laughed, pulling him down into a kiss. ‘I’ve never had someone in my corner before, it feels really good. I can’t believe this is real, holy shit.’ She suddenly looked serious. ‘This is real, right?’ 

He laughed too, looking relieved. ‘I meant what I said, we’re in this together. I wanna support the stuff you care about, I already know you’d do the same for me, though hopefully the next meeting I drag you too is less eventful. And your YouTube stuff is cool.’ 

She pulled him down into another kiss, feeling gleeful laughter bubble in her chest, feeling the smile on his lips. Was every day going to feel like this? Like the happiest she had ever been? 

‘Oh my god, is this what a good relationship feels like???’ she asked, head tipping back with laughter. 

‘I dunno, I’ve never had one either.’ He replied with a laugh. ‘I’m gonna go with yes though, I think we’re good.’ He leaned down to kiss her, and she had to clutch at his shoulders, her legs turning to jelly. When he pulled away, she couldn’t help but whine in disappointment. ‘I know you said you had some stuff to be getting on with but, uh, I did book the table for seven.’ He said sheepishly. 

She quickly pulled out her 8 and grimaced. 

‘You might have to settle for an 8 today.’ 

* 

Alkahest was sat on the sofa, unable to stop his leg from rattling, unable to keep still. He was nervous. He kept telling himself he shouldn’t be, they were way past first date stuff, she wasn’t going to go off him, or get a bad first impression. They were engaged for fuck’s sake. But still. A first date is a first date. Even after all the shit they’d been through. He was good at adrenaline and high stakes and big speeches. Romancing and dinners and first dates? Not so much. 

Obviously, he was good at flirting. And they had a kind of natural chemistry. Their earlier texts proved that; he had liked to read through them when he was locked down at Strych’s, savouring every message. He still liked to read them now. But texting was easier than talking, there was a disassociation, it was easy to get too personal over text. He felt much clumsier in person. 

But he kept telling himself it was ok; they knew each other pretty well now! He didn’t have to worry about reeling her in, she was already hooked! But that just left a dark pit in his stomach. He knew her, yes, but there was still a lot he hadn’t told her. A lot of stuff that she wouldn’t like. The brutality of his past was gnawing away at him. He kept replaying what she had said earlier, about them having a ‘good’ relationship, the word like an anchor, weighing him down. He wasn’t good. In any sense of the word.  

If she finds out what you did for the winter court, she’ll— 

‘Hey, you ok?’ Ursa asked gently. 

Alkahest jumped a little bit, twisting round to see her; he hadn’t even heard her come down the stairs. His dark worries suddenly dissipated as he looked at her, and his mind went completely blank. He stood up quickly, too quickly, he almost stumbled; he suddenly felt like one of those teenage boys in a cheesy romcom, scrabbling for something to say but mostly just blushing. 

‘I thought you were kidding.’ He croaked finally. ‘About the ten thing.’ 

She laughed. ‘This’ll be the first time you’ve seen me in a dressy-dress, what do you think?’ she did a little twirl, showing off her outfit. Alkahest couldn’t find any words. 

She always wore makeup, but somehow, she looked so much prettier? Her lashes were fuller, cheeks rosier; her lips were a bold red. Her hair wasn’t in the usual buns, she’d curled it, he’d guess, and there was a little plait going round the sides, but they weren’t tight curls, they were loose and cascading around her. There was a lot of glitter. 

The dress was white, flared out at the waist slightly, with a layer of gauzy, transparent white fabric on top, embroidered with strawberries. It had little drapes instead of sleeves, he had no idea what you’d call them, and corset detailing up the front. She had little white boots on, that had hearts for heels and little red heart charms on the zips. But as she twirled, what he had thought to be red tights, were revealed to be red socks or holdups, or whatever— he had no idea anymore– and if his mind was blank before, it was completely empty now. 

He managed to pull her close without his legs completely buckling. ‘You wanna stay in?’ he asked with a whisper. She laughed and he felt dizzy. Her breath ghosted his lips. 

‘Can’t have dessert before dinner.’ She purred and it took all his willpower not to just collapse at her feet. ‘Can I, could I, get a picture of us? Like a selfie?’ she asked shyly, twisting in his grip. She laughed again. ‘You do know what a selfie is right?’ 

‘Course I know what a selfie is!’ he grumbled, not mentioning that he didn’t know how to take a good one. 

Ursa got out her phone and to fit them both in, even with her heeled boots, Alkahest had to lean down. They took a few like that before he hoisted her up, grinning at her squeal of delight, so they were nearly at the same level. They carried on for a bit until they were both getting silly, pulling faces and giggling. She went to give him a kiss on the cheek but changed her mind, so he caught her lips with his. 

He’d only really gone in for a peck, but that was their problem. Neither of them could help themselves. The tension was too electric. Eventually Ursa pulled away with a gasp, and the way her lipstick had smudged just did something to him, and he leaned in for more but she pushed him away with a little laugh. 

‘I’m really sorry, I’m wearing like actual lipstick, instead of it just being a mask, you’re kinda—uh, kinda covered in it, sorry.’ 

Alkahest glanced over at the mirror in the hallway and, he had indeed got Ursa’s bold red lipstick all over his face. He made a little ‘huh’ noise. 

‘This is a good colour for me.’  

‘Hell yeah, you’re super-hot.’ Ursa said with a laugh, jumping down. ‘I think I have tissues?’ 

‘I’ll just go, uh, wash my face.’ He kissed her again, as she rifled in her bag for tissues. ‘You should, uh, you’ve got some-‘ 

‘Oh my god, yeah!’ she laughed, wiping her own face. ‘What are we like, eh?’ 

He smiled ruefully at her. ‘Yeah.’ 

* 

They managed to get to the restaurant by seven fifteen, so all in all, they did quite well. Ursa hadn’t been able to contain her excitement on the walk over. Not only was he taking her for sushi – she had dreamed about this moment so many times since he had first suggested it—it was finally their first date! But they were already a thing so she got to hold his hand on the walk over. She hadn’t realised she’d be the kind of sappy that would get so excited about hand holding. But here she was, having the time of her life. 

She felt over the moon when they got there and they practically had the place to themselves, there was a human-looking couple in the corner and a lone elf sat at the bar. They did a double take when the two of then walked in, but Ursa put it down to how hot a couple they made—she had already made one of their selfies her lock screen and background, she kept looking at it and swooning—she was going to have a good night, any nerves over fae be damned. 

They were seated, ordered some drinks—Ursa stuck to non-alcoholic for now since she had a very low tolerance and if anyone thought she was loud and extra sober, well, she only got louder and more extra—and when the waiter walked away, that’s when Ursa’s nerves really kicked in. 

Luckily, Alkahest’s nerves seemed to have done the same and they both smiled at each other shyly. 

‘Are you nervous?’ he asked. 

‘Oh my god yeah,’ Ursa laughed, ‘I think, less nervous than I would have been a few days ago, but my brain is just screaming ‘it’s your first date’ like over and over again.’ 

‘Less nervous?’ 

‘Yeah, I mean, the trial was a bad time, but at least now I don’t have to worry about coming on too strong or overstepping.’ She grinned at him. ‘I’ve already done all that.’ 

‘I actually think you don’t come on strong enough.’ 

‘I suppose I was a bit overwhelmed at the actual trial.’ Ursa laughed. ‘I was trying so hard to convince everyone I did the murder and then Cat Shit was after me and then, omg when you burst in and—I’ve mentioned how much I loved that right?’ 

‘What, me turning up?’ 

‘I mean, yeah, but also, I mean, it started off as like, the worst day of my life and then my crush turned up and declared his love for me and also saved my life sooooooooo, yeah haha!’ 

‘Ha, yeah I was a bit bolder than usual, y’know, for drama,’ 

‘Fair.’ 

‘But… I’d been avoiding reading into stuff, y’know, in case you didn’t feel the same, but, uh -‘ 

‘A bit hard to avoid after I kissed you?’ 

‘There’s that, but, kinda hard to deny that someone likes you if they sacrifice themselves to the fae court for you.’  

Ursa flushed. ‘Also, true. I really didn’t fool any of you, did I? Gotta get better at lying.’ 

‘Nah, I’m glad. Really glad. This has all been a nightmare but, I can’t argue with the end result.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I mean, we would have ended up here eventually. I wasn’t gonna let you get away.’ 

‘Me neither.’ 

They both smiled ruefully at each other. Ursa felt like she’d managed to cheat life somehow, skipping ahead. 

‘So, in terms of first dates, when was your last one? Are you as rusty as I am?’ She asked after a moment. 

‘Rustier. Last one, like a proper one was, uh, Strych in… the late 90’s? Not sure. No one since anyway.’ 

‘Oh jeeze, I assumed you’d be like, fending off interested partners.’ 

‘Anti-establishment loner, remember?’ He laughed before saying thoughtfully, ‘There’s been some offers, I went for drinks with a cute Incubus once, and I think I had a one-night stand with a Siren—still not sure if that was real or just brain fuckery—but, anyway, even with Panacea in the infernomicon I just wasn’t that interested. Wanted to focus on my work, y’know?’ 

‘I bet that was easier with her not around.’ 

‘Well, not really,’ He said with a sigh ‘she’d already made a name for herself, it’s an uphill battle as soon as anyone figures out its me, not her.’ He sighed. ‘I had to fight tooth and nail just to get that meeting with Erabu, and if you hadn’t been there…’ 

‘Good thing I was, eh?’ 

Grinning toothily at her, he squeezed her hand, only moving away as the waiter came to take their order. Ursa hadn’t even looked at the menu yet. 

But Alkahest had them covered, ordering one of pretty much everything. 

‘Look,’ he explained, ‘Sushi is like Tapas, there’s no point if you can’t have a bit of everything.’ He looked a little awkward. ‘Sorry, I don’t wanna seem like that kinda douchebag who orders for you. I just really wanna eat everything.’ 

Ursa just shrugged, trying her best not to fall even more in love with him. ‘No such thing as too much sushi.’ 

The waiter didn’t seem as amused, but left with their order anyway. 

‘So, I definitely guessed right about the foodie thing.’ Ursa stated with a giddy smile, resting her chin on her hand. 

‘Oh, hell yeah.’ 

‘Do you cook much? Or is it just the eating part you like?’ 

‘I can cook, not had much chance to recently. Strych doesn’t like food in their house, and I am nothing if not a respectful guest.’ 

Ursa blinked a couple of times. ‘Does Strych not eat?’ 

‘Nah, they’ll sometimes have tea, especially, uh, lapsang souchong, the smoky one, but they’re not interested in digestion most of the time.’ He stopped to think, leaning back in his chair. ‘Big reason why we didn’t work out, to be fair.’ 

Ursa remembered an earlier conversation with Rembra and, feeling out of her depth, asked carefully, ‘Do demons… not need to eat?’ 

‘Oh. Uh. Kinda? Not always. Some fiends don’t. I just like to. A lot. Some get actual energy and stuff from other sources. That’s why Strych’s house is so smoky, they’re a smoke demon.’ 

‘So, uh, what do you need? If not food? Do you sleep? Obviously, you sleep? Maybe you sleep?’ she asked, trying her best not to sound too manic. 

He laughed. ‘I like a nap, yeah, I don’t need much though. I’m a shadow demon uh, being in light ‘recharges’ me, the act of casting a shadow, I guess. Panacea’s the opposite. Needs complete darkness. The whole, can’t see fireworks during the day, a candle only burns bright in the night, yadda yadda.’ 

‘Oh, fair, fair!’ 

‘Man, they really don’t teach you much about outsiders at the institute, huh?’ 

‘I mean, to be fair, you guys weren’t supposed to be at ikea, we were way out of our depth. But also, no, not at all. Do you mind if I ask you something else? This is more personal, sorry.’ 

‘I mean, that’s what first dates are for, right?’ 

‘I know you said Panacea was your twin, do you have… other family? I don’t really know much about fiendish family structure, or anything apparently, ha ha.’ 

‘I mean, there’s no set family structure, most fiends won’t really have families. Most true outsiders are more uh, naturally occurring. Bubbling out of the primordial chaos of the universe kinda thing. Pan and I were… how do I describe it…’ He ponders for a second, tapping his glass with his nails. ‘Like, a hazard demon? Trap demon? Dunno what the official term is.’ When he saw Ursa’s blank expression he tried to elaborate. ‘Y’know in a haunted house movie and the house is just evil or possessed?’ 

‘Yeah?’ 

‘Kinda like that, but a derelict slaughter house in New York. We were the shadows and beams of light, preying on urban explorers and stuff. Uh, not that we were doing it consciously, kinda like a venus fly trap, it doesn’t know it’s killing shit, it’s just gotta eat. Although, I guess the people just dissolved or something, ‘cause we didn’t have mouths or anything.’ He shook his head. ‘Still can’t believe I went nearly two hundred years without a mouth.’ 

Ursa tried her best to keep a neutral face, unsure of what to do with this information. 

‘So, you both worked together, that’s nice?’ 

‘I guess? It was more of a… symbiotic thing? I don’t think it was a conscious decision, more survival instinct than anything, but I dunno, my memory’s really hazy, the whole ‘not sentient’ biz.’ 

‘So, when did you, uh, I guess digivolve?’ 

‘Oh, uh, yeah this kid got dared to come in, we were… y’know… chasing him…’ He seemed a little uncomfortable, shifting in his seat nervously, ‘but he was tricksy, skidded outta the way and me and Pan kinda… collided into each other and… Well, there we stood. Two beings. Actual bodies. Brains. And mouths, fucking finally.’ He took a drink. ‘We just knew that we were in New York, it was 1986, March, and just like, the general jist of being alive. We made our humanoid bodies and went to town. Pretty literally.’ 

‘Wow.’ 

He was watching her closely, anxiously. ‘Sorry, that’s a lot to dump on you.’ 

‘No, no!’ She reached out for his hands just as he moved them away and she tittered awkwardly, embarrassed. ‘I guess I just thought it’d be like a little gremlin Alkahest and not… a literal shadow monster.’ She admitted, immediately regretting it. He looked ashamed and Ursa felt like she’d more or less just shoved both her feet in her mouth. ‘That’s really cool though, I had no idea demons could manifest like that!’ 

‘Ha ha, yeah.’ 

‘And now I know your birthday is in March!’ 

‘Oh, I guess.’ 

‘Mine’s in September.’ She offered quietly. 

There was an awkward silence. Ursa could tell something was bothering him, but not exactly what, and that elf just would not stop staring at them and— 

‘Can I ask you something?’ 

‘Yeah, of course! Anything!’ 

He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, frowning. ‘I, uh, so… the trial? I guess, how did you manage to get Titania on our side? Just, wild, right? Ha ha.’ He didn’t laugh. 

She had a feeling that wasn’t what he had actually wanted to ask but she answered anyway. 

‘Oh, I did not get her on our side, I sucked, I was trying to… Oh boy, Cat Shit was on one. I think he wanted to get us both and he was just mean, but anyway I mentioned we had been uh, chatting after Ikea and Titania was like,’ Ursa cleared her throat for a moment before doing a pitch-perfect impression of the Fae Queen, ‘‘Oh to get your stories straight’ and I was like ‘no, obviously not, we talk about other things, you can read them’ and then, of course, she wanted to read all our texts—not my finest hour, I know—but after that, her whole attitude kinda changed? I mean, she was still scary as fuck but then she… It was so embarrassing, do you know what Queen Titania of the Summer Court, Queen of Earth and Daylight fucking asked me?’ 

‘…no?’ 

Her Titania impression came out again, although she couldn’t quite mimic the bite the Queen’s voice had had at the time. ‘Ursa Carpenter, do you like bad boys?’ she had to hide her face as she said it. 

‘NO SHE DIDN’T’ he shouted, almost leaping out of his chair. Ursa just nodded enthusiastically, cheeks burning.  

‘Yes, she fucking did AND I was in a zone of truth so I couldn’t even lie.’ 

Alkahest blinked before leaning in to whisper, ‘…Do you like bad boys?’ 

‘I couldn’t even respond; I think I just made a weird noise?’ 

‘OK, but… do you?’ He laughed. ‘I guess you must do because, well…’ He gestured at himself. 

‘I mean, I don’t think I’ve liked enough people to have preferences? Before you I only really crushed on Arwen from Lord of the Rings.’ Ursa paused. ‘Obviously I had feelings for Leto, I just didn’t really crush on her, I didn’t even realise we were dating at first so, uh, I realised that sounded bad.’ 

Ursa was also realising that first dates were perhaps not her forte. Her two other first dates hadn’t gone particularly well and, to be honest, she wasn’t doing much better with this one. And that elf kept looking over and maybe they were just watching the door waiting for someone, but it was getting her back up. Her nerves were alight. 

‘I guess the follow up question is then… what made you, uh, like me? Getting to the juicy stuff now.’ this time he did laugh, but it was almost manic. 

‘Oh, I… Uh…’ She did not want to talk about this. How the fuck could she describe the clusterfuck of emotions she had felt in Ikea without sounding like a complete psycho? ‘I mean… What wasn’t to like? Hot asshole? Ha ha!’ She took a sip of her drink, suddenly wishing she had ordered something a little stronger. That Elf was still staring too. 

‘I mean, you didn’t seem… interested at first?’ He said carefully, ‘I mean, I liked how you didn’t take any of my shit, that’s uh, what… I liked about you at first… I like… stubborn people, apparently.’ 

Oh God, he wasn’t dropping this. 

‘Oh, well, I mean… Yeah. Y’know. Hot asshole? What can I say? Um,’ The Elf had their phone out now, so hopefully that meant they would stop staring at her. The heat in her face might have set the whole restaurant on fire if it was allowed to spark for much longer. ‘You were just, y’know… there? Being hot? And… Yeah. Then you weren’t just hot, you were nice—’ 

‘Nice?’ He looked as if she had just slapped him. 

‘Yeah, with the, hair holding, puking, when I was… barfing everywhere, and… then…’ The Elf had not been distracted by their phone, like Ursa had hoped, they were now taking pictures of them, and had conveniently left the flash on. They seemed embarrassed, fiddling with it before they looked back at Ursa. Their eyes met. Ursa’s anxiety turned white hot. ‘Sorry, I’ve just got to-!’ and she ripped herself out of her seat and marched over to the Elf. 

‘Hi, hello, I’m Ursa, you already know that, clearly, why are you taking pictures of, uh, my partner and me? If you’re from the Summer Court, we sorted all that, there’s no need to try and poison us or anything!’ 

The Elf had the decency to look at least a little sheepish. ‘Oh dear, I’m dreadfully sorry, I had hoped to be more discreet. I’m not here about the trial, I’ve um, been sent by Queen Titania to… well, let her know how your first date is going.’ 

Ursa was stumped. ‘What?’ 

‘Perhaps we’ll go discuss it with Alkahest, you should both hear this.’ 

‘What?’ Ursa said again as the Elf got up and led her back to her table. 

‘I can’t believe how cute you look, you really pulled all the stops out, I bet he can’t keep his hands off you!’ the Elf laughed. 

‘What?’ 

They got back to Ursa’s table and Alkahest was looking a little raw; he stood up as they approached, a growl in the back of his throat. ‘Everything ok?’ 

Ursa pulled her chair next to his, sitting down, squeezing his hand tightly. ‘This is, uh, sorry, I didn’t get your name.’ 

‘I’ll introduce myself.’ If the Elf was bothered by the lack of seating, they didn’t say anything. ‘My name is Algernon, he/him, thank you, and I am Queen Titania’s personal Investment Investigator.’ 

Alkahest sat down, glaring at the elf suspiciously. ‘You’re her what?’ 

‘Our radiant Summer Queen enjoys the stories of others and likes to keep tabs on those she is personally invested in.’ 

Ursa looked over at Alkahest, absolutely horrified. ‘Omg, she ships us.’ 

‘And when you say, she keeps tabs, what does that entail?’ Alkahest asked with a snarl, his grip on her hand so tight, the kind of tight that would be dangerous if it found someone’s neck. All she could do was squeeze back just as hard. 

Even Algernon seemed a little taken back. ‘Well normally she simply scrys on those, but, uh, she’s had some trouble, especially with you, Alkahest. We’ve had to resort to other methods.’ 

Alkahest instinctively reached to his chest, where Ursa had no doubt the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location was nestled under his shirt. 

‘Other methods?’ Ursa asked casually. 

‘Oh, well, you know, non-magical means.’ Algernon didn’t give them time to think about the implications. ‘While I have you both here, I think it would be prudent to ask if perhaps we could have a closer look… I know the Queen would be extremely grateful for any concessions you would make.’ 

‘What does that mean?’ Ursa asked carefully, ‘Like, just letting you scry on us, or like… cameras in our flat?’ 

Algernon shrugged casually. ‘Whatever you would feel comfortable with. Previous interests have let the Queen set up things like cameras, magical or not, so she could observe them whenever she pleased—’ 

‘Wait, wait, would this be like a Big Brother kinda set up?’ Ursa asked with dawning horror. 

‘So, you’re asking if we’d be ok with the Summer Court basically spying on us 24/7?’ Alkahest growled, teeth gnashing. 

Algernon sighed in exasperation. ‘Of course not, only Her Majesty Queen Titania and a select few would be invited to attend any viewing parties—’ 

‘Viewing Parties!?’ 

Algernon finally seemed a little flustered, taking a little step back. ‘Of course, only with your consent—’ he added hastily. 

‘Oh yeah, I can see myself consenting to that just real soon. Sounds peachy.’ 

Ursa could hear the fury in his voice, it was the same kind of joking anger she’d first heard in Ikea, moments before someone’s head got bitten off. She had to do something. They hadn’t even gotten to eat yet. She breathed out through her nose, gave Alkahest’s hand a squeeze, put on a brave face, gulped down her own fears and stepped in. 

‘I think what Alkahest is trying to say, is that, although of course, we’re so grateful for Queen Titania’s blessing, and her involvement in the, uh, trial, she really fast-forwarded all of this for us, y’know? Like, we just moved in together and we’re… engaged,’ It was the first time she had said it out loud. Algernon’s eyes widened and he gave a soft little gasp. ‘But we’re only just going on our first date. I think we both need a bit of time to settle into all of this, a bit of privacy so we can work through stuff.’ 

Algernon sighed again, ‘Well, yes, of course, I can understand that.’ He sounded so disappointed however, so Ursa continued. 

‘Maybe in a little while, when we’ve gotten a bit comfier, we could speak with Queen Titania, or one of her representatives, about doing something like, I dunno, a private insta, a blog?’ She had a thought. ‘Oh, I’m on Youtube already, I could do like, relationship vlogs?’ 

He perked up at that, his ears twitching. ‘Oh, what’s your handle? I’m sure the Queen would be very interested.’ 

Ursa showed Algernon her channel, one hand still grasping Alkahest’s under the table, so tightly her fingers were going numb. He was stony and silent, except for the grinding of teeth. 

‘Yes, I think we can work something out. I had better leave you two to it, but we’ll be in touch.’ He hesitated. ‘This is probably too cheeky, but I’ve got to, can I get a proper picture of you? The Queen would be delighted.’ 

Ursa gulped as Alkahest’s grip threatened to rip her hand off. 

‘Omg, let me send you these selfies we took before, they’re so cute, it’s unreal.’ She squeaked, a little more manically than she had anticipated. 

Algernon squealed when he saw them, and Ursa sent him about 10, including one she accidentally snapped as they kissed. ‘The Queen is going to LOVE this.’ Algernon whispered; eyes wide. 

Ursa just gave him a winning smile. 

After he had left, she kissed Alkahest’s hand gently, his grip still tense. 

‘You doing ok?’ 

His jaw twisted a couple of times before he answered shortly. 

‘You handled that really well.’ 

‘Just one of my many talents. I figured we shouldn’t get on the Summer Court’s bad side like, immediately after we’re pardoned.’ 

‘Fair.’ 

‘And if all it takes to get Titania on our side is make some cutesy vlogs then that’s too good an opportunity to pass up, to be honest.’ 

He turned to look at her. ‘What?’ 

Ursa shrugged innocently. 

‘I mean, the Winter Court already owes you a favour, right? Wouldn’t it be great to have both courts in your corner? It might be the first time in history someone’s managed to get both Queens on their side.’ 

He blinked at her a couple of times, before he burst out laughing. 

‘Oh, Ursa Carpenter, you are sly.’ 

‘Guilty!’ 

They laughed together and he squeezed her hand. ‘Thanks Ursa, I don’t think I would have handled that very well if you weren’t here.’ 

‘I mean, I don’t think he would have been here if I wasn’t so don’t thank me.’ 

‘I’m serious, all I would’ve done is bite his head off.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Maybe literally. Which, uh, would not have been good.’ 

Ursa shrugged, moving her chair back so she could face him. ‘I mean, that’s why I’m here, to deescalate situations that don’t require head-lossage.’ She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. 

‘I don’t want you to feel like you’re my leash.’ He said quietly. 

Something was definitely bothering him, something that probably wasn’t going to come out over Sushi. Maybe she’d try and pry more when they were in the relative safety and privacy—maybe not as private as they had originally thought—of home. 

‘Don’t be silly, I don’t feel like that.’ She gave him her warmest smile and although he did reciprocate, it was half-heartedly. ‘Look, we’ve dealt with the crazy fae,’ Her head whipped round as she double checked Algernon had actually gone, he had, ‘and I promise to not put my foot in it again, ok?’ His smile got a little deeper at that and she took it as an opening to reach out for his hands, before he could move them away again, squeezing them tightly. ‘Let’s just try and enjoy the rest of the night, yeah?’ 

‘Course, yeah, sorry, just gotten in my own head.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not really used to… dealing with… feelings? Kinda just used to uh, repressing the shit outta them.’ 

‘Oh my god, same!’ She laughed softly. ‘I didn’t lie to Algernon, as amazing as this has been so far, for me anyway, its a massive adjustment. We both might be a little… overwhelmed. We’re gonna need a bit of time.’ She smiled as she saw their food starting to arrive. ‘And a shit-ton of sushi.’ 

‘Hell yeah.’ 

‘I do have one more question, if you don’t mind?’ 

She saw him gulp and brace himself. ‘Course. Sure.’ 

‘You never actually told me your favourite book?’ 

He laughed, relief obvious in his face. ‘Yeah, I was kinda put off by Abidallion’s nightmare fuel recommendations. No offense. Strych enjoyed them though.’ 

‘None taken, Abidallion is super intimidating until you get to know them.’ Ursa laughed. 

‘I’m excited to get to know them.’ He replied warmly, squeezing her hand. Her stomach did a little backflip and she could only grin in reply. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a bad first date after all. 

* 

After Sushi, unsurprisingly, they weren’t in the mood for dessert. The idea of the Summer Court watching them at any point was just too unsettling, so, after a quick ‘Could you please come ward our flat?’ text to Strych, they went to bed. Ursa couldn’t remember falling asleep, she had hoped to chat about what had been bothering him, but they were both a little worn out. Worn thin. 

When she woke up it wasn’t morning. Or at least, it wasn’t the time of morning you consider waking up at. The room was only lit by the shafts of moonlight, chilled by the night air from the open window. That’s not what she noticed first however. The bed was empty next to her. Alkahest was sat on the edge, head in hands. 

‘Hey, you ok?’ she asked sleepily, moving towards him. He turned to her with a hasty grin, one that didn’t do much to mask anything at all. 

‘Hey, sorry, just, uh, getting some water, y’know?’ 

‘Is something wrong? You’ve seemed kinda upset since dinner.’ she insisted. When he didn’t reply she added, ‘You can talk to me, about anything. If you don’t want to that’s ok too, but I’m here for you either way.’ She settled next to him on the edge of the bed, taking his hand in hers gently. 

His mouth twisted in indecision, before he let out a sigh. 

‘Ursa… you know I’m not… I’m not a good person.’ 

‘I mean, I was there when you bit a guy’s head off, I’m not going into this blind.’ She said with a yawn, rubbing her eyes. 

‘That’s not, I mean… I’ve done some really bad shit in the past, Ursa. And I’m going to have to do more in the future. If any one of us is gonna regret this, I think it’s gonna be you.’ 

‘Why do you think you have to be good? Or that I want you to be?’ Ursa asked gently. 

He looked away, ashamed, ‘I mean… you’re good. And someone said… well, what you said at dinner kinda confirmed it…’ 

‘What I said…?’ Suddenly it clicked for her. ‘The nice comment, right? I’m sorry, I was so distracted, I didn’t explain properly-’ 

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Alkahest interrupted quietly. ‘This is stuff that’s been brewing for a while. If you fell for me ‘cause I did something ‘nice’… Well, I’m actually a total bastard.’ 

‘I mean, you’re not, but ok, I know, look, when I was barfing and you didn’t say ‘I told you so’ or anything, it wasn’t like a switch flipped and I suddenly liked you. I already liked you, I just put you down as a hot asshole and did my best to not be interested, which didn’t work btw, I don’t know if you noticed how in your face I was, omg.’ Ursa looked at him hopefully, praying she didn’t have to explain any more than that. 

‘I mean… you don’t have to…’ He sighed, and Ursa had a feeling he would’ve said lie, which she definitely wasn’t doing. She was just omitting part of the truth. ‘But it doesn’t change anything’ He finished. ‘I’m… I’ve done some really heinous shit.’ 

‘I can’t deny I am super curious about what you did for the winter court. And I guess I don’t know how I’ll react without knowing what it is first… But I can’t really see you and heinous crimes in the same sentence.’ 

‘I’ve been killing people before I was even sentient, don’t be naive.’ 

‘That super doesn’t count, you didn’t even have a mouth? You can’t blame a flower for pointing at the sun, it’s not even instinct it’s just how it works.’ She retorted. 

‘Plants don’t kill people, Ursa.’ 

‘Um, yeah they do? Like, mushrooms are poisonous and people still eat them?’ 

‘Mushrooms aren’t plants, Ursa.’ 

‘Oh my god, ok, my point still stands. And anyway, if people are dumb enough to go into a fucking haunted slaughterhouse they deserve death, tbh.’ 

‘It freaked you out though.’ He said, voice quieter than Ursa could have ever imagined. 

She hesitated. 

‘Ok, so, cards on the table? I had been imagining a little black and white kirby, one that I could pick up and hug, so yeah, living shadows and sunbeams are a bit of a downgrade. But only because of their lack of hugability.’ She squeezed his hand before continuing. ‘Its super fascinating, honestly, I’d been thinking of you as a digimon, able to switch between forms but it’s more of an evolution? Like a pokemon, but you have a mega evolution!’ 

‘You’re making me sound cuter than I am, I’m an evil bastard and one day you’ll realise it’s too much for you.’ 

‘Alkahest, if you were actually evil… we wouldn’t be here? You wouldn’t have come to rescue me? You could have just left it, you risked everything to save me. Hell, if you were really evil, after you killed Montparnasse, you could’ve just killed all of us and taken the bones for yourself? That would have been a lot less hassle than all this.’ 

‘I’m not gonna kill the cute girl I just met at ikea, what a waste.’ He joked half-heartedly. 

‘See! A proper psychopath can’t form those authentic kind of connections? You would’ve chomped my head and been done with it.’ 

‘I mean, I don’t think I’m… You…’ He struggled with his words, as if the effort to say then was physically painful. ‘You make me better. Or… want to be better.’ Another sigh, more frustrated than the others as he scrubbed the back of his head. ‘But it’s not enough, I tried so. Fucking. Hard, getting you back, I was gonna just blast through every fucker that got in my way, but Nora and Merlin showed up and I figured you wouldn’t want to be rescued by someone who had killed your friends, but Vic wouldn’t budge and we ended up fighting his whole crew and I’m only good at killing shit, apparently.’ 

‘You’re good at lots of things actually.’  

‘I just don’t think I can be with someone like you and not… show you up. But, like, ethically… y’know?’ 

‘Someone like me?’ 

‘Ursa you’re… I’m not saying you’re like a pinnacle of goodness but… You’re the goodest thing I’ve ever met in this universe. The goodest thing I’ve ever been close to and I’m…’ He stared down at his open hands, as if he could see all the blood he’d ever spilled stained on them. 

She blinked at him a couple times, before whispering, ‘Oh boy…’ She was going to have to tell him. 

‘You’re… um, pretty wrong on that.’ 

‘You don’t have to be humble, I know—’ 

‘I’m not, this isn’t some self-deprecation BS. I’m just not as ethically sound as I would have you believe.’ 

‘What, because of the coffee machine?’ 

‘I mean, yes, using mind powers on a vanilla human so I could steal their coffee machine is pretty grim?’ 

‘That’s nothing Ursa, I’ve killed people.’ 

‘Look, I’m not saying we’re in the same league— we’re not, you’re way out of mine haha—but people aren’t just, uh,’ she had to stop herself from snickering, ‘black and white y’know? Everyone’s got a bit of both. Especially me.’ 

‘Ursa, no—’ 

‘Look,’ She interrupted, ‘there’s some stuff I haven’t… been honest about. About you…’ 

‘What?’ 

‘I wasn’t lying before, I did think you were just a hot asshole and I really did do my best to just… y’know, get on with my job?’ 

‘OK?’ 

‘Well…’ She hesitated. Maybe she didn’t need to go into detail and she could save a bit of face. Her survival instinct was creeping up and she could feel it taking over. With a sigh, however, she pushed it down. If I’m gonna do this whole relationship thing, I should probably try and do it right. 

‘OK. So, in case it wasn’t obvious, which I kinda hope it wasn’t, I went absolutely bananas over you. Like from the moment I met you, I tried to just be like, oh, a hot asshole, let’s ignore that, but I just couldn’t help myself. I don’t normally act like that and I definitely don’t normally point at people who could kill me with a snap of their fingers. I dunno if I wanted you to notice me, like me, eat me, a combination of all three? Who knows.’ She sighed again, her stomach twisting with nerves. 

‘So, I just put it down as some weird sexual tension, it had been a while and I’m weird but then… the barfing… This is so embarrassing, but when you asked if I was OK you gave me… the flutter, and I’d never had one before and that’s when I really panicked because Holy shit—’ 

‘Sorry, the flutter?’ 

‘Oh, uh, that’s what Tata always called it, like, butterflies? Heart skipping a beat kinda thing?’ 

‘Oh… Oh.’ 

‘Yeah, suffice to say, I was freaking the fuck out. It’s one thing to be into someone you just met, it’s another thing to be, well… yeah. So, when things started to get choppy…’ She clenched and unclenched her fists before playing with her hair nervously. ‘So, brain was like, we gotta get this under control, and, obviously I can’t control myself, so… you were the next best thing.’ She let out a shaky sigh. ‘I’m not even sure if you were going after those humans, I had pretty much already decided to Charm you… And obviously it just made things worse because then I felt guilty but I…’ She had to look away, cheeks burning ‘I just really liked it? How you stood next to me and looked at me and… The idea that I could just be like, ‘Hey let’s go snog round the corner’, or ‘Can you please eat all these people, thanks’ and you’d just do it, was just…’ she sighed again but it was shivery and from her core. ‘Let’s just say it was an ethical nightmare and leave it at that.’ 

‘Ursa, that’s not really—’ 

‘That’s just the beginning. Remember how mad I was when you killed Brian? Well, why wasn’t I mad when you killed Montparnasse? Both were pretty senseless, although in hindsight, the whole Lopaditie biz, but, whatever, so why didn’t I get up in your face for that one? Oh, it’s because my stupid heart decided, with no evidence or logic, since it’s not like you were still charmed, and it wasn’t in my defence or anything, that you did it for me and its now romantic. Which, uh, great way to start a relationship? Murder is fine with me now, I guess? So, again, not great ethically!’ 

‘Ursa…’ 

‘Oh, and you might have thought I’d calm down a bit after ikea, and maybe whatever the fuck this was would die out, but you would be incredibly wrong, in fact, I somehow went more insane! I couldn’t stop!’ She buried her face in her hands, heat searing her inside and out. ‘I sang a fucking song for you.’ 

Alkahest’s eyes widened, his mouth opening, looking like he was about to say something, but managed to stop himself in time. 

‘And then when you messaged me… and everything started going to shit, everyone was against you, Cat Shit… I…’ a nervous little laugh. ‘I really pride myself on being loyal, loyal to people who don’t deserve me, loyal to stupid family customs that make me feel like shit, loyal to the job I just got… but you…’ She managed to peek out of her hands at him. ‘I realised I’d throw it all away for you. I meant it when I said I would drop everything for you. Even if everyone was right, if you were using me, or if you were actually just “evil” right down the core or whatever, it didn’t matter. The amount of fantasies I had where you’d turn up in the middle of the night and say ‘Hey, burn down the institute and we can run off into the sunset together’ and I’d be like ‘hell yeah, just give me some matches!’ were just… a lot…’ a strangled laugh crawled up from her throat. ‘That’s why Saubra doesn’t like you, you’re the exact opposite of a self-preservation instinct.’ 

Alkahest’s face twisted a few times before he managed to speak. ‘Saubra doesn’t… no, look, we’ll talk about that later, Ursa, I get what you’re trying to say but, this is nothing. I’ve literally killed people. People that didn’t deserve it.’ He turned to her, looking the most sorrowful she’d ever seen him. ‘And even if it was comparable, which it ain’t, you wouldn’t do that? I know you, you wouldn’t throw away what you have at the institute, the opportunity to help people, the bonds you got with your friends? I know you wanna make me feel better but—’ 

‘What literally happened yesterday?’ Ursa interrupted. ‘I mean, ok, I didn’t physically set anything on fire, but if any of the bridges I burnt survived, it is 100% down to Brynner’s good graces.’ She twisted towards him, unable to break eye contact, feeling desperate and manic. ‘I lied to and manipulated the head of the institute for you. I dismantled my entire life for you. I’m glad I didn’t have to hurt anyone because… I don’t know how far I would go for you. For this. And that’s terrifying! I was the one lecturing Nora about the sanctity of life in Ikea!’ 

‘Ursa…’ 

She twisted away finally, unable to look at him. It was all too raw. She’d turned herself inside out, exposing all the parts of herself she tried to hide from everyone, from him, from herself. 

‘Look, I’m not trying to freak you out, I know it makes me sound insane, I just, look.’ She glared at the window, crossing her arms and legs, ‘everyone has good and bad inside them. Myself included. When I fell for you, I didn’t fall just for the nice bits, the bits that mean you ask if someone’s OK, or how you make goofy anecdotes to make me laugh. I also fell for the hot asshole that bit off someone’s head, that shot cat shit in the face with a shotgun.’ Her stare moved to her hands, which were shaking. ‘Yeah, of course, if you want to be better, I’m gonna help you, if you want to work on problem solving without resorting to violence, that’s great, but I don’t want to change you. I didn’t go into this thinking how I was gonna like… tame the beastly demon, gross. I just want to be with you. Good and bad.’ 

There was silence. She hazarded a look up at him. 

‘Oh.’ Was all he managed. 

Ursa flushed, hiding her face in her hands again, as if she’d be less embarrassed if she could just hide how red she was. ‘I’m gonna need some reassurance that you’re not like, mentally backing away, please.’ 

‘No, I’m not, I just…’ a long hesitation. ‘So, Saubra doesn’t like me?’ 

Ursa’s head whipped towards him. That’s what he’s taken from all that??? ‘Um, yeah, sorry, she’s literally the personification of my self-preservation, and you make me do the opposite of that. We had a bit of a talk though, it should be OK?’ Ursa did not mention them finally meeting because she herself was dreading it. Almost as much as him meeting her parents. 

He seemed to be picking his words carefully. ‘So, when she said that you didn’t like me at first because I was a sarcastic asshole was that…?’ He let it dangle. 

Ursa shot up, ‘Oh my god, what???’ In the distance she could sort of hear Saubra laughing. ‘When did she say that??? At the trial? I’m normally aware of what happens, but we were split magically! I didn’t know she said that!’ she gasped softly, breath hitching in her throat, ‘holy shit is that what brought all this on?’ 

Alkahest looked away ‘No, I mean… it’s been brewing… that just, brought it to the surface.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s OK if… if you didn’t at first, I was being a prick—’ 

‘I mean, I didn’t like you,’ Ursa said hotly, ‘I was, y’know, head over heels for you from the second I saw you, I guess it’s semantics but, oh my god, I can’t believe her!’ she got up off the bed, suddenly considering hiding under it forever until she died, but he grabbed her and pulled her into his lap. 

‘I mean, if she’s just fucking with me, that’s a big relief.’ Alkahest laughed as Ursa squirmed, still hiding her face. 

‘I’m gonna kill her!’ Ursa mumbled, muffled as she tried to curl into herself as tightly as possible. 

‘Nah, its fine, I deserve a bit of fucking with.’ He laughed as he squeezed her, sounding the happiest he’d been all night. 

She managed to part her fingers and look up at him. ‘Are you feeling… better?’ She asked with a wobbly voice. 

He laughed, smiling sincerely. ‘Yeah. It’s fucking hard talking about feelings, but… I feel good, thanks.’ 

Ursa was going to reply, when she suddenly had a thought. A question she would never normally be able to ask. Now was the only time, she was already so embarrassed she might implode at any moment, she’d never get another opportunity. 

‘Hey, why didn’t you get mad at me? For charming you?’ She whispered, so quietly Alkahest had to lean in closer. ‘I know it helped in the long run, but, if that had been anyone else you would have been pissed, right?’ 

It was his turn to flush. ‘It just… It didn’t feel any different? I only really noticed when it was over. There was this music playing? Off in the distance, you singing I think, but I only realised when it went away.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Your Charm spell was the equivalent of bribing me to do something I was already going to do. Like, “I’ll give you 20 dollars to eat this pizza” and I’m like, “it was already pizza time, you fool, now it’s pizza time and I’m up 20 bucks”.’ He smiled a little shyly. ‘So, yeah, hard to get mad when it didn’t even feel like you’d done anything.  And it stopped Monty doing whatever he wanted in my head, so, y’know…’ He shrugged, sheepishly. 

Ursa’s brain felt like it switched off, too powerful was the surge of lightning that scorched her. All she could feel was fire. 

‘I want dessert.’ Ursa whispered, twisting in his arms, clambering up, heart pounding in her chest. She felt like her bones were going to vibrate out of her. 

Alkahest went very pink. He didn’t seem to know what to say, ‘But what about Titania?’ he managed, a little squeaky. 

‘Let her watch.’ Ursa’s voice was low, dangerous. ‘I’ll put on a show so hot she blushes and looks away.’ 

Alkahest just gulped audibly, in response. 

* 

The pancakes ended up being apology pancakes. 

Ursa decided to let Alkahest have a lie in, he was sleeping so soundly when she woke up, it felt criminal to disturb him. Especially after the night they’d had. So, she’d gone to update her social media platforms, tease her upcoming videos, reactivate her website and shop and just general online presence maintenance. She’d been responding to emails when her phone had rang, and without thinking, without looking, she’d answered it. 

‘Orsolya.’ Came her Mother’s crisp, curt voice. 

Ursa felt her stomach drop about four hundred floors. 

‘Solya, sweetie. How are you?’ Came her Father’s soft, loving voice 

‘Mama, Tata,’ Ursa’s voice sounded more strangled than she had hoped, ‘I’m doing fine, how are you two?’ 

‘Are you back from your work trip?’ her mother’s tone was like an ice pick. 

Ursa blinked a couple of times before, with dawning horror, she remembered the text she had sent just days before. 

‘Hey Mama, Tata, I’m having to do some stuff at work so I’ll be out of contact for a bit! Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything when I get back! Love you!’ 

Of course, she hadn’t explained about her new job yet. Not even to Panna. Not that it mattered now, she’d quit. So much had changed, and too quickly, how was she ever going to explain? 

‘Solya?’ her Tata prodded gently. 

‘Oh, sorry, um, yeah! I’m back, uh, but don’t send any care packages for a bit, everything’s a little up in the air right now, you know?’ 

There was stony silence. 

She realised how that would sound, given her parents’ preconceptions about her job, her videos, in that they did not consider it one at all. 

‘Not in a bad way,’ She added hastily, ‘things are going really well. Really, really well.’ 

‘That’s good, Solya.’ Her Tata sounded like he was reassuring a child, and Ursa’s stomach twisted. She really didn’t want to do this over the phone. 

‘I do have some stuff I need to, uh, catch you up on.’ Ursa said meekly, relieved she wasn’t on facetime. 

‘Yes, that is obvious.’ 

Ursa winced at her Mama’s tone. It lanced through her, not unlike the lightning she felt with Alkahest, except this time altogether unpleasant. She wracked her brains. She couldn’t just invite them over to chat, they didn’t like to come into Middlemarch and to invite them to her new home, well, she was absolutely not ready for that particular ritual. A tiny, desperate spark of an idea formed, risky as it was. 

‘You’re… the barbecue’s coming up right?’ Ursa hinted. When there was only silence in reply she quietly added, ‘Maybe I could… drop by? You said I was still welcome… for that, right?’ 

‘Solya, of course!’ Her Tata’s energy had totally changed. He sounded euphoric. ‘I know you feel like you can’t come home because of the ritual, but Solya, you are always welcome.’ 

‘Of course,’ Her Mama added, the ghost of warmth in her voice, ‘you can come home any time.’ 

Ursa laughed nervously. She hoped they hadn’t gotten the wrong idea. ‘Great! Lovely. Maybe I could… bring someone?’ 

Tense silence. 

‘Sweetie, yes! The more the merrier!’ her Tata cried out. 

A brief silence. A shuffling noise, what might have been a nudge. 

Her Mama cleared her throat. ‘Yes. The more the merrier.’ 

Ursa could feel her glower down the phone. 

This was not going to go well. 

* 

Alkahest was much less frightened by the prospect of the barbeque and meeting her parents than she was, and had decided it was going to be their first little holiday. 

‘You and me in the lakes, cute little cottage? Does that not sound heavenly? We’ll get afternoon tea or some shit.’ He seemed less sincere since his mouth was full of pancakes. 

Ursa bit down any complaints she might’ve had as he booked it. She had just been about to suggest the holiday inn—about all she could afford right now—but he was right, that did sound heavenly. Once again, he just sort of brushed her off when she mentioned splitting it between them. She pouted for a little bit as they assembled blankets and popcorn for their movie party, eventually sighing. 

‘When I’m not super unemployed, you’re gonna have to let me treat you a whole bunch, ok?’ 

He laughed and gave her a kiss. They settled down for the Fellowship of the Ring. That’s when things started to go wrong. 

His cool-as-a-cucumber attitude seemed to evaporate as the film went on; he was unable to sit still, she kept having to shift further from him as he practically pushed her away; his leg was constantly tapping, fingers drumming in a constant rhythm. At first, she pouted a little, maybe he just wasn’t a cuddly person? But she soon realised it was nerves. He kept just staring at her, looking away when she looked at him with a hasty smile. It seemed like he wasn’t paying attention to the film at all. 

She tried to think, could all the stuff from last night still be bothering him? She had kinda swept it under the rug and just jumped on him. She blushed remembering how forward she had been and prayed Alkahest wasn’t looking—he was, so she brushed it off as seeing Arwen being badass, driving off the Nazgul, to which he nodded nervously—maybe there were still things on his mind, and she’d just not noticed. 

After a while, she realised she wasn’t really paying attention either, too worried. She asked a couple of times if he was OK, if there was something on his mind, but he just nervously laughed it off, getting more and more fidgety. By the time they finished the Two Towers it was unbearable. Her stomach was twisted into so many knots, an awful dark worry settling on her chest. What if he doesn’t like Lord of the Rings??? She wasn’t sure if she could bear to be in a relationship with someone who didn’t like these films again – Leto had called them boring and sappy, which led to their first fight because Ursa snapped back ‘They’re more interesting than Grey’s Anatomy, and I sat through about fifty of those without complaining!’ to which Leto called her a selfish little brat and it all derailed from there. 

As he got up to put the King Returns disc in, she stopped him, tugging at his sleeve gently. 

‘Hey, we can stop watching if you want? I don’t wanna presume but I don’t think you’ve been paying much attention? If you’re not enjoying them, that’s fine, but if something’s bothering you, I’d rather talk about it.’ Her voice was a little quieter than she had intended. He hesitated before he sat back down beside her. 

‘Sorry. I… I’m just really nervous. I,’ his fidgeting seemed to completely stop as he brought out a little box from his pocket. ‘I made you something. Well, us something, technically.’ He held it out to her. 

Her mouth was suddenly so dry, she could barely get any words out. ‘Wait, what? Why?’ 

‘Oh, y’know, little ‘glad you’re not dead’ gift.’ 

‘I didn’t get anything for you?’ She squeaked out. 

‘No, I’m just being a dick, sorry. It’s, y’know, to make everything official. I dunno if there’s, uh, special changeling customs about… rings? But there isn’t any for demons so I figured, we’ll do whatever?’ He opened the box up, shifting a little closer to her. Inside were two gold rings, one set with a white opalescent gem and the other a black gem that glinted with rainbow iridescence when the light hit it. 

Ursa’s breath was stuck, somewhere between her mouth and lungs. 

‘They’re uh, practical too?’ He added, as if he needed to sell the concept of matching, meaningful jewellery to her, ‘I know you like to get gored by minotaurs and beat up by angels and dragons and hand yourself over to vengeful fey, so uh, with this, if you get yourself into a… situation, you can, boop,’ He touched the gem for emphasis. ‘And message me ‘Hey Alkahest, there’s this giant, uh, frog? What should I do?’ And I can reply with, ‘Hey, just shoot it in the fucking head.’ 

‘Are… giant frogs likely to appear?’ Ursa asked, knowing that wasn’t the point. 

‘I mean, if you hang around Nora, yeah. Anyway, this frog, if he’s a bit too much for you, you boop it again, I can teleport straight to ya.’ He grinned hastily. ‘I’ll sort it right out.’ His grin mellowed. ‘You, uh, don’t have to handle stuff by yourself now, y’know.’ He hesitated, before adding with a smile, ‘And neither do I.’ 

Ursa managed to find some words as her vision got blurry. ‘That’s so fucking cool. You made these?’ 

His face fell a little. ‘Well, not from scratch.’ He admitted. ‘But I did add some stuff to make them unique, y’know? Well, I got Strych to help. They don’t want to talk to either of us for at least three months apparently.’ 

Ursa laughed, although it came out a little choked. ‘When did you even do this?’ 

‘Well after our, uh,’ He hesitated as he blushed, ‘talk last night, I just… It was nice working stuff out, and actually feeling better? And I just wanted to, I dunno, do a bit of a gesture.’ He shrugged with a soft, sheepish smile. ‘You know how it is.’ 

Ursa could only nod in reply. He put the box down on his leg hastily, carefully picking out the Ring with the black gem. He reached out for her hand. 

‘You, uh, still up for this?’ He asked quietly, voice wobbling. Ursa tried to say yes, but only managed a squeak, tears starting to leak from her eyes. Thank God her makeup today was just a mask. He slid the Ring on to her finger, and it shrank until it perfectly fit her, heat burning through the band as she felt the magic bind to her. 

Her hands were quivering as she did the same to him. She wasn’t sure if he felt the same singe, but they both gasped as there was a thrum in the air, the two gems sparkling and flashing in unison, as the magic bound them together. Both the Rings and each other. Ursa stared at them for a very long time. When she looked up into his eyes, they were as watery as hers. 

Without saying another word, she clambered into his lap and wrapped herself around him, holding on for dear life. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed entwined for. Eventually, she pulled away, wiping her eyes, laughing softly, as he did the same sheepishly.  

‘Feels a bit weird to just carry-on watching lord of the rings now. We can do something else if you want?’ 

‘No, I wanna watch it, you might just have to give me some cliff notes, I have no idea what’s going on.’ He put his arm around her and kissed her head gently. ‘We gotta watch these again soon though, I can tell they’re really important to you and, uh, well… y’know.’ 

‘Yeah, I get it.’ She beamed at him, linking her hand with his. ‘So, what did you get from the first two?’ 

‘Uh, ok, so, nasty Ring? A guy wants it back, he might be a tower?’ 

‘He’s the eye at the top of the tower.’ 

‘Oh, right, uh, yeah. So, they have to go… give it to him?’ 

Ursa waited for him to continue, but that was apparently it. 

‘Oh boy.’ 

‘Do they get the wizard guy to play two characters? That really threw me off.’ 

‘No, well, kinda—’ 

‘And why do they have such an ugly dog now?’ 

‘What? Wait, do you mean Gollum? He isn’t a dog?’ 

‘Oh, good, I thought it was tonally inappropriate to have a talking dog but what do I know?’ He smiled ruefully at her. ‘Sorry, I was really freaking out.’ 

She pulled him down for a kiss. ‘Don’t worry,’ She murmured lovingly, ‘I’ll make a lotr nerd out of you yet.’ 

Caliber Session 16: The Trial of Ursa Carpenter, Part 4

[This session was an interesting one! Since Merlin and Nora wouldn’t be present for much of the trial itself, I instead asked Adam and Melissa to play Cait-Sìth (the Prosecution) and Elene (the Defense) respectively. They did a better job than I ever could have.]

Merlin looked down at his ruined shirt. The potion he’d gotten from Alkahest had done wonders on the not-bleeding-to-death front, but less so on anything else. He’d need some sort of Potion of Greater Darning for that.

‘Why the hell did you get up on the roof?!’ said Nora, incredulous.

Merlin coughed. His shoulder still hurt. ‘I thought it’d be a good idea to–‘

‘To get shot?’

Alkahest glanced at the two of them in the back seat. ‘It’s always a good idea to get shot, yeah,’ he said.

This earned a united front of grousing from both Merlin and Nora.

‘I didn’t exactly paint a target on my chest and shout “ooh, hit me”, did I?’ said Merlin.

Nora scoffed. ‘That’s exactly what you did.’

Their pace had slowed considerably in the approach to London’s circulatory system. Though the city itself seemed greener than on the Fulcrum Earth – complete with beautiful, ornamented solar panels and a plethora of rooftop greenhouses – traffic was just as noxious; frequent nose-to-tail queues, much honking of horns, and a general consensus that any pedestrians must be destroyed.

Here, a number of parks present in the Fulcrum’s London were instead towering clusters of megaflora; redwoods and mountain ash, trees not even native to the UK that loomed over the nearby buildings like goons behind a mob boss.

Alkahest spotted the Houses of Parliament, somewhat dilapidated in this version of the city, surrounded by a moat of greenery. They were surely getting closer.

And a wave of magical pressure, created by a presence so thaumaturgically dense as to bend reality around it, washed over the car.

Nora felt it run through her, up through her feet and into her torso, feeling almost like the thrumming of the cord that wasn’t in her chest on this world. She took a deep breath and pushed it down.

Alkahest tasted it in the air before it hit them properly. He wasn’t too concerned by it; he’d had the full ire of beings of such arcane intensity turned upon him before, and thus built up a bit of an immunity. This wasn’t his first rodeo, as it were. He hoped Ursa was okay.

‘Urk,’ said Merlin. Merlin spent much of his time attuned to the weave of magic itself, thinking about how to translate it into static code, how to develop new uses that worked with technology. His mind instinctively tried to parse the level of power that had hit him, and experienced something akin to an “integer too large” error.

This was translated by his body into a sense of vertigo and nausea, coupled with a sting from that jellyfish that fills you specifically with a sense of impending doom. ‘Oh god, there’s someone here in the city that’s… we’re going to die,’ he said. ‘I think I’m going to throw up an exception.’

Nora looked down at him, unsure of what to do, or if she should even say anything at all. ‘Are you… going to be alright?’ she hazarded.

‘I’m okay for now,’ said Merlin, albeit with a tremor in his voice. ‘I’ll let you know if it passes because that probably means we’re going the wrong way.’

The car had been slowing, looking for a place to pull over, but at this Alkahest put his foot down again. ‘You’re like a dowsing rod, I get it,’ he said.

‘Ugh. Yeah, that’s the idea,’ said Merlin. ‘I’ll maybe just open a window in case I really do need to barf.’

Nora promptly climbed into the front seat.

‘Ow,’ she said, having sat on something. Presumably the old woman Merlin stabbed had dropped it before disappearing.

It was a small, but ornate, silver key.

⁂

Meanwhile, only not really, Ursa sat among the Summer Court; free of bars but little else. She only half-listened to the fading buzz of conversation around her, knowing that while she could say, make a break for it, she’d probably be disintegrated before her chair was all the way back.

It was fine. She just had to get through this.

Below her feet was a floor of volcanic glass, circling out from the podium that Queen Titania had just arrived at. Beyond it was green grass, and beyond that was a circle of massive trees packed so tight that they must have been sharing roots.

Carved into one tree thicker across its trunk than the rest, was an ornate wooden door with a keyhole but no handles.

‘Hey, I asked you a question,’ said a carefully calm voice.

Ursa snapped back to herself. Her defense, Elene, was talking to her. Elene’s fur was a rich, dark brown, fading to a cream colour by the time it reached the tips of her cunicular ears. She wasn’t dressed like a lawyer, with a holographic jacket and an aluminium baseball bat leaning up against the table. Ursa wouldn’t have been shocked if Elene was wearing roller skates.

That wasn’t to say she wasn’t invested in Ursa’s case. She was planning their approach as if her life depended on it, too.

‘Sorry, what was the question again?’ asked Ursa.

‘I just wanted you to clarify your story. I don’t want us to be contradicting one another.’

Ursa shifted in her chair. ‘Well, uh, we’re just going to be telling the truth. How would we contradict each other?’

Elene’s look was scathing. ‘Ursa, as I’ve explained already – twice – we aren’t here to debate the truth. We’re here to weave what you did into the most entertaining story we can, and hope that her Majesty wants to see our version of the ending.’

‘The ending where I get to go home, right.’

‘The ending where you live.’

Across to their right, at an identical table, on an identical chair – albeit one with three purple cushions, for height – sat Cait-Sìth. He was poring over a file he’d brought with his trademark look of fury.

‘Well?’

Titania’s voice, quiet as a sunrise, silenced the whole congregation.

‘Shall we begin?’

No one answered.

‘I think we shall. This trial will commence in the following format: I will ask Ursa Carpenter a question. She will answer. Then the defense and prosecution will interpret her answer for the benefit of the court.

‘The trial will proceed in this way until we introduce witnesses, who will give their statements. From there, I will make my final judgement.’

The massive bell that would mark the end of the trial looked tiny beside the Queen.

‘Ursa Carpenter,’ said Titania. ‘Why did you murder Montparnasse?’

‘Oh, boy,’ said Ursa, failing to keep a nervous giggle from her voice. ‘Just going straight off into the deep end?’

She’d been talking to herself, but Titania chose to answer. ‘If that question is too complex, why don’t we instead begin by establishing exactly how it was you murdered Montparnasse.’

‘I think murder is a bit of a strong word… it was life or death; he was trying to kill us…. uh. All very bad. I charmed my, errrr, Demon friend and made him bite off a head. A rash decision I wouldn’t repeat, but like I said, life or death, him or us.’

She stopped at Titania’s expression.

‘I think what my client is trying to say–‘ began Elene, hastily wading in to offer a stitch in time. Her words were met by a growl from the throat of Cait-Sìth, a sort of feline I-can’t-believe-you-butted-in-like-that.

Elene pressed on. ‘What my client is trying to say is that she felt threatened by Montparnasse. He was, after all, a highly-capable agent of the Court; one who was dispatched precisely because his abilities were difficult to counter. Could you elaborate on these feelings, Ursa Carpenter?’

‘Well, aside from trying to brain control us and make us kill each other, he kept going into peoples minds and making them see things that weren’t there? We agreed on a truce while in the labyrinth, but the second we got outside he was like “ok now I’m going to kill you”. Not cool.’

‘Objection, your honour.’ Queen Titania’s voice. Everyone turned to look at her. She smiled. ‘Objection sustained. Ursa Carpenter, you are now launching ad hominem attacks at your victim.’

‘No I’m just saying why I felt it was necessary to–‘

‘Objection sustained.‘

Elene looked from the Queen, to Ursa, and back again. Then at her own feet. She took a deep breath. ‘So… clearly she felt that her life was truly in danger. So it was a case of maybe… kill or be killed, like she said? She wouldn’t have known anything about the situation between the Summer Court and Alkahest. And she clearly, obviously feels guilty for what she did.’

She glanced again to Ursa, who gave a vigorous, supportive nod.

‘…And I think it speaks volumes of her character that she’s turned herself in, to try and atone for this,’ concluded Elene. ‘A heroine willing to pay the price for mistakes beyond her control.’

Queen Titania’s eyes, lit from within by the last flashes of a thousand years of sunsets, moved from Elene to Cait-Sìth without a second’s linger on her words. It was the prosecution’s turn.

Cait-Sìth hopped down from his cushions, and began to pace back and forth; the heads of each onlooker following him and his proclamation.

‘So. What I’m hearing, Ursa Carpenter, is that you’re fairly good chums with this Demon you supposedly controlled. You’d only met him a few hours before the incident, and yet you were already buddy-buddy with him? That seems… funny to me.

‘Now. The fact you’ve done this – that is to say, lets control of the situation spiral so far from you that you ended up carrying out a murder – on your very first mission, tells me you’re reckless, and stupid, and rash, and incompetent. Lacking in logical judgement. Coupled with the fact that you threw your lot in with that scumbag Alkahest – and we all know the sort of person he is here in the Summer Court–‘

Ursa couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

‘Wait, before you go off about Alkahest being terrible, I’d only just met him! I didn’t know he was connected to Fae politics, like Elene said! You can hardly judge me by association when I didn’t even know him then!

‘I didn’t realise Montparnasse was there specifically to deal with him either; how could I? He was just the only one out of the two who didn’t try and fuck with my brain! So yeah, I sided with the guy that was nice to me, not the one that was trying to kill me.’

‘So, what, the murderer is saying is that she’s gullible?’ scoffed Cait-Sìth. ‘And she just goes off her immediate impression of someone being nice to her?’

‘Yeah! If someone’s nice to me, I’m more likely to be friends with them. That’s how the world works!’

‘Even if that someone is just doing it to use you for their own ends?’

‘That’s their problem, not mine.’

Where was he going with this? Wasn’t Ursa’s guilt already a given? Why was Alkahest such a hot topic? Fae court didn’t care about getting the right culprit, they cared about getting the best story.

Cait-Sìth met her eyes. He hadn’t looked at the jury – at the audience – once.

He didn’t care about the story. He cared about the truth.

‘Oh, fuck,’ said Ursa, very quietly.

‘How do you know that Alkahest wasn’t using you, then,’ Cait-Sìth continued, ‘To succeed in his mission?’

‘I’m the one who charmed him! He didn’t even get the bones at the end; you know, the whole reason he was there? And anyway, this is nothing to do with him!’

‘You called him your friend. How do we know you weren’t in on it together?’

‘Even if he was my friend at the time – which he wasn’t – would you let your friends just mind-control you? And even if he would, I doubt he was expecting me to say “hey, you’ve got a big mouth. Bite that guy’s head off”!’

‘So you admit there was intent from yourself, there?’

‘I… what part of life or death do you not get?!’

‘What part of incompetent and reckless do you not get?’

Ursa recoiled from this, just slightly. She looked up at Queen Titania, who wore the expression of one watching a boxing match. Was this personal? Insulting her would undermine Cait-Sìth’s case, surely? It was much less likely that she’d be convicted if the whole Summer Court saw her as a blundering incompetent. Especially one being bullied by a cat. Was he trying to twist things round to get both her and Alkahest?

‘I’m not denying that it wasn’t reckless,’ she said, forcing patience. ‘But at the end of the day, if someone’s trying to kill me, I’m not going to just sit there. Yes, I acted rashly. I was a newbie. I still am. We weren’t told the Summer Court was going to be there. And I didn’t know I’d be up against a psychic weirdo!’

‘Montparnasse was well loved by the Summer Court, and even by her majesty Queen Titania herself,’ said Cait-Sìth, with an emphatic nod from Titania taking place far above him. ‘Calling him a “psychic weirdo” is–‘

‘Well, I wish I’d met the version of him that you all seem to remember. Because the guy I met just tried to kill me and my friends a bunch.’

Something about this appeared to resonate among the collected Summer Court. Perhaps because it sounded uncomfortably close to a genuine feeling, and that meant perhaps Ursa’s assessment of Montparnasse wasn’t just an attempt to discredit him. Just perhaps.

‘In that case,’ said Titania, voice a near-whisper that drowned out the rest of the court. ‘Let us move onto our next question. Ursa Carpenter…’

‘You can just call me Ursa.’

‘…What did you think of Montparnasse upon your initial meeting of him?’

Ursa paused to think for a moment. Not about her answer, but about how this question pertained not so much to a murder trial, but more to juicy gossip at a sleepover.

‘Uh, well, he immediately spied into my brain,’ she said. ‘So… uncomfortable?’

‘He was using his gift without sufficient cause, you mean?’

‘Yeah, he sort of implied he couldn’t turn it off? And then he tricked my friends into thinking they were seeing ghosts.’

‘But not yourself?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Ursa, waving her hand. ‘I had special headphones to keep his psionics out. But my friends were pretty shit up.’

This comment got a yowl from Cait-Sìth that may have been the feline equivalent of an “ahem“.

‘So… at the point you murdered him, he wasn’t even a threat to you?’ asked the cat.

Despite the question being rhetorical, Ursa stabbed back with an answer. ‘Oh, no, he was! If he brain-controls my friends to get them to murder me, that’s still a pretty major threat. And he wasn’t only going for me and my friends; he was going to use two human bystanders as hostages!’

There came a frown from Titania’s lighthouse brow. ‘Now, that doesn’t sound very much like Montparnasse. He had turned his back on the Winter Court’s devious methods.’

Ursa was getting a little worked up at all the constant declarations of Montparnasse’s cool-person-status.

‘Well, he seemed quite different to the way you’re describing! And that sucks, because he sounds like a great guy based on what everyone says. But literally the moment I met him he was spying on our thoughts, and being a creep, and eventually just trying to outright kill us! The only reason we survived was because his attempt to control Alkahest failed – he tried to set him on us at the end and get the bones, but Alkahest was already under my charm effect and it didn’t work! If it had we’d all be dead!’

‘It sounds, Ursa Carpenter,’ said Titania, ‘Like you are condemning Montparnasse’s use of mind-altering magic, and yet you openly state that you yourself use the very same type of magic. Does this not sound hypocritical to you?’

‘Well, mine isn’t as strong, and–‘

‘I would like the prosecution and defense to interpret this.’

Ursa bit down on her protests, and turned instead to observe Cait-Sìth. As the cat’s mouth opened, Elene cut in with her own elucidation.

‘Clearly,’ she said, ‘My client has acted as the heroine in this situation. Maybe not… intentionally, but she obviously sensed something was amiss with Montparnasse from the very beginning. As loved as he was, and as well-known and regarded, why would she fabricate a story that painted him as some moustache-twirling caitiff? Why create such an obvious lie?

‘If her account of events actively undermines her own case, then I believe we should accept it as sincere. And if we accept it as sincere, then it becomes clear that Ursa Carpenter was only trying to protect the lives of her friends, and of the mortal bystanders.

‘And if the lives of mortal bystanders were protected – and I hope I’m not being too bold here – then hasn’t she helped the Summer Court avoid a major incident, if one of our own has somehow strayed from the path of heroism? Ursa Carpenter was the only one present that could have prevented him from–‘

‘Elene,’ came Titania’s voice, light and implacable as a cloud blotting out the sun. ‘Are you painting Montparnasse as the villain in all of this?’

Elene’s eyes began to dart around the room. She swallowed, and tried without much luck not to make a cartoonish gulp sound. ‘…No,‘ she said eventually. ‘I’m just… wondering. Could there be something else that had gone awry that is wholly unconnected to Ursa Carpenter? Given that it’s such an apparent change in character for Montparnasse… could there have been something else going on?’

Queen Titania smiled. ‘Ah,’ she said, dragging out the syllable. ‘I had, after all, not a moment ago stated that he had gotten over his Winter Court habits, and I’m sure you wouldn’t imply otherwise to contradict me, would you?’

Elene shook her head vigorously, causing her ears to twist about like she’d been drinking Nesquik. Ursa couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

‘I’m certainly not implying anything of that nature,’ said the rabbitfolk. ‘I’m simply asking for maybe some… consideration. I’m more than aware, my Queen, that he was someone who meant a lot to you. To everyone, and–‘

‘Yes, he was,’ said Titania. It wasn’t clear if she’d intended to interject, or she simply stopped listening. ‘So, Elene, what do you think could this mysterious other factor at play have been, in your opinion?’

‘Could there have been… could he have been manipulated by someone else, to carry out whatever…’ she paused for half a beat, ‘dastardly deeds they had in mind?’

‘Hmm.’ Titania’s brow had creased once more. ‘It would be most troubling if that were the case. Cait-Sìth, you will have to forgive me if I no longer require your response on this facet. A more pressing question comes to mind.’

‘Of course, my Queen,’ said Cait-Sìth.

Titania stared down at the courtroom. ‘Ursa Carpenter,’ she announced.

‘…Hi?’ said Ursa, in a very small voice.

‘Did you see anything at play, while on your assignment, that may have influenced Montparnasse’s behaviour?’

‘Uh. That’s a bit difficult to answer, because, like, I’d never met him beforehand so I just assumed he’d always been an asshole. Um, but, he did seem really freaked out by what was going on in the labyrinth, and the Minotaur it created. Or attracted. At one point he’d gone off with Alkahest and Brian, the manager, and when we’d found him he’d got so freaked out that he wiped his own memory?’

This, Ursa saw, provoked a new reaction from the Queen of the Summer Court. She’d already gotten something of an idea of what Titania was like – regal, self-assured, certain that the respect shown to her was more than deserved – and while there had been a few cracks in her composure, this was something else. Titania almost, almost took a step back from the podium.

Elene’s head was flicking back and forth between Queen and client. That couldn’t possibly be the truth! Montparnasse wasn’t like that! Lying, she wanted to say, will only hurt your case, Ursa!

Instead, she took a bit of, say, conservatorship over Ursa’s defense, and cast Zone of Truth beneath her.

‘Yeah, and him doing so was weird and also just really unhelpful,’ continued Ursa, unaware of the spell and apparently already telling the truth. ‘Because we had no idea what was waiting for us in the labyrinth, and he’d already seen it but he couldn’t tell us anything because he’d removed it from his head. Said it was to preserve his sanity. Which looking back is kinda sus because I saw the minotaur and I’m still sane. I think? Wait, Elene did you just cast…?’

‘Hmm,’ said Titania again, though this time it sounded less a hmm of consideration and more a hmm of derogation. ‘Could this not be the malign influence of the Demon with him? Alkahest?’

Ursa actually laughed. ‘No, no, he doesn’t have any brain powers. He was trying to do some blood magic at the time, but I think it was a bit too tough for him because he hasn’t done it since.’

‘There’s more than one way to influence someone; it needn’t be down to “brain powers”,’ said Titania.

‘Well, I suppose, but he and Montparnasse didn’t really interact all that much. Not that I saw, anyway. I mean I wasn’t watching them 24/7. I know that Alkahest ate some meatballs at some point? I don’t know what Montparnasse was doing then.’

‘You went straight to having lunch with the Demon, then?’

‘What? Ohmygod, no. Come on. I just heard about it from him later. It wasn’t like that.’

Titania leaned down on the podium. ‘You’ve been chatting a lot, then? Perhaps getting your stories straight?’

‘No! God. You can read my texts; we don’t talk about anything like that. Actually maybe you shouldn’t read our texts. But like, there’s–‘

‘Elene?’ said Titania.

Elene straightened up.

‘Could you bring me Ursa Carpenter’s telephone?’

Elene shot a poisonous look at Ursa. But she complied.

‘Oh god,’ said Ursa. ‘Shit. Shit. Uh. Hey, uh, my phone autocorrects Cait-Sìth to, uh, something else, so please ignore that, and uh…’

Titania plucked the phone from Elene’s upstretched hand, and produced something akin to a jeweller’s loupe in her other hand. This she held to one eye as, with a level of finesse that shouldn’t have been possible for a woman of her stature, she scrolled through Ursa’s chatlogs like an entomologist checking if a particular specimen were venomous.

Then she took a breath. ‘Since Ursa Carpenter has so generously offered to let us read her text messages, it should be only fair that both the defense and prosecution get to look as well.’

The phone was passed around, as all of Ursa and Alkahest’s conversations were taken in and analysed. Cait-Sìth in particular’s shoulders grew stiff as he pawed at the screen.

‘Oh, god,’ said Ursa again.

‘That,’ said Elene, still glowering at her, ‘was a very silly thing to suggest.’

‘So I just want to clarify!’ called Ursa, as the murmurs in the courtroom grew loud again. ‘I never actually told Alkahest that I’d charmed him, so he might think–‘

‘Who the fuck is Catshit?’ growled Cait-Sìth.

‘That’s autocorrect, I told you,’ said Ursa, quickly. ‘My phone doesn’t like diacritics. Anyway Alkahest might think he did it but that’s only because he doesn’t know about what exactly the charm was. That’s how, uh, brain stuff works sometimes I think.’

It wasn’t a exactly a lie, but creative hopscotch across the truth wasn’t ideal when addressing Titania, Queen of Earth and Daylight, near-omnipotent ruler of the Summer Fae.

Elene jabbed her in the side.

‘Hey–‘ Ursa began, before realising Elene had just cast a spell on her – powerful magic to Enhance Ability, and hopefully honey her locution. Afterwards, she went back to focusing on her Zone of Truth, which had faded only slightly thanks to the presence of Titania, her deity.

If said deity realised too, said nothing. Elene desperately hoped the Queen hadn’t noticed, feeling her heart beat even faster at her own seditious feelings.

‘So, uh, yeah,’ concluded Ursa.

‘Ursa Carpenter,’ came Titania’s response; slow, deliberate, like a shovel biting into earth. Then, a sudden spilling of a question, almost giddy. ‘How do you feel about bad boys?’

Ursa felt, more than heard, a ‘Bwugh?’ sound come from her throat.

There was a shadchanit smirk on the Queen’s face. ‘Why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Azoth Alkahest.’

Ursa almost began to vibrate. Tell me, the Queen had said. Not tell the court. ‘Um. We. We’re friends? I think? Umm. We just texted a bit, after the Ikea stuff? Ummm. Yeah!!’

Nobody seemed willing to move on and put her out of her misery. So Ursa just kept going. ‘I mean, it’s pretty obvious from my texts that I’m, uh, super into him. And I told him that. And I did kiss him. And then he sent me flowers? But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Does it? Do you think he– wait, that’s not relevant is it. I shouldn’t be asking the Queen of Summer Fae for dating advice. Should I? Oh god Zone of Truth is horrible–‘

‘My Queen,’ came Cait-Sìth’s burr, low and menacing. ‘May I offer some thoughts on this new evidence we’ve just received? Putting aside, of course, the badness of any particular boys and the lack of respect shown to myself within?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ replied the Queen. ‘It’s publicly available information, after all – thank you again for your concession, Ursa Carpenter.’

‘I don’t think you said thanks before,’ said Ursa, but mostly under her breath. Elene gave her another jab to the ribs regardless.

The cat was speaking. ‘Looking through this correspondence between Ursa Carpenter and the Demon Azoth Alkahest, I am becoming increasingly certain that I was correct in my initial assessment – that the two are in collaboration with one another. However, what I hadn’t realised, until this point, is that their relationship is not one of strictly business. The business of murdering Summer Court members, that is.’

‘Oh, this is bad,’ muttered Elene. ‘I thought we might have something to use there but he’s turning it back on us–‘

‘Considering that Ursa Carpenter has been lying to us all this time regarding not just the circumstances of Montparnasse’s demise–‘

Elene’s ears twitched. ‘Wait that’s conjecture!’ she said, but nobody was listening. Cait-Sìth continued unabashed.

‘–But also her motivations for her involvement, I am of the opinion that the most fitting punishment for Ursa Carpenter would be not death… but to have her memories of Alkahest, and her other friends, erased from her mind.’

The court went still. Silent.

Queen Titania’s head tilted, just slightly.

‘This is really bad,’ hissed Elene again. ‘It’s poetic and everything.’

Ursa’s mouth had dropped open. ‘…What?’ she said, and her voice was very small.

Titania’s voice was anything but. Though, it had lost some of its regal sharpness, replaced with something closer to a glimmering edge of gleefully witnessed scandal.

‘Ooh,’ she said. ‘That’s juicy.’

She straightened up, fully queenlike once again. ‘An excellent suggestion, Cait-Sìth. I shall add it to the list of outcomes of this trial. With that, shall we move onto character witnesses? I’d like to discuss just how deserving Ursa Carpenter is of a given severity of retribution.’

Ursa felt herself pulled into a huddle with Elene.

‘We’re on the back foot now,’ said the rabbitfolk. ‘The Queen has just picked a particularly Parnassian punishment as the prime possibility; she has a predilection for poetic penalties, and if she prefers a path she’ll pilot the progression of proceedings down her path of preference.’

Ursa actually snapped out of her dread for a second to raise an eyebrow.

‘Apologies,’ added Elene. ‘I alliterate when I’m anxious.’

‘Do we have any ideas on how to change her mind?’

Elene didn’t shrug. She didn’t actually move at all.

‘What about Montparnasse himself, then?’ continued Ursa. ‘Because I swear the guy I met wouldn’t have been this popular. Is there anything we could do, like, magically? To get some answers?’

This got at least a head-tilt from Elene. ‘There is a spell I know. To pull stories from the aether. I can cast it but once. So you’d need to be certain Montparnasse himself would be the right thing to ask about.’

Ursa wasn’t sure. If anything, this whole business was teaching her that being certain was probably a bad thing.

‘Maybe… maybe not Montparnasse, but the thing he was there for?’

‘To keep Alkahest at bay?’

‘No, no. It seemed way more like he wanted the bones himself than just to stop Alkahest…’

There came a bang from behind her. The assembled court turned to see what all the fuss was about. Ursa didn’t bother; hoping that her friends would come kick the door in was wishful thinking, and would only make things harder.

‘Ahem,’ said a voice to the court in general.

Now Ursa did turn, and saw the old woman in the orange shawl from earlier; the one who’d mentioned having ‘surprises in store’. Ursa cringed back in apprehension.

‘Summer Court!’ announced the old woman. ‘My Queen,’ she added, and offered a rickety little curtsy to Titania. ‘There are friends of Ursa Carpenter fighting their way here to the trial!’

What?

The Court seemed to agree with Ursa’s assessment. ‘What?’ came a few mutters.

‘Against who?’

‘What for?’

‘Are we the baddies?’

‘Yes!’ continued the old woman. ‘They have had buildings collapse upon them on their way here. Explosions at service stations! Someone even tipped off a Demon mob boss to their location, and he tried to crush them under some sort of armored pantechnicon!’

‘Good lord!’

‘Explosions?!’

‘What, with like a sofa in the back?’

‘Whatever her story is,’ concluded the old woman, ‘There are those out there fighting tooth and nail to get her back. To rescue her.’

With that, she shot a withering glare at Cait-Sìth and sat down. The murmuring continued all around her.

‘What are they doing, coming after me?’ Ursa didn’t register she’d said it aloud.

Queen Titania took a small breath, and in an instant the Summer Court was silent again. ‘I will have order in my court,’ she said. It wasn’t a command, just a statement of imminent fact. ‘Now. Ursa Carpenter. Who do you believe will tell us who you are?’

⁂

‘Sir, are you absolutely certain there’s nothing the Institute can do?’

Cepheus had gone for a debriefing with Director Brynner after staggering back from his confrontation with Nora, Merlin, and Alkahest on their way out of the city. He’d had to walk slowly after Merlin’s memento–groin-attack.

Brynner was hunched over his desk, fingers steepled, slowly shaking his head in such an understated motion that it almost looked like a tremor. ‘It is quite beyond our remit. Were she still employed here, perhaps there’d be a way. But had she still been employed here it wouldn’t have come to this, would it?’

‘What about Nora and Merlin?’ protested Cepheus. ‘They’re still employed here. Couldn’t we use their presence as an excuse to–‘

‘Therein lies the problem, Cepheus,’ said Brynner, cutting him off. ‘It would be an excuse. One which the Summer Court would absolutely see through.’

Cepheus said nothing. Brynner’s ticking sound as he thought was the only noise in the room.

Then, the sound of a slight breeze parting blades of grass. The colours in the room deepened; a scent of cherries and citrus and sun tan lotion bloomed in the air. Brynner straightened up as, at the very corner of his mahogany desk, a tiny flourish of leaves began to sprout.

‘Your Majesty,’ observed Brynner.

Cepheus scrambled and whipped his head around toward the door, but instead of Queen Titania standing there in the office, he instead saw a little window in the air. It was like a reflection in a shallow pool, and within it, Cepheus could see the inexorable gaze of the Summer Queen.

‘We are about to conduct the “character witness” portion of the trial,’ said Titania, without any preamble. ‘Ursa Carpenter has requested that you speak honestly on your opinion of her.’

Brynner had gotten up from the desk. ‘By all means, use my office,’ he said as he passed Cepheus on his way out. ‘It’s quite within your remit to do so.’

Cepheus blinked at the door as it clicked shut, then turned his attention once more to the scrying window. He couldn’t see Ursa anywhere; Queen Titania seemed to occupy the entire world on the other side. But he had to assume that Ursa would be there, and – for now – safe, and listening.

‘My opinion of Ursa,’ he repeated. ‘Well, uh…’

⁂

Ursa watched as the conjured image of Cepheus began to speak. He kept glancing off to the sides, and shifting uncomfortably in whatever chair he was in.

When Queen Titania had asked her to select someone as a character witness, she’d panicked a bit herself – surely it shouldn’t be up to the defendant to pick someone? Obviously she’d pick someone totally biased toward her innocence, right?

Or was that what the court expected? If she picked someone too obviously on her side, that’d be as good as admitting her guilt! Wouldn’t it?

So, she’d asked for Cepheus, since, as her (former) manager, he could probably be thought of as reliably neutral.

She might have overthought it a little.

‘…but I think she’s a good kid,’ Cepheus was saying. ‘Does her best to get along with people. Owns it and apologises when she messes up. Tries to pay attention to people.

‘Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sure at first what the Director saw in her. Seemed like she wasn’t, uh, built for this line of work, if you catch my meaning? Not incapable, just… a little green, maybe. Or a little pink.

‘Despite that initial worry, though, she’d been a good member of the team. Wish she hadn’t had to leave in such, er, messy circumstances.’

Cait-Sìth pounced. ‘Could you tell the court a wee bit about said “messy circumstances”? I’d be curious to get your opinion on why she’d turn her back on you all in such a way.’

The image of Cepheus shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, uhm, I used the word “messy” just because had to quit so suddenly and didn’t even–‘

‘Had to quit, did she?’ said Cait-Sìth. ‘So it’s your opinion she had no choice but to leave your organisation?’

‘I wouldn’t say–‘

‘Do you not think it possible that Ursa Carpenter has been playing the role of the defenseless waif to deceive and manipulate you?’

‘Hey, I never said she was defenseless,’ said Cepheus, his voice growing just a few calories hotter. Cait-Sìth’s needling was working. ‘It’s more that our position as a neutral party is one she might struggle with. She can be stubborn. But so are the rest of the team–‘

‘I’m not asking to debate her incompetence, Mr. Cepheus; that’s quite plain for the court to see without my help.’

At this Elene threw up her hands. ‘Come on, Cait, how can she be both ineptly incompetent and a master manipulator? You’re attacking ad-hominem!’

Her staccato alliteration betrayed how nervous this was making her.

‘Of course she can be both,’ Cait-Sìth said, perhaps a little smugly, or perhaps just like a cat. ‘And it’s a very dangerous combination.’

Cepheus’ image cleared its throat. ‘Is there anything you need my input on?’ he asked, unblinking, after a deep breath. His jaw continued to move of its own accord when he’d finished speaking.

‘Nothing for me,’ said Cait-Sìth, brightly. ‘Though I’d be quite interested to speak to Director Brynner himself if he’s available? I have some questions about his hiring process.’

One of Elene’s feet began to tap out a rhythm on the floor.

Tap-thump, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, thump-thump-thump, tap-thump-tap-tap, tap.

Ursa didn’t know Morse code.

With an indulging look from Queen Titania – who presumably did know Morse code – the vision of Cepheus blurred and shifted to the lamps that passed for Director Brynner’s eyes. He’d positioned himself back in his office, Cepheus having excused himself, and now stood with his back to the windowscape he was so fond of so that all of Middlemarch was behind him as he inclined his head slightly.

Ursa hadn’t quite realised until then, but Charlton Brynner had the heart of a showman ticking away in that brass chest of his. Or ticking away somewhere, anyway.

‘I’m honored that you’d consider my opinion worthwhile,’ the Director was saying. ‘What would you like to know?’

Cait-Sìth got right into it. ‘Director Brynner. Could you talk us through your decision to hire Ursa Carpenter, considering our previous speaker already confessed he wasn’t sure why you did, and considering all that’s happened as a result of that decision?’

Brynner didn’t respond.

‘Director Brynner?’ prompted Cait-Sìth.

‘Oh, apologies,’ said the Director. ‘I wasn’t sure if you were finished.’

‘I was.’ The cat’s voice was impatient. His tail lashed back and forth.

‘Good,’ said Brynner. ‘I wouldn’t want to be interrupted.’

Cait-Sìth said nothing.

‘Now,’ continued Brynner, ‘I hired Ursa Carpenter after an incident led to her being exposed to Institute field work and she displayed a surprising aptitude for it. Obviously as a Changeling, she was already aware of the Caliber Institute, but knew little of the sort of duties we hold beyond our bureaucratic roles in immigration to the Fuclrum and the like.

‘She has an ability to think on her feet, and talk her way into and out of things. She does her best to find peaceable solutions to challenging situations where such solutions may not be immediately apparent. She’s stubborn enough to stand by her beliefs.

‘But beyond that, she has showed an ability to befriend and work with members of the Institute that had previously been considered “difficult” at best. The reason I hired her is that I believe she is something of a “secret ingredient” that brings out the best in many of the Institute’s other assets.’

Cait-Sìth’s tail still moved like a metronome. ‘It sounds like you have quite the considerable bias toward her,’ he observed.

‘I’d have such a bias towards anyone I’d hire.’

‘So you’re just talking up your employees, then.’

Brynner’s eyes flickered in mock bemusement. ‘But Ursa isn’t an employee of the Institute.’

Ursa’s vision had begun to wobble a little. She’d been totally unprepared for that; thinking more that Brynner would be… what? Angry? Cold? She wiped at her eyes.

‘If there’s nothing else for now from Cait-Sìth,’ said Elene, seizing the opportunity. ‘I just have one question for Director Brynner. Would you say that, despite the “messy” circumstances we’re all aware of, Ursa Carpenter – having captured the hearts and minds of your Institute employees – is a good person?’

Ursa finally met Brynner’s eye, though she knew he couldn’t actually see her in the courtroom. If he’d had a mouth, he might have been smiling.

‘Unequivocally.’

⁂

The car had been left behind to pullulate parking tickets on the side of the road. They’d triangulated the trial’s location by how green Merlin’s face became with whatever mana-sickness was afflicting him.

Now, Merlin, Nora, and Alkahest stood before a door.

Nora produced the key that the old woman had dropped.

In unison, the three took a breath.

⁂

The done thing, in a quiet room, is to observe that you “could have heard a pin drop”.

The thing is, though, that a pin hitting the floor does have quite a distinctive sound; a kind of resonant ping that stands apart from voices or the general shuffle and tamp of human life. There are lots of rooms where you’d easily hear a pin drop.

There are also times when a dropping pin creates a quiet room instead, particularly if said pin was formerly in something like a grenade. Or if it’s not a pin but a PIN, and the room in general is comfortable with fraud.

To clarify: you don’t need silence for a tiny sound to stand out; not if it’s important enough.

There came a click from the door at the rear of the court.

Ursa spun as a hush bloomed across the collected Fae, and saw the door booted open by a Demon in black and white.

He marched into the courtroom and pulled a shotgun from his jacket – white leather, damn, thought Ursa. Flanking him on either side were Nora and Merlin.

Nora had her usual expression of determined impassivity, while Merlin’s face held a mix of red fury and green queasiness that sort of made him look like a mango.

Ursa couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe they were actually here.

Cait-Sìth skidded into the rescuers’ path.

‘What do you think you’re doing, barging into–‘

Alkahest didn’t break stride. The blast from his shotgun sent the cat flying backwards toward the podium, though it picked itself up immediately afterwards without so much as a trickle of blood.

‘Let her go,’ said Alkahest. To Queen Titania.

‘She is on trial, Azoth Alkahest.’

‘Alright then.’

With that, Alkahest shot forwards with his open mouth full of shadows, and seemed to turn inside out, becoming a dark silhouette in the air that flew upwards towards Titania’s face, swords drawn.

And bounced. He was swatted downwards, though Queen Titania didn’t even move. The glassy floor cracked under the impact. What lay there was Alkahest’s regular, humanoid body.

‘No no no,’ said Ursa, and reached out with her magic to try and send a Healing Word to him. He’d come all this way, he couldn’t die, not now, not like this.

The magic didn’t come. Ursa remembered that her magic was sealed away, and slowly it dawned on her that throughout all of this, she’d been in her Changeling base form. Grey skin. White hair. Blank eyes.

She suddenly felt, despite being less colourful than ever, almost as big and noticeable as Titania herself. She tried to burrow down in her seat.

Merlin and Nora were at her side. They didn’t seem to care that – for a Changeling – she was the equivalent of naked.

‘We’re here to bring you back,’ said Nora. She nodded towards the dazed Alkahest. ‘Him too, I suppose.’

‘I didn’t think you’d follow me,’ said Ursa. It took her a few tries.

Merlin snorted. ‘You didn’t make it easy to. What were you thinking?’

‘I… I had a plan. Didn’t want anyone to, uh…’

Merlin was staring up at her. ‘I already told you, us misfits have got to stick together.’

Ursa’s throat didn’t want to work, so she stayed silent.

Queen Titania had leaned across the podium, and began to speak in the direction of the Demon she’d just deflected in the air.

‘You make demands of the Queen of Earth and Daylight?’ she said, voice the first spark before a wildfire. ‘You arrived unbidden and univited, you kick down the door of my trialgrounds, you engage in a direct assault on my prosecution, and then you have the audacity to make demands of me?!’

With each word, the pressure that seemed to be weighing down on Alkahest grew heavier and heavier. He could no longer lift his head.

‘I will have order in my court.’

Alkahest’s bones began to crack.

‘My Queen!’

It was Elene’s voice. The leporine lawyer’s ears were flat, but she stood up from her seat. ‘These three are valuable character witnesses for this section of the trial. If you would permit it, I’d like to interview each of them?’

The Queen didn’t react, though Alkahest seemed to remain intact for now.

Another voice joined Elene’s, from the back. ‘They have been through quite a trial themselves to get here! It would be… anticlimactic to turn them away.’

Merlin practically did a spit take, which was worrying considering the sickness in his face. ‘You!’ he cried, pointing a finger at the old woman with the orange shawl. ‘You tried to fucking kill us! You dropped a cinema on us!!’

This prompted a bit of shuffling about in the stands, and an outburst from the feline prosecution. ‘Wait, wait,’ said Cait-Sìth, arching his back. ‘Mrs. Levitt. Did you set up obstacles for their story of reaching here, just to undermine my case?!’

It was very quiet for a moment. If one rolled high enough on a perception check, it might have just been possible to hear the old woman mutter ‘That’s right, you little bastard.’

‘Very well,’ said Queen Titania, silencing the apparent feud. ‘But the new arrivals are to act properly as members of the trial. They will speak when addressed, and behave themselves otherwise. Until called for, they will sit down.’

Merlin and Nora found themselves compelled into chairs near Ursa, with Merlin’s nausea suddenly receding now he was here on the Queen’s permission. Alkahest stayed in his little crater, but at least no longer seemed to be experiencing invisible weight.

Elene waited to see if Titania had any further edicts, then turned to Ursa’s rescuers. ‘So! If the, er, Human could give us a brief word on her opinion of Ursa Carpenter first?’

‘What?’ said Nora. ‘Oh. Now?’

Elene nodded approvingly.

Nora slowly got back to her feet. ‘She’s… better to work with than most people.’ She sat back down.

Elene blinked a few times. Her voice was perhaps a bit manic. ‘And…. the Gnome, then?’

Merlin’s voice was steadier. ‘Ursa’s my friend. She’s always insisted that she was, even when I was just doing web design for her. She’s stubborn like that. I think, usually when someone’s so obstinate about a particular label like “friends”, it either means they’re faking it or being totally sincere. And I used to think she was faking it.’

He walked around to the front of the court, where he could see Ursa along with the assembled Fae. ‘I realised over the course of us working together that she wasn’t insincere. When she handed herself in, I realised – based on how angry I was – how much I value that friendship. Plus it wasn’t even her, it was Alkahest.’

‘Merlin!!’ Ursa shrieked.

Nora raised a hand. ‘Yeah I’ll back that up actually. It’s all his fault and she’s taking the fall for him.’

‘Nora!!’

Queen Titania glowered at them. She almost seemed… disappointed. ‘And why do you think Ursa Carpenter would do that?’

Merlin and Nora both spoke at once.

‘Because she’s an idiot.’

‘Because she has shit taste.’

Elene cleared her throat. ‘Then… one last question. We’ve learned that the two of you met Montparnasse as well. What was your opinion of him?’

Again, a simultaneous response.

‘He was an asshole,’ said Merlin.

‘Just a real piece of shit,’ said Nora.

Elene nodded, then hefted her aluminium baseball bat. She addressed the court at large. ‘I believe that Ursa Carpenter, considering all we know of her character and behaviours, is indeed taking the fall here for another!’

‘Elene, no!‘ hissed Ursa.

‘But!’ continued Elene, ‘I don’t believe that the one responsible here is Azoth Alkahest, as the prosecution would have you believe! Remember how Ursa Carpenter’s picture of Montparnasse is entirely different to all of ours? And now the others corroborate it. She is being framed. There is more at play! And I will show you.’

She swung her bat at the floor. It struck, emitting a humming resonance like fingers on the rim of a wineglass, and Elene held it up to cast Legend Lore.

The humming resolved into a voice.

‘The labyrinthine bones are an engine of what’s to come, honed and held to the Fulcrum’s throat. The Tenth Muse will suck the marrow from them, and in doing so she promises that tomorrow will belong to those who stand beside her. Already, one with a mind of melted snow has been made martyr for her cause.‘

Cait-Sìth spat. ‘Meaningless prophecy. What’s that got to do with anything?!’

‘A mind of melted snow,’ repeated Titania. She was leaning over the podium again, only now with a bright, eager light in her eyes. ‘Azoth Alkahest. You will tell us what happened with Montparnasse.’

‘Yeah, I guess I will,’ said Alkahest. He’d managed to sit up, but was still on the floor. ‘So… I went to look for some bones based on a tip from a friend. I arrived to find Montparnasse also sniffing around for them. He eventually tried to charm me into killing the others there, but lucky for me Ursa had already charmed me into chilling out a little. Not sure what with.

‘Weird how her milder spell stood up to his, but hey. Once he moved to attack some vanilla mortals, Ursa had to drop the spell on me to freeze him, so I tore the guy’s head off with my teeth. Does that about sum it up?’

There was a hissing from Cait-Sìth. ‘I knew it! I knew you were responsible!’ There might still have been some buckshot in his fur.

By then, Alkahest had finally gotten back up to his feet. ‘Yeah, I never said I wasn’t so no prizes there. You guys already sent shit to come kill me, anyway, so why are we even still discussing this?’

‘Because I want to know why, Azoth Alkahest!’ said the Queen. Ursa might have expected such words to be angry – especially considering Titania’s reaction so far – but instead, she sounded more like she was goading him.

Alkahest met the Queen’s eyes.

‘I did it to save her life. I’m not willing to let her throw that away. Because I love her.’

Ursa practically yelped. Despite the seelie seal on her magic, she felt herself turning pink again.

‘So,’ said the Queen of Earth and Daylight, stepping away from her podium to tower over the little Demon like a wickerman. ‘You disrupt my court. You bring violence to my subjects. You undermine the whole reason for us being here. All to make a declaration of your “love”?’

There was a slam.

Titania had sat on the floor, cross-legged. ‘Damn it, Alkahest, you utter bastard,’ she said. ‘You’ve already done way too much shit to pull a stunt like this and get away with it. Fuck. What do I even fucking say to that, you shit?’

Alkahest wobbled a bit, but stayed upright. The collected Summer Fae glanced among themselves, unsure of where things stood.

‘My Queen, kill him!’ shouted a sulfurous Cait-Sìth. ‘He killed Montparnasse, he admits it! Someone has to be held accountable!!’

Suddenly Ursa’s voice was working again. ‘Then… then it’s whoever made the bones, not us!’

Queen Titania slipped back into her regal composure for a moment, even sat as he was like a child at assembly. ‘Elene.’

‘Yes, my Queen?’

‘Do you have it within you to Speak with Dead for us?’

‘Yes, my Queen.’

With a flourish from her bat, the room dimmed and shadows deepened. With Queen Titania’s power in the air, no earthly remains were necessary – a spectral figure lingered in the air between Ursa and Elene.

(Or perhaps the spell had found Montparnasse’s head as a focus, if it was still somehow in Alkahest’s shadow-stuff. Probably not though.)

Queen Titania leaned toward the shade’s glow like an anglerfish. ‘Dear, sweet, departed Montparnasse… I have a question for you. Were you working entirely within my interests when you were searching for the bones?’

The spirit of Montparnasse shimmered. Shivered. His voice drifted into the room. ‘I…’ it began.

Its head looked down with the barest hint of eyes. It floated above Elene’s Zone of Truth.

It struggled. Tried to stay silent. But the two spells together, plus the presence of a being on Titania’s level, were much too strong for a mere shade to withstand.

‘No,’ it said.

‘Where were you going to take them?’

The shade of Montparnasse looked up towards its Queen. Tried again to do anything but answer. Flickered in place, like it would discorporate entirely if it could and cease to be, rather than answer this question.

‘…Lopodite,’ it said.

Titania closed her eyes like she’d received a diagnosis.

The shade screamed. Then, it did discorporate.

‘Montparnasse is posthumously banished from the Summer Court,’ announced Titania, getting up in full Queenly wrath. ‘He is excommunicated. And he is never to be spoken of again on pain of following in his footsteps.’

She turned down to address Ursa and her cavalry. ‘As for you. Calling upon true love as a defense is bold, even for one such as you, Azoth Alkahest. I would see you prove your conviction.’

Ursa felt herself lifted into the air. Her hands were growing a little Back-to-the-Future. ‘Uh,’ she tried to say.

Queen Titania was still talking. ‘There is something of a ritual in Changeling culture. One wishing to court another must find each of their potential partner’s personae in the world, and must gain their blessing before any union can proceed. It’s an archaic custom, but then, so are claims of true love.’

Alkahest spun to see the fading Ursa. Their eyes met.

‘I would assist you, Azoth Alkahest,’ continued the Queen. ‘I shall place Ursa Carpenter’s personae in the world around us. Find them, and prove your love is true. Other participants of this trial, you may help or hinder as you see fit. You have one hour.’

Her hand lashed out and struck the massive bell.

Ursa vanished. Alkahest had already sprinted from the room, the bass echo of the bell following in his wake.

⁂

By the time Merlin and Nora caught up with him, Alkahest had resorted to licking random objects to try and taste if they were important to his search. He had his tongue on the keypad of a cash machine as they approached.

‘Ugh. No!’ he said, then ran over to lick a lamp post, grimacing again at the whole unsanitary experience.

‘Do you… need help?’ Nora hazarded.

‘If not we won’t force you,’ said Merlin.

They’d had a brief discussion on whether they could just leave Alkahest to get destroyed by Titania, now that Ursa was apparently off the hook. In the end they’d come to help because, should the Demon die, the car ride home with Ursa would probably be a bit akward.

‘I’m freakin’ out, you guys!’ yelled Alkahest. ‘Gods I don’t even know how many personae she’s got!’

‘You sound like a bad potential partner,’ observed Merlin.

‘I know!‘ Alkahest said. He spotted, off to the side of the pavement, what appeared to be some dog poo with a footprint in it. Gingerly, he stuck out his tongue and braced himself.

There was a slap across his face.

He looked down at Merlin, who’d leapt up two whole feet to hit him. ‘Ow. Okay, uh, I probably needed that. Thanks.’

Merlin slapped him again.

‘Ow! I’m okay already, jeeze!’

After about half a second, Nora gave him a slap as well.

‘Nora!’ said Alkahest. ‘What was that one for!?’

Nora thought for a moment. ‘Teambuilding,’ she said.

Alkahest rubbed at his cheek. ‘Alright. Well. I figure if I can find regular Ursa, she can tell us about the others?’

‘I’ll see if I can find them with her IP,’ said Merlin, pulling out his laptop. ‘I assume they all have channels and that they all upload off the same one.’

‘Will they be on this world’s internet?’

Another voice joined them. ‘The Queen has inserted them into the world. They’ll be here.’

It was Elene. She rested her baseball bat on one shoulder. ‘I came to help. Didn’t you find any yet? You only have 45 minutes left.’

‘I know that,’ growled Alkahest.

‘I can Locate Creature,’ offered Elene. ‘Though it would only find her base form, I think.’

‘No that’s great!’

The four of them took off running.

⁂

Cait-Sìth waited outside the café with Ursa inside. He could see her through the window, alone, typing away at a laptop covered with stickers. She seemed to be in a bit of a fugue state. It didn’t matter.

As long as the Demon couldn’t get to her.

In fact, here he was now, with the Gnome and the Human – and Elene – in tow.

‘Alright, stop right fucking there or I’m gonna do worse than a fucking shotgun,’ said Cait-Sìth.

Alkahest kept sprinting towards the café. The others, though, slowed a little. The Human pulled a gun.

‘Alright! You wanna fucking go then?!’

Alkahest did indeed want to go. ‘Can you guys keep him busy?!’ he shouted.

Cait-Sìth snarled. He prepared to shapeshift; a bear or a dire wolf or some Holocene lion, something that would snap the Demon in two before he could–

An explosion detonated in Cait-Sìth’s side, and Alkahest simply leapt over him and threw open the door to the café, bolting inside.

Cait-Sìth made to pursue, but another Firebolt hit him, this time from Nora instead of Merlin. At least Elene didn’t seem to be attacking, though she stood to one side, ready to support the other two with healing magic.

With ears flat and tail straight up, Cait-Sìth called on his strongest reserves of magic and cast a spell.

A swirling mass of water suddenly burst forth from the cracks in the pavement flags, and began to roil around in a terrible Maelstrom. It swept over Nora and Merlin, both of whom were sent flying from their feet and washed away like spiders round a plughole. The tide of the Maelstrom rose as Cait-Sìth forced more power into it.

Elene’s bat came out, as she held on to a nearby railing, and Nora caught hold. Merlin, too, had managed to get a grip on a lamp post.

‘If my laptop has gotten wet, I swear,’ he muttered.

He stretched out his fingers, watching the tattoos on his arms flash and ripple. They were healing remarkably well; it must have been the magic. Couldn’t have been because he’d been taking care of it, not after the day he’d had.

A massive With Bolt, of the same calibre as the one he’d almost killed Alkahest with, exploded from his hand and hammered into Cait-Sìth.

The waters receded. Cait-Sìth flew back toward the café window, but escaped through one of his little green portals before he could collide with it and get shredded in the glass.

All of this was going on outside while Alkahest slammed both hands down at Ursa’s table. The rest of the café was magically empty, probably thanks to Titania.

She looked up at him vaguely, then her eyes focused.

‘Ursa!’ said Alkahest, frantically. ‘Ursa, do you know who I am?’

‘What? Yeah of course. What’s going on out–‘

‘There isn’t time! I need your blessing, like the Queen said!’

Ursa’s attention shifted back to him, and she smiled. ‘Of course you have my blessing,’ she said. Her cheeks flushed a little. ‘Should we… kiss?’

‘Mm, better not,’ said Alkahest. ‘I just licked quite a few cash machines.’

‘…What?’

‘There’s no time, Ursa! Your other personae – I’m 99% sure Abadallion is you, but how many–‘

The urgency caught on. ‘Oh. Yeah! Abadallion is one! Look for, uh… abandoned buildings? Overgrown ones? And then there’ll be Saubra, who you can probably find in a gym?’

Her hands had grown translucent.

‘Oh damn,’ she said, more calmly than expected. ‘I was hoping I could–‘

Ursa vanished.

⁂

Outside, Merlin had found a recent upload on a YouTube channel belonging to one Abadallion. It had been in a hollowed-out building with a view of the Thames and several distinctive buildings, so they’d been able to figure out the location pretty handily. They were on the way now.

Nora’s brow was furrowed. When Alkahest had told them the names of the other personae, “Saubra” had prickled some sense of familiarity in her mind, but she just couldn’t quite place it yet.

‘Oh shit, look,’ said Alkahest. They were actually pretty close to the houses of parliament, and had come to the remains of a dinky little building that had apparently burned down. Inside, a darkly-clad figure stood with their head down.

Heedless of how it might look, Alkahest skidded down the path they were on and ran right up to the figure. There were only 20 minutes left.

‘Abadallion?!’ he tried.

The figure’s head stayed bowed, but their eyes took him in. ‘Mhmm?’ they said.

‘I, uh… I need your blessing. For Ursa?’

‘We’ve discussed it, yes,’ said Abadallion. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Oh,’ said Alkahest. It had gone more easily than expected. ‘Thank you?’

‘Mhmm. Thanks for the pipes, by the way.’

Abadallion vanished.

Alkahest climbed from the building’s shell, and jogged on the spot as he spoke. ‘Okay, so, we just gotta–‘

‘Saubra!!’ said Nora, quite suddenly. ‘I remember now!’

⁂

They ran west, away from the river. Nora explained as they went.

‘My sister is a bit of a health nut. And she sends me videos and things. And one time, a few months back, she sent this one by – I think – Ursa’s persona Saubra. It was about some “hot yoga with fermented tea” fad. And there was a gym that did that, and wrestling classes in the same room?’

It sounded totally made up. But, sure enough, the four soon arrived at a sign that read:

Kombucha-Lucha

Merlin’s fist clenched. ‘Why hadn’t I heard of this…?’ he mumbled.

‘I’m going in,’ said Alkahest.

Inside, instead of the usual staff at reception, there was a tall woman with tanned skin and a boxer’s physique.

‘Saubra?’ asked Alkahest.

‘You,’ said Saubra.

‘…Hi. I am indeed me, and have been for quite some time.’ Alkahest found himself returning to his habit of talking like a sardonic prick. He knew he was nervous, but come on.

Saubra slammed her elbow down on the reception desk, and held her hand open. ‘Come on then, if you want a blessing.’

‘Arm wrestling? Seriously?’

Saubra just kept on holding out her arm.

He approached her, then paused. ‘No,’ he said, slowly. ‘I’ve literally just made the decision that I don’t need to resort to force at the first hurdle. And Ursa was the one who helped me realise that. If I try to beat you, I’d be ignoring what I learned from her.’

Saubra was smiling.

‘You can’t get someone’s approval by force, anyway,’ said Alkahest. ‘Fuck, that was the test, wasn’t it?’

‘Sort of. I did kinda want to hurt your hand because you were talking like a sarcastic asshole who’s too cool to take things seriously. You know that’s why she didn’t like you at first, right?’

‘She didn’t like me at first?’

‘You can have my blessing. And she’s going to kiss you properly next time, so brush your teeth.’

Saubra vanished.

⁂

The bass peal of the bell rang out again, and Ursa stood intact before Alkahest. She ran up and threw her arms around him. He squeezed her back.

‘That was… uh, that was the Verslovian ritual,’ said Ursa.

‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ said Alkahest.

‘No, I mean. This is important. It’s like… it’s like an engagement thing.’

‘Oh,’ said Alkahest, turning to take her back to the others, and then the car, and then eventually, home. ‘…Is it too soon for that?’

Caliber Session 15: The Trial of Ursa Carpenter, Part 3

Alkahest put his foot down. They were driving down the M1, with still more than a hundred miles to go before they reached London – a destination chosen mostly on intuition. And the fact that the sun appeared to be rising from its direction rather than the East.

‘…No, a macchiato is an espresso shot with a dash of steamed milk,’ Merlin was saying. ‘The concept of a “latte macchiato” can’t exist, because if you add more milk, it’s just a damned latte.’

‘Isn’t it stronger than a normal latte?’ asked Nora.

‘A stronger latte is still a latte! It just has a double shot! Starbucks is meddling with semantic ambiguity. At this rate there’s going to be a hundred different drink names based on the exact percentile ratio of espresso to milk!’

Alkahest clicked the indicator and signalled that the monster Rolls Royce would be pulling into the next service station. ‘Maybe that’s why they write the names on the side of the cup,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we’re nearly out of gas. We can use this time to get our breath back a little, too.’

World #C0027 – going by the Caliber Institute’s nomenclature, anyway – seemed largely the same as the one before it, with crystalline sources of arcane energy taking the place of pylons flanking the motorway. White tyres were the norm; perhaps magical strengthening of materials meant introducing carbon black to the rubber was never necessary on this world?

Another, more horrifying difference between this world and the Fulcrum one: the service station they’d arrived at was largely dominated by a Little Chef.

‘You maniacs,’ said Merlin, wide-eyed. ‘You kept it open! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!’

The others shot him looks of disgust.

‘Well, I thought it was funny,’ said the gnome.

‘I always liked their Jubilee Pancakes, to be honest,’ mused Nora.

The others shot her looks of disgust.

‘Anyway,’ said Alkahest, rooting through grenade pins to retrieve his wallet. ‘You two sickos head in while I fill up. I hope at least one of my cards works here.’

So Merlin and Nora went inside to perform the usual routine at a service station: stretching legs, waiting for mediocre coffee, and performing risk/reward assessments on whether to use the bathroom or wait for the next one.

Merlin decided to use said facilities while Nora waited for a Latte Macchiato. As he washed his hands, the door opened to reveal a little old lady who came slowly ambling in toward a cubicle. Merlin thought little of it over the sound of the hand dryer; gender-neutral restrooms were probably more common on this world.

She had made weird eye contact… but that was her problem, not Merlin’s.

He returned to Nora, sparing only a slight scoff at her choice of beverage – a beverage chosen for solely antagonistic reasons – and the two prepared to head back to the Rolls.

Strangely, the old lady that had followed Merlin into the bathroom had reappeared now, and was making her way to the exit with a speed quite at odds with her hunched-over posture. Merlin paused to let her pass, taking in her thinning white hair, her expression of polite bewilderment, her bright orange shawl…

Merlin began to run.

The service station went up in much the same fashion as the cinema – loud; more force than fire, resulting in a great deal of falling masonry – only this time with just enough time for Merlin and Nora to sprint onto the car park and avoid being buried.

Again, Merlin saw a flash of orange vanish through some sort of rift. This time, though, there was a face to attach to it.

‘Who the hell is doing that?’ said Nora, brushing at her shoulders. ‘Are they following us?’

‘That old woman,’ said Merlin, thinking as he spoke. ‘I can only surmise she’s trying to stop us from reaching the trial.’

‘Why? Who is she?’

‘That I don’t know.’

Alkahest had come running up to them from the petrol station proper. Others who’d been filling up their cars stood around aghast as he pushed through their ranks.

‘Jesus fucking Christ you two,’ he said. ‘I thought you were goners.’

‘Still think it isn’t important?’ asked Merlin. ‘We need to move.’

Nora’s hand came up to halt him. ‘Wait,’ she said, as they approached the Rolls Royce lurking by the petrol pumps. She ducked down, and with Glove-of-Thievery-enhanced dexterity, quickly disassembled a device of obvious ill-intent that had been affixed to the car’s belly.

‘That’s one more bomb, then,’ she said, holding it up.

The others huffed out breaths simultaneously.

‘Shit,’ said Alkahest. ‘Shit.’

The bomb looked, in Merlin’s eyes, to be quite easy to put together, actually.

And then there came a crash from behind them. The three turned to see parked cars being crushed and pedestrians ducking for cover, as a massive, armored, big rig semi-trailer truck juggernauted through vehicle and rubble alike.

At the wheel was Vic Sulph himself, incandescent with fury. ‘I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU, ALKAHEST!!’ he screamed. ‘YOU’RE A DEAD MAN!!’

Not that anyone could hear him over the sound of dozens of cars being reduced to two dimensions under the big rig’s wheels.

Alkahest saw all this and smirked. ‘Pah,’ he said. ‘He ain’t gonna crush his own car.’

The big rig wasn’t slowing. It barrelled toward them.

‘I mean, that’s the whole reason he’s here, because of the car,’ continued Alkahest. He was no longer smirking.

‘We should drive away,’ said Nora, as the big rig grew ever-closer.

‘…You might be correct, yeah,’ said Alkahest.

Merlin was already inside.

They tore out from the petrol station with Vic’s big rig on their tail like an anglerfish chasing its own lure. Out onto the motorway proper, Nora looked back to see that not only was Vic Sulph attempting to crush them with his eighteen-wheeled-trash-compactor, he’d also brought along a crew of his. They flanked him in what may have once been dune buggies, and now were dune buggies with spikes on.

‘What the hell are they doing?’ asked Nora. ‘Are those things road-legal? Wait, that’s a stupid question. Alkahest, can you get us out of their line of sight? Just for a second?’

The Demon was gripping the wheel like it was trying to bite him, but nevertheless he took the car forwards to a lorry up ahead, keeping it between them and Sulph like a child exploiting obstacles in Tag.

Nora’s hand pressed down hard on the inside of the door, and after a moment a videogame-time-trial ghost of the car drifted away and into the sights of Sulph’s crew. Alkahest slowed and dropped lanes as the big rig chased Nora’s Major Image off down a junction.

‘It won’t last long,’ said Nora. ‘If we get too far away it’ll just vanish. But hopefully by then we’ll be far enough ahead that they can’t catch up.’

‘Smart,’ said Alkahest, speeding up again.

‘We could have just taken them out, you know,’ said Merlin from the back. ‘Those buggies looked like they were held together by spit and wishes.’

Nora turned in her seat. ‘I’m sure we could, but we have to save our strength for when we get there. I’m not showing up at Fae court half-dead already, and I’m definitely not lugging your catatonic ass around because you wasted all your energy casting Level Eight Chicken of the Infinite.’

‘Speaking of which,’ said Alkahest, before pausing. ‘I mean speaking of the court, not Chicken of the Infinite. Do we got a plan for when we get there? My usual approach would be to boot down the door and go in guns first, but, well… I don’t want to risk our position if we can’t get her back by force. And I don’t think Ursa would want to be taken back by force.’

‘What?’ said Merlin. ‘What happened to the Demon that bit a man’s head off – landing us in this mess to begin with – because he tried, not even succeeding, to cast a spell on you?’

The Demon kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the road for almost a full minute. ‘Look, I’ve been rolling in some brutal company for a while now,’ he said eventually. ‘I got goals. Things I believe in. And I thought that hurting people was the only way to show them I mean business. I thought I had to remove threats before they could become threats. That last one in particular is the reason the Summer Court hates me so damn much.

‘I’ve killed people, Merlin, because I was concerned that they might later betray me.’

It was quiet save the roar of wheels on the motorway.

‘But, thing is, Ursa came with me the last time I met up with someone important. And I messed it up, but she fixed it. No violence. No shows of force. No biting heads off, even.

‘I thought that harm was the only way to get things done, and I was wrong. So I want to try some other approaches.’

Quiet again.

Alkahest coughed. ‘And also I think Queen Titania is probably there too, based on the sun.’

This got a response. ‘Titania?! The Queen of the Summer Court?’ said Merlin, aghast.

In the front, Nora rubbed at her eyes. ‘I’m assuming she’s less Queen-of-England figurehead and more Queen-in-Chess strongest piece?’

‘That’s a real good analogy, actually,’ mused Alkahest. ‘Because she can basically do whatever she wants, and she’s way taller than everyone else.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Merlin, in an attempt to get things back on track. ‘We can’t really put together a plan because we have no idea what state things are going to be in when we arrive. We don’t know what Ursa’s planning to do. We don’t know if the Queen will have gotten mad and just incinerated her on the spot. We don’t know if the Queen will have gotten bored and just incinerated her on the spot.’

He found himself fidgeting in his seat.

‘What we need to do is take control of the narrative,’ said Alkahest. ‘The further Outside a Fae is from, the more likely they are to get swept away in a story. If we can frame this as a daring rescue against all odds, then–‘

There was a slam as something chose that moment to rear end them. Thankfully, all three made their saves against whiplash, and we able to turn and see what had done the damage.

Vic Sulph’s big rig bore down behind them, spiked buggies following in an arrowhead formation.

‘Shit!’ said Alkahest, fighting to keep their car going straight ahead. ‘How did they find us? I’ve got Ursa’s amulet!’

‘They must be tracking the car itself,’ said Nora, retrieving her pistol from its holster. ‘Okay, think. We can’t get away from them on a straight like this!’

‘Yes we can,’ said Merlin, waggling his fingers as if preparing to select a donut from a box. He had a spell he’d been wanting to try, a sort of souped-up version of On/Off.

Merlin cast Haywire.

High up in the driver’s seat of the semi-trailer, Vic Sulph leaned forward in anticipation of crushing a band of thieves beneath the reinforced wheels of his war rig.

There was a crackle, earning the radio a suspicious look. Then it burst into a shower of crackling sparks, jolting Vic backwards. He looked through the windows and saw that the same had happened to a couple of his crew, their buggies slowing as the engines stalled.

His rig had stalled too. Despite his momentum, the stolen Rolls Royce opened a gap between them, and Vic scrambled to grab the radio and get his crew in order. The radio hissed, haywire, and spat at him.

Merlin watched as his spells got several of the buggies to slow, and one – that had been turning when the spell hit and now found its steering locked up – actually veered to the side and went under the big rig’s wheels.

‘Oof,’ said Merlin. They were at least far enough away to ignore how gruesome it must have been. Two more of the buggies that had avoided his Haywire were closing in. Each had two Demons in, wearing their game faces – one to drive, and one with some kind of heavy weapon; in this case, a machine gun.

‘Everyone down!’ yelled Merlin, as a spray of bullets came their way. Their stolen vehicle must have been reinforced, because miraculously, none of them were hit.

Retaliating, Merlin popped up with his hand through the window, sending a bolt of lightning in their assailant’s path. The buggy swerved to avoid it, getting between the Rolls and the big rig.

‘Damn it,’ said Merlin under his breath. He couldn’t get a good enough angle from inside the car, even if it was a monster with windows big enough for him to fit through. ‘Wait.’

The Demon with the machine gun aimed at the Rolls’ tyres, holding the buggy’s spiked roll cage to keep his shot steady. He realised – too late – that something had climbed out of the Rolls’ window, and now balanced atop the speeding car’s boot.

Merlin’s second Lightning Bolt struck the buggy dead center, and it went up like a bottle of fireworks.

‘What the fuck is he doing?!’ shouted Alkahest, trying to drive in a way that wouldn’t throw the Gnome off the back without getting them hit by more gunfire.

Nora, leaning out of the front window and taking potshots at the big rig itself, shouted back to him. ‘There’s only two of them left now, with the ones that fell behind and the ones that got wrecked! Though the truck itself is speeding up again now…’

She shot at it a few more times.

‘Try this,’ suggested Alkahest, tossing her a grenade.

‘What happened to bluffing?’

‘Hey, it’ll make a statement either way.’

Nora pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade. It bounced, then again, then exploded against the rig’s armored side, blowing a chunk of plating off around one of the tires but not otherwise slowing it at all.

From the black cloud it left behind, another of the buggies emerged, this time carrying a Demon with a high-powered lever-action rifle. He took sight of the Gnome on the back of their car.

‘Shit!’ yelled Alkahest again, seeing this in the rearview mirror. ‘Hold onto something, Merlin.’

He began taking further evasive action, swerving between lanes erratically, hoping that an exit would reveal itself as a means of escape. Briefly he considered pulling the Parallel Drive lever, but he didn’t know what would happen to Merlin outside the car, and anyway, Sulph’s big rig would absolutely be able to follow.

Merlin held on. Another of the buggies had gotten close, and its passenger, wielding a massive battleaxe, leapt from it to the Rolls Royce. He raised his weapon and readied it to split the Gnome’s skull.

Alkahest slammed on the brakes. The Demon, axe above its head, staggered at the change of momentum, and with a swift boot to the shin from Merlin fell back onto the road. The buggy caught him, but found itself locked in a spin and crashed into the barrier.

Merlin sat up. ‘Alright, one left–‘

The shot from the rifle was louder even than the grenade. A gout of blood covered the rear windscreen as a bullet the size of a finger entered Merlin’s chest and completely shattered his right clavicle.

He slumped down, beginning to slide from the back of the car, more blood gushing from him. The big rig was right behind them. He fell.

A black-gloved hand shot out and snatched at the collar of his shirt. Another shot from the rifle, but Nora had dragged the bleeding Merlin back inside the Rolls Royce.

‘Merlin?’ said Alkahest, head on a swivel between the road and the dying Gnome. ‘Merlin! Stay with us, bud!’

‘…Bud? Seriously?’ said Merlin, weakly. There was blood in his mouth.

Another slam as the big rig hit them. It fell back, preparing for another ram.

‘Merlin, if you die, I’m going to fucking kill you,’ said Nora. ‘Hold on.’

‘Get him to drink this,’ said Alkahest, but Nora cut him off.

‘I said hold on.’

She leaned out of the window with her fingers in a claw-like grip; the air around her hand shimmering with heat. A burst of fire went searing through the air, striking the big rig precisely in the gap in the armor the grenade had opened before.

A section of the massive tyre bubbled into a sort of black sludge, and the whole thing peeled away and tangled up the others.

Vic Sulph screamed in fury as he drifted off to the side and struck the barrier, sparks flying, his whole rig crashing through and rolling over on the grass, taking the last of the buggies with it.

⁂

Ursa, no longer caged – not physically, anyway – sat discussing her case with Elene, who more than anything seemed to be enjoying herself, like this were a Phoenix Wright game she were playing or something.

The conversation in the courtroom had grown hushed after Titania’s appearance. Once the bowing and kneeling had finished, anyway. Ursa took the opportunity to take a glance around while nobody was staring at her; it seemed like they’d adapted a forest clearing into a courtroom. The trees towered over them, and were so thick at the edges as to be practical walls.

There was even a great big double door at the back. Ursa stared at them, and imagined someone bursting through them until her vision got all blurry.

‘Now,’ Elene was saying, ‘Cait-Sìth doesn’t have a lot of fans here but Her Majesty does like him, and he’s good at what he does. We really need to avoid him type-casting you as… hey, are you listening?’

Ursa was half-listening. The other half of her was watching as an old woman dressed in an orange shawl slowly made her way towards them.

‘Hello dears,’ she said, upon arriving at their table. She leaned in towards Ursa, who tried not to recoil at the breach of personal space. ‘I’ve got a few surprises in store, you know, that I think the prosecution might not be expecting.’

She tilted her head a bit too far, and smiled a bit too wide. Then, slowly as she’d come, she made her way out through the double doors.

‘Well that was freaky,’ said Ursa. ‘It’s not rude to point that out, is it?’

Elene didn’t look up from her papers. ‘Oh, she’s always like that. You get used to it. Be thankful it isn’t you she’s out for.’

⁂

Merlin sipped at the last of the potion Alkahest had given to Nora, and Nora had given to him. It was clearly a strong one; he could actually taste the potion itself and not just blood.

They were almost in London, too. Which meant he needed to say something.

‘Alkahest,’ he began. ‘I think your potion may have… no, I think you may have saved my life there. Thank you.’

‘Hey, what else was I gonna do?’ said Alkahest.

This earned a snort from Nora, but still she stayed in the back seat in case anything else went wrong.

Which it did.

A flash of orange, and suddenly the old woman that had tried to blow them up (twice) was sitting in the front seat.

‘Ooh, it’s been a tough journey for you, hasn’t it!’ she laughed. ‘The kind of thing that–‘

Merlin had shot forward, despite his still-open wound, and woven together a Shadow Blade in less than an instant. This he rammed into the side of the old woman’s throat.

Her head spun around like an owl’s to face him. ‘I would appreciate if you’d remove that knife,’ she said, still smiling.

‘Okay,’ coughed Merlin. He pulled out the blade and immediately plunged it back in.

‘I’d come to take you to the court!!’ the old woman shrieked, and seemed to fold in on herself, vanishing, leaving Merlin to fall back to the rear seat.

‘What?’ he panted, sensing the unspoken questions of the other two. ‘She was going to betray us anyway.’

Caliber Session 14: The Trial of Ursa Carpenter, Part 2

Alice squinted down at her macchiato before taking a sip and placing it carefully beside her macbook pro. She wasn’t getting any work done; by now she’d totally resigned herself to that fact and was idly watching the other occupants of the café.

She was supposed to have been getting a home office, but all that had gone up in smoke when she and her boyfriend had split. It had all been going so smoothly. They’d even been making trips to Ikea to look for furniture!

But something changed, and Alice couldn’t even remember what it was now, as if there were a literal gap in her memory. Their plan to move in together had fallen apart shortly after, so it was back to working in coffee shops, and gulping down subpar macchiato which always somehow tasted of nutmeg and lingonberry on her tongue.

And, of course, people-watching.

Today’s crop of characters behind Alice’s laptop screen were unremarkable save for the group that had seated themselves by the window. There was something about them, not exactly familiar, but… it was like recognising an actor as an extra in a new show.

She nursed her coffee, wincing at the grillkrydda flavour. There was a woman with a black hat and blonde hair, her expression one of world-afflicted aggravation. She’d sat down and passed a cup of something to a bearded man with a remarkable shortage of altitude, who took it with a weary sigh.

With them was a taller man wearing a white leather jacket and a black shirt beneath it to match his white and black haircut. It all seemed a bit much, in Alice’s estimation. Occasionally he’d make an impatient comment between scrolling through his phone, ostensibly restless to get away from the café.

The other woman wasn’t with them.

Alice frowned. What a weird thing to think.

The short man noticed her staring, and so Alice pretended to get back to her computer. When she next looked up, it was just in time to see the woman in the black hat stare down in horror at her own chest, before a huge frog emerged from below their table and everything went dark.

⁂

Now, that last sentence makes it sound a bit like Alice was killed (and by a giant frog no less; what an embarrassing way to go). That’s not actually the case.

Rather, when the silver cable in Nora’s torso activated, summoning up the prodigious amphibian, the first to respond was Alkahest, who leapt to his feet; first instinct to pull out the sawn-off shotgun in his jacket and make what the French call “purée de grenouille”.

But… he was already in volatile company; he’d barely recovered from the earlier assault. Maybe the better option would be to provide some space for the others to work in? They needed to work together if they were to get Ursa back, after all.

So Alkahest opened his mouth and filled the café with Darkness.

At that very moment, Merlin had also come to the conclusion that the more vanilla humans saw a giant frog, the higher the risk of Auditors appearing. If that happened, they’d never get Ursa back, what with being dead. So Merlin cast Off on the lights.

This would have done nothing if not for Alkahest’s Darkness, as it was the middle of the day, but Merlin didn’t stick around to consider anything like that. He cast Misty Step and reappeared outside the coffee shop, cup still in hand.

From there, after a second to weigh up the options, he launched another Off at any and all security cameras he could see. That done, he simply took a long, noisy sip of his drink.

Back inside – beneath a large frog – Nora racked her brains for options. She needed to kill the damn frog, and brought up her hand to fry it with an Eldritch Blast… and hesitated. They were a member down. And that member would have been the one to try and get everyone out.

Nora didn’t have anything in her playbook that could get a load of people to just calmly leave, though, did she? She could maybe cast an illusion, but that would be obscured by the Darkness; nobody would even see it!

And in response to her desperate thinking, something rotated into place on a cosmic scale. Heeding Nora’s request to save these people, the Alignment of Life changed how things work, just for a moment.

The Minor Illusion Nora cast shone out like a lighthouse in fog. It even had a voice.

‘Now, my good people!’ said the illusory Stiletto Benevolent, beckoning towards the open door. ‘We must escape this room; there has been an emergency and we have to evacuate!’

Nora shuddered at her own spell’s accuracy, and fell back as the frog’s massive weight bore down on her. Its tongue slammed against the side of her head like a club.

Then Alkahest was there, defaulting to his original plan. The shotgun was deafening. The frog, now missing a large chunk of its head, simply dissolved.

Nora looked up, as the café began to brighten, to see Alkahest’s hand offered to help her up. Somewhat grudgingly, she took it.

‘So, uh… what the fuck?’ said the Demon, quite conversationally.

Nora tried to think of a response, but was distracted by a tap on her wrist.

God I’m really sorry about that, said the Morris Worm via her watch. Shouldn’t happen again!

Outside, Nora swatted the cup from Merlin’s hand. ‘What the fuck were you doing out here?!’ she demanded.

‘I turned the lights off,’ said Merlin. ‘Can you hear that?’

They listened. Sirens, and getting closer.

‘Who phoned the fucking police?’ sighed Nora. ‘Right, we’ve gotta go.’

‘We should stay and explain,’ said Merlin.

‘What? Why?’

‘Well, we don’t want them to think there’s an ongoing incident.’

Nora raised her arms and lowered them again. ‘Tell you what, I’ll get you a replacement coffee if we can go right now.’

The gnome raised a single eyebrow. ‘Only if it’s a decent roast.’

⁂

In a nearby queue at Gregg’s, with Merlin outside making faces like he was watching a massacre, Nora waited patiently to get replacement drinks and something to eat too, probably.

She was two away from the counter when her phone rang. A private number.

Her first thought was to ignore it, as one normally does with a withheld number. But there was a chance it might be Morris, with an explanation for what the hell had been with that frog. The cord in her chest – stretching behind her and through the queue behind her – was quite still now.

‘Hello?’ she said, perusing the trays of baked victuals over the shoulder of the man in front.

‘Ah, Helton. Good. I need you to come back to the Caliber Institute for debriefing right away.’

Nora just about managed not to curse. ‘Director Brynner?’

‘Yes, yes. You don’t happen to know where Williams is, do you? I tried to telephone him but it seems his phone blocks private numbers automatically.’

‘Is this about Ursa?’

‘Ah. Yes. I wasn’t sure if she would have let you know, but… well, we need to talk about her departure. And also discuss how to proceed with the Summer Court, now that she’s gone.’

The man in front was ordering now. Nora wondered if she should get some food too. ‘I can’t get to the Institute at the moment,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’m… doing team-building with Merlin.’

The lie was unsuccessful, since Brynner had met Nora before.

‘Helton,’ said the Director. ‘Please don’t insult me by pretending to respect your colleagues.’

‘Alright, fine. We saw Ursa go with Cait-Sìth. We’re going to get her back.’

There was a pause. ‘She is no longer a member of our organization. You owe nothing to her.’

Nora almost laughed. ‘Yeah, I know,’ she said.

Brynner’s voice was almost cautious now, like a tongue probing at a missing tooth. ‘How do you intend to “get her back”, as you said? What bargain do you hope to strike? With what collateral?’

‘One sec, I’m just at Greggs,’ said Nora to her phone. Then, to the lady at the till: ‘Hi, uh, can I get three coffees – flat white if that’s an option – and… three of the vegan sausage rolls if they’re hot? Thanks.’

The Director’s tone had changed when she put the phone back to her ear, making her way outside with hands full.

‘You ordered three drinks. Helton. Do. Not. Move.’

Nora looked from Merlin (scowling at the cardboard cup in her hand) to Alkahest (shifting his weight from foot to foot). ‘Shit,’ she said, and put the phone down.

Alkahest reached out for the sausage roll before the coffee, but slowed when he noted Nora’s darting eyes. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘We need to move. Brynner phoned and I think he pieced together that you’re involved.’ She jabbed a finger at the Demon.

Merlin took the excuse to spit out the inferior coffee. ‘Why did you answer your phone?!’ he sputtered.

‘Ursa’s gone, Merlin. One of us at least has to be the one that talks to people. Are you coming or not?’

‘Already called a cab,’ said Merlin, with perhaps too wide a smirk. ‘I even requested that psychotic Genasi from before. Time is of the essence, yes?’

‘That’s actually great,’ admitted Nora. ‘But we should get walking before it arrives. If we just wait around here, then…’

She trailed off, staring across to the other side of the road, where a huge man, shoulders wide as any three passers-by abreast, stood waiting for a gap in the traffic. The other pedestrians parted around him like a bulwark in the ocean. If any of the cars he was waiting for did hit him, chances were they’d burst around him like water balloons.

And he had the head of a bull.

Alkahest followed Nora’s gaze. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘Is that…?’

‘That’s HR,’ said Merlin.

Cepheus strode across the width of the rode in two and a half steps, and stood before them on the pavement. He appeared to be waiting for one of them to speak.

About 40 feet or so behind him, a taxi pulled into a bus stop, flashing its hazard lights after the Genasi behind the wheel pushed the “park anywhere” button. She rolled down the window and waved at Merlin.

Surprisingly, the first to speak was Alkahest. ‘Hey, Cepheus. I know we’ve had a few run-ins in the past, and the Institute and I ain’t exactly orderin’ off the same menu, as it were, but I do want to get along with you, you know? Trouble is, right now someone more important than I ever thought anything could be is in danger. And you’re standing in my way.’

‘I’m not here for you,’ said the Minotaur, almost dismissively. ‘Though, if you’d have simply owned up to your crime already, we wouldn’t be standing here.’

‘You ain’t gonna be standing at all if you don’t move,’ said Alkahest, but Cepheus ignored him.

Instead, he focused on the other two. ‘Look, guys… what are you doing? You can’t just disobey a direct order from the boss. Things are delicate at the moment.’

‘We’re off the clock,’ said Nora. ‘Nobody at the Institute has ever forced me to justify how I spend my free time before. Is that new company policy?’

‘You’re just being pedantic there, Nora.’

Merlin snickered below his breath. ‘Normally that’s my job,’ he said.

‘Why, though?’ continued the Minotaur. ‘Yes, Ursa was a pretty good fit for your team, but… you don’t have any attachment to her. She’s not covered by the Institute anymore!’

‘Yeah, but…’ Nora picked her words with care. ‘…Ursa’s grown on me. She’s better to work with than most people. Just about.’

Cepheus’ bovine brow furrowed for a moment, then smoothed out as he appeared to reach a conclusion. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Then convince me.’

‘Convince you of what?’ said Nora, fingers grasping at the air. ‘That we mean it when we say we want to get our friend back?!’

(Worlds away, in a cage, in a court, Ursa suddenly found herself able to sit still, calm for just a moment)

Cepheus’ hands, of a scale you’d expect from a JCB excavator, came up to his collar. Slowly, he loosened his tie. It had a yellow rubber duck pattern; little beaks were rolled up and placed carefully in his breast pocket.

‘Convince me,’ he said, and Nora understood.

She and Merlin weren’t on the clock. Cepheus was.

Alkahest, again, was the first to move – he launched himself toward the Minotaur and got an elbow to the face for his trouble. Reeling from the blow, but unwilling to draw weapons in the busy street, the Demon threw punch after punch up at Cepheus’ bull head, only to take another crushing blow in return.

‘You stay out of this,’ said Cepheus, as Alkahest staggered back. He turned his horns to Merlin, who had uncharacteristically chosen to sprint at him as well.

Then a flash, and Merlin was gone. The Misty Step took the Gnome past his would-be blocker straight to the waiting taxi beyond.

‘Hi,’ said Merlin to its driver. ‘Things are a little bit complicated right now, so, if you wouldn’t mind waiting for just a moment more? I understand the meter must be running.’

With that, he turned back to the fight. He wanted to flex a little. He’d gotten new tattoos for this very purpose.

Merlin thrust his hands forth, and sent a crackling Witch Bolt arcing along the busy street to collide with Cepheus. It had worked so well on the Demon, after all.

The Minotaur lashed forward with a headbutt, seeming to gore the spell itself. The fulminating magic dissipated, broken by Cepheus’ horns.

‘Merlin!’ he yelled, genuine anger in his words. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?! We’re in public!!’

Thankfully, the pedestrians that had stopped to observe this street-brawl had – after the moments of awe at the short man’s harnessing the lighting – rationalised or forgotten, perception filters intact. No Auditors came for them.

Merlin attempted to scurry past and regroup with the others, realising he’d overextended, but Cepheus’ hand shot out. Merlin had a brief moment to contemplate how the Minotaur’s palm was bigger than his own skull, before an iron grip slammed him face first into the pavement.

‘Stay. Down,’ Cepheus told him.

When he turned back to deal with Nora, Cepheus was irritated to find that she, too, had vanished. With less spectacle than Merlin, but still.

A shout came; a voice that sounded almost like Nora only missing its trademark deadpan. ‘Help!’ she said, all theatrical dismay. ‘We’re being attacked!’

Nora looked around as, in affirmation of her particular worldview, not a single person came to help. Maybe it was perception filters working overtime. She was trying so hard to resolve things peacefully today, too.

By Merlin’s prone form, Alkahest had squared off against the Minotaur once again. Cepheus had readied a more solid punch to really emphasize his request to keep out of this, but his fist held in place when he saw what was in Alkahest’s hand.

‘You wouldn’t,’ said Cepheus.

‘I’m in a hurry,’ replied Alkahest. He pulled the pin from the grenade.

‘Put that pin back in, Demon. Alkahest.’ Cepheus was making a clear effort to sound calm, but his voice was fraying at the edges. His eyes darted from the grenade to the downed Merlin.

Alkahest flicked the pin away as if flipping a coin. It tumbled down a nearby grate.

‘Jesus! Fine!’ said Cepheus, throwing up his hands. ‘Go. Just don’t let that thing go off, you maniac.’

Nora, seeing all this, began to make her way back, but halted at a skidding sound behind her. She turned to see a PCSO on a bike.

‘Excuse me, miss, but do you need help?’ asked the officer.

‘Oh. No, no, actually,’ said Nora, perhaps a bit too quickly.

‘Are you sure, miss? You don’t have to cover for anyone, especially if you feel you’re in danger.’

‘Honestly, no,’ said Nora again. ‘It’s just, you know. Thought he was someone else. Mistaken identity, you know?’

‘Ah, well,’ said constable Hardgard. ‘There is a lot of that going about at the moment. You stay safe, okay?’

Merlin was getting shakily to his feet as Nora passed him. She gave a curt nod to Cepheus, who returned it. He looked like he was about to say something, but was interrupted when Merlin ran between his legs and punched him in the groin.

‘I’d already conceded!’ cried the Minotaur. His voice didn’t do the “octave higher” comedy thing; now he just sounded like he was in a lot of pain.

‘That, uh, seemed a little petty there, Merlin,’ said Alkahest, fishing in his pocket as they headed for the taxi. ‘Vindictive, even.’

‘Shut up, Demon,’ said the Gnome.

Alkahest didn’t reply, instead pulling a grenade pin from his jacket. A few more spilled out as his hand moved to replace it in the grenade.

Nora watched him fiddling with it. ‘You just have a little bag full of grenade pins, do you?’

The Demon showed her his serrated teeth. ‘Props are good if you wanna bluff.’

They sat in the back of the taxi. ‘What was all that about?!’ asked the driver, veering out into traffic.

‘We’re a polycule and we just broke up with the big guy,’ said Merlin, without any fuss at all. ‘He isn’t taking it well but it’s for the best.’

‘Ah, say no more, say no more,’ said the driver.

⁂

The “portal on the edge of town” that Alkahest had told them about earlier was, in fact, the abandoned cinema where they’d originally met Adagio. She had mentioned something like that at the time.

‘So, there are four screens,’ explained Alkahest as they passed through the lobby. ‘Each one takes you one world closer in the direction of one of the alignments. So we go in the Chaos screen here, we come out of the Law screen the next world over, see? Rinse and repeat till we reach the world Montparnasse was born on.’

Merlin scratched at his chin. ‘I thought the worlds were in just two intersecting lines with the Fulcrum world in the middle? But this method of travel implies a grid. What if, hypothetically, we went 10 worlds toward Chaos, then 10 worlds toward Life from there?’

Alkahest’s response was sort of half-hearted. ‘Ah, well, not all the portals will be open. It is two intersecting lines, it’s just that there are occasional, um… bristles. But those tend to be weird. And I’d prefer not to think about them.’

Merlin had further questions, but those had to make way for a single more pressing one as they arrived at the screen leading further into Chaos.

‘Do we just… walk through?’

In reply, Alkahest just walked through.

Nora and Merlin followed.

The room on the other side was nearly identical, save for the number of seats. Though neither Nora nor Merlin had ever been outside of the world upon which they were born – that was, Outside, proper noun and everything – the change was less noticeable than might have been hoped for.

Well, there was one thing, for Nora. The silver cord in her chest had disappeared. She wore her surprise plainly on her face. None of the others noticed, though, as Nora’s surprised face was indistinguishable from the face she made when queueing for shopping, or cleaning her fingernails.

Subtly she checked her watch, checked her connection to the Morris Worm. No signal. She snapped her fingers and a little gout of flame spilled out with the sound. She still had her magic, at least.

They’d trudged out of the Law screen and back into the Chaos one more than twenty times now, not one of them uttering much more than a word or two. It must have been the least glamourous form of dimensional travel since Emva’s invention of the Planebounder, which sort of looked like a Space Hopper with a landmine strapped to the bottom.

‘Wait,’ said Alkahest, slowing as they emerged from the 26th screen. ‘What the fuck is that noise?’

It’s common to describe an explosion with a line like ‘then the world went white’, or ‘everything was noise’, something that expresses how – for the characters caught in it – said detonation encompasses their entire world.

If we were to step into Alkahest’s head at the moment of the explosion that destroyed the screen he’d just come through along with much of the rest of the cinema, we would find his thoughts as thus:

Some fucker tried to blow us up!

It’s important to remember that there are more things to life than the explosion that just almost killed you and left you buried you in the rubble of a derelict cinema. There’s the fucker that caused the explosion that just almost killed you and left you buried you in the rubble of a derelict cinema.

Not that Alkahest had any clues as to who said fucker might be.

Merlin was the first to crawl from the remains of the cinema, covered in brick dust and aubergine with bruises. He emerged in the car park of the erstwhile building just in time to see a flutter of an orange cloak – or cape, or something – vanishing through some kind of portal.

Both Nora and Alkahest seemed to be alive as well, staggering to their feet behind him. It all seemed very… unlikely, that the three of them would walk away from such a demolition. But there were more important worries to worry about.

‘This is world C-double-oh-two-six,’ said Alkahest, coughing up a little cloud of dust. ‘We’re one short. I don’t suppose either of you magician-types can cast Plane Shift or something like that?’

Nora was scanning the cityscape before them – the skyline was recognisable as Middlemarch’s, but overlaid with an azure glow; crystal structures atop tall poles shone against the darkening sky. There were wires coming from them, travelling down into buildings. It seemed like this world ran on something other than electricity.

‘No,’ she said. ‘What are our options?’

Merlin interrupted before the Demon could formulate a response. ‘You two are acting remarkably calm for people who just survived a bomb going off! Didn’t either of you see that orange cloak?’

‘Hey, Merlin,’ began Alkahest. ‘I’m acting calm because the person I am on my way to rescue would, I think, be quite upset if she were to be rescued in the manner that comes naturally to me. Which is to say, messily.

‘Yes, some fucker tried to blow us up just now. I do not care. It is unimportant. Perhaps in other circumstances I’d take said fucker to task, but here and now I want to do things in a way Ursa won’t be ashamed of.

‘So, uh… we need to steal a car.’

Merlin and Nora stared at him. After a second, Nora simply said ‘Alright,’ and strolled off to the nearby road.

‘Hold on now,’ said Merlin, running after her. ‘We can’t just steal someone’s car!’

‘We aren’t stealing it,’ said Nora, inexplicably producing a thin, flat lockout tool and setting about its larcenous duty on the door of a nearby Ford Focus. ‘We’re just going to borrow it for a bit.’

‘Why do we even need a car?’ asked Merlin. He eyed the car’s tyres, which were white. All of the tyres in the street were white, actually.

‘Because we’re in a hurry,’ said Alkahest from behind him. ‘And we’re gonna have to see a guy I know on the other side of town. He’s got autoshops in a lot of worlds. He’ll get us to where we need to be.’

Merlin looked incredulous.

‘What?’ said Alkahest. ‘He likes me. I think?’

‘Not that,’ snapped the Gnome. ‘It’s just that… surely there’s a better way than resorting to petty crime?’

There was a soft thump as the car door opened. When the alarm didn’t go off, the Demon and the Warlock got inside. Merlin followed them after a moment, clambering into the back so as not to be seen loitering by a theft-in-progress.

From the driver’s seat, Nora shuffled around looking for spare keys. When she found none, she cursed under her breath and reached for the door handle.

‘Wait,’ said Merlin, behind her. He was looking at the dashboard, which was lit with a sulky azure light in lines that looked almost like a runic circuitboard. There was no slot for a key; instead, a diamond-shaped indentation in the center of the dashboard lay empty.

Something seemed familiar about it. Almost like… almost like the bones he’d been studying. Breathlessly, he pulled his laptop out and connected it via usb to the dashboard, Alkahest reaching out to hold the cable in place as Merlin began to type.

It was so easy!

In seconds, Merlin had bypassed what passed for security on the magically-locked car, and the engine hummed to life.

‘Ha!’ said Merlin, putting his computer away. There’d been a Conjurewall, just like with the bones, but one presumably made by a bored no-talent Sorcerer in a factory somewhere. If they didn’t want things stolen, they should try harder to keep them secure.

⁂

‘The guy’s name is Vic Sulph. Him and me go way back,’ said Alkahest, as they pulled into the garage. The gate was open despite it approaching 10pm. ‘Well, maybe not way back, but we go back enough. I once drove with some of his crew to, uh, well, we had to catch a moving train.’

He got out and made his way to the reception area, with Merlin trailing behind. Nora elected to stay by the car.

The lady at the reception desk had her grey hair tied back in a bun. A pair of half-moon spectacles were on a chain around her neck; these she put on and peered through at the visitors.

‘Hello dears,’ she said, really committing to the elderly-librarian vibe. ‘How can I help?’

‘I gotta talk to Vic,’ said Alkahest. ‘It’s an emergency.’

‘He isn’t here right now, I’m afraid,’ said the receptionist. ‘I can send him a message?’

‘Call him. Tell him it’s Alkahest.’

She blinked at him, but picked up the phone. ‘Hello. Yes. No, it’s nothing bad. There’s an “Alkahest” demanding to see you is all. It’s urgent, apparently. Oh. Oh really? Okay, see you soon.’

When she’d put the phone down, she gave a warm-if-slightly-bemused smile. ‘He says he’ll be here in a minute or so. Do you and your son want a cup of tea or anything?’

Merlin opened his mouth for a retort, but decided it was more hassle than it was worth.

In the yard, Nora checked her watch. It was odd; the cord in her chest was aberrant, obviously, but… well, she just hoped the Morris Worm wasn’t worrying too much about her.

Her reverie was halted when, in a burst of light, the ugliest car she’d ever seen skidded Akira into the yard, coming to a screeching halt next to the Ford Focus she’d been leaning on.

It sort of looked like a Rolls Royce if it had an allergic reaction to some kind of Wacky Races wasp. It had the white tyres of all the other cars she’d seen in this world, only these had been pillaged from a monster truck.

The door opened. A tiny little step unfolded, in an attempt to bridge the gulf between the car and the earth.

Nora thought at first that the emerging man was a Gnome or a Halfling, but as his smile reached his ears with no apparent sign of slowing down she quickly realised his nature was more in the Fiendish territory.

‘Panacea Alkahest, as I live and breathe,’ he said to Nora, arms wide. ‘You’ve remodelled.’

‘Sorry, what?’

The little man’s eyes shifted around a bit before widening. ‘Oh! My mistake! Thought you were her. It’s all the black you’re wearing. I’ll be heading inside, then.’

‘Ah, no problem,’ said Nora, fully intending to follow him and listen at the door.

Inside, Alkahest grinned and clapped the man a handshake. ‘Vic!’ he said. ‘Christ, you’re a sight for sore eyes!’

Vic Sulph looked… uncomfortable. Watching from outside, Nora wondered just who it was he’d been expecting.

‘Azoth Alkahest,’ said Vic, glancing at his secretary. ‘I didn’t realise it was you here!’

‘Hey Vic, I’ll cut right to the chase. I gotta ask a favour.’

Vic Sulph rolled his eyes. ‘It’s always favours with you, Alkahest. What is it this time?’

Alkahest grinned again. ‘I was hoping you might have a spare car you could lend us. We just gotta get one world further into Chaos to rescue someone, and–‘

‘You drag me here on false pretenses and you have the gall to ask for a motor with Parallel Drive?!’ Vic sounded mad, but he looked rather pleased. ‘Oh, Alkahest… you’ve still got no manners at all. But, I’m an understanding guy. Tell you what.

‘There’s a little event going on tonight. Midnight. Bit of a race. Few fellas have a friendly wager going on. If you were to enter and make sure my lad is the winner – watch his back and all that – I might be able to spare some wheels for a day or two.’

‘Midnight?’ said Merlin.

‘Yeah, no, that’s too long,’ agreed Alkahest. ‘We’re on a time crunch. We can’t just sit around till tomorrow, then fuck around go-karting for you until–‘

He seemed to remember that he was asking for a favour. And avoiding a mess. ‘I mean… Hey, Vic, just let us deal with our stuff first and I’ll come back and drive any race you want. I’ll win, I’ll lose, I’ll run people over, whatever. You know I’m good for it. I just don’t have time right now.’

Sulph smiled, froglike. ‘That’s my final offer. You’ve got till midnight to think about it.’

‘Vic, I–‘

‘Hey!’ said Nora, poking her head in through the door. Her voice was atypically peachy. ‘Brynner is on the phone, could you two just meet me outside a second?’

Vic Sulph shrugged. ‘Take your call, I’m not in any rush. I’ll just have a chat with my secretary here about who qualifies as urgent, yeah?’

Outside, Nora’s voice was back to its slightly-testy normal. ‘Okay, let’s steal his car.’

‘It’s not “borrowing” this time?!’ asked Merlin.

Nora leapt shotgun into the front, with Merlin and his laptop working away on the back seat. Alkahest went back to the Ford Focus and without so much as a warning drove it up against the reception office’s door.

Vic Sulph made a what-the-fuck gesture with his hands, but they fell loose to his sides when he looked past to see Alkahest running towards the Parallel Drive Rolls Royce. He tried to follow. The Focus was preventing the door from opening.

‘Alkahest!!’ he screamed through the sliver of doorway. ‘If you so much as touch my car, you’re a dead man!! You hear me?! You’re dead, Alkahest!!’

Alkahest adjusted the seat and prepared to drive away. ‘Good fucking job, both of you,’ he said, roaring out onto the main road. ‘I don’t know what kind of rescue I’d have been trying to pull without you guys.’

‘It’s actually really easy to deal with these cars’ security,’ said Merlin.

The Parallel Drive was just another stick between the gear stick and the handbrake. Atop it was a smoky little crystal that grew brighter as they drove. ‘It recharges as you move; I think this one will be ten miles per jump,’ explained Alkahest, craning his neck to look for suitable side streets. ‘It goes to the next world in the, uh, cardinal direction you’re driving. North is Life, West is Law, and, you know.’

The Parallel Drive crystal was a clear, pure white. Alkahest took a turn, and they were driving east. He grabbed the lever.

⁂

There was a flame that hand ignited of its own accord, hovering without fuel above the Judge’s podium. Ursa watched it from her cage as the courtroom seemed to fill out.

‘Excuse me?’ said a voice.

Ursa jumped. When she looked, a woman with the ears of a rabbit and a holo jacket lifted straight from the 80’s was peering between the bars to look at her. She had an aluminium baseball bat in one hand.

‘Uh… Hello?’ said Ursa.

‘Hi,’ said the woman. ‘I’m Elene. I’ll be your defendant in this trial, which, if I’m honest, is a bit of an unenviable position to be in. You’ll be out of that cage soon. Could we go over some of the details of your crime before then?’

‘Oh,’ said Ursa. ‘Yeah, of course. Like, if I can get a suspended sentence or something?’

‘Optimism is something we can work with, yeah. Obviously you’re under a lot of disapproval for murdering a beloved figure, so we need to figure out our spin.’

Ursa considered for a moment how her “defendant” seemed to have already decided she was guilty. That was probably a good thing, considering why she’d handed herself over. Right?

It was getting brighter, hotter. She’d been sure it should be nighttime. Was climate change a thing on other worlds? Ursa was beginning to sweat, and not just because of her nerves.

Then with the sense of the sun coming out from behind heavy clouds, the flame atop the podium stretched and warped, forming a humanoid shape about 20 feet tall. Her hair was long, down to her feet; a fiery red with flecks of orange, blossoming flowers dotting its length. Her face was perfectly, classically beautiful to the point of being eerie. Her perfectly manicured nails flashed with opalescent light whenever she moved her hands.

The assembled Summer Court sank to their collective knees, and bowed to their Queen Titania.

Awkward Conversations

Ursa hasn’t realised she had drifted off, but when she opens her eyes, she’s not in a cage on a world not her own, awaiting trial for a crime she didn’t commit. Instead, it’s a glorious summer’s day and she’s laying on a field covered in daisies and buttercups, the sky clear blue and cloudless. But not empty. She sits up as she sees the silhouette of the bell from the courtroom hanging in the sky, dark and foreboding.

“Well, it’d be weird to not be worried I guess,” she says quietly to herself, getting up and brushing off any loose strands of grass. She’s wearing a lilac gingham sundress, exactly like the one she had when she was twelve.

“Ursa, you get out there and you stop this right now!” a familiar voice calls out, getting closer and closer.

Uh-oh.

Ursa turns to see Saubra—one of her Divergent Personae—striding towards her, usually serene face darkened and trembling. There’s a knot in the pit of Ursa’s stomach.

“You know I can’t-“

“Yes you can,” Saubra interrupts, getting up close and personal; she’s a head taller than Ursa on the best of days, but here she seems larger, angrier, more intimidating than she’s ever been. “Go out there and tell them the truth; we have NOTHING to do with this!”

Ursa smiles sadly, reaching out to touch Saubra’s arm. “I’m not going to just-“

“I am NOT dying for some asshole I haven’t even MET!” Saubra yells, slapping Ursa’s hand away with such force that Ursa winces.

“No one’s dying, ok?” Ursa tries her best not to roll her eyes, but you can hear it in her voice.

“You can’t tell me that THAT doesn’t frighten you!” Saubra retorts, gesturing wildly at the bell in the sky, dark grey clouds seeping out of it with a low, uneasy rumbling.

Ursa crosses her arms and looks anywhere but at Saubra, at the bell. “Ok, so the Bell is a small problem, but I’m not even-“

“A SMALL PROBLEM?”

“W-we don’t even work there anymore so-“

“Ursa!” Saubra takes hold of her shoulders, her grip harsh and uncomfortable. “I am NOT dying because you want to get off with some Demon asshole!” The knot in Ursa’s stomach winds a little tighter. “So just get over your stupid little crush, pick someone else and fucking drop this, ok?”

“Enough.” Abadallion’s voice is quiet, but it stops them in their tracks.

Both Saubra and Ursa turn to look at them, a little sheepish. Saubra lets go of Ursa’s shoulders, stepping back, and Ursa unclenches her fists, not realising she had even clenched them.

A picnic blanket appears beneath them, large, comfortable-looking and brightly coloured. It’s not Abadallion’s style at all, but still they settle down onto it. There is a soft smile on their painted black lips and they pat the blanket, gesturing to the other two. “Let’s talk.”

Ursa plops down with a sigh, her legs splayed out. Saubra sits, reluctantly at first, but then crosses her legs and places her hands gently on her knees with all the poise and grace of a crane, her eyes closed. There is silence for a moment and Ursa almost thinks she’s meditating.

“What is there to talk about? Ursa seems intent on getting us killed,” Saubra asks, her tone of voice not matching her serene visage at all.

“That’s not helpful,” Abadallion says plainly.

Saubra scowls. “Ugh. Ok. Fine.” She opens her eyes, staring straight at Ursa. “Why are you doing this?”

Before Ursa can answer, Abadallion puts their hand on Saubra’s. “We’re not debating Ursa’s feelings.”

“Well why the hell not?” Saubra retorts, “Ursa, you don’t even KNOW this guy? Why are you putting your life on the line for him? The flowers were nice, but really? Come on!” She leans back, shaking her head, crossing her arms angrily. “I just don’t understand it.”

Abadallion lets a flicker of annoyance show on their face, before returning to their neutral expression. “Saubra-“

“No it’s ok,” Ursa interrupts, eyes glued to the floor. Both Saubra and Abadallion turn to look at her. “I’ve put us in a really shitty position. If I had had more time I could’ve figured something else out maybe, but-” She sighs, deeply. “Brynner wasn’t going to listen to me. He had already decided what was happening. And I couldn’t just… I won’t be the reason he gets caught. I can’t be. So this isn’t the ideal solution, but…”

Ursa steels herself, though she still can’t bring herself to look at Saubra or Abadallion. “I won’t apologise for wanting to save someone I care about.”

“Ok, but why do you care? That’s what I’m concerned about!” Saubra says, hands gesturing wildly again.

Abadallion moves to say something, but Saubra holds up her hand. “No, don’t shush me! Ursa, you haven’t liked anyone in literal years, and then the first Demon you meet you’re gonna sacrifice yourself for him? Do you not see why I’m concerned? Do you not see how crazy this is?” She stares at Ursa with such intensity that Ursa feels like she might melt.

“I dunno. I… I guess I-” Ursa gulps hard, turning bright pink. She can’t quite bring herself to say it, even though she thinks she’s known it for a while now, “like him?”

She cringes at herself, it sounds so wishy-washy out loud, when inside it’s anything but.

“I mean, I- I haven’t felt like this before, for someone I- I want to, like, be around him and hear him laugh and make him smile and know more about him and protect him and, and-“

As she rambles, her insecure feelings spilling out clumsily, Ursa feels Saubra’s glare burn into her and suddenly there’s a fire in Ursa’s chest, and the heat from her face is making it all unbearable and uncomfortable and she can’t hold back anymore and the words just come crashing out-

“But you know what? This isn’t even that much about him? If it had been Nora, or Merlin, or Panna, or Mama or Tata, we’d still be here. I’d put my neck on the line for any of them, cause it turns out I’m really fucking loyal! Maybe stupidly loyal, but still!

“My whole deal is love and joy and creating comfort and safe spaces – that’s what I want my Youtube, my music to be! But, when it comes to my personal life, after Leto broke up with me and…”

Ursa still can’t bring herself to look at Saubra, not in the eye anyway. “Saubra, you know this better than anyone, but I haven’t let myself get close to anybody. I’ve pushed everyone away. My family, what friends I had left… Until I joined the institute, I only really had you two. I’ve been so scared that anyone I connect with will just be the same, that no one ever sees me. That I can never be enough for them and I’ll have to fit myself into what people want from me. That I have to strip myself down to be… palatable. I might be the only Changeling that doesn’t want to have to change to get people to like me.”

Ursa tries to laugh but it doesn’t come out right and she realises she’s crying. “But, with Alkahest…” Her hand hovers over her heart and she can feel it beating in her chest, hard, joined by the butterflies in her stomach.

“I don’t know if this is what love is, or if I’m just so fucked up that this is what normal friendship is supposed to be, but he makes me want to be… me? He makes me feel like its ok to be me?? He gets me?

“He encourages me to make other connections, to work on friendships and put myself out there, and change and grow and not like because he wants to change me, just because he wants me to be ok and stuff and- and- and-” She stands up suddenly, fists balled up and shining eyes wildly flicking between Saubra and Abadallion and they look taken back by her passion, the raw emotion in her voice.

“And to be honest, I’ve nearly died like three times this month- last month??? Fuck it! I don’t wanna die having never acted on this? I don’t wanna hold back on something that makes me happy! On something I want! Never a-fucking-gain!

“So yeah, maybe this is insane and stupid, maybe I’ve just been repressing myself for so long that it’s all just exploded out, maybe I’ve fallen head over heels for a guy I barely know – and maybe Brynner was right and I’m being manipulated and I’m going to die here, alone and friendless; but fuck it! If there’s even a chance it’s mutual, even the tiniest sliver he feels the same, or like, similar, I’ll chase this to the end of the fucking world. It’s worth it to me. Sorry, but not sorry.”

“Oh Ursa-” Both Saubra and Abadallion start, both scrambling up and pulling her into their arms. Held in their embrace Ursa can’t hold back the tears and they come flooding out, her entire heart pouring out with her sobs.

“Of course we know you’re loyal,” Abadallion states, their hand warm on Ursa’s back.

“I just don’t want you killing yourself over some guy-” Saubra says, wiping away Ursa’s tears gently, cupping her burning cheeks in her hands.

“Not just some guy,” Abadallion corrects.

“Ok. Not just some guy.” Saubra doesn’t hide her eye roll and Ursa almost laughs, but a sob comes out instead. “I’m sorry for doubting your feelings,” Saubra apologises, stroking Ursa’s face with such care. “I was created from your loyalty to yourself, your dreams. You’ve worked so, so, so hard; I didn’t want you throwing it away for – well, you know.” She smiles sadly. “But, I hadn’t realised, I…”

There’s a moment of silence. Saubra’s hands move back to Ursa’s shoulders, but her grip is softer, warmer. Her expression shifts into business mode. “You better have a plan to get us out of here.”

Ursa can’t bring herself to reply and just nods.

Saubra nods too and continues. “Ok, so, when we get out of here, two things. One, I get to meet him. I want to see what’s so special about this monochromatic little bitch.”

“Yeah, course,” Ursa manages, sniffling, laughing softly.

“Two, next time you see him, for the love of Camelot, give him a proper kiss.”

“Saubra!” Ursa tenses up, blushing practically from head to toe.

“I’m serious, I don’t know how to kiss people, nor am I interested in learning, but I KNOW you did a bad job.” She says it with such bluntness that Ursa doesn’t know what to do, hiding her face in her hands.

“Oh my God, Saubra, I can’t just-“

“Ursa, I’m deadly serious. I think you just bashed his nose last time, you’ve got to-“

“NO!”

“URSA!”

“FINE! OK! I’LL KISS HIS FACE OFF AND THEN WE’LL ALL GO FOR COFFEE!”

“Good. Great.”

The three of them laugh, clutching each other tightly and Ursa’s eyes close, her cheeks hot and tingly. When they open, the summer’s day is gone, and she is again locked in a cage on a world not her own, awaiting trial for a crime she did not commit.

But her heart feels fuller now, her shoulders set back, chin high and full of determination. The fear still coils around her stomach and she can feel it tightening, but her fists clench in her lap, and she encourages the fire burning away in her chest.

“I can do this,” she whispers to herself, and although she’s not sure she believes it, hearing it out loud makes it easier to buy.

Caliber Session 13: The Trial of Ursa Carpenter, Part 1

Hair? In a slightly more subdued style. Makeup? At a minimum, to the point that the average man on the street would assume she wasn’t wearing any. Suit? Well, the suit was pink, but it was Balmain.

Ursa looked the part, if she said so herself. Plus, the blazer had pockets for her flashcards.

There were butterflies in her stomach, lured there by the fire in her chest. She opened the door to Brynner’s office.

The director sat at his desk with fingers steepled, in what had to be a deliberate “I am patient but I’m also your boss” gesture. He didn’t smile when Ursa entered, but that was more because he didn’t have a mouth.

She glanced down at the top card; flicked lint from her blazer. Fidgeted.

‘Ah, Ursa,’ said the director. ‘It’s rather a bout of serendipity that you asked for this meeting today; there is a matter I need to discuss with you. Of course, it can wait until we’ve been through whatever it is you’re here to discuss.’

Ursa breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth.

‘So,’ she began. ‘Both of our recent field missions have ended up connected. The recent incident with Laniakea was directly caused by Fae interference after the Ikea stuff.’

Bryneer offered nothing. She moved to the next flashcard.

‘While it was regrettable what happened to Montparnasse – and I really wish it could have gone another way – he was trying to kill us, or kill the human bystanders at the very least. Alkahest may have gone too far, but…’ Here she paused for effect.

‘His actions have greatly benefited the Institute. We got to take the bones for Emva and Merlin to study. You didn’t lose three field agents, which if nothing else must have saved on paperwork. We saved those people. And we saved even more people beyond that, because there’s not an Ikea that eats people now.

‘So, although we all wish that Montparnasse had been dealt with differently, we have to admit that he needed to be dealt with! I understand the Summer Court being upset, but they’re not proceeding in a civil manner. It’s only been a month, and they’ve resorted not only to crime, but dangerous magic in their attempts to catch him.’

‘Ursa,’ said the director.

‘They’ve literally gone against an ally of the institute,’ Ursa went on. ‘Well, not exactly an ally, but something close to it. And please keep in mind that our investigations and subsequent silence are the only things stopping Laniakea from starting a war against Mr. Pyrite? During which your agents were seriously hurt, and–‘

‘Ursa,’ said Brynner, again. His voice was not unkind. Ursa shucked at his solicitude as if it were a bluebottle wheeling by her ear.

The director’s steepled fingers had moved to where his nose would have been. ‘Ursa, what is it you’re going to ask me?’

His tone had become near pedagogical. “I can already tell what you’re here for, so get to the point”, he didn’t say.

Ursa fumbled with her cards. ‘Um. If allowed to continue, their actions will become more erratic. They may turn to worse or more dangerous magic. Yes, Institute members are supposed to clear up that kind of mess, but is it worth putting your teams in danger? Is it worth putting Middlemarch in danger?’

Brynner was looking at her now with… what? Not concern, but. Was that pity? The clockwork man was, as ever, difficult to read.

Her fingers tightened around the flashcards, crumpling them into a papery bezoar. ‘I’m sure you have a backup plan for whatever apocalypses might come, but do you seriously intend to let it get to that over one guy?

‘Ask the Summer Court to drop it, because otherwise they’re going to burn the city to the ground. And we’re not going to be able to stop them if they go that far.’

Brynner waited for a moment, making sure she’d said everything she wanted to say. He sighed; affectation. If he’d worn glasses, he would have taken them off.

This was off the record.

‘Look, Ursa. I understand. I really, really do. But the Caliber Institute, by the very nature of its founding, must remain neutral. My own signature is on the Inside Accords. We can’t take a side on this.’

‘You wouldn’t be taking a side!’ said Ursa. She tried not to let it sound like a protest. ‘You’d be asking another side to lay off!’

‘If Infernal society were to stand behind Azoth Alkahest against the Summer Court, perhaps then we could step in to try and mediate,’ said Brynner, finally unsteepling his fingers only to fold his arms. ‘But you have to understand that it isn’t the role of the Institute to stand in the way of any faction. What we do is empower each faction to keep one another in check.’

‘So, what, we’re arms dealers playing all sides? Is that it?’

‘Ursa, that’s an argument from analogy, and one with quite a degree of bias. If you’d like to go down that road, I’d prefer to be compared to a library.’ The director stood up and went over to the window. This, too, could have been affectation, or perhaps he was caught up in zealous theatricality.

‘The Caliber Institute is a repository of knowledge and resources, freely available to all who might ask; Draconic, Angelic, Infernal, or, indeed, Seelie Fae. If a representative of Demonkind were to approach us and ask for the Fae to… drop it, as you said? We would, of course, provide what we could for their argument.

‘In much the same way, should the Summer Fae approach us and ask for assistance in tracking down their villain, we would, of course, provide. And every single one of our employees would do the same, because they too are members of the Accords. They would be compelled to do so.’

Ursa had intended to stand as well, but her legs felt suddenly marathon-tired. Was Brynner saying what it sounded like he was, in managerial glasses-off circumlocution?

‘And… have they?’ she asked, voice a cinema whisper.

‘They’re about to. Cait-Sìth has been in touch. He wants to meet later today, and I suspect he’ll be wanting every scrap of information the Institute can provide. Much of which lies with you, Ursa. I wanted to let you know in advance.’

No, no, no. Not like this.

Ursa had been to the fucking safehouse where Alkahest was holed up. She’d be compelled by whatever arcane Geasery was in her terms of employment, and she’d tell that feline inquisitor everything.

‘Director Brynner, I don’t want to sell out Alkahest.’ This time the pleading was obvious. She didn’t care. ‘He’s… I… He saved my life.’

‘Oh, Ursa,’ said the director. The proverbial glasses were still on the table. ‘I understand how you must be feeling. And to be honest, I feel responsible. Sending a green new recruit out on her first mission, only to have a Demon like that waiting for you? It was irresponsible.’

The blue bulbs of his eyes met hers, and Ursa knew he wasn’t looking at her as he spoke. He was looking at an image of her he’d constructed himself, carefully overlaid across the real thing so as to cover it completely.

‘He’s manipulating you, Ursa,’ continued Brynner. ‘I know it hurts now, and it’s going to feel wrong, but once you’re on the other side of this you’ll see it clearly. You’ll be okay; I promise.’

He’d already made up his mind, and he wouldn’t listen to a thing she said now. He probably hadn’t been so far, either. Well, Ursa wasn’t responsible for others’ misinterpretations of her. She’d learned that years ago.

Of course, an erroneous mental image could make fantastic camouflage. There wasn’t even a trick to it; the observer did all the work like a quantum scientist.

Ursa let her frustration mount and flush out through her eyes, let particle tears become waves rolling down her cheeks. She could only imagine how it’d look with the plasters and bruises as pugnacious accoutrement.

‘Ursa, I, er, it really will be quite alright!’ said Brynner, the situation rapidly spiraling away from his comfort zone.

‘No, I, I know, I know,’ blubbered Ursa. ‘I just want it all to stop! I nearly died and it’s all so much and I want it to be over.’

‘It will be after this one little meeting. You’ll just tell Cait-Sìth where Alkahest is hiding and you’ll never have to think of him again, yes?’

Ursa took a deep breath, made a show of trying to calm herself. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Can I arrange a meeting then? With Cait-Sìth?’

‘Of course!’ Brynner actually sounded relieved. ‘When would you be willing to…?’

‘As soon as possible,’ said Ursa. ‘I don’t want to lose my nerve.’

‘Of course. I can have him here within a few hours, I’d assume.’

‘Not here.’ She saw him regard her, the real her, now that she was playing along with expectations. She sniffed loudly, laying it on perhaps a bit thick. ‘Somewhere public. I’m scared, okay?’

‘Ah,’ said Brynner, reaching for his telephone. The rotary dial took some time.

‘And you have to promise you won’t send anyone to listen in,’ added Ursa.

Brynner would perhaps have raised an eyebrow, if hair were a thing he experienced.

Ursa looked embarrassed. She was good at that. ‘Look, if I’m giving every detail, there are a few things I’d rather not have the rest of the office privy to.’

‘…Ah. Say no more. You have my word that the Institute won’t intrude,’ said Brynner, proper gentleman that he was.

Ursa waited for the meeting to be clarified. It would be in two hours, meaning she didn’t have a lot of time to get everything in order. Typical.

‘There we go,’ said Brynner, putting down his phone. ‘Now, is there anything else I can do to help?’

‘Actually, there is,’ said Ursa, tears already dry. ‘You can accept my immediate resignation.’

‘…What?’

‘I quit.’

Ursa turned and left.

⁂

Beanie? Properly angled back. Moustache? Waxed. Blood? Sufficiently caffeinated, but only just. Merlin didn’t want to get all twitchy.

He pushed open the door of the studio and took in the ambience; the swirling pentagram design printed on the wood floor, the burgundy walls covered in flash and prints, the somewhat dilapidated leather couches that functioned as a waiting area.

There was an odd sense of pride in Merlin’s chest. He felt no ownership of the studio, obviously, but he’d found the place on BlinkedIn. Which meant the owners and artists working here were all in on the Outside world. Because Merlin was here for a quite particular, magical design.

His site (BlinkedIn) had allowed a user (himself) to track down a specific business (this studio) that would provide a uniquely Outside service (a tattoo with arcane properties). He’d done it (created a website that wasn’t totally redundant)!

If BlinkedIn had been around for his parents, when they’d been trying to find new work? It would have made a world of difference for them.

He suppressed his grin as a sparkly little ball of light flashed up to him, exploding and explicating into a tiny winged woman.

‘Hey, hun!’ said the Pixie. ‘You got a booking?’

‘I’m Merlin,’ said Merlin. ‘We spoke online?’

The Pixie’s face lit up, this time in a non-literal manner. ‘Oh! The BlinkedIn guy! I’m Bianca. You’re a bit early.’

‘Well, I wanted to make sure everything in the design was clear. And if any changes need to be made, I thought it’d be best to have enough time to incorporate them properly. It’s more than just ornamental, after all.’

‘Hrmm,’ said Bianca, looking him up and down from her hovering vantage. ‘Well, you’re shorter than I was expecting.’

Merlin laughed, but apparently Bianca wasn’t joking despite her own tchotchkesque stature. She went on.

‘That means I’ll need to do it smaller, so you might lose some detail compared to what we’ve talked about already.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Merlin. ‘It needs every detail or it won’t work. Can we just have it take up more of the canvas, so to speak?’

By the time Merlin got in the chair, the design stenciled on him took up both arms and a section of his chest. As Bianca got to work – sitting on his torso rather than hovering, presumably for stability – he found himself doublechecking the formulae that he’d worked with her to incorporate.

The idea had been to make himself a bit more adaptable. As a Wizard, if he wanted to cast anything worth more than a token effort, he needed his spellbook to hand. He’d thought himself very clever, writing a grimoire emulator on his laptop and having that serve as arcane focus, but while it was wonderfully camouflaged for urban workings, he’d begun to find it a little cumbersome.

Balancing the thing in one hand was, despite its sleek and ergonomic shape, awkward when firing bolts of lightning from the other. So Merlin had begun to research alternatives.

He’d seen phones and tablets, but none of them had the required computing power for use as a spellbook. He’d looked into more traditional methods, actual tomes and scrolls, but 1: they’d probably be just as unwieldy, and 2: hey just weren’t Merlin’s style.

Despite his nickname, he just wasn’t a very traditional guy.

So he’d moved on to more out-there choices; holographic projection (rejected – it was nigh-illegible when running for one’s life), a VR headset with a simulated library (rejected – going blind in battle would probably get him killed). He’d even conceived a complex method of roasting coffee to infuse the beans with particular spells, reintroducing them to the wizard’s mind when drunk through their complex flavours and aromas. He could fashion a kind of puissant cold-brew bandolier?

This he’d rejected on grounds of “speculated gastrointestinal tragedy”.

Some unsavoury magi, he’d found, had done extensive research into… alternative bindings for their particular tomes. It seemed there were five-star reviews from all manner of liches, plague-binders and literal geisterrufers: human(oid) skin was the choice de rigueur for powerful magicking.

Merlin reasoned that there was an idea worth pursuing there, and set aside the double-touchscreen design of glass and arcane code he’d been toying with (rejected – he’d need an almost godlike power source to get that to work).

Wizards out there were binding sheets of skin into books, and using those to contain their spells. Couldn’t he just cut out the ‘book’ part? The only tricky part would be getting to be editable, like a subdermal Etch A Sketch. And then–

‘We’re done,’ said Bianca. ‘Good job holding still! It’s like you’d gone into a zen trance or something.’

Merlin blinked at her as she struggled with a roll of clingfilm. ‘Oh. I was thinking about work,’ he said.

Bianca raised her eyebrows. ‘Right. You must really love your job, then, hun.’

Merlin left with a promise to get the studio trending on BlinkedIn, and went to look for some new shirts that would show off his ink.

⁂

Hat? Normal (black). Clothes? Normal (black). Expression? Aggravated (normal).

Nora was on her way to meet an “old friend”.

Well, it was less a “friend” and more “someone that had tried to kill her more than once”, but for Nora, that was practically family.

The bell above the door rang as she entered. She’d known that he’d retired a couple of years ago, gotten out of the game, as it were. That a reasonably powerful Fiend would open a bicycle shop upon his exit from a life of crime was odd, but not entirely surprising.

He was a Chain Devil, after all.

‘Draisine?’ she asked of the hulking figure by the counter. He was at that moment spinning the front wheel of an overturned bike, muttering about ‘scraping’, but looked up at the sound of his name.

‘Nora! As I rattle and rust! How’ve you been, you bastard?’

Nora gave a quick smile. She liked Draisine. He’d always kept things fair, and even when he’d been trying to choke her to death with a length of hoisting chain, she’d gotten the feeling that he wasn’t trying to have her head come completely off.

‘Not too bad,’ she said. ‘Busy. Currently working with some new recuits.’

‘Christ, Nora, are they still trying to get you babysitting?’ said Draisine, with a chuckle. ‘You’d think that ticking old man would have learned his lesson by now.’

‘Same as ever. Brynner’s patient, you know that. Anyway, how about you?’

The Devil shrugged and gave the wheel another spin, nodding in satisfaction at his work. ‘Good, actually,’ he said. ‘Business is a little slow. The independent retailer struggles in these days of e-commerce and medias social! But I myself am good.’

He paused, and added ‘Though, your arrival usually means things are about to fly over the handlebars.’

Nora laughed this time. ‘No, no, nothing like that today. I was actually hoping you’d have some info on a couple of people.’

‘I’m not a hunter anymore, you know,’ said Draisine.

‘I know. It’s just… I’m worried about someone. I want to know more about what she’s gotten tangled up in. Who she’s gotten tangled up in.’

‘Damn, Nora. Thought you said you were the same as ever?’

Nora ignored his incredulity, instead simply pressing on. ‘Did you know a Fae named Montparnasse?’

Draisine put a hand to his chest. ‘Not personally, but yeah. Taken from us too soon, you know?’

‘I don’t, actually. Everyone keeps saying that, though. Was he really that popular?’

‘Links and rivets, seriously?’ Draisine seemed almost offended, despite his ridiculous oath. ‘Montparnasse was practically a legend if you’re into those kinds of stories. A defector from the villainous Winter Court? Charming, funny? Possibly a consort of Queen Titania herself? ‘Course he was popular.’

This time Nora was the near-offended. ‘Piss off, seriously?’

Draisine nodded. ‘Lots of rumours about the guy. Almost all of ’em good, or entertaining at least. And the thing with rumours is they’re mutable, ain’t they? Rare powers, too. He was, uh, marketable.’

Nora grunted. ‘Well, I met him and he was a piece of shit. Don’t believe the hype.’ She moved onto her next query. ‘What about a Demon named Alkahest?’

The Chain Devil practically rolled his eyes. ‘Which one?’

‘Er… I think his first name was “Azoth”? I looked him up on the Institute’s books and there’s fuck all apart from him trying to assassinate Margaret Thatcher once.’

‘Oh, him.’ Draisine’s eyes dawdled mid-roll. ‘Opinions on him are what you might call “divisive”. Lotta Infernal folks hate him ’cause he’s trying to bring down the way we’ve run things for millennia. Then, a lotta Infernal folks love him for the exact same thing.’

‘What about you?’

‘I say “fuck that guy”. He’s a fuckin’ Marxist. Bet if he had his way he’d give away all my stock here for free… uh, but the Summer Court hate his guts especially because of deals he’s made with the Winter Court. They say Queen Mab herself owes him a favour or two.’

‘I wonder if that’s why Montparnasse was sent to keep him in check, then?’ Nora thought aloud. ‘Not that it worked.’

‘Is it really him that murdered Titania’s golden boy then? Shit, Nora, if you’ve got a friend mixed up in all that, you might want to ditch her.’ Draisine seemed to consider for a moment. ‘Mind you, killing a guy like Montparnasse is really more the other Alkahest’s style.’

This was getting out of hand, now. ‘There are two of them?’

‘Mhmm. The sister’s name is Panacea. She’s anti-monarchy, same as him, but she’s actually got ambition instead of the socialist bull he spouts. That, I understand. Anyway, Nora… you wanna buy a bike?’

⁂

Ursa had finished her work. She sat on a bench in a public park, solemnly tapping away at her phone.

Hey Mama, Tata, I’m having to do some stuff at work so I’ll be out of contact for a bit! Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything when I get back! Love you! ❤️️

She pressed send with the sort of stoicism reserved for generals consigning men to death. She’d been lying-by-omission to her parents for a while now, so this was only a step beyond that, right?

Hey Emva, I’m having to leave the institute, I just wanted to say I’m really glad we became friends and I’ll miss you and your baking.

Send. Next, Ursa swiped over to Merlin, and took a second to think.

Hey Merlin, some stuff’s cropped up so I’ve had to quit and I’m gonna be MIA for a bit. Don’t worry about the site and stuff. Thank you so much for being my friend. Play nice with Nora, k? 😉

Should there be more to it than that? No, she shouldn’t overthink it, or she’d never press send. (Merlin fished his phone from his pocket as he waited for the lady at the charity shop till to scan the shirts he’d picked. Seeing the message, he left the shop mid-purchase, and was already tracking the message’s location of origin by the time) Ursa moved onto Nora. She stopped and started a few times.

Hi Nora, just wanted to let you know that I quit ✌ Nothing to do with you don’t worry, just some stuff’s cropped up. I know we didn’t super get along but I do still think you’re cool, you just have like, major teamwork issues. I hope whoever replaces me, you give them a chance to be your friend, and I’m just sorry I wasn’t around long enough to get to do that myself.

Eventually, she nodded. It wasn’t quite everything she wanted to say, but it was enough. (Nora’s watch informed her of the message. She read it three times over. ‘Draisine, I gotta go,’ she said, backing from their conversation. What the hell had Ursa done? It had to be something major, with the finality of her message. She leapt onto her bike and gunned it, while) Ursa just had one final message left to send.

Alkahest’s picture in her contacts was a Belted Galloway cow. She almost chuckled at her own naïveté.

Hey, I pulled my string. It didn’t work. Long story short everything’s unraveled and not good. I know I just gave you that amulet but please, please lie low for a bit. They’re more on your heels than I’d realised.

I’ve got one last thing I can try. I can’t tell you what it is because I know you’d tell me not to do it. But I also know you’d do the same for me if our positions were reversed, so… yeah. I’m gonna be gone for a little bit.

(Absolutely gutted I won’t get chance to eat all those chocolates haha. The fact that you sent them, the fact you feel maybe the same as I do? Fucking wild. Blows my mind to think about. I never thought I’d fall so hard for someone, anyone??, let alone that they’d be as cool as you, LET ALONE you’d even like me back???? What the fuck, right?)

So um, yeah. You’re gonna worry – I know you will, and its gonna suck, so I’m so, so sorry for that but please trust me. I promise you I will sort all this shit out. I hope this is making sense. I don’t have much time, and it’s kinda starting to sound like a goodbye and I really don’t want that, because I am gonna work so fucking hard to get all this dealt with and sorted and you won’t have to worry. And then I’m coming back for you. Just hold on a tiny bit longer. ❤️️

(Alkahest watched as the messages scrolled up his phone screen. He’d gone very pale. ‘She wouldn’t,’ he mouthed.)

There was a presence next to her on the bench, patiently waiting for to finish what she was doing. A cat, all black for with a white spot on the chest. It watched her switch off her phone, and spoke. A burr, as opposed to a purr.

‘Hullo,’ it said. ‘I’m told you wanted to meet.’

‘Hi, Cait-Sìth. Are you, uh, doing ok?’

‘I have had better days in m’ life,’ said the cat. ‘I spent fucking hours submitting paperwork to your fucking Institute, only to be told that the one flirtin’ with our culprit quit that very morning.’

‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’ said Ursa. Suddenly, she just felt tired. Resigned.

‘Aye. That doesnae mean I didnae waste my time. Makes it worse, if you think.’

‘Well, let me make things easier. See, your culprit? It’s me.’

Cait-Sìth’s ears went flat. ‘You what?’

‘Yeah. I’m coming clean. It was me that killed Montparnasse.’

‘Fuck off, Ursa, your bum’s out the window. Why the fuck would you just hand yourself in now?’

Ursa wasn’t sure that was a real idiom, but she ignored it. ‘You were closing in on Alkahest. Turns out guilt is harder to stomach than I thought.’

‘And what are you feelin’ guilty for? The man’s head was bitten off, dinnae try tellin’ me you can get your mouth that wide.’

‘You sound incredulous,’ said Ursa. He wasn’t buying it. She had to change tact.

The thing about Fae – particularly those from further Outside – was that, as beings so close to Chaos, there was little by way of “natural laws” or “physics” that would keep them consistently real. Instead, to stave off devolution into a tangled mass of fractals, a Fae would define itself through a personal narrative.

Cait-Sìth had, despite his fur and whiskers, taken on the role of the pursuant lawbringer; a role with such luminaries as Inspector Javert and The Scarlet Pimpernel‘s Chauvelin. Cait-Sìth would stop at nothing to get his charge, locked in dogged chase despite his feline mien.

Ursa let her shoulders sag. ‘You already said you’d found traces of enchantment there. And I’d already stupidly admitted to that.’

‘Aye,’ said the cat. ‘You held Montparnasse in place, but Alkahest was the one who–‘

‘Wrong,’ said Ursa. ‘I’d charmed Alkahest. Dominated him, technically. The man’s got a lot going for him, but his brain is like a wet cake. He’s not a culprit, he’s a weapon; a weapon I used.’

Cait-Sìth’s back was up, now. Ursa thought she could hear engines getting closer.

‘What’s your fuckin’ game, Ursa? Why are you talking? I dinnae believe you just decided to come clean for no reason.’

‘You were closing in via the Institute,’ she said, hoping he’d buy it. ‘I wanted to do this on my own terms.’

Suddenly, there were shouts from either side of them, people diving for cover and hurling abuse as a motorbike and an electric scooter barreled into the park.

Ursa’s jaw hit the mantle. Apparently, Merlin had shared his notes with Nora, and the two of them had dropped everything to come for her.

But Cait-Sìth was upon her, claws digging into her legs. ‘I see your fuckin’ scheme! But oh, no, you ain’t gettin’ away, not now. You are nicked!’

The cat’s green portal opened, and the last thing Ursa saw as she tumbled through were her friends trying to save her.

⁂

‘Fuck!’

Nora let her bike crash to the ground, leaping from it to the now-empty bench. She booted the spot where Cait-Sìth had been.

Merlin, on his electric scooter, had gotten there a few seconds after Nora, and watched the warlock compose herself. She dropped into her hyper-competent work persona.

‘Right. So Ursa has decided to be an idiot martyr and sacrificed herself for the Demon. Who I couldn’t find and drag down here, because of some kind of warding keeping us out. So where to now?’

It didn’t seem like she was asking Merlin, more just thinking aloud. But Merlin still piped up, as one with a pathological inability to let questions go unanswered.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘There’s always that other Demon? We at least know where they live.’

‘Right. Strych is clearly able to contact Alkahest somehow. We’ll just have to convince them.’

Merlin’s voice was very cold; uncharacteristically so. ‘We’re going to get her back.’

‘You don’t have to reassure me, Merlin.’

‘I’m not. I’m just stating a fact.’

⁂

Alkahest closed the door to Strych’s house behind him and stepped onto the gravel. His swords were on his belt, his sawn-off shotgun concealed in his jacket. He’d helped himself to a couple of grenades from the box Strych kept in the basement, too.

He was going to get Ursa back, if he had to cut through or gun down every single Fae in the Summer Court.

Two figures were marching up the driveway. One was much shorter than the other, and they walked with purpose.

‘Is that–‘ Alakahest began, but was cut off as the arcing Witch Bolt crashed into him.

Merlin was near-berserk with incandescent fury, and Alkahest was a lightning rod. The Gnome held the Witch Bolt steady with murder in his gritted teeth.

‘Fuck! What the hell are you–‘ Alkahest tried again, but this time Nora sprinted up and twisted his arm into an agonizing lock.

‘Drop,’ she whispered.

The Demon growled and spun, throwing her from him but skidding to his knees under the arcane fulmination. Merlin’s new tattoos were already proving their worth, as without his laptop the Wizard put both hands forward to fully reduce his target to a stain on the drive.

By then, Alkahest had moved forwards to swipe at Merlin with a shadowy claw, but he was forced back by the lightning. Merlin hadn’t even blinked yet.

It was Nora that managed to deescalate. ‘Merlin. Merlin! What are you going to do if you kill him! We need to drag him to the Court to take the blame; we can’t do that if he’s dead!’

‘It’s his fault,’ said Merlin.

‘So let’s punish him and get Ursa back!’ shouted Nora.

Merlin, finally, closed his eyes. He ripped the Witch Bolt upwards, smashing the old Victorian chimney, stamping up to the kneeling Demon as masonry showered down around them both.

The slap rung out in the sudden quiet.

‘It’s his fault!‘ said Merlin again, hand still raised. ‘This only happened because she’s infatuated with him!’

Alkahest glared up at him, blood and shadow-stuff trickling from his nose. ‘You think she’s the only one with feelings?!’

Nora, watching from a few feet away, blanched. ‘Oh my god,’ she said. ‘I thought you were just… using her. But you’re serious, aren’t you? For fuck’s sake. Do you know how much that complicates things?’

Alkahest had the decency to look away. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘If you’re here, then that must mean…’

‘She’s gone,’ said Merlin, flatly. ‘Cait-Sìth took her.’

Nora explained why they’d come, though she omitted the part about Alkahest being a bargaining chip. That ship had probably sailed by now, anyway.

‘Okay,’ said Alkahest, dragging himself forwards. ‘If she’s gone to the Summer Court they’ll be holding a trial. They’re the good guys, after all,’ he added, sourly.

‘If anything happens to her, I will wipe your Demonic face off the surface of this world,’ said Merlin.

‘Get in line. Look, we need to get after her. They’ll probably be holding it on Montparnasse’s home world, you know, for drama – can we find out where that was?’

‘We did have a little card with it on, but…’ began Nora.

‘…But I gave his wallet back to Cait-Sìth,’ finished Merlin. ‘But he had a sister, didn’t he. We can find out from her.’

So it was that the three of them – blood-spattered Demon, furious Gnome, and addled warlock – ended up on a bench just outside Open Sky Capital. They’d decided there wasn’t time to go in and bluff their way to answers, instead electing to have Merlin ride the Wi-Fi to the company’s employee records.

Well, former-employee records.

‘How do we even get to whatever world it’ll be?’ asked Nora, watching Alkahest’s pacing.

‘There’s a portal just on the edge of town,’ said the Demon. ‘We can get to any world from there. It might just take some time.’

‘And how much time will we have?’

‘Don’t know.’

Nora was about to press him, but a call from behind her interrupted. ‘Oh, what the hell,’ she muttered.

Her sister, Ella, was waving at her.

‘Ella!’ said Nora, heading to her sister and trying to stand between her and her other companions. ‘What… are you doing here?’

‘Oh well!’ said Ella, in apparently stellar spirits. ‘You know how it’s been at work recently? And I’ve been looking for, uh, other options? Well, I’ve been headhunted by this place here!’

She jabbed a thumb towards Open Sky Capital.

‘It’s a big pay rise,’ she continued. ‘I’d be the PA for the CEO herself! Triple what I’m on now!’

Nora took a moment to come up with a nuanced, persuasive reason for her sister to give Open Sky, and its Draconic CEO, a wide berth.

‘Don’t,’ she said, lamely. ‘I’ve, uh, come across the owner of that place, and she’d treat you like shit if you mess up. You know?’

‘Aw, Nora,’ said her sister, mood uninumbrated. ‘You know I never mess up. Anyway, I only paid for two hours parking so I’ve gotta go! We’ll catch up later!’

Nora cursed beneath her breath, and moved back to the others. ‘Any luck?’ she asked.

Merlin held up a wait-a-second finger, then said, ‘London, UK, Earth#C0027.’

Alkahest nodded, filled with adrenaline. ‘That’s not too far. Let’s go.’

‘Wait,’ said Nora. ‘Merlin, before you log out… can you have a look at who’s in Laniakea’s HR team? Or recruitment? I’ll get you a coffee.’

Merlin gave her a quizzical look, but began to type out a search. ‘Looks like HR is basically nonexistant. Recruitment is all through Laniakea herself.’

Nora swore again. ‘Thought as much,’ she said.

‘Hey, can we get a fucking move on?’ said Alkahest. ‘We need to–‘

‘Actually, we’re going to grab some coffee first,’ said Nora. She said it with such a brusque finality that they’d sat down in the nearest café before the Demon even responded.

‘We’re losing time,’ he said.

‘I know. But we need to get our breath back, you and Merlin both.’

Nora had genuinely wanted to take a second for recovery. That, and she was aware Merlin had put a lot of work in for their current course of action, and she wanted to keep things going smoothly.

Give them a chance to be your friend, Ursa had said.

Nora clenched her teeth. The wire in her chest had begun to thrum, faintly.

Merlin was sipping at his flat white and glaring holes through Alkahest.

Alkahest hadn’t noticed. He was fidgeting, thumbing at his phone. Reading through all his texts from Ursa.

⁂

In a cage on a world not her own, Ursa wondered about her friends as a courtroom was assembled all around her. She hoped they weren’t mad. She also hoped they weren’t just fine with it, even if she suspected that might be the case.

It’s fine. Ride this out.

She watched as benches and podiums were erected, turning at a deep, sonorous clanging behind her.

A group of Fae were carrying in a massive, ornate bell. Ursa couldn’t help but remember the prophecy from Morta, below the Caliber Institute.

Your life comes to an end almost as loud as the crack in the bell.

But, she’d quit. Surely the prophecy no longer applied?

‘H-hey!’ she called to a passing attendant, who looked at her with mild derision. ‘Whats the big bell for?’

‘It is struck when a verdict has been decided.’

‘Oh,’ said Ursa. Her mouth was suddenly quite dry. ‘Maybe this wasn’t a very good plan after all.’

Caliber Session 12: Gilt by Association, Part 4

A week had passed since the Infernomicon of Caravigg had been tossed into the Well of Many Worlds.

Nora had spent it doing very little. She’d made a conscious decision to try and reconnect with her Patron a little; part of her felt guilty for just how busy she’d been in recent months, and another part was concerned about just what its reaction might be if she neglected it for too long.

Merlin had been working, mostly, but had taken an evening off a few days in to visit his parents. He’d stayed for a roast dinner, but left after his Dad began – unsuccessfully as always – trying to convince him to trade in his scooter for a ‘real vehicle’.

Ursa did a variety of things in her week off that she couldn’t stop running over in her mind, culminating in her lunch meeting yesterday. She’d text Alkahest since then, but he hadn’t yet replied.

Hey, so, I just wanted to uh, maybe check in, make sure I hadn’t um, overstepped? If I went too far/made things awkward, just let me know and I can, uh back off I guess? I don’t wanna make you feel weird, I really like you. 😳 😳 😳

She tried not to read into it.

⁂

Nora awoke from a bout of near-restless sleep. She could already tell what had woken her; someone outside was playing drum and bass at psychological torture volume.

She shambled across to the window, hoping that she could perhaps spot the perpetrator and maybe throw a brick at them. There was nobody outside.

What she did see, though, was the silver wire coming from her chest. It was vibrating, just slightly, like a recently-strummed guitar string. It seemed to move in time with the music.

‘It’s in my head?’ she said, unable to hear herself over the music.

Well, if some arcane force was forcing her to listen to its Soundcloud, she should at least do so on a full stomach. Two slices of white bread went into the toaster.

When Nora took them out, there was a crackle of static from the wire, and suddenly she was holding two pieces of artisanal French toast, complete with powdered sugar.

Carefully, Nora placed them on the kitchen counter.

There wasn’t time for this. She was going to be late.

She left the toast and set out for the Caliber Institute, the drum and bass following her like a, well, a cloud of sound.

⁂

Merlin looked up from his laptop as Nora sat across from him. She placed two bottles of expensive, exaggerated-health-benefit vitamin water on the table for him to inspect.

She’d bought them not a minute ago, intending to try and flush out the caffeine in her system, as if that might somehow free her from the breakbeats. Unfortunately, in much the same way as the toast, the water in the bottles had shimmered when she picked them up. Not that she told Merlin.

‘Drink one of those,’ she said.

Merlin eyed her, then the bottles. ‘Why?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with them. I just bought them over there, you probably saw.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘I’m being nice.’

Without breaking eye contact, Merlin unscrewed the lid of one of the waters. He took a tentative sip.

They should have sent a poet.

‘Good god,’ said Merlin, eyes abulge. It was the cleanest, tastiest, most refreshing sip of water he’d ever had the good fortune to drink. Merlin’s life was now neatly split into two distinct parts; the time after this sip of water, and the dark times. He was a changed man. ‘What is in this?!’

Poetry. They should have sent a poet!!

‘It’s just water, Merlin; I don’t know.’ Whatever it was, it affected any food or drink she touched and transformed it into a culinary masterpiece fit for a thousand Fieri.

There was some laughter from the door as Cepheus and Emva entered. Nora barely heard it over the musing and music in her head, and Merlin had already gotten up to buy a few waters of his own.

He wouldn’t end up drinking them right away, instead choosing to save them for when he most needed that transcendent refreshment.

This is called “dramatic irony”.

‘What are you two grinning at?’ asked Merlin of Emva, sitting back down with six bottles of Vitamin Water. ‘Also, have you tried this water?’

‘Oh, someone sent a big load of flowers!’ said Emva. ‘It’s cute. Gonna take whoever the lucky person is quite a while to eat them all!’

Cepheus glanced at his wife, perhaps to try and gauge if she was joking. When he couldn’t figure it out, he too turned to Merlin.

‘Oh man,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you drink that swill! You know it’s just tap water, right?’

Merlin suppressed the flash of rage at Cepheus’ insulting his new beverage of choice way of life. ‘Well, suit yourself,’ he said, flatly.

His phone beeped. So did Nora’s.

Over at her desk, Ursa stared in near-terror at the mass of flora before her. The receptionist had brought it up with a big smile on their face, and when she opened the card, it simply read ‘You know who it is. You didn’t “overstep”, don’t worry.’

Ursa knew who it was.

As it turned out, the flowers weren’t flowers at all; they were in fact chocolates painted to look floral and perched on stems. This, paired with Emva’s earlier comment, is a similar kind of irony to before but not quite the same.

Ursa’s phone beeped too. Unfortunately, it wasn’t from who she hoped it was; it was a meeting request (mandatory) from Director Brynner.

⁂

The last time the three of them had been to the Director’s office, he’d been ousted from his desk by an Ancient Dragon. Pleasantly, that wasn’t the case on this occasion.

Instead, Laniakea stood by the window, somehow making direct eye contact with all three of them at once.

‘Ah, you’re here,’ said Brynner, from his mahogany barricade. ‘Obviously you’ve met Laniakea already, but she–‘

‘I have come to acknowledge the work you performed,’ said Laniakea. She sounded furious, but then, her baseline mood appeared to be “constant seething rage”, making her difficult to read.

‘While you did not retrieve my book–‘

The three grew tense.

‘–You did successfully root out the traitor in my company. It was not the result I had hoped for, but I can recognise your talent.’

The three relaxed, but only slightly, in much the way one might upon learning they get to go second in Russian Roulette.

Not one of them wanted to actually respond, though.

Bryyner attempted to fill the silence, only for the Dragon to pounce with anpther interruption.

‘So what Laniakea is proposing–‘

‘What I have come to propose is a business arrangement. Should I require the services of the Caliber Institute in future, it will be the three of you whom shall assist.’

‘Oh,’ said Nora, when the others didn’t. ‘That’s… very…’

She trailed off when she saw Brynner nodding quite vigorously.

The Dragon nodded too, in more of a “task complete” fashion. ‘There is one more thing also,’ she said, marching up to Ursa in particular.

‘You tried to stop me reaching my former assistant when I discovered her culpability in what transpired. You stood in my way.’

Ursa had gone totally still, staring at Laniakea’s feet. This had the added benefit of positioning her hair buns like a deimatic display of eyespots, though that turned out to be unnecessary.

Laniakea continued. ‘I realise now that if you had been able to stop me, then Minette would not have gotten away. You were wise to counsel temperance. Therefore: the next time I raise my hand to strike you… you have my permission to move.’

Now Ursa looked up, mostly due to shock. ‘Or… you could, you know… not hit me?’ she said, aghast.

The Dragon seemed to consider this. ‘Hmm. Temperance, indeed.’

She turned to leave, only to find Merlin in her path. ‘There was one other thing, actually,’ he said, not a trickle of intimidation in his voice. ‘During our investigation, we came across a rather odd man calling himself “Stiletto Benevolent”, who was apparently looking into the same business. Apparently, he’d been hired anonymously. You don’t happen to know anything about him, do you?’

‘What? No. I have not encountered this “Benevolent” man. Rest assured, if he continues to intrude upon my business, he will be swiftly… removed.’

So, that was a dead end as far as Laniakea was concerned. She promptly declared her departure, and was gone before she’d finished said announcement.

The Director, though, had absolutely winced at the mention of the name “Stiletto”. Nora, accustomed to working around Brynner, had picked up on his cringing even over the pounding sub-bassline in her head.

She strolled up to his desk, taking care not to walk in time with her cranial music. ‘Right, out with it. How do you know this Stiletto guy?’

Brynner had been mid–sigh-of-relief at Laniakea’s withdrawal (an affectation given his lack of lung). ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, not meeting Nora’s eye.

‘Really? You practically shot out of your chair at the mention of his name. Is he someone we should be worried about?’

‘Y- Uh.. you know, the… One thing I should…’ Brynner began, but withered under Nora’s scrutiny. ‘Alright, yes. Yes, I’m well aware of Stiletto Benevolent. He’s a former employee of the Institute.’

Nora tilted her head, Ursa joining her side. ‘”Former”?’ asked the Changeling.

‘Yes. Always a bit of an odd one. Conspiracy theorist. Mild case of mythomania, I believe; that’s how he snapped and ended up in our employ. He was in fact, uh, let go.’

This was the first any of them had heard of the Caliber Institute giving anyone the sack.

Merlin, still in his seat, raised a questioning hand. ‘So is he some sort of… rival of the Institute? Bitter about being fired? Was he attempting to undermine our investigation?’

‘What was he fired for?’ added Ursa.

‘For pursuing his own conspiracies rather than actually working in the Institute’s interests.’ Brynner turned to Merlin. ‘I don’t believe he will have been. If he said that he didn’t know whose payroll he was on, I’d assume that someone involved with the case had him looking into it?’

‘That’s why I brought it up with Laniakea,’ said Merlin. ‘But if it wasn’t her, then who? Mr. Pyrite? Maybe the Fae? It’s going to bite us in the ass if we don’t get an answer.’

‘Well, since we kept the mastermind’s identity from Laniakea, we avoided the Dragons going to war,’ said Nora. ‘Is there someone out there that would benefit from knowing what really happened? An enemy of Mr. Pyrite? Or, uh…’

She trailed off, pinching the bridge of her nose.

‘I’m sorry, could I maybe head home?’ she asked of Brynner. ‘I think I need to take a nap.’ She didn’t mention the music.

‘Helton, it’s your first day back after a week to recuperate. I’d prefer it if you could, uh, stick around until at least the debriefing paperwork is completely signed off?’

‘It looks serious,’ said Ursa. ‘She’s practically swaying on her feet. And we’ve been through a lot, what with the world nearly ending, and we just had another stressful meeting with an Ancient Dragon that you really should have warned us about on our way up here instead of just surprising us with it. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a gradual return-to-work if it’s necessary? Which it clearly is?’

Brynner seemed to look from the rapid movements of Ursa’s mouth to the constellations of bruises and plasters on her face.

‘Alright,’ he relented. ‘Will that be all?’

‘…Actually,’ said Ursa. ‘There was one other thing. I was hoping I could arrange a meeting with yourself sometime soon?’

‘Oh? For what reason?’

Ursa glanced at the others. ‘It’s… private.’

‘I see. Well, I can have something with Cepheus–‘

‘No. It has to be with your personally, Director.’

Brynner regarded her again. This time, he didn’t look at the bruises.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I have an opening in my schedule tomorrow morning.’

⁂

After grunting out a goodbye to Nora, who staggered off into oncoming traffic, Merlin got to work looking into what he could find of Stiletto Benevolent. The man had an Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location, but that didn’t block more traditional means of tracking someone down. It’d just take a bit of work.

He minimised the tabs in which he’d been researching arcane tattoo artists, and opened up the local police records, taking another sip of that wonderful, glorious Vitamin Water. He figured a Private Eye would have some sort of agreement with the actual law enforcement; even an informal one would have mention of his name in emails or whatever.

As it turned out, the police did mention Stiletto quite a few times – and not at all favourably. He’d been arrested no less than eight times, but never convicted for anything. The cops had his current office address on record. Merlin made a note.

⁂

A desklength or so away, Ursa chewed on one of her “flowers” and fretted about her meeting. She’d need to write up some cuecards or something. At least she’d already gotten something to wear.

‘Whatcha up to?’ said a voice at her elbow.

‘Augh!’ said Ursa, turning to see Emva’s grinning face. ‘Um, I was just trying to think!’

‘Oh, really?’ said Emva, conversationally. She was looking at the flowers. ‘I was just wondering if there was anything I could help with?’

‘Well, I actually did want to try and track down Adagio, you know, the Angel I mentioned last time we spoke? I wanted to give her a thank-you gift.’

Ursa finally followed Emva’s gaze. ‘You’re welcome to have one if you want, Emva,’ she said.

Emva had already stuffed one into her mouth, along with part of the stem. ‘I could make you a thing,’ she said through cocoa-teeth. ‘It’d only work once, but if you’ve already met the Angel it’d definitely work proper.’

‘Oh. Are you sure? Thank you!’

A few minutes later, and three chocolates poorer, Ursa waved a little brass compass-thing in Merlin’s face. ‘Hey, I’m going to track down Adagio. Do you want to come? Or should we wait for Nora?’

Merlin hesitated before shutting his laptop.

‘Can we get coffee on the way?’

⁂

Nora awoke. She’d stumbled back home and collapsed onto her mattress, barely having the wherewithal to take off her shoes. Nevertheless, she’d carefully put her watch on its charger by the bed. It had never run out of battery, being powered by an unfathomable arcane entity, but it always seemed the respectful thing to do.

She looked blearily around the room, realising she’d been out for a bout an hour and a half. Blessedly, though, the drum and bass had halted. The silver wire in her chest no longer seemed to carry a charge.

Good. So what were her options?

She could head back to work. Check in with the others. Do paperwork.

Or… she could capitalise on time alone. There was something she’d been wanting to do all week, and this way she knew Merlin and Ursa would be over at the Institute.

She seized the opportunity, kicking her shoes back on. In her haste she neglected to grab her watch from its charger.

⁂

The compass’ needle had finally begun to veer to one side. Ursa and Merlin were presumably closing in on their target.

Merlin frowned into the contents of his cup. ‘You know,’ he mused, ‘This would taste better if it wasn’t in a travel cup. And maybe if I’d gotten cold brew instead? And if it was clear instead of brown, and had vitamins in…’

‘Will you stop going on about that water? I think we’re at the place.’

Ursa squinted at the greasy spoon diner that the compass pointed to. She couldn’t see any Angels through the window, but it was quite possible Adagio was hiding in the back. She hefted the muffin basket she’d bought. It had seemed prudent to splash out on a heavier one.

Inside the diner, Emva’s compass spun to aim them at the back corner – and indeed, a woman with sunset-sky–flavoured hair could be seen chatting away to a companion concealed by the booth they were in. Though Adagio faced the door, she was much too engrossed to notice Ursa and Merlin’s approach. Her brow was furrowed, and she hadn’t even touched her bacon sarnie.

‘Adagio, hi!’ said Ursa, proffering her douceur basket. ‘Sorry to interrupt, and sorry to have tracked you down like this, but it was just really important to me to come and say thanks for all the help you gave us with the, uh, apocalypse business! So, here!’

Adagio blinked a few times, but took the gift happily enough. ‘It’s really no problem, I mean, it’s only fair after the misunderstanding in the cinema, you know…? Ooh, banana oat…’

She held a muffin out to her cohort. ‘You want one…?’

Ursa turned to flash a warm smile at Adagio’s friend, but her smile flickered rictus when she realised who it was.

Laniakea glared up at her from behind a plate streaked with blueberry gore. A pie crust crumb had somehow ended up on her shoulder.

Ursa realised she was babbling. ‘Ah, Laniakea, it’s you, what a funny coincidence seeing you again, especially after this morning; anyway, we didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch, after all, it’s the most important meal of the day if you don’t include breakfast, right? So we’ll just be on our way and we’ll get out of your hair; thanks again Adagio, I hope you enjoy the muffins–‘

At this point she cleared the doors and allowed herself to breathe again.

‘Well, that was unexpected,’ said Merlin. It seemed he’d gotten outside before Ursa had.

‘No, no, it’s probably a good thing!!’ said Ursa. ‘If they’re reconnecting, that can only be a good thing, right?!’

‘No, I meant Laniakea eating in a greasy spoon.’

‘Oh.’

They actually laughed for a little bit.

⁂

Adagio watched them wander off outside the diner’s window; Merlin apparently suggesting a destination and the two heading toward that.

She leaned back in her seat and examined Laniakea’s search through the gift basket for the muffin with the highest sugar content.

‘You see,’ said the Angel, not unkindly. ‘This is why I’m the only one who’ll talk to you…’

Laniakea snorted. ‘They are cowards.’

‘No, you’re just intimidating. That’s what I’ve literally just been telling you… And hey, it isn’t fair to call someone names while you’re digging through a present they brought. Especially if it wasn’t addressed to you…’

‘I know this,’ said the Dragon. ‘She stood against me, do you know this?’

‘I’m glad she did, Lania… You need to learn that people won’t just give you whatever you want.’

Laniakea looked up, sharply. She wasn’t used to keeping her feelings on the inside. ‘You struck her too,’ she said, the green of her cheeks taking on a more chartreuse hue. ‘Are you glad of that?’

‘I told you about that… I thought she was another of your sycophants at the time. And I apologised.’

‘I admitted my… mistake to her today,’ said Laniakea, carefully.

‘That’s a start, I suppose…’ said Adagio. ‘Hey, you only get one of those, the rest are mine. And stop sulking.’

⁂

‘Mr. Pyrite will see you now.’

‘Thanks,’ said Nora, and strode through into the judge’s chamber.

‘Ah, if it isn’t Nora Helton,’ said Mr. Pyrite, wearing the friendly smile of a predator with no regard for the terror telegraphed by its fine-edged teeth.

‘Hello, Mr. Pyrite,’ said Nora. ‘I’m here to talk.’

‘Oh? I assumed you’d come to apologize for insulting me.’

‘I was under the impression that our keeping your involvement from Laniakea was apology enough.’

Mr. Pyrite’s expression grew bemused. ‘Come on, we both know that was as much for your benefit as mine. It’d be a hell of a mess to clean up after.’

Nora ignored this, and simply pressed on, sitting in a chair across from the desk. ‘The reason I’m here is because I want information, and if you can’t give it to me, I reckon you know someone who can.’

‘Really?’ The Dragon leaned forward on his desk. ‘You want to request my services after what happened when last you were here? What makes you think I’d deign to assist?’

Nora held up a wooden gavel, with “2 of 3” inscribed in the handle. Pyrite’s eyes did not grow wide, and did not narrow. He barely moved at all.

‘You know,’ he said, casually, ‘I could take that from you before you had time to rise from your seat? There’s a chance you’d lose your hand, though.’

‘Could you do it before I had time to set it alight?’ said Nora, tapping into the power lent from her Patron, intending to punctuate the threat with roll of flame between her fingers.

Only, no such flame appeared. She hadn’t brought her watch. Leaving it behind had been necessary, considering what she wanted to find out from here, but…

Sure, she could still use magic, but it was more limited without the Morris Worm coiled around her wrist – she couldn’t conjure a Fire Bolt. What if he–

‘Fine,’ said Mr. Pyrite, choosing not to call her bluff. ‘Fine. That was a gift, after all. Set it on the table and we’ll talk – I assume you’re the one that spirited it from my desk drawer?’

‘I found it,’ said Nora, and didn’t elaborate. ‘So, what I want to ask about is… do you know anything about entities that are both magical and digital in nature? Specifically, how to… protect yourself from them? A friend of mine is having some trouble.’

This will seem ironic later.

The Dragon didn’t blink as he reached over to retrieve his gavel. He didn’t reply until it was back in his hand. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘That is something unfortunately a little outside my personal wheelhouse. You want me to consult on occult jurisprudence, then we’re talking.’

‘Well if you can’t offer anything then–‘

‘Sit back down, Nora Helton.’

Nora did not, but Mr. Pyrite seemed unperturbed. He simply continued.

‘There is someone that’s better-versed in technology than myself. I could put you in touch. But before that, there is the matter of the third gavel.’

‘I only have the one,’ lied Nora.

‘That’s not what I’ve been told.’

Nora eyed him, but blinked first. How did he know? He couldn’t have been scrying on the confrontation with Caravigg, not with Laniakea’s wards. Right?

She sighed, and made her way to one of the bookshelves at the room’s edge. There, she retrieved the 3-of-3 gavel and placed it carefully on a shelf before moving away, as if this were a hostage exchange. Which, technically, it was.

Then she went and sat back down. ‘Right, so who’s this tech person you–‘

She stopped as, in the corner of her eye, the gavel lifted into the air seemingly of its own accord, and floated its way over to Pyrite’s waiting hand. The invisible figure that had carried it to him faded into view shortly afterwards.

‘Meet my new P.A,’ said Mr. Pyrite.

Minette gave an apologetic grin, one that, had Nora seen it on their first meeting, might have avoided a whole lot of trouble.

‘Hi, Nora,’ said Minette. ‘Thanks for distracting Adagio so I could get away. Uh, I didn’t think she’d take me back to Laniakea, what with their breakup, but still.’

‘Minette’s quite a bit better with technology than myself,’ said Mr. Pyrite. ‘The spell she used to circumvent Laniakea’s wards, for example, making her only invisible to cameras? I was very impressed. I believe she might be of some help with whatever entity your friend might be dealing with.’

‘Not off the top of my head, though,’ added Minette. ‘Give me some time to look into it.’

Nora continued saying nothing. She could hear the other shoe whistling down through the air.

Mr. Pyrite clapped his hands together in an “I just remembered” gesture. ‘Now, Nora,’ he said. ‘You’ve returned my property, everything back its proper place. But that’s not all that needed clearing up, is it? I mean to say, we’ve properly addressed the matters proprietary, but there remain the matters propriety.

‘We are even on belongings, Nora Helton. We are not even on insults.’

There it was. ‘So what do you propose?’ asked Nora, with perhaps a mildly sardonic expression. ‘You want me to sign your book, is that it?’

‘That might go some way to mending our relationship.’

‘What happens if you have my “true name”, then? Are you going to own my soul or something?’

‘Nothing so nefarious,’ said Mr. Pyrite with a wounded little pout. ‘It simply means that you’re on equal terms with each of my other clients, and my other clients would know this.’

‘Alright, but that’s not an answer. What does signing my name do? Does it mean you could track my movements? Does it make it easier for you to kill me?’

The Dragon fixed his attention on her fully, and there was a near-imperceptible glittering of scales on his skin. The tattoos on his scalp almost seemed to glow. ‘Nora Helton. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t need your true name to make that happen.’

Nora didn’t blink this time. ‘Alright, fine,’ she said. ‘May I, uh, borrow a pen?’

⁂

Stiletto Benevolent, read the card on the intercom. Private Eye (Allseeing).

As it had turned out, the address Merlin had found for the detective’s office had been a mere 3 minutes’ walk from the diner where they’d fled from Adagio and Laniakea. It only made sense to check it out.

Merlin stood on tiptoes to press the buzzer.

‘Hellooo?’ said Stiletto’s tinny voice through the speaker. He sounded like a 6 millimeter version of himself at the bottom of a tin of Pringles, but his vocal mannerisms were still easily recognisable.

‘Hello,’ said Merlin, failing to keep the growl from his tone. ‘It’s one of the people you blew up in an alley last week. Remember me?’

There was a pause, then: ‘…Oh, fuck. Uh, you’re through to Stiletto pizza, sorry, we aren’t taking orders right at this moment.’

The line went dead.

‘That fucker!’ said Merlin, reaching up again – but Ursa stopped him.

‘Let’s give it a minute,’ she said. ‘And then…’

She pressed the buzzer, briefly.

‘…Hellooo?’ said Stiletto’s voice, more cautiously this time.

‘Hi, my friend gave me your card – I was hoping I’d be able to hire you for, uh… something?’ said Ursa. She probably should have planned something.

‘Really?’ said Stiletto. ‘And you’re not here because of any explosions in any alleyways?’

‘Um. No? There were two people just here, but they, um. They left.’

Another pause. ‘…Oh thank goodness,’ said Stiletto. ‘Come on in!’

‘You’d think a detective would have better insight,’ remarked Merlin, as the door opened.

‘Honestly I’m surprised there wasn’t a camera.’

Inside, the corridors and walls had the sort of rickety feeling to them that says ‘Victorian boarding house’ rather than ‘offices’. Each door was identical, with no numbers or namecards to distinguish their contents. However, a little way in, one of the door frames had been carved to almost lacework by the sheer number of runes and sigils surrounding it.

‘That’s probably the place, huh?’ said Ursa.

Merlin practically kicked the door in.

Imagine the office of a private eye; not a real one, but one from television. The room looked like that, complete with filing cabinets, metal blinds, and sheets of paper everywhere.

The only real difference was that the calendar was instead an ‘I want to believe‘ poster.

‘Oh good lord it’s you,’ said Stiletto to the encroaching Gnome.

‘Hello Stiletto,’ Merlin replied. ‘We have a few questions we’d like you to answer.’

‘Really? Well, unfortunately, I was just on my way out, so…’

Merlin swept a stack of paper onto the floor, slamming his laptop on the table in its stead. He hit a key like a viper strike, and suddenly there was a blade of guttural shadow weaving around his arm.

He pointed this Shadow Blade at Stiletto, making an ‘Ah bah bah bah’ noise of warning. ‘Sit back down,’ he said.

‘So, Stiletto,’ said Ursa, having been left holding the straw that said Good Cop, ‘We’re hoping you might have found some info on whoever it was that hired you last week? You did say you’d look into it.’

‘I said it compelled me. That’s not the same.’

‘So you haven’t looked into it at all?’ said Merlin, his blade Damoclesian above Stiletto’s leg.

‘Well, I’ve looked a bit. But I haven’t found very much; it’s a wide net to cast,’ said the detective, staring at the blade. ‘That’s a remarkable spell, I must say. Would you mind showing me your formulae after this? I’m sure we could make an exchange.’

Both Merlin and Ursa watched Stiletto’s eye twitch as he tried to change the subject. He was a remarkably terrible liar.

‘Look, I don’t really want to cut your leg off,’ said Merlin, ‘Because chances are that’ll make your testimony less accurate. But if you continue to lie–‘

‘Oh, I can help with that,’ supplied Ursa, hoping to mitigate the need for Merlin’s nasty streak. He and Nora had a surprising amount in common, actually.

Ursa tapped out a little rhythm on the side of a desk, and everyone hearing it swayed along with the magic woven through. She cast Zone of Truth.

‘Right, so you know that I’m being totally honest here,’ said Merlin, leaning forward with his Shadow Blade. ‘If you dodge a question, or you refuse to answer? I’ve been looking for an excuse to test how sharp this spell is.’

Stiletto swallowed, not noticing how Merlin had stepped around a declaration that he’d really cut the man’s leg off. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Very well. I haven’t looked into it with much rigour, because I already have a suspicion of who it might be.’

‘Can you tell us, then?’ asked Ursa.

‘Well… I can, but usually when I talk about this, people laugh. Or I lose my job.’

‘I promise we won’t laugh. Or uh, fire you?’

‘I’m more worried about losing limbs in this case,’ said Stiletto. ‘But okay. Consider, if you will, that the only ones who even knew a crime had been committed at the time of my hiring were the victim and the perpetrator, yes? The victim, though, did not know of me, or I would have been given access to the scene of the crime. And the perpetrator, of course, would have no reason to hire an intellect such as mine. Why would they increase their chances of being caught?’

He waited for them to offer insights that he could then correct. Sadly, both Ursa and Merlin recognised his question as rhetorical.

‘They wouldn’t,’ continued Stiletto, a bit deflated. ‘So then, who else could have known? Only one who knew both the victim and perpetrator, and wanted to set them against one another, but couldn’t do so themselves. One who watched from the shadows, unwilling to reveal their identity. One who had seen the crime before it had been committed.’

‘Who?’ asked Ursa.

Stiletto had fully recovered his momentum now. ‘One who spins a web of malfeasance so deep in the shadows that few can see its saturnine threads. One whose invisible hands spin such a number of nefarious plates they interlock like clockwork in a great machine of evil purpose. One who lurks below the Middlemarch underworld, guiding each and every citizen to be inexorably potted in her byzantine schemes like Bugs Bunny with the magnet and the golf ball in Space Jam.

‘Her name is Lopodite, the Tenth Muse. The Muse of Crime.’

‘…Fuck off,’ said Ursa.

‘I’m being serious!’ Stiletto protested.

Merlin flashed off his Shadow Blade. ‘We know. That makes it worse.’

‘I have proof!’ the detective practically wailed. He produced a file from the cabinet, and threw it on the desk. ‘I found most of this while I still worked with the Caliber Institute. She’s involved in so many incidents in the last decade!’

He pointed from image to image as he spoke. It was really a shame he hadn’t set up a full-on conspiracy board with string and red circles. Merlin shook his head, but in doing so, he spotted a note about a curiously-built IKEA in the city.

‘The thing is, we believe you,’ said Ursa, slowly, interrupting Stiletto as he explained how Lopodite was the reason KFC kept their spices a secret. ‘We encountered something she was probably involved in. There was a statue of her and everything.’

Stiletto’s eyes went wide. ‘Then… you and I are allies, both standing against her Machiavellian manouvres. Should you require my services in future, I am but a phone call away.’

‘Uh. Okay. Could we get a phone number then?’

‘You already have mine. I wrote it on your card.’

‘Oh,’ said Ursa. ‘Yes. You did.’

‘I assumed that was how you found me here?’

‘…Yes. Yes it was,’ said Ursa. Apparently the Zone of Truth had worn off.

⁂

‘What do you mean you went to see Pyrite?!’ said Ursa, aghast.

It was the next day. Merlin, Nora, and Ursa had reconvened at Ursa’s desk, and were helping themselves to chocolate petals.

Nora fiddled with her watch. The strap felt a little tighter than normal. ‘Yeah, I took a nap and I was feeling a bit better, so I thought I’d save us a job.’

Ursa pouted. ‘I was hoping to rub his guilt into his smug face,’ she said. ‘Or actually maybe it’s best if I never see him again in my life?’

‘Did he make you sign his book?’ asked Merlin.

‘He wanted me to,’ said Nora, and didn’t elaborate.

Merlin nodded. ‘Well, we managed to track down Stiletto. He actually wants to work with us moving forward, if any more of this Lopodite business comes up…’

Nora was barely listening, though; still messing with her wrist. Her mind was locked on yesterday evening.

She’d returned home to find more than 60 waiting messages from her Patron.

‘You forgot me’

‘Nora you forgot your watch’

‘Where are you?’

‘I don’t know what to do if you’re not with me’

‘Get back here now’

‘We need to talk. Now’

‘I hope you’re having fun’

‘Who are you with?’

‘Come back soon, I’m all alone’

‘Fine, ignore me’

And so on and so on and so on.

Nora had panicked upon seeing them, but along with that, she’d felt guilty. She rushed to her computer and explained to the Morris Worm just how jangled she was, by way of apology; and verbal-diarrhoea’d about the drum and bass in her head, and the delicious food she’d conjured, and she was so, so sorry.

‘Oh, oh no!’ said the Morris Worm, brightly. ‘Well, you should probably head up to the lakes, then.’

‘What? Why? How do you know about…’ About what Adagio told me, she didn’t say. ‘What’s up at the lakes?’

‘The thing the wire’s connected to.’

‘And what thing is that?’

‘Me.’

Caliber (Bonus) Session 11.5: A Key Endorsement

After sleeping for an entire day, Ursa finally manifests the energy to text Alkahest.

Hey, sorry, realised I never messaged back yesterday, it was definitely A DAY. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck (Even though Adagio healed me I have a lovely bruise where Laniakea backhanded me 🙃 Or could have been the sword to the face 🤷‍♀️) Everything’s sorted now, but everything that could have gone did go wrong so, that’s fun. 🙃 I pretty much crashed after I got home, literally only just gotten up haha.

Anyway, cliffnotes; Cat Shit got Minette (WHO IS MONTPARNASSE’S SISTER) to steal the book and they were gonna give it to Mr.Pyrite to read and get your true name so Cat Shit could arrest you (wtf right???) But Lania was too het up so Minette tried reading the book herself and Caravigg got in her head and started hellhound apocalypse! Managed to seal him back in the book, Minette didn’t die but she did get away.

Hopefully will never have to deal with Laniakea again, still gotta make nice with Mr. Pyrite (I really fucked up, he might hate me as much as Laniakea ☠☠☠ You’d be better off saying we’re mortal enemies than dropping my name rn, I’m really, really sorry 😫) though less nice since he WAS involved, the wanker, and I think we really pissed Strych off so if there’s something I could get them as a ‘thank you and sorry’ gift I would appreciate the heads up! (I kinda have something for you too, guessing you haven’t got a PO box so would dropping it off with Strych be best??)

Also Cat Shit is apparently gonna back off from us, but is still after you. Tried to negotiate but big Devil guy y’know? This whole thing is fucked though so I’m gonna try and sort something out, I’ll let you know.

Also also it should be fine cause she’s immune now, but Nora has made it clear in no uncertain terms that she will throw any of us to the sharks if neccessary. So uh, maybe avoid her. I don’t think she’ll do anything but you never know.
Merlin’s been really nice about everything so that’s nice?’

‘Sorry for all the rambling, I’m pretty out of it, think I have a concussion. I hope you’re ok, sorry again about Mr. Pyrite and Strych, I hope you’re safe.’

Alkahest replies almost immediately, though it might have just felt that way from Ursa’s drowsy perspective:

‘Fuckin’ hell, Ursa. I can’t believe the shit you’ve just been through and you’re fretting over messaging me back too late? I hope you’re feeling a little better and the sleep did you good? I mean, I know healing magic is a thing, but if you’ve taken a beating there’s a psychological component, you know? Fuck.

‘Thank you for the cliffnote update. Who the fuck is Cliff, anyway? Why do we call them that? Like, “Hi, I’m Clifton, please enjoy my notes”? Anyway, I’m hearing that my actions in the Labyrinth have had something of a Butterfly Effect. Which sucks, especially if it put you in danger. I mean, I’m not claiming responsibility for anyone’s shitty reactions, but the “Ursa in danger” part is a little hard to stomach. Maybe I should go stir up some new trouble? It’s easier to blend in with a crowd.

‘In this case the crowd is a variety of new problems for the Summer Court. I’ll be their worst fucking nightmare.

‘But I’m genuinely glad Minette got away. Hope I can meet her someday and she can try to kill me in person.

‘Laniakea’s a big fuckin’ dragon with a whole lot to keep track of. If she does remember you at all I’m sure it’ll just be ‘cause of how cute your hair is, you know? As for Mr. Pyrite, I’m not particularly interested in throwing my lot in with a guy like that anymore. From what you said he sounds like a creep, even before you consider the exploitation of a grieving woman to get his claws on a fancy book. And despite what everyone else keeps telling you, you are a good judge of character, I think.

‘AS. FOR. STRYCH. They will be receiving a sound thrashing from myself for their terrible attitude. I say ‘sound’ as in like, sonic, verbal. I’m going to tell them off for it, I mean. They aren’t very good at meeting new people; it’s like people have to “earn their respect” and they’re an asshole until then, testing them. I mean, I can be kinda similar, I guess… but that’s half of why it bugs me so much!

‘Uh Strych and I used to date, actually, a long time ago. We’re pretty similar which is why it didn’t work out. I’m glad though, I much prefer having them as a friend than anything more.

‘I realise that might be a bit of a non-sequitur, but it seemed like I should mention it. I don’t want it coming out later and causing a huge misunderstanding like in those Huge Grant movies or whatever. You know.

‘Oh hey speaking of movies and stuff I finished Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood! Hadn’t watched much (any) anime before and this was a good one to start with! My favourite character was Winry, like, I really liked how everyone else was kickin’ ass and she was the only character that didn’t fight, but like despite that she was still one of the bravest and most capable ones?

‘Anyway yeah I’m not recommending any gifts for Strych because they don’t deserve one, and they KNOW they don’t deserve one. I absolutely deserve a gift, though; please come drop it off at Strych’s, yes.

‘Don’t you worry about Cait-síth. If you’ve got yourself some breathing room, that’s a big relief for me. I can take care of myself.

‘And Nora? I think if she’s threatening to burn to the ground anyone who isn’t part of the team, that’s just her fucked up way of trying to inspire camaraderie. I mean, she couldn’t even ask me what I was doing at Ikea without pointing a gun at my junk and eating half the meatballs on my plate. Obviously if she looks like she’s going to act on her threats, give her what for, but otherwise I’d try to extend her some grace.

‘Plus, if the mercenary sentiments she expressed are what led to Merlin being nice? That’s a positive! I doubt he trusts her either, but that probably means he trusts you. I don’t think he has the patience to pretend to like someone.

‘But Ursa, no apologies are necessary. I don’t really know why you’d think they were. Anyone would think you cared about my opinion of you!

‘Which technically means it’s a compliment, right?

‘How about the next time you want to apologise, you save me the trouble of translating it and just say “Alkahest, you’re cool and handsome” or “Alkahest you’re a sparkling conversationalist” or “Alkahest I’ve never seen someone eat so many empanadas in one sitting” yeah?’

Ursa reads and re-reads the texts several times with wide eyes, before realising she is not paying attention to the movie she’s just put on or eating the pierogi she’s just made. ‘Fuck it,’ she says to herself.

‘Omg of course I’m fretting! I bet you were worried sick, 5 minutes without a giant essay from Ursa??? You must’ve thought I’d died. No need to worry though, I’m still kicking AND I have cute plasters ✌

She sends a selfie with some multi-coloured plasters on her face, a large bruise on her cheek, sticking her tongue out.

Jokes aside, I’m loads better than yesterday, thanks for asking. I’m just so worn out 😵😵😵 Gonna eat this whole bowl of pierogi and rewatch Lord of the Rings.

She sends a picture of a big bowl of pierogi in front of her TV screen showing the title card for Fellowship of the Ring.

(I don’t know how many empanadas you can eat in one sitting but if its not at least this many, I’m not gonna be impressed sorry. Also I know pierogi and empanadas aren’t the same but yeah. Get on my level.)

Literally because the Guy’s name was Cliff 🙈 (Totally just googled that ✌)

As much as I like the idea if you wreaking havoc in my name (very hot btw, ty 😳😳😳) more trouble might not be a good idea. This whole thing has made me realise the fey are absolutely fucking BONKERS. Who goes from tracking someone down to stealing an apocalypse book from a terrifying ancient dragon in like a few weeks??? And I don’t think this is even end game for Cat Shit???

They’re all clearly unhinged and I’m not gonna just stand by and let them burn the city to the ground to find you. And not just cause I REALLY don’t want them to find you.

I might have some strings I can pull, just lie low for a bit longer. Hopefully we can get this all sorted. 🤞🤞🤞 Sushi’s on you when its all sorted though yeah? 😜

You definitely don’t need to shout at Strych!! I 100% understand why they were a little pissy with us, it might be hard to believe but I was definitely not my most charming self 🙈 And, on top of that, we not only brought them stolen goods to look at, we did lead that furry little shit right to their door! Like, anyone would be annoyed, they were just doing you a favour and it totally spiraled out of control!
And I think the respect thing is fair? Why bother being nice to people who aren’t worth your respect/don’t respect you?? I super get it. Seems a bit like a defense mechanism (Now I’M the backseat psychologist! 🤓)

And even if you think they don’t deserve a gift, they did really help us out so I still want to get them something! That and I really, REALLY want them to think I’m cool 😎 (Can’t show you up to your friends omgggg)

Thank you for the heads up, I have never seen a Huge Grant movie (several Hugh Grant movies though 😉) but the romcom trope of miscommunications making everything fall apart makes me cringe SO HARD.

I’m a little obsessed with how aesthetic you two would’ve been as a couple??? Like jeeze, I know a lot of Outsiders are supernaturally hot (har har) but come on, you two really take the cake 😳😳😳

I’m so glad you enjoyed Brotherhood!!! DID YOU CRY AT HUGH??? I WAS A WRECK!!!! I think Al is my favourite character but Hawkeye is VERY CLOSE!!! The lady who made the original manga also makes one called Silver Spoon which is about farming/food production, so TOTALLY different vibe but its really, really good! I kinda feel like you’re a bit of a foodie so I think you’d enjoy it!

Nora… well… if I’m 100% honest, she really fucked me off 🤣 I know its just a self-preservation instinct (Catshit had just turned up all like ‘oh someone’s out to get you!’ afterall) but uh, she said some things that REALLY rubbed me the wrong way. And getting thrown to the sharks is an option even for members of the team apparently! 🙃

Obvs gonna try not to let this change our work relationship but I am side-eyeing her HARD rn y’know?

Also, what? She never mentioned that 🤣

Omg now I want ikea meatballssssss 😫

I guess I’m grateful that her having a go meant Merlin softened up a bit. Bless him, I gave him a hug and he said HE’D NEVER BEEN HUGGED BEFORE!!! 😭😭😭 I nearly cried omg.

I know you said no apologies and I know it turns out Mr Pyrite was way more of a creep and who would want to work with someone like that, but still. If my actions make your life harder, well, harder than I’ve already made it omg (Can you even imagine how different things would be if I hadn’t charmed you in ikea????? (Still sorry about that too btw) It literally keeps me up at night, what a fucking wild world) then that sucks. So uh, yeah, I’m still sorry.

Unfortunately I deeply care about your opinion of me 🤣 I dunno if its a compliment but yeah, it is what it is 🤷‍♀️

Here are some compliments just for you, but these aren’t apology compliments, I just think you deserve some!

Alkahest your sense of style and aesthetic is just, top notch y’know? chef’s kiss

Alkahest you’re really funny and make me laugh a bunch!

Alkahest you’re probably not as good as eating empanadas as I am but you still make a good effort! 😘

⁂

Alkahest begins his reply near-immediately, but when Ursa’s selfie with the bruises and such comes through, he deletes what he’s put so far and waits a little bit longer. He reads the whole thing. When he’s sure that there’s no more coming, he heads upstairs to find Strych in their reading room, currently nose-deep in The Secret of Ventriloquism.

‘Strych? I need to ask for a little advice,’ he says.

Strych groans and puts down their book. ‘Has she finally sent you nudes?’ they ask. ‘Because I categorically refuse to help you “compose” a response for that one, bud.’
Alkahest gives a fake oh-you’re-so-very-hilarious laugh and shows Strych part of the message.

‘A little pissy?’ says Strych.

‘Not that part, you dunce. The part where she’s put “very hot”.’

‘Perhaps she thinks you’re hot?’

‘No, I–’ Alkahest throws up his arms. ‘I just, how do I respond to that without, y’know, reading too much into it?’

Strych regards him like a biologist might regard a coyote gnawing off its own leg to escape a steel trap, if said coyote was also holding a box labelled ‘ACME Steel Trap Kit’.

⁂

I was worried sick, yeah. Of course I was. Frankly I prefer being a person that worries in a situation like this, ‘cause any version of me that wouldn’t sounds like a sack of shit. As much as I like to see a pretty face, I don’t like seeing it bruised, you know? Cute plasters notwithstanding.

Hey fun fact: I’ve never actually gotten around to watching any of the Lord of the Rings movies. I liked the Peeper Jackson Kong King movie though? Double fun fact, I’ve never actually tried a pierogi either! Now I am the one who is the inexperienced baby one.

In one sitting I can eat six point two billion empanadas. I’m actually an empanada demon torn whole-cloth from the nightmares of Robert Empanada, the inventor of the empanada. I drove him out of business in 1520 A.D and since then have been cursed that I can never rest until I have eaten every empanada that has been or will ever be made.

It’s a living.

Now, the Fae are indeed fucking unhinged in every observable way. I cannot dispute this. All they want to do is play up their archetypes and center themselves as the protagonists of whatever story they assume is going on around them. Right now, you and I – and Merlin and Nora – are tangled up in a Summer Court revenge plot. So there are two ways we make it through intact:

1: we play the game better than they do. We hit the beats in the right order and we craft such a compelling narrative that Titania herself can’t help but want to go with it.

2: we don’t play the game at all. We leave it with an unsatisfying conclusion, we make it so that – from their point of view – there’s an anticlimax, despite things being “resolved”. And they’ll sweep it under the rug ‘cause it ain’t entertaining.

Either way? Wreaking havoc might be what we need. Especially if, uh, you think it’s hot.

That said, if you have string you think would be worth a quick tug? Obviously that’s something to pursue. I trust your judgement implicitly.

I already spoke to Strych. Between you and me, it’s pretty obvious they do think you’re cool. They’ve asked me about you so that alone should speak volumes. They don’t deserve gifts just for doing me a favour though. They like books and occult stuff, if you’re absolutely insisting, but I think you probably got that vibe already.

Um don’t think too hard about the heads-up on relationship stuff, it’s just good communication. Is Hugh Grant Huge’s brother or something? I thought Huge Grant’s brother was called Jeng or something.’

Here, Alkahest had originally typed out ‘Hey I know I asked for compliments but you don’t gotta keep saying I’m hot or whatever!’

He’s since deleted that and elected not to address it. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s uncomfortable, but he also doesn’t want to sound like he’s fishing for clarification. It occurs to him that ignoring it might be just as bad, but at least that way it’s not because he said the wrong thing.

I think I was too shocked to cry at Huge! I’d like to check out more of Hiromu Arakawa’s work, especially if it’s got food stuff in. I used to like the idea of having a farm, actually. I like cows. Particularly Holsteins. And Belted Galloways too, now that I think about it.

Nora’s a hardass. We know that already. If she’s threatening members of the team, do you think that’s based not on you specifically but the concept of teams in general? I mean, if it doesn’t change your work relationship then I guess she just doesn’t actually know you properly yet.

I’m happy to hear that things are good with Merlin, though I have to extend my sympathies since you had to hug him. I’m sorry for your loss (of dignity).

Your actions have literally only made things better for me. If you hadn’t Charmed me then the Fae would have sabotaged my efforts and I might already be dead. My life is richer for your presence within it. Don’t fucking apologise for that.

But I get it. You’re worried because you care. And, if it’s my opinion you care about? Well my opinion is that I care about you a whole lot. So I can empathise.

Now, compliment battle: return fire.

Speaking of style, your whole look and demeanor is the shiniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen and is very very Ursa (which is the highest compliment I could give to anything).

Speaking of fun, you’re sharp and interesting and just a hell of a lot of fun to talk to.

Speaking of eating empanadas, HOW DARE YOU, THE SHEER AUDACITY IS STAGGERING, YOU’LL REGRET THOSE WORDS

⁂

Ursa has read Alkahest’s messages so many times she would probably be able to recite them word for word. She keeps trying to draft a reply but just deletes it each time. Eventually she brings up her contacts and, rather sheepishly, calls one of her Siblings.

Panna picks up after the sixth ring.

‘And what could my loveliest little sister be calling me for, hmm?’

Ursa rolls her eyes. They make this joke every time. ‘Ok, I’m your only little sister, Panna. That doesn’t get any funnier each time you say it.’

‘Ok, ok, what’s up? You sound, hmm, tense?’

‘I just, um, I think I need some… relationship advice?’

‘Oh sorry, you must not be our Orsolya then, she’s not interested in-‘

‘Panna come onnnnnnn! I’m really out of my depth here.’

‘Ok, ok, one sec.’ There are some shuffling noises. Silence for a moment. Then Panna’s voice comes through again. ‘Ok, come on, hit me.’

‘Ok, so, I met this guy at work-‘

‘This isn’t that coffeeshop guy is it? I don’t want him messing you around again-‘

‘Panna ohmygod, I left there ages ago. This is a new job!’

‘Sorry, sorry. So what is this new job?’

‘Ok, that’s not the important bit, I’ll catch everyone up soon, ok, so this guy!’

‘Yes. A guy. Ok.’

‘We’re texting. It’s going well. I, um, really like him. Like, really, really like him. Like… I’ve gone mildly insane with how much I like him.’

‘Aw little Solya, your first love! Oh, hmm, please tell me its not another human-‘

‘No! No it’s, well, uh – anyway, I’m starting to kinda maybe get the vibe that there’s like a small chance he might… maybe like me back!?’

‘Ok?’

‘…You don’t understand Panna, he is SO out of my league, like, on a COSMIC LEVEL. I honestly, there’s no hope in hell, literally, but, like, now, I–‘

‘I don’t really see a problem here Solya? You like him? He likes you? Go on a date?’

‘It’s, uh, we’re having to kinda do long-distance stuff right now.’

‘Ok, well, a virtual date? Text him how you feel? Send an internet kiss?’

‘Panna, please, I can’t just, is that what you’re supposed to do? Just blurt it out? What if he doesn’t feel the same way? What if I’m misreading the signs?’

‘Well then, I guess it might be awkward for a little bit.’

‘Panna!’

‘Solya. If you like this man, and it seems like you do, just be honest with him. You shouldn’t let your fear of rejection put you off reaching out to someone you feel strongly for. Especially considering that I have never known you to feel strongly about anyone.’

Ursa hesitates. She doesn’t really want to voice the truth. ‘…I’m really scared, Panna. I really, really don’t want to fuck this up.’

‘Then don’t.’  Their reply is so blunt that Ursa flinches.

‘I don’t know how though,’ Ursa whines, fiddling with her hair. She stares up at the ceiling with watery eyes. ‘I don’t know how to do this, I don’t know-‘

‘Yes you do. Be your usual charming self. Don’t let what happened before hold you back. Love is a beautiful and joyous thing. You spread it so easily to others yet never take any for yourself. I’m sure he is as enamoured with you as you are he. Besides, little Solya, you are famous now! You are not out of anybody’s league!’

‘Omg shut up, I’m not famous, it was just one video!’ Ursa pauses. ‘Um, thanks Panna, I think I feel a bit better.’

‘Anytime.’

‘Could you, uh, not tell Mama and Tata about this? I’m not super ready for them to-‘

‘Oh sorry, they are here. You are on speakerphone.’

‘PANNA!’

Ursa immediately hangs up as she hears a clamour of excited voices, heart racing in her chest.

‘Oh fuck.’

She goes and makes herself a latte to calm down, the process more of a comfort than the actual drink. When her head feels a bit clearer, she steels herself and replies, trying to ignore the flutter in her heart.

⁂

‘Omg, I’m so sorry, I was just joking, I didn’t realise you’d actually be worried!!! Aw Alkahest, you’re making me cry!!! 😭😭😭😭 I’m really sorry though, I know how much it sucks if you’re worrying and waiting for someone to let you know they’re ok (I, uh, might have downplayed how worried I was before with the blink dogs and stuff haha)

DO NOT WATCH THEM!!!!! I call dibs! I’m adding that to the list of stuff we’re doing when everything is sorted and safe etc! You, me, all 3 extended editions, blanket fort, popcorn (or movie snack of your choice) 12+ hours of entertainment!!!! YES!
Also, they’re much better than the King Kong movie, I mean 4ish hours of movie and she doesn’t even get with the monkey??? Come on!

I think you’ll like pierogi! My Mama makes the absolute BEST ONES (she sends me care packages of them bless her) another thing to add to the list! (Unless Strych could get them to you while they’re still frozen? Although I don’t want them to feel like a messenger pigeon 🤣)

I will acquiesce my crown if this is true, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is all lies and slander. 🧐🧐🧐

I think my string is more option 2? As much as I wanna get this sorted right away, it might take me a bit to set up a meeting and stuff so just give me some time. After that maybe we should discuss, uh, other options.

And don’t just do things because I think they’re hot – I already think you’re hot, don’t worry 😉

I have some ideas for a Strych present, hopefully will nip out tomorrow and then drop things off the day after. Could you give them like a heads up text? Obvs I don’t expect to be invited in, can just pop through the letterbox worst case, but yeah, it’d be nice to at least apologise in person.

And don’t worry about the heads up! I really appreciate it! It just shows we are good at communicating and that’s definitely a good thing. 😘

My ex is just a human and not really important enough to mention (although she DID message me the other day omg) but I’m an open book!

I think Hugh Grant’s brother is called James?

I’d really recommend Silver Spoon then! I think Hiromu Arakawa grew up on a farm so its a really interesting insight and then obvs her characters are fucking great! If you want other food-related anime I have another I could recommend but it depends on how fan-service-y you like your anime 🤣🤣🤣 (Or how much you’ll judge me for liking fan-service-y anime 😳)

Also those belted galloways? CUTEST FUCKING COWS! They’re so fluffy!!!! 😭😭😭
Was it intentional that they’re all black and white or does the aesthetic just run that deep??

I understand 200% that Nora has issues with teams and she is lashing out not because of me but because of her own bs… BUT STILL. I’m obvs gonna let it go and still try and work on a relationship with her (I wouldn’t want someone to not want to get to know me better bc of my bs after all) but I’m just riled up. She said some choice things about, uh, you, and… yeah. I’ll be fine. Its fine.

And I have lost no dignity for hugging Merlin. He clearly washes and I have no problem hugging my friends! Its nice to think of Merlin as an actual friend! The resident Artificer at the institute said she considered me a friend as well and I was SO HAPPY! (I didn’t hug her but that’s because she was on a lathe)

I’mmmmmm gonna get super real here so, bear with me. Legit, I was pretty sure you’d be like… angry at me? I mean, being on the run and having to hide out from homicidal fey doesn’t exactly sound fun?? And if I hadn’t had charmed you, sure, you probs wouldn’t have the bones still, but maybe you’d be free? You saying that you actually like me being in your life???? Um, big relief, thank you.

I really care about you, like a whole bunch. Like… maybe more than is entirely reasonable. 😳 Its my worst nightmare thinking that I’m making your life worse, cause, you’ve like made mine loads better. So uh, yeah. Thanks.

ANYWAY!

I’d take part in another compliment battle, but I think you’ve got me beat, I’m still blushing. 😳

Except the empanada thing. I’ll fight you for that one.

After sending her response to Alkahest, Ursa texts Panna.

Ok, I’ve pretty much told him, if this crashes and burns it’s all on you. ALSO STILL PRETTY MAD YOU HAD ME ON SPEAKERPHONE.

lol

Ursa rolls her eyes and turns her phone off, settling in for ‘The Return of the King.’

⁂

Ursa spends the next day shopping and running errands; as well as buying a gift for Strych, she finds a pink satin Balmain suit in the charity shop, which she buys IMMEDIATELY. She posts a video launching her merch store (with the Monster shirts/prints/stickers) and the giveaway she’s doing (suggest the next song for her to cover, and the best suggestion will win a merch bundle). She texts Alkahest in the late afternoon, doing her best to not worry about his lack of replies.

‘Hey, I got Strych a present! I think they’ll like it! Let me know if they’re ok with me nipping over tomorrow and if there’s any time that would be good for them. No worries if not, I can always just post it if need be! :)’

The reply is brief.

‘Hey is tomorrow morning good for you? They should be in then.’

⁂

Ursa focused intently on the sound of her feet on the gravel drive. The last time she was here, she insulted her host, got followed by a feline policeman, and had Nora declare that she’d have no trouble throwing others to the Fae if doing so would be convenient.

It hadn’t been a pleasant day.

She rapped on the door, and within moments it had swung open to reveal Strych’s usual expression of mild disinterest. They were dressed much more casually than on her last visit, with a black jumper and simple set of trousers.

‘Hello!’ said Ursa, her voice maybe an octave higher than intended. ‘Um, hopefully Alkahest’s told you to expect me; I just wanted to nip by and drop a “thank you and sorry” gift? Are you, uh, are you okay?’

‘Come in if you’re coming in,’ said Strych, retreating inwards.

The doorway wasn’t particularly inviting, but Ursa went through anyway. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Alkahest didn’t put you up to this, did he? Because if he did I can just leave things on the doorstep and get out of your–‘

‘I mean, you can leave if you want?’

‘No! No I don’t want to just–‘

‘Then come on in. Of course Alkahest put me up to this,’ said Strych, pausing before the dining room with the table they’d all sat at before. ‘But that’s… well, just don’t freak out, okay?’

Ursa immediately began to freak out, but Strych either didn’t notice or didn’t care. They simply left the door open behind them.

A Demon with black and white eyes sat at the table. He didn’t have his feet up, but he looked like he wanted to.

‘Alkahest,’ said Ursa.

She left the room, and stood in the hallway for a minute. He was still there when she returned.

‘Alkahest!’ she said, once more and with feeling. ‘Oh my god, hi! What are you doing here? You didn’t just come here because I was going to be here, did you? Is it safe? Am I dreaming? Hi!!’

Wait that last one was embarrassing, she thought. And a bit of a cliché, maybe?

‘So, uh, I’ll answer your questions in order. I’m here hiding out, this is the safehouse. No, I’ve been living here for a couple weeks. Yeah, it’s safe ’cause of all the wards. And I don’t think you’re dreaming? Unless none of this is real and we’re all imaginary characters.’

‘Wait, a couple weeks? Strych said you weren’t here last time!’

Strych cleared their throat. ‘Actually, I was asked if he was in the basement. And at the time, he was not in the basement.’

‘I was in the kitchen,’ supplied Alkahest.

‘Although, if your short friend had asked “is he in the kitchen” I would still have said no. I’m not like, honor-bound to speak the truth. Anyway, I’m told there are presents?’

Ursa nodded slowly, then realised a verbal response was needed. ‘Oh. Yeah!’

Alkahest snorted. ‘Ursa, you’re already aware of Strych’s somewhat… brusque demeanor, yes?’

‘Oh, well, last time I was here we were kind of in crisis mode so–‘

Strych interrupted. ‘I should explain a bit about that. So… the cat, the one that followed you, the one looking for Alkahest? It couldn’t get in here. The place is warded pretty good.

‘But I didn’t want the cat to find that out, because that would cause… some suspicion. So if I was a little pushy, then–‘

‘Oh, you don’t have to apologise!’ said Ursa.

‘I’m not apologising,’ said Strych.

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. So, if I was a little pushy, I think that was justified. Now you know.’

On the other side of the table, Alkahest rolled his eyes. ‘Why are you like this?’

‘Like what? Correct? Anyway, presents?’

Ursa hastily got out her offerings. For Strych, she’d managed to find a first edition copy of ‘Gleams of Light and Glimpses Thro’ the Rift‘ in a shop near the one she’d found her suit in. It had been a lucky day, and the shopkeep had required only a mild Charming to agree to let her pay in three parts.

Strych immediately went at it, retreating in entirety from the conversation.

Alkahest paused in his opening of the box he’d been presented to shake his head at Strych, but his eyes lit up when he saw what was inside.

It was the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location she’d commissioned from Emva. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

‘Well, that depends on what you think it is,’ said Ursa. Stupid. Stupid joke, she thought.

‘You know what this means, Ursa?’

‘Uh. What?’

‘It means I can go to my meeting!’

‘Uh. What?’

‘So, uh, you remember I mentioned a power vacuum at the top of the Infernal hierarchy? And how, in my view, we could do a lot better as a culture if we were to abolish the whole “double dictator” system?

‘Well, the reason for that vacuum is because for the first time in a long time, both the Demon king and the Devil king are simultaneously dead. Usually the surviving one will help oversee the installation of their counterpart. But in this case, some Angel got them both at once.’

Don’t say ‘Uh, what’ again, Ursa thought furiously. ‘Um. Okay?’ she said. Nailed it.

‘So both sides are champing at the bit to bring in new leaders, the better to claim revenge and-slash-or defend us from further attacks. My personal view is that this is incredibly short-sighted.

‘To that end, I managed to arrange a meeting with a well-respected an influential Demon some time ago. And if I convince her not to endorse any specific candidate, I believe others will actually listen.’

Strych chimed in without looking up. ‘Believe it or not, our Alkahest is something of a polarising figure in Infernal society. Sort of like Marmite, though he has – as of yet – never been reduced to a brown paste. Does this mean I don’t have to do your meeting?’

‘I mean, you could still come if you want–‘

Strych had already left the room with their book. Ursa watched them go.

‘What was that about?’ she asked.

‘Oh. ‘Cause I’m laying low I’d asked Strych to go in my place; I mean, sending someone in my place was rude, but much better than just a no-show. And now they don’t have to. You may have noticed already, but Strych is incredibly lazy.’

‘You know, I did get that impression when they smoked down the stairs instead of walking.’

‘It was a miracle they’d changed out of pajamas when you first visited.’

Alkahest had begun to fidget a bit. ‘Hey,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Do you want to come with me? To the meeting, I mean?’

‘Uh. Wha…y would you want me to come?’

‘Well, you could be my business wingman! Help me make a good impression with sparkling conversation? Make it seem like I’m not just some anti-establishment loner?’

‘Oh. I wouldn’t want to intrude, I can get going if–‘

‘Ursa, I was hoping we could hang out a little. This amulet has mixed things up a bit, but… I mean, why do you think I suggested you visiting today, when Strych would later be heading out to a meeting?’

Ursa froze. She didn’t even say ‘Uh, what’ or anything.

‘Because I wanted to spend some time chatting with you, you know?’ Alkahest clarified. He’d perhaps gone a little pink.

‘M-maybe we could go get some coffee before your meeting, then?’

⁂

Ursa and Alkahest sat in a café run by an old-school family of Orcs, with the former regaling the latter with the story of how she and Merlin met Nora. There’d been a Do Not Serve notice with a blurry photo of someone who might have been Ursa on the wall, which required some explanation.

They’d travelled here in a 2000 Nissan Micra, which Alkahest had been very embarrassed about and Ursa didn’t see a problem with. But being out for the first time in a while seemed to be making the Demon anxious, so they’d headed into this quiet coffee shop to try and relax a bit.

‘So, meeting,’ said Ursa, eventually.

‘Oh, we should probably be heading over, yeah,’ said Alkahest. He’d stopped looking over his shoulder.

‘What’s the plan? I don’t have to pretend to be a Demon, do I?’

‘No, no, nothing like that. Though I don’t think you should mention working at the Caliber Institute.’

They were making their way to the agreed location now, a bistro within walking distance named The Swallow. The sign above the door featured the bird, and not anything else.

They sat at a table in the back, and waited for Erabu to arrive.

Erabu was a Marilith, and a general with widely-respected military prowess. She’d led armies across multiple worlds, even venturing into the worlds of Life and coming away victorious. It had been largely expected that she’d step up to the role as Demon King, so when she’d vehemently declined calls to ascend it had come at quite a shock.

Many influencers among Infernal society were watching to see what she’d do next. Did she have someone better in mind? Did she know of another candidate that she didn’t want to challenge? Was she already working for whoever was the future King?

Ursa’s mouth got a bit dry as Alkahest briefed her on all this. She flagged down the waiter, a nervous-looking Satyr, to ask if he’d cater with a drink he could make her.

He nodded (not much of a debater).

And Erabu entered the room.

Despite wearing a human guise, complete with two legs, she still managed to give off the impression of slithering. Her hair was held in a neat bun by no fewer than six chopsticks.

‘Erabu!’ said Alkahest, leaping up to shake her hand.

‘So, Alkahest… I wasn’t sure if you’d make it,’ said Erabu, sitting down.

‘I wouldn’t miss this come hell or high water,’ said Alkahest, pulling the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location from his shirt so she could see it for a moment. ‘This is my friend Ursa, by the way. She helped me get out of the house, as it were.’

Erabu shook Ursa’s hand too, but shushed Alkahest when he continued talking. ‘Before any of that,’ she said, ‘This is a lunch meeting. I want to eat.’

The waiter was still shifting from foot to foot as he took their order, pointedly looking anywhere but at the Demons. Ursa hoped it was just because he was intimidated.

He retreated to the kitchen with an order for fettuccine Alfredo (Alkahest), spaghetti carbonara (Ursa), and spaghetti aglio, olio, e peperoncino (Erabu). This is not important to the plot, but it is important to the writer.

‘Right. So,’ said Erabu, after he’d gone. ‘You’ve been wanting to hold this meeting ever since the Kings were… removed. What is it you wish to discuss, Mr. Alkahest? I assume it’s related to said lack of leadership?’

‘Yeah, it is. Specifically, it’s about an endorsement.’

‘Oh? Alkahest, you never struck me as the type to take charge, not like this. Was all that about collectivism just posturing?’

‘No! No. I don’t mean me.’

Erabu looked down her nose at him. Her pupils darted over to Ursa. ‘Surely you don’t–‘

Hastily, Ursa interjected. ‘No! No, not me either!’

This got a grin. Erabu leaned forwards, resting her elbows on their table. ‘That would have been something, though, wouldn’t it? I could see him going for something outside the bun like that. How’d you two meet, anyway?’

Alkahest cleared his throat. ‘Oh, it’s not much of a story–‘

‘I didn’t ask you.’

Erabu kept smiling as she said it, at least.

Ursa cleared her throat too, trying not to sound like she was copying Alkahest. ‘Oh, we met recently on… we both were after a specific item. There was actually a haunted Ikea? Neither of us managed to get them item; there were other factors at play, but… you know, we struck up a friendship.’

‘So you’re a treasure hunter?’

‘Something like that. That’s my day job. Otherwise I do Youtube stuff, actually.’

‘Oh, really? I’ll be honest, I don’t know a lot about new media. But if you’re a treasure hunter and a Youtuber, what are you doing here today?’

‘Well, I don’t know how… I suppose it depends on how things go, but we’re working together on a number of things. We really compliment each other. In terms of our skillsets, I mean.’

Erabu nodded. ‘Alright, alright. So. Alkahest, feel free to join in again. What is it you have in mind? If you’re not trying to have me endorse you as potential King, what are you aiming for? Because – I should warn you – I’ve been approached by a number of people for that very reason.’

‘Well, that’s sort of what I’m asking. Uh.’ He hesitated.

Ursa, lower than a whisper, told him ‘You can do this,’ caramelising her words with inspirational Bardic magic.

Alkahest breathed out.

‘What I’m hoping is for us to take this opportunity. Because when, in our history, has there ever been a time without either of our Kings? It’s unprecedented. So what I’d like to ask is… why? Why do we need to have monarchs? Why do we need some giant fuckin’ Fiend sat atop a throne of skulls, stepping on everybody else to get their own way, directing our whole culture towards their personal interests? Why can’t we look out for each other? We’re the ones who actually get things done; why can’t we be doing them for ourselves?’

Ursa thought it sounded quite appealing, but apparently Erabu didn’t feel the same way. Maybe she’d heard it before. She just raised her eyebrows slightly, saying nothing.

‘What Alkahest is trying to say,’ said Ursa, ‘Is that you’ve all been suffering under tyrants for as long as you’ve existed. And it clearly doesn’t work for everyone. So Alkahest is proposing something that could; instead of a monarchy, something a bit more… diplomatic? A bit fairer?’

There was a shift to Erabu’s expression; minute, but still there. If she’d heard all this before, then maybe hearing it from someone other than Alkahest made it feel fresh again?

‘Okay,’ she said, eventually. ‘I’ll hear you out. You’re proposing that, rather than endorsing someone, I instead say “why do we need single candidates”, is that what you’re suggesting?’

‘More or less, yeah,’ said Alkahest.

Their food had arrived now, giving those present time to mull things over. Ursa, though, couldn’t help but follow the waiter’s movements – he looked over his shoulder, twice, on his way back to the kitchen.

‘Urgh, just one second, guys,’ she said, getting up. ‘I just want to have a word…’

Alkahest gave a thumbs-up. He already had a mouthful of fettucine.

In the kitchen, Ursa quickly cornered the Satyr waiter. There was a vanilla human chef working away, who seemed surprised at Ursa’s presence, but quickly surmised that the waiter could handle it as she was far too busy herself.

‘Hey,’ said Ursa, noting the sweat on the waiter’s brow. ‘I can’t help but notice that you’re a little nervous?’

‘What?’ said the waiter. ‘No, no. I’m fine. Is, uh, is everything fine? Is everything okay, I mean? With your meal?’

Ursa gave a sweet smile, lowering her voice. ‘The food’s fine, don’t worry about that. I just wanted to say you don’t need to be intimidated just because they’re Demons. And you especially don’t need to, oh, report who you’ve seen to anyone.’

‘Uh,’ said the waiter.

‘Come on. I saw you recognise him. I’m not trying to threaten you or anything, just, please don’t let the court know, we’re only–‘

There came a deafening crack as the door was opened with such force it nearly came off its hinges. Erabu stormed into the kitchen, legs shifting and blurring together to form a snake tail. She slithered towards Ursa and the waiter, two hands coming up to the sticks in her hair and becoming six as she pulled them free; the sticks themselves becoming swords as she bore down on them.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, trying to poison us?!’ she hissed. ‘It’ll take much more than that weak shit to drop me, you’ll find.’

Ursa realised Erabu was looking at her, not the waiter.

Oh, no.

Luckily, the waiter cracked first. ‘I-it’s just a sleeping draught!’ he stammered.

‘It was you, was it?!’ said Erabu, smoothly channeling her ire to the side a little bit.

‘There was a notice put out! If anyone spotted the black-and-white Demon guy we were to detain him and let the Summer Court know! I’m sorry, I was just doing what the notice–‘

A sword came up to his throat. ‘I don’t give a shit about any notices, dickhead. You drugged my spaghetti.’

The chef, watching from behind a pan of melted butter, sounded almost as furious as Erabu. ‘Oy, you can’t just barge into the kitchen! Wait, is that a knife?’

Ursa had to interject. ‘Wait, wait! We can’t just kill him! Shit.’ The chef was heading for them. She didn’t have her usual gear, so had to hum a little tune to cast Sleep, timing it so nothing got knocked over as the chef dropped.

‘Of course we can kill him. What’s he going to do to stop me?’ said Erabu, darkly.

‘I don’t mean like that!’ said Ursa. ‘I mean… think of how much of a mess that’d be!’

Erabu said nothing, but she did at least hesitate. Ursa scrambled for more ammunition.

‘Plus, we can question him if there’s an antidote?’

‘Is there an antidote?’ asked Erabu.

The Satyr nodded emphatically, and gestured towards what was presumably his coat hanging up on the wall. Ursa retrieved it to find three identical empty vials and two more filled with a clear liquid. In another pocket were five vials, each of these filled with a substance that looked a lot like espresso.

‘One of those should counteract the draught,’ said the waiter. ‘Can I go?’

‘You can go to fuckin’ sleep,’ said Erabu, and forced the contents of the two remaining clear vials down his throat.

In seconds, he’d begun to snore like a landslide.

⁂

Alkahest had been face down in his fettucine when Ursa gave him the antidote. He awoke with a start, and tried to wipe the sauce of his face with little success.

‘It’s a good job this one’s keeping an eye on you, Alkahest,’ said Erabu, jabbing a finger towards Ursa. ‘You nearly got disappeared.’

‘Huhseewhan?’ said Alkahest.

‘Now, let’s–‘ there came a growl from Erabu’s stomach, interrupting her. ‘We have a meeting to finish. And I’m still hungry,’ she added.

⁂

‘Alright, you can stop trying to convince me,’ said Erabu, dipping her last Chicken McNugget® in McDonald’s Smoky BBQ Dip. ‘I’ll abstain from suggesting a candidate. And I’ll make it known that it’s because I’m picking “no candidate”, not that I’m not picking at all.’

Alkahest managed to look both grateful and deeply uncomfortable, taking a sip of his McCafé® Toffee Latte. He’d managed to get the Alfredo sauce off his face, but its spectre still lingered. ‘Thanks, Erabu. Is there anything I can do to pay you back?’

‘I’m not doing it as a favour, I’m doing it because you might be right. And because… listen, I want to tell you who I was going to endorse, if you hadn’t come to me with this.’

‘Hm?’

‘Panacea’s back.’

Alkahest coughed, narrowly keeping from spraying his McCafé® Toffee Latte across the tablets provided by McDonald’s for the convenience of its valued customers.

⁂

‘Panacea is my sister,’ said Alkahest, as he and Ursa drove back to Strych’s house. ‘She’s… well, we haven’t spoken in a long while. Don’t really see eye-to-eye. But the thing is, like it or not, we are pretty similar. We both agree that the two-kings system is a shitty one. Only, well, we have different ideas on what the end result should be.’

‘…Is she dangerous?’ asked Ursa.

Alkahest said nothing.

⁂

Quite without thinking, Alkahest had driven straight back to Strych’s, and now he and Ursa stood outside.

‘We can get back in the car and I can give you a ride home!’ said Alkahest. ‘It’s my fault for forgetting!’

‘Honestly, it’s fine!’ said Ursa.

Alkahest seemed to be looking everywhere but at her. When she spoke, his eyes were firmly affixed on the chimney at the corner of the roof above.

‘Look,’ said Ursa, ‘I know things got a bit out of hand, but… I still really enjoyed spending some time together.’

‘I just wish I’d stayed awake for it all, y’know?’

‘Well, there’s always next time? After all this blows over?’

‘Haha, yeah.’

He finally looked her in the eye. It was obvious that neither of them really wanted to say goodbye to the other.

So, Ursa took a deep breath, and leaned in to kiss him. It was brief, and modest, and it terrified her.

‘We’ll message later, yeah? I’ll see you soon!’ said Ursa, retreating down the drive. She thought he was smiling as she fled.