Chương 258: slanting surfaces; unplumbed voids - 23.3

Nobody panicked when Evelyn went missing for the fifth time that week, because by then we knew exactly where she'd gone. She'd taken Lozzie and Praem with her too; she could hardly have done otherwise.

"To Camelot?" Raine asked. Raine's face and form were half sunken in the shadows of the magical workshop, her warm skin pressed against mine as we braced for the inevitable. She smelled freshly showered, with just a hint of summer sweat clinging to her back. The night hung in great sheets around our shoulders. The rest of the house was preparing to sleep. I did my best to concentrate. This was no time for getting distracted and creeping upstairs.

"To Camelot," I sighed.

"But it's such a silly place," Raine said. I gave her a 'nasty' look — or at least as nasty as I could manage. She kept a straight face, and asked: "Wanna take anybody else along?" Another sigh, deeper and harder and with more feeling than I had expected.

"I'm not waking Tenny or calling Twil because Evee won't go to bed at a sensible time. No, Raine, let's just go fetch her. Here, hold on tight." I squeezed Raine harder.

"Don't have to tell me twice, love." Raine leaned close and kissed me on the forehead, hot and hard in the secret darkness.

"All aboard the Heather express. Choo choo."

"Arms and legs inside the ride at all times," I deadpanned, tutted, and then got it over with. Out.

Camelot soothed the senses from the first moment one arrived upon the quiet plains of that spent dimension: the soft, velvety, yellowish grass cushioning one's feet; the warm cinnamon wind caressing one's face and teasing at the loose strands of one's hair, filling one's nose with the scent of sweetness and spice; the purple light spilling from the spirals and whorls in the glittering dark sky, tinting everywhere one cared to look; the smooth curve of horizon in every direction, as if the world melted into a distant haze of endless possibility.

Even the air itself was gentle upon human lungs, neither too dry nor too moist, sliding down one's throat with barely a flicker of thought. Planes and dimensions and worlds do not have opposites — Outside is not the opposite of earth, nor is earth the reverse side of the abyss; the spiralling fractal of reality is not orderly and simple, with one side and the other balanced in cosmic harmony, endlessly producing outcomes in accordance with the proper order of all things.

The universe is not shaped like a ring or a tabernacle or four elephants balanced on the back of a turtle. And it is not, as the old saying goes, 'turtles all the way down'. Nobody wants to go all the way down. It's very dark and very cold down there. But, with my reservations as to cosmological metaphors made clear: Camelot was as close to Wonderland's opposite as I dared to imagine.

This impression was not solely a product of the pleasant and hospitable conditions, suitable for longer periods of human inhabitation. Neither was this feeling produced by the rosy spectacles of my own positive emotional attachment — this was, after all, the first place Lozzie and I had truly talked to each other, and the first dimension which had suggested that Outside could be more than a source of alien nightmares.

Nor was this feeling caused by the additions constructed by Lozzie's spiritual children — the great castle and the curtain walls, almost finished now, built by the Knights and the Caterpillars as they unfolded a new type of civilization, out here beyond the walls of reality and the interference of Homo sapiens. No, the sense of peace and tranquillity and safety was not born of those elements, but had existed prior to them all.

The taste of the air and the warmth of the wind told even unaugmented human beings that nothing lived here anymore, that things had happened here once, a very long time ago, but those things were done with now. This was a quiet place of soft shadows and unheard echoes. Camelot was safe because it was over. Until we had arrived, of course. Now it was all getting very loud again.

Camelot's elemental comfort helped Raine retain both her footing and the contents of her stomach, as she and I arrived at our usual spot, our trainers scuffing the grass as we landed.

"Oooof. Ooooh. Okaaay, yeeeeah," Raine groaned briefly, hands on her knees, bent forward. She took several deep breaths, eyes screwed up tight.

"Ohhhh, never quite get used to that. No offense, Heather, love. It's just a rough ride."

"Take as long as you need, Raine," I said.

"No offense taken." I finished unravelling two tentacles from around her waist; we could have achieved the Slip with nothing more than holding hands, but over the last three days I'd started taking every opportunity I could to touch and hug and embrace Raine, even moreso than usual. She and I were hardly shy about physical affection — sometimes it felt like our bodies belonged more to each other than they did to ourselves.

I knew every crease of muscle and line of sunken vein and growth-spurt stretch-mark upon Raine's body, and she knew things about me that even I didn't. But I'd always refrained from clinging to her in front of others, even when buffeted by the cacophony of insistence from our tentacles. It was always so difficult to pinpoint the line between skinship and sensuality, between comfort and sex, and the last thing I wanted to do was neck with her in front of Evee, or grab her bum when Tenny could see.

We had done neither of those things over the last few days, of course, but I didn't care who saw me touching and cuddling her anymore. It was more important to get as much of that in as possible, before the expedition. Before— I tidied those thoughts away. We simply did not have time. Raine straightened up and shot me a wink, her own post-Slip nausea and disorientation already passing, almost as fast as mine.

She wrapped an arm around my shoulders — instantly mirrored by three of our tentacles — and made a show of shading her eyes with her other hand. She peered out from our vantage point, like we were explorers in a desert. She did look the part, with a light sheen of sweat in her chestnut hair, her half-exposed body rippling with toned muscle, pressed right up against me. Not for the first time that evening I cursed the fact we weren't upstairs in bed.

"And here we have the summer habitat of the Evelynus Say—so," Raine said, putting on a fake nature documentary voice.

"A timid and retiring creature, she prefers dark holes and hidden nooks, all the better to stuff with emotional nuts and traumatic berries for winter, where they will not be discovered and raided by her natural predators." Raine broke off, flashed me a grin, and wiggled her eyebrows.

"That's you and me, Heather."

"Tch," I tutted.

"I wouldn't call Evee 'timid' or 'retiring'. And we're not predators! I'm worried about her." Raine grinned, slowly, achingly, the grin spreading from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat materialising inches from my cheek. I was struck by the most bizarre desire to poke my tongue out and lick her teeth. I resisted. For now.

"Raine," I sighed.

"What is it?"

"Worried she's not gonna kiss you again." It was not a question. Raine followed up by mashing her lips against my cheek in a big, loud kiss of her own, a comedy 'mwaaaaah!'

"Raine!" I squeaked, putting up a half-hearted attempt to wriggle free.

"No, that's not— you know that's not— I'm worried! She's been avoiding me for days!" Raine laughed, then sighed and cast her eyes out across Camelot.

"Yeeeeeeah, I know, I know. Evelyn's done gotten all squirrelly again."

"Again?" I asked — but Raine raised her free hand and pointed.

"There's our Evee," she announced.

"Right where she should be. Told you so, Heather. Nothing to worry about." An involuntary sigh of relief passed through me when I followed the direction of Raine's finger. I had, of course, no rational doubts that Evelyn would be found right where she was meant to be. Praem and Lozzie's simultaneous absence from Number 12 Barnslow Drive confirmed the rather mundane reality. But nameless fears and childhood horrors lurked in the pit of my heart all the same.

I did not like it when one of my closest and most beloved people could not be located. The quiet plain of Camelot looked much the same as it always did, with gently rolling hills spread out in every direction beneath the whorled purple skies. Raine and I had materialised in the usual spot, upon a low hill inside what would one day be the curtain walls of Camelot Castle. The castle keep itself had extended further upward since my last visit, but the crenelation was not yet quite complete.

Pale sandstone walls stretched upward toward the sky, punctuated by ornamentation made of bone-white Caterpillar carapace; three stories were finished, with a fourth floor underway, more squat and cramped than those beneath. A series of rooftops were beginning to take shape, some peaked, others flat, mostly formed from yet more Caterpillar carapace. I spotted little walkways and balconies, exposed staircases sweeping around towers, and a hint of some kind of dome right in the middle.

The 'gardens' around the base of the castle had begun to develop actual vegetation at last, interspersed between the open squares and little paths and grand promenades. Last time I had visited the only visible plant life larger than the grass had been a row of strawberry bushes transplanted from earth, a little scraggly beneath the alien light; those bushes had now exploded with unearthly colour of their own, their leaves a deep emerald green, their branches studded with blossoms in fuchsia and ochre.

The mutating strawberry bushes were joined by a riot of other plants, though in much earlier stages of growth — drooping bell-hooded flowers in deepest blues and yellows, long wispy grasses like clusters of upright spears in dun and walnut and oak, and bamboo-esque copses of upward-straining fingers in pale orange. None of those were from earth. Perhaps the Caterpillars had brought back seeds from the ancient, deserted city, the same place they'd gotten all the stone.

On the opposite side of the castle stood the beginnings of an orchard, with each tiny little tree planted in a cleared circle of soil. The trees were unregimented, without order or line to their arrangement, at least not to human eyes. I hoped some of them were lemon trees. We ached to abandon all responsibility and go explore that castle and the grounds right then. But that's not where Evee was. Beyond the keep and the grounds, the curtain wall was still taking shape.

Large sections of it were yet to be raised, while others stood quietly unfinished, their great hide-and-rope cranes lying still for the moment, waiting for the delivery of yet more blocks of sandy masonry. Past the walls, the plains were bisected by the Caterpillar-beaten road to what I thought of as the east, a pathway of notably flattened grass which led off toward the ancient city, little more than a suggestion of dun-brown hump on the horizon.

To one side of that 'road' stood Edward Lilburne's ex-House, smartly repaired, still wearing its bizarre mushroom-cap of building materials. The house had not gone anywhere, not yet. Lozzie assured me it was quite content for the moment to watch the Knights at work. Perhaps it was developing a love for castles.

On the other side of the road — far, far on the other side, a good clear two hundred meters away from Camelot Castle, as a last and hopefully unnecessary safety measure — lay the unfinished pieces of Camelot's latest project, a project for us, wrought in our name. The airlock gateway, and the Invisus Oculus, the two components of the coming expedition to Wonderland. Neither of those were very complex. In fact they were both very simple, but they were also very, very, very big.

The airlock was nothing more than an enlarged version of Evelyn's interdimensional gateway spell. The gateway mandala itself was painted upon a gigantic sheet of Caterpillar carapace, with a 'doorway' outline in the middle large enough for an aircraft hanger, and a pair of horizontal bars against the ground to keep it steady. The huge sheet of carapace had been created from the armour sections of multiple Caterpillars, somehow bent flat and melted together at the seams.

When I'd asked how that had been achieved, Lozzie had grinned like an absolute madwoman and Evelyn had wrinkled her nose; apparently the process had been very smelly and extremely loud. The Caterpillars in question had enjoyed it immensely, like a pack of golden retrievers with explicit permission to play in a big muddy pond. The airlock was surrounded by an as-yet incomplete version of the Invisus Oculus, cut directly into the soil.

A twin to the carapace-gateway stood on the grass a little way off — that was the other end of the airlock, the one we'd be taking with us. A pair of stark white doorways to nowhere, glittering against Camelot's hills beneath the purple light. The gateway mandala itself was incomplete, not yet activated. When the final strokes of the spell were put in place, the gate would lead to Wonderland. Hopefully the gateway would never need to be opened.

It was an emergency exit, large enough for the Caterpillars themselves, in case the worst should come to pass. Evelyn had already admitted she had no idea if the Invisus Oculus cut into the soil would work to keep the Eye at bay, but the theory made sense — if nobody could see the gateway in the middle of the Invisus Oculus, that would give the Knights and Caterpillars precious seconds to simply destroy the exit. It was far from perfect, but a leaky old life-raft was better than the freezing sea.

The airlock was only intended for use if everything else failed — if Lozzie and I were both incapacitated, if the Invisus Oculus was breached, if the Eye was opening above all heads to pull us apart atom by atom. We pushed those thoughts down. No time for that now. The gateway was a precaution. That was all. The airlock served another function as well — it was proof of concept. Evelyn had called it a 'materials test', to see on what scale the Caterpillars could work.

The main event was now under construction, a little distant from the pair of inactive gateways. A rectangular field of smooth white lay flat against Camelot's yellowish grass, in the middle of a dip between two hills, a blank intrusion upon the peace and tranquillity, scrawled upon in strokes as thick as my waist. The Invisus Oculus — the real one, scaled up — was slowly taking shape upon a massive plate of Caterpillar carapace.

Evelyn and Lozzie had begun preparations weeks ago, as soon as Evelyn had the idea; Lozzie had approached the Cattys for their permission and cooperation, and they had all gladly started syncing up their 'shed cycles', as Lozzie put it. The fruit of their enthusiasm and efforts and engineering was a flat plate of material, two hundred meters long by one hundred and fifty meters wide, lighter and stronger and more durable than any metal, earthly or Outsider. The Invisus Oculus stretched from edge to edge.

When finished, the space inside the pupil would easily accommodate half a dozen Caterpillars, twenty to thirty knights, one end of the airlock, all my friends and companions, and the payload — me.

"Larger than a football pitch!" Raine had cheered, when we'd first seen the plate in its as-yet incomplete state, a couple of days ago. That didn't mean much to me. All I saw was the Eye, gigantic and baleful, being drawn upon Camelot's largest canvas. The Knights themselves were swarming all over the plate right then, accompanied by three Caterpillars around the edges.

The Knights were cutting into the plate with their weapons, scoring deep marks along a set of guidelines they had already laid down, following Evelyn's diagrams and instructions. The Caterpillars provided a sticky, black, tar-like substance from their head-feelers, pressing the 'ink' into the grooves cut by the Knights. Evelyn had assured me that the substance would work even better than bull's blood, when it came to the empowering of magical designs.

"Blood is one thing. This is another. Don't ask what it is, Heather, because I'm not going to be the one to explain. Ask Lozzie. Better yet, don't ask at all." The work was painstaking and slow, even for the Knights. Accuracy was essential, down to the last millimetre, lest this vast, scaled-up version of the Invisus Oculus fail when teleported to Wonderland.

A human work crew could have completed it, of course, but spread over a much larger time-scale, with much greater risk of mistakes or failures, and with a greater requirement for supervision. All the Knights needed was their gestalt culture-mind — and a little encouragement from Lozzie. At that moment, as Raine and I peered down from the hill inside the curtain walls, we spotted Lozzie perched high up on the back of a Caterpillar, her pentacolour poncho swaying as she rocked back and forth.

She was singing softly, her voice floating outward over Camelot's rolling hills, a ghostly and alien refrain of haunting beauty. Nearer to hand, down by the edge of the huge bone-white plate, set up on the grass as if for a picnic, was a trio of plastic garden chairs. The rear of a very familiar blonde head was poking over the back of one chair. The unmistakable outline of a maid dress stood nearby, topped with a very similar shade of blonde. Evee, watching the work, with Praem keeping her company.

"See her?" Raine asked.

"In the chair?"

"Yes! Yes, indeed, right." I sighed a second time, more with irritation than relief, my tentacles flexing and flaring, as if we needed to squeeze something until it cracked.

"Oh, I do wish Evee would tell us when she's coming out here. And I hope she didn't walk all that way by herself. Her hips will get sore! She'll get tired!"

"Naaaah," Raine replied, then kissed me on the cheek again.

"She's got Praem with her, see?" I grumbled and tutted.

"Yes, yes, I can see that perfectly well."

"Heather," Raine said, suddenly serious.

"She knows what she's doing. Our Evee isn't gonna put herself in danger. She's got Praem, she's got Lozzie, she's surrounded by an army down there. What's wrong, really?"

"I'm nervous about people vanishing to dimensions beyond our reality," I said.

"Even when it's safe. For what I hope are rather obvious reasons. And I'd rather she was home." Raine pulled an oddly pained smile.

"Me too, Heather." I raised an eyebrow at Raine.

"So. Squirrelly. Again?" Raine blinked at me.

"Ah?"

"You said Evee is getting squirrelly, 'again'. But I don't think you've ever used that word for her before, at least not in conversation with me. When's the last time she got 'squirrelly'?"

"Ahhhhh," Raine said. She considered the rear of Evelyn's head for a moment, all the way across the plains of Camelot, then spoke with soft affection, her voice lulled into a purr by the gentle wind.

"So, way back when, just after Evee and I put her mother in the ground, she and I got really close for a while. We were close anyway, you know? Sleeping in the same bed, eating every meal together, holding hands all the time. She would wake up with nightmares and turn to me for comfort. That kind of thing. Towards the end of it, the last few weeks before we did in her mother, we were inseparable, we never went anywhere alone."

"Literally? Or figuratively?" Raine tore her eyes away from Evee and shot me a grin.

"Literally. And hey, there was nothing wrong with that. Yes, I've been in the room while Evelyn used the toilet, and yes, I turned my back. That's what it took to keep us both alive."

"T-then I'm glad you did," I said. I went up on tiptoes and kissed Raine on the cheek.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate anything else." Raine snorted.

"It's alright, Heather. Never told you that before, have I? Hey, two girls watching each other on the toilet, you tend to make certain assumptions. But it wasn't like that at all. It was survival. Couldn't leave her alone, not without risk. Anyway, it got more intense just after her mother died, for a couple of weeks. But then she distanced herself a bit, all at once. Never said a word about it." Raine nodded down at the distant blob of blonde amid Camelot's purple light.

"And she acted a tiny bit like this. Squirrelly." We sighed.

"That's a very imprecise word, Raine. But … thank you, for sharing that. Do you think she's feeling like she got too close to me, somehow?" The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"You mean after you two made out?" I rolled my eyes and fought back a small blush.

"It wasn't 'making out', it was one kiss! Not even any tongue."

"We'll have to fix that, then," Raine said, sounding dead serious.

"Raine!" I spluttered.

"This is a serious question!" Raine didn't stop smirking. She shrugged.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Wanna go ask her?" I boggled at my beloved Raine, at the sheer casual confidence in her voice and cupped inside those warm brown eyes.

"You can't be serious! We can't just go up to her and ask her … ask her … oh, oh dear, oh, gosh, I suppose we can. Can't we?" Raine pulled away from me a couple of paces, then turned and offered her hand with a little flourish and a half-bow, as if we were prospective dancing partners at a ball, not an abyssal squid-girl and her deeply involved girlfriend, currently beyond the walls of reality, talking about going up to our mutual mage and asking her if she wanted to snog me again.

"Raine …

""My lady," Raine said. I spluttered.

"Do not call me that! Oh my gosh! Lozzie has educated me in some internet memes, thank you. I'm not completely clueless." Raine laughed and straightened up.

"Naaaaah. I'd have to shorten the phrase, and also get a fedora to tip, if I was gonna do that. Seriously, Heather." She offered me her hand again, with less of a flourish this time.

"Come on, let's go talk to our grumpy little squirrel, see if she wants to play nice." We coiled our tentacles inward and considered the merits of a hasty retreat — but that would leave Raine out here with Evelyn anyway, and then a conversation would happen without my input or presence, which might be even worse for both of my closest, oldest, most beloved friends. I sighed, accepted Raine's hand in my own, and walked down the hill.

Evelyn had indeed been avoiding me for the last couple of days, that truth was undeniable, though at first her behaviour had been hard to detect, and even harder to decode. She neither ignored me completely nor turned a cold shoulder to my words; in fact we'd had several long conversations in the kitchen, about our strategy for Wonderland, about what to expect when we arrived, about how she and the others would protect me while I probed with brain-math.

We'd even talked about Zheng and Grinny's trips to the woods and what they might be doing out there. We'd discussed Lozzie's gigantic incoming inheritance and how best to protect her against the sorts of mundane predation that might happen, and how on earth we were going to help Tenny go to college. We'd talked about bacon, and Praem's shoes, and a manga Evelyn wanted me to read. Evelyn was her usual gruff, grumpy, but oddly vulnerable self, at least in my presence.

But she had avoided being alone with me, under any and all circumstances. She did not have to try particularly hard; Number 12 Barnslow Drive was no longer the echoing shell it had been when I had first moved in. These days it bustled with life. It was easy for Evee to always find herself busy, always be alongside somebody else, or turn out her bedroom lights early and pretend to be sleeping.

I was not blameless either; I had taken Jan's advice to heart and so I was spending as much time as I could with Raine, with Lozzie, with Tenny, sleeping curled up in Zheng's lap one morning and the next night in Sevens' bed. Raine and I had gotten 'intimate' half a dozen times in the last forty eight hours. I'd petted Marmite in Lozzie's bedroom and attempted a mostly one-sided conversation with Praem about her taste in maid dresses.

I had a long talk with Twil about university, a long nap with Lozzie in her bed, and a long losing session of chess against Tenny. I was taking great gulping mouthfuls of life, while I still had it before me. But Evee was avoiding me. And now I wasn't the only one who thought that was odd.

Raine and I strolled down the hill inside the curtain walls and turned toward what would one day be the front gate of Camelot Castle; even in their incomplete state, the walls towered over us as we passed between the massive sandy-coloured blocks and out into the open country beyond. I waved two tentacles at the former Lilburne House, a lazy greeting to mask my racing heartbeat. The House did not wave back, but I felt a distant throb of acknowledgement, like a slightly stronger breeze upon one's face.

Raine must have felt my palm getting clammy. She whispered: "Hey, Heather, hey. It's gonna be fine. It's just our Evee, right?"

"Right," we squeaked.

"Um." The walk to the edge of the carapace plate was not far, but it felt like miles. My legs went numb with anticipation; two tentacles slid down my own thighs and calves to help me keep going, bracing me against the short, brisk little walk. Raine and I approached the trio of plastic garden chairs from behind; they made such an incongruous sight in the middle of Camelot's unearthly velvet grass and omnipresent purple light, a little slice of English domesticity air-dropped into an alien dimension.

A little way ahead of the impromptu picnic site lay the rounded edge of the carapace plate, with Knights striding back and forth, slopping great masses of black Caterpillar goop all over the place. Evelyn had positioned herself far enough back that the noise was a comfortable background murmur. Evee herself did not look up as we drew near — but Praem turned her head. She was stationed a few feet to Evee's left, as if close to hand for a private conversation.

Dressed in her usual immaculate maid dress, hair pinned up in a messy bun at the back of her head, milk white eyes burning with clarity beneath Camelot's purple sky, Praem gave Raine and me a blank and unreadable look. Only then did Evelyn raise her head and glance over her shoulder. Her soft blue eyes caught us, froze in mild surprise, and then crumpled with a frown. She sighed. Praem intoned: "You are discovered." Evelyn grumbled.

"Yes, yes, I suppose I bloody well am." She greeted us with a grumpy huff as we stopped next to the trio of chairs.

"Raine, Heather. Hello." Raine purred with a teasing grin.

"Evee, Evee, Evee. Couldn't you try to look a little less like we've turned up to shit in your cheerios?" Evelyn rolled her eyes. Despite her sudden grumpy exterior, she looked exceptionally comfortable. She was wearing her favourite loose cream-coloured ribbed jumper, a long pale orange skirt, and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and draped over her knees. She had augmented the unforgiving plastic of the garden chair with a pair of cushions, one of them firmly beneath her buttocks.

She had a book open in her lap — the complete works of Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian and all that — and a drink bottle standing on the next chair over, full of what I assumed was lukewarm, milky, heavily sugared, decaf tea. Her walking stick stood propped against the other chair. If I had discovered her like this under any other circumstances, I would have surrendered to the urge to cuddle up with her. Several of us almost did, tentacles uncoiling toward her like pleading arms.

"Yes, Evee," I said instead.

"We don't mean to interrupt. We just … hi. Yes. Hello." Evelyn cleared her throat.

"Yes, hello Heather. I'm always happy to see you." She sighed, and to my surprise, glanced up at Lozzie, sitting on the distant Caterpillar she was using as a mount. Lozzie's singing echoed out over the quiet plains of Camelot, but her eyes were closed. Evelyn looked back to us.

"Alright, what are you two doing here?" She looked us both up and down.

"And why are you dressed in your pajamas?" Evee had a point. Raine was wearing shorts and a tank-top, showing a lot of skin. I was wrapped up snug in pink pajamas, ready for bed. We both had our trainers on, but that was the only concession to technically being out of doors. Praem answered for us: "It is pajama time."

"Yes!" I agreed.

"Because it's bed time! It's eleven thirty at night!" Evelyn snorted.

"Not here, it isn't." She gestured at the glittering purple whorls in the sky, without looking up.

"As far as I can tell this place does not experience night."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh," Raine purred.

"So that's your ploy?" Evelyn frowned and started to say something, but I interrupted, to avoid the core of this conversation.

"Evee, you do need to sleep. You need rest. You're not invincible." Evelyn harrumphed and frowned at me. She gestured toward the massive carapace plate and the Knights, hard at work before us.

"They don't get a break, why should I? They're not slaves, Heather. The least I can do is supervise properly." Raine put both hands on her hips. She made a great theatrical show of turning on the spot, nodding slowly, sucking on her teeth, and generally looking like a manager at a building site who had no idea what was happening.

"Yuuuuuup," she said slowly.

"Yup. Looks like some class-A supervisoring you be doing there, Evelyn." She raised her eyebrows at the book in Evee's lap.

"Which is your favourite Conan story, then? The one where he kills the wizard, or the one where he kills the wizard? Or, let me guess — the one where he kills the wizard?" Evelyn hissed through her teeth and slapped the book shut.

"The stories are much more subtle than that! And not every single one is about killing wizards. You are a literary philistine, Raine. I don't know how Heather puts up with it."

"She's not …" I protested, feeling rather weak. What was Raine doing? Raine just grinned.

"Yeah, but lots of those stories are about killing wizards, you can't deny that. You trying to get on Zheng's good side?"

"No," Evelyn grunted.

"Raine, what are you playing at?" Raine shrugged and looked around.

"I dunno, I'd say we've got room for pretty much anything out here."

"Evee," I said, very gently, as if dealing with a very spicy kitty with claws already extended.

"The Knights don't seem to need breaks. And if they did, then I would want them to take breaks. I don't understand why you're … why … well." We faltered under Evelyn's withering gaze. She did not enjoy this line of questioning. Giving up on courage for now, we turned and waved to a few of the nearby knights, up on the raised platform of the carapace. A trio paused in their work and waved back to us, which was both very sweet and a bit surprising. Evelyn sighed.

"Go on, Heather. Finish the thought." She almost managed to make it sound like 'sorry'.

"W-well," I said.

"I just … you're Outside! You have Lozzie here, yes, and that's good, but … even in Camelot, isn't it putting stress and strain on you?" Evelyn stared at me, trying to look dead-eyed and calm, but I could see the breaking point floating to the surface of her mind.

"Heather. Everywhere puts stress and strain on me."

"O-oh. Well. Maybe that's even more reason to sleep?" Raine tilted her head back with a grin and said: "Evee's got it so bad that she would rather spend an evening out here than risk this very conversation. Ain't that right, Evee?" Evelyn's gaze flash-hardened to iron and flint. She glared at Raine.

"Don't mock me." But Raine just clucked her tongue.

"Got yourself in a right pickle here, haven't you, Evee? You can't run away from this one. I mean, sure, you could actually." She nodded down at Evelyn's walking stick, propped against one of the other chairs.

"You could pick that up and go ask Lozzie to take you home. Or you could ask Heather here. Couldn't she, Heather? You'd take her home, right? Straight to her bedroom? Just the two of you, alone at last." Raine grinned at me. Evee had a point — I wasn't sure what kind of game Raine was playing here, but it was better than my proposed strategy of timidly pussyfooting around the main subject. We nodded, with head and tentacles too.

"Of course. Right away. Evee, do you want to go home?" Evelyn sighed and squeezed her eyes shut.

"No, Heather, that's not the problem here." Raine made a show of surprise, raising her eyebrows in a pantomime of shock.

"There's a problem here? Well blow me down with a feather and—""Raine!" Evelyn snapped.

"Drop the bullshit, for pity's sake. You were never any good at subtlety, not even as a joke. Stick to the sledgehammer approach, hm? At least you're skilled at breaking things. Gonna get down to it, get started? Go on, start swinging." To my surprise — and Evee's visible concern — Raine actually stopped. She rocked back on her heels, wet her lips, and grinned like the Cheshire Cat once again.

"Soooooooo," Raine said.

"I hear you're cucking me?" Evelyn huffed like a broken steam engine climbing a mountain, rolled her eyes, and threw her hands in the air.

"Don't call it that!"

"R-Raine?!" I squeaked, tentacles flailing wildly, then curling toward me as I was overtaken by the desire to hide inside a ball. Top-Right suggested we slap both of them. Bottom-Left wanted to egg Raine on. Three others demanded we turn around and run. Middle-Right reached toward Raine's mouth, as if to stop her up.

"E-Evee? I don't— um— oh— er—" Raine spread her hands in a teasing apology.

"Hey, no judgement, no kink-shaming, whatever floats your boat, whatever you need me to call it—" Evelyn ground words out through her teeth: "Not. In. Front. Of. Praem." Raine glanced at Praem and raised her eyebrows. Praem just stared back, milk-white eyes blank and impassive. Evelyn let out a shuddering sigh of relief, as if she had neatly dodged a bullet. She swallowed, and said, "Right. Yes. Not in front of Praem.

We can talk about this later, or in the morning, or—" Praem intoned: "Lozzie requires my assistance." Praem turned smartly on one booted heel, skirts swishing around her legs, and strode off toward Lozzie without a backward glance. Evee watched her go with open-mouthed helplessness. Raine said, "That woman is a genius. You know that, right? Evee? Your daughter is a fucking grade-A genius. Love her."

"Urrrghhh," Evelyn grumbled like a strange creature found beside the road, baring teeth at passing cars. She ran a hand over her face, then grabbed the book in her lap, and looked as if she was briefly considering hurling it at Raine. The volume was rather heavy, with a thick hardback cover, so it might do some damage.

"Evee!" I squeaked.

"Evee, please, we just— I just— want to— I … I … I miss you." Evelyn blinked at me, blind-sided. She lowered the book, let out a slow sigh, and said: "Fine. For you, then, Heather. Say your fucking piece, Raine. Get this over with."

"Evee," I repeated.

"You've been avoiding me for two days. And I'm pretty sure Raine isn't angry with you or anything. I don't … I don't understand …" We had no idea what to say. We trailed off, tentacles going limp, almost mewling in our throat. Evee looked away, ashamed or embarrassed.

"So," Raine said, as if utterly unmoved by all this.

"You're having a great time cucking me—" My turn to snap: "Raine! Please, Evee is trying her best! The last thing I want to see is you two falling out. I thought you were okay with this?" Raine turned to me with a look I had rarely seen on her face before — a sharp and knowing smile, surprisingly stern and hard. She put a hand on my shoulder.

"Heather." The gentle command in Raine's voice went through me like a lightning bolt. I stiffened.

"Y-yes?"

"Evee and I aren't falling out. This is just how we've always been." She nodded toward Evelyn, still sitting in her plastic garden chair, face pointed firmly away from us.

"You know what this woman is to me?" I blinked.

"I … think so?"

"My best friend," Raine said.

"I've killed for her. I would die for her if I had to. Which is why I can say this kind of stuff to her." An incandescent blush began to creep up the side of Evelyn's face. Raine looked over at Evee.

"You hear that, you old curmudgeon? You heard those words?" Evelyn swallowed hard, and said: "My ears function perfectly well." Raine shot me a grin, then let go and stepped over to Evelyn's chair. Evee had nowhere to go, but she continued looking away, off at the horizon and the purple whorls in the sky. The Knights up on the carapace plate continued their work, as if this drama was not unfolding right in front of them. Raine knelt down in front of the chair.

"Hey there, sad girl. Yeah, you. I'm talking to you." Evelyn whipped around and met Raine's eyes. She was on the verge of tears I didn't understand, forced through embarrassment and burning cheeks and deep self-conscious pain. Those words Raine had just spoken, they almost seemed rote, as if she had said them before. Whatever they meant, they tugged at Evelyn's heart.

"What," Evelyn ground out.

"I love you," Raine said.

"I love you just as much as I love Heather. You know that." Evelyn tried to bark with laughter, but it came out weak and wet. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and scrubbed furiously at her eyes.

"You and I never would have made a good couple, Raine. We would have killed each other within a month. No, a week. And you were never my type." Raine raised two fingers.

"There's more types of love than sticking two of these up a cunt. You know that too."

"Love is more than eros." Raine and Evee both looked up at me. Only then did I realise that I'd said those words — all seven of us had, through my mouth. Zheng's words, reflected back through me.

"Well put," said Raine. She turned back to Evee.

"So, hey, sad girl. I do love you." Evelyn looked down. Her blushing was messy, overheated, and painful, not dainty little points of rose-red in one's cheeks. But I thought it was beautiful. Raine smiled, and said: "Hey, Evee, you don't have to say it back or nothing, it's—" Evelyn reached out and put a hand on Raine's shoulder. She did not look up.

"Raine?"

"Yes?"

"Shut the fuck up." Raine broke into a grin.

"Yes ma'am. We better? Remember where you stand, now?"

"By you." Evelyn grumbled low in her throat, withdrew her hand, and raised her eyes back to Raine's face.

"Maybe I don't want to share everything with you, though. We've already shared more than enough, like we always bloody did. Maybe I don't want your cast-off." I realised, with a little bristle of offended dignity, that she meant me.

"H-hey!" I squeaked.

"Evee, I'm nobody's cast-off!" Evelyn winced, hard and awkward.

"Oh for pity's sake, that's not what I meant! Not like that! Heather, no! I'm … sorry."

"Apology accepted," I said softly, still bristling. My tentacles felt tense and stiff. Evelyn sighed. Raine said: "She's got a point. She's right here, Evee. Nobody's cast her off, sure as hell not me. She's neither leftovers nor damaged goods. She's Heather."

"Yes, I can see that!" Evelyn huffed.

"Look, I can't deal with this right now! What's to even talk about? You don't mind that I kissed her, and I don't want to talk about it. What more is there to say, Raine?" We stepped forward, tentacles in a halo around our core of true flesh.

"Evee, you've been avoiding me for days. I can't take that, not right now." Evelyn fixed me with a stony glare.

"More like you don't need to be dealing with that! And neither do I. Both of us need to be focused on our tasks, not dwelling on this … this …" She huffed and rubbed her eyes. All the puff seemed to go out of her.

"Oh, this is my bloody fault. I should never have bloody well kissed you. What the fuck was I thinking?" Raine suggested: "'Cor blimey, that girl needs my tongue down her throat.'" Evelyn gave Raine a look that could have frozen a bonfire solid. I jumped in quickly: "A-actually I rather enjoyed it! B-but, Evee, you can't just do that and then not expect me to think about it."

"Forget it," she whined, hiding behind a hand.

"Please." My turn to sigh.

"Evee, that wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. Even if you hadn't kissed me, I would still want to spend time with you, right now. Today! Tonight! It's two days until we go to Wonderland, and I want to spend some of that time with you, before …" Evelyn emerged from behind her hand and slowly raised her gaze to mine.

"Before what?" She made it sound like I had said something terribly offensive.

"Evee," I said with equal slowness.

"I might not be coming back—""You! Will!" Evelyn shouted. All her tears and embarrassment transformed to rage, fuel for the fires, an instant switch. Raine rocked back, away from Evee. Up on the carapace plate, several of the nearest Knights paused in their work for a moment. Lozzie's singing cut out briefly, then resumed. Down by the base of the Caterpillar on which Lozzie rode, Praem turned to look back at us. I just gaped.

"Um …

""You are not going to die," Evelyn said.

"You are not going to get stuck out there. You are not going to lose your body, or your mind, or your soul, or any other component. You are coming back, Heather, and it will be in one piece." She flung an arm outward at the great work before us, the vast plate of Caterpillar carapace and the airlock gateways and the scaled-up version of the Invisus Oculus.

"Why do you think I'm doing all this? Why do you think I'm taking every precaution I know, and several I have only recently invented? You are coming back whole and sane, Heather. I swear to whatever gods exist out here that if you don't, I will turn the entire rest of my life into a machine for murdering the Eye. Do you understand?" I swallowed. My head felt numb. We flexed our tentacles in and out, unsure where to put ourselves. A few tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Yes. But—""There are no 'buts'!" Evelyn shouted again.

"There are no buts, or ifs, or maybes. I will fight God, so fucking help me. You are not going to die." Silence descended for one awkward moment, broken only by the ghostly tones of Lozzie's song and the soft clicking of Knight boots up on the carapace plate. Raine cleared her throat and thumbed at Evee.

"Yeah. What she said." I scrubbed tears out of my eyes.

"Even if that's true—""It is true," Evelyn grunted.

"Heather, you have no conception of the sort of monster I will become in order to make this work."

"O-okay. Okay, let me just … sorry, this is a lot." Evelyn said: "You have nothing to apologise for."

"So, um." I gathered myself.

"It's true, alright, okay. And … and that doesn't change the fact that I would like to spend some more time with you. Tonight. Tomorrow morning. Tomorrow?"

"Tonight sounds good," Raine mused.

"How about the three of us?" Evelyn frowned suddenly, hard and pinched.

"What are you two planning?"

"P-planning?" I stammered.

"Nothing, I swear!" But Raine grinned, wide and toothy. She straightened up and gestured at me.

"Heather? Nothing. She's not got the guile for this, not when she's not gone maximum squid, anyway. But me? Well. I might have an idea or two." Raine offered both hands to Evelyn, in a strange configuration I'd never seen her use before — palms up and to the sides, as if expecting Evelyn to leap out of her chair and fall into Raine's embrace. Evelyn couldn't have made that lurch even if she'd wanted. Evelyn looked doubtful too. She said: "Raine. I told you. She's not going to die." Raine shrugged.

"Sure she ain't. But we've not worked this out yet, Evee. You and me and Heather, out there, we're gonna need to have each other's backs. For real. Just like you and I did, back in the day, with your mother. Same thing. Same way. Same absolute trust." Evelyn swallowed and hesitated. She glanced at Raine's hands. Raine said: "I mean it. You wanna make this a solid guarantee? You wanna make sure you and I have got the strength to bring her home again? Evee, you and I, we gotta mend this."

Evelyn looked almost nervous. She wet her lips and said, "Raine, I'm not comfortable—""No sex," Raine said.

"Nothing you don't want. Just you and me, like old times. But with Heather, too." I frowned.

"Raine, what are you talking about?" Raine shot me a wink.

"You and me and Evee, Heather. We'll spend the night in her bedroom, just the three of us. Zheng's out with the Grinster, Twil's not coming over until the morning, and Sevens is sleeping soundly in our bed. So it'll be just us three." My eyes went wide.

"You don't mean—" Raine shook her head.

"Love is more than eros, right?" Evelyn gritted her teeth, glanced between Raine's outstretched arms, and said: "You still remember how to do this without giving me an injury? Really? You really expect me to believe that? It's been years, Raine." Raine answered, "I'll never forget, long as I live. I will never drop you, Evelyn." Evelyn carefully removed her book from her lap and placed it on the nearby chair. Her hands were shaking.

Then she lifted her arms and reached forward, with an expression like a woman going to the gallows.

"Do it," she grunted. And then Raine did something I had never thought possible before — she pulled Evelyn to her feet. The technique looked awkward and difficult, and must have required a great deal of upper body strength and core muscle control; Evelyn leaned forward while Raine ducked and slipped her arms around Evelyn's back, but somehow without putting any pressure on Evelyn's delicate, kinked, painful spine. Evelyn held on while Raine pulled upward and stepped back in the same motion.

Evee's feet left the ground for a split second, but Raine was solid as a rock. Then Evelyn was on her own feet, unsteady and red in the face, but not in a single lick of pain. Raine quickly pressed Evee's walking stick into her waiting hand. Evelyn was panting softly, shaking all over with something more than adrenaline, gazing at Raine in numb shock.

"No pain?" Raine asked. Evelyn shook her head and blew out a sigh.

"Well done. You still have it, I suppose."

"Excuse me," I said.

"But what did I just witness?" Raine grinned with triumph. Evelyn sighed and rolled her eyes — but she was the one who answered, her voice strangely soft and vulnerable.

"Raine learned how to do that when we first met. Before I had a proper prosthetic. The first couple of years, I was … weak." Raine shook her head.

"You were never weak, Evee." Evelyn snorted in disbelief, but she didn't argue.

"Alright then. Alright. Fine. Are we seriously doing this? I can't believe this nonsense, Raine, we're not fourteen years old anymore, we're not little girls giggling in bed together."

"We never giggled," Raine shot back.

"Ummmmmmmmmmmm," I said.

"May I just clarify, what exactly are we talking about doing?" Raine grinned, just for me.

"The three of us, in Evee's bed, overnight. Close as can be. And we need to figure out a couple of things, about kissing and cucking." Evelyn gritted her teeth and shot Raine a look like she wanted to run her through with a sword.

"I will hit you with my walking stick. I will. I will leave a bruise, Raine."

"Love it when you threaten me," Raine chuckled. She turned away from both Evelyn and me, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted toward Lozzie and Praem: "Taking Evee home for now! Praem, you going with Lozzie?" Lozzie's singing cut out briefly. She was quite far away, perched on the back of a Catty, but I saw her eyes blink open in mild surprise. She waved to us with a corner of poncho. Down on the ground in front of the Caterpillar, Praem raised a thumb up high.

For a moment neither Evelyn nor Raine were looking at me, but both turned toward Praem and Lozzie, halfway down the length of the massive carapace plate. I had both of them in profile: Raine tall and toned against the yellowish hillsides, her deep chestnut hair yummy enough to bite into, her skin warm and soft in the cinnamon wind — and Evelyn, comfortable and plush, wrapped in her layers, her blue eyes aching to be kissed, her blonde hair in a mess down her back.

For the first time in many months I felt like the spare wheel. Raine and Evelyn had shared an experience I would never fully understand, could never be a part of — unless I could somehow go back in time. I thought I knew everything about them, but this evening alone I had seen yet another new angle of their shared past. But then Evelyn glanced away from Praem, huffing to herself. She looked at me and awkwardly stuck out an arm, waiting for something. I boggled at her.

"Well?" she demanded, then gestured with a jerk of her arm.

"Take it, then!"

"O-oh!" I reached out with a hand — and a tentacle — and took Evelyn's hand in mine, wrapping the tentacle around her forearm, very gently. Raine turned back to us too. She did not ask for permission, she just reached down and scooped my other hand into hers, interlacing our fingers. I slipped a tentacle around her waist, almost instinctive.

"You ready?" Raine asked both me and Evee. Evelyn sighed and looked away.

"I can't believe we're doing this. And don't leave my book behind." Raine laughed, picked up Evelyn's book and tucked it under her armpit, then nodded to me.

"Heather?"

"Ready for what?" I asked. My heart was going far too fast. There was nothing unusual about this. We had always been a trio, hadn't we?

"Re-affirmation," Raine said with a smirk.

"Maybe with a little extra spice. Take us home, Heather. Take us to bed."