Chương 322: placid island; black infinity - 2-1.18

And lo! Heather Morell — 'homo abyssus', the squid-girl of Sharrowford, the nine-in-one and one-as-nine, opener of the Eye, favoured of the Yellow King, little watcher hailing from Earth's (not-so) rainiest island, and sometimes still a Reading girl at heart — appeared before the gathered lost souls, in a rainbow starburst of radiant tentacles.

She solved all the problems, murdered or exiled or befriended all the problem-causers, gave succour and sanctuary and safe harbour to all who needed it, and then took everyone home in time for tea. That's it. Story's over. The End. … Maybe you'd believe all that if I padded it out a bit more. If I could only bring myself to bullshit enough detail. I could tell you that she turned up and hurled a hug at me, her eyes full of shining tears, her hands trembling as she clasped them around my back.

Would you believe it went down that way? You'd like to see that, wouldn't you? Heather painted through my eyes, her patterns further complicated, her mysteries re-mystified by the lens of my mind. You'd like to see her and I have a heart-to-heart, do a bit of crying together, then realise we were closer than ever before. So would I. So don't worry. You will. But that's not how it happened. Not then, there, or yet. … Nothing happened, in fact.

Standing there with my eyes screwed shut, listening to the silence of everyone's held breath, waiting for Heather to materialise in front of us, it got old after about five seconds. But I kept going for five more. And then another five. And five. Five additional. Five. Casma was murmuring my name, like she was trying to wake a sleepwalker without too much incidental violence.

Calderon was clearing his throat and saying something about how perhaps 'the Audience' needed to see me directly, or that I was not their current focus, or perhaps they had not been fully convinced. Kimberly swallowed, tight and wet (not like that). Tenny let out a sad little trill that made my long-missing heart double up with ache. My declaration that my sister and I needed to talk had not cleared the way for Heather. I had not convinced the 'Audience', because I couldn't even convince myself.

Deep in my heart (or at least within the empty carbon fibre cavity next to my core) I didn't really believe that Heather would not rescue me. That was the one article of faith I had held onto for ten years in prison. It had kept me going, kept me alive, kept me — arguably — more or less sane. Of course Heather would rescue me. She wouldn't care if I didn't remember the childhood she had shared with Maisie Morell.

She wouldn't give a shit that I didn't feel like a continuation of the person who had once leapt into the Eye to save her. She wouldn't think of me as anything but her sister; and I, the same. I knew her too well to suspect otherwise. There was no configuration of possible events that could breach that truth, no rewriting of reality that could remove that universal constant.

Heather was my sister, my twin, my reflection in the mirror, the anchor of my self when all else was burned away to a crust of carbonised meat. I could even imagine what she would say, after I voiced my fear and uncertainties — "Maisie, are any of us the person we were at ten years old?" My cunning plan was defeated by my own faith.

"May-May? May-Maaaay?"

"Casma," I croaked back, and opened my eyes.

"Yes, I can hear you. Loud and clear. Clear off." I frowned.

"Or don't, because I would fall over." Casma pulled a sad smile so overcomplicated that my sister would have spent an entire minute attempting to describe it (but I will spare you that). She leaned in close, and whispered, "I don't think Heather's coming yet. I don't think it worked."

"No shit," I grunted.

"Shhhhhhhit," Tenny trilled, with the exact expression of a teenager taking license from the bad language of an adult. I almost managed to smile back. My legs were quivering with the effort of standing and my body was still a canvas of novel and exotic pains, but I didn't sit down just then, still leaning on Casma's arm for support, clinging to her like a vine to a tree. I swept my eyes across the clandestine gathering of humans and fairies and others less easily classifiable.

Kimberly looked utterly defeated; Heather still wasn't coming, which was the end of whatever brief hope I'd given her. Calderon spoke up in a soft bleat.

"Miss Morell, if you can indeed summon your sister to our aid, that would be most beneficial. But, lacking that, we must proceed with a plan to slay Margaret directly."

"Heather would be more direct," I croaked at him.

"Directing us to the direct route." Calderon blinked.

"Ah. Yes. Quite." Mave hissed, "I told you how she is." Kimberly sighed. When she spoke, her voice didn't quiver, too sapped by exhaustion.

"How many times do I have to repeat myself? I can't do this. I'm— I'm sure it's possible, if you had the right mage, the right person. But I'm not that right person! I know how to put demons in corpses, that's it!" Calderon gestured at the magical designs all over Kimberly's torso and arms. (I still didn't stare.) "You appear to have done a fantastic job in improvising—""Improvising, yes!" Kimberly snapped.

"You think half of this even works?! And it's unsustainable, and I don't know how to kill a mage. I am sorry, but I have a prior responsibility. I will not risk the safety of Tenny and Casma. No." Calderon sat up straighter in his chair, but his words seemed to fail him. Tenny trilled at him, waggling her collection of random tools. Calderon looked at her and smiled a very Father Christmas smile, behind his big bushy beard. Mave hissed like leaves on a root-choked forest floor.

"Then you'll never get out of here. You'll never get back home if you don't help us."

"Can't you take us back?" Kimberly said.

"You brought us here in the first place, didn't you?"

"Doesn't work that way." Mave tutted.

"I was initiating a new story then. That's how I got away with it. Try it now and …" She trailed off with a shudder, sharp teeth grinding against each other. The argument went around and around three or four more times, getting nowhere. Kimberly repeated her refrain of incapability. Calderon rephrased his plea for assistance. Tenny trilled, Casma murmured a word or two, Muadhnait sat in silence. Mave seethed like summer rot. And me?

I sagged toward the floor, silently tugging on Casma to help me sit down, because standing was no longer an option.

I could replay this part in all the detail which I could not summon for my latest lie about my sister, word for word, line by line. I could tell you all about how the debate dribbled out, because everybody was exhausted, and a girl covered in blood was swaying on the edge of sleep in the middle of the room. But none of it mattered more than a stale fart. Nobody solved anything in that narrative cul-de-sac.

Kimberly and Muadhnait extracted specific assurances from Calderon and Mave that this room was safe, for now, and that we could all comfortably pass the night there. Calderon assured himself that perhaps his plea would seem more reasonable by daylight. Mave made a vague, poorly worded, scratch-throated promise to reread the text of my sister's story, to look for clues that might allow Sharrowford's Own Squid-Lady to ride to our aid.

But by then, Casma was laying me on the floor, tucking me back up in my blanket, and murmuring words that I didn't remember. This wasn't my story, I wasn't in control, and Heather wasn't coming. (Not yet, anyway.) Rest — let alone sleep — seemed borderline obscene.

I'd just pulled an otherworldly parasite out of my gut, then set a pair of metaphysical titans on each other, one of whom was my very inadvisable one-night-(or one-dream)-stand, the other of whom was a very dishy admirer from a side of reality that I wasn't yet certain about. I had reclaimed what autonomy I had and accepted that I was also probably just the memory of a dead girl. I had been reunited with my … family?

—and had my understanding of this whole situation upended backwards by a pair of fairies trying to stage a dimension-wide prison break, by asking us to murder a mage, a mage who had knocked me out with an afterthought of a magic spell. And the response from my body? Go the fuck to sleep, girl. You're cooked. Well, why not? I'd just won this body back, hadn't I? May as well listen to it for once. … Sleep did not actually happen, at least not to me.

Pain made it impossible to drop all the way past the threshold of consciousness; I kept rubber-banding back up, trapped in a cage of throbbing wounds and an ache in my belly like some stupid bugger had cut me open and rummaged around inside. (I'm the stupid bugger, it's me!) Every time I did manage to hold myself beneath the surface for more than a few minutes, snippets of dream emerged with me, snatches of the cold and the dark and the endless void, the primal dream that I don't think I will ever be rid of.

I 'slept' like that for a while, probably longer than it felt. Two, three, four hours? Flat on my back, wrapped up in a blanket, wheezing with pain every time I instinctively tried to roll onto my side, (and forget about my front. No, really, do forget). Eventually the pretence of sleep dropped away entirely. I found myself wrapped in the slow ache of so many different wounds, staring at the ceiling, listening to everyone else breathe in and out, in and out, in and out. One of those was me. Breathing in and out.

Despite my lack of lungs. Every breath hurt my belly. To my left, Muadhnait was asleep flat on her back, much like me. She was still in her armour, because she was sealed into it, but now she had no helmet for a pillow, and so had substituted a rolled up blanket from her pack. She looked as tired as I felt, worn down to a stub of a person, her own narrative as sidelined as mine; did she dream of her sister, lost in the castle, lost to a mage?

In the corner of the room furthest from the windows, the Pale Doll was doing something akin to sleep as well — squatting low, arms wrapped around itself, the painted eyes in the head all closed. Did it dream at all, inside that wooden head? I hope so. On my right, Tenny and Casma were sharing a blanket again, snuggled down deep, as if in a sleeping bag. I felt a mighty spike of envy — because I should have been wrapped up in bed with Heather. And finally there was Kimberly.

She was bundled up in a blanket too, sleeping close to the large ornate wooden door of the room, so close that the door would bump her if anybody tried to get in. A human tripwire. Muadhnait's light kernel was still burning cold green in the middle of the floor. Two massive windows lay open and empty of glass, peering out on the night and the darkness; they were more like doorways than windows, with a small stone balcony just beyond. I needed to get my head back in the game.

This wasn't my story, but I was the only one with a sure-fire way of ending it — or was I? Did my emotional state regarding my sister have any say in if she turned up or not? Did I have the slightest bit of input on the tone, genre, or shape of the narrative in which we had become stuck? Did I matter to the 'Audience'? Was I the protagonist? My head was fucked. Too much pain, not enough clarity. I rummaged for my mobile phone, found it was still in my skirt pocket, and not yet broken.

I flicked through a few nice pictures, burning another precious percentage of battery life, (hello Aoi, bye Aoi), then decided that wasn't going to help. It's hard to feel horned up when you're torn up. Sitting up (ow), pushing the blanket back (ow), and getting to my feet (ow ow ow fuck ow) took maybe ten minutes, including some nice long pauses to catch my breath and brace myself for the next step of not being on the floor.

When I got upright I felt surprisingly strong; there was no actual structural damage to my legs, after all. My bandaged feet were starting to ache with the distinctive pain of a wound beginning to heal, and that was interesting, because it was different to the sharp pain of a new wound. I took one step toward the windows. I wanted to step out onto the narrow balcony of white stone and peer into the darkness.

"Maisie!?" Kimberly. Of course. Kimberly sat up, pushing her blanket off. She was halfway to her feet before I could even turn around properly. She had her t-shirt back on, but the short sleeves still showed the painted occult symbols running all the way to her fingertips.

"Maisie," she hissed again.

"Where are you— what are you—" I pointed to the windows and the balcony. It was only then that I realised I had my right arm clamped across my belly, as if to hold my guts inside. Kimberly crossed the room quickly, at my side in a heartbeat. Her hands hovered at my shoulders, not quite touching.

"No no, Maisie, you can't just … just …" The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"M'not going to leave," I whispered back.

"Just want to look. Look to want. Want for nothing."

"Please, please just lie back … lie back down …" But I was already stumbling away, padding silently over to the darkness beyond the walls. The stone balcony was tiny, a few square feet of space on which to stand and enjoy the view. The illumination from Muadhnait's light kernel spilled out of the room and crept up the high stone bannister, but no further. Beyond that stony lip lay a becalmed sea of night, a void in which we floated, more featureless and empty than any earthly ocean.

With a squint I could almost make out the lines and curves and humps and hillocks of the castle in which we were marooned, but that could have been my imagination. Darkness — that was the only thing beyond this island, and I didn't mean the little pool of light from the room. Briar, the fairies, the mage, whatever humans were elsewhere in this dimension, together they had made an island of narrative meaning amid this blank infinity. What had this dimension been before all those forces had arrived here?

Or had they brought the darkness with them? Or maybe that was just the pain talking. After a moment or two it became clear that my new friend, my particular Giggling Darkness, was probably not going to show up. Had it won the fight against Briar, or lost? Was it drunk with celebration, or bleeding to death in the bowels of the castle? Or was it perhaps just feeling a little shy, lacking the courage to approach me after a more successful third attempt?

Or maybe it was being polite, letting me lick my wounds until I looked pretty again. (I still looked pretty, and not despite the blood and scratches.) I was powerless to know, let alone help. A familiar feeling. (Fuck this.) Kimberly reappeared, a step or two back from the stone bannister, as if she didn't want to interrupt, but didn't dare leave me alone. I nodded at the space next to me, because both my hands were occupied with the simple act of propping me up against the lip of stone.

Kimberly crept up to the bannister, then followed my gaze out into the darkness. I could hear her breathing, the soft susurration of air going in and out of her nose. My breathing was rougher, longer, more difficult.

"… I keep …" I croaked, then cleared my throat.

"I keep talking to people at night, like this. Casma, then Muadhnait, now you. You too. I think it's the Audience, doing this to us. Doing everything to us?"

"I'm sorry?" Kimberly whispered, though not as quietly as she had hissed back inside the room. I raised my bandaged right hand and let it hang beyond the stone bannister, hoping the cool night air would seep through the fabric and soothe the throbbing. It didn't, but I kept it there anyway.

"Doesn't matter," I murmured.

"Mattered." Kimberly watched me for a long time, and I don't think she liked what she saw. The silence became unbearable, which was a new thing for me, because usually I didn't care about soundless weight. Eventually I turned my head to look at her.

"I'm not going to run off again," I whispered.

"Or run out. Or run on. Okay, I might do that last one, but only because I was always doing it anyway. Any which way." Kimberly swallowed. Her brief courage had departed for parts unknown.

"Kim," I said.

"I'm not going off on my own again. I couldn't even if I wanted, and I don't want. Anyway, I can't exactly leap off this bannister." I gestured at the night, the darkness, and the possibly illusory outlines of castle masonry sunk into the ink.

"At least not as I am, not am I as." I paused and frowned at that one; even I didn't get it, and it had come from my lips.

"Go back to sleep. Sleep on." Kimberly didn't say anything for a long time, but that awkward air of expectant waiting trailed away. She even looked somewhere other than at me — out into the dark again.

"It …" she started, swallowed, then tried again.

"It doesn't smell like Earth. That's what keeps getting to me, despite … or maybe because of everything else. There's this underlying scent, everywhere. It's a bit like the scent of old, wet, crumbling concrete, after fresh rain, when all the moss and little plants in the cracks are having a party. That's what it smells like here. Cracked concrete, full of things that shouldn't grow in it."

"Mm," I grunted. Then, because I thought she deserved a little more: "Mmhmm." Kimberly swallowed again.

"I would ask if you're all right, Maisie, but that seems like a really stupid question. I'm not good at this. I'm not like … well, like Heather. I'm even less like Raine. Or … or anybody, really. But … just … I'm here, if you want to talk."

"Are you?"

"Hm? S-sorry?"

"Here," I echoed, "if I want to talk."

"Yes," Kimberly said.

"Yes. Of course. It's … it's the least I can do. I mean, it's the only thing I can do." Kimberly meant 'if you want to talk to me about the brutal self-administered termination of your unplanned eldritch parasite-pregnancy', or perhaps 'if you want to talk to me about the litany of wounds that currently cover your simulated body'.

"I'm attracted to you," I said. Kimberly cleared her throat.

"I, uh, I figured that out."

"Oh." Silence again, but this time Kimberly didn't let it go on for too long.

"And I'm … I'm … not attracted to you," she said, and she said it gently.

"Not— um— not that you're not pretty, and good looking, and—""I know I'm pretty," I said. Kimberly was in my periphery, blushing only a little, too exhausted and strung out for the real deal.

"I'm pretty as all fuck. Pretty enough to fuck. Fuck pretty. It's okay. You don't have to reassure me." Kimberly let out a shuddering sigh. I let go of the possibility of this ever happening, and it wasn't hard. After all, I'd only been into Kimberly because she was there. Hadn't I?

"Who are you attracted to?" I asked.

"M-me? Um … well, uh. You've not met Fliss. Felicity. She was—""I know about her. Know enough to know where you stand. Go on. On you go."

"Oh, well, um. Fliss and I, we …" Kimberly trailed off with a little sigh.

"Why am I talking about myself? This was meant to be an opportunity for you, not me. Maisie, are you all right? I know I said I wouldn't ask that, but—""I want to think about something else," I said to the darkness beyond our pool of off-coloured light.

"Tell me about you and Felicity." Kimberly took a moment to gather herself.

"When she visited Sharrowford — n-not the first time, but the second time — she and I, we … well, I guess you could say we 'hit it off'. I wasn't expecting it or anything. I haven't been …

'looking' for a relationship, or … or even expecting it would ever happen, I mean— I mean, look at me." She let out a nervous little laugh.

"But … but anyway, it just kind of happened. She needed comfort, and I needed … I don't know. Attention, I suppose. We've got a lot in common, more than I thought we might. Similar experiences with … with magic, in a way. And she liked listening to me talk about the visual novels I've played. We've kept in touch online, since then. I'm … I'm thinking about going to visit her, sometime soon. Maybe take a week off work, and … you know."

"Did you fuck?" Kimberly made a strangled noise. Then, eventually, "Uh … n-no …

""How does she make you feel? Feel anything for her?"

"I … I don't know. Not yet. It's just … it's nice." I looked up at Kimberly.

"Nice?" She shrugged.

"Nice." I stared for a very long time — or what felt like a very long time with my body throbbing and aching and twitching and twinging, which is any length of time when you're in that much ambient pain. And for once, I was not the one looking away. Kimberly blinked first, out into the darkness.

"She's so fragile. She doesn't seem it, but she is. All those old wounds. The burns especially. She carries them well, but … you can imagine what it's like. And she's older than me. More …

'tired'? I hope that makes sense. And she makes me want to … cook for her. I know, I know that sounds such a stereotype, but I really do. I want to cook for her. I want to help her put on a couple of stone, because she's borderline underweight. I want to tuck her into bed. Make sure she puts on clean clothes every day. Make sure she eats." Kimberly took a deep breath.

"She'd never ask for any of those things, of course. It's not in her nature, I think. That's why she and Aym … never mind. She's a bit like an abused dog. Don't— don't ever repeat that, please. Don't tell anyone I said that, especially not Fliss herself."

"I promise." Kimberly nodded, without looking at me.

"But that's … that's what she makes me feel. I would like to look after her. Be a … a housewife, I suppose." Silence, this time at my choice.

"And what about the other one?" I asked. Kimberly's face twisted with discomfort.

"You mean Nicole."

"Mmhmm. She likes you too, doesn't she?" Kimberly sighed and looked at me with a very different kind of embarrassment.

"I'm not … interested in her, but she keeps trying. And it's … I don't …

""Keeps trying?" Kimberly looked intensely awkward.

"I haven't told anybody else about this yet, and don't repeat it, please, I don't want to get Nicole in trouble. A few days ago, she … she turned up at my work. At the florist. She bought a dozen red roses and then just … handed them to me."

"Ouch." Kimberly screwed her eyes shut for a moment.

"Yes. She scurried off again before I could … react, I suppose."

"What did you do with the roses?"

"Ah? Oh, I uh … I put them back in stock."

"So, you're in a love triangle. Triangled by two." Kimberly tutted.

"It's hardly a triangle!" she hissed.

"Fliss and I are … maybe a thing. Nicole is just an ex-cop who I'm really not into."

"Mm," I grunted.

"Messy." I looked at Kimberly. Really looked at her. Harder than I'd looked at anybody else except perhaps Heather. The heavy dark bags under her eyes, the desperation within. The greasy auburn hair pushed back over her scalp. The magical designs she'd drawn all over her arms and torso, even with the majority of it hidden under her t-shirt. Even the way she carried herself, stoop gone, shoulders higher than she seemed to realise.

The cartoon on her t-shirt — a diminutive witch wearing a gigantic hat — no longer seemed so silly. Even the starlight swirls on her pajama bottoms were no longer just for fun. This wasn't my story anymore, but it might be Kimberly's, and she didn't want it. Kimberly was meant for a cosy mystery novel set among the rainy hills and deep woods of Felicity's home, not this.

"You've changed," I whispered.

"Not so cringe anymore."" … sorry?" Kimberly blinked as if she hadn't quite heard me. I gestured at the magical designs which covered her exposed forearms. She glanced down at herself and sighed.

"Oh, these. It's not like I had any choice in the matter. I had to do something, anything, to protect Tenny and Casma."

"Mm. What does it actually do? Gets you done?"

"Most of it is protective. Intimidation, warding." She puffed out a hopeless non-laugh.

"Half of it doesn't work properly, the other half is cobbled together from half-remembered scraps. Fake it till you make it kind of stuff." Kimberly rolled up a portion of her left sleeve.

"The workings closer to my heart are more dangerous, though. It's hard to explain, but … with the right words and some tricks of thought, I can make myself dangerous to look at. Kind of. It's rough on my mind. I don't know if I can do it much, but it let Tenny and Casma get away with me, so …

""Tenny and Casma," I echoed.

"Yes, I … Maisie?"

"We know why you're here, Kim," I said.

"But Tenny, Casma?"

"Oh." Kimberly shook her head.

"You were unconscious when Mave was explaining. They really are just collateral damage, scooped up when Mave took you from inside the house."

"Ah." Kimberly tutted and tapped on the stone bannister with her fingertips.

"I swear, these fairies, they don't seem to have any sense of responsibility, none at all."

"Yuuuup." Kimberly's turn to look too closely at me. I let her do it, without staring back.

"You seem different too," she said.

"Like you've … I don't know, I'm sorry. Like you've calmed down? But that's probably just the pain. I'm sorry, Maisie."

"Mmhmm." Silence, for a final time. My right hand throbbed with waves of slow, fiddly, irritating pain. The darkness beyond the balcony did not thicken and tighten into my new best friend. The soft sounds of breathing continued unabated from the room behind us.

"I don't know what to do," Kimberly hissed. I let the silence drag on.

"I don't know what to do," she repeated. Her voice wasn't shaking anymore. Most of her habitual stutter was absent.

"We're stuck Outside, and I'm the responsible adult, and I don't know what to do. We can't stay here, Maisie. We can't stay in this castle. We can't fight that mage, or rescue Muadhnait's sister, or anything like that. We need to get out of here, maybe go to one of those holds Muadhnait was speaking about, but … but I don't think they'd let us in. What do we do? What do we do now?" She wasn't really asking me. I sucked on my teeth, but my thoughts were not helpful.

"I vote we kill the mage." Kimberly almost laughed. The quiver was worming its way back into her voice.

"But how? If we had … g-guns, or a bomb, or something, maybe. But all we have is us, and we don't have any way to deal with a mage. We need Heather. Or maybe Eileen? Or at least Lozzie. Or … oh, Goddess. You know what I mean, Maisie. We're not enough to do this. I don't have the skills."

"Neither do I." Kimberly drew in a great breath, and I could tell she was climbing down toward the end of her rope. Doing it to herself on purpose, testing her limits. Or venting, if you're feeling uncharitable. (And you shouldn't, not toward Kim.)"I haven't had a shower in three days," she said.

"I'm covered in magic … disgusting magic, magic they taught me to control zombies, and it's the only way to protect the kids. And I'm … I'm so hungry. We've had nothing to eat for days but oats. I never thought I could crave a ham and cheese sandwich so much." She started to pant.

"I feel like we're all going to die. Hungry and filthy and … and … and lost! And I have to hold it together, I have to hold it together in front of Casma and Tenny. I don't know how they do it, how they don't show any fear. I … I can't …

""I'll get us out of here," I said.

"Even if you're not going to reward me with a kiss." Kimberly laughed, low and bitter and more painful than I'd expected.

"If it would help get us out of here, I would prostitute myself to you. I would. Oh f-fuck." And for a moment— But only a moment. No.

"Don't joke about that," I said.

"Better to joke about better days." Kimberly swallowed, suddenly embarrassed. Which really was the better way for both of us.

"R-right. Right. Sorry, that was … that was really inappropriate. Sorry." She took a deep breath.

"Goddess I'm so hungry. I'd give almost anything for some meat. Or a block of cheese. Or a … a bacon sandwich. Oh gosh, if only—" A tap of wooden feet on the floor behind made both myself and Kimberly look around. A shadow fell over us. The Pale Doll towered in the doorway to the balcony, blotting out the light. Kimberly swallowed a squeak. I looked up at the thousand painted eyes, now all wide open.

"Yeah?" I rasped. The Pale Doll took another step forward, then swung itself off the side of the balcony, hands and feet clinging to the stonework of the castle exterior. It scuttled downward, descending like a spider. Within a few seconds it was gone, swallowed up by the darkness." … w-what was that about?" Kimberly asked.

"Probably gone to find us some food. Foraging for finds. Food finding." Kimberly let out a little puff of air that wasn't quite a laugh.

"Oh, don't give me too much hope."

"I'm serious. Serious as I am." Kimberly just stared down into the dark, then slowly said, "What did you mean earlier, when you were trying to talk with Heather, and you said … you said you're not you?"

"Hard to explain. Rather keep it for Heather. Sorry." Kimberly looked at me as if surprised, then almost laughed, in a better way than before.

"I … Maisie, I'm so sorry. I was … I've been treating you like Heather. Expecting you to have answers. Expecting … well, you know how she is. She always has more to say."

"Thank you," I said, before I knew why.

"Ah?"

"For saying it out loud," I said, as I realised.

"For saying that you were treating me like Heather. Though I am not like Heather."

"Yes. Yes, of course you're not. You're nothing like her. Even your looks are a bit different, but that's … complicated."

"Mmhmm. And she wouldn't have a solution to this problem," I whispered.

"She loves books too much to do what's necessary. She's too attached to them as physical things. Too attached to permanence." Kimberly went very still." … Maisie?"

"I have a plan. Or I'm planning one, in the cracks in the concrete, like you said. When Calderon or Mave return in the morning, to check on us, we're going to ask them for writing materials. Enough paper for a book, at least a short one. A novella might be enough. A novel notion. Something to write with, too. A pencil, probably. Or a chunk of charcoal. Whatever works." Kimberly blinked at me. She didn't get it.

She hadn't seen what I had seen — that 'inner sanctum' where the mage had all those tales, all those tomes, torn and ripped and reduced to pulp. She had not seen Muadhnait's sister offering up a raw manuscript to the mage. She had not thought on the meaning of that. (Neither had I, but my subconscious had, during all that pain and all that sleep.)"What … what for?" Kimberly asked. I stood up straight, which hurt a lot, but the hurt was real, and therefore, by the magic of transposition, I was real too.

A real me meant I had something to give, something to lose.

"I think I know how to get close to the mage," I said, staring off into the dark.

"Close enough to get her. Close enough to try. And I like this prison break the fairies want. Big approve. We're going to use bait, bait me as the hook." I looked up at Kimberly, at her eyes, at the heavy bags of deep exhaustion around her sockets.

"And then somebody has to land a killing blow. I don't think it can be me. I'm too fucked up right now."

"I— Maisie, I can't, I don't have any way to do it. Please, please, I can't, I don't have—""Somebody has to," I said.

"And I don't think the fairies can do it."

"Maisie." She almost whined my name, face collapsing.

"I can't—""I will only need you to do one thing," I said.

"You and Tenny and Casma. Muadhnait too. Maybe the doll. Maybe the fairies." Kimberly's cringing fear ebbed back." … what one thing? Maisie?" I smiled. It made Kim flinch. I didn't care. (Much.)"I'll need you to put out the lights."