Chương 330: mischief and craft; plainly seen - 21.14

A night in the woods is really quite scary. What an absurd thing for me to feel, no? I, Heather Morell (times seven) — who has walked the nighted loam and toxic leaves of Outsider forests and unearthly jungles far beyond any human sphere — was spooked by a little patch of English woodland.

I'd visited horizon-devouring continent-forests, where dying suns starved mile-thick mats of vegetation into cloying sheets of black rot; I'd wandered through dense thickets of living bramble and choking mist, where hidden horrors stalked behind the boughs; I'd crept along fungal groves which colonised and cloned any scrap of exposed animal flesh, shivering with vegetable motion as they imitated their prey.

As a teenager I'd been torn from sleep and deposited naked and shivering in storm-wracked pine forests where the trees moved whenever one wasn't looking, where giants peered through the canopy with eyes of burning lead, where the soil itself wished so dearly to eat one's ankles. I'd been chased by giant mushrooms, examined by ferns with pulsing exterior organs, and laughed at by unseen sprites playing in the upper leaves of mile-high trees. An English woodland was nothing by comparison.

Little here could actually hurt us. No bears or wolves trod these isles anymore, not outside of zoos — though some optimistic conservationists were attempting to reverse the latter. Eventually. Maybe. One day. A few boars may be found here and there, but breeding populations of what Tenny called 'hairy piggy friends' were carefully tracked, and none lived near Brinkwood, not that we knew of. The largest predator in these woods? The humble badger (no relation to ours).

And the European badger is such a skittish animal that we had no chance of even a fleeting glimpse, not with my tentacles pouring out strobing rainbow light, Zheng radiating silent predatory menace, and Raine crunching through the fallen summer leaves with the habitual gracelessness of any modern human; no offense to Raine, she is in fact very graceful, but even she didn't truly belong here, out in the woods.

Spotting a deer was even less likely — they'd be off the moment they heard us bumbling through the undergrowth, fleeing from the silly, loud, inelegant humans. Dark and spooky, yes. But nothing to be afraid of. The forests of the past were long gone, reduced to these stubs between the encrustations of the modern world.

I even went and looked it up that night, after we got back from our spur-of-the-moment excursion, in an effort to contextualise my feelings: only about 13% of the UK is wooded; of that, only 20% dates back to at least 1600. Patches like this — the area near to Geerswin Farm, protected by Hringewindla's unseen influence, at least a thousand years untouched by human hands — were vanishingly rare, and not even very large.

Seen with the clarity of a map, this tangle of untended woodland wasn't even a quarter of the size of Brinkwood itself. It soon gave way to roads and fields, the forest dribbling out even as it climbed the hills, reduced to orderly little copses and well-pruned scenic rural displays. But all the knowledge in the world did not soothe the nerves when one was down at ground level, in the dark.

Shadows slithered and slid behind the tree trunks as we crunched across the carpet of dry leaves, long fingers of night reaching off into the depths of the woods from every mute forest sentinel. The canopy far above swayed in the summer night's breeze, a static rustle always teasing at the edge of one's hearing — but warm winds did not reach down to the forest floor, where the air quickly grew clammy and cold and crept up behind one's back.

Things moved beyond my tentacle-light — rodents, rabbits, nothing really, but my mind magnified them a hundredfold. Spirit-life didn't help. There wasn't much of it this close to Hringewindla's territory, and the spirits seemed to steer clear of his bubble-servitors; two of those were following us, high above the treetops, glimpsed through the rare partings in the upper leaves — our friends keeping an eye on our safety, nothing more.

But that only meant that the spirit life also retreated to the fringe of darkness at the edge of my light: strange faces and insectoid limbs loomed out of the night, odd tentacles slipped away from tree trunks, while massive lumbering beasts sunk into the forest night as soon as we dared look. Zheng peered at some of them. Raine couldn't see. Instinct ruled, when an ape walked a forest at night.

One's rational mind said this was the 21st century, in the middle of England, and one need not jump and flinch at every rustle of leaf or snap of twig. But our ancestors had jumped and flinched and paused to listen, and so survived the nocturnal predators; the ones who hadn't, well, they weren't our ancestors. So we too were compelled. Or maybe that was just me — Raine certainly didn't flinch at every little sound.

She and I and Zheng set off in what felt like a random direction, away from Geerswin Farm, deeper into the woods. There was no pathway or track here, no foot-beaten way through the trees, so we let Zheng lead us on a meandering route, skirting thicker undergrowth, wandering past clusters of trees, avoiding the fallen trunks of fungus-eaten giants felled by storm and age. Raine held my hand. I kept my tentacles high to give us light.

The Saye Fox rode on Zheng's shoulders for a few paces, but then let out a soft yip — a request to be put back down. Zheng obliged and the Fox trotted along beside us, which was a very odd experience indeed. She didn't move like a dog alongside her human companions, but darted in little bursts, ears swivelling, head high as she hunted for prey. For the first couple of minutes nobody said anything. We walked in companionable silence.

I started to wonder what would happen if I wasn't present — would Raine and Zheng just walk on without speaking, communicating with body language instead of words? I sort of wished I could observe that without disturbing them or getting in the way. Would they do things with each other that they would never do around me? Probably not, but the idea was strangely exciting. What was I thinking? Fifteen minutes ago I'd been preventing a murder. Now I was, what, horny? Was this some kind of emotional backlash?

We started to blush, of course. And nobody was saying anything to interrupt my thoughts. So they ran on and ran, until Raine and Zheng were having a hypothetical 'fight' in my mind, and then—"Raine?" we said, desperate to break the silence. Our voice seemed so loud in the night.

"Are the others really okay, back there at the farm? I feel like I've abandoned my responsibilities." Raine glanced at me as we walked. Her face was framed by the darkness, but lit from the side by the slow rainbow pulse of my tentacles — like we were in a nightclub. She was sweaty from the confrontation at the farm, with a pistol still shoved down the front of her jeans, her beautiful chestnut hair swept back and sticking up. She chuckled softly and shook her head.

"Heather, love, hey, you can't take every burden on your shoulders alone."

"But I've left everyone else with so much to deal with. Haven't I?"

"Evee and Fliss and Jan are gonna deal with the cultists. No worries, Heather, seriously, I made sure of that before I left. And they've still got Praem, July, and Twil for muscle. They'll be fine. The cultists will be on their way back home soon enough. Then Ben and Amanda are gonna sit indoors with Evee and Praem, until it's time to head home with us. If we end up being out for too long, well, I can call Evee, Praem can take her home in my car, and then you can teleport me and Zheng back. Right?"

We blinked at her in shock, trying to process all of that.

"You really did think of everything, didn't you?" Raine cracked a grin, beaming with confidence.

"S'my job, Heather. Cover your blind spots." I sighed a big, sad sigh.

"I feel like I wasn't finished, back there." Raine reached over with her free hand and ruffled my hair.

"You were. And you did well. Seriously, Heather, you gotta learn to delegate. There was nothing more you could do there. Squid-god needs to let her followers pick up the slack, right?" I tutted and rolled my eyes.

"'Squid god', really? Raine, I'm not literally Cthulhu. One of these days we're going to leave somebody terribly confused." Raine laughed, less subtle than before.

"Don't let Evee hear you bring up the big unspeakable 'C'." My stomach threatened to drop out through my pelvis. We nearly stumbled in shock.

"Pardon? You mean Cthulhu? No, that's fiction. Raine, don't tell me Evee thinks it's real, that's just— no, absolutely not, I can't deal with that. Vampires and werewolves, okay, maybe. The King in Yellow — um, maybe not the best example. But no. Not that. That's not real. I refuse it." Raine shot me a teasing grin.

"Nah, she just hates it." I pressed a tentacle over my heart.

"Don't panic me like that, Raine!"

"Didn't mean to." She shot me a wink.

"Just cooling you down." Zheng rumbled, a few paces ahead of us, a wordless sound of agreement. Did she enjoy me getting all flustered as well? At least the Fox didn't yip.

"So," Raine said to Zheng, calling to the imposing wall of Zheng's back.

"Big girl. You missed a hell of a show today. Should'a come home earlier. Maybe you could'a gotten to chow down on a mage after all."

"Mmmm?" Zheng grunted. A dark eye glanced back over her shoulder.

"Oh!" I said.

"The dream! Of course, Zheng wasn't there, she doesn't know about all that."

"Uh huh," Raine said, rolling her tongue around inside her mouth.

"Heather found a book, and we met Mister Joking all over again." Zheng stopped, framed by the towering trees. She turned and stared at Raine, eyes narrowed to dark slits. The Saye Fox bounded forward and nuzzled at one of her ankles, so she couldn't have been radiating anger or menace. But she did loom so large and dark in the midnight shadows — and it wasn't even midnight, it was barely past sundown.

"Yeeeeeeah," Raine purred.

"Thought that might get your attention." Zheng rumbled: "Speak, little wolf." Raine filled in what Zheng had missed.

I listened, mostly passive, and realised just how absurdly busy the last couple of days had been: a complex trip Outside, meeting The King in Yellow again, getting introduced to Heart, locating and translating the manuscript about vegetable twins who had also been abducted by the Eye, going to see Twil — then the meeting with Yuleson this morning, our intrusion of Joking's dream, and finally this confrontation with the last remaining dregs of the Sharrowford Cult. I'd had a very long forty eight hours.

Several of my tentacles agreed that after this, it was time for sleep. Lots of sleep. Zheng listened, purring like a tiger; by the time Raine had finished, Zheng was baring her teeth.

"You allowed the wizard his freedom?" she rumbled — at me.

"The clown escaped." I flinched a tiny bit. Raine squeezed my hand and Zheng purred deep in her chest, an I'm-not-angry-but-I'm-not-happy sound, a tiger letting you know that the food did not meet her approval, but she was not going to remove your head for the offense, at least not this time.

"Well … yes," we said eventually.

"Joking wasn't a threat to us, not directly. We got what we wanted out of him with a deal, rather than violence. And I'm not sure we could have gotten that with violence anyway. It required his cooperation. Besides, I'm not sure I have any right to start designating every mage as a threat and then getting rid of them. That's a dark path to start down, Zheng." She rumbled: "Alexander. Edward." I sighed. We hadn't wanted to argue with her, but here we were. We said: "They were both direct threats to us, to all of us.

To Lozzie, to you, to me. Dealing with them was right, yes. But applying that to everyone else? Zheng, I can't do that. I can't transform myself into judge, jury, and executioner for every mage we ever meet." Zheng bared her teeth in a silent refutation; I might not be able to do that, but she could.

"Besides," we carried on before she could say anything more.

"I thought you'd be more surprised by the revelations about the Eye." Then I frowned.

"Wait a moment. Zheng, you were present, in Joking's dream memories. You were there when he spoke to the Eye through Alexander. I saw you in one of the side rooms." Zheng shrugged.

"Mage filth was of no concern to me. Worms dragged me away when the howling started. I heard nothing. I concealed nothing from you, shaman." I actually laughed, almost embarrassed.

"Oh, Zheng, no. You of all people are completely trustworthy. You didn't seriously think I was doubting you, did you? I was just … curious … I …" Zheng tilted her head.

"You … you did doubt me?" We boggled at her. That hurt, deep inside my chest. Zheng didn't think we trusted her, implicitly and totally?

"Zheng, I—" Raine spoke up.

"Heather trusts you more than she trusts me. At least, I think she does."

"R-Raine!" we squeaked, growing yet more mortified.

"I trust you, too! I don't put one of you ahead of the other. I don't! I never—""The shaman has made me her puppy," Zheng rumbled.

"Trust — yes. Trust in judgement? Perhaps not." I winced.

"Zheng, I thought we already … well … sort of … resolved this?" Zheng grinned, wide and toothy — very Cheshire Cat, against the dark background of the night-shrouded trees. She was toying with me, batting me about like a prey animal. I huffed and tutted and had half a mind to stamp my feet.

"Zheng! I thought you were being serious!" Zheng kept grinning.

"It is true, is it not, shaman? You do not trust my judgement, or you would not guide me from my prey." She lost her grin and purred, deep and rumbly.

"Mmm, perhaps that is the point. I have not considered this before." Raine said: "Sometimes you gotta tell Heather 'no'."

"H-hey!" we squeaked again.

"Raine, what is that supposed to mean?" Raine grinned at me.

"It means sometimes you're a bossy little brat and you need a good spanking." I hadn't blushed so hard in weeks. Our face turned bright red from throat to hairline. We felt like steam would pour from our ears, our cheeks light up the night like an emergency rescue flare. My tentacles very nearly did, palette-shifting their rainbow-strobe pattern toward crimson blush, brightening and flaring as we all went very stiff.

Suddenly I was acutely aware that I was alone in the woods with a pair of predators — my lovers, certainly, my protectors, absolutely. But predators none the less. Several tentacles coiled with shivering anticipation. One limb crossed over our chest in a gesture of coquettish self-concealment. Zheng rumbled deep in her chest, a sound of dark amusement.

"The shaman needs a reminder?" Raine stared into my eyes, lips curled with a dangerous grin, showing the edges of her teeth; had they always looked so sharp, or was I transposing Zheng onto Raine? Raine's beautiful chestnut hair was framed by the darkness, by the shadows of the trees at her rear, a halo of night around my razor-sharp angel of muscle and meat and barely contained malice. A corner of her tongue slipped out between her incisors, poking at the soft pink of her lips.

"Maybe," she purred.

"I- uh- I mean- um!" I struggled for words, suddenly breathless. Neither of them had moved, but I felt penned in, cornered, pressed against a tree trunk in the dark forest, all alone. Little Heather, you've wandered off the path and into the woods. You've allowed a pair of wolves to lead you astray, and now they're going to ravage you, and you rather like the idea. Raine and Zheng are about to— To what? Do the same thing we did in bed? Why was I so nervous? Why was my heart fluttering like crazy?

"I-it's sort of … dirty … in the woods," I managed to squeeze out.

"Even though it's dry. Because it's summer." Raine cocked an eyebrow.

"Heather?" Zheng rumbled: "The shaman is in heat."

"Z-Zheng …" I hissed. Raine just grinned wider.

"I can see that part. She does make it obvious, don't she?" Zheng said, "The shaman thinks we are going to rut with her." Raine raised her eyebrows at Zheng.

"We're not?"

"Mmm. I am … still sore." Raine frowned.

"Ah?" I cleared my throat, desperate to de-escalate.

"Y-yes! Zheng has a point. We can't solve emotional problems with sex. Zheng, thank you, I love you and I do- I do- I do like it when— well, you know what I mean. But yes, you're a bit emotionally sore and we shouldn't be trying to solve this with sex."

"Couldn't hurt to try," said Raine.

"Actually, I think that would be the opposite of hurt. By definition."

"Tch!" I tutted.

"Raine! I'm being serious." Raine burst out laughing. Her voice carried off through the trees.

"And I'm not! Did you seriously think I was gonna do you up against a tree, Heather?" My face was busy turning several fascinating shades of rare scarlet; if this kept up I wouldn't need my chromatophoric skin anymore, I'd just transform into a lobster. Not all of us — us Heathers — agreed, of course. Two of my tentacles found this a delightful notion, and wanted to reach toward Raine and goose her sides to encourage her onward.

Another two were shivering with anticipation, paralysed, waiting for Raine to make a move. One of the tentacles we were using for light was easing her colouration toward a flirtatious pink; we dialled that back.

"I mean!" I squeaked.

"I wouldn't! Put it past you!" Raine purred, almost as deep as Zheng: "Wanna try me?" I squeaked, eyes going wide, feeling my knees give out. I almost said yes, but then— Zheng took off like a boulder from a trebuchet. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. She shot away to the left, one heel kicking up a little puff of dry leaves. I squealed and flinched, tentacles going everywhere; Raine actually jerked upright, one hand going for her gun.

Zheng darted into the woods, between the trees, beyond the circle of gently pulsing tentacle light. Her coat whipped out behind her for a split second, and then she was gone, swallowed by the night. The Saye Fox trotted up to the spot where Zheng had been standing, sat down on her haunches, and sniffed the air.

"W-what …" we stammered.

"What was— what—" Raine cleared her throat and removed her hand from her pistol.

"It's nothing, Heather. Don't worry. She had me going for a second there, but she's just playing." We boggled at Raine, then at the Fox, then off into the darkness where Zheng had vanished.

"How can you be sure? How can you know that? Raine?" Raine laughed softly, almost but not quite embarrassed.

"She moves differently when there's a real threat. She would have let me know."

"How?" Raine shrugged.

"She just would have done. That's how we communicate. She's brilliant in her own way, you know that?"

"Of course I know that," I muttered, staring off into the darkness.

"Is she coming back, or are we supposed to follow her?"

"Oh, no," Raine said. She even cracked a grin.

"If we were playing that kind of game, she would have announced the rules. Well, maybe bodily. But she'd announce them all the same. Nah, this is a solo thing. She'll be back in a sec, if I'm right. Though, uh, brace yourself, Heather. It might be a bit grisly. Just hope it's not a badger. Or a fox." She glanced at the Saye Fox.

"You wouldn't like that, would you, Miss? Or should I call you Mrs?" The Saye Fox just stared back at Raine with those glowing orange eyes, like little fires inside her vulpine skull.

"Suit yourself, then," said Raine. We all stared off into the dark. Raine turned out to be correct. Zheng returned a few moments later — carrying a dead squirrel.

"Oh!" I blurted out as soon as she stepped into the circle of light.

"Oh, Zheng. Oh my gosh. Did you kill that just now?"

"Mm," Zheng grunted. She stopped a few paces away and lifted her kill by the tail. It was grey and furry and very dead, all limp, little limbs hanging loose. I winced and had to look away. At least there was no blood. Raine said, "Are congratulations in order? Or would that be like applauding you for heating up a microwave meal?"

"A clean kill," Zheng rumbled on, without actually answering the question.

"A broken neck." I said: "Zheng, please."

"Shaman, it felt nothing but my hand. A moment of pain." She sounded surprised.

"Still, I'm not sure I want to …

""You eat meat, shaman. Do you not?"

"That's not the same," I said, automatically. Zheng rumbled with displeasure, almost offended. I blinked up at her in surprise. She was still holding the dead squirrel by the tail, framed by the night and the thick tree trunks beyond our circle of light. The Saye Fox had moved next to one of Zheng's massive boots, her orange eyes glued to the dead squirrel. Ah, yes, she was a predator too, simply by nature. Zheng was regarding me with heavy-lidded eyes, dark and distant; I wasn't sure what that meant.

Raine stayed diplomatically quiet.

"Zheng?" I said.

"The clean kill," Zheng purred.

"The quick death. The respect for the prey. This is less worthy than the slaughterhouse?" A knot twisted in my stomach.

"Ah. Well. No. When you put it that way, no, of course not." Zheng rumbled again, then raised the squirrel corpse and opened her mouth. I winced and averted my eyes again.

"Look at me, shaman," she rumbled.

"Or do you deny what I am for even a morsel of squirrel meat?"

"Zheng!" I huffed — but I looked up at her.

"Of course I don't! I just don't want to watch you crunch down on a squirrel's head, thank you very much."

"You watched the beasts of the swamp devour their offering, their cow. Did you not, shaman? Am I not equally worthy?" She was talking about the Shamblers, and how we'd fed them an entire cow's carcass, tossed it into the swamp and watched them turn up to pull chunks off the bones. She had a good point — that was a much more grisly display than this. Much less blood, too.

"Of course you are!" I tutted again.

"Zheng, why do you want me to watch you eat a squirrel? What is this actually about? It's not as if you haven't dumped deer carcasses on our kitchen table in the past." Raine cleared her throat.

"Because you wouldn't let her kill that mage."

"Well, yes!" we said.

"But why does that mean a random squirrel has to suffer?" Zheng rumbled: "It did not suffer. I already told you that, shaman." I cocked an eyebrow at Zheng.

"Is this meant to be a punishment of some kind? Zheng, I'm not actually squeamish, I've seen much worse than this, it's just not … enjoyable to watch." Raine started to laugh. She couldn't keep the grin off her face anymore.

"You're being real petty, big girl," she said to Zheng. Zheng purred and glanced off into the woods, darkly frustrated.

"So," I said.

"You killed a random squirrel to make a point to me?"

"I would have killed it anyway, shaman."

"Why?" Zheng narrowed her eyes.

"Because I am hungry." She raised the squirrel by the tail again, then tossed it and caught it again so she was holding it by the torso.

"Every piece of the body will be used. None wasted. This is respect, shaman. It is better than any mage deserves."

"And the squirrel isn't a mage," we said. Zheng stared at me in silence for a few moments. I had offended her on some level I didn't fully understand. Because I was turning my eyes away from what she was? From this core element of her fundamental nature? This was an unwinnable argument. Even if I did not understand, I did not want to hurt her. I wanted to respect her.

"Eat your squirrel," we said after a moment.

"I'll watch. I won't turn away. I promise." Zheng rumbled softly, then nodded. She lifted the dead squirrel to her mouth and ate her meal. The process was both messy and loud — much louder than I'd expected. In death the squirrel had barely bled at all, but Zheng got blood and guts all over her hands as soon as she started dismantling the animal. She began by biting off the head and crunching down on the skull, eyeballs and fur and all.

She had not exaggerated when she said no piece of the prey would go to waste — all except a small portion of the lower intestine, which ended up on the forest floor. I didn't expect her to literally eat poo, so that was understandable. She crunched through bone, chewed up meat and organs, swallowed fur and skin and claws and sinew and all. She extracted a couple of choice cuts of meat from the hind legs as she ate, and dropped them for the Saye Fox. The Fox happily wolfed down her treats and then whined for more.

Zheng obliged. I kept my word. I watched the whole thing, from first bite to last morsel, all the way to Zheng licking the remaining scraps of sticky scarlet off her fingers. The iron-tang scent of hot, fresh blood filled the air, mixing with the leaf-rot and the living bark of the woods, muddied by the soil, given context by the green growth hidden in the darkness. Raine watched too, curious but not disgusted.

My stomach turned over as we watched — but not entirely with distaste; beneath the visceral dislike of watching a small mammal get pulled apart, I began to salivate. My tentacles responded with the urge to sprout claws and hooks and spikes, not out of aggression, but with a kind of playful predation. Abyssal instinct woke and stirred inside my chest, whispering suggestions about finding a little hot juicy morsel of meat for ourselves. After all, I'd acted like that in the abyss, had I not? I was a predator too.

We saw ourselves in Zheng, for just a moment. We'd never felt this before — no, that wasn't true. We had, but only in moments of extreme stress and violence, when the urge had been tied up with self-defence, or aggression, or peeling secrets out of human skulls. It had never before felt so normal. Raine watched too. She watched me, as well. When Zheng was nearly done, Raine squeezed my hand.

"Heather, you okay?" I let out a shuddering sigh; Zheng had made her point — she and I were not so very different, even if that hadn't been the point she'd wanted to make. I laughed awkwardly, and said: "Maybe I really should go vegetarian. Maybe it would be safer." Zheng popped a bloody finger out of her mouth.

"Shaman?"

"Yes, I'm sure you wouldn't approve, Zheng."

"Mmmmmmm?" Zheng purred, turning her head sideways as she licked more squirrel blood off her palms.

"I mean, you eat a lot of meat. Entirely meat, actually, and if I was to—""The shaman's choice is the shaman's choice. It is the way." Then she grinned.

"Not that I would stop."

"And I wouldn't expect you to!" I squeaked.

"That's entirely beside the point." Zheng just grinned and rumbled a laugh deep in her chest. She finished cleaning her hands, then looked off into the darkness, in the direction we'd been travelling before we'd stopped.

"Onward, shaman?"

"Onward!" Raine cheered, raising her hand and mine together.

"Onward, I suppose," we agreed. Zheng led the way once more, though closer than before; a rift between us had sealed. The Saye Fox trotted at her side. Raine and I followed. We hiked up a low ridge, another undulating wave in the landscape of the woods, and passed below a towering clutch of massive trees, higher than the surrounding canopy. We descended into a little valley with a tiny, sluggish stream at the bottom; the water was black in the night, tarry-dark with silt and clay.

Zheng left massive bootprints in the banks. Raine and I took the drier ground. The Fox vanished around a bush and then appeared on the other side of the stream somehow. Zheng paused to stare at the roots of a fallen tree, open like the mouth of a great beast in the loamy, sticky, dark earth. Raine pointed out mushrooms and gave them names and reminded us not to eat any of them — even Zheng, with her iron stomach and demonic immune system. As we walked, I began to feel a strange new temptation.

The woods at night were not so different to the abyss, when looked at from the wrong angle. The trees offered handholds to climb, like ascending the water column in the deep darkness; could we use our tentacles to launch ourselves up into the canopy, fulfilling the latent suggestion in the bizarre combination of ape and cephalopod that we were? Probably, if we tried, and didn't listen to the fear of falling. Could I rush off into the woods like Zheng had done, and catch me a squirrel? Maybe.

If I was clever and fast and didn't face-plant into the mud in the first five seconds. I doubted I could actually bring myself to kill a small mammal, I didn't have it in me. Another paradox — I, who had killed human beings, and mages, sent them Outside and destroyed them utterly, was unwilling to wring the neck of one squirrel. But then again, the squirrel hadn't done anything to me. Zheng was at home in the woods, almost as much as the Fox. I might be, if I was willing to try, or if I was pushed by need.

But Raine wasn't, despite her confidence; she was a human being. We spoke as we walked.

"So," I said.

"Raine, you said that Zheng needs to talk? That's why we're out here in the first place, isn't it?" Raine chuckled.

"And you too, Heather, you're all wound up."

"Um, less wound up now that I've watched Zheng eat a squirrel, I think. I feel oddly better, actually. Centered? Mindful? Better, anyway." Zheng purred from up ahead: "I have talked." Raine said, "Not about what matters, big girl. No you ain't. And you know you ain't." We came to a jagged slope, a shallow hillside riven by bare earth; in any season but summer the short descent would be impossible, one would have slipped instantly, fallen on one's backside, and slid all the way down the slope.

But the heat had baked the mud to a rock hard crust. Zheng went first, descending in leaps and bounds. Raine and I picked our way more carefully. Raine kept a tight grip on my hand. I used my tentacles to give us an unfair advantage. At the bottom of the slope was an actual footpath — not much more than a track through the leaves and the undergrowth, beaten by generations of human feet passing this way.

To the left the path vanished into the darkness, winding between the trees; to the right was a tiny wooden bridge over a shallow stream — just a pair of naked planks, a single upright handrail, and a tiny, weathered, moss-encrusted National Trust signpost. The signpost was so old that the text was illegible, worn away by sunlight and rain and the tiny eaters of the woodland ecosystem. Zheng was standing on the bridge, feet planted on the woods. The planks didn't seem sturdy enough to support her weight.

Her hands were in her pockets, chin raised, eyes narrowed. The Saye Fox was on the other bank, waiting for us to join her. I hadn't seen her descend the slope. Zheng rumbled: "What matters, little wolf?" Raine cracked a grin.

"What is this, Billy Goats Gruff? Are you the bridge troll, demanding your bridge toll?" Zheng grinned back, toothy and sharp.

"Yes, little wolf. Truth or dare." I sighed and tutted.

"Really? We're not thirteen year olds. Or characters in an American romantic comedy. Truth or dare? Zheng, what are you doing?"

"Dare," said Raine.

"Leap the river," Zheng purred. Raine let go of my hand, took a couple of steps back, and narrowed her eyes as she judged the distance between the banks of the stream.

"Raine!" I squeaked.

"It's the middle of the night — well, evening — it's dark, and getting cold, and that's actual water! If you fall in you could catch cold. Or at least have a very soggy walk home! No, please, don't." Raine flashed me a grin.

"Hardly a river. Stream, at best. Can't be more than six inches deep. And I'd leap that before breakfast, Heather. Here we go!" Raine took a quick little run up — then jumped over the stream without issue. She landed neatly on the other side, raised her arms, and said: "Ta-da!" Zheng rumbled approval. The Saye Fox went yip-yip. Raine said: "Right. My turn, big girl. Truth or—""Truth," Zheng purred. Raine pretended to think, putting her chin in one hand and raising her eyebrows.

I took the opportunity to cross the bridge, clearing my throat for Zheng to move. She ushered me in front of her and then joined us on the opposite bank. To our right, the woods crawled off up an incline, into the slimy darkness, hemmed in by overgrown ferns and bushes.

"Truth then," Raine said. She pointed at Zheng.

"Here we go. And you gotta answer, that's the deal. Zheng — why'd you really run off to the woods after we finished off Edward? Does it have anything to do with little Grinny?" Zheng stared for a moment, unreadable.

"That is two questions."

"It's one question in two halves. Don't you get clever with me." Raine cracked a grin. Zheng blinked slowly. She reminded me of a big cat, a tiger prowling the forests of the night. I didn't want to touch her hands right then, not until she'd sanitised properly with some soap and water, but I curled one tentacle around her forearm, soaking up the inner heat from her body. Zheng and I had already discussed this, however briefly. But this was Raine asking her the same question; it was not my place to answer.

"The child," Zheng rumbled eventually.

"Leaves me conflicted." We cleared my throat.

"That was the exact same thing you said to me, Zheng."

"Mm," Zheng grunted Raine said, "'Cos you saved her, didn't you?" Zheng bared her teeth — not aggressive, just thinking.

"The mooncalf protected her. The mooncalf saved her." Raine shook her head.

"Lozzie may have thrown the lifebuoy, but Zheng, it was your words which made that demon try to swim at all. She would have clung to Eddy-boy all the way down otherwise. You peeled her off." Zheng said nothing. She just started into the darkness. Raine was correct; when we'd had Edward cornered at last, his Grinning Demon — Grinny, the monster made from the corpse of his late wife — had clung to him, not out of love, but in a parody of devotion, a desire to be the one to kill him, to eat his flesh.

Zheng had correctly deduced that Grinny would be unable to bring herself to strike the mage down. Zheng's words from that moment rang through my memories:"Look at me," Zheng purred.

"I am free. I am loved. You can have both." I cleared my throat gently. The night and the forest seemed to swallow the tiny sound.

"Zheng, that was all you. Raine's right. You freed her." Zheng still said nothing. Was she — uncomfortable? I could hardly believe that. I'd seen Zheng angry, furious, smouldering, filled with lust, or hunger, or strange aggression, or purring with satisfaction, even sparring with Raine. I'd seen her cry over memories of her long-lost sister, or wallow in sorrow over her own past. But I'd never seen her so uncomfortable in such a basic way. Raine said, "Never freed a demon before?"

"No," Zheng purred.

"Oh," I said, softly. Raine was nodding.

"Uh huh. Just never came up before, right? Because they're always just tools, used by mages. Freeing them means killing them. But not this time. Why so different, big girl?

'Cos she was so obviously being used? Never helped one of your own kind before, not …" Zheng lowered her gaze from the darkness and stared at Raine with all the intent of an ice-cold razor blade. Raine trailed off — not intimidated, but curious.

"Z-Zheng?" I said, feeling more than a little nervous.

"My kind," Zheng echoed.

"My kind were the people of the great forest. A tribe, in a land that no longer exists. Reduced to nothing by Rus and Mongol. My kind is gone, little wolf. Dregs may remain, but they are not mine. You know that." Raine took a deep breath and spoke two words in a language I'd never heard before. To my ears they sounded like 'kejta ilamat'. To Zheng, they meant something more Zheng stared at Raine like she'd seen a ghost. Her eyes widened. She froze.

"R-Raine?" I said.

"What was that?" Raine cleared her throat and managed to look sheepish, a rare treat from her, I was amazed.

"That was 'I am sorry', or 'I apologise'," Raine said, "in Tundra Yukaghir. Or at least it was the best I could do." She turned her attention back to Zheng, and said: "I know, big girl, the linguistic drift since your time must be ridiculous, and I'm sure my pronunciation was terrible. There's almost no books on it either, even dictionaries. I had to dig some digitized copies out from the university library's academic access program — and those were in Russian, which I can't speak either, so that was fun.

Everyone who still speaks it for real sure as hell doesn't speak any English, not beyond 'okay' and 'hello'. I was actually trying to learn a few sentences. Was gonna surprise you, big girl. But I put my foot in it just now. You're right — demons are not 'your kind'. Your people were, well, a people, a long time ago. I apologise." Zheng stared and stared and stared. Perhaps it was the silence and shadows of the night, but I thought I saw tears shining in her eyes.

Then Zheng roared at the top of her lungs, splitting the night with a cry, and rushed at Raine. For one terrible moment I thought Raine had caused such offense that my two beloved were about to come to real blows. The Saye Fox went yip-yip-yap. We almost lashed out with my tentacles to stop Zheng, or to shove Raine back — but some instinct stayed my hands. Zheng swept Raine off her feet, like she might with me, so easy with those demon muscles.

She laughed in a kind of triumph I'd never heard before, swung Raine in a circle, and put her back down. Raine staggered with the impact, laughing along with Zheng, blinking and blushing — which was very new and very exciting. Before Raine could take a step back, Zheng put a hand on her head, fingers running through her chestnut hair, just like she would with me.

"Little wolf," she purred.

"Liked that, did you?" Raine panted, somewhat surprised by Zheng's impromptu celebration.

"Thank you, little wolf. Your pronunciation was terrible. The words weren't even right — the drift, yes, too far. But that matters not. Thank you." Raine grinned with success. Zheng, to my surprise and delight, leaned in and down, as if to kiss her. But Raine ducked her head back, one hand up to stall the affection.

"Woah, woah, big girl, hey. Hold off on that for now, hey?" Zheng paused.

"Mm?" Raine laughed.

"You just ate a wild squirrel. My immune system is only human." Mine's not, I thought. Our sevenfold heart flooded with sympathetic disappointment — how romantic and poetic and lovely it would be for Zheng and Raine to share a kiss, after that sweet gesture. Part of us wanted to see it, too; Top-Right was beside herself with glee. But Raine was only human. There was no telling what that wild squirrel may have carried in its flesh. Zheng's demonic immune system would burn up any intruder, but Raine was only human.

Only human. One of us made a suggestion — Bottom-Left tentacle, though the idea spread rapidly through us all in a flash of temptation and guilt. What if we shared our immune system with Raine? We felt the ghostly after-image of a bio-steel needle inside a tentacle-tip, like a bone inside flesh. We shivered and gulped with anticipation and need. Evee had told us never to do this, never inject a human being with this stuff, this tripartite soul-fluid distilled from the abyssal approximations inside our bio-reactor.

But then Zheng and Raine could kiss! We weren't that far gone. We clamped down on the notion — it was mad. But it would make Raine more than human. Make her able to withstand—"That was a very lovely gesture, Raine," I blurted out instead, to cover my growing horror. Zheng grunted an approval, let go of Raine, and stepped back. She didn't seem offended by the refused kiss. Raine just shrugged and grinned.

"The little wolf has a point," Zheng purred.

"The child — she needs a name. She needs one to take responsibility for her. She needs a sister, as I had. She has none. She has a friend, in the puppy. That is not enough."

"Tenny?" I asked. Zheng nodded.

"I know her not. She knows me only as aid, a hand in the dark. But … mmmmmm." She purred.

"I will be the sister, this time? For a time, at least." Raine shot her a wink.

"Spend some time with her. Just try it out." Zheng nodded. They both seemed as if a weight had lifted from their shoulders, as if the distance between them had shortened, as if a gap had closed. But now a weight had settled on me. We'd been so busy the last two days that I'd avoided thinking about this. Even when I'd asked Twil the same question, or when I'd begun planning with Jan for the creation of Maisie's body.

The fundamental question, the one we'd asked Raine again and again, which she had continued to answer by staying by our side. But now it was real, less than two weeks away, if Evee's preparation went to plan. We could not bottle this up, not in front of these two; Raine was already beginning to frown at me, seeing right through my exterior. Zheng was cocking an eyebrow, the question forming behind her lips. If we could speak this nowhere else but amid the dark forest, we had to speak it. We just blurted it out.

"Raine, Zheng," we said, voice shaking slightly.

"I don't want you to come to Wonderland with us. Either of you." Raine frowned.

"Heather?"

"Shaman," Zheng rumbled.

"You fear."

"Of course I fear!" I said.

"I keep trying not to think about it, but I'm terrified! I love both of you, and I don't want you to die, or even to get hurt. And you just— you want— you want to be Grinny's older sister, to give her something to cling to, as she grows? Good! Fine! Yes! But we might all be dead in two weeks. This might not work! Zheng, you're really, really, really good at punching things, very hard. But what can you punch, out there in Wonderland? I don't want you to die, I—""I am invincible, shaman," Zheng rumbled.

I boggled at her.

"You …

""As long as you live, I am invincible, shaman. There is nothing more to discuss. I will stand by your side beneath the gaze of whatever foe is before you. If you stand, I stand. That's all." Raine said, "Heather, if you think I'm not coming with you, you're having a laugh." I turned to her, trying not to let the lump in my throat grow any larger. The trees were so tall, the night so deep, and Raine so alive amid it all.

"Raine," I said.

"You're only human. The rest of us going — even me, even Lozzie, or Evee — we're all monsters, or mages, or supernatural, and you're just … just you." Raine cracked a grin.

"You think I give a shit?" I blinked at her; she was radiating menace in that moment, rolling off her in waves.

"R-Raine?"

"I don't need to be a mage or a werewolf or a demon to kick every arse you wanna put in front of me, Heather. You wanna juice me up with that tentacle jab, don't you?" I blushed, bright-red scarlet, almost worse than before. My tentacles all tried to duck away, embarrassed, before realising that would plunge us all into darkness.

"I-I-I didn't say—""You have my permission."" … Raine?" I could barely squeeze the word out.

"Not right now, not yet. But if I ever go down, or if I seem like I'm done — I mean, really, truly, fucking done — you've got permission."

"But— Evee said— we don't know what that might do, or—""I don't give a shit," said Raine. Her grin shifted, from aggressive to teasing.

"Would it help if I said I want you inside me?"

"Raine!" I squeaked. I was almost crying.

"I'm being serious, I-I'm terrified that you're going to get hurt out there, I—""And I'm scared you're gonna get hurt, so I'm coming with you. That's all." We started crying, though only softly, driven by the devotion before us. Raine pulled us into a hug and kissed our forehead. We clung to her, shaking and shivering, rubbing our face on her shoulder. We stayed like that for a long time. We felt Zheng's hand on our skull, a comforting warmth.

"Yip!" went the Saye Fox. Raine and I parted softly. We both looked down at the orange vulpine eyes, glowing in the forest darkness.

"Nuh uh," said Raine.

"Mmmhmm," Zheng echoed.

"Sorry, pardon?" I asked. Raine said, "She's definitely not coming. The fox, I mean, no matter how worried she is about Evee. Outside is no place for foxes, however much they want to help. Right?" Outwardly I laughed, a little giggle to dispel the fear; but inwardly I agreed more than I could voice. Outside was no place for unaltered humans, however much they wanted to help.