Shane shot to her feet, any pretense of recuperation from the psychic tide abandoned. She tottered to one side, Roselyn buttressing her before she could topple and further stain her clothing, already a mess from abandoning her body on the saturating earth. Shane righted herself in stern silence, appraising each of them in turn. Roselyn and Arden shot looks between them that looked like they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, which contained their murder victims' hard drugs. Steven shrugged at a question no one had asked, gripping his sword in his hand. Jian Yue shifted his weight from foot to foot, reading the vibes, but not the words. Kit, for his part, fought every urge to express anything like guilt or fear, which made him shiver. "Everyone intact?" Shane asked, no playfulness in her tone. "Yes," said Roselyn. "Circle broken, fire out?" "Yes and yes." Shane narrowed her eyes at the extinguished fire. "Any other magic in need of banishing?" "No." Shane's posture eased, though barely. "Any enemies, ill-wishers, sudden allies, or strangers of whom I have not been apprised?" "Not to our knowledge," hedged Roselyn. Shane clenched and actively relaxed her jaw. "It will have to suffice," she said. "Go up the hill to the garden. Say the least amount you can until we are there." She shot a look at Kit that burned to his guts. "Do not run." "Why?" he asked despite her prohibition. "It attracts the attention of immortal things," Shane said through her teeth as though a ventriloquist who did not want anyone to see how the trick was done. "Have you never read The Last Unicorn?" "No one told me it was required reading for paranormal things," he said. "Are there unicor---" He caught Shane's glare and shut up before he could finish asking the question, wising up enough to follow Shane and crew through the chilled woods until they reached a walled garden. The whole walk up the hill, Kit imagined eyes on him. They passed a couple of students strolling by on a pebbled path, unaware that malicious divinity was as close as the river's edge. The garden was in full bloom, a botanical impossibility in this March climate. Kit fingered a rose blossom as though it might melt beneath his fingertips, but it retained its silken firmness. Shane stepped gingerly over the milky quartz gravel, resting her hand on the lap of a statue of a half-sized headless girl. Kit thought for a moment that it would open a secret panel or drain the pond in the center of the garden. There was no other reaction, and none of the other people seemed to notice or care. Shane told them to sit, which only Kit and Jian Yue did together, the latter half a second after the former. Settling under the pergola felt to Kit as good as hiding his head under a blanket when he feared a closet monster. Vines thread through the lattice overhead, turning the moonlight green and aquatic. The bridge over the Hudson twinkled through the leaves, and he squeezed his eyes tight to fight off imagining some Godzilla with a bow on its head ripping it into the Hudson. Steven rested his back against the wall, pulling the sword from his back. Shane did not sit. She paced a short, tight line in the gravel, her eyes flicking from wall to ground to wall as her lips moved silently in plotting. "What is the play here?" Roselyn asked tentatively. Shane swallowed, turning her eyes on the witch, before saying, "I don't know." "You don't... know?" Kit asked. He did not know she could admit ignorance. She did not, he realized, imagine she could be ignorant. Shane told all she could with the plainest detail she could embroider. When dealing with the numinous, one had to resist the urge to succumb to analogies, which peeved Shane. The witches dissected her experience as though it were a dream. "No, the goddess wasn't an illusion, a mask over a collection of---" Shane stopped herself from a comparison that might soften the visitation and make it digestible even to this willing, credulous audience. "I have felt an entity like her before, and it wanted the world reshaped. What just slammed me back into my body was a goddess. I need to know her name." Arden began to wonder aloud why Shane hadn't asked, or the goddess hadn't told, about true names being power, even against goddesses. Having ingested enough of Shane's story, Roselyn took it upon herself to search the garden for interlopers or spies. "It's mighty pretty to think knowing the name of a god means much," Steven drawled. "They are all ornery and arrogant, and you don't tangle with them any more than you have to---and you hope not to have to." "Aren't gods good?" Kit asked when no one else moved to fill the silence. He nodded to Arden. "You're a witch. Shouldn't you be cool with them?" Everyone who could understand the boy turned on him with looks of incredulity, even Roselyn behind the fountain. "When they are discorporate powers, I worship the gods," Arden said eventually. "I love lightning. I wouldn't want to shake its hand." Shane took the initiative of further correcting the boy. "If you read any mythology, you would know that gods are not, as a rule, good. On occasion, they can be said to benefit a person or a situation, but they are capricious and untrustworthy. They work by their own rules, morals, and wants, which is why they think nothing of turning into a swan to rape women or kill families to win bets. The greatest blessing most gods offer is not noticing you exist. Otherwise, they have a tendency to wrap you up in prophecies, drive you mad, or ruin you outright." "And now this goddess specifically noticed you," Kit finished, "and pushed you away." "Which is, you may imagine, not something that fills me with delight," Shane said, glancing nervously at the fountain spurting a constant burble, "and why I should possibly be a bit circumspect around glasses of water." Kit gave a quick laugh. "Not actually a joke." "Never met one myself," Steven said, stretching it out on a bench beside a vine-wrapped portico as though this were no threat to them, though not taking a seat himself. "I've known a few people who thought they could get a big score, working with gods." He sniffed. "I didn't know them long." "How do you get out of a god noticing you?" Kit asked. "Also, can I borrow a phone? I want to check something." Arden looked dubiously between Shane and Kit before unlocking hers and handing it over. "Hope they get distracted," Shane said. "We cannot fathom their thinking unless they deign to pretend to be human-shaped for a while. Maybe, when she gets the sword, she moves on." "Then she would have it already. She wouldn't need Steven to ferry it to her," Roselyn answered, deflating the hope as she prodded at the bricks near them. "What if the sword is what can kill her, and that's why she wants it?" Kit offered, not looking up from Arden's phone. "Inventive thinking," Shane said. "What if Clive rigs up a laser visor and you pew-pew her from a nearby tree?" Kit's head turned up, his chin illuminated by the screen, leaving spooky shadows on his face that blacked out his eyes, but the expression was thoughtful. "There are no laser visors," Shane said, "and it is unlikely this is a god-killing weapon." "That's not the terms of the contract," Steven explained. "We still have a date and time. She'll be there, which gives you tonight to solve this. We're not killing my client." Shane could do without his fatalism for the moment, compounded as it was by the involvement of the divine. She whistled between her teeth. Huginn swooped onto the lattice above them. "Who is she?" Shane called out to the raven. He burbled and growled, ruffling his feather, confirming that he knew she was a goddess, but he was not acquainted with her, nor was he the least bit impressed by what he had seen. "Isn't there a daemon we can ask to give us a positive ID?" Roselyn asked, returning to Shane's side, shoulder to shoulder, as though the steward might need her support beam back. Shane half shrugged and tilted her head in automatic affection. "Many daemons could," Shane said. "It's a matter of tipping our hands that I vexed a goddess in the river. If I suggest this to most of them, I am as good as radioactive until it is clear I have dealt with the situation to their liking. I am not entirely sure what that would take. Or, if they tell me, they might not care to do it without asking a favor, and I am all favored out right now." Kit looked up. "It's Sedna." Shane turned to him. "Explain." He held out the phone, showing a rough bone sculpture of a woman with wild hair and a whale tail. "Her?" Shane took it, confused that he had accomplished this. It wasn't exactly a driver's license photo, but it was close enough to what she had witnessed. "I searched for 'fingerless sea goddess,'" Kit said. "She was the first hit." Shane gave a quick laugh, releasing some of the tension, and handed it back. "Skim. Tell me what else you've got." Kit's spine straightened at being given a direct request that made him feel momentarily useful. "Inuit. Feeds hunters. In one story, she refused to marry, so her dad took her out to sea and tossed her overboard. She clung to the side, so he chopped off her fingers. They turned into walruses, dolphins, and shit. That basically made her the ruler of Adlivun, the underworld---or underwater." "So, not a mermaid?" Roselyn asked. He scrolled. "Or she's, like, the biggest mermaid ever." Roselyn inhaled. "What does she want with the sword?" He was quiet for half a minute, mulling over what he had read. "No fucking idea. She is vengeful if you disrespect the sea." He glanced up at Shane with a pang of panic. "I do not feel I was particularly disrespectful," she said. "But it looks like she is more about sickness, storms, and starvation." "I may be a little queasy," Shane admitted, "and could probably do with a sandwich, but I do not feel these are goddess-born curses." "Shamans do what you did, going into trances and entering her realm when there weren't enough things to hunt," Kit continued. "If you had combed and braided her hair, she probably would have been cool with you. She can't do that without fingers." "Had I only known I was dealing with a goddess in need of a hairdresser," Shane said mildly. "Another version of her story is that she married a dog or a spiny fish because the men her father wanted her to marry in her village were the worst." Roselyn nodded. "Probably would stay within my species, but I get it." "Wait!" Kit said, tapping the phone, "She fucking hates ravens because her dad roofied her and traded her to a hunter for some fish, but the hunter was actually a bird. Her dad tried to rescue her, but Bird Guy made a storm. Her dad threw her into the ocean to make it stop. Then he either chopped her fingers off or they froze off," Kit said. "No matter the story, she ends up fingerless at the bottom of the sea." Shane couldn't help but have some sympathy for a woman so abused by a man, even if she was now a goddess who might have taken offense to Shane's existence---and definitely that of her supernatural cohort. She turned to the others. "She seems appeasable." "She likes knives, meat, and bones," Kit answered, visibly proud of himself. Every piece fit suddenly, and Shane was unsatisfied. This seemed like a lot of work to get a sword, though Sedna might consider Steven's obliterated body to be the free gift with purchase. She noticed after too long that Kit still looked at her, waiting for her next request for information, though she had no more to give. "Good job," she said, and he couldn't refrain from the flicker of a smile as he returned Arden's phone and returned to Jian Yue's side. "She wants the sword," Steven grunted, scraping the sword against the greenery. "That doesn't make it hers yet, and it isn't her curse. Maybe she could fix it by snapping her fingers." He paused, furrowing his brow at the thought. "Snapping something, anyway. She ain't gonna." Kit sat closer to Steven than Shane had seen since the safehouse, definitely too close to the sword. She tried to contort herself into believing that Steven was getting used to the boy. She did not want to encourage anyone to feel comfortable around him. "You didn't sign up to wrangle a god, Miss," said the swordsman. "If you thought I bound you to this, it's broken. You are free to go your own way. I'm not looking to cause you any more trouble than I have to. You've given me plenty to go on." The offer did not tempt Shane. "I'm seeing this through." "All right, but don't say I didn't give you the out." Kit fussed. "You can't ward against Sedna?" "If you are camping out in this garden," Shane answered, "that's likely strong enough that she would overlook you. Annandale---as in, the campus itself---should fight back against the intrusion of a goddess, but it isn't a battle we want to inspire." Shane's lips tensed. "And she doesn't want you. She doesn't know you exist, and she won't. You have enough to worry about without a goddess on your tail." "You have to have something," Kit said. "I don't know why I should," Shane said. "I have done plenty, and 'strategic retreat from literal god-tier enemy' is an entirely valid strategy for the moment. I am the steward, and more resilient than most, but I am not some Theseus-level demigod who can take on the gods via hand-to-hand combat." "But you have magic," the boy argued. "I have friends, a raven, and a book, usually in exactly that order," Shane said. "And I would like to keep most of those intact." "But---" "But nothing," Shane said. "I think. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like Hell, I do it so it feels real, to paraphrase Plath, but this is not a problem about which I have a stronger schema than retreat and regroup." "I forgot you could speak sense," Mr. Oswald said, standing at the entrance of the garden as though he were one of the statues in the garden walls' niches. Shane flustered at the surprise more than the slight. She couldn't begin to care about his papercut criticism, as she thought she spoke sense more often than not. Roselyn and Arden went at once to Kit under the pergola, replacing Steven, who jumped to Shane's side, sword drawn in battle readiness. Jian Yue, erstwhile placid, joined the potential forward assault only a fraction of a second behind. Shane thought the witches were wiser. Kit needed to be monitored. Mr. Oswald was not a thing one fought or that one could, with a sword and fist in particular. Shane kept her eyes on the daemon, raising a hand to the men to hold their useless positions. "I suspect I would not say it is a pleasure to see you again so soon," Shane said after she composed herself. "It is not, in this circumstance, a pleasure to have you see me," said Mr. Oswald. "Seems there is a prophecy afoot. It's a low-level buzzing on the radio." By "radio," he meant the psychic chatter of the agents, puzzling out potentialities among the threads of fate. Shane tensed and didn't care to disguise it. Let her seem worried to Mr. Oswald because she was, in fact, immediately worried, and he should know she didn't take this lightly. "About this?" "Yes." "You swore there wasn't," Shane said sharply. "I asked explicitly." "And there wasn't when you asked," said the agent, "but you riled the dander of a goddess since. That stirs things up." "I do not know that Sedna has dander," Shane said. "We were discussing a leave-in conditioner, though. What's the prophecy so I can get to averting it?" "It's nebulous, and I'd rather it keep that way. Once your kind starts rhyming these things, it's nothing but trouble." Shane thought she heard Steven growling, but that might only have been his breathing. "Any suggestions on how you are going to keep it from solidifying?" she asked. "Yes, a few, and I'd rather discuss it with fewer onlookers." Mr. Oswald shot a disparaging look at Kit. "No sense getting him more involved." "Arden, do you mind bringing Kit to your house?" The witch looked him up and down as though deciding whether he would stain something. "I came with Roselyn." She sighed lightly. "I'll call Clive." "Are you dismissing me?" Kit said. "If gods are in play," Shane said, "the safest place is the one least entangled with magic." "You are aware that one of your favorite witches is a doting little homemaker there," Kit said, like he had any right to the knowledge. "We keep anything too ooky away from the house," Shane said, "and, while a consummate hostess and excellent cook, Arden doesn't dote over anything but chickens and Eliot." She considered the order. "Chickens, at least. Anyway, you'll be fine there until we clear this up." "But I helped you during the ritual!" the boy argued. "You would have died without me." This was a lie, and Shane knew Kit didn't believe it. It was a mistake to have let Kit help with that, but he had been clutch then---though not life-savingly so. Shane wouldn't deny that. Moving him was still a gamble. If the gangsters decided to search and ended up on Eliot's doorstep, she could only hope Kit was half the wolf he feared he was, no matter what Mr. Oswald thought (no matter that she agreed with him). It was only a few blocks from a police station, and Eliot was strong in his "dialing 911" skills. It might be enough. Kit huffed, a kettle on the stove. "Fine." "And you'll stay until I come to get you." His eyes flashed, knowing Shane had seen through him. He yanked a rose from a bush, sullen. "Fine." "Thank you." Kit winced, looking down at the flower in his hand, rubbing his hand over his palm. Then he shoved his hand into his hoodie pocket, letting the wilted flower fall.
