The Sea Is Also Terrifying Full Text

The dreamscape was clearer than any dreamscape Aix was used to, right down to the smell of old stone and an underground too deep and cut off to harbour anything but extremophiles. The scrape of chains, a sense of… fear? No, not fear, they weren’t sure enough to call it something so definite. Distress, of some kind, and they felt afraid because of their own baggage. They quietly tucked their own emotions away for later, and focussed.

‘Are you in need of help?’ they called into the darkness, toward the centre of the cavern they were at the edge of, their voice giving shape to the dark.

A pause in what they realised was a low humming. It was the kind of pitch and drone that they were used to hearing all the time from the civilised world—fans, motors, things that ground slowly down on their nerves and that they didn’t notice until the silence.

‘Hi!’ they sang out, hearing it echo on the stones, ‘Hello, do you need help? Are you in pain?’ They hoped that, this being a dreamscape, a lack of shared language wouldn’t be a barrier.

Just like the dreamscape let them stand on their feet again, without the pain clock starting to tick. Aix knelt carefully on the stone, feeling forward so they wouldn’t accidentally step into darkness and fall. ‘I’m a witch, I’ll try and help! Are you in pain? Is this a real place?’

Finally, a response; the fleeting thought they’d had about their own pain seemed to have been it, because Aix got a strong sense of the same—whatever agony this being was in, they had been in it for a long time, but it still remembered the injury. They were reaching out to Aix’s own memory of what had caused their own feet to be permanently damaged.

‘Ah, okay, so you’re trapped here. Where is this place? Where are you?’ Aix had a feeling it was far away, the kind of bedrock required to support a cave like this was nowhere near where they lived, as far as they knew—Aix lived way too near a fault line for that. They tried to impress that they needed to see a plant, an animal, or some kind of words, a building….

Aix suddenly wasn’t in their body. Whatever was acting as the point of view moved fast and was very small, and moved through darkness that had a bioluminescent quality to the extremely faint light, heading for something shining and silver on the ground, before stopping, focussing on it. Happily, the words were in English.

Huh, so that’s what’s on a dog tag… they thought to themself. ‘If this is a dog tag, this person isn’t from here. Can you find me something from outside the cave?’

The view went right to the edge, but not much further. Blinding light, suddenly and the distinctive smells and xerothermic air of a desert. There was an animal, though—a large, very distinctive bird currently engaged in swallowing a fragment of bone whole.

‘Oh that’s good! Don’t scare him, don’t chase! Let me just get a look at him…’

He was feasting on a human skeleton that had been picked clean. Thankfully, Aix couldn’t see the hands or skull, so there was no visceral horror.

Lammergeiers had a very narrow range, and if it was in a desert, in a mountain range, that narrowed it further.

‘I can work with that, thank you.’ Aix had not an earthly idea how they were going to get across the world, but they were going to try.

2. The Call of the Medium

Aix woke up, and grabbed their old-fashioned cassette recorder, pushing the red button and saying ‘Contri Patrick R B Protestant Lammergeier desert mountains’ before the wisps of dream could disappear. Over the years, they’d tried many ways to record things, but scrambling for a pencil and opening a journal was too much conscious thought, as was opening an app. A cassette recorder was just a single button-push in the dark, the only barrier being the summoning of words, which switched off dream-brain and usually lost details by the first word. But they were very clear, this time.

They ratcheted themselves upright, feeling as always much older than they were, and took out their earplugs, put them back in their case, and put in some eye-drops, so they could open their eyes and put their glasses on. They sat there for a while, going through the familiar motions that maintained the muscles of their feet because the tendons and ligaments were too destroyed to hold up the joints, and therefore their body, and then made coffee, all the while thinking about the dream, and how odd it was that they could remember it so clearly.

Just as they were searching the range of the lammergeier, and cross-referencing where that overlapped with mountainous desert biomes, their phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, from New York City, of all places. For the sake of nostalgia—they had once lived in New York—they answered it.

‘Good morning, I’m Victoria Blackstone. This is going to sound terribly strange, but I seem to have written this number down in my sleep last night.’

‘You’re right, that is strange,’ they answered, typing the name into a new search as they spoke. The photos that came up first were of a historical goth in a very fancy wheelchair that seemed to be a hybrid between the old-fashioned wicker ones that went with her dresses and the new kind of self-propelled cantilever wheels. She was often with an extremely blond and ridiculously beautiful husband. ‘Okay, we’re both disabled goths who like Beetlejuice, so I’m gonna—marginally—trust you.’

‘That’s fair enough. Might I ask if you have had any sort of strange dreams or happenings lately? Perhaps last night?’

They relaxed. ‘Oh, well then…’ and they told Victoria the dream. ‘…and I have no idea how I’m supposed to even get to where lammergeiers are, I don’t even have a passport, let alone money to travel aimlessly.’

‘You realise you just had contact with what is likely the sort of being Lovecraft wrote about; and most people’s first reaction isn’t to start worrying about logistics, yes?’

‘Ah, but here’s the thing. I am a pagan—and not the “I am still Christian in values but I’m just making up my own deities now” sort of pagan, either. Lovecraft was so ridiculous. “Ooooh, what if gods were alien and terrifying and huge, so scaaawy” my dude, that is what gods are like sometimes. The sea, for example. Get with the program.’

Pretty laughter from the other end of the phone. ‘I should very much like to meet you in person as soon as you are comfortable. Are you also in a chair?’

‘I’d like to be, but no, too poor to get one; just a rollator for now. Why?’

‘I’m afraid that terribly dashing blond man is my disgustingly rich husband, and he bought me a plane once he saw how absolutely wretched commercial air travel has become.’

It occurred to Aix that this might not be what people would call a good idea, trusting a stranger who called you because they’d written your number down while sleep-walking; but then again… Aix was also getting rather destructively bored, and had always had a policy of doing interesting things even if they were foolish by other people’s standards.

And they had told the being they would try and help. They couldn’t just leave that because it was inconvenient to make good on their word. What kind of people did that sort of craven thing, anyway? Gross people, that’s who.

And anyway, Aix had been through worse than accidentally befriending a disabled Jewish goth and her rich husband. ‘The nearest airport is Palm Springs International, I believe. Are you… actually offering to fly me to the middle east to look for this person?’

They searched that phrase, and many things came up. Things about disappearances, and major hauntings, and Arkham.

‘Oh you’re a naturalist! Oh, no wonder you’re sensible! Well, I’ve got to call up our pilot and see how soon we can fly, my darling, but I shall send you my contact information by text. Do feel free to check up on me, I don’t mind. Do you want anything from New York City?’

A few seconds later, they got a text with a phone number, name, email, list of instant messenger screen names, personal website, and address. It was an enormous show of good faith, and Aix appreciated it. They spent the next hour doing a lot of searching on said information, and what they found was comforting—Victoria Blackstone wasn’t on social media at all, and was only easily found because she had been on the internet since well before Aix had been old enough to conceive of such a thing, and because she was, as mentioned, from a very old New England family. She’d also written an article on disability in gothic fiction, one on the appropriation of Jewish Kabbalism in fiction, and her wheelchair had been featured in a few photo-heavy articles about various gothic or steampunk gatherings and conventions.

Her husband, while he was in photos and always dressed to compliment her, seemed to be decorative; and she did not mention him in interviews, even when asked, except to say that he was her husband, his name was Dmitri, and he had, in fact, taken her name, not the other way around.

3. Into the Moonless Dark

Sergeant Contri had been a marine, and had disappeared six months before Aix’s first contact. Victoria’s colleague (she called people that weren’t ‘friends’ that, Aix had to assume ‘colleague’ meant ‘esteemed coworker’, but still had no idea what career required these skillsets all her colleagues had, other than really cool crimes) had only been able to find out there’d been a hostage taken, and the marines had been deployed; but it narrowed things down.

Then they stumbled upon a recent story, in a Farsi-language newspaper, about a lone American soldier wandering out of the desert speaking in tongues, bloodied from self-mutilation. That had only made Victoria click her tongue, though, in pity, despite the gruesome description.

‘That… happens,’ she’d said with a sigh. ‘That’s… that’s textbook contact with Them.’

‘So uh, quick question…’ Aix said, swaying back and forth on the very old sturdy swivel chair in Victoria’s library, ‘why didn’t that happen to me?’

‘Well,’ Victoria said, ‘my theory has always been that it’s about how you react. They take cues from us.’

‘ “You cowered, so I was frightening”,’ Aix quoted. Victoria nodded, pushing back from her desk.

‘Precisely. My great aunt Jessamine’s first reaction to seeing one was motherly protectiveness; so, she got that in return. And your first reaction was wanting to help. Neither are the sort of reaction you get from the sort of person that becomes a soldier.’

It still lilted, perhaps more hypnotic than before… were they doing that on purpose? Victoria had said these beings (Aix was glad Victoria also avoided calling them ‘elder gods’) were powerful psions, and picked up on your thoughts, and well…

Release me. Was more intense this time, and there was a definite hypnokink sway that was… imperfectly mimicked. It was suddenly endearing, knowing the being was trying to do something Aix liked.

‘Okay, tiger, calm your tiddies,’ Aix chuckled, ‘I’m already committed to helping you, I just need time to find you. You’re very far away from me.’

‘Those were really helpful, but that doesn’t change you’re halfway around the planet from where I was. I’m a little closer now, but still far away. I have help now. She says one of her ancestors helped one of your people’s babies. Hold on, lemme try showing you…’ Aix tried to concentrate on the story, and the old painting of Jessamine Blackstone, and the sketches of the cat-sized blob of amorphous tentacles and eyes that she had always insisted was a baby. Aix had agreed with her assessment—the little guy looked very much like an infant of whatever species he was. From Jessamine’s field notes, he had certainly behaved like one.

A complete and utter pause, and Aix got the impression the being was… ‘surprised’ felt like an understatement, but could a being like that ever be described with such a human word as ‘gobsmacked’?

Where. had a sudden intensity that would be easy to mistake for rage, if Aix hadn’t been the kind of person who expressed terror as aggression.

‘Sleepy Hollow, still with his adopted family. They all love him very much.’ It was true—the Averays were the original and ultimate goths, and the Blackstones were the New England branch, ultimately from Lateritia Averay, who had split from her brother Ezraseur, the latter of whom had settled down in Sleepy Hollow and begun the New York line. Aix had a fascination with family trees, and Victoria’s library had a whole wall that had been carefully hand-painted with her family tree, and many books that detailed it all the way back to the medieval period. Squidgy Blackstone was just another adopted member, just like Jessamine had been, and Victoria warned Aix that they were likely to get adopted too.

Aix just hoped this complicated idea—and it was complicated, because Aix had very complicated feelings about ‘family’ as a concept—got through, especially the important bits about humans adopting other beings, and pack-bonding, and how intensely kind-hearted Jessamine had clearly been, in her life, and how kind-hearted all of Victoria’s family seemed to be, as far as Aix could tell. It said a lot when people had been so cheerfully macabre and openly weird for centuries. That was downright dangerous, if you went back even two generations from the present.

It was a lot of information, and Aix waited patiently, sitting on the stone steps as they waited for Big Fella to parse all of it, hugging their knees. Eventually, they felt a pull. ‘You want me to come forward? I can’t see.’

An insistent pull. Aix carefully scooted forward, carefully feeling their way in front of themselves with their hands, before scooting a little at a time. Eventually, they came to an edge, and groped around for a rock, pushing it over the edge. It clacked down almost immediately, so Aix carefully rolled onto their stomach and swung their feet down. They didn’t touch the floor, but as they slowly inched down, trying not to drop, they eventually slipped and it was only an inch or two to solid ground again.

‘Okay so are these… big stairs?’ Aix said, and shuffled on their feet this time, sliding their foot slowly until they hit the next edge, and repeating the process of getting down. It was only a few steps, and then there was a breeze, a faint sense that the cavern opened up—and down—ahead.

They got low again, and felt their way, scared but determined. They started to sing, mostly to comfort themself.

No moon at all, what a night!
Even lightning bugs have dimmed their light
Stars have disappeared from sight
And there’s no moon at all…

Don’t make a sound, it’s so dark
Even Fido is afraid to bark
What a perfect night to park
And there’s no moon at all…

The low moaning started to try and harmonise, which Aix took as encouragement, and sang louder.

Should we want atmosphere
For inspiration, dear
One kiss will make it clear
That tonight is right
And bright moonlight might interfere

Jazz was always ready to hand, the music Aix had been raised on, and the song had suggested itself because of the darkness; it was rather the only way Aix knew how to make puns, picking out songs that seemed incongruous but weren’t. And, anyway, the fact that this being, this person, liked music—well, that made them more of a persony person, to Aix. Evil couldn’t stand music.

No moon at all up above
This is nothing like they told us of
Just to think we fell in love
When there's no moon at all

They started to see a blue glow, and it silhouetted a very starkly geometric structure, and a statue of enormous proportion that was, also, very geometric in a way that reminded Aix of old Art Deco—the good kind, from the actual early century. More able to see their path, they started walking normally, in time with the slow tempo they were singing the song, taking their time, looking around at the obelisks and architecture. There were strange runes that glowed blue.

No moon at all up above
This is nothing like they told us of
What a perfect night for love
And there's no moon at all…

The song was a good one for trailing off and noodling around melodically, as most of the American Songbook, and that was one of the reasons Aix liked to sing it in times like this. It also served to remind them of the fact that this was, after all, a big monster, and Aix was rather interested in flirting with them, after the business with helping them was taken care of.

A hand bigger than Aix was slowly wrapped around a pillar, runes glowing where it touched, and spreading outward. The increased light let Aix see there were huge chains of indeterminate material going toward the enormous being, stretched taut, anchored at the base of the obelisks and threaded through a hole in their tops. From the wearing on the holes, they’d been pulled at over and over.

‘Oh,’ Aix said softly, their heart breaking, ‘that looks terrible, can you even lay down to sleep? Buddy,’ he said, all sympathy, ‘Who did this to you, this is awful. I’ll curse them, you need me to curse them for you? I can do that, I’m a witch, that’s part of the package.’

They couldn’t quite see more than a kind of silhouette that suggested that yep, this fella was definitely of the betentacled face. Several orange eyes opened in a kind of orderly sequence, and as they were nice and round and not human, Aix could meet them without any kind of trouble from their autism.

The humming was back, but it was oddly rhythmic now, and it took a moment, but Aix realised…

They suddenly were awash in vivid imagery—memories, they assumed—images of humans yelling and shooting really big guns, and grenades, and earlier than that, screams and arrows, and fire, and rocks, and—and that wasn’t right. That wasn’t part of the game.

Further back, images that were difficult to make sense of, but Aix just closed off Vision and tried to use other senses. The being seemed to sense this, and work with it. Trust, playfulness, a sense of a relationship between a family group. A game. Aix was having trouble parsing the rules, or the goal, but something about the bondage was a ga—

‘Ohhhh, it’s a sexy game!’ Aix said, and let loose the floodgates in his own mind, wanting to give as much reference as possible to this being. That seemed to light them up, literally—both hands were on pillars now, and that made the runes glow bright as they tightened their grip with an emotion like eagerness, like relief, the kind of relief from meeting someone who understood.

They rifled through the images in Aix’s mind dizzyingly fast, but that was alright, Aix’s mind was that fast when they were excited, so it wasn’t too bad. They finally hit upon a few concepts, trying to string them together.

Aix sat with the four ideas for a while, trying to work it out, having fun with the puzzle. ‘Immersion… so… you’re… supposed to be learning how to communicate well enough to have sex with an alien?’ Because that would require the highest skill level, wouldn’t it?

Relief, a flood of it so intense that Aix collapsed onto the ground. If it hadn’t been a dream they might have utterly lost control of their bladder, the relief was that intense. As it was, they felt very relaxed. ‘Whoooo. Whoa, buddy, dial it back, I’m too small for that much emotion at once.’ He laughed faintly. ‘Good golly Miss Molly, that was… a lot. So I got it, then? I guessed it?’

‘Ohoho, my dear, that has a very different tone, now,’ Aix flirted, giggling.

More images of tentacle sex, and Aix pressed his thighs together and shivered agreeably. ‘Oooh, yes please….’

4. It’s all Blood, You See

When Aix woke up, they had a splitting headache, and smelled blood, and couldn’t breathe; panic heaved them upright, and they had to quickly feel their face and check the date just to be sure they had hallucinated the past seventeen years, because the last time they’d had that bloody a nose, it had been because they’d just had four hours of jaw surgery. Thankfully, it wasn’t true, but Aix still had to spend a while grounding themself.

It helped that they could immediately hear the bustle of Manhattan, outside, and turning on the light revealed they were still in the guest room of Victoria’s penthouse, where they’d been staying for the past week. The soft, rosy light of the lamp caught in the foil of the Art Nouveau letters in the wallpaper. The room was decorated in a way that suggested to Aix the most frequent visitor was a child of some sort, and they’d never asked, secretly enjoying the vintage children’s décor—kids got much more playful décor than adults, and Aix liked it better.

Thinking about all that helped solidify reality and the present, so Aix carefully levered up, going down the hall to the bathroom and carefully, painfully trying to clear out their nose. The mirror showed crusted blood trailing down one side of their face to the ear, and they washed it off, disturbed. They were still at it when there was a very soft tapping on the door, and an English, male voice Aix had never heard before.

Because Dmitri was only ever up at night, owing to his job working long distance for some kind of time zone that was a jillion hours ahead, Aix had never actually met him, or even heard his voice. It was a nice voice. Baritone, with a lovely smooth, dark timbre, hyperarticulate sibilants that suggested to Aix he had possessed a lisp once, and had carefully trained out of it. Should narrate things.

‘Bloody nose. Uh. Is Victoria up?’ Aix said, wincing as they tried to work the clots loose so their airways could clear.

‘If you had another dream, I expect she will be. I shall start some water boiling, there is camphor in the medicine cabinet. Do not tilt your head back.’

Despite his being both a man and a total stranger, Aix was surprised to find themself not afraid—possibly because Aix knew he not only cared for his disabled wife, but spoiled her and trailed around like a puppy dog after her. Aix was both pleased to bask in their happiness and a bit jealous.

Another surprise, despite the panic and the immediate need to focus on something other than the dream, Aix remembered all of it, about as well as though it had happened in real life, only moments ago. They carefully blew their nose as much as they could without doing themself a mischief, splashed their face one more time, and went back into the guest room, getting their tape recorder and saying as much of the dream as they could remember, just to be safe, before going down the creaking hall to the kitchen. There was barely any light, the curtains were all closed, but Aix could see well enough.

‘Uh,’ they said, seeing Dmitri quietly bustling around the kitchen in total darkness, ‘so… you’re a vampire too?’

‘That’s what I call my motley collection of weirdness that basically gives me all the vampire weaknesses. Bright light gives me headaches, noise gives me headaches, I’m allergic to garlic… you know, vampire stuff.’

He chuckled behind his hand. ‘Ah, I see. And here I thought Victoria had told you.’

He looked up from where he’d been carefully arranging tiny pastries on a decorative plate, and smiled, revealing a long, elegant set of fangs.

‘Ohmigod you’re that kind of goth!’ Aix said excitedly, and covered their mouth, then uncovered it and started flapping excitedly, beaming. ‘I’ve always wanted fangs,’ they confessed. ‘Permanent ones.’

He hummed, but he was smiling. ‘Come over here, pet,’ he said, motioning Aix over to the window seat. ‘Sit,’ he said, pushing Aix gently down. Aix sat. Dmitri went back to arranging pastries, letting Aix have a chance to look around the kitchen. It was a gas stove, so the blue flames lit the kitchen in a dim glow.

Rather like the blue glow of that temple, Aix realised as they watched it reflect on the copper of the kettle and the small saucepan on their respective burners. They didn’t know how long they watched it, but apparently they zoned out a bit, because the next thing they knew, Victoria was patting his hand.

‘Aix dear, come back,’ was the first thing Aix heard her saying clearly, and they blinked, shaking their head, looking down at their joined hands.

‘Your eyes were sort of a swirly glowing orange and you were repeating something.’ Victoria looked down at the notebook in her lap. ‘ “T’ka na tha”. Which, curiously, is the same thing that soldier was saying.’

Aix’s mouth tugged up on one side. ‘I have a feeling it translates into “Release me.” That’s pretty much the only thing Big Guy says to me with words.’

‘Aha,’ Victoria said, noting it down under her transcription. ‘Do you feel all right? Dmitri says you had quite a bad bloody nose—there’s steam now, if you want to lean over and breathe it a little? I’d put a bit of mint in it, to help.’

Aix pushed themself up, Victoria wheeling back to give them room, and went over to the steaming pot, leaning carefully over and trying to slowly breathe in through their nose. It helped a little, and by the third repetition they felt less panicky about how difficult it was to breathe through their nose.

‘Fuuuck, bloody noses are the worst,’ Aix muttered, sitting back down on the window seat. ‘Thanks, Dmitri—oh, where’d he go?’ Aix said, looking around. He’d just assumed Dmitri was still in the kitchen, but it was just Victoria and themself, now.

‘He had a meeting,’ Victoria said. ‘Don’t fret, though; he made sure I was here with you before he left. This sort of thing rather overwhelms him, he’s much stronger a psion than I am.’

‘…I’m not a psion though, so why is it me that gets the glowy eyes and stuff,’ Aix said, puzzled. By now, he knew Victoria herself was what Aix’s religion called an oracle—she got visions of events, usually events happening far away, sometimes in the past. She also could see what few ghosts there actually were in the world, and often helped them find peace in the traditional Jewish manner, which was far less hostile and combative.

‘Are you certain of that?’ Victoria asked, her Mid-Atlantic accent making it sound both polite and a bit wry, like everything she said.

‘Yeah?’ Aix said, ‘I mean, I don’t get visions, I don’t channel ghosts or whatevers… Victoria, I’m autistic, the regular kind of social stuff seems like psionics to me, there’s no way in hell I can do the regular kind of psionics. I can’t even tell when someone is being passive-aggressive!’

‘That’s—that’s the cards, Victoria. Isn’t psionics supposed to be… more distressing than laying the cards, or… being extremely helpful during a ouija board session?’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps your autism protects your mind from the harmful channels for the same reason it prevents you understanding social cues.’ She offered her sensible black handkerchief. ‘Oh dear, you’re bleeding again.’

‘Dammit,’ Aix muttered, taking the handkerchief and pressing it to their nose. ‘I really don’t want this guy to give me an aneurysm.’

‘Oh don’t fret, that’s not what the nose bleeding is,’ Victoria said cheerfully. ‘Can you carry the tea-tray to the kitchen table for me, darling? Let’s sit and chat about your dream.’

It took a few minutes to settle the plate of pastries and the black flower tea set, but Aix liked the rituals of Tea as much as Victoria, and soon they were settled.

‘So,’ Aix began, in a rather queenly, gossipy tone, ‘apparently it’s a sex game? The chains are sex bondage, not uh… non… sex… bondage.’

‘Yeah it’s… hang on, let me back up. So it’s like, a test? Sort of game? They indicated it was immersion language learning, they had to like, figure out how to communicate with a non-telepathic race well enough to have sex with one. That’s… not been going well, obviously.’

‘Until me!’ Aix said, rather pleased with themself. ‘I think that cheered them up quite a bit. Also, I told them about Squidgy, and they seemed kind of shocked? They wanted to know where he was, so I said he was with his adoptive family and they loved him very much. I… hope that was the right thing to say.’

‘The truth is always the right thing to say, you can’t lie to Them anyway,’ Victoria replied, and sipped her tea for a while. ‘Do try one of the cream puffs, they’re fresh. Dmitri made them tonight.’

‘And he bakes,’ Aix muttered, rather jealously, but took a cream puff. Victoria chuckled.

‘He made this tea set as well, many years before he learned to bake.’ She sipped her tea. ‘That was before he met me. Did your young man tell you anything else?’

Aix did not protest her wryly calling the being Aix’s ‘young man’. ‘Um, I got farther into the temple thing. Very art deco.’

Aix thought about it. ‘Um… there was a wheel sort of thing. Or a star? Like this…’ They picked up the pencil and notepad Victoria had put on the table, and drew an eight-pointed stick-star with a circle going through the middle of the spokes. ‘Sorta like that? Um…’ It didn’t look right. They stared at it, and slowly put little crossbars at the ends of the spokes. ‘Yeah,’ they said, nodding. ‘There we go. That.’

‘Oh my,’ Victoria said, looking over at it. ‘That’s Azathoth’s seal. Did you get a look at your young man, or was he sort of formless?’

‘No he had hands, and a face. Lots of eyes, like a spider. And definitely mouth tentacles, like all the drawings of Cthulhu. The seal was on all the chains and… pillars? I guess those were like… bars? He held onto them like they were bars, like he couldn’t reach past them?’ Aix frowned. ‘They, not he,’ they corrected.

‘You’ve shared mindspace with this entity,’ Victoria pointed out, but gently—she, after all, wasn’t the trans person.

‘Yes but we didn’t… exactly… have a conversation about gender. Though you’re right, he did kind of flip through the whole sexuality department of my brain, so I guess my automatically starting to use “he” might be… indicative. Or maybe it’s just that “he” seems universal to them. I don’t know. Pronouns don’t matter to eldritch aliens, I suppose.’

‘Probably not,’ Victoria agreed serenely. ‘From what writings my cousins and I have salvaged from the ruins of Miskatonic, Azathoth is one of the more high ranking entities, as far as power goes—though that could simply mean he’s older and more experienced, or was born into a high social class, et cetera.’

‘It is so cool to meet people that are looking at this from a xenoanthropological perspective. I suspect the reason we communicate better with these fellas than everyone else is because we’re both approaching it using the appropriate scientific disciplines.’

‘I know, I know, a terribly gendered notion of the sciences, that. But nevertheless, the soft sciences deal with soft things—flesh, and brains, and so forth.’

‘Hmmm… well, since you gave it such a mad sciency description….’ Aix said thoughtfully. ‘I’m not approaching it from xenoanthropology, so much as xenoethology—I’m no good with humans.’

‘I’ve long suspected Aunt Jessamine’s “eccentricity” was autism,’ Victoria said thoughtfully. ‘She was fussy in the same way—only wearing one colour, never quite understanding how to socialise past a certain point.’

‘Not by her family, no,’ Victoria said, patting Aix’s forearm gently. ‘She was bullied by the locals—mostly shunning, it is New England—but not her family; and not mine either, once she met Uncle Percy. He thought she was splendid. Of course, he might have been autistic as well. And they had contact with Them—or what my family calls The Star People—but unlike most, suffered no ill consequence. There was a lot of speculating it was due to some sort of neurodivergence—that they were mad before contact, so they couldn’t be driven such, I believe was my great-grandfather’s phrasing.’

‘That’s a helluva concept,’ Aix said, and popped one of the little flaky, jam-filled pastries in their mouth.

‘The more I learn about autism, the more I think you’re the ones that ought to be making first contact,’ Victoria said, pouring them both more tea. ‘You’re unswaying in your ethics, and used to reality being strange and unsettling, and not easily distracted.’

‘Eh, I’ve met some assholes that were still autistic. It depends on how you’re raised.’

‘True, but it is a fact that autistic folk do not compromise their beliefs as easily as the rest of us—whatever those beliefs may be.’

‘That, I agree with—I’ve read about that study. And not to sound conceited, but my beliefs are hitched to the scientific method, and evolutionary fact, and I think that does make me better at communicating with aliens, because I’m actually tuned into reality and not like… the weird social darwinistic “murr everyone is secretly selfish and the universe is punitive” or whatever.’ They paused. ‘…Huh, so allistic people tend to think everyone is evil because they’ll compromise their beliefs as soon as those beliefs inconvenience them?’

‘Well, there is certainly a struggle that never seems to occur to autistic folk, between the prosocial and more difficult behaviour and the antisocial and easy one.’

‘Is that why people need religions that threaten them in order to behave? And I don’t just mean Christianity, though they’re the worst.’

Victoria chuckled. ‘There are Jewish assholes just as there are autistic ones. People are never a monolith. I do like to think Judaism has more effort to be prosocial baked in, compared to Christianity.’

‘Well, y’all do have critical thinking baked in, so I’ve always thought that helped.’ Aix sipped their tea. ‘I didn’t get any more information on where Big Fella is, though.’

‘Oh, don’t fret,’ Victoria said. ‘We can go ask Squidgy about it today, he lives with the family up in Sleepy Hollow.’

‘Of course! I wrote to them as soon as I could. Squidgy has been rather disconsolate since his Mummy died, but we try to engage him even so.’

‘You said the nose bleeding wasn’t an aneurysm or whatever, so what is it?’

‘Simple dehydration. Thinking uses lots of energy—psionic brain activity uses a great deal more. That’s why we’re putting high value food in you. Sometimes the vibrations of their vocalisations can sympathy-vibrate blood to the surface of the sinuses, as well. It’s a strange pitch.’

‘Well…’ Victoria said, holding out a hand and wobbling it. ‘Yes and no. You have to understand They operate sort of sideways and upside-down from this plane of reality. If it were just a matter of resonance frequency, then yes, you’d be in medical danger. But it’s not, so you just need to remember that after every time you have a session, you need to act like you’ve run a marathon and skipped a day’s meals.’ She pushed the plate of pastries toward Aix. ‘So: eat.’ She wheeled back from the table. ‘I’m off to buy a brace of train tickets and stock the picnic basket.’

‘Yes, Mistress,’ Aix muttered under their breath, not at all displeased, and started in on the pastries in earnest, now that there was no audience.

They wondered if Victoria knew that they would respond to the Mistress Voice; she was obviously very canny—she was a psion, ‘canny’ was kind of the defining trait, after all—but without it being spelled out, Aix knew they’d never know for sure.

5. The Wretch in the Cellar

When Jessamine had been alive, the amorphous, cat-sized ball of tentacles and eyes that she had named ‘Squidgy’ had been in her arms, on her lap, or at her side; since the catastrophe that had killed her and all of Arkham, Massachusetts, Squidgy hadn’t let anyone touch him, and he’d also gotten bigger. Sometimes he was angry, angry enough to lash out at anything within reach—

Mommy taught him that it was important to understand your power, and to never, ever strike out at somebody smaller than you.

And, anyway, these were Mommy’s family. She had only met them at the wedding, but they had made her so happy, and made her feel so safe, and Squidgy couldn’t hurt them.

But keeping himself from lashing out was so hard, it took all the meagre strength he had left, leaving nothing for anything else.

But Mommy’s Family tried anyway. They were kind, like Mommy. They tried. They sat near him, and they read to him from Mommy’s books that she used to read to him, and they tried to counsel him, and he came to know them, even though he could not bring himself to say anything, because everything reminded him of Mommy, he reminded himself of Mommy.

They called it Grief. They said it was something that did not heal exactly, but it changed, and that there was no hurry, that they would remain, and keep offering anything they could.

Squidgy often wished he had also died, with Mommy and her husband. He wasn’t ever sure why he felt that would have helped.

And then someone new came into his room, someone that echoed with a voice he understood, though he had only heard the language in his deepest dreams.

Aix had expected a flurry of confusing and overstimulating introductions, but when Victoria arrived, there was only a very tall, pallid man who answered the door with a sepulchral rumble. Victoria smiled at him.

‘Miss Victoria. Mr Aix.’ Coffin rumbled, and opened the door for them. Aix waited for Victoria to wheel in, then followed; they’d foregone their rollator, not only because of still feeling weird about using it, like they was somehow ‘faking’ even though that made very little sense, but also because they only really needed it to sit when there were no chairs in easy reach, and since staying with the Blackstones, they’d never needed to be in such situations.

They sat down on a lovely red velvet chair by a fireplace in the foyer, which was magnificently preserved from years of continuous use and maintaining, and looked around. The manor was a Second Empire house that had spared no expense either in the architecture or the furnishings, all exquisitely-carved old oak and sumptuous wallpaper in the sort of layers of era that said people with the same taste had lived here continuously for two centuries. The fireplace had a magnificent Art Nouveau style Mouth Of Hell figural fireback and mantel, which Aix had always coveted, and the chair they were in was immensely comfortable.

There was a soft keening that echoed weirdly from all around them, and Victoria startled.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, trying not to sound too excited. ‘That was Squidgy. Come on, he must be reacting to you.’

She started down the hall—Aix noticed that there had been one thing that had obviously been remodelled about the house: there were no longer any thresholds between rooms, or steps. Instead, the floors had all been re-done seamlessly to flatten the grading or incorporate shallow ramps, and there was no Victorian clutter of furniture in the hallway, only paintings of gothic nightscapes, or portraiture of ancestors, mounted on the walls in relatively simple frames that were fastened un-historically flush to the wallpaper. It spoke quietly of love and respect for Victoria, and for anyone else that might need extra-clear pathways to move. It was welcoming.

‘He hasn’t said anything in years, you understand,’ Victoria went on, as Aix followed her down the wide hallway, to an elevator behind the stairs, made to be of a piece with the house, even though elevators didn’t exist during the Second Empire era. It spoke, again, quietly of love and care, in the way that so many things about Victoria—and her family—already did.

Victoria opened the elevator, going in and closing the grate, then the door, pulling the lever down.

‘I thought he might find you interesting,’ Victoria said. ‘He’s been utterly silent with grief for my entire lifetime, and longer. Now… now, I don’t want to expect anything of him, but we’ve got to at least see him, and give him a chance to converse with you.’ The elevator stopped one floor down as she finished speaking.

This time, Aix opened the elevator for her. It opened to a dark basement that smelled of damp and dust, and Aix felt strangely unafraid. Soft lamps with their shades pointing their light to reflect off the wall lit up in the four corners of the room, so it was dim but visible. It revealed a dark but clean stone room, and wrought-iron railing surrounding a void in the floor. From the reflections off the walls, and the sound of water, it was a pool.

‘Hello, Squidge!’ Victoria called out jovially, as she left the elevator. ‘How’s tricks, old man?’

Victoria had locked her chair and pushed up to her feet, leaning on the railing and reaching out a hand toward a black tendril waving vaguely above the waterline. ‘I’ve brought a friend, they’ve found one of your cousins, I thought you might like to meet them.’

Aix leaned carefully on the railing, reaching out too. ‘Hi, Squidgy, I’m Aix,’ they said, quietly. ‘Grief’s an old friend of mine, too.’

The tendril felt wet, and very real, very solid, and very ordinary, just like any other animal. Their closest frame of reference Aix had in their experience was a snake, without bones, that had froggish skin. Gradually, Aix felt something that was like a bead sliding down the tendril, and when it reached near the tip, an eye opened.

‘Hey, starshine,’ Aix said, holding very still, speaking softly. ‘Can you do the mind-meld thing too, huh? You wanna see the cousin I’ve been flirting with?’

A sort of listless feeling, that Aix recognised was Squidgy’s emotion, not their own. ‘I know, buddy,’ Aix replied, ‘but I promise, distracting yourself, or being curious, isn’t gonna disrespect the memory of your lost loved one. Two conflicting ideas can exist at the same time. Example: right now, I’m a scared of this guy I met, but I’m also excited to meet him.’

Aix wasn’t sure if talking about the things they’d learned in dialectical therapy was the right thing to do, here; but then again, they’d never really known how to respond to the grief of other people.

Immense grief, and gratitude, and query. Aix reached out their other hand to stroke at the tendril wound around their hand and wrist gently. ‘Yeah,’ they said, ‘you can be grieving your loss, but also grateful for something else, such as…’ they took a stab in the dark, ‘the love and comfort of your family.’

The idea of family offering emotional comfort was as alien to Aix as the creature they were talking to, let alone the idea of being allowed to mourn openly; but that was why Aix was a goth, really—they knew the damage that the shame-borne closeting of death did to a community. They tried to clearly picture images of the various ways humans mourned their dead, and tried to imagine those ideas being offered to Squidgy, as a sort of empathy and possibly suggestion. ‘Humans do a lot of different things to ease the pain of grief,’ Aix said softly, ‘we call it mourning.’

They also tried to impress that they were only explaining because they had never been taught this, and didn’t want anybody feeling the pain of grieving without knowing what mourning was, or the different ways to do it.

And, without being able to help it, they also thought about how Big Guy had reacted to hearing about Squidgy—the idea that Squidgy had a kinsman that wanted to look in on him, to make sure he was all right, and perhaps would be able to help him by simply being of the same kind.

Aix woke up with a start and the smell of blood in their nose again, and the feeling of ice on the back of their neck. They were still in the basement, but sitting down in a wicker chair that hadn’t been there before, an ageless woman with a severe beauty Aix associated with their own Italian people pulling her long white hand away, an ice cube in it.

‘There we are,’ she said, in the kind of beautifully textured, low voice that could only be had after a woman reached a certain age. She offered a sensible black handkerchief that was hand-monogrammed with an S.

‘Ah jeez, I zoned out again?’ Aix muttered, their voice muffled by the handkerchief.

‘It’s perfectly understandable,’ she said, patting Aix’s arm the same way Victoria did. ‘It seems you were just what dear Cousin Squidgy needed to renew his interest in the world. We’re all very grateful for that.’

Squidgy keened softly, a feeling of concern and apology directed toward Aix; and Aix reflected that, once again, it wasn’t an otherworldly sound at all, it sounded like a perfectly normal animal noise, like a whale of some kind, not alien at all. Lovecraft, you over-civilised dumbass, Aix thought to themself for the nth time.

‘Um, thank you. Where’s Victoria?’ Aix asked, worried, then felt guilty. ‘Sorry. I’m Aix, you probably know that.’

‘Sitrinne Averay,’ she said. ‘Victoria is upstairs. She roused before you did; shall we to the dining room?’

It was about then that Aix realised the chair they were in was a wheelchair, a sort of compact version of the fancy one. They weren’t used to controlling one, and had long the impression they were difficult, too heavy and athletic for someone with loose joints like theirs; but they tried anyway, and found it was shockingly easy, not at all heavy. They looked back toward the pool.

‘Uh, see you round, hon,’ they said, softly, before following Mrs Averay to the elevator. ‘Is Victoria… okay?’ they asked.

‘She was more concerned about you, my dear. You’re newer to being a medium than she is.’ She opened the elevator’s doors once it stopped, and waited for Aix to wheel themself out into the hall, closing the door before leading him. She wore a hobble skirt, but despite that, her steps made her glide, and rather quickly too. Aix marvelled at it, but also wondered if it were vaguely supernatural.

‘I’m still not sure I am, though I suppose that counts as me Refusing The Call,’ Aix paused, and then realised that was a bit obscure. Something about Mrs Averay’ elegance and gothic beauty was making everything they said feel like it sounded stupid.

‘It’s quite sensible of you,’ she said in her breathy, low voice, ‘The sort of medium that views it as a blessing usually dies rather young.’

‘Exactement.’ She opened the carved wooden pocket doors to a dining room, Victoria sitting at the table with a few other people, many of whom shared features with her, and all of whom were wearing black in various forms. Aix felt suddenly shy, faced with all of these new people. There was a space right next to Victoria at the table, and Aix wheeled in next to her, glad they could be near the one person they knew.

‘So,’ Victoria said, as she passed Aix the bread basket, ‘your young man is Cthulhu.’

Aix paused, red glass goblet of water halfway to their mouth. ‘Helluvan opener,’ they commented. ‘How did you figure that out? I mean… I didn’t want to assume anything, and I never ask a strange being’s name.’

‘You’re quite impressive, old man!’ said a dapper man at the head of the table, as Mrs Averay sat down on the other end of the table. Aix’s knowledge of formalities identified him, from where he was sitting alone, as Gaspar Averay, the current patriarch; just like his wife, his age was unclear.

Aix knew they didn’t blush visibly, but they nonetheless felt the same emotion, looking at the patterns on their waterglass and not knowing what to say, not wanting to screw this up. ‘Well,’ they heard themself say, ‘I did cut five pounds of flesh off myself a few years ago and sacrificed it to Apollo.’

‘I like this one, Vicky!’ said a raspy-voiced bald man across from Victoria. ‘Where did she find you?’ he asked Aix.

‘It is so refreshing to know there are young people in the world carrying on the old traditions,’ Sitrinne said. ‘More bouillabaisse, Atticus?’ she asked a man with large silver eyes and long red hair that looked damp.

Over the course of the meal, Aix learned everyone’s names and relations—though that was a little tricky, because Victoria had three parents, and—this being an old aristocratic family—two of them were cousins, which meant Mrs Averay was both her step-grandmother and her great-aunt. Aix was rather fascinated, though they knew enough not to actually say that.

Atticus, apparently, was a merrow old enough to remember the Great Interior Seaway. The bald man was his husband, Furfur Averay, who—along with his older brother Gaspar—was a pyrotech (as a hobby, of course—these were aristocrats, they didn’t work), and Aix happily spoke with them for a good while about such things, being that Aix’s father had been a pyrotech as well.

They were quite interested in Aix—in their name, in their powers, in almost anything they had to say. It was addictive, that kind of regard, because Aix had never had it, not like this. Not from people like this. They almost expected themself to burst into tears, but was glad when they didn’t.

After dinner, the secondary reason Victoria had brought them up here became apparent when they led Aix into an enormous library that took up the entirety of the five-storey tower. The only windows were four circular ones in the bell-shaped roof, the rest lit by bioluminescent blue lanterns.

It was about then that Aix realised the house was without electricity entirely; it was so very quiet, and soothingly dark, and all they could think of was Victoria blandly saying that her aunt Jess and uncle Percy had both probably been autistic. Was… was this one of those families were everyone was autistic, and being otherwise was unusual?

‘The Star-People have been of interest to us since my dear sister Ophelia married that nice Blackstone boy,’ Mrs Averay said, pulling an old document from a large cedar map chest, Coffin clearing off the large old drafting table for her. It was an enormous piece of thick parchment, or possibly very good linen paper, and the diagram on it looked similar to, but wasn’t, a sephiroth. She spread it out, Atticus helping with the other end, and Coffin winding the table’s crank after they clipped it down so that Victoria and Aix could see it without having to stand.

There were circles, and neat handwriting of many different eras—Aix saw Spencerian, but also the less spidery Palmer and even D’nealian and copperplate, with the large names at the top of each circle in careful Italic script. It was breath-taking, even before taking into account the amount of knowledge it compiled.

‘This is a copy from Miskatonic’s archives,’ Victoria told Aix. ‘We’ve added to it, over the years.’ She got out a laser pointer from her jacket’s inside pocket and pointed out the circle marked ‘Cthulhu’, which did not have a symbol, like some of the other circles did. ‘We’ve never gotten a symbol for Cthulhu, though he’s spoken of a lot in various sources. The symbol on the chains…’ she pointed to the circle marked ‘Azathoth’, ‘It was that one.’

‘Yeah!’ Aix said, ‘yeah, it was wiggly, I didn’t remember that when I was drawing it. Wait… so he actually contacted you too?’

‘No, no,’ Victoria said, turning the laser off. ‘Squidgy showed me what you showed him of your memories. There’s things I could recognise—the statue with four arms, that looks like a Nazgûl? That’s Hastur.’

Aix narrowed their eyes a bit, puzzled. ‘Hastur’s a Christian demon, a… duke of Hell, isn’t he?’ Aix recalled this mostly from reading Good Omens.

‘Christians are little packrats, they steal from everything,’ Mrs Averay said, with a bit of cirrus in her tones.

‘I mean, true,’ Aix admitted, chuckling. ‘Lilith, Ba’al, Persephone… I guess it’s not weird that Hastur’s one of the Star-People. Gosh that sounds so poetic. Star-People. I wonder why there was a statue of him, though. What’s he about?’

‘He likes yellow, for some reason. Whether he’s related to Cthulhu, or is an enemy, or is even benevolent and set against the supposedly malicious Azathoth and his court, is never clear,’ Atticus said, always eager to teach.

‘Maybe he’s a Trickster god,’ Aix said thoughtfully, thinking of Loki. The pause that answered this told them it hadn’t been as easy a connection to make as they’d assumed. ‘…What?’

‘Nobody ever thought of that, before,’ Victoria said, with a faint smile in her voice.

‘Well—but—there’s always got to be a Trickster. Someone who shakes up the status quo, who pokes the Rules and questions authority. You can’t have a society without one of those, really.’ Aix didn’t know why they felt like they’d said something wrong and had to defend themself, exactly, other than having no other point of reference for how stating their opinion usually went.

Victoria touched Aix’s arm, gently. ‘You’re not in trouble, darling; I bought you here specifically because of your insight.’ It was clear to Victoria that poor Aix had likely never had anyone value their opinions, or consider them intellectually equal.

‘If Hastur is a Trickster entity, and is the statue facing Cthulhu in the temple entrance…’ Atticus said thoughtfully. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’

‘It could be a joke,’ Aix suggested. ‘I mean… let me back up: he’s there because somebody chained him up and was like, “…and you’re gonna stay tied up until you convince one of the humans to have sex with you”.’

‘Oh my,’ Mrs Averay said, arching a brow and giving the tiniest curve of smile, looking over the not-sephiroth.

‘It’s the final exam for his immersive foreign language degree or whatever.’

Victoria started laughing so hard she nearly fell out of her chair. Aix was pleased to be on a roll—making people laugh in this fashion was still somewhat novel and gender-affirming—but was still a little nervous making bawdy jokes in front of somebody like Sitrinne.

‘You shall have to be sure and pack your toy-box, then,’ Mrs Averay said, putting paid to that anxiety, with such timing that Aix burst out laughing.

6. A Liminal Tower

‘So,’ Victoria said, on the seventh morning Aix was having breakfast with her. ‘My friend Virginia just had one of her one-bedroom apartments open up, on the upper east side; and before you protest, I do recall you saying you’re on disability, and I would not have offered something you could not afford on the pittance they make you live on.’

‘I’ve… been trying not to think about how you’re a landlady, honestly,’ Aix admitted.

It was a very awkward fact, at least to Aix—they were firmly against the concept of renting, but talking to the tenants of the building while they’d been doing their laundry a few days ago had revealed that overall, Blackwood Keep was considered something of a fixture in the gaybourhood, had been a haven for queer people for decades, and many residents were queer elders with plenty of stories about how the rather snobbish Mr Blackwood (many still called him that; it was, the queens wryly teased, his ‘maiden’ name) nonetheless had quietly made the building extremely safe for the community, right down to physically barring entrance to homophobic relatives, keeping them from emptying flats that had been rented by one of the thousands that had died of AIDS, or keeping rent just about enough to cover the cost of running the building, with documentation given to each tenant outlining what the money did (‘I wish our taxes did that!’). And Aix had gotten the impression, particularly from old Mr Cousins, that the whole building was run like a co-op, and it was only their landlord’s possessive and controlling nature regarding the historical status and look of the building that caused him to not give up ownership.

‘Yeah, um… though it seems like y’all are… kind of weird? In a good way! Like, I was talking to some of the tenants about the history of this place, and I guess rent is just… ridiculously low, and it’s actually… a community? Like an old-fashioned apartment building, where people know each other, and there’s parties sometimes and a garden? There’s almost no turnover? And… honestly, it sounds like a co-op, but I guess the general idea is that Dmitri’s kind of controlling about the Art Nouveau thing.’

Victoria contemplated them for a few minutes over the rim of her coffee cup, which was fine china just like the teacups, but made slightly bigger. The coffeepot was, of course, tall and thin rather than the round, short shape of a teapot.

‘…Dmitri says you reacted, shall we say, interestingly to his casual reveal of his nature, the other day.’

‘His… his naohmygod he’s a real vampire isn’t he?’ Aix muffled a scream of laughter—they, like many others, called landlords ‘landleeches’, and the irony of it being literal in Dmitri’s case was not lost on them.

Victoria sipped her coffee, barely hiding her smile, feeling as usual rather smug about being married to a vampire—as any goth would. ‘So you see,’ she continued, ‘the building needs to be his—grave soil and all that. Not that I’m denying we’re both aristocracy, and all the blood on our money; but the blood part is rather literal, for my beloved. Now, unfortunately, ours are all two-bedroom apartments, or I would invite you to stay in unit C4. I gather that might be too much space for you to be comfortable, though I could be wrong, of course.’

Aix thought about, really thought about, whether a two bedroom would even be something they wanted to maintain. Yes, they’d been raised to think one should have a bedroom for every resident of a house, plus an extra one for guests; but did they really want guests that stayed in their own room but still in Aix’s house? All the years of guest-surfing homelessness and horrendous hosts and housemates, plus being on the street a couple years ago… and then now, their current situation completely cut off from help navigating the benefits the social workers had gotten for them, which made it terrifying abuse rather than relief… and their worsening physical mobility…. Having a second bedroom would be a lot of trouble on top of all that, especially since they couldn’t afford to furnish it. And they weren’t sure about how social the building was, though that was mostly self-consciousness and the past decade of their life being spent in isolation or abuse. Still… they’d lived in Inwood once, and they’d quite adored it.

‘I realise we just met,’ Victoria said seriously, ‘and it’s obvious to me you’ve not got a lot of experience with true kindness, and I’m rich, and you’re right not to trust aristocrats bearing gifts—’

‘I used to be one,’ Aix said, all in a rush, feeling like they were confessing murder. ‘My—my white family, they were old coloniser money, moved—moved west to Minnesota, and then LA. They were. They lived in the Hills. Weren’t smart with money, just had it, so when the recession happened… and—and I never fit in, and I’m—I’m not white enough. For them—and—I—I’ve started to understand that I’m not. I’m not poor like people that grew up poor. I was poor. My mother wasn’t. And she—she seems like middle class now, but she’s not. She’s not at all. And it’s been kind of nice to be able to know some of the rules, hanging out with you and your family.’

Victoria let them talk, knowing how to make herself into a soothing and receptive presence.

‘And your family has been—so nice to me—and—I want to live here again.’ They were crying now, and took their glasses off, setting them aside with the practicality-in-details of one in crisis. ‘I want to live here again, I want this to be true, that—that all of this—that it means maybe I can—I can have a family that understands me—but I’ve—I’ve always coveted other people’s families like—like some kind of—I don’t know, doppelganger—and I just. I’ve learned that’s not how life works. You get the family you get—and if you’re autistic? That’s it!! That’s it, you’re done! Especially if you can’t get married properly.’ Aix sniffled. ‘And I can’t. I can’t and I shouldn’t have in the first place.’ They hid their face in their hands. ‘Why is this happening to me? I’m nobody, I swear I’m nobody….’

Victoria was careful to make her sigh of sympathy utterly silent, so Aix wouldn’t interpret it as exasperated. She’d heard those words before—from Virginia, in fact. Not directly, but in one of the visions that included Virginia, of which there had been a few. And Victoria had seen her Aunt Jessamine’s identical reaction to the in-laws, in Victoria’s dreams that dipped into pasts that were not her own. She didn’t believe in reincarnation, but Aix was very like Aunt Jessamine….

‘The world was very cruel to you, and yet you are still someone who believes in the right thing, in the fact that humans are supposed to take care of one another. You’re simply not alone in that anymore, lamb; you’ve found your people. All your hard work surviving, and trying to be better than you were the day before, that is bearing fruit. The gods can only give you opportunities—whether you are curious enough, brave enough, to decide to take them—that is your choice. And you have made that choice, every hour of every day. You answered my call and let me in, you were connected with an entity that most people hate and fear, and you only saw a fellow person in pain, and you were kind. That is an enormous thing, Aix. And, after all,’ she added, just to cap it off with something to ease the sombre tension, ‘Odysseus was Nobody, too.’

That got a watery laugh. ‘I just… you know, you’re not supposed to believe things that sound too good to be true. But… anything short of being on the street, or being abused, sounds too good to be true, to me. I don’t think my instruments are calibrated right,’ they joked weakly.

‘She wouldn’t if I told her, no; but she also keeps complaining that paying my rent costs too much; buuut, I’m also supposed to have “A Backup Plan”. Whatever that means, I don’t know what that is even supposed to be,’ Aix said angrily. ‘What does she expect me to do, exactly? I can’t hold down a job, I’m too crazy and crippled. What the hell is Plan B supposed to even be, you know?’

‘She’s disappointed in you, and doesn’t approve of your choices. That means you’re doing precisely the right thing,’ Dmitri said, from the doorway to the dining room. He gave a little wave when Aix looked up at him, pushing off the doorway and coming in, leaning down to kiss his wife’s cheek, and gently squeeze her velvet-clad shoulders. ‘Believe me,’ he went on, wryly, ‘I know all about passive-aggressive English mothers, I had one.’

‘I’ll be right there to help you with the lease,’ Victoria promised. ‘And once your rent amount is on a legal document that everyone has signed, it can’t go up on you.’

‘I’m more worried about the social security office. I’ve never been able to report moving to them, because they basically force you to come to an office in-person and if you can’t—hello, Covid?—then fuck you, I guess. I also know they’ll slash my stipend whenever I report any changes, too, and I can barely make ends meet on six hundred a month. I have a friend that’s been paying for my groceries because I can’t feed myself, but I also don’t get to have food stamps because disability should cover it, apparently.’ Aix sounded bitter and angry and they knew it. ‘It’s financial abuse. I hate knowing I’m being abused and not being able to stop it. I just want to be able to pay for myself, not have to keep begging people that don’t care about me!’

‘We care about you,’ Victoria soothed. ‘And not because you’ve been charming. We care because you’re a person and you oughtn’t have to suffer like this.’

‘Noblesse oblige requires the aristocracy to make sure the peasants on their land are well,’ Dmitri agreed.

‘Jeez, tell me how you really feel,’ Aix quipped; they always defaulted to jokes when they were shocked.

‘I’m a vampire, my dear. Would you prefer if I said I want to be sure my prey is healthy before I take a bite?’

‘I think our Aix would prefer harsh truths to pretty lies, my dearest lady-wife,’ Dmitri said, sitting down at the round mahogany table, his posture so perfect it made Aix straighten up a bit in self-consciousness.

‘I do appreciate monsters that don’t deny what they are, yes,’ Aix said, drying their crying-wet face with the soft purple napkin. ‘ “we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality”.’

‘Precisely,’ Dmitri said, his shapely, thin lips in a smile. He had quite a pretty mouth, especially considering he was English. ‘Milady knows a great many people who could facilitate you throwing off the yoke you’re labouring under, and considering you have caught the eye of Cthulhu, I would say your happiness has moved up the entire world’s list of priorities.’

‘And… Doing anything is a risk!’ Aix said, sighing and leaning back, dropping their head over the back of the chair and staring up at the gold foil stars on the ceiling’s wallpaper. ‘Mom took away Plan B, because Plan B, Mother, is Move Back In With Your Parents, and I’m not allowed to do that, because how dare I have messy loud emotions I don’t repress. How dare I have massive crises from trauma, wehhh that’s too scary to look at, stop making me witness human suffering.’

‘I’d express shock and horror, but I know far too much about what the English call “parenting”,’ Victoria sighed. ‘Still… your mother is a heartless bitch, if I may be frank.’

A bleak and mirthless but gratified laugh. ‘She is. But she’s Nice, you know, so it feels rude to criticise her.’

‘Precisely so,’ Dmitri said, in a tone that said he knew exactly what Aix meant.

‘…You know what?’ Aix said, and straightened again, looking Victoria in the eye. ‘Fuck it. Yeah, let’s go see that apartment your friend has.’ They wheeled back from the table—Victoria’s family had insisted they keep the wheelchair, since they found it so perfect for their needs—and went to get their backpack. They had a purse, but they had known better than to bring it to New York City; using public transit meant you needed room for books to read, and emergency snacks, and a coat, and plenty of water. Wearing it the traditional NYC way—in front, not in back—meant it didn’t even press into their bad arm.

Since they were meeting someone, Aix had the energy to take a shower and put some eyeliner on—there was no point wearing other makeup, they wore a niqab outside and with unknown people these days, for safety. A veil was far more comfortable and less claustrophobia-inducing than a medical mask, and worked about as well. It was a holdover from a mild spiritual crisis Aix had gone through a few months ago, that had led to a lot of research and questioning whether they wanted to switch faiths. In the end, they hadn’t; but they’d kept the veil-wearing, because it helped them feel safe—both from illness and from surveillance.

Victoria wore a more western and funereal veil attached to a hat, but it was still nice to be together with her in covering up; and because Aix wasn’t as practised at long trips in the wheelchair, they left theirs behind.

The first time Aix had gone out into the subway with Victoria, they had been fully prepared to help her fight for accommodation, knowing how ignorant and aggressively ableist people were, and also how exhausting it was to constantly brace oneself for battle; but Victoria quickly made Aix realise the reality that not everyone felt that way. Victoria was quite at ease with ordering Aix around—open this, hold this, put this there—as much as she ordered everyone else—politely of course, but she used her Lady-Mistress Voice, and everyone jumped to obey her. It was terribly impressive, and not a little sexy.

They had settled in on the A train for the relatively long trek down to Times Square, and Victoria had pulled out her crochet, when Aix finally decided to ask.

‘I am,’ she said, not looking up from her work—Aix was watching her hands with fascination, the hook she was using was so tiny, and the purple thread was laceweight. ‘Unless my powers of observation are failing me, you seem to enjoy it—though I have avoided anything sexual when it comes to you, of course, my dear. I simply do tend toward a rather masterful tone.’

‘Yes,’ Aix said, looking at his hands. ‘I don’t mind,’ they added. ‘I do enjoy helping you, and I like being told how people want me to help. If it weren’t for my feet and all….’ Aix sighed. ‘I really like being of service. I like dealing with customers, I like folding clothes, or working a register, or doing laundry, or clearing tables, or doing dishes. I like doing those things, because when I’m behind a desk, when I’m serving, I have power. Everyone comes to me and I get to help, and I get to control the conversation.’

‘You truly understand submission, then, how refreshing,’ Victoria commented.

They rode in silence for a while, the only ‘noise’ the semi-rhythmic movement of Victoria’s hands and the antique silver-and-ivory crochet hook.

Victoria hummed thoughtfully. ‘You should ask him. He obviously comes from a culture with such play.’

As it turned out, Virginia’s building was near the Armory on Park, which made Aix nervous because they had an ex-friend that worked there. It was also far ritzier than Inwood, and had dogs.

However, there were, also, fae. Aix noticed a person with pointed ears and wings immediately, an older man picking up some mail from the front desk. He was wearing a very nice suit, with a mask that matched—both too nice for it to be just because he was rich. It was tailored, and while there was a higher incidence of people wearing high-effort fashion in this town, suits that fit well were something you could only have if you understood how a suit should fit.

Aix realised they was staring. ‘Sorry for staring,’ they said, looking down shyly. ‘I was just admiring your suit, it’s gorgeous.’

‘Don’t apologise for that, my word!’ the old elf chuckled. ‘I’m quite flattered—it’s my own work, you see. Are you one of the Blackstones, then?’ he asked, and Aix realised Victoria had moved—the lobby wasn’t too big, or too full, with very soft carpet and what felt like a wooden floor beneath, which didn’t fit with the architecture, but Aix still felt a little bit adrift, especially here. ‘I’m with Mrs Blackstone, yes,’ they said, cautious of the fact this was, after all, one of the Folk. ‘I’m here to see a one-bedroom that just opened up, she said.’

‘Ah,’ he said, green eyes twinkling. ‘And I imagine she’d want you nearby.’

Aix quirked a brow, which their niqab was specifically adjusted to show. ‘…okay, slick,’ they said, after a moment, ‘I’m tired of subtlety. You’re folk, and clearly you can tell I’ve got some psionic weirdness going on. I prefer having it out in the open.’ They resisted the urge to offer their hand, but did bow their head slightly. ‘You can Call me what you like, of course,’ they said.

To Aix’s surprise, the elf looked somewhat surprised. ‘I can? Is that… customary, here?’

‘I’m from a very different wood, I’m afraid. But there are cousins here? Really? I was told there were not, only humans, and the Dead, and half-wolves—vampires and werewolves, they’re called here. And things which my realm has no name for.’

Aix glanced over at Victoria, and then at the nearest seat (a beautifully-carved tufted-back tête-à-tête upholstered in green leather), then back at the elf. ‘Sit with me, I can’t stand anymore.’ And they went over to the sofa, bracing themself for not being followed; but the elfin tailor followed them happily.

‘Not fond of it myself,’ he said, as he settled down in the other seat, his package on his lap.

‘I can’t believe nobody told you there aren’t Folk here. I don’t know how many there are in the city, but we’ve always had lore about you, mostly the Celts, so most of the words are in Gaelic languages…. Anyway! The point is, I was taught that you never give your name, and that it’s polite to let the Folk give you a Call, and vice-versa. I used to know a troll I called Brita, for example.’

‘He lived by the creek and picked trash out of it,’ Aix said, shrugging. ‘My call with humans is a genus of duck—these,’ Aix said, pulling up the images they always had ready to show people, of both species in the Aix genus.

‘Those are the native species,’ Aix said with a nod. ‘The others are native to far east Asia. There’s a lot of lore about them, actually.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So you’re one of the people called… I’m still learning this, give me a moment… transqueer?’

Aix smiled; it was very endearing when older people tried their best, perhaps moreso than people who got the words right but still treated you like shit. ‘I am trans and trans people are a type of queer person, yes.’

‘Ah. We don’t need the words, where I’m from. It has never been persecuted.’

‘Anti-Miscegenation Laws,’ he said, reciting it like a memorised phrase. ‘My beloveds are half-wolves, you see. They’re not even citizens, in our country of origin.’

‘May we cut in?’ asked a woman’s voice; Aix looked up to see a thin brunette with very blue eyes behind her mask, which was a blue fabric with strawberries on it. Her eyes were smiling. ‘Hi, I’m Virginia Monday-Clovis.’

‘Oh, um, hi,’ Aix said, not ever sure how to deal with situations like this. ‘I was just talking with this gentleman about the Folk in this country.’

‘We must continue this conversation later,’ the elf said, getting to his feet and pulling a calling card from a silver case in his inside coat pocket, offering it to Aix. He held up the package. ‘I expect my dearest will not want me to delay getting this to him, so I shall bid you farewell.’

‘Ta ra,’ Aix said, smiling at the old-fashioned manners. They were comforting, and familiar; Aix knew where they stood, what they should say and do, with those manners. Virginia sat down in the third seat of the tête-à-tête.

‘Victoria said you prefer one-on-one conversations, but if you’d like her to be with us that’s okay.’

‘Um, no,’ Aix said, ‘No, I’m good. So, first question… there’s dogs? Do they bark a lot?’

‘No,’ Virginia said, ‘we do have howling, though. It started when everyone was isolating, and everybody here just likes the camaraderie. Happens at eight pm every night. You can join in if you like.’

‘I might, actually,’ Aix said. ‘That gentleman was just saying how he moved here because where he’s from, werewolves aren’t citizens, and there’s anti-miscegenation laws? So apparently there’s some interdimensional stuff going on, because he talked about terms being different and also not knowing there were Folk here.’

‘Ohh, okay. So we can go mask off—metaphorically, I mean. Well, do you need to rest a bit more, or are you ready to tour the apartment and talk about what to expect from living here?’

‘We have seats in the elevator, in the hallways, and the apartment has a little settee type thing. We also have a couple loaner wheelchairs.’

There was clicking of claws on the wood of the floor, and Aix tensed up, unable to help immediately glancing over to see a medium-size brown dog of indeterminate parentage—a very doggy dog, then—that had a little vest on that said ‘Hi I’m Heckin! I’m a therapy dog, please pet me!’. They were panting in a doggy smile, tail wagging slowly.

‘Hey, Heckin,’ Virginia said. ‘Heckin’s our building dog. He sleeps with us but spends the day wandering around doing his job.’

Heckin had not gone over to Virginia; he sat down in front of Aix, patiently. Aix carefully offered a hand, ready to pull it back, and Heckin sniffed it politely, before perking up his ears and waiting, with that canine smile. He seemed like a nice dog, mostly because he wasn’t making sudden loud noises, and Aix leaned down to pet his face thoroughly.

‘I’m not a dog person,’ Aix said. ‘I know that seems weird, when I obviously am not being mean,’ they went on, knowing it was clear they knew how to pet a dog. ‘I just can’t handle how social dogs are, and barking hurts my head. It’s not fair to the dog for me to be around them, really.’

‘I like wolves,’ Aix said immediately. ‘I mean—I’ve never met any of the turns-into-a-human-shape variety, but I like werewolves conceptually, and wolves are critically important to the ecosystem and deserve respect and shouldn’t be pets and I have a rant locked and loaded at all times are you sure you wanna hear it?’

‘I’m sure many people here would,’ Virginia said, getting up. ‘I can’t judge for you whether the dogs will bother you, but you can maybe see for yourself?’

‘I’m certainly curious enough to try it and see,’ Aix said, letting go of Heckin and pushing to their feet, following Virginia to the back of the lobby where there was a brace of elevators. Aix was used to the wide variety of elevators that resided in New York, and even rather liked how many elderly ones were still in use. This one was rather elderly, not made entirely of glass and metal, and had wallpaper rather than mirrors—and there was, indeed, a padded fold-down bench on one side. It was rather cosy, but Aix was more agoraphobic than claustrophobic.

Virginia hit the button for the thirtieth floor, which was as high as the numbers went, and Aix sat down, mostly for the novelty of it.

‘Oh wow, above the noise,’ Aix commented, as the doors closed. ‘How is it still empty?’

‘Most people moving here need more space,’ Virginia said. ‘Or they need things to be shorter,’ she added, as the elevator dinged and opened into a hallway with dark, warm wood floors covered by a green patterned carpet runner. The walls were covered in a green wallpaper with a pattern that looked like a forest, which was helped by the wrought iron and glass of the ceiling.

‘Oh my god,’ Aix said, staring up at the glass ceiling. ‘What… you realise I can’t afford to live here, right?’

‘Why don’t you deserve to live here?’ Virginia asked, walking at an easy pace down the hall. ‘You’re just the same as anybody else. I don’t need the money, I own the building.’

‘I know Victoria, and she vouched for you. Listen,’ Virginia said, waylaying the next protest. ‘I know how it feels to suddenly step into a world where you’re suddenly important, and you matter, when you’ve spent your life invisible and taken for granted, I do. I saved the world once—not this one, but the one most of the people who live here are from, which is like… a whole fairy tale situation. Where all the fairy tales come from.’

‘I’m a bard. I’m a bard and a witch. I know how that world works, better than this one. I know the rules. I’ve studied folklore my entire life. I’m much better-equipped to deal with Märchenland than I am all this…’ Aix gesticulated, ‘…Gothic-slash-Weird Horror nonsense.’

‘You’d be running away,’ Virginia said, and Aix hated that she was sort of right. ‘Listen,’ she said, opening the door to the apartment at the end of the hall, letting them in. ‘You can’t run from this because you think you’re not the right person. You are the right person, even if you don’t feel like you are, you don’t know all the pieces in play. You got chosen for a reason, and you’ll figure it out if you keep at it. I speak from experience,’ she added, with a sardonic smile in her voice.

Aix looked around the apartment as she spoke—the building wasn’t as much a feast for the eyes as Victoria’s, because it wasn’t Art Nouveau; however, it was still beautiful, just simpler… and then Aix found the kitchen, and screamed, flapping excitedly and bouncing up and down. ‘Ohmigod bonanza midmod oh my god!!! Oh my god oh my god what kind of fucking Snow White nonsense ahhhhh this is so good!’

The kitchen cabinets were dark wood, with brass handles, and the signature brown appliances of the sixties and seventies blending into them. The counters were wood also, and looked new, as did the ‘Chequy cork floor ohmigod!!’ Aix said, and started opening corner cabinets and drawers. ‘This is so good.’

‘I’m glad you like it; I was about to apologise because it hadn’t been touched since about the time this place was built.’

‘No it’s so good!! Oh my god. I love bonanza midmod—I don’t know what everyone else calls it, but there were two branches of midmod—atomic futurism stuff, which is the sputnik lights and the pastels and smooth and chrome everything—and then there’s bonanza midmod, which is all the dark wood and panelling and cottagey-western vibes. And everyone hates it but I. Love it. It’s so cosy! Fuck this minimalism bullshit for real. Oh my god this is real brick…’ Aix said, as they reached across to feel the backsplash.

‘The flooring is new; we were testing out the waterproofing for the cork. The counters are too, because our maintenance crew are really into craftsmanship and find laminate and particleboard offensive.’

Aix laughed, hopping up on the upholstered saddle stool at the snack bar. ‘Wow, this thing! I love it, so comfy!’

‘Yeah, that’s something Michaela came up with. She’s a big lady, but she likes to sit up high. So she builds her own bar stools.’

Aix looked around at the kitchen as a whole, and Virginia could tell they were calculating, and stayed quiet, thinking.

‘That’s one of the reasons Victoria thinks you’d be happier here,’ Virginia said, coming to sit beside them. ‘We have a lot of people with sensitive hearing, so the building has to be very quiet. Luckily, the maintenance guys are some of those people. We have central air, but they insisted on installing radiators; apparently they’re the most efficient.’

‘Huh. Don’t those make noise? I don’t mind that noise…’ In fact, Aix had made up a rather erotic reason behind the pipes banging in the walls, to keep themself from startling awake at it, and it had worked a little too well—now when they heard a pipe-bang inside a wall, they got aroused. They had never told anyone this, however, and weren’t about to tell a stranger.

‘I know, right?’ Virginia laughed, and turned on the stool to point at one of the shining and brand-new-looking radiators, the one in the dining room. It shone in the light from the bare window, the sun reflecting off the green finish. ‘And they’re not bad-looking once they’re clean and work right.’

‘I love them, actually,’ Aix said. ‘I just thought they were messy and loud and inefficient and allergenic.’

‘That means something is wrong—radiant heat is more efficient and hypoallergenic than even more modern forced-air. …You would not believe how much I’ve had to learn about this, running this building,’ Virginia added, realising what she sounded like. ‘Sorry, this sounds boring, doesn’t it?’

‘It sounds amazing. I’m always so interested in that stuff. I almost went to school for interior design, though honestly I’m more into just… everything. Everything from public transit to plumbing to decorating. Just… the concept of home. Everything that makes a home what it is. Everything that changes the details of people’s lives. Fabric, appliances, cosmetics, food—all the bits of history that people forget. Everything has a story. That fabric of your mask, the style of your hair, the cabinets in this kitchen—everything has a story to tell us. I can’t imagine going through life not seeing those stories.’

‘…Okay, wow. You need to live here. Do you know how many people would love talking to you? I get hundreds of questions from everybody, every day, that I can hardly answer.’ Virginia paused. ‘You know, I think that’s a good idea. How about this: you stay here, you act as a guide to this world—just tell the stories of everyday objects to all the new people.’

‘I want to be part of a union and have a monthly salary determined by the median cost of living in this area, adjusted every year. And I want full health coverage, including dental, mental, optic, and palliative.’ Aix folded their arms. ‘My daddy was a union man, I know what I’m worth.’ Aix paused. ‘I don’t know what union that falls under.’

‘Probably AGVA, if you’re a bard, or UFT if it falls under teaching,’ Virginia said. ‘Hext can hook you up with the former, he’s been an MC at the Coney Island Freakshow for years. But look at the rest of this apartment first.’

Aix let out a breath they hadn’t realised they’d been holding, and pushed off the stool, walking around and testing light switches, getting out their phone charger and testing every single outlet, showing that they’d lived in a lot of apartments before. From how they pulled the sofa out of the wall and carefully tipped it over to shine their flashlight on the underside, they had suffered from a bedbug infestation before.

‘We have magical pest control,’ Virginia said. ‘The only thing is that its dragonets in the walls. They’re tenants though, not pests.’

Virginia laughed, and was about to answer when her phone rang. ‘Hold that thought,’ she said apologetically, ‘this is my personal number, so it’s an emergency.’

Aix used the opportunity to go check out the bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom was just the right size for a twin bed, with a very level, well-sealed wooden floor and another radiator by the window, which was halfway up the wall like the rest of the mid-century style side-closing windows (the windows could open!), making room beneath for furniture—or, in this case, a radiator beneath one window, and nothing beneath the window on the other wall. A corner unit, how ritzy, Aix thought. The walls and ceiling were plain and white—Aix wondered if you were allowed to paint, as they went into the bathroom, expecting the worst and—they squealed.

It was pink. The toilet, the sink, the walk-in shower—they were all a beautiful, delicate pink, the shower door even had a swan etched into it. The mirror cabinet had some water spots, and the brass had a well-worn patina; but Aix flipped on the lights and they all still worked, and there was an outlet.[1] Even the radiator was pink, and there was a towel warmer built into it, which Aix had never seen before in person.

The solitude gave them time to remember to check on little details—the shower was original, the head was small but thankfully not mounted uncomfortably short, and there were enough towel rods. The bedroom had a closet—a proper one that wasn’t a walk-in, and drawers beneath, with cabinets above—a good amount of space for storing things they didn’t want to see, like boxes. The insides didn’t have many stains, nothing worryingly suggestive of bugs.

And then they looked up from inspecting the window frames at the view out the windows, and was struck silent for long moments.

It faced Central Park from one window, the other looking up Lexington Avenue, and it was… it was. Aix was struck by the thought that they had never thought they’d see this kind of view. This kind of view was for rich people, the kind of rich they would never be, because they weren’t good at numbers, or being mean to others, or charming and beautiful.

Once the shock wore off, Virginia’s words started sinking in a bit more. She understood what it was like… she’d saved the world… the job offer… wait, if she had a royal patron, did that mean this building was some kind of Embassy, or something? Or was it more of a fairy tale Ellis Island? Or a Men in Black situation? Aix chewed on their lip and thought on it, really thought about it… eventually, they sat down, leaning against the wall and thinking, wishing the window was actually tall enough to look out of from floor-height.

There was a tapping on the door frame, and Aix looked up to see Virginia. She waved.

‘I run a restaurant, something’s always on fire, literally or otherwise,’ Virginia said, with a shrug. ‘How ‘bout you? You okay? I know this is probably really overwhelming.’

‘I’m autistic, so… yeah, change is really bad, especially when it’s good. I know how to deal with bad change, but good things?’

‘Must be fake, right?’ Virginia said, joining Aix on the floor—slowly, with Mom Noises. ‘Ooooof, I’m getting too old for this…’ she muttered, ‘But, I like you. I know landlords are a shitty institution, and believe me, I’ve read the horror stories from the pandemic. We suspended rent. It’s still suspended, because the pandemic isn’t actually over. King Whitney has ordered a quarantine of the Grimmwelt—that’s us—and the border is closed until it’s over—really over.’

‘They were in the baby stages of understanding vaccination; and they take plagues a lot more seriously over there.’

‘Good for them. I was isolated before now, I just stayed that way. It honestly was pretty easy until everyone started pretending it was over and stopped with the online college, online everything stuff. Then nobody was willing to do it, which left handicapped folks in the lurch. Because fuck, we can’t change our entire lives to be safer, that’s soooo much worrrrk we wanna pretend everything is noorrrrmaaaal wehhhhhh. God, I hate them.’

‘You’re in the right city for it,’ Virginia chuckled. ‘You a drag queen? You talk like one.’

Aix was surprised into a shriek of laughter. ‘Oh my god, no. No. I mean yes, but also no. I can’t do this on stage, I blank out. It only works one-on-one like this. I’ve always wanted to be a drag queen, but as mentioned—autistic. Traumatised. Massive stage fright and social anxiety. So—love to, but can’t.’

‘Not alone, anyway,’ Virginia said, bumping shoulders. ‘You’d be surprised what happens when you suddenly get a bunch of people encouraging you, helping you out, showing you stuff… I’m just saying, no reason to give up pursuing who you are just because it’s hard and you can’t do it by yourself. Sometimes we just need a little help. Victoria introduce you to the drag queens yet?’

‘Nah, Tristan moved out of there a few months ago. Lives down in Staten Island now, butling for some vampires. He’s part of the House of Sinnamon.’

‘God how do all of you know such cool people. Oh my god. A drag queen house, like a House, capital H. Amazing.’

‘Pinky Focks works for the man you were talking to, she’s his apprentice. I… wouldn’t meet her first, she’s a bit of a bitch, and not the same way that Speranza Sinnamon is.’

‘Ah,’ Aix said, nodding. ‘I’m half of each. Prefer the Italian, but you know how white people are. Er…’ they realised Virginia was probably not mixed like they were.

‘Don’t worry, I do,’ she said, chuckling. ‘If you’re Italian they’ll love you right away. And I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now, I’m only saying—you’ve got people. You’ve been adopted into a really big network of queers, weirdos, and witches. And nobody wants you to compromise who you are.’

‘I don’t even know what m—’ Aix paused, sighed. ‘That’s a lie. I know who I am, I’m just afraid of being killed about it, or filmed and mocked, or hit, or locked up. I’m crippled, I can’t run or fight, and I never will be able to—learning that, understanding that truth? How…’ Aix leaned back, looking up and blinking, trying to fight tears. ‘How do you go outside knowing the whole country you live in wants you dead, just for breathing? And not just from one direction—I’m crippled, I’m trans, I’m intersex, I’m autistic, I’m poor, I’ve got a uterus and it’s infertile, I’m not Christian—’ Listing it all was making the tears spill over, and Aix took their glasses off, reaching under their niqab and wiping their eyes on their arm because they were afraid to touch their face with their hands. They felt Virginia’s hand on their back.

‘How am I supposed to live my truth when it’s a huge target and I’m all alone and everyone can so easily tell where I live and how to hurt me?’

‘You said you lived in a small town, and had lived in a small town for… what, the past ten years?’

‘Um, hang on…’ Aix was glad she was giving them a puzzle, and counted. The problem was, their memory blanked out several years, including the year they’d moved out of New York City and to a tiny town in the ass of nowhere, Minnesota. And then there was being homeless for a year in a tiny beach town, which felt like a small town because being embroiled in the System, while homeless, was basically a small company town… and then the desert town they lived in now, which was definitely a small town. They couldn’t go anywhere, because there was no public transit and they couldn’t drive….

‘Yeah, eight years of being trapped in a small town, in a tiny apartment, all alone. Eight years since I was here, in a city where I didn’t need a car to have freedom, where if it hadn’t been for my ex-husband fucking up every relationship I had with every…’ Aix shut their eyes, drawing their knees up and resting their forehead on it. ‘And now I’m here again, and I have a new network of friends, and he’s gone. Thanks,’ Aix said, straightening, carefully starting to get up. ‘I’m gonna go splash my face.’ They had soap in their bag for just this type of occasion…

Virginia watched them go, and thought on what Victoria had told her—not just in the lobby, but after and before she’d actually met Aix. Virginia hadn’t had this kind of perspective on a Chosen One before. She didn’t like to believe in Chosen Ones, it was something she made effort to research and debunk—but the truth remained that usually, being a Chosen One was the same as being a Murder Victim—those who Chose were usually people that had known the One. In Virginia’s case, for example, it had only seemed random. While it looked completely random for Aix at this moment, Virginia’s experience said there was something else going on, some connection nobody knew Aix had to all of this.

She got to her feet. She had to be careful; this kid was cagey, possibly cagier than she’d ever been, even when she’d been their age. Victoria said what she’d Seen was shattered—not just broken, but shattered into little bits and having to glue themself back together and not knowing what anything was supposed to look like. Virginia knew a little bit about that, but not everything—she’d always had Dad, after all.

Aix needed to meet Tristan’s circle, none of whom lived in this building—Tristian herself lived in Staten Island, and all the other queens lived either upstate in Sleepy Hollow or New Rochelle, or all the way out at the end of the F train, in Jamaica. Other than them, though, Virginia didn’t really think anyone else would be suited to a kid like this, especially right now….

Virginia realised something was wrong, and got up, going to knock on the bathroom door. ‘Aix? You okay?’

The bad feeling got worse. Victoria had said Aix was prone to trances now, and couldn’t control them or even realise they were happening, yet. Virginia opened the door a crack, and it immediately bumped something on the floor.

Flashes of everything that could be dangerously, lethally wrong flashed in Virginia’s worst imagination. Carefully, she pushed open the door enough to slide into the room through the gap, and saw Aix on the floor, and thankfully no blood, but given they had some kind of disability that made their body unstable, Virginia wasn’t sure what kind of damage a fall would do. She pulled out her phone and called Victoria first.

‘Victoria they fell, in the bathroom. There’s no blood, what—what conditions did they have?’

‘Some kind of marfanoid syndrome, so their joints and soft tissues are unstable. Don’t pull or drag them, lifts should be done carefully. Do not call 911, they have trauma. I’m sending Devanté up, she just came in. I’ll get the word out and get a nurse to you soon.’

‘Can I push them a little or not? They’re blocking the door,’ Virginia said, Victoria’s calm tones helping her stay calm and clear-headed.

‘Gently, yes. Put something soft under their head first, and mind the small joints like the feet most, those are the weakest.’

Virginia slipped the phone back into her jeans pocket and took off her cardigan, folding it up in a desultory manner and gently lifting Aix’s head to slip it beneath. She was afraid her hand would come away bloody, and was relieved when it didn’t.

Virginia sighed; Les was worrying overmuch about the fact that a food critic was rumoured to be coming to the restaurant. There’s nothing my being there would do, Les. You can handle this, just do your best and that is good enough. 💙 Virginia messaged, and muted her phone, turning to gently move Aix so that the door could open, trying to push them away from it as gently as possible, glad the apartment had been deep-cleaned and the floor was pretty spotless. She got the door open and arranged Aix’s clothes so that they were more covered up, and just… waited. She checked the kid’s pulse, and that was all she could really do.

There was a knock on the apartment door, and she was glad for something to do, though hesitant to just leave Aix there. But there wasn’t anything else to be done, and Virginia had been a mother long enough to be practical. She went to the door, and the tall black half-wolf was waiting, holding a rolled up yoga mat and one of the emergency wool blankets. Warren, Virginia’s husband, was with him, looking worried.

‘Hey Devanté, Warren; they’re in the bathroom, they went in to splash their face after crying and then I guess they just passed out. No blood though.’

‘Okay, get the yoga mat set up on the bedroom floor,’ Devanté said. ‘We’ll handle moving them.’

Warren and Devanté were then carefully stepping into the bathroom, unfolding the blanket and going about the business of easing it under Aix’s body so they could use it to lift them, carefully moving Aix onto the yoga mat Virginia had unrolled on the floor.

‘Lady Blackstone said this is a new Seer?’ Warren said, his tail fretfully low and switching back and forth. He held a deep awe for Victoria, being that Seers were actually a great deal more important, in Eglenor.

‘I’m glad you’re here, actually,’ Virginia said to Devanté. ‘Just before this happened they made it clear they really need to find a drag mother, and other femme gays.’

Aix suddenly grabbed the nearest thing they could get their hand around—which happened to mean they were holding tightly to Warren’s wrist. It wasn’t a strong grip, despite the evidence they were squeezing as hard as they were able.

‘Oh okay, so we’re chanting,’ Devanté said, ‘Anybody speak cosmic tentacle god?’

Warren was petting Aix’s veiled head gingerly with his free hand, always a very tactile person, and he was making worried little whimpers. Devanté got up, dusting off his hands and going to open the front door of the apartment. ‘So, we’re chanting,’ he said, in greeting. Virginia heard Victoria’s voice answer.

‘For now,’ Victoria said, her voice getting closer, ‘watch out for glowing orange eyes and nosebleeds. Hey,’ she said, as she wheeled into the bedroom, Devanté and a half-pard in black scrubs following. ‘Cavalry’s here, darlings.’

‘Now get out,’ said the Pard, with all of a cat’s casual transgression of manners, one of his ears flicking in annoyance as he knelt down and started carefully prising Aix’s hand off of Warren’s wrist.

‘Bitch,’ Devanté said, almost affectionately; but he glanced at Aix, and then Virginia. ‘This kid got an ethnicity?’

Devanté was already texting Lorenzo. ‘Wanted to know which of the girls to contact.’

‘Zozo,’ several people chorused, and Devanté was nodding, turning to leave.

Virginia patted Warren’s shoulder. ‘You go ahead, babe. Go see Leslie at the restaurant, she’s freaking out about the food critic.’

Bless him, Virginia thought, he had already designated Aix a new pup. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will. Go.’

‘Come on, Zorgele!’ Devanté called from the front doorway, using Warren’s pack nickname. ‘Make the child some food, ‘f you’re so worried about them.’

Warren brightened, and practically leapt across the apartment to the hallway. ‘Yes! Yes, I should do that. They need some meat on their little bones…’

Virginia could still hear him talking through what to make as the door to the apartment closed. She looked back at Aix, and the Pard—who lived a few floors down with a whole group of other Pards and half-Pards in a loose and complicated tangle. Still, this healer was named Felix, Virginia remembered, and once you got used to how Pards were, he was rather an upright sort. Just business-like in a crisis, which was what you wanted in a healer.

‘They’re fine,’ Felix was saying to Victoria. ‘No blood, nothing broken; they must know how to fall down safely.’

‘The last time they were upright when this happened, Squidgy caught them immediately. Oh, you won’t find anything in there,’ Victoria said, as Felix started looking through Aix’s phone for emergency health information.

‘Buddy, you gotta stop doing this when I’m not asleep,’ Aix said, when they found themself in the temple again. ‘I might hurt myself, and then I wouldn’t be able to come find you.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be learning to speak with your mouth words?’ Aix asked, folding their arms wryly. When this garnered a bit of an abashed feeling, Aix leaned forward. ‘C’maaan, you’ve got a sexy voice, big sir.’ Aix straightened. ‘Let’s try a greeting.’ Aix waved with one hand. ‘Hello!’

Gratitude, relief at Aix seeming to understand what it was to learn a new way of communicating entirely, not simply a new language. Aix smiled.

‘Good! Now, let’s learn two important concepts: Yes and no.’ Aix concentrated on the concepts, and there was a gentle sense that Aix was working too hard, that such things were known, but only the combinations of sounds and the nuances of culture were unknown.

Aix stopped trying quite so hard. ‘Oh! Well, how about you ask me what concepts you need words for, then.’ They straightened up proudly and put a hand on their chest. ‘I happen to be the sort of person in my society that specialises in words. I guess the most useful phrase you should learn to speak is, “What is the word for…” and then you can fill the end in with the concept in telepathy. Okay? Oh, “okay” is sort of an all-purpose mild agreement. It means “do you understand” in this usage.’

Aix laughed in delight. ‘And it is the right response if you do understand! Well done! Listen, I’d love to stay and do English Basics with you, but you kind of cut in while I was standing up and in a room that was really dangerous to fall down in. I need you to not bring me to see you like this unless I’m asleep. Do… should I explain sleep?’

Aix took a deep breath, and closed their eyes, and recalled everything they knew about sleep, from the average amount humans spent asleep, to the scientific fact that it was a low-scale coma, to the fact that the brain gave off different electrical patterns, to personal details like the fact that Aix usually had an orgasm before going to sleep, if that helped Big Guy (Aix refused to refer to him as Cthulhu just yet) hone in on what signals to watch out for.

‘It’s rude to use someone’s True Name,’ Aix said, and because this was the Mindscape, or the Dreamspace, their eyes flashed and their form glitched and shifted as they gathered their magic, and brought forward their other rôle in society—that of a Witch. Shadows and shrieking and blood and the ancient power humans wielded that they had whole-made out of Story and Words. Aix paused only once, like the water receding before a tsunami, to say,

before letting loose the flood, which manifested like a wave of glittering magic, full of shapes of history and myth, gods and monsters, everything that wasn’t science, everything that was Truth but not Fact, everything that Aix believed made humans human.

Stories, thousands of stories, stories upon stories, the power inherent in words themselves, the power of names, the very soul of humanity itself was in stories; in songs first and then poems, then prose, but all in Stories. From dance to colour to the electrical spectacle of television and the internet, everything humans did that showed their souls was in stories—telling them, buying them, selling them, keeping them, burning them, spreading them, building on them, erasing and remaking them, over and over, for thousands of years, for thousands of cultures, no matter what other differences there were—and there were a lot—there was one common thread in all of it…

If you are a dreamer, come in!
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a prayer, a magic bean buyer,
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin
Come in! Come in!

7. Azathoth’s Court

Enchanted with this mortal that he’d found. All the years of being found, and searching, and he had finally found one that took the time to try and understand, to talk to him, and—this was rather important—not worship him as a god. That had been the last query, in Cthulhu’s mind, with this one—not because of anything the human had done, but simply out of experience with human beings so far. This one, this Many Named, was different. He seemed to understand not simply the idea that people spoke in different patterns of sounds, but the idea that communication need not be sound at all, but could be many other things, things which Cthulhu had assumed humans simply were not capable of.

It seemed that he had only been around a very specific and violent type of human. This location, the Fertile Crescent as the humans called it, had been the birthplace of many cultures, but most of them were those of Taking, and so saw the world that way. If only Cthulhu had settled down on the other side of the world, where the cultures of Sustaining had been the majority, on the continent his human knew two names for—the Colony name of North America and the True Name of Turtle Island—things may not have taken this long.

This human had learned so fast how mind-to-mind—what the human called ‘Dreamfasting’—worked! Humans had a story, had many stories, about it, though humans were not people who did it among one another, except in individuals who were seen to have god-bestowed powers. Seers, Oracles, they had many names, and were apparently unable to control their adjustment of how they experienced time and space, or perhaps it was controlled by these gods of theirs. It seemed to depend on the human—there were so many kinds! So very many kinds. Even when they knew of numbers and stars and physics, they could still believe in gods, and still needed stories.

‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they? The stars. It’s been so long since I’ve just looked at them, but they really are quite beautiful…’

We’re not Homo sapiens, the Thinking Ape. We’re Homo narrans, the Storytelling Ape….

It was so interesting to know that humans, indeed, were aware of having relation to the other animals of their planet, that they were cognizant that they had become, not simply been created as they currently were. And Cthulhu’s human (it was easy to start thinking of him that way) seemed quite proud of this fact, that humans were merely a kind of animal that was good at certain things, and that he viewed Cthulhu that way, quite naturally.

‘I am a person, so you must be as well. I can hurt, and so must you be able to hurt, and so you are my Cousin, because I can see you, and so I cannot but try and help.’

It was thought in such a purposely simple way, a child-like way, angrily so, in anger at those who would decry simplicity and the wisdom easily understood as worthless.

Though the human was unpractised, his mind was powerful and had already taught itself so much about telepathy, as expert as an older youth of Cthulhu’s species, though still as leaky, unintentionally sharing thoughts and ideas along with those intended: Cthulhu knew of his pain, his suffering at the hands of others and his own body, endured and fought and survived in ways that beggared belief.

Humans were sturdier than Cthulhu had thought; this one was certainly sturdier than all the others he’d ever encountered, responding to Dreamfasting not with screaming and panic but curiosity, eagerness, the loneliness necessary to reach out and say, Hello, Friend!

And this, apparently, was the True Nature Of Humanity: to see a stranger from another world and perk up and say, ‘Hello, Friend!’.

This seemed to bear out, when Cthulhu had found the baby. The baby that had been stolen from their home, newly-hatched, and had been intended for great harm.

Mommy, who other humans called after a flower. Mommy, who was seen by other humans as of inferior intellect and therefore no worth. Mommy, who in the panic and fear of being attacked by other humans, himself, had seen a monster and thought only, ‘A baby that needs help!’ and had simply done so, without a second thought to the chaos, the danger, or the fear he had felt, or the weakness he had against the humans that had stolen the baby. He understood these things, but they did not matter, because That Is A Baby, and Babies Need A Mommy, and I Can See You, So I Must Help.

And the Storyteller had emphasised that despite the Current State Of The World, the True Nature Of Humanity was this, that anything contrary had to be taught, that anything contrary required the human to not see a Person, because as soon as they saw a Person, they were ‘hard-wired’ to Help. That was what made them, that was how they had become—they had sacrificed all natural weapons, they had sacrificed natural armour, for Help Each Other—and it was so acute, so strong an instinct, that they applied it to other species, even to objects.

Cthulhu had much more to occupy him now, and amended Azathoth on his progress, and shared what he had learned, knowing it was far different, and more, than anyone else so far, even Shob-Zhiggurath, who had been so incredibly successful in his studies. As soon as the information spread, Cthulhu felt the focus come to bear on this planet again.

Hst’rr: You have to admit, the idea that one species can be so varied when residing on the same planet is difficult to countenance.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’th: Excuse me, which of us has the title of Master Of Knowledge of this planet? It is me. Which of us actually successfully bred with the natives? Also me.

Az’th’t: You have been told all of this, and yet there has been no play, Cthlh’?

Cthlh’: We are negotiating. My human understands I want to play, and he wishes to play, but he is… careful. Play like this has done him ill before, with other humans; and he is yet fragile in a way I have never seen a creature survive so long, and is (logically, I think) cautious of the logistics of playing with someone larger and stronger. But humans survive such genetic… I believe they are called “glitches”, in the language of my human.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’th: What a beautiful word! I like it. Glitch. It sounds very like our language, how curious. I have never heard a language of theirs that sounds anything like ours. They only have the one muscular hydrostat, they have to rely on all the open tones so much.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’th: Are you ‘god’ to him, Cthlh’? That is their name for us, or so I thought, until you shared all you have learnt with us. I did not know they thought me such a thing! Does this invalidate my earning, Master Az’th’t?

Az’th’t: You are no longer Master of Knowledge, for the knowledge has grown, and you must grow with awareness. What of the babe, Cthlh’?

Cthlh’: I do not know, because my human does not know, only that he is safe, and with the family that the human that used to care for him belonged to. They still care for him, generation to generation, even though they do not understand him. He is still seen as their child. He reaches not to me, his being has been wholly changed by being raised by humans.

Az’th’t: Then they are far more advanced than we had first observed, despite their short lives.

‘Hey,’ Virginia said, when Aix opened their eyes again. ‘Welcome back to the world of the living.’

‘He can stay,’ said a smooth, slightly nasal voice, and Aix turned their head to see. ‘What,’ said the Cat, ‘never seen a Jellicle Cat in person, before?’

An annoyed ear-flick. ‘We prefer to be called half-Pards, but I don’t know anybody that minds “Jellicle”. You can call me Felix, for now.’ He helped Aix sit up. ‘Lady Victoria is making tea. Do you have anything new, any new vision disturbance or pain?’

Aix took a moment to take stock of everything, appreciating that Felix understood that you had to specify new symptoms, with a chronically ill person. ‘I’m a little bruised, but I managed to get on the floor before I entirely lost consciousness—I’m used to fainting,’ Aix answered, before returning to the more attractive notion of food. ‘What kind of meat?’ Aix asked Virginia.

‘What we have on hand is a little exotic; we eat mostly game at home, so the most familiar we have is lamb.’

‘Oh!’ Virginia said. ‘Well, in that case… we have venison, pheasant, duck, and I think there’s some wild boar left in sausage… oh wait. Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. You’re Muslim.’

‘I’m not exactly Muslim, but I am allergic to pig, so it’s the same outcome. Also allergic to shellfish and a couple other things. Meat’s the safest food group, honestly.’

‘Sorta. I don’t process any kinds of sugars very well, and meat is the only food group without any sugars. I’m the opposite of vegan—meat and butterfat are actually the best and safest foods for me. I can eat bread though, thank gods.’

‘Do you cook?’ Virginia asked, by now knowing how to gracefully work around complex diets. The best solution was to just place the person as Head Chef, for the meal, and have fun helping them execute a meal. Virginia knew that most of the stress came from the effort involved in planning and execution; and that, a professional cook had in spades.

‘I do—if I have a sous chef and a rolly task stool. I’ve always wanted to try venison heart seasoned with just a touch of juniper and lots of rosemary. Almost tartare, really. Ooh, or maybe cinnamon? People don’t use cinnamon enough. I’m such a cinnamon fiend, I love all the varieties and I’ll put it in everything.’

Aix found out that by ‘making tea’, they didn’t mean Victoria was in the kitchen of the apartment Aix had been touring, and had woken up in; they meant she was down the hall, in Warren and Virginia’s larger apartment. Felix left them in the hallway, not wanting anything to do with ‘the dogs’.

‘We do have dogs, but they don’t feel the need to bark,’ Virginia had said before keying in, ‘one of the advantages to living with a half-wolf.’

And indeed, even when she opened the door, there was no chorus of ear-splitting barks, like Aix was used to hearing when entering a dog-owners home. There was no mess, either—the place wasn’t nobody-lives-here clean, but it wasn’t nobody-here-likes-to-do-housework messy, either. It was decorated all in foresty greens and deep rich browns, with splashes of blood red here and there, and not overly lit with harsh cold LED light. The furniture was surprisingly intricate and almost—but not quite—Louis XVI looking.

They were also greeted by four large dogs—a harlequin great dane, a red retriever, a standard poodle, and a husky. They came up with wagging tails and whining, but no barks. Not a single bark of any sort, not even from the husky; and no jumping either. It let Aix actually enjoy their enthusiasm, and after offering their hands to sniff, they were happy to pet everybody.

‘Awurrrhhh,’ said the husky, very quietly, in a low pitch. Well! Aix did not expect a husky to stay quiet for long.

‘Yeah? What’s your name?’ Aix replied, speaking quietly to encourage the dogs to mirror the low volume.

‘This is Ticky, Folderol is the poodle, Motown is the dane, and this is The Scotsman,’ Virginia said, petting the retriever.

‘Ap! Hp.’ Ticky said, and went a direction then stopped and looked at Virginia hopefully, wagging her tail. ‘Boorfph.’

‘Show me,’ Virginia said, and Motown joined in, ears up and a low worried-sounding moan not quite making it out of her chest. Aix followed, mostly out of curiosity, and Folderol kept pace with a poodle’s feline nonchalance, with the Scotsman having the clueless sort of agreeable amble after them, as though he had not a clue what was happening, but was ready to just follow along what everyone else was doing.

‘Wuoh,’ Ticky said, stopping dead at the very threshold of the kitchen. Victoria was there, pouring water into a teapot.

‘That’s Victoria, you know Victoria,’ Virginia said, patiently. Aix giggled, perching on one of the bar stools, which were still the same very roomy and comfortable padded sort there had been in the unoccupied apartment.

‘Oh, Folly likes you,’ Virginia said, as Folderol followed Aix and Aix scratched behind his ears.

‘I like poodles,’ Aix said. ‘They’re kind of a favourite. Not sure I’d give one enough to do, though. You’ve really got the full spectrum of dog intelligence, huh? From way too smart and full of crimes,’ they petted Folderol, ‘to just happy to be included,’ this was said to the Scotsman, who panted and wagged his tail happily.

‘I’m not a people person either, but everyone says I’m a fucking delight,’ Aix said, shrugging. ‘Just because I don’t find the effort rewarding enough to seek it out doesn’t mean I can’t perform. Also doesn’t mean I’m not an Animals Person. There’s nuance.’

‘Fair enough,’ Virginia said. ‘So, visiting well-behaved dogs, but not having dogs.’

‘Or dog training, or being saddled with other people’s poorly-behaved dogs, or small dogs,’ Aix added, raising a brow. ‘You have proper-size dogs, and they’re polite.’

‘Hear that, Ticky?’ Victoria said cheerfully, as she removed the tea strainer from the teapot, ‘You’re polite.’

‘Huf!’ Ticky said, wagging her tail and dancing foot to foot at the doorway of the kitchen. ‘Ap!’

‘Gin, be a dear and put a sample plate together,’ Victoria said, and Virginia went into the kitchen, starting to get down a proliferance of airtight containers that one expected to use for rice or flour, but these were full of cookies. Virginia even got a flat one out that was clearly vintage Tupperware, and that one had baklava in it.

‘Are cookies okay?’ Virginia asked Aix, ‘Warren doesn’t make them very sweet.’

‘Well then yes, absolutely. I love cookies,’ Aix said. They hadn’t eaten much lately, and Dmitri, like Warren, didn’t make his pastries too sweet either.

‘So, we do have juniper berries and lots of spices,’ Virginia said conversationally, as she started plating cookies. ‘And we do have venison heart, as it happens.’

‘Are you implying your husband is a serial killer. I’m… not sure I’m okay with that.’

‘…Oh. Oh, okay. That kind of serial killer….’ Aix hadn’t really joined up the two ideas, yet. Vampires resided in a totally different part of the mental library than serial killers….

‘Yeah,’ Aix said. ‘Uh, I suppose he could have killed me anytime this week, and so he didn’t, and that… means something.’

‘He’s more well-behaved than to prey on minorities, these days, not when there’s perfectly virginal fascists about,’ Victoria said, with a kind of pride in her tone that implied she had taught him better. ‘Though that is one of the reasons I wanted you to look at units in this building,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to live in the same building as Dmitri, after what you told me about your experiences in Baltimore.’

Aix recalled having told her about the a-few-bodies-short-of-a-serial-killer host in Baltimore, and appreciated that she’d been paying attention, even as they were surprised she’d been… paying attention. ‘I appreciate that,’ Aix said, not sure if that was the right thing to say, not used to being given such respect.

‘So, let’s talk cooking,’ Virginia said, sliding the tray of pastries and cookies in front of Aix. ‘While you eat.’ She washed her hands at the sink in a way that said she was proper food service trained, and then went to another cabinet to get treats for the dogs, so they wouldn’t feel left out, and then, while they were busy, carried the tray of tea things over to the dining table. Aix followed with the cookie tray, and settled down with Victoria.

‘The particular species of venison being from Turtle Island, I think it’s the most appropriate to serve it with this land’s native vegetables—roast squash, sweet potato, and properly roasted corn are my favourites, and proper veg doesn’t need much seasoning, just a little salt and butter. Rosemary and juniper for the venison, I almost want to say possibly doing something with gin—maybe a sauce?—would be good, simply because gin has juniper in it, but I’ve never tried that.’

Virginia wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but a font of very clear and complete ideas was not it. Victoria only smiled as she poured the tea, having been privy to Aix and Dmitri having involved conversation about baking, the night that they had arrived back from Sleepy Hollow on a delayed train; it had excited Dmitri, who rarely got to talk about any of his hobbies with someone who could keep up or present truly delicious ideas.

They were still talking about how to dress and season the venison, and the cookie plate was thoroughly demolished, when the dogs abruptly got up and went, with a chorus of clicking claws and quiet but excited whines, to the front door, which clearly had someone keying in.

‘Hang on,’ Virginia said, noticing Aix starting to tense up and brace; she got up and met Warren at the door. ‘No big noise, we’ve got a bunny.’[2]

‘Oh! Okay. Who is it?’ Warren said, still playing with Ticky, who had, of course, jumped up on Daddy as soon as she could. By now, the dogs understood the nuance of You Can Jump Up On Daddy But Nobody Else, mostly due to the daddy in question being able to communicate with them in their own language.

‘It’s Victoria’s new Seer, the one looking at the apartment next door. They talk loud enough, don’t worry about that; but barking is upsetting.’ The nuance was important—Warren was something of a clownish, puppyish sort—very enthusiastic and loud even when just talking. But Aix had been similarly so, even if theirs felt more cattish than canid. Virginia smiled, kissing Warren. ‘But you should meet them, you’re gonna love them. They asked if I would help them cook venison heart, when I offered to help them with dinner.’

Warren muffled a howl of excitement, kissing Virginia again—and then a third time, just for good measure, before gambolling into the kitchen, the dogs following, everyone’s tails high and wagging in excitement—including his. By the time Virginia made it back into the kitchen, Warren and Aix were talking much more excitedly—and loudly—about seasonings, and spices, and cooking techniques, and food pairings.

‘Do you want to continue this up on the roof?’ Warren asked. ‘There’s a park up there, the elves made it for us.’

‘Oh wow, an elfwood,’ Aix said, and pushed to their feet. ‘Are there benches?’

‘Of course! This isn’t some kind of Castle of the Evil Queen or something!’ Warren’s dismissal was as melodramatic as anything he said, but Aix liked it; and it had the sort of tone that said he was fully aware of Hostile Architecture and, furthermore, saw it for what it was.

Aix opened their mouth to answer, and paused as black started eating their visual field at the edges; but it faded, after a moment, with a kind of feeling like someone had just apologised to them. Aix smiled, taking a deep breath, used to the dizziness.

‘Yeah, I… I think we just had a successful lesson on boundaries. He didn’t know what sleep meant, and I think he… just checked if I was asleep? And when I wasn’t he pulled back.’

8. Bestirring the Dead Warlord

Aix sat on the bench and just enjoyed the greenery. The dog park (that’s what it was) was designed beautifully in a Capability Brown sort of style, inasmuch as a roof could be designed in a Capability Brown sort of style, with full grown trees and shrubs, and the roof was not merely flat but had a tower on each corner, and some sloping roof that had been covered in wildflowers and the like, plus the long, bent pyramid of the lightwell, which was separated from the dogs without the use of fencing. Where Central Park was a Victorian idea of nature (very much a Disneyfication of nature in that way, Aix always thought), this park was much more natural, and there was some barking from the other dogs, but as they were outside, it didn’t bother Aix. Barking was Outside Noise, and if it wasn’t the distressed kind, it didn’t bother them.

Warren brought all the dogs up, and Ticky in particular seemed to have saved up all her barks for outside because she started to practically vibrate on the elevator ride up, and then exploded out of the open doors, yelling her head off. The other dogs burst into excited gambolling as well, but not nearly so extremely as the husky. Aix found a bench and sat, watching Warren run with the dogs. There were more than a few wolves among the dogs, playing and rolling around in the clover and dandelions with them just the same, and it was a lovely New York Summer sort of day, very balmy but mostly clear-skied, so Aix’s joints weren’t fussing about it. Their feet still hurt, as did all the joints affected by the collapse of their arches—ankle, knee, hip—but it wasn’t even as intolerable as it could be. Staying with someone that understood and also helped encourage Aix doing morning stretches helped a lot.

The noise of the city, from this high up, was just a dull roar—the closest you could get to quiet, in New York City. Eventually, the sun came out, and Aix got too hot in their oversized well-worn hoodie with their favourite cartoon clown on it, and had a decision to make. They weren’t wearing anything beneath it, which meant if they took it off, they would expose themselves to commentary about the scar, and they didn’t think they could tolerate it being called ‘disgusting’ or having people rear back like a startled horse one more time, or they would scream. On the other hand, the people in this dog park were all non-human, for the most part, or somehow connected to them. Surely they wouldn’t react so disrespectfully to scars? But even medical professionals recoiled in disgust and fear from Aix’s scars, so they didn’t really trust that line of reasoning.

Warren came up to them, sparkle-eyed and not at all out of breath, sitting next to Aix. ‘You look hot.’

‘I am,’ Aix said, and waited, then said, with the sudden bravery of the terrified, ‘Do you think anyone will be mean about scars?’

Warren, Aix was pleased to note, did the question the respect of thinking about it, scanning the people in the park. ‘No,’ he said, after a while, in his very earnest sort of way. ‘Scars are greatly respected, among Tiermenschen.’

Aix canted their head. ‘Why do you call yourselves in German? I’ve been wondering.’

‘That’s what the first visitors from this realm called us. It was the first time we’d been given a word that wasn’t insulting.’

‘So…’ Aix blinked. ‘Wait, the first visitors to your realm? They didn’t happen to be two brothers that were linguists, name of Grimm?’

‘Of course I do,’ Aix said, ‘I’m a bard, like a real one. I’ve been studying folklore my whole life.’

‘Then you know that nobody from Eglenor would dare say something Unkind to you. That’s a great way to get a Curse.’ He paused, then added, hastily, ‘Not that you don’t deserve kindness for it’s own sake—’

Aix chuckled. ‘It’s okay, I understand—when everyone knows there are such things as Consequences, everyone errs on the side of Kindness just in case the person they’re talking to has, like, a knife. That’s logic I can get behind. It’s refreshing, actually. It’s sensible. You don’t poke a bear and then complain when you get mauled. And,’ they added, rather pleased they were talking to someone who understood, ‘I’m a witch. It would be nice to be around folk that respected that. Properly.’

‘I’d ask if you’re a good witch or a bad one, but I’ve lived here long enough to know better.’

‘I’m the sort that doesn’t do things so much as see truths and speak, if that makes sense. I lay the cards, I have been gifted with insight. The planchette doesn’t move without me touching it, but I also won’t touch it, at this stage of my life.’

‘Would you cold call a stranger and expect them to tell you intimate things, or, indeed, any things?’ Aix asked, raising a brow. ‘If they come to you, that’s different.’

‘…Do you know what Dmitri does?’ Warren asked, trying and failing to hide a smile.

‘Hmmmmm, that scans, for a vampire.’ Aix shook their head. ‘Shouldn’t do that, in my opinion. Leave the dead alone, they’re tired. But I’m also not surprised. Vampires transgress the laws of life and death by existing, so it makes sense they would explore further taboos.’ Aix paused, biting their lip. ‘If necromancy means what I think it means, anyway. Does he raise the dead or just talk to them, what?’

‘Lady Victoria says it isn’t a matter of speaking to individuals. Ghosts aren’t really humans, they’re… feelings.’

‘Oh! Like Japanese ideas of ghosts!’ Aix said, nodding. ‘Yeah, I always thought so too. Any kind of entity is something different; though I was never interested in anything to do with ghosts or anything,’ Aix added. ‘Was more interested in the living monsters—sorry, um, I don’t use the word “monster” in a derogatory way, but I know it has that connotation.’

‘Go on,’ Warren said, eagerly. ‘I’ve never actually spoken to a real witch before. Well, except Lady Victoria, but she’s not really a witch, she says. She’s just an Averay.’

Aix thought on that. ‘Yeah, I see what she means,’ they said. ‘The Averays are monsters. Or monster-adjacent, I suppose. I have a more… what is your realm called?’

‘I think—that is, if Eglenor is anything like I’m imagining—I think I may have a more Eglentine vibe with my witchiness. Have you seen Into the Woods? The musical, not the film.’

‘Oh! Oh yes, that was one of the first musicals that came to Eglenor! It’s very popular.’

Aix smiled, humming. ‘The Witch in that, is more my style. I’m ruthless, in that I don’t really think or feel much for the squeamish misgivings other people have about what it takes to get to something. That said,’ Aix added, ‘I also know what my own moral code is, and I never break from it, and I don’t find it difficult to keep to. I add this because apparently that is hard,’ Aix said, and paused, ‘for humans,’ he said, which felt far more comfortable than merely saying ‘for allistics’. Like some people, Aix rather liked the Story that autistic people were changelings, that the signs and symptoms were merely what it was to be fae-blooded—considering the fae were themselves descended of deities, it was only English colonialism that would see the idea as somehow demeaning.

‘ “and so one at a time we all become human—human werewolves, human dwarfs, human trolls… The melting pot melts in one direction only” ,’ Warren quoted.

‘Ha,’ Aix said, recognising and appreciating the Terry Pratchett. ‘I was just thinking of that quote. And may I say: Fuck. That. Who the fuck wants to be human, anyway? I’m a monster, and I’d rather be a monster. We never bit and clawed and killed one another and called it morality.’ It was, Aix reflected, so good to be around people that were working off the same allusions as they were.

Warren huffed a laugh, shaking his head. ‘I spent my whole life doing the opposite, because… huff puff, you didn’t want to be a Wolf, in Eglenor. But here… there’s a lot more people like you. Goths, furries, pride and protests—of all kinds! It’s… cripes, I don’t know. It’s something.’

‘It’s challenging the status quo,’ Aix said, with a sardonic smile. ‘It’s the essence of what a Witch is—what a Trickster is. And I worship Trickster Gods—Hermes, Loki, Bes, even Jocosa[3]—as well as the gods of more sombre truths—Hades, Poseidon, Apollo, Odin, Anubis.’

Aix still felt odd, worshipping gods from more than one pantheon; but they were trying to get used to it. Modern culture was an amalgamation of many cultures, it followed that one would need gods from many different families too. And after all, Aix reasoned, they had a mixed heritage; why shouldn’t their families of gods also be as diverse?

Warren watched the dogs for a bit, as he thought on what Aix had said; they were well-socialised dogs, by now, and had already done the business that needed cleaning up, and a few of Warren’s pack were making sure all the dogs off leash played nice with one another; but he still wanted to keep an eye on them, like any parent with their pups. Watching them was really more of a way to think on what Aix had said, though.

Warren had been thinking about Aix since they’d arrived—everyone in the Tower was, once they had word there was a Witch—a realio, trulio witch—coming into the City, one that had been given a Doom.[4] Witches were both common and rare, in the Grimmwelt; common because there were many people who said they were witches; but rare in that true witches were even fewer and farther between here than anywhere else, particularly the kind that prophesied. It was more common to find people using the trappings to desperately cover up and avoid their own foibles, and any real witches were Crafters—those that made objects, usually weapons. The sort of Witch that Victoria had said Aix was, the Prophesying Witch, the Talk-to-Old-Gods Witch, that kind was rare—and they tended to get hunted down by a mob about as often as any Wolf or other monster, precisely for the reason Aix had outlined.

People were not usually Good. They were not usually Evil, either. They were worse than both of these things—they were Nice. Nice People didn’t like the Truth, because the Truth was often Ugly, and Painful, and could often be Horrifying. Nice People liked what they wanted the truth to be. But Witches weren’t Nice, they were incapable of and unwilling to be Nice, and that upended society something fierce; but—critically—society did need to be upended, and regularly, or tyranny would take hold….

It was sort of like boiling caramel, Warren thought, as always turning to food as a metaphor (well, he was a half-wolf)—if you didn’t keep an eye on it, and stir it all the time, it not only boiled over and ruined itself, but it also made a sticky ruin of the pot, the stove, and everything else it touched, and once it cooled was nigh-impossible to clean up.

‘Fuck it,’ Aix muttered softly, beside him, and took off their loveworn hoodie, revealing the scar in question went from behind one armpit to behind the other, was ever so slightly asymmetrical, and made very clear they’d had things removed. Warren understood enough, by now, to know it was the kind of scar that outed you as someone vulnerable. Fortunately for Aix, this building and the people they were now around were not the sorts that would do anything but admire said scar, and possibly congratulate them.

Warren wished he could say something to that effect, but Virginia had taught him not to comment on something a person couldn’t choose. This scar, though, surely it had somewhat been chosen? Scars were strength, were having survived.

‘I know I should put on sunblock,’ Aix said, laying down on the grass in the sun, holding their phone. ‘I’m setting a timer for twenty minutes, that should be short enough.’

‘I actually kind of hate it, but thanks,’ Aix said, putting their phone down. ‘Always wanted to get up on the roof of my old building in Brooklyn and sunbathe. I know it’s bad for you, but…. The Snake Instinct.’

Warren had pups young enough to understand the joke, and chuckled. They sat in silence for a bit, Aix’s eyes closed, before Aix said,

‘I think I wanna live here. I don’t know if I want to take the job Virginia offered, but I like the apartment.’

Predictably, Aix was met with concern-trolling[5] from their mother, and was surprised at how easy it was to brush her off; talking to their older friend Sokeenun was a much better grounding. Auntie Sokeenun was not technically old enough to be an aunt, but that’s what Aix called her anyway, at her behest. Aix had met her fairly recently, but they had immediately connected, and Sokeenun had the fortitude, distance, and expertise to actually help Aix avoid the sort of crisis that had led to suicide attempts in the past, in a way therapists hadn’t even been willing or able to. So, Aix tended to run things like this past her, and her approval counted.

After that, it was time to pack—but Aix’s new social network seemed to stretch across the country, because Victoria introduced them via video call to four people that had volunteered to help them move and do the final clean of their old apartment. Heather, Michaela, and St Croix were all of the Very Strong variety of help, and St Croix and Erastos were both savvy to every in and out of government wrangling. Erastos and St Croix showed up in a large van, Erastos in a wheelchair, and helped more with Aix’s anxiety and sorting their paperwork; but morale was terribly important stuff, and Aix wasn’t shy about telling them about how badly their little complex needed a tenants’ union.

‘…But I don’t know how to do that sort of thing, I’m not very good with people and all.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Erastos said, with a grin at St Croix. ‘We are.’

So that was that; with three people helping, and Erastos offering his help with bureaucracy, it was all so very easy, suddenly, when it had seemed impossible before; and Aix broke down crying in the middle of the boxes and bubble wrap.

‘It was so hard!’ Aix sobbed. ‘All—all I wanted—was some help—just—just someone to—and—I’m sorry—’ They sniffled, taking off their glasses. ‘I just feel so stupid—why—why is just getting answers so hard—’ They reached under their niqab to try and futilely wipe away tears, vaguely wondering how other niqabi managed to deal with crying. ‘Why now? Why—why did all of this happen to me and—’ Aix took the offered handkerchief Michaela had plucked off their desk. The apartment had gotten cramped even for one person in the two years Aix had lived there, but the past few hours of work had made room for all of them, and it was still tight, but comfortably.

‘Didn’t you say you’d sacrificed your own flesh to Apollo?’ Erastos pointed out, gently. ‘And in the fullness of time, and showing a great generosity and prosocial practise with your boosted powers, you showed you could handle the power you now have.’

Erastos, Aix had learned almost immediately, was pagan like Aix, though slightly different in his god-family—he worshipped the Greek and Egyptian gods, where Aix worshipped mostly Greek but had newly begun worshipping a few of the Norse and some others, carefully. Aix’s main worship had shifted from Hermes, since their fleeing their abusive ex-husband, to Apollo—particularly when it came to the idea of Truth, as their ex had been a liar from the beginning. Aix rarely met other pagans that were sensible and respectful of closed practises, so they’d eagerly chattered to Erastos for the past few hours, while they’d been going through the many, papers Aix had always been too scared to organize other than shoving them into a random filing folder.

The surprise that Aix felt at Erastos showing he’d been paying attention to Aix’s chatter made them stop crying, as did the logic. They blew their nose, and sniffled. ‘I appreciate you not saying Chosen One,’ they said, rather thickly.

‘Well you’ve been chosen,’ Michaela pointed out, ‘but you ain’t Christian, and the thing choosin’ sure ain’t Christian neither. So,’ she said, grabbing the tape. ‘Ergo, cain’t be a Chosen One.’

‘…Madam,’ Erastos said, ‘it is impressive that you can use “ergo” and “cain’t” in the same sentence so casually.’

‘Appalachian Dialect’s closer to Shakespeare than the current Queen herself,’ Michaela said, tossing her red hair. ‘You oughta hear my Daddy do Marc Antony’s funeral speech.’

The sliding glass door opened, signalling Heather and St Croix—both smokers—had come back inside.

‘I’m sea-folk, boyo, we can smell the sea wherever it is.’ She settled down beside him—there were no chairs in the house that fit her. ‘Didn’t you wonder why I had whiskers an’ all?’

‘No,’ Aix said. ‘Why would I wonder about someone else’s body? That’s rude.’

‘You know, you hear about polite people but you never meet them,’ Heather said with a laugh. ‘Then again, you are People.’

Aix put that together immediately, but didn’t quite believe… until Heather’s skin suddenly turned silver with black spots, and her face was unmistakably phoecidine.

Aix’s eyes widened. She was a selkie, a realio, trulio selkie. Somehow, meeting elves while in a shiny building in midtown Manhattan didn’t hit the same way as having a selkie in your tiny, dark living room, sitting on your dark brown carpet.

More to the point, however, she’d confirmed Aix’s playful I-choose-to-pretend-to-believe about their combination of disabilities existing ‘because I’m a fae baby left with humans’. It was not a lie because they didn’t believe it to the exclusion of scientific explanation; but it wasn’t not a lie, because they didn’t like medicalising their existence, and were definitely not a regular garden-variety human, because other humans never understood them, and they couldn’t understand humans, and things that bothered Aix never bothered them, and a list of medical diagnoses was not comforting, nor did it really feel like much of an explanation. It was just a list of big cold Latin words that didn’t describe what a person was, just what they weren’t and what made them broken and what made them fail at being a person.

‘I’m… I’m Folk? Really? I’m a real Changeling?’ It hurt how pathetically hopeful that sounded, even to Aix.

‘Aye,’ Heather said, much more gently than she had spoken before. She didn’t voice what else she saw—that Aix was sidhe. Given the child’s tone, and how abandoned they already were by their relations, Heather wasn’t about to burden them with an emotional bomb like news that they were faerie nobility and therefore either abandoned, bought, or owed by their faerie relations. The way the Gentry treated their children like currency was… well, humans did it sometimes, but no matter the era such a thing was still out-of-the-ordinary for humans—it was not so with the Gentry.

‘Anybody feel like it’s about time for a meal?’ St Croix asked, and Heather was grateful for the change in subject.

The general agreement was that yes, a break would be nice, and so they went out, letting Aix pick where they could eat, since the only food restrictions anybody else had were that Heather was an obligate carnivore, and Michaela had the cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene. Aix wanted to partake of their extremely local comfort foods before they couldn’t anymore, and so they went to Rubio’s for fish tacos. While they ate in the back of the van, Aix talked about their comfort foods, which is all they would miss about California, and Michaela said that she knew for certain that one of Virginia’s pups was fixated on copycat recipes, and that Aix should talk to them about making such things. That sparked Aix mentioning the fact that they’d no idea how to find a local Chinese restaurant, since the one they liked had been found by their parents before they’d been born, and St Croix assured Aix that the skill in finding a good place was mostly befriending locals who could recommend, which Aix already had done.

Packing up took the rest of the day and some of the day after, which meant all four of Aix’s new friends met Aix’s mother. Aix was a little nervous about that, but also secretly glad, because after turning in the keys to the landlord and terminating the lease, they assured her everything was fine and she could just go back home. It made Aix realise she was a lot easier to deal with when she had no power and Aix didn’t need to trust her or rely on her for anything.

‘She’s California Nice,’ Heather declared, snapping closed the cap on her water bottle. ‘She’ll smile and say she’s sorry while leaving you on the side of the road with a flat tire.’ She shook her head with very New Englander disdain for such things.

‘Would not trust her farther than I can throw her,’ Erastos said, with a wry agreement. ‘So, Aix, do you want to start the road trip right away?’

‘You need a lot of stuff,’ Michaela said. ‘Let’s see what we can find at that outlet mall in Palm Springs.’

‘Goody! Palm Springs is where I wish I could have lived this whole time,’ Aix said. ‘It’s so pretty.’

‘And I’ll get you a new laptop,’ Heather said, and Aix startled, staring at her. Their own laptop had bluescreened the previous day, and they’d gone out into the backyard and smashed it with a hammer (as was traditional).

‘I… thank you,’ they said, but they really meant Why??? Why would you buy me something so expensive when we only met yesterday?? But they were old enough now to not voice such things, not question gifts. Just accept them. Being homeless for their entire adult life had taught Aix that you had to ask for as much as you possibly could, and if that meant taking the first ‘yes’ even though you weren’t supposed to? So be it, you had to survive, and manners took a back seat to survival. People were going to hate you for being poor anyway, so why try to even pretend you had virtues when requiring charity at all meant you were scum?

Not a great outlook, Aix was aware; but it had kept them alive, and staying alive was the first goal. Principles were a privilege for those who had what they needed. A laptop felt like a luxury, but Aix knew in their heart that for them, constant access to a computer was necessary—humans needed their support network to stay alive, Aix knew this intimately from their own experience relying on only one person and having that one person slowly eliminate all of the other people in Aix’s life, and then suddenly try and murder Aix, necessitating Aix run… and end up on the street with no friends and no family. Even the System had no idea what to do with someone who had no connections.

But Aix had possessed a laptop, then, and the laptop had been both art medium (Aix was a writer) and a way to connect to other people, people that Aix had tirelessly searched for. Being alone had been what had made life as unbearable as it was, had been what tipped them into lethal despair over and over—so, they had determined to work as hard as they could to build a network of multiple people, so that if one was not there then Aix still had others. And the laptop had been necessary for all of that, so… it was definitely a need, no matter what Aix’s upbringing said about it being a luxury toy.

Heather insisted Aix get a very good laptop, and not worry about the price, and so Aix ended up with a nicer one that they’d ever had in their life, and the prospect of being on the road suddenly became much more fun. Now, they could write. They could sit in a café and catch up with their friends from across the country. They could write. That was important.

All five of them started back. Michaela had an old school bus she’d converted into a camper that felt more like some kind of fantasy train cabin than it did a camper; this fit her and Heather comfortably, and there were two bunks as well as the large bed in the back, and Aix slept on them alternately. St Croix and Erastos’ van was not only big enough to hold Erastos’ rather steampunky chair, but also for them to sleep in. The van was not from the seventies, but it had been done up that way, airbrushed wizards on the outside and shag on the inside and all. Aix loved it, and said so many times.

Their first night, they made it out to where the light from the cities gave way to the desert’s wide open dark, and the sky was properly black, and covered in stars. They all laid outside looking up at them and talking for hours about everything.

Aix woke up in the cave, and there was… something soft beneath them now, not really a bed but not… not a bed. It was recognisable as bed-like, and Aix smiled at it.

Aix looked toward the light given off by the large hand wrapping around the column, following the light it gave to the betentacled face, the soft yellow eyes that were joined by more as he opened more of them. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s very soft, and welcoming,’ Aix said, ‘I appreciate the effort to be hospitable.’

‘Oh hey,’ Aix said, ‘I know that name. The Goat Of A Thousand Young, isn’t she?’

‘Ah, yeah, gender is… complicated, with humans.’ Aix gesticulated. ‘Sort of… layered. How does reproduction work with y’all folks?’

I would like to hear you explain yours first, Shob-Zhiggurath’s account is… confusing.

Aix wrapped the not-blanket around themselves like a little hooded cape and nestled into the soft not-pillows. ‘Okay! I love talking about it. Humans have two adults participate in reproduction. They come together at the hips, and one type of human comes with a sort of insertable injector organ that goes into the specialised orifice of the other type of human, and doing this is very fun by the way. It feels good and fun. Anyway, so because our species is fertile all times of the year, we can just do this whenever and it is likely to fertilise an egg or two eventually, if you do it enough times. Make sense so far?’

Aix paused. ‘Uh, hm. I need to draw things… oh wait, this is Dreamspace!’ Aix concentrated, and a big chalkboard on a stand appeared, only it was a white chalkboard, and the chalk in the tray was pink. Aix got up and started to draw.

They started with explaining genital anatomy for both basic types, explaining that humans fell on a kind of spectrum but mostly clumped to one or the other side. Those born in between, like Aix themself, were usually infertile. After that, Aix had to explain menstruation and erection, and only then could the actual sexual interaction make sense. And then there was pregnancy, of course.

It was his human’s favourite subject, and that was very clear to Cthulhu from the enthusiasm and willingness to teach.

And the human was a good teacher. He said over and over that this was only the basic ‘sciency parts’, and that there was much more to it.

‘Oh like… sex for pleasure only? Yes! That’s the best kind.’ His human erased the board, and started on a much more detailed drawing, a little tip of something familiar poking out of his mouth. It took a moment for Cthulhu to realise that was the tentacle humans had, the little one they kept—funny little things!—inside their mouths.

He wondered why it was emerging; was it curious? There was little about how humans expressed themselves with it, other than in articulating their sonant manner of communicating. Did it even have a proper ganglion at the base?

His human was still drawing—much more carefully, as carefully as Azathoth when showing them a new glyph. It was beautiful, whatever it was, strange and symmetrical and made of many layered petals.

‘This is what my genitalia look like,’ his human said. ‘I’m about…’ he referred back to the continuum line he’d drawn when explaining earlier. ‘…here, as far as my genitals. But here,’ A little further toward the middle, ‘When it comes to how my body chemistry works. This is incompatible so my menstrual cycle doesn’t… cycle… correctly. But that doesn’t mean orgasms don’t work!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Orgasm is what we call the height of sexual pleasure, and in the cock-having sort of humans it results in the release of gametes.’

‘Well,’ Aix said, sobering. ‘Only for this kind. Which has, historically and presently, caused a lot of problems.’

Cthulhu thought on this, and Aix was pleased to note that apparently, the head-tilt was a shared piece of body language.

Particularly because of pregnancy being so taxing on the physiology of the bearer?

‘Exactly. Without medicine, people die at a rate of like… half? Half of all pregnancies? It’s catastrophic, and our science still hasn’t figured out why this is a thing we evolved. It isn’t just head size versus pelvic size, there’s more to it. No other animal with this kind of reproduction has the embryo take so much from them, and control so much. That’s the only thing that really frightens me, is that we don’t know why humans are like this, and because of prejudice and bias, it’s hard to investigate it scientifically. Nothing is more poorly understood than reproduction, particularly in the humans that have bearing organs.’ Aix paused. ‘So… there’s this thought, among humans that have had encounters with y’all folks, that y’all have more advanced science and tech than we do? Is that true or not?’

It is unclear. From what I’ve learned from you, humans develop rapidly, and yet unevenly.

You have no answers about your glitches, and why your body fails you, and it is upsetting. He reached slowly, carefully, toward the little human with one hand. His human went still, but didn’t move away, and reached back with both of his smaller hands, holding to the outside of the curve of Cthulhu’s fingers.

‘It is upsetting, sometimes,’ Aix said softly, pressing their face against the warmth, the skin that was hairless and had scales in the places Aix had small hairs. ‘Mostly because the idea of being full and growing fuller with a new life, of my body creating a new little person, is so… powerful. And arousing.’ Aix sighed. ‘But I can’t do it, is the great irony. I’m one of the few that wants to, and I can’t. Not that I’d be able to raise a human baby very well anyway,’ they added, bitterly.

‘Because I can barely take care of myself,’ Aix said, ‘because I’m so without resources.’ They paused. ‘Though… that’s changing. You changed that, by finding me. That set off a chain reaction, and… now my life is getting so much better.’ Aix wasn’t exactly sure how to hug a hand that size of themself, but they tried anyway. ‘Thank you,’ they said. ‘But,’ they added, ‘I still shouldn’t have a kid. I never got a chance to live my own life, or figure out who I am all the way. I need time to do that, before I put it on hold again for someone else—if I ever do.’

Aix didn’t know if this would make any sense to a being that may not reproduce like humans did. They were talking, now, and while on the one hand it was important to support someone trying to learn a language, on the other hand… Aix suddenly couldn’t fill in any gaps with the telepathic exchange of emotions and images.

Aix opened their eyes, looking up into all the orange ones, arranged in a way that reminded them of the pre-Cambrian animals. ‘Yeah. I… I want to learn your language, too.’

‘I am?’ Aix said, pleased. Unbidden, a joke materialised in clear phrasing, and Cthulhu paused, canting his head and then giving a low noise that was unmistakeably a laugh. It was comforting to know laughter, humour, was something native to his culture.

This is not a test of knowledge, but I understand the sentiment too well. I often feel it when receiving praise from Azathoth.

‘Huh. So humans are like… some of the earliest civilisations in this universe. Cool. I’m not gonna think about that too hard, I’ll get sad.’

Aix felt the frustration, the desire to be close enough to offer physical comfort; the chains didn’t rattle, but that was because they were pulled too taut. They moved to nestle inside the hand, which curved very slowly, very gently, around them, aware of its strength in a way that was reassuring.

‘I’m on my way to my new home now,’ Aix said. ‘We just started, it will be a few more days until we get there. Then I have to rest, and unpack, and—I wanted to talk to you about what happens after I get to you. Can you… it would be hard to take you home, the size you are now.’

Home. The word thrummed with intense power, and meaning. But Cthulhu didn’t need to have that explained—home was a universal concept, at least between their two cultures. Everyone had a home; and his human had longed for one more than most, having been denied that safety and belonging. A place to sleep wasn’t Home. A place cut off from needs wasn’t Home. A place with hostile conspecifics wasn’t Home.

His human had never had a Home, until… until now. There was a waxing excitement, and fear, now that he had met so many humans connected with this, with Cthulhu finding him. The Baby’s family was extensive, spread across a huge and hive-like settlement called The City.

Aix paused. ‘You can call me Aix,’ they said, and tried to make clear that just because they knew his name, didn’t mean Cthulhu had given it; and, moreover, that ‘Aix’ wasn’t a Name, just a Call.

So much caution, it was painful to witness such pain; but remarking on it was very like a threat, from someone so big to someone so small. Cthulhu thought, for a time.

I have never been called anything but my name. Will you help me find a Call?

‘It is traditional for someone else to give you a Call. Let’s see…’ Aix thought, leaning against Cthulhu’s hand. ‘You most resemble one of my favourite earth animals…’

Aix showed him all the memories they had of octopuses, which sort of bled into everything they knew about the ocean and the animals and… ‘Sorry,’ Aix said, ‘it’s a lot.’

The moniker did something, to Aix; Cthulhu felt the images collapse and morph into something more playful and imaginative, something more to the kind of nature that made him curious, that he wanted, that would free him. The runes picked up on it, and one of the chains—the one nearest Aix—vanished. Aix startled, which interrupted the concentration—or lack of, which Cthulhu suspected was more likely, given how guarded Aix was.

Unfortunately, the jolt of fear was enough to actually yank Aix back to consciousness, which meant they woke up in Michaela’s camper, more suddenly than they were used to. They lay still, opening their eyes and slowly figuring out where they were. There was the soft noise of the humidifier, which meant they didn’t smell blood, or have difficulty opening their eyes, despite the desert outside.

So, someone had put Aix in the big back bedroom, on the big bed; they had no sooner thought this than they felt the shifting that meant someone was coming toward the back of the converted bus, and there was a tapping on the narrow sliding door—because it was a real wooden door, and slid into a pocket and everything—and Michaela’s voice.

‘Come in,’ Aix said, and the door slid open, Michaela coming through and sitting on the wooden edge of the bed.

‘He called me “little one” and then one of the chains… snapped?’ Aix said, sitting up and folding their legs beneath them. ‘We talked about sex, finally. Well,’ Aix amended, pursing their lips in a frown, ‘I talked about sex. We didn’t quite get to him talking about sex. Oh,’ they brightened, ‘but I finally introduced myself! And we were just trying to figure out a Call for him….’

Michaela smiled. ‘Well, I expect the internet will be helpful for that. You were out for a couple-few hours, Heather and I are on watch.’

‘I—yeah, I just… like, I didn’t… put it together.’ Aix paused. ‘So um, possibly silly question?’

‘It’s a terrible show, but I like terrible horror to a certain extent. And Mark Sheppard.’

‘And Mark Sheppard,’ Michaela said with emphatic agreement, fanning herself with one hand. ‘Mercy, I could listen to that man read the phone book.’

‘The idea of saving people by hunting monsters is right enough,’ Michaela said. ‘We do it in pairs at least, and we have people that work the field and people that run support; but we don’t just hunt monsters for bein’ monsters. My Opa did, but Daddy’s a lawyer, and when he was done passin’ the bar he went out there to Mr Drăculești and they set down and had themselves a talk, and drew up a treaty. We stick to that.’

‘Victoria’s hot toooooo,’ Aix said, slowly falling over to the side and curling up. ‘Everyone is so hot I don’t know how to deal with thiiiiis.’

Michaela leaned over and rubbed their back. ‘I know, sweetpea.’ She made mental note to inform her friends that their attraction to Aix was mutual, but she also understood that Aix likely wasn’t in a place to accept that other people were attracted to them, not yet. ‘You want some tea, honey-lamb?’

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, glad she wasn’t pursuing the conversation, sitting up. ‘My nose is probably bleeding, huh?’

Michaela shook her head. ‘Not that I can see, but—’ she pointed at where a tissue was sticking out of the tissue-box holder she’d built into the headboard cabinets. Aix grabbed one and blew their nose, looking to make sure.

‘Huh. No blood. He did say I was getting better at the telepathy thing…’

Michaela got up. ‘Heather’s got a fire going outside, let’s get you some tea.’

‘Oooh, fire,’ Aix commented, following her cheerfully, grabbing their stuffed pegasus on the way. Michaela stopped them trying to go down the stairs.

‘Bupbup,’ she said, ‘I’ll lift you down, sweetpea. Can you walk from here to the fire, or you want your chair?’

‘I can walk that far, it’s okay,’ Aix said, trying not to feel embarrassed; but why should they? It wasn’t an unreasonable question, nor was needing this much help strange. They just weren’t used to it yet.

Aix hesitated; you never realised that you didn’t let other people touch your stuffed animal until they asked to; but Michaela was a nice lady, and Aix believed their pegasus could fit in her prodigious cleavage. ‘Okay,’ they said, and Michaela tucked the little black plush into her cleavage.

‘Okay, we’re gonna do a fireman carry because you’re higher up. You know what that means?’

‘Okay, so, you’re gonna have your hips at my shoulder, and let yourself bend over, I won’t drop you. Ready?’

‘Thanks, I used to be a dancer,’ Aix said, not really sure how else to explain how good their balance and muscle control were any other way. Yet… saying so just broke their own heart over and over. They took their pegasus back and cuddled her, feeling like they shouldn’t have said anything, not sure if they wanted someone to say they were sorry or not.

Michaela wrapped an arm around their shoulders and squeezed them in a hug, and Aix heard themself start talking.

‘I don’t—I would need lots of physical therapy but—I think aerial silks are non-loadbearing, and I’ve always wanted to learn that, and get back into swimming. I want to learn to do mermaid tail swimming…’

‘You could do that, I know swimmin’ is safe for wobbly joints, and I’m sure my boyfriend knows at least one mermaid, probably more. He owns a freakshow on Coney Island,’ she added. ‘His family’s been down there for a real long time. Hey, Heather,’ Michaela said.

Heather didn’t answer but to swing the iron kettle back over the fire, but that didn’t seem to bother Michaela. She let Aix have the roomy sling chair that was obviously hand-made, and took the wooden stool (also hand-made; Aix admired Michaela’s commitment to always having comfortable furniture).

Aix didn’t feel awkward when there was a fire to look at, because there was a fire to look at, and so nobody had to talk, because there was a fire talking in any silences.

On the drive, Aix had found out—because they’d been riding in the camper with Michaela and Heather—that Heather was from Rhode Island, just like Auntie Sokeenun, and ran a sex shop on Thayer Street. After learning that, Aix was able to completely recalibrate their expectations, and Heather’s laconic and abrasive manner of speaking suddenly made sense. It didn’t sting less, but at least the silences stopped being frightening. Still, reading someone by their actions felt better, because Aix had been so fucked up by manipulators and liars that words now meant very little, unless they were nasty.

Michaela glanced at Heather, who gave a small nod; Michaela got up to go on a perimeter walk. Everyone knew that, now that Cthulhu had chosen them, Aix had a target on their back. Lovecraft may have gotten everything about as wrong as it was possible to get it, but even a broken clock was right twice a day, and unfortunately one of the things that broken clock had been right about was all the cults. Oh, he had made up most of the details out of racism and paranoia about air-conditioning, but there were indeed cults, and they were a lot scarier than anything a sheltered white man could ever imagine.

Everett and his people had already been tasked with removing Aix from the entirety of the internet, and that was apparently a bit of a feat, because Aix had been all over the country, and had changed their name once and gotten married and then divorced, and had multiple accounts all over the place, and it was difficult to tell which ones they were still using. They were not terrible at cybersecurity, but they were inconsistent.

And only humans used paper and digital trails, anyway. There were ways they couldn’t erase Aix—vampires and others had their own mediums, and they would take marked interest in activity that probably registered as highly as one of the Great Old Ones.

St Croix and Erastos were great at human danger—St Croix was mainly there because he was a Cultbreaker, and cults fucking loved remote one-horse towns in the middle of the country like deer loved salt; but for anything other than human that might be hunting them, they needed Aix to be around a heavy hitter like Michaela or Heather. Both women were over six feet tall and Michaela was both fat (something which she had been raised to not be ashamed of) and strong enough that she’d nearly qualified as an Olympian weightlifter; Heather’s size strained human credulity, but marine life was just like that—everything was scaled up, in the sea, and the kind of seal selkies were had given rise to both leopard and elephant seals. Even with her coat off, Heather couldn’t shed that kind of bulk.

She could, also, throw around a car, when she felt moved to, and monsters and animals alike tended to pick up on the fact that Heather was large, unbothered, and too old to put up with guff of any kind.

Even so, they were experienced enough to stay cautious, and stick to safe procedures. Their route to Manhattan was ever-changing, reliant on reports that came in through the network that was coordinated through a central hub in Rochester. They were staying out of public transit, and the choice to stay off highways was a tough one—public spaces were both safer and more dangerous, it was just trading one kind of danger for another. Luckily, Aix seemed savvy enough about being out in the wilderness for the rural tactic to be safe. Michaela preferred the danger of being remote to the dangers offered by cities.

Her night vision was good enough, and the moon was full enough, that she could see almost as though it were early morning, and she made use of that, thoroughly scanning for tracks and other signs they were not as alone as they should be. There was a coyote that had been sniffing around, and she gently shooed a rattlesnake and a few scorpions away from their camp, but that was all very normal for being this far out in the desert, in the off season. She left offerings for the ghosts wrongfully killed (in this country, every square inch of land had ghosts wrongfully and horrifically killed in it), and felt odd that there were so few signs of the Folk out here. But there weren’t many west of Appalachia, and even fewer west of the Mississippi. The wide plains and deserts were too far to cross, even for the great rainforests and heaving tide of the pacific coast.

Just as she was closing the perimeter, she got a buzz on her pager. Phones were a liability in the field, too fragile to carry around, and too prone to going off—or losing signal—at the worst possible time. Pagers were more reliable. She waited until she was sure all was well, going back to the fire. Aix’s back was to her—and the camper, smart kid—and Michaela just mutely held up her pager to Heather, who didn’t respond, but surely saw it. Heather didn’t miss a trick, but they didn’t want Aix spooked, and the kid was intensely—and reasonably—very spookable. And prone to curiosity.

Michaela went inside the camper, into the back bedroom, and shut the door, grabbing her phone as she went, and checking the pager number.

‘You asked me to keep abreast of anything that seemed cult-like and to do with, ah, les gens des étoiles. I believe there may be some. Mel’s people have observed some shipments of relics coming in from Ilam, Iran. Without papers. Labelled as other than relics, and certainly not resembling anything… known.’

‘Mel also said there were clearly human remains, from the smell of them mummified in some way.’

And René was one of the few who could—Baltimore had been under vampire control since its founding. The Christian church out there was toothless, which meant certain Christian businesses that traded in black market antiquities did not have operations out of Baltimore’s harbour. Still, Michaela had to be sure. ‘Can you get at least one of the crates open, so we can do more than have a smell at this shit?’

‘Mister Charbonneau, you aren’t tryin’ to get me to do your dirty work for you, are you?’ Michaela asked, sweet as nightshade.

The “Hunter” in question was in bed with the cops, and that was the biggest taboo in the Hunting community—but she was also a powerful raise-dead-corpses-and-command-them kind of necromancer, and those were tricky to get rid of, particularly when they were violent and had cops as friends. Ana Heeren been on the shit list for a while, and many people were gunning for her to be put on the list without an S on it. The problem was, doing so without proper cause violated the Treaty, and the Treaty had to remain sacrosanct, or the whole Arrangement fell apart.

‘Why no, Mademoiselle; merely expressing how difficult it is to investigate anything when one’s local Hunter is of the old school.’

‘Given how serious you said signs of this sort of cult were, I may feel the need to call the Voivode…’

Michaela was silent for a while, actually thinking through what would happen if he followed through on that threat. She hadn’t disclosed much information, but vampires could count, and any sign of the Great Old Ones outside of New England was Serious Business, particularly if it was sudden like this. However, Michaela had no doubt Charbonneau was being teasing—he was playful with his threats, when they were spoken like this—but he wasn’t able to see the whole picture, he just wanted leverage for getting rid of Heeren

‘You know what? Go ahead,’ Michaela heard how biting her voice was. ‘You go on ahead and call the Voivode. In fact, I might call him too.’ She heard him making surprised noises, but kept talking. ‘I think I will. Right now. What time is it in Bucharest right now, late morning?’ Michaela was used to converting any time zone in America to Bucharest.

‘Is— Je suis tellement désolé, Madame Van Helsing,’ René’s voice was much more sober, now. ‘I did not know it was this grave. I will do all I can.’

‘I might be able to stop by later this week. I’m calling Bucharest after hanging up with you, but not to get you in trouble. You’re right, I should call them about this. Thanks for making me realise that.’ It paid to be clear and courteous with vampire lords.

‘Au revoir, cher,’ Michaela said. She took a minute to get into gear for talking to the Voivode, before calling. It rang thrice before Claudiu answered.

‘Well, hi, sugar, it’s Michaela, how’s every little thing?’ Michaela said warmly, thickening her accent because she knew they found it charming, particularly Claudiu, and she needed all the charming she could muster for calling the Voivode during the day.

‘Miss Van Helsing! Hello,’ Claudiu said, his English pleasantly accented, but less so than his father. ‘Things are well here.’

‘Glad to hear it, darlin. Can I talk to the Voivode? It’s mighty important.’

‘Yes, a moment please.’ There was the sound of the phone being gently set down—Michaela felt the pain of realising how nostalgic that sounded, these days. But there weren’t cell phones or electronics in the castle, or the village; the vampire eldest’s hearing wouldn’t tolerate such noise. The copper line of the phone and electricity was quite enough to tolerate. A lower, more archaic version of Claudiu’s accent spoke, after the phone was picked up again.

‘Voivodul Drăculești,’ Michaela said politely. ‘I have news of something that concerns all of us, though I think it is for the better rather than the worse. What do you know of Cthulhu?’

9. Releasing Cthulhu

Academia was the one place the Mummery was thin. The sort of immortal being that went into academia was not inclined to ever interrupt their research to fake their own death, after all, and tenure was forever. Yet because of its insular nature—and due to academics being notoriously good at following the letter of draconian rules while breaking them in spirit—academia was forgiven Immortal Beings That May Or May Not Be Vampires Exist being segreto di Pulcinella.

There was use in having someone in the antiquities department that had been studying history since Università di Bologna had been founded. Dottoressa Antonella Maria Chiara Liliana Rosa Di Napoli presided like a dragon empress over the archives—all of them—and guarded them with all the smiling promise of violence of the best librarians. These days, she had an assistant, solely to help with digital matters,[6] and it was Bidetti who answered the phone down in the archives, that very few had the number of.

The answering language was not Italian but Romanian-accented Vulgar Latin, which meant only one thing.

‘Resti in linea, prego,’ Bidetti said, trying to keep her voice from shaking, and very gently set the phone down, going to find Dottoressa. There was only one person who ever would speak fluent, vulgar Latin to Dottoressa, and he had only called once before, in Bidetti’s lifetime.

‘Hm?’ came the irritated grunt; but she was always irritated when interrupted, and was currently bent over cleaning a new acquisition with a very tiny brush, a loupe clipped to her large, boxy spectacles.

‘É? É? É? É chi?!’ Dottoressa snapped, sitting up and pulling the loupe up, peering at Bidetti with her dark eyes narrow.

Antonella sucked her teeth, and swore impressively all the way to the phone. ‘Che cosa vuoi, vecchio bastardo?’ she asked, when she got there, because she had always firmly believed that scholars were outside the hierarchy of society.

‘Good evening to you too, Doctor,’ came the reply, smooth as silk, the Latin a pleasure to the ear, despite the slight accent to the vowels. ‘I have an assignment for you. There are antiquities that will be arriving from Ilam soon. When they do, you must attend to them immediately, and find out all you can.’

‘Hmph! Why are you sending me antiquities from Iran, of all places?’ but she switched to the common language they shared as a mark of respect. The Voivode did not speak Italian well, despite his mother tongue being its cousin; and she did not speak Romanian well, particularly the very local and medieval dialect he did. But they were both of them old enough that Latin had been the lingua franca of the world, not French (thank God!).

‘Because one of the Great Old Ones lies in the mountains nearby, and the Seers have begun to bestir themselves, particularly the American Cults, and we must keep ahead of them.’

‘I’m in agreement with you on that, at least,’ she admitted grudgingly—she hated to agree with anyone.

The Switchboard was run out of Rochester because Rochester had been the first high-tech city, and the Switchboard was that old. During the advent of radio and telephone service spreading across the world, just after the Treaty, the first act of cooperation between vampires and Hunters was to set up a private phone network; and unlike the other phone companies, that had phased out copper and switched to the lower quality of VOIP, The Switchboard still remained copper. Vampires didn’t believe in upgrades, they believed in maintenance. It meant that, in a small office building in Rochester, there had always been a telephone exchange. The ground floor was taken up by various shops over the years, and was currently an antique shop, because antique shops were quiet. The building was well-insulated and entirely wrapped in a faraday cage, because what use had they for wifi signal when everything was hard-wired? Privacy was critical, and there were enough ancient vampires with deep enough coffers to maintain such things.

The Operators were all carefully vetted, a mix of elder Hunters and monsters; but they weren’t the only part of the Switchboard—there were servers that hosted the ongoing body of information that Hunters used, from maps of various sorts of activity to a log of every hunt since 1880, this maintained, added to, edited by slightly younger Wizards.[7] It was carefully locked and warded, unhackable by virtue of not being connected to anything that wasn’t also in the room with it. Monsters and Hunters both believed in the security of hard copies, which could only travel so far, and could be burned.

Where the Old World operated their database in old universities guarded by vampire princes, the New World had the Switchboard, just as carefully guarded by everyone.

When the Red Phone rang at two-fifteen that afternoon, it was picked up by the wizened, well-manicured hand of Diane, who had manned the Control Desk since time immemorial. She was A Woman Of A Certain Age, always perfectly dressed and made up exactly how one expected a really efficient secretary to be, smelling faintly of jasmine and sandalwood perfume.

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ she said, with the perfect, accentless, crisp diction coloured by the low, smoked timbre of her age. ‘This is Diane, how may I be of service?’

‘Hi!’ Aix said immediately, relieved and glad all at once when they woke up in the cave again. ‘Ohhh my gosh I’m so sorry we got interrupted! What happened? Why did the chain snap? Are you hurt?’

The flurry of concern was endearing. Toward the end of your sharing your data about the sea, you began to play with me.

‘Ohhhh,’ Aix sighed, hands covering their mouth. ‘So—so we could have mind sex, and that would count?’

‘Of course I am! It’s a new thing I’ve never done!’ Aix paused, and laughed. ‘But you may not have known that about me. I’m a neophile—I seek new sensations, new… spices, to add to sex. The base level kind gets boring immediately.’

More eyes opened, and Aix was starting to understand that was the equivalent of a word that humans couldn’t express verbally—the ‘???’ that they and their friends constantly bemoaned not being able to verbalise.

‘It’s pleasurable and fun generally, as in for the species. Individual tastes vary all over the place. On an individual level, humans are pretty diverse. Other than being social and telling stories, we don’t have any consistent traits across the species—well,’ they amended, ‘we usually have the same general bauplan, I suppose the differences we call ethnicity seem trivial to other folks. Anyway, when it comes to culture, language, personalities? Everything in here,’ Aix said, tapping their temple. ‘Varies all over the place. Some people love sex, some people hate it. Some cultures venerate it as magic while also fearing it as monstrous, and some cultures just think it’s as ordinary as sleeping or eating. Some people are happy with the basic sexual behaviour I described the other day, some people—like me—need more complicated stuff to get sexually aroused.’

What “complicated stuff” do you need? He asked, pleased that his human was so willing to try a telepathic joining, which felt much more intimate than physical, to Cthulhu. It was more than he’d hoped for when he’d started studying under Azathoth,[8] and certainly he had not thought Aix would offer such a thing, for it required a great deal of trust.

Aix concentrated—not closing their unusual blue eyes, this time, but looking into Cthulhu’s much more ordinary red ones—and showed him. It was not objects, but stories—and a partner willing to tell them with Aix, a partner who had never stopped playing the great and universal human game of ‘pretend’, a partner who understood and enjoyed a linear hierarchy with ritual interactions that made socialising predictable. Everything else was simply ideas for The Game.

The chain around Cthulhu’s other wrist vanished—and this time, Aix did not startle, but seemed to take it as encouragement, trying to stop the stem of his own thoughts enough to ask WhatdoyouwantDoesthatsoundfun?

The questions overlapped, layered with curiosity and fear of rejection. At least, Cthulhu thought, the fear of rejection was shared between their peoples. Slowly, he moved his hands to cup Aix, and was gratified when Aix cooperated with being picked up.

Pleasure burst outward from his human, at the words, and now he understood just why, and how to do it again.

‘C…can we fuck now?’ Aix asked, in a breathless voice that Cthulhu assumed was what happened when humans were aroused. Interesting! That implied their sounds had to be made with exhaled breath…

Now was the additional challenge—Cthulhu focussed, with more than a little difficulty now that he was also aroused, on sharing how his own body worked. That Aix had shared so much, with such depth of self-knowledge, meant that Cthulhu could more easily fine-tune his own telepathy to the right pattern and shape for his human. This time, there was little give and take; instead, their minds began to truly sync. An image given immediately sparked a dozen ideas, words, questions in Aix’s mind.

You have a hectocotylus! And it’s near your mouth like with a spider! Can I see? Is it smaller than the others? Aix gasped in time with a surge of delight as Cthulhu shifted the tendrils covering his mouth, showing a much more slender, smooth, sparkly one, properly a tentacle.

Bioluminescence! My favourite! Aix slowly leaned back in the warm hands, spreading their legs and realising—in the manner of dreams—that they’d been clothed before, but were naked now. Is it sensitive?

Appreciation and relief that Cthulhu had ‘picked up’ on ‘consent’. Yes please!

Carefully, and slowly, he brought Aix closer to his face, a little hesitant, anxious even though the research he had said none of his bodily chemistry would conflict with a human’s. Still, Aix was so small, and uncommonly fragile, and Cthulhu didn’t want to lose him. He gingerly touched the top of Aix’s thigh with the hectocotylus (what a lovely word!), and when his human didn’t react with pain or fear, the tension drained.

Are you… nervous? Aww, you’re nervous? That’s so cute! It’s okay, big guy, I’m okay. Came the rush of comfort, and Aix reached a hand to gently touch the sparkling tendril. ‘Shh, it’s okay, you’re not hurting me, sweetheart.’

Even though he’d been told how quickly humans bonded, how they were creatures made of love, and how Aix particularly seemed to be ‘broken’ according to most, and loved too easily even for a human, it still was nearly overwhelming, a wave like a tide breaking over the shore, and imagined in such terms by Cthulhu’s sea-loving human.

Then and there, Cthulhu realised he would move the stars for Aix, all for this gift, this ‘love’, given so freely even in the face of all the harm it had done to Aix before, even considering the pain, his human decided no, it’s worth it, it’s always worth it, you should always tell someone you love them when you do.

Aix felt the pause, the surprise, and the immediate sense of wanting to hold, wanting a closeness Cthulhu couldn’t currently have, the tendril responding as independently as Aix rather expected, given octopuses, and exploring Aix’s cunt, feeling its way down the mons, that star-glow tip finding their clit and Aix’s eyes fluttered closed, and they bit their lip in a smile, humming on a breathy exhale. Yes. Yes yes yes, darling, yes… good boy….

Cthulhu put in a little more effort to not simply explore the sensations of tasting, touching, smelling his human, but directing the hectocotylus to venture below the clitoris, nudging between the labia and into the acidic orifice they protected. Enclosed in the warmth, Cthulhu’s body had certain urges, and he restrained their enthusiasm, but not their goal—to go deeper, to find the unfertilised gametes. He was briefly distracted by the ruffled, folded tissue just inside the entrance, and spent some time lingering, stroking back and forth along the texture while his human held very still, quiet pleasure coming off them in waves, hips canting and opening further in encouragement.

The praise was making him understand just why Aix craved it, but more to the point—the fact that Aix immediately gave the thing he most wanted, himself. It was so instinctively generous, and… what had Aix called him before? Cute? It seemed to have a bit more layers of meaning than ‘endearing’. Cute things were endearing, but they were often small too, and generous, and thoughtful. Aix was all these things.

Cthulhu understood that the writhe of his exploring the vaginal passage was less intense than touching Aix’s clitoris, but that it wasn’t unwelcome, simply not likely to result in an orgasm. Which was better, really, as it gave Cthulhu time to learn, to savour the alien tastes and sensations. Humans were acidic, and pleasingly sweet, and as he delved deep, he found the soft, rounded cervix.

It was a feat of will to not push at the closed opening. He let Aix see how much he wanted to, thinking perhaps it would please his human to know how intoxicating his body was.

It did please his human, and Aix shared desires to be filled in that way, to have his womb filled with eggs, or liquid, or anything fertile and heavy; but too, the conviction that this was not possible in reality, that the uterus wasn’t designed to do that, and Aix wasn’t sure it could be done pleasurably or even safely. Humans were adaptable, but they didn’t edit their genes and shift on purpose, the way Cthulhu’s people could.

But the fact that Aix knew what gene editing was… that was promising. The fact that there were animals of earth that could shapeshift, that was promising. That humans overcame their lack of natural ability to shapeshift by cutting themselves apart and sewing themselves back together differently… was horrifying, it was fascinatingly horrifying. Aix had been subject to other humans laying open his skull, and changing the way his mouth aligned, because it was aligned harmfully; as well as having to have faulty genetic tissue removed, before it duplicated wrong and caused damage not because of destruction, but too much creation, in the wrong place.

Aix understood the synchrony of two minds, had a name for it as he had a name for everything, and it was strange and lovely: Dreamfasting, the word echoing with the strange hypnotic music of humanity, the story of a world like Cthulhu’s, connected all as one, via the Dreamscape. Cthulhu shared the quiet beauty of his own life, understanding at once that the stars frightened his human, who preferred small spaces to hide, preferred planets to the void. So Cthulhu showed him small spaces, lush shadowed landscapes full of fishes and the sparkling stars of bioluminescence. He closed his hands a little further around Aix, to make him feel safe, and felt the last chain vanishing, the last Seal undone, and braced himself for the Fall.

10. The House of the Abandoned Dead

That wasn’t right—he should have awoken wherever Aix was. He looked around, trying to get his bearings. A tunnel, that looked like it had been carved on purpose, with a grid carved into the walls, with inscriptions in each square, and psionic residue of old sorrow, and loss, and death.

What was this place? Cthulhu moved through the halls, trying to understand, and eventually came to a heavy door with a lever beside it, many memories telling him to pull it. The door juddered and strained, obviously half-destroyed, but managed to open just enough for him to squeeze through, though it took him an hour to carefully do so. Once through, he found more light, coming from windows caked with neglect, and carved and intricate statuary that made clear he was in some kind of temple. But what sort of temple was so neglected that the roof was caved in?

And then he saw one of the squares had been opened, revealing it was hollow, and its contents, a long box, were on the floor, the box broken open, an incomplete skeleton inside.

Aix had only shown him humans at their best, but… Cthulhu knew Aix had known the worst of humanity too, and had started to understand his other encounters in a new light as well….

Was this… Cthulhu paled in fear. Was this a torture chamber? But there was, he calmed himself with the thought, there was no residue of that kind of misery. There was loss, and sadness, but it was sort of quiet, not sudden. So what was this place? He wished he knew how to read human writing….

Well, he had to touch one of the bones, then—it was always a risk to read the residue directly from a once-living object, but he needed to know.

Touching one of the bones, he saw a life that had been completed, an old woman who had died in her bed at home after going to sleep. From then on, the residue was from others—love and loss, and sorrowful acceptance.

Did humans just put their dead in a box and forget about them? Cthulhu tried to understand, setting the bone back down in the box. Why would they do that? They loved each other well into death, like Cthulhu’s people, and would have remembered them. So why were they paradoxically put in these boxes-within-boxes, in this warehouse, and then the warehouse allowed to decay? But it didn’t look like it had been built meaning to decay, so… was this civilisation lost?

Cthulhu explored every aisle and room, looking out the windows, trying to follow the air currents to the outside. Eventually, he did find the door, which was held closed but in disrepair enough that there was a hole he could squeeze through. This took another hour, but he eventually found himself in a field of green plants and flowers, dotted with stones and statuary, similarly in disrepair. He walked among them, and one was a statue of a human with strange wings, head bent and face covered in their hands. Was that what humans did to express sorrow? It must be.

By now, twilight was dimming the sky, and it was night beneath the trees. Cthulhu found the border demarcated with a metal structure of connected poles set into the ground, and wondered if he should stay where he was—Azathoth always cautioned them to stay in one place if they were lost, so they could be easily found; but Cthulhu had already been found, and he needed food. He wished he had asked Aix more about what food humans ate, but there had been a little bit about it in Aix’s overflow thoughts, enough for him to discern that it was likely he could find something among human foods he could eat.

The streets were abandoned, but they were streets, and the buildings were abandoned but gave him a sense of architecture and what these humans valued. These were humans like Aix, from the shape of the buildings—they matched with the buildings in Aix’s thoughts and memories. There were no humans, but the memories of them were everywhere, and Cthulhu moved slowly, having to contend with them, until…

There was an image of Mommy here! Cthulhu felt his—her?—presence, in the past, and started to follow the strongest paths, getting to know her as he did—both from her perspective and the perspective of every human that had met her.

They’d been cold, and she’d thought they were being kind, for the most part; there were a few incidents of overwhelming rejection, and she had been lonely for a mate, but had met someone, a beautiful someone, who had been nervous and kind and had not been lonely at all but had been pleased for the attention of such an attractive girl, who could converse on evolution and didn’t seem to have any of the usual womanly habits that he found so difficult.

People liked him, but Cthulhu started to realise he and her, and Aix, they were all… the same shape of mind, different from the other human minds here. Different in a way that humans noticed, had no word for, but nonetheless rejected. A few didn’t—the humans centred around one of the buildings on the hill, the ‘school’…

Cthulhu realised there were two schools—the one with the ‘she’ humans, and the one with the ‘he’ humans. They learned completely different things, were they eusocial? Aix had said humans didn’t have that sort of division, and yet… these ones did.

Cthulhu realised he’d been so absorbed in the psionic residue that he hadn’t noticed the present, and took some time disentangling himself from it, and experiencing time as linear again. There was a person in front of him, not a human, but bipedal and with similar arrangement of features.

The being paused, long ears twitching, turning fully toward Cthulhu. ‘Well! In that case, you’re in what used to be Old Mattapoisett. The folk that messed about and summoned your lot call this village “Arkham”, though. After the Calamity, the place was abandoned.’

Cthulhu tried to go through all that Aix had told him, all that he’d learned from wandering around. Old Mattapoisett. Are there any people left from there? I understand there was a genocide.

‘Ah, you’ve talked to sensible humans. Yes, there’s some. Looking for anyone particular?’

The being looked disappointed, but laughed. ‘Ah, feck, and you’ve talked to the other kind of sensible humans, then. Well, as your folk and mine have no quarrel, I’ll help you.’ He turned and led Cthulhu some way, to a circle of fungal fruits that had been utilised as a sort of locational form of shifting out of linear time and space. They went through a very old hub on the other end, and Cthulhu said, after a time,

I had no idea people on this planet were capable of this. You’re not humans, who are you?

‘You know now to give away names but you don’t know who we are?’ The entity said, in disbelief, and laughed.

My human and I have not had the chance to speak on many subjects. Cthulhu said apologetically. I was supposed to travel to where he was, after I passed the challenge of learning to communicate with a human fluently. Yet I found myself in Old Mattapoisett, which I understand is thousands of miles away from the location.

‘Ah, I’d wager a guess that’s because of the muckin’ about that was done at Miskatonic—that was the university set up by the English.’

‘Aye, one of them that colonised our folk as well. I expect they’ll try to colonise yours, so be careful and don’t share anything with them you wouldn’t want used against you or stolen.’

Do your people have a name for yourselves, or is that also a name that is impolite to ask?

‘It is, but we’re often called The Folk, and you can tell that to your human when he asks.’

They stepped through into a younger copse-wood, at the crux of some desire paths through cleared woodland; the entity pointed away from the path and into the trees and brush, where there was a low barrier of stacked stones, and the ground rose into a hill beyond it. ‘That way, follow the gravestones—do you know what a grave is?’

‘Humans bury their dead in the ground and put a stone at their head that says the dead one’s name and the time they lived, and how they died. It’s odd, but it gives them a little shrine to cry over. They get very upset if somebody eats their dead, hence the burying.’

Cthulhu thought on this quietly, as the entity left, and then there was another,

There was a human with another animal attached to them by a strap. The animal on the strap was very fluffy and white, and had a softer but just as humanly friendly intelligence, tail wagging. The human was a different colour than Aix, a darker one, with something on his head that looked pleasingly like tendrils, though they did not move and seemed to be made of black keratin. His eyes were also darker.

Hello. Cthulhu said, excited to meet another human, excited that he was finally able to communicate correctly. I am going to the house that way. He pointed, as the other entity had.

‘Ah,’ said the human. ‘I thought you might have come from there, yeah. That’s the Averay estate.’

What is that animal you have attached to yourself? Cthulhu asked, too curious to leave just yet.

‘This is my dog, his name is Hap. You wanna pet him?’ The human ran their hands over Hap in a firm sort of manner, wiggling the large ruff of white fur around Hap’s neck, ‘Here, this is how. Let him sniff your hand first.’

Cthulhu let the human guide him, and Hap sniffed his hand before going back to letting his long red tongue hang out.

The dog was very pleased to know this, and very pleased to meet Cthulhu, and very pleased to be outside with his human. He was a very pleased animal, generally.

‘Good boy, Hap,’ the human said. ‘Well, we ought to go. I promised him a good run, and there’s a group of tourists somewhere behind me that’re from The City, and you don’t want to end up going viral on the internet.’

Cthulhu wasn’t sure what that was, but the impression was clear enough—the human was concerned for his safety, and knew that the best way to keep him safe was for him to not be seen. Going Viral On The Internet was the opposite of not being seen.

Your advice is appreciated. Cthulhu said, and was relieved when the human reacted favourably, smiling.

‘Be safe!’ had the ring of a greeting, and it proved to be thus as the human went on the path, dog trotting happily ahead of him.

Be Safe. What a loving working of will to leave someone with. Cthulhu marvelled again at how friendly humans could be to everyone, as he turned and went up the hill, eventually finding that, yes, there were gravestones, overgrown but kept clear of leaves, clean and maintained by some intelligent hand. They became more clear as he journeyed, and there was not simply sorrow here, but joy, and playfulness of all kinds, and laughter.

A human emerged from the glass part of the building, a sharp tool in one of his hands, though it was not held in threat. ‘Hello,’ he said, and was all over warm and powerful like Aix. ‘You must be Aix’s young man. Come in, we were just having luncheon.’

11. Lost Dreams

It was almost comforting to have someone finally—finally—act like an abuser in a story. Comforting in its pain and fear, comforting in its honesty and familiarity. Whoever this woman was, she was hitting all the marks, saying all the Right Words, and for someone like Aix, that was a relief. Worse was the usual gentle denial, the gaslighting that was hard to communicate to other people.

But this woman was not doing that. She didn’t bother being charming, she didn’t bother even attempting to disguise her violence; she had grabbed Aix, and Aix, terrified of nothing so much as more injury that wouldn’t heal right, hadn’t fought back. She hadn’t given her name, she’d gagged them, she hadn’t spoken; she was smart, and when they saw the very distinctive scar on her neck, the one she couldn’t hide, the one Michaela had told Aix about, they had known.

This was her. This was the most dangerous of things in the world, a Hunter that had turned bad. She’d taped their mouth shut, and Aix had tried to let their muscles loose so she wouldn’t dislocate their jaw, which was already prone to it.

‘You don’t have to play helpless,’ she hissed. Aix had been terrified then that she’d hit them, but she hadn’t, she just left them in the back of the van, taking Aix’s purse—and their phone—with her. If she was as smart as they thought, she’d leave the whole thing somewhere, or turn it into a lost and found, where civilians would keep anyone else from finding it—or Aix.

Aix had grown up on mysteries and their anxiety had been cheerfully building up worst case scenarios for years; it was sort of vindicating to finally have it be proven right, even though Aix knew it was even as they thought about it going to leave them further traumatised. And they’d just started working through the agoraphobia… at this rate, they’d never go outside ever again.

But their old spite woke up, woke up from where it had been sleeping; because now, now they were in the company of someone that hated them, didn’t care if they lived or died. The last time that had happened, Aix had been living on the street, staying at the homeless shelter, and realising nobody there cared about them, not really. Realising their own mother didn’t care, not enough to come save them from further assault, or further abuse—that, like always, Aix had to face Death alone.

And that had made them mad, so very mad, so much so that it had broken through their suicidal self-destruction, because nobody was allowed to be so callous and cruel to Aix except Aix themself. Because if nobody was going to care, then Aix would take care of themself out of spite, just to make them angry.

Rebellion was the only motivation Aix had ever known. And the comfort, the comfort in this woman being so objectifying, being so evil as to assume Aix was faking being helpless or frightened… the comfort was that it made them mad. And anger… anger got shit done.

Aix closed their eyes, and breathed, and tried to remember the way it felt, that one time that Cthulhu had contacted then pulled back—because simply falling asleep wasn’t an option. Even drugs didn’t knock Aix out without a fight, their vigilance was too strong. But Cthulhu didn’t need it. And Aix didn’t need it either—Aix tried to believe that, and tried as hard as they could to make their will into something tangible.

Aix saw the world flash by like they were a bird taking flight, or pulling spacetime toward them all at once, and held on. It was easier than they’d thought—their belief snapped back together all at once, and they held on, their imagination, their power, having its bearings once again, having foothold.

But it wasn’t Cthulhu they had found. They were in a colourful world, something out of a candy dream, drawn by a child. There was a house, with a tree, with apples.

‘Hello!’ Aix called out, trying to smile—if this was a child’s dreamscape, then they wouldn’t scare the child.

‘Hi!’ said a voice, and there was a small clown, dressed in stripes, with a sort of deep fake look to her. Luckily, that had never unnerved Aix much.

‘You say “help” why you scare?’ The little tails on her head moved, multiplied, and Aix realised with a start this wasn’t a child pretending to be a clown in their dream, this was a clown’s dream.

‘Conenate!’ the clown said, putting little hands on Aix’s cheeks, and pulling their face down to look into two big black eyes. ‘Why you scare? You need Mommy come?’

‘There’s a bad lady, she wants to hurt me,’ Aix said. You could trust clowns. Clowns were kind, always.

Aix had no idea who this clown thought of as Mommy, but anything would help. ‘Thank you. Get everyone you can find. I’m the Duck Witch.’

Aix smiled. ‘Yeah. Like these kind.’ They imagined a male wood duck, and one appeared in their lap, silent because Aix had never known what they sounded like. The clown sat down on the crayon lines of the grass around them.

The Dreamscape fell away, and Aix tried to hang onto the thread. ‘Cthulhu!’ they called out into the fading light. ‘Cthulhu! Victoria!’

‘Not here!’ said a familiar, fictional voice. ‘Gone! Gone. And you too, if you’re not careful!’

The darkness dissolved all around Aix to reveal the world that had shown him the word ‘Dreamfasting’. And though the god wore the face of the witch muppet that had been a witch of the first water in Aix’s mind, and a goal for their own old age, Aix knew it wasn’t her. Not really. It was Morpheus.

As soon as Aix thought that, the dream changed again, as suddenly as dreams always did, and Morpheus looked… well, like his most well-known modern image.

Aix felt like those camera shots where everything is zooming in while panning out—or was it panning out while zooming in? Aix could never remember—that shot that movies used when someone’s world was collapsing around them, but internally.

‘What was I supposed to do, leave him there? Don’t say yes, dammit, you should know me better than that. He’s a person. He’s not a god, no matter what humans say.’

“We create gods so we can create ourselves” and “Gods are powered by belief” only apply when you feel like being philosophical?

Aix paused, and gave that some thought. ‘Okay, fair. But—hear me out—would you rather he just stumble around until he finds some of those cults that will use him, or would you rather he ask me his questions about human nature?’

Now it was Morpheus’ turn to think. So long as you don’t forget the nature of godhood—or whom you worship.

‘I don’t think I could stop worshipping any of you—I think my spiritual crisis from a few months ago kind of proved that. And,’ Aix paused, pressing his lips together, ‘To be clear, I’m not going to try and control him either—I want to introduce him to my community, have him talk to as many people as possible so he gets a lot of perspectives. Like a good scientist.’

‘And maybe,’ Aix added, ‘if he’s curious, maybe I will… I will teach him my worship. If he wants. If…’ Aix trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Even after all that they’d been through, the joy they felt in their own faith, and wanting to share it, hadn’t gone away; but after what their ex had done when they had, it was difficult to trust that such appropriation and theft wouldn’t happen again. Yet Cthulhu had one large advantage, which was that he wasn’t Christian, and he also had said nothing cruel or dismissive about Aix’s opinions regarding the power of Stories. ‘Anyway,’ Aix said. ‘I’m… I’m sorry. I’ve never done magic that wasn’t divination. Um… can I ask about the clown’s dream? Why her dream? How… how did I mess up?’

A fond smile, and Morpheus sighed, taking Aix’s hand. I’m surprised you didn’t ask who “Mommy” was.

‘Any help is good help,’ Aix said with a shrug, squeezing Morpheus’ hand gently. ‘I’m mostly worried about having messed up the fabric of reality or something by mistake.’

You did not, not yet. But your… here, Morpheus paused, a slight curl on one side of his black lips. …young man has taught you how to bend my realm. He did not intend to, but his concept of the unconscious translates in your mind to my realm.

Aix hissed through their teeth in a grimace, ‘Ooof, and mortals should definitely not be doing that, no.’

It is gratifying you know that without needing to have read the stories this mien is from about it.

‘Mortals thinking they can wield the realms or tools of gods is hubris. I don’t need Neil Gaiman to tell me that, I’ve read the old tales. But… how should I be doing it? Only I’m kind of—I’m kind of in mortal peril right now, and was trying to communicate with someone.’

For you. I believe a metaphor you would find useful is to use divine rather than arcane magic, next time.

Aix hugged him. ‘Thank you,’ they said, ‘for helping me learn, rather than punishing me for being wrong.’

‘I still need help. Can you get a message to Victoria Blackwood for me? Tell her I’m in trouble, in Baltimore, that the bad hunter has me. That’s—that’s all I was trying to do. Was tell her or Cthulhu. I don’t want to die—do you—you know how important it is, that I don’t want to die.’ Aix impatiently scrubbed away tears. ‘Please.’

Morpheus looked down with eyes full of stars, and was reassured that this trespass had been the stumble of a child, and not arrogance. And he had much to tell his family, about this stranger from the stars, the one whispered of in mystery cults as an Elder God. Allow me to bring one of your dreams of Cthulhu to the other gods, so they understand he is not his reputation.

There is no copy machine in the Dreamscape, he said, pursing his lips to hide a smile that danced in the stars of his eyes. But yes, you may have it back when I have done this.

I am not a djinn, nor a fae; I will not twist your words for sport. He kissed Aix’s forehead. You are safe. I love my oracles well, and her meeting you was a day I had been anticipating. It will be done. Now, the dream that would best help us understand…?

‘…Oh you’re—you’re asking me which one?’ Aix said, after a pregnant pause. ‘Um, oh! Okay…’ Aix stepped back, closing their eyes and taking a deep breath, concentrating on remembering, and pulling the strand up out of the rolag in the bowl of their womb, spinning the strand of memory with little motions of their fingers, winding it into a skein of yarn that shone violet like a nebula cloud, the spindle as sharp as a fairy tale. Aix offered it, carefully, to Morpheus, who took it with a gracious bow of his head, holding it carefully.

It is gratifying to know that there are those who still work their magic with the old crafts. Now, I think it is time you wake up.

When Aix opened their eyes, they were still in the van, and wondered if it had only been a few seconds, because of how time worked in dreams. Without their phone, it was impossible to check the time, and they cursed again their lack of ability to wear a watch on their wrist.

All they could do was wait. There was a solid, reinforced wall between the back of the van and the front seat, and no windows, but there must have been vents somewhere, because it wasn’t as hot as it should have been, nor as stuffy. Still too hot for the amount of clothes Aix was wearing.

They were the most upset about their rollator, really. They could get a new one, obviously, but it was the principle of the thing. The fact that this woman assumed they were faking disability just because she’d judged Aix to be a Bad Person or whatever. That stung. But then again, Aix thought (there was nothing to do but think, back here), that just helped them not fall into the Experienced Abuse Target trap of justifying their abuse in some fashion by excusing the perp.

Hermes, Loki, Hugin and/or Munin, I could really use some help right now, whether that’s telling Michaela and the others I’m in trouble or messing this woman up with bad luck….

12. Mommy Fearest

Contacting Mommy was a relatively simple affair, particularly in a place with so much magic laying around. The little clown purposely made a little mischief, so her magic human friend would spill his breakfast on his shirt, which always meant he tossed his shirt aside; he couldn’t stand being in dirty clothings.

‘Pippin, cher petite, papa est occupé en ce moment, je viendrai te voir après le petit déjeuner. Va voir George, il jouera avec toi.’

He didn’t even notice her take his red-stained shirt with her, and Pippin went to her room, spreading the shirt out on the floor and putting her hand on the magic red spot to call Mommy….

‘You know, torture is the least effective method of getting information,’ Aix said, retreating into facts and data because they were the safest thing in the world. They never betrayed you.

‘People will say anything to make the pain stop,’ Aix said, eyes tightly shut, waiting for the blow as she came toward them. They were genuinely surprised when it didn’t come, and opened their eyes to see the hunter had actually stopped herself.

‘I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t know what René told you, but he’s a vampire, they’re not nice. This isn’t fucking Twilight or something.’

‘God, why is it always Twilight,’ Aix said, rolling their eyes. ‘There’s lots of perfectly good vampire stories that were famous before Mormon Propaganda But Make It Hep. Personally I grew up on Blade, and LXG.’

‘Okay, fine, it isn’t those things either. He’s bad news, okay. He just made a power grab and—’

‘Van Helsing is looking for me,’ Aix said, and it shut her up; it also, Aix found out a second later, meant she was now pointing a gun at them.

‘So,’ she said, in a very cold, very scary voice, with a gaze that turned Aix’s insides to ice, because he knew what it meant—that was the ‘I’m turning you into an object so I can hurt you’ gaze. ‘You’re bait, then.’

The shadows started whispering, and something moved a few yards away, tipping something over. The gun moved to point at it, and Aix saw the shadow of a squirming, horned thing that marginally looked like a goat’s head on top, with many tentacles and just as many breasts; and seeing that made Aix feel… safer. Relieved. That was one of Cthulhu’s classmates, that was a friend….

‘Who’s there!’ the hunter snapped, tense enough to be dangerous. ‘Show yourself! I’m armed and I will shoot!’

Aix closed their eyes, terrifying as that was, and bowed their head down as tightly as they could in their difficult position being tied to a chair, bracing themself.

The warehouse was big enough and loaded with enough boxes of sound-absorbing goods that the gunshots were muffled, but they were still deafening at this range, and terrifying even as Aix was automatically counting them the way they counted everything. She’d had a pistol, pistols had thirteen rounds… and that was if the clip was full.

The screaming, the mad fear, the smell of urine, these were things Aix was used to from being homeless or in asylums—separately, not all at the same time. True, they were things Aix never wanted to experience again, triggered awful memories, but they were not a surprise, and that was something. Surprises were worse than anything.

The squelching, well, that wasn’t so bad at all really—and they couldn’t really hear it much, over the ringing in their ears.

The little clown had looked deep fake, and clowns… clowns had tendrils on their heads.

You know, he’s right, it really is different when you know how to speak to us. Yes, at least the origin of what you call clowns. Some of them. It really depends how many generations removed they are from my offspring. The little one that called me is half mine, a grandchild, truly.

Are you done eating that woman or whatever you’re doing, because I would like to open my eyes but I don’t want to see a dead human that’s all torn apart. Does she have a little thing like this? Aix pictured a cell phone of various kinds, and felt something the right weight and shape drop onto their lap. They also sensed, through closed eyelids, the lights going out completely. It was dark, and quiet, bone-deep quiet that only happened in a blackout.

Aix opened their eyes, but there was nothing to see, all was pitch dark. The smell of meat, and offal, and almost every bodily fluid there was, was in the air. Not choking, though—and it was disappearing fast.

I’m a bit tense right now, I’m sorry. I can’t hear anything, either. But Aix held still, feeling the little clown’s hands working at the duct tape. Once free, Aix slowly pulled their hands away, not wanting to frighten or accidentally swat the little clown, and picked up the phone in their lap, feeling blindly for which side was the screen, wiping the wetness off with their skirt before tilting the screen away from their face and turning it on. They were glad they were good at tech, because this was not the same operating system as their phone; but they were betting on this woman having the phone number of René in her phone… Aix found it, and texted.

They didn’t trust cell phones not to tattle, but they had always been perhaps too good at ciphers. Still, they’d talked with Michaela and the others about safety and code phrases for just this kind of occasion. They only hoped the emoji made it clear without being too clear. Real cops didn’t pick at clues or puzzles, they self-selected for people who just didn’t do that kind of thing.

Aix was well-used to the odd feeling of memories that happened Before The Trauma. They messed around in the phone’s settings until they could turn every single locational tracker on, and after getting their favourite secure private browser downloaded, they opened up a map website and emailed the address to Michaela and René.

They felt the little clown tugging at their skirt, and reached down a hand to offer, gently, seeing the Flash light up in the darkness with orange. ‘Hey bean,’ they said softly, not really able to hear themself. ‘I can’t hear you right now, but thank you. You’re a good joey.’

Aix stared at the word for a while, mouthing it to themself. V was the same letter that ‘va’ started with, so… this was probably a conjugation of ‘va’? Probably. Aix saw the little clown start to make her Flash blue and red, blinking like… police? ‘No no no,’ Aix said, terrified and trying to get up, only then realising that the clown hadn’t been tugging at their skirt, she’d been undoing the tape around Aix’s ankles. ‘No, not the cops, oh god not the cops….’ They momentarily panicked while trying to figure out where to put the phone, since they weren’t wearing any pockets, or anything snug enough to tuck a phone into, before deciding to just take their hijab off and use that, because it was a huge length of fabric and could be tied easily.

‘Beany bean, no flash, no light. Darktime.’ They only hoped the little clown understood. There was a tug at their hand, and they understood animals well enough to know she wanted up, and so carefully picked her up, balancing her on one hip automatically. She was only the weight of a small cat (or… maybe a normal cat, because Aix had only ever had very large cats), so it wasn’t hard to keep her there.

‘Come on, bean,’ they said, covering the tip of the clown’s tail with their hand, gently, ‘Darktime.’

The Flash dimmed, and Aix walked, glad they were wearing their boots, because their comfier house shoes were the kind that clicked with every step. They used what little they’d seen from the clown being lit up to discern somewhere to go, putting a hand against a wall of boxes and starting to walk away from the dark stain on the floor and the chair, Hermes, please don’t let the cops find me….

They still could only hear the high-pitched whine of tinnitus, much louder than normal, and they didn’t know how long they had until the adrenaline wore off and their usual pain started to set in, so they had to move quickly before their feet gave out.

The phone vibrated, and Aix froze, heart in their throat, for several seconds, visions of another gun attached to another trigger-happy monster with an authority fetish dancing in their head, before they convinced themself that the lack of light was a good sign, because normal people needed flashlights, and got the phone out again, immediately going in to turn the volume off and realising it already had been with another wave of relief that was probably going to make them sick later but for now… they checked the message.

Aix texted back quickly as they could with one hand, though the clown had her tail wrapped around their waist and was staying put mostly on their own, Aix’s Eldest Sibling instincts wouldn’t let them let go of her entirely.

It was terrifying, the prospect of purposely letting the cops find them; but Aix made themself remember what Michaela and the others had told them about how they had civilian identities in law enforcement and various other positions of authority. Michaela’s alias was Cora Matchett, an FBI agent.

The little glow was red at first, and slowly grew, revealing Aix was in a narrow corridor, not far from where they’d started. They looked down, and carefully lowered onto the concrete floor, sitting down, grateful for their full skirt. The little clown settled in their lap, unwrapping her tail and hugging Aix around their neck, starting to purr.

Eventually, they saw flashlights coming up the side that would reach Aix before it would get to the place where Aix had been tied up. Aix shifted, and the clown leapt out of their lap, and Aix managed to get back on their feet without ripping their skirt—something of a triumph, they were still rather bad about accidentally ripping skirts while getting up.

‘I can’t hear, I got shot at,’ they said, unsure if they were being spoken to, and leaned down, offering a hand toward the clown. ‘Come on, baby, uppies,’ they said, hoping the cops would interpret the clown as being theirs, as she climbed up Aix’s arm and back onto their hip. Aix held her there, and offered one hand out. ‘Since I can’t hear, maybe um, take my hand?’

One of them, the older man, did, and Aix was prepared to have to hurt themself speed-walking, but their sense of pain still hadn’t broken through the adrenaline and shock. There were lots of flashing lights that immediately triggered a migraine, and they were glad when Michaela immediately appeared in the sensory hell, with St Croix and another black person in EMT uniform, leading Aix over to sit and wrapping them in a blanket. St Croix stopped the other EMTs with his presence as one of them, and gently, slowly checked Aix over, sitting next to them and patiently pulling up a non-verbal communication aid on his own phone and typing out what he wanted to say to Aix, telling them every step of what they wanted to do to check Aix over, what questions they had, and St Croix stopped the other EMTs from doing anything beyond exactly what had been consented to, before going back to negotiate more.

Aix wanted to go somewhere dark and was having trouble concentrating with all the flashing lights, so Michaela and St Croix managed to get the cops to turn the lights off on their cars, and the EMTs to turn the lights off on the ambulance. Aix was worried about the little clown, who was as it turned out René’s little clown, recently adopted, and named Pippin. Aix did not want to go to a hospital, did not need a hospital, could not pay for a hospital. I just need to go home and rest. I need to buy replacements and turn off my debit cards. I need to rest. I need to take care of Pippin, she saved my life.

Michaela knew was gunshot deafening was like, and how much a singer like Aix needed to care for their hearing. She used her authority to get Aix clear of police and hospital custody, even after they found the gun and the shells, and didn’t find a body, just a stain on the floor and blood spatter. She knew what to say, she remembered all the exact right words to say to make sure Aix was lawyered up.

Pippin clung to Aix, picking up cues from St Croix and beeping censoriously and interfering the few times one of the EMTs got pushy, whacking away their hands with her tail. Eventually, they were able to get Aix in a very pretty old K-car, St Croix sitting in the back with them, and Michaela driving. St Croix kept touching Aix, petting their hair or shoulder and hugging them, because Aix had asked him to, because not being able to hear meant Aix felt untethered from reality, since most of their reality was sound.

Michaela hadn’t asked for the phone Aix got off the hunter’s body. Aix was sure everyone was asking what had happened, where was that woman, but Michaela and St Croix had shielded them from having to answer or even think about it.

Pippin was touching Aix’s face, and had allowed St Croix to wipe her hands off with a sanitation wipe to make sure she was clean. She was wearing a blue onesie that had an apple with a happy face on the chest, and little baby-sized black oxford boots with blue laces, which she was currently untying and taking off, so she could curl up in Aix’s lap more closely. Aix felt her purring, even though they couldn’t hear her squeaks and beeps and other noises. But they remembered her voice, from the Dreamscape.

They pulled into the garage that was secretly a big parking lot, under René’s club, and Aix was glad it was only lit with amber and red light, very softly.

And a wheelchair, a very nice one with the tilted wheels, was waiting for them. They got into it, and St Croix held Pippin, making her wait for Aix to get settled. Pippin strained, obviously beeping up a storm and squirming, trying to get to Aix, until Aix held out their arms and St Croix finally let Pippin push off them and leap onto Aix like a little sugar-glider, climbing all over them and the chair before sitting in Aix’s lap.

Aix just wanted to get out of their clothes and shower and sleep. They were sure there was blood on them, and they didn’t want to think too hard about that, were glad they were wearing mostly black, so they couldn’t see it and it couldn’t stain anything.

They wheeled themself, and was glad St Croix was behind them even so, just because he wouldn’t grab for the wheelchair, and would keep anyone else from doing it. St Croix had offered to help be Aix’s medical advocate on the trip, and Aix had said most of what they needed was people to give them space, warning, and time. After a frustratingly short time, their arms got tired and they stopped. St Croix also stopped, and put a hand gently on their shoulder.

‘Could you push me?’ Aix was suddenly very tired, and knew that meant the crisis mode was finally shut off, at least physically. St Croix started to push them, slowly, and Aix just held Pippin, who seemed very content to be held, purring louder and rubbing her face against Aix like a cat, which was extremely comforting, because Aix missed having cats, and had been talking with everyone about wanting a kitten as soon as they moved into their new place.

Michaela disappeared—off to talk to René, St Croix told Aix—and they went to a guest room that was all in beautiful black and dark blue, with a comfortable curtained canopy bed, and the first thing Aix did was start stripping off and heading for the bathroom.

‘Her phone is in here you can have it,’ was all they said, shoving the hijab at St Croix, before going into the shower, not even bothering to shut the door, because shutting the door would, ironically, make them less able to see someone coming into the room.

Aix casually dated the bathroom as being from the 90s, tastefully done in mostly-black mosaic tile with the signature scattered colour flecks that were so very of the time, a fake skylight lit by incandescent light (René had a lot of fake skylights lit by incandescent light, which Aix admired about him), and a roomy shower with a wall of glass blocks and an expansive bench along the other wall. Aix took their time, using the shower like they always did: to metaphorically clean away all the bad events and rebalance themself.[10] The fact that they could sit down helped enormously.

There was a glow that sparkled in the glass blocks, after a while, and Pippin peered around the edge of the glass wall, coming into the shower without her clothes on, her markings showing she wasn’t a baby, as Aix had thought, but had some kind of dwarfism. Baby clowns didn’t have stripes on their upper arms and thighs, but Pippin did, and they were bold and sharp-edged, not wavering imitations from her Mask. Aix had never had a clown, but they had studied them a lot over the years. There was so much about them that made people think they were cephalopods, or fish; but only birds had feathers, and clowns had feathers. And only primates had hands, and clowns had hands… and that didn’t go into the massively weird internal biology, or cognition (they could count but they also couldn’t count at all)…. Aix couldn’t see how you could not be interested in them, and now all that weirdness made sense: they were shapeshifters from another dimension.

Pippin sat down on the shower floor near Aix, her little feet out in front of her, and wiggled back and forth, obviously humming to herself. Aix still couldn’t hear anything, and it was frightening; but St Croix had said if they rested their hearing there was no reason to think it wouldn’t heal up perfectly well, given their medical history, and reminded Aix it was okay to be frightened, but that they had friends that could and would advocate for them to doctors and nurses.

They carefully lowered themself down onto the floor near Pippin, and started mirroring her. She lit up and sparkled in delight, her Mask turning to a smile, and seemed to know not to run around in a wet shower, but helped encourage Aix to focus on something else by letting them wash her, purring and sparkling, Aix hoped in reaction to how gentle Aix was with her plumage.

Soon they were both drying off with fluffy black towels, and Aix walked out into the bedroom again, wrapped in the black robe they’d found hanging on a hook in the bathroom, to see a very pretty boy with long red curls, sitting on his knees just inside the door, Aix’s rolling backpack by his side, a messenger bag’s strap across his chest. He had a collar on, braided black leather that looked like the sort of thing you could wear all the time, and was in dance clothes. From the muscles, he might have been a ballet dancer.

Pippin ran over to him with her tail up and cheerful, which helped Aix know this wasn’t an intruder. She also stopped and held out her hand like he was a cat, and he obligingly sniffed at her, then butted under her hand, and let her give him cat-style skritchies behind his ear, which was pointed. Aix approached, slowly, still trying to assess him, see what he’d do. He tilted his face up, opened his very blue eyes, showing oval cat-pupils.

Nodding. He’d looked like a he, but Aix had purposely asked in that order just in case things were not what they appeared; they hoped that was diplomatic and respectful, given the situation. ‘Can you—slowly—fingerspell what I’m supposed to call you?’

He paused, nodded, and made a circling sort of ‘go on’ or ‘more’ motion with one hand. Aix thought that out. ‘You’re here to… give me my things and also something else?’

Much more emphatic nodding. Aix giggled, feeling much safer. ‘Okay, you can come in all the way, then. I’ll get out my laptop and we can play pass the keyboard so we can talk more complicated.’

He slowly got to his feet, and was only a little taller than Aix; Aix took his own backpack by the long handle, wheeling it further inside, and Cameron went over to sit in one of the slipper chairs, getting a laptop out of his bag and occupying Pippin while Aix was busy with pulling apart the two pieces of their rather unique backpack, and pulling their huge laptop (they needed a large screen owing to their poor vision) out of the larger, more suitcase-like bottom part, since their new laptop was far too big for the small daypack. They set up on the beautiful tanker desk that was against one wall, and had a matching very roomy tanker chair to go with it. As they did, they noticed Cameron had a laptop already, and found a pen in one of the desk drawers, writing down their instant messenger handle and offering it to Cameron.

They got a message as soon as they booted up their messenger program, along with seeing a lot of other messages from their friends. They went to the new request first, seeing Cameron’s handle was Sineofthefeline, and had an icon of a fursona. That was promising.

Sineofthefeline: idk about wizard, I usually play warlocks and sorcerers—but yes to the rest. nwn René asked around the submissives in the Household and I got to be the one to help you while you’re recovering. There was a lot of competition! owo

Metasepia: Hehe omg. Well I’m sure everyone wants a debrief and I can get my thoughts together better in writing so… you can tell this to Rene or Mike.

Sineofthefeline: Understood. You don’t have to do this now, if you don’t want to.

Metasepia: No I’d rather do it when it’s fresh or I’ll forget. And writing it all out will get it out of my head.

Metasepia: I was just waiting for the pink bus at centre and charles when she grabbed me. I don’t know where my rollator or purse are. She duct taped my hands (well, wrists?) and put me in the back of her van and I tried to psionically contact Cthulhu but ended up in Pippin’s dream instead.

Metasepia: Then I ended up having a chat with Morpheus but that’s kind of personal—gist is, I asked him to contact somebody and pass along where I was and who had me, and I guess he did.

Metasepia: I woke up and was still in the van, hunter lady took me to a warehouse.

Metasepia: She definitely believed she wasn’t being scary and that I needed to be ‘saved’ or whatever, but also was acting like I was faking being crippled

Metasepia: anyway, I *think* she somehow saw or overheard me with Rene? When I finally dropped Mike’s name she pulled a gun on me and said I was “bait”.

Metasepia: Fun fact: apparently clowns are or are descended from the Thousand Young! So uh. So The Black Goat of the Etc turned up and I guess she uh… ate? Her? And also brought Pippin along, and Pippin untied the duct tape and I asked Mommy to give me hunter lady’s phone and contacted Rene.

Metasepia: So, uh… what happened on y’all’s end? Exactly? Just curious.

Sineofthefeline: Erastos got a message that you were in trouble, said it was from the gods. The hunters started investigating, and someone who had found your purse started texting Victoria, because she was the last person to send you a message, and said your bag was lost. I guess you don’t keep your phone locked?

Metasepia: Yeah no I don’t. I don’t keep sensitive info on my phone, that’s my security measure. Passwords and pins can be hacked, but you can’t find stuff that isn’t there.

Sineofthefeline: Well, this person wasn’t planning to steal anything, they were just worried because it was a full purse zipped closed and shoved in a trashcan, with medicine in it. They told us where they’d found it, and René had one of the boys pick it up for you.

Sineofthefeline: There is. And we’re glad you don’t lock your phone and that this lady found it. Victoria contacted us immediately, and it was only a little while later we got a text from Ana—hunter lady—but it was you, and you know the rest.

Metasepia: I hope turning on the GPS and location of the phone helped. That was me.

Sineofthefeline: It did help. Ana doesn’t normally have those on. Sorry about the cops; there was a report of gunshots from a bunch of people getting on the bus stop outside of the warehouse.

Metasepia: I appreciate Saintie and Pippin shielding me from the nurses too. ❤

Metasepia: Thanks for listening. I don’t really want to sleep, but I’m hungry.

Sineofthefeline: I can get you something to eat. What do you want? We have a full kitchen and a chef that knows how to cook around restrictions.

Metasepia: Oh okay. Well I’d love some shredded beef rather than ground beef, then. Spicy on the side so I can add it myself. No alliums or legumes, but lettuce, cheese and tomato are ok. Corn tortillas. Rice also ok. Cilantro on the side pls, whether I want it or not is sort of a crapshoot bx of migrainey stuff. Would enjoy some chips and plain guacamole (like, just a good avocado and a lil salt and lemon) if you have any lying around.

Metasepia: Icewater or mint water/tisane. I’d ask for proper tea but with how jangly I am I shouldn’t have caffeine. Can Pippin stay?

Sineofthefeline: Of course! She likes you. If she wants to leave you should let her, though; she’s sort of secretive when she’s not playing.

Sineofthefeline: I’m gonna go get your food taken care of, and tell René and Ms Van Helsing about what you told me, okay?

Cameron folded the laptop and tucked it back in his bag, leaving the room. Pippin had been playing with his hair until then, and after he stood up and left, came over to Aix for attention, patting their thigh. Aix was a bit overcome at the memory of one of their old cats—which they’d had to leave behind with their ex during their fleeing his abuse—and was glad to lean back and pat their lap, Pippin leaping up to sit just like their cat used to. They petted her and she purred loudly, hugging them, little black hands holding the lapels of the robe Aix was wearing. She yawned and curled up, tucking her tail around herself and falling asleep, her Flash going dim and her Mask settling to what must have been her ‘default’ markings—she had the tear freckles and sad pout of a pierrot, but her markings were mostly blue, which meant she had to be a zanni pierrot. Smart, but not domesticated, and definitely illegal.

Still, she was happy, well-fed, and she had saved Aix’s life, so unless they saw she was being mistreated, they weren’t going to say anything. Zanni were known for just showing up and deciding to live with people if they wanted; that was the whole reason clowns had ended up domesticated anyway.

NineInchNeedles: I’m so glad you’re safe, darling! That’s Pippin. René found her a few weeks ago—and ended up meeting *quite* a handsome young man about it.

NineInchNeedles: The gossip is that René is utterly smitten with him~ But you didn’t hear that from me.

Metasepia: She’s so cute. I wish I could have a clown but I worry I wouldn’t be able to socialise them enough because I don’t really get along with people about pets.

NineInchNeedles: anti-Italian. Immigrant families from Italy often brought their clowns with them, so of course clowns came to have a terrible reputation. You should ask Grand-mere about it, she was there and tried to organise the local ladies about it. It didn’t work ☹ but she tried. And if you really want a clown you can smuggle one in—immortals love them, so there’s a few in the city.

Metasepia: and even if a pet is illegal, people have them; I knew people in California with ferrets. I’ll think about it. And I’d have to ask Virginia ofc. And Cthulhu.

NineInchNeedles: Are you ready for a bit of a surprise—it’s good, I promise.

NineInchNeedles: Cthulhu found us! He ended up in the mausoleum in Arkham Cemetery, seems to have met a pwcca soon after emerging, and travelled with him to my family home in Sleepy Hollow. He and Squidge are getting along well; he says Squidge is very ill—apparently one’s mental state affects one physically far more strongly in his species, than it does ours.

NineInchNeedles: You’ll have a time getting her away from René, but on the other hand I genuinely think René would love to have you in Baltimore. You can take the night train up here, it’s only an hour or so. Don’t answer right now, but… think about it? With Snooty Miss A gone, Baltimore will be quite a nice city.

Metasepia: Okay this is a lot to think about but—NIGHT TRAIN?? AN HOUR???

Metasepia: ARE YOU TELLING ME THE VAMPIRES HAVE ACTUALLY BUILT A HIGH-SPEED RAIL???

Metasepia: not the vampires doing more for our infrastructure than the actual gubmint 😹

NineInchNeedles: Not just the vampires, but they do tend to be the richest and the land-owners. There was a great deal of cooperation from the Appalachian trolls and assorted nameless beasties, as the main Trunk of Many Things goes along the mountain range.

NineInchNeedles: René’s part of an unbroken line of French vampires that came over to bedevil the English aboard the HMS Ark, so the Baltimore station is one of the oldest ones; it used to be the south terminal.

Before Aix could answer with how cool that was, and ask follow-up history questions, Pippin woke up, shifting to look at the door. She looked at Aix and jumped down, doing a little somersault when she landed, and going over to the door, reaching up for the brass handle. Aix figured someone must have knocked, and got up, making sure their robe was closed before opening the door to see Cameron, with their shiny vinyl purse with the logo of their favourite genre parody movie on it. It also looked sort of damp, like it had been wiped down.

‘Thank you,’ Aix said, hugging the purse to their chest. Cameron gave a little salute and headed back down the hall. Aix looked down at Pippin, who looked back up at them, tail swishing, and tilted her head. Aix shut the door, locked it, and set their purse on the desk, sitting down and opening the purse, checking everything inside. Their phone was still intact, and their wallet. They were still nervous, and opened up their bank account to check there weren’t any odd purchases.

They still needed to look at the unread messages from other friends, from their big group server; but that seemed insurmountable right now, and though they felt guilty about it, they just didn’t feel like anything their friends were doing was very impotant, just now. They knew that was the trauma—and that they should give themselves time. Nobody was going to think anything was wrong if they were just quiet for a few days, it wasn’t like they constantly kept people updated on everything, or that people would even know anything was wrong until told. All their friends knew was they were on a road trip and so any long silences could be explained.

Aix knew they needed a distraction right now, a puzzle or something fun to do, and that Victoria was giving that to them, and that was okay. They weren’t obligated to tell everyone everything right when it happened or else they were a Liar or something.

Metasepia: I used to live in Baltimore, for six months. In Canton. Lived with a creepy like… you know, I guess he was a Gor fanboy. with two pet women, and whom I always want to describe as ‘a few corpses short of being a serial killer’. It was ridiculous tbh. I didn’t know people were like that in real life. XD

Metasepia: I’m so glad you explained it to me because like… I was so confused about what I was looking at.

Metasepia: anyway, thinking about baltimore though like… well, we went to a boylesque show at Nepenthe last night but we didn’t arrive at the right time for the drag show at Below the Veldt

Metasepia: Which is btw the BEST name for a Hyena-run drag bar I’ve ever heard of in my LIFE.

Metasepia: but Baltimore’s public transit sucks compared to nyc. That’s a big thing for me. But like… if the train is an hour, if… hm. I could weekend here maybe? Split time? I feel like if I asked around I could find something to do and somewhere to live? Which is a huge deal.

NineInchNeedles: You destroyed the monster of Baltimore. You saved these people’s lives.

NineInchNeedles: They are probably planning a ticker-tape parade for you, darling.

NineInchNeedles: They also probably don’t want you to leave. You’re the replacement hunter now. You have the power.

Aix stared at that for a while, and felt their chest tight with panic; but it also felt sort of far away, and well, Victoria was right. They got up, and looked for Pippin, who was digging through their suitcase.

‘Bupbupbup no. No no no. Stoppat,’ they said immediately, picking her up. She gave them baby eyes and was probably making Sad Baby Noises too, but Aix couldn’t hear them.

‘Babybean, I can’t watch you right now,’ Aix said, realising they were too distracted, as they cuddled Pippin. ‘I’m sorry. Let’s go upstairs so you can play with someone.’

Pippin clung harder, winding her tail around them. Aix… sat down on the edge of the bed, and tried to think. Animals never did things for no reason, especially smart ones, and Aix was learned enough about animals to know that. They’d assumed she was bored, but was she?

Aix pet her, getting to know her plumage (they had no experience petting feathery animals), and gradually feeling her calm down. So, she didn’t want to leave him?

Oh, okay. Duckie is gonna be boring for a while, sweetheart. Duckie can’t play with you and doesn’t want you to be bored.

Okay, okay. How about we go and get some toys and things so you can stay in my room with me. Aix tried to convey that they were very glad to have her, they just wanted her to be well and not bored. Boredom was the worst thing you could possibly be.

She climbed off their lap and ran over to the wheelchair excitedly, which made Aix smile. It’s okay babby, I think I can walk upstairs better than I can wheel up there. And, now that they were thinking about it, they really wanted to not be alone. They got dressed in some pajama pants and one of their oversized hoodies, picking out the one that had the robot clown character from their favourite cartoon on it. Their new laptop fit inside a small backpack their estranged sister had apparently gotten them as a gift years ago, that their mother had passed along to them, and was the perfect small but flattened size for a laptop and the contents of a purse. They folded the laptop up and trasnferred their purse things into the backpack, slinging it over their good shoulder, and headed out into the hallway, making sure Pippin was with them. You’re the leader, I want to go up with people but stay backstage and out of the way. This was an easier idea to convey without words, and Pippin lit up pink and started a little march, Aix happy to follow at the slow pace.

13. Wake of the Huntress

Nepenthé had been the first whorehouse, and with the way things were going, the gentrification eating up The Block smaller and smaller every year, it was going to be the only one—at least, until whoring was legal again.[11] It was an old building of grey stone and timber, with wide plank floors of age-darkened wood, and the lower floor had always been a public house with a stage, with the upper floor originally having been the rooms of the full-service whores.

But the second floor of Nepenthé was largely open, these days, with a kitchen on one side partially enclosed by its own cabinets, made from dark wood that matched the aged floorboards and beams of the old stone buildling, which had been here since the first English had colonised the area. There were a few crown-glass doors in some of the cabinets, relics not from the Colonial era but the seventies; they didn’t exactly match the old windows of same that looked out over the street, but they didn’t clash, either. René didn’t like things to clash.

The kitchen’s pass-through counter faced an old dining table, and it was here that Michaela and Erastos were sitting, papers and forms spread out between them. St Croix and Heather were down enjoying the club, and one of René’s many submissives, a chef, was at his craft in the kitchen, working on a meal for their guests and waiting for the order from Aix. René was in his favourite settle from the lobby’s old life as more of a pub, that had been moved up here against the corner window, right above where it used to be. When Cameron opened the door, René didn’t look up from his game of solitaire, but said,

‘Hungry,’ Cameron said, ‘I want to get their food order in, then I have a full debrief.’

‘So soon?’ René said, looking up, the knave of hearts still held between his long white fingers. ‘Mais vas-y, dis au Chef,’ he said, knowing that if Cameron had a fault, it was being too eager to find orders in René’s words. As Cameron spoke with Chef for a few moments, René put the deck of cards away, and Cameron soon came back over to sit at René’s booted feet, laying his head on his master’s lap adoringly. René ran his nails through Cameron’s long red hair, smiling as a purr started up almost immediately. Werecats were small cats, making sounds more like cheetahs or cougars—it meant they could purr, and this made them extremely popular lovers, especially in recent years.

René stopped after a few minutes, so that Cameron could speak, but Cameron just got out his laptop and opened it up, showing René the chat window.

‘Ah,’ René said, as he started petting his boy again. He’d been baffled as to how someone could be ready to account so soon, but to type it up was much different than to speak—something which Aix seemed to know, from their words. Michaela came over, after a minute or two, and René appreciated that she didn’t read over his shoulder. She sat down across from him, waiting patiently, and he turned the laptop when he was finished, letting her read. When she looked up, the vampire was looking thoughtfully out the window, still petting Cameron, who was slowly draping more and more of himself over René’s lap.

‘She was looking for Cthulhu,’ Michaela said, her heart breaking at the fact that her name had made Aix a target; but nevermind, nevermind, Aix was fine now, and safe as houses….

‘Yes,’ René said. ‘mes constituants have been picking apart her wake, and she was on the trail of Cthulhu—which means her friends in the police force are going to take her disappearance as encouragement.’

‘Lucky she just disappeared,’ Michaela said grimly. ‘No body means no proof there was a crime, and Aix is in the clear.’ She sighed, leaning back in the settle. ‘Still, best if Aix got out of town.’

‘For a while,’ René said, softly, in that tone that everyone listening knew damn well—that was the N’est Pas Possible tone, the one he used when he wasn’t to be argued with.

Michaela, however, had never paid that any mind. ‘They’re moving into Gin’s building, they have an apartment and a job lined up,’ she said, and it was a warning.

René had never paid that any mind. ‘ “Inasmuch as a city recently deprived of a Hunter is known to be vulnerable to further destabilisation, the party deemed responsible for that Hunter’s death can be obligated to replace them.” ’

‘Yeah, “pursuant to the agreement of relevant governing bodies for each culture nocturnus creaturae considered to have established significant territory within that city.” Don’t quote the fucking treaty at me, you old bitch,’ Michaela said, with a smile that promised a bolt of mesquite straight through the heart, ‘I know how much of a mess this town is, all the weres here, and the dragons in the harbour. If you wanna pull this stunt then I’m gonna hold you to every single part of that Treaty.’

René smiled, his dark eyes narrowing the way they used to when he spied an English ship in the distance. ‘You underestimate how much we all hated The Heeren, Ms Van Helsing.’

‘I am not traumatising that boy further by letting you put him in a cage,’ Michaela snarled.

‘I would never attempt to control a witch with anything,’ René said, putting up one long-nailed hand in peace. ‘Not even emotions. But I must think of my city. Perhaps there is a hunter willing to relocate here?’

Michaela knew damn well there wasn’t, not one that could handle Baltimore. It had become the mecca for the rarer kind of were—swan, boar, hyena, bear, and others—and had become the settling point for a family of sea-dragons, since places further north they were bullied by selkie out of their preferred colder waters. And that didn’t go into the deep-rooted nekropolitik out here; Baltimore was one of the oldest continuous settlements of vampires, and Ana’s constant necromancy had only made the restlessness of the dead buried here worse. The only place more difficult to be a hunter than Baltimore was probably Boston.

Michaela didn’t want Aix saddled with that; but, she reasoned, some people flourished with a lot of responsibility, and Aix’s clarity and lack of panic said a lot about how good a Hunter they would make. On the journey here, Michaela and Aix had spoken for hours upon hours about everything, and Aix was a very strong-willed person, stubborn but flexible in the way a Hunter had to be. With a bit more confidence…

‘If you want him as Baltimore’s Hunter, then just ask them,’ Michaela said, catching herself and using ‘they’ again, now that she was calmer. ‘And have a home and an income to offer them, and support.’

‘Of course,’ René said, but there was no ‘of course’ about it—very few Hunters were on such symbiotic terms with their nightfolk. It was usually a good idea if they weren’t, because then there was no conflict of interest.

But that was the old world, the one that also assumed a Hunter was always going to eventually kill all the monsters, that the Hunters were never, themselves, anything but human; that was not the world Michaela and her fathers before her had wanted to build. That was not the world that Opa had worked the last decades of his life to build, pivoting in a face-turn from his time being one of those Hunters; in his old age he’d grown tired of the violence, wiser to whether it was really the answer (it wasn’t). Ana Heeren had been of the old guard, which was all the more insulting because of how young she had been.

Aix wasn’t a hunter; Aix was a witch, in the style of the old tales—a member of the community, but also outside it. A liminal being: a monster to the humans and a human to the monsters. Maybe… ‘but it’s Aix’s decision.’

Renè hummed; Michaela was young, and American—she believed in individualism, deep down, did not understand fully that one’s choices were not at all independent of everyone and everything else.

René knew better, and suspected that Aix, if they did not know already, was in the process of learning better.

Erastos wheeled over to join them, he and Cameron mutually careful of one another, and folded his hands on his lap. ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Aix has been isolated for a long while; he told me he was worried about going from being totally alone in the quiet of nowhere to the buzz of the biggest city in the country.’

Erastos had chosen ‘he’ for Aix, and did not much waver, after a few days; unlike the other three people at the table, Erastos was trans, and he noticed how Aix reacted when Erastos called him ‘he’. Aix may not have noticed yet that he was still traumatised from being repeatedly and violently shoved back into the closet, but Erastos did. Using ‘they’, dressing in modest female clothing that hid his body and even his face and hair… there was a lot going on there, and after listening to Aix speak on certain events, Erastos was certain that Aix going from fully transitioning to male to avoiding the subject of gender entirely was hiding, was a fearful paralysis. Aix was a little brother, and he’d had no elder brothers in the queer community, rejected over and over by the very people that were supposed to be his brothers. Erastos was determined to stay with him, until he learned to love himself, love his masculinity.

‘I’ll stay with him here,’ Erastos said. ‘I’ll teach him what he needs to know. But the important thing you need to remember is to make sure you understand, both of you, that he’s newly Disabled, capital D; and that means he’s under a great deal of ongoing financial abuse from the human government. Abused people are desperate, and desperate people do not make good decisions.’

‘In Manhattan, he has a position and a home, and a mentor or two, yes?’ René said. ‘I will offer him the same.’

‘He also has transportation in New York, and that means freedom and independence.’

‘We have had trains since 1969,’ René said, evenly. ‘Perhaps not as extensive for les gens du soleil as New York, but we have more fées de la terre than New York, so le chemin de fer nocturne is her equal, down here.’

‘Mais oui, very much so. My late Master did not like it to get about, but his cane was not merely for show. And les fées do take pride in their mechanical things. The elevators are old, but safe. Built to last.’

There was a rhythmic beeping from down the hall, toward the elevator, and Pippin led Aix into the large room. They’d obviously showered, from the damp of their hair, and it was startling to see them without their head and face covered.

René understood, now, why Victoria and Dmitri were so smitten with the witch—and he knew his fellow vampires well enough to know they’d all pick Aix out of the hoi-polloi for that magnificent bone structure. He couldn’t help sounding a little breathless as he said,

‘Ah, bonsoir,’ and rose to his feet, giving Cameron’s head a final caress before crossing the room, ever the gallant host. ‘Come, sit down by the fire…’

Pippin, gave a very distinctive little ‘oooh’, and her Flash turned pink and red, her Mask going positively harlequin with mischief, little red heart appearing on her forehead.

René sighed; was it always so hard to be subtle with a clown in the room? He noted, however, that Aix looked down at Pippin, and seemed confused, sitting down in one of the well-worn leather balloon chairs by the fireplace, setting their backpack down. Pippin climbed up on Aix’s lap—which was a change, because until Aix’s arrival, she had clung to René. Aix pet her.

Aix didn’t have to know what René had said, was surprised at how well they picked up on what René meant from body language alone—but René had very expressive body language, and strong shapes to his black eyebrows and sloe-black eyes, and… a very beautiful, full mouth, that was always painted some wonderful dark colour. Right now it was a deep sapphire blue that looked black until the light hit it, that went with his long nails.

‘I can’t hear,’ Aix said, still quietly. ‘But Pippin says she can understand, and she uses telepathy like the Starfolk do. She says she uh, she did some mischief and made you spill blood on your shirt, stole the shirt, summoned the All-Mother with it. She wants you to know that, so you understand why she was being naughty. But she saved my life, so she’s not sorry.’

‘We are all grateful she did,’ René said, and addressed Pippin. ‘Tu étais une petite fille si héroïque, ma chere Pippin. Grand merci.’

Pippin purred and turned her Mask pink-cheeked and bashful, and watched as Cameron came over to group around the fire, bringing his bag with him. Aix’s phone chimed, and Pippin alerted them to it by trying to get it out of their pocket.

BRRH: Do you want me and Erastos to stay over here or do you want us to come over there? <3

Aix: I’d like to focus on just one person at a time. Was… Was René flirting with me?

BRRH: Not exactly but he definitely has a crush. I get why Victoria and Dmitri are so smitten with you, you look like a statue from Ancient Greece or Rome.

Aix couldn’t argue with that, but it was nice to hear it again from someone that wasn’t their lying ex, because it helped them believe it was true. The idea that Victoria and Dmitri thought Aix was attractive, that René thought Aix was attractive… it was heady, Aix decided. It was nice. They were going to enjoy it, and not worry about whether it was true or not. That wasn’t the point. Opinions didn’t have to be true or false, they were opinions and Aix couldn’t control them. Even someone lying and saying something like that still was deciding to say something that would make someone feel good, and that mattered.

Magic fren liiiike Duckie wan Duckie stay here take ferry road up to newyork. Bees quieter here for Duckies. Our house have secret ferry road underground for Duckie just like newyork.

Pippin showed Aix a memory of being in George’s arms[12] and being in an old elevator, going down to a beautiful subway platform that was astonishing in its cleanliness, with beautiful archways and fornications of carved stone, and mosaics of glowing tiles on the walls. The train was in shining brass, and the seats were lacquered wood with brass rails.

‘You have a magic steampunk subway?’ Aix breathed, eyes wide as Pippin’s memory cleared from their vision. ‘Pippin—Pippin says you want me to stay in Baltimore, and that there’s—there’s a “secret fairy road”. I had her show me because I wasn’t sure what that meant.’

René looked throughtful, then nudged Cameron, who got out his laptop and started typing.

SineoftheFeline: Chemin de fer > road of iron > railroad. She’s saying *fer-y* road, not fairy road—though it’s both, technically, because of who built it. He speaks to Pippin in French and apparently she’s been learning! It’s so cool she can talk??? We should get her those buttons like for dogs and cats.

Metasepia: …I should get those for Cthulhu. It would be easier for both of us than sign language.

‘Actually…’ Aix said, pausing. ‘It would be better to continue this on instant messenger, if that’s okay? I think and talk better with a keyboard.’

SineoftheFeline: ‘It’s certainly faster than a slate and chalk,’ he said.

Metasepia: …hon, you can call him whatever his dom title is, it’s okay. 💚

SineoftheFeline: -^w^-;; Domine wants you to stay here and be our witch.

Metasepia: 1. omg you call him Domine that’s so hot. B. I would need the same things I’m getting in nyc like a high up place to live (for quiet), some way to get income to live on (so I can get off the financial abuse of SSI), and support and medical advocacy. I guess if the secret subway is as good as nyc’s that’s already covered.

Metasepia: However, I have to admit, I’ve kind of missed Baltimore. It’s way different now, less bleak. It was the first city-city I ever lived in, and I was living in Canton in a shitty rowhouse on the end of a corner of Clinton St. I used to sit on the roof and look at the natty boh sign, and just… sort of look over the city.

Metasepia: For him: Why do you want me to be your witch? Is this a ‘if you kill the old one you get her throne’ sort of deal? You… you realise I didn’t actually fight this woman right? I just happened to call for help and someone answered.

SineoftheFeline: So you’re a warlock then? You’re a cleric? You’re out here using divine magic instead of arcane magic?

Metasepia: …if I become the Witch of Baltimore or whatever does that mean I can’t do anything about René having a pash on me? Is this one of those professional things? I am not the Pining sort of gay, Cameron.

Aix waited while Cameron relayed this, missing their hearing very badly and glad Pippin was happy to sit on their lap and be petted, purring loudly. She only got down when someone came out of what Aix realised was a kitchen with a butler’s cart full of food and a carafe of iced tea with fresh mint with an empty wine glass turned upside down beside the plate. The person pushing it was dressed in chef’s whites and a practical headscarf made out of a cut t-shirt sleeve—just like Aix’s underscarves. They waved at Aix, flipped up one of the leaves of the tabletop, turned over the glass and poured the tea, and Aix was very proud of themself for not fussing and just letting themself be served.

‘Thank you,’ they said. ‘It smells amazing.’ It looked amazing, too—the tacos were clearly in hand-made shells, and all the little sides were arranged just so, and like always, Aix hadn’t realised they were hungry until they smelled food. They glanced at René, who gave an elegant gesture and rose to his feet, going to sit on the heart rug with Pippin, pulling out a deck of cards and starting to play with her. Cameron got up and sat in the vacated chair, still typing.

Feeling safe in that nobody was watching them, Aix finally could eat. If anyone was talking, they didn’t know, and it was easier to focus on eating without sound to distract—the high pitched tinnitus didn’t bother them much, it was only a louder version of the kind they were used to, and they’d been able to do the little trick where they tapped the base of their skull in a specific way and eased the volume of it down a bit.

The tacos were perfect, but Aix wasn’t one to really linger over food when they were hungry, and was nervous about eating in a room full of people. They turned the manners all the way up, highly conscious of sounds they couldn’t hear themself making, and frustrated at not being able to converse and eat at the same time. But they were good tacos, very good tacos indeed; and the avocado actually tasted like something, rich and nutty.

Once the tacos were done, they could linger on the chips and the tea, and got their laptop back out.

Metasepia: High compliments to the chef, that was the best Mexican food I’ve had since I was a kid in southern california.

Cameron relayed the message while Aix sipped the iced mint tea, which was pleasantly strong, and felt a little more like a person.

Metasepia: Victoria mentioned my steading may have chosen me, and that I saved everyone’s lives. I still feel like expecting me to do it again is folly, though. I don’t know if the gods will answer me again, or continue to help. I don’t know if the starfolk will.

Metasepia: On the other hand, a great majority of witching is people coming up to you like ‘I think my house is haunted bc [lists the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning]’

So… I’m not saying no I’m just expressing that I don’t know what’s expected of me. I’ve always had to hide being a witch from the community at large, because it was dangerous to make it known, whether that was because people would dismiss me as crazy or because they’d throw rocks at me and accuse me of the worst crimes possible because I wasn’t Christian.

SineoftheFeline: Are you still talking to Domine as well as me? Just checking.

Metasepia: I’m gonna need to talk to u about something that happened a little while ago. I’m safe now but briefly: I was kidnapped by a scary woman for a couple hours or something and also there were gunshots—not at me—and I’m safe now but uh. I should. Probably talk about that with you in a bit. Wanted to forewarn.

14. Concurrent Rhetoric

BRRH: It might be best to leave town for a little while, until this blows over, and come back.

Metasepia: No. That feels craven. Like… that feels like I’m already declining, because what kind of precedent is it for me to leave town and flee the consequences/aftermath of my actions? Fuck no. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of being scared of authority. I used to not be! Witches aren’t afraid of walking alone at night, because they know *they’re* the scariest thing walking alone at night. If I give up on that then I’m not a witch at all.

Metasepia: Like I know you’re probably just trying to protect me from getting tortured or shot by the cops but honestly if I’m that worried about guns I will just get some immortals in talks about turning me immortal.

Metasepia: Maybe I *need* to be here. Maybe I’m *supposed* to be here. If I can get to nyc in an hour or two then I can visit or weekend, which is genuinely much more preferable than living there. I’ve been worried about City Psychosis and the sensory overstimulation that nyc is. If Baltimore has high speed rail and a subway available to me, then even without social support I think I will be okay. I’m still going to pursue social support but at the moment I’m contemplating between splitting time between here and nyc or living here and only visiting nyc.

Michaela had to admit, the immediate ‘no’ followed by a fierce and thought-out argument was, paradoxically, a good sign. It meant Aix was choosing, now that they had choices; the fact that they were choosing something other than what Michaela thought best was not the point.

Maybe she was looking at this wrong—because she’d not had to deal with Aix’s life, which she knew enough to know had been horrific up until now. Most people hadn’t been through that much before getting into the monster/hunting life. Most people. Aix was not most people, their threshold for ‘irreversibly traumatising’ was, quite obviously by now, much, much higher than normal. They had a lifetime of experience telling them humans were untrustworthy and dangerous, and all the monsters they’d ever met had reacted to them with immediate awe and respect.

Michaela realised she’d fallen into the trap that Erastos had warned her and René to avoid: thinking Aix needed protection, thinking they didn’t know what was best for them. She felt guilty about that, but guilty didn’t fix anything.

BRRH: You can stay in the bus while you look for a place here, then. And we’ll still help you move. We can call Amber and have her come here instead, she’d likely be passing through B’more on her way as is.

Metasepia: Thanks. I have my realty site open and have been poking around seeing what’s here. I’d want an actual rowhouse or house, if I were living here. It’s quiet enough.

BRRH: You seem to be at a point in your life where you need to be in a house. Let me know when you decide whether you’re going to be Baltimore’s designated Hunter/Witch, because that means making it known and official that you’re an authority.

Metasepia: I would prefer the term ‘watchperson’ but yeah, I get it. I’ll take the oath about protecting Ankh-Morpork. XD

Metasepia: Would Virginia be mad if I didn’t move in? Or if I was only there part time? I’m seriously considering staying in Baltimore, I think it’s probably better for my health—but I would still like to visit nyc and have my own spot to live there, so I’m not constantly a guest or at a hotel. Is that too extravagant?

NineInchNeedles: First of all, I am *not* the one to ask about extravagance, I’m Rich. Secondly, that apartment would lay fallow if you weren’t in it. And thirdly—you need to think about what is best for your well-being, and your life.

NineInchNeedles: Also, as I said before, you got seized by Destiny, and that’s not really something you can go back from. Gin knows *quite* well what that’s like.

NineInchNeedles: *And*—what, exactly, is wrong with being extravagant? Setting aside the idea that a small one-bedroom flat to use on weekends/weekdays while you spend the other part of the week in a *different* small dwelling (ask René about rowhouses, there are quite a few he maintains for his various assortment of boys—I think there’s a whole continuous row somewhere near Patterson Park, at this point) is *hardly* extravagant, why should you avoid extravagance? Are you not a drag queen? Are you not a theatre goth? Are you not *Catholic* on one side of your family? 😘

Metasepia: Haaa, point. It would be kind of fun to have my home split over two locations, ngl. I don’t quite want to skip out on all the fun jobs that are in Virginia’s building, but I honestly feel like it would be irresponsible to just. Leave. After what happened. I know nobody liked that woman, and that she fucked with the *wrong* person today, but there are Consequences to killing someone and in this instance I feel like one of them is understanding just what she was in the community—she was a *shitty* one, but she was a Watchperson. Vimes doesn’t abandon the city just because the Watch is corrupt. He fixes it. He complains and grouses the whole way but *he fixes it*. That’s Responsible.

NineInchNeedles: Oh, my dear, seeing this makes me so happy. You are going to be such a good Vimes to René’s Vetinari.

Metasepia: No and I’m mad about it! We got here literally the day after the Boylesque festival started and missed the first night, which was at Below The Veldt.

Metasepia: I am currently also missing whatever is going on tonight, because I have to rest my ears. I had amazing tacos and also Pippin is here and in my lap and she is my new best friend, though.

Metasepia: Simon… wait, Simon *Grishakin?* The clown expert??? He lives *here*???

Metasepia: Oh my god I had his book!! I had his book once! As a kid! My ex made me leave it behind like 10 moves ago but oh my god I know Simon! He lives here???

NineInchNeedles: Yes! And René has a huge pash on him. I’ve met him before, he’s quite pashable. A very gentle creature. He’s been looking in on Pippin, his shelter is down in Canton somewhere. On *Toone* street, which I always thought was quite lucky for him.

NineInchNeedles: She is a *very* good reason. I know how much you like clowns. I’ve been working on a little set of winter things for her, she came up to visit a while back so I could take her measurements and she could pick out yarn.

NineInchNeedles: I have been telling Cthulhu about what you’ve been telling me on your road trip so far, as he’s staying with us in the guest room for the moment. He finds the city fascinating, and Dmitri has introduced him around to all the local monsters. He’s struck up a friendship with Dr Scarpa—you haven’t met him, he’s the “tzimisce” I told you about.

‘Have you asked him yet?’ Dmitri asked, as he emerged from the bedroom for the night, ‘I won’t have René poaching him, I saw him first, I—’

‘Ashley,’ Victoria said, and he knew she was very serious, when she used his real name. He made concerted effort to rein in his temper, going so far as to kneel at her feet and bow his head. She put her hand out to pet his long pale hair, slow and grounding.

‘Aix was kidnapped by Ana a few hours ago. They’re safe now, and are responsible for Ana’s death at the hands of—oh, good evening, Cthulhu, you should hear this too. Come, sit.’

Their guest did not sleep, but had learned from Victoria’s family that it was best to rest while the humans slept, and go about at night, and so spent the daylight hours learning to read and write English. Am I intruding upon a scene?

‘No, dear. But there’s been a development. Our dear Aix was kidnapped by a rather terrible woman, and called for help, which happened to reach your sister, who devoured said woman. Aix is safe now, but may not be living here after all.’

I received communication from Shob-Zhiggurath about it and was just going to ask if Aix had sent you any messages. She was very pleased to meet him. What do you mean, not living here?

‘Well, this woman that abducted him was Baltimore’s… we call ourselves Hunters out of tradition, but these days we’re more like the Watch. And because Aix caused her to die, Baltimore doesn’t have one.’

‘Permission to swear, Mistress?’ Dmitri asked, and Victoria knew he was practically shaking with rage. She took her hand off his head.

‘Fucking pirate bastard now he’s going to seduce Aix and I saw the boy first! Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn!’

‘I’m not sharing him with a French—French bastard!’ There was the barest hesitation, before Dmitri managed to control his tongue enough to not fling every single slur he knew at René. He was English, René was French, there was a long-standing animosity, and vampires were not usually from modern enough upbringings to separate slurs from other forms of swearing without effort.

‘Yes, listen to our guest, dear,’ Victoria said gently. ‘And Aix has said he wants to live here in Manhattan part-time. And I know from a little red birdie that Aix thinks we’re both quite attractive.’

‘Oh don’t let’s with that old saw,’ Victoria sighed. ‘Ashley, my love, this is getting a touch close to “if she’s touched by another man she is soiled forever”, and I’ll not have you insulting Aix like that.’

‘No, I just—’ Dmitri finally sighed, and said, much softer and more nakedly afraid: ‘René’s a dominant, and I’m—I’m not. And he’s a madam.’ He paused, not sure what the proper word was, but Victoria didn’t correct him, so he soldiered on. ‘He’s sensual, like Aix is. And if Aix becomes his witch, then… they’re not a free agent anymore, Victoria. If I flirt with Aix now, it becomes politics.’

‘There it is,’ she said, leaning down to kiss him. ‘Good boy, communicating what’s really bothering you. Now, I think we ought to go down to Charm City for the rest of the week, so we can finally talk to Aix about our feelings. We can dine at the Annabel Lee, it’s been years.’

Dmitri was still cross, but Cthulhu noted he was also hungry, as most humans were after sleeping; and, like Cthulhu’s folk, humans were more irrtable when they were hungry.

‘Come on, darling,’ Victoria said, trying to cheer Dmitri up. ‘Mumsy’s found a group of nazis trying to meet up in the Village; you should go eat some, you’ll feel better.’

‘I do like hunting with Lady October,’ Dmitri admitted, fighting a smile. He kissed Victoria’s hand, ‘and enacting further vengeance for your people, that your pretty hands stay clean—though I know you hate when I say it like that.’

Victoria chuckled. ‘I can hardly stop a goy from his strange ways,’ she said, as she always did. ‘Go on now, Mumsy’s already on the train.’

After Dmitri took his stick and hat (he was still old-fashioned, and their formality were a comfort) and left, Victoria turned to Cthulhu.

Cthulhu had gotten a clear idea of how Victoria was, as he had stayed here. How all the women in the Averay family were—they were all the dominant, and deferred to one another by order of age. The men took orders and obeyed with a great cheerfulness, seeming to like nothing more, and did not seem to defer to one another as much. It was odd, but Cthulhu felt… at home, with it, in a way he hadn’t in his own group back home. There had always been something odd about him, there—play-sex hadn’t been very interesting, for him; and (as was tradition) he’d designed his own final test for his studies around an attempt to play with humans the way he wanted to play with anyone. Azathoth had been obliging about helping him do it, but hadn’t understood.

Not like Aix had. Not like the Averays had. They’d given him language to describe his feelings—bondage, kink, domination, submission—and being able to name his desires had been such a relief, such an ecstatic relief….

He helped her pack, learning how to fold garments, and it was a while until he asked,

‘In a way,’ Victoria said. ‘Only people who have known him quite a long while use that name, because presently it’s seen as a girl’s name, and my darling is a scoche insecure about his masculinity, being that he’s so pretty and a ballet dancer.’

‘It is,’ Victoria said, ‘but Dmitri is very old, you know.’ She softened, and added, ‘He’s come such a long way.’

‘Oh, darling,’ Victoria said, softly, and Cthulhu felt the weight of generations of loss and fear and pain in the room, suddenly. He sat down on the bed, overwhelmed.

‘No, no, darling. Nazis are… the worst monsters on this planet. They want everyone to be exactly a certain way—what they see as “perfect”—and anyone who isn’t that way, they murder. And that is a lot of people.’

‘Mm. This is one of those human things that requires a lot of context to understand. For now, know that they are nasty people, that’s why the vampires use them for food. They’ll hurt people if they’re allowed to live. I am not a violent woman,’ she said, lifting her head and splaying a hand on her very large teats, ‘and it is not the Jewish way to think someone should be punched in the eye or murdered rather than spoken to evenly; except for nazis. It is dangerous to even speak to someone that wishes you dead.’ She folded her arms, and added, ‘Well, I should specify that while my Jewish family would agree with me about punching them in the eye, they would probably draw the line at murder. I wouldn’t, though.’

I want to learn more about this matter. If they wish perfection, but the only way for humans to achieve it is by accident of birth… this is why you refused my offer to edit your genes so you could be bipedal once more, isn’t it?

‘Yes,’ Victoria said, ‘that is eugenics—something which nazis are quite fond of. Eugenics is disrespectful to the human spirit.’

Victoria gave that some thought. ‘There’s no easy answer,’ she said, sighing. ‘But for me, this chair is part of me now, just like my glasses. I would feel naked without it, and… surgery isn’t something we humans always want, either. Here now,’ she said, more confidently, ‘you know it’s my decision, because it’s my body, right?’

‘And you place what I want for my body before what you think would help, right?’

…Oh. Oh, I understand now. These nazis… they… don’t? What makes them think they would know better thank you? That is illogical.

‘Oh it has nothing to do with logic, you’ll find.’ She softened, and was both sad and happy when she asked, ‘Do your people not have hatred?’

Cthulhu was quiet for a long time. We don’t socialise as closely as humans, so perhaps we did not develop such strong aversion. Or perhaps it is because we are not prey animals.

‘Hm, good point. And Aix said your people don’t really have stories, so… I suppose you need stories to have hate, because hate is based on hurtful stories.’

Aix did not show me those kind of stories. I understand why. He shows me the best of humanity, I think it is because he does not want me to think humans are inherently cruel. I have seen cruelty, and violence, from humans.

‘Perhaps Aix knows you had only met the worst, and wanted to give you respite,’ Victoria pointed out, as she continued getting clothes out of drawers. ‘They’re a very kind person.’

Yes. They are exactly what they showed me of humanity: To treat every strange being as a new friend, to be curious, to be pleased with everything in the world.

‘ “He could make you see the way the world could be—in spite of the way that it is.” ’ Victoria quoted fondly. ‘He’s like Abi[13] Gaspar, that way.’

15. The Ancient Raven

By the next morning, Aix could hear a bit, though things sounded sort of underwater. St Croix checked their ears and said they were healing up nice and fast. Pippin kept reaching for the scope, wanting to ‘help’, during this examination, and Aix was pleased to finally be able to hear all her cute beeping again.

‘Hey um,’ Aix said, softly, when St Croix was done and Pippin was climbing on the bedframe while they watched in case she fell. ‘René seems kind of… disengaged… with Pippin. I’m worried about that.’

‘Oh good, I’m not the only one who noticed,’ St Croix said, relieved. ‘I think he’s trying, but he didn’t really pick her out, and he’s clearly not used to real pets, only human ones.’

‘Would he react badly if I offered to take her? She seems to like me—hi, baby!’ Aix said, as she landed a few feet from them on the bedspread and jumped on Aix with a happy beep, beginning to purr instantly. ‘Yes, we were talkin boutchu! Yes we were!’

‘I don’t think he would, no. He doesn’t have any signs of that sort of behaviour.’ St Croix knew that Aix was asking because they knew St Croix was very experienced with spotting abusers after very little interaction; it was his job, after all. ‘I think you should ask him.’

‘I also want to actually meet Mr Grishakin. As much as I read about clowns I have never had one, and if Pippin isn’t a fooly then she has special needs.’

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, ‘yeah, I think I did after Michaela suggested I skip town. Like, I’m scared but… this is also the kind of thing I’ve wanted for a long time. To be the town witch, to have people come to me and take care of me because I’m important to the community but not have to work for wages or salary. I just… I know it’s not fair, but…’

‘Listen, when I say life isn’t fair—and I’m going to right now—what I mean is that everyone has different needs and also different things they give to the community, and you are one of those people that gives things that cannot be paid for or they don’t exist. You are a service, the way people pay for those is with care and maintenance.’

‘You are though. And listen,’ he said, bumping shoulders with Aix gently. ‘Vampires are good at maintaining services. René has been wanting to get rid of this woman and the legacy she comes from for a while. You saved the kingdom and now you can help heal it, too. And I know you like to help, I think this would help you feel better about life, I do.’

Aix agreed; they were one of those sorts of people that liked being of service, that sort of needed to be of service, and all the jobs that they found joy in were treated badly and required a fit and able body they just did not have anymore. Things like washing dishes, or baking, or carpentry; but they had never wanted to charge money for telling stories, or doing witch things like reading tarot. The idea of people actually respecting them as an established adult with wisdom to share was… well, everyone kept saying things like ‘you seem like you’re at a point in your life where you need a house’, and it was nice to be noticed. They’d spent most of their adulthood so far having to start over from nothing every six months, and it was exhausting. They just wanted to settle down somewhere and matter to the community. New York was not that kind of town, and in fact a feature of New York was how much you didn’t matter. It was for visiting, not living in—not for someone like Aix, anyway.

‘Would you be okay taking me to see Simon?’ Aix asked, still feeling somewhat guilty about accepting St Croix’s help, even though he’d assured Aix several times that he not only didn’t mind, but that it was very much something he needed; his profession meant he didn’t get to interact with regular, kind people very often.

‘Cool. Hey Pippin, hey,’ Aix said, You wanna go for a ride? Aix clearly imagined going out and travelling on the train to see other clowns and meet other clownkeepers. Pippin beeped and her Flash lit up sparkly blue.

Meet Big Simon? She shared with Aix the memory of Simon, who was indeed very much bigger than her, seeing as he was a very large human.

Yeah! That’s exactly who we’re going to see! Do you want to live with me instead of René?

Pippin thought about that for some time. Magic fren very bisybisy. No time for Pippins. Has too many pets for also have Pippins. She didn’t feel sad about it, she felt rather like René was younger than her, inexperienced with having a troupe—he was a pierrot, like her, and you couldn’t have two of those in a troupe. That was too many.

Yeah, maybe he does. But I don’t have anybody, I’m lonely-by-myself; it would just be you and me together. And I like taking you everywhere with me, and when I find a place we can give you a nice playroom to live in and fun toys. Aix showed her their vision—a clown her size could take advantage of all the fun rope bridges and wall-mounted climbing equipment made for cats, and Aix had grown up playing in indoor playgrounds enough to have very clear ideas of what kind of thing they wanted to build for Pippin. They’d been a climber and a tumbler as a child, too. They knew what would be fun.

Pippin beeped excitedly, but never forgot that she needed to be quiet so she wouldn’t hurt Aix, her tail leaping about and twitching like an excited cat’s. Ye pls! Wan live with Duckie!

They took the Baltimore Underground Railway, which had every inch meticulously designed for comfort and beauty, acoustically and otherwise; there were no turnstiles, and no tickets, Nepenthé itself was a stop, the elevator for it necessitating you be admitted by one of René’s people.

It was a grand old elevator with wood panelling and a brass folding gate, and clanked with the feeling of gears and chains as it went down, though Aix didn’t feel nervous. The door, they observed, was generous enough to easily accommodate a chair, and the elevator car itself big enough to put perhaps two in—a very thoughtful design, given that the assumption was usually that if there was a disabled person at all, there was only one in any space at any given time.

The station itself was beautiful, despite being confined by being underground, and the floor was very even and smooth, with ridges along the edges of the platform, that glowed with organic green. The walls were tiled in bright and sparkling mosaics of cabaret dancers and showboys, and the sign was inlaid with brass that said, Whorefang Road. Aix assumed this was the very old name for this area, and felt their usual delight in places that had such long history.

There were only two tracks and a platform, here, and the train came within five minutes, clacking cheerfully without any of the usual din of squealing that Aix was used to from New York’s sixth borough.[14] Inside, the seats were arranged in little groups that alternated between facing back, forward, and sideways, just like some of the older trains Aix had been on—but these were not moulded plastic but made of brass and upholstered in black material that seemed like leather, but also seemed like it wasn’t leather at all. Aix settled in a chair somewhat near the door, but nestled in a front-facing seat by the window, Pippin on their lap.

‘Whorefang Road. This is an eastbound F train making all regular stops. Broadway next, stand clear of the doors.’

They stayed on the F train for two stops (Broadway, Patterson Park) and got off at Highlandtown, transferring to a southbound 6. Aix kept track because they loved maps, and trains, and were making effort now to learn their way around. The letter trains seemed to go east-west, and the numbers north-south. From the map, the Underground was mostly on a grid, even though much of Baltimore’s roads were not—Aix appreciated that, grids were efficient and easy to navigate, though it was odd to have the trains themselves be arranged thus, with no major hubs. They supposed it was easier to hide a small platform than it was to hide a huge terminal, though.

It was only a short way down from Highlandtown to ‘Brewer’s Hill—Toone Street’.

The clown shelter was set up in a little building that, because of the bright colours the fence had been painted, and the playground equipment, looked vaguely like a kindergarten. But the sign over the red-and-white striped awning read ‘Saving Joeys Clown Rescue’, and the colourful, honking beings on the play equipment were not children. Aix identified mostly horror-drag mixes, and a few just plain horrors, with a handful of party and circus clowns. One spotted Pippin, and there was suddenly a lot of honking and many colourful faces trying to hoist one another to see Pippin over the fence, Pippin waving like a little princess until she got inside.

The brick building had the sort of windows that made Aix think it had been built in the nineteenth century, and it was gratifying to see the original wooden floors on the inside, and someone had built a reception desk and cared enough to stain it the same colour as the floor. There was a quite young person behind it, with colourful hair and makeup that mimicked clown markings, and bright pastel colourblock clothes, with a mask in a pastel rainbow pattern that Aix figured was some kind of pride flag they didn’t know. They had a name tag that said ‘Marshmallows (they)’, and gasped when they saw Pippin in Aix’s arms.

‘Is that Pippin?’ they gushed in a soft voice, standing up and leaning forward and cooing at Pippin, so rapidly and in such a high voice that Aix couldn’t discern what they were saying. Aix just waited patiently, assuming from context they were just talking about how cute Pippin was, and from the way Pippin purred, she was basking in the attention. Soon, however, Aix needed to sit down.

‘I gotta sit,’ they said, and went over to one of the colourful second-hand wicker sofas, sitting down. St Croix spoke to Marshmallows, who nodded and then sat down and picked up the phone. St Croix sat next to Aix.

‘Simon’s on a check-in, he’ll be back soon. They said you could go outside and play with the clowns if you wanted, there’s a volunteer out there, so you wouldn’t be alone.’

‘Ye!’ Pippin actually said, throwing up her little hands, her Mask turning very traditionally zanni pierrot. She’d gotten dressed in her little baby boots and a onesie of soft denim with apples on it, before they’d left, and was even wearing a tiny baby sun hat over the head-tails that looked like a jester hat. She was, in short, ready to Play Outside.

St Croix startled. ‘Did you talk?’ he asked Pippin, who smiled mischievously.

‘Clowns are known to say words, on occasion, and zanni can talk more than domestic breeds, though they do it less often,’ Aix said, from memory. Pippin, can you tell the other clowns I need them to be a little bit quiet because my ears are injured?

Ye! Pippin said, in a determined little way, with a determined little set to her little face. Bees quiet for Duckie so Duckie ear booboo go ‘way. She got off Aix’s lap and went over to the door to the playground, Aix and St Croix following her. Aix opened the door, and Pippin went outside by herself.

‘Wait,’ Aix said, stopping St Croix with a hand out. ‘She’s telling the others about accomodating me.’

‘Um, hi, hang on a sec, she’s got to tell the other joeys something for me,’ Aix said.

The person who came to the door was a fat, butch Asian woman with a shaved head, wearing a John Waters shirt with the sleeves cut off with her jeans, her face mask yellow with a blue seahorse that had an alicorn, and a blue feather on either side. It was definitely heraldic, and Aix immediately wondered if it was the SCA device for this area, because they knew what the blue feathers meant if so.

‘It’s a long story. I have hearing damage from being shot at yesterday, so she was going ahead of me to ask the other joeys if they could be quiet when they’re near me.’

‘We’re friends of René Charbonneau,’ St Croix said, as Pippin came back over to them, tugging at the hammer-loop of Suze’s jeans and beeping, her big dark eyes looking into Aix’s.

‘Thank you, little bean,’ Aix said, resisting the urge to pick her up, and went outside, Suze holding the door for them.

The playscape wasn’t simply a single conglomerate structure with nothing else around it—it was a proper old playground, with trees, and beams to balance on, and swings, and monkey bars, and even some moulded painted concrete for climbing on.

‘Okay, so, that’s the famous Pippin, obviously,’ Suze said, as Aix sat down at the well-kept wooden picnic table under an old striped awning. ‘What’s this about being shot at? Are you—are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay now, just healing from the whatsit, the deafening thing. Um, so are you—are you a friend of Mr Grishakin’s? I have something kind of important to tell him. About clowns.’

‘I’m a breeder,’ she said, game for soldiering past trauma if this hijabi was. ‘We’re as good as siblings, we both had the same mentor; I took over the clownery because I married the boss’ daughter,’ she said, winking roguishly. ‘And Simon’s always been a better fit for rescuing.’

‘What do you know about clown evolutionary origin? I haven’t read up on it in a while.’

‘Well, we don’t know where they came from, they first appear in the historic record in Egypt, and spread into Europe from there. Never really ended up in the Islamic world,’ she added, thoughtfully.

‘Oh um,’ Aix said, feeling a bit awkward. ‘I… haven’t been Muslim for long. I’m still exploring whether it’s right for me.’

‘Ah,’ Suze said, nodding. ‘I imagine the veil is more comfortable than a facemask, too.’

Aix was surprised—Suze was the first person to really make that connection. ‘Um, yes, actually. I think even if Islam ends up not being right for me, I’ll still wear niqab to protect against plague. I want to make a few with the proper type and layers of fabric, but I’m… sort of in the process of moving.’

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, watching as the clowns hid from a blindfolded high content horror-drag with beautiful striping. She was groping through the air while the others hid in plain sight, but endeavoured to lean out of the way of her hands, and be silent—though there were many very loud expressions being made, clowns being clowns. Aix had seen videos of people playing such a game with water pistols or nerf guns in online videos, and they wondered which of the clowns had seen a clip of this game before.

‘Oh, I’m helping them move,’ St Croix said. ‘Me and some friends. You know the Bloodworths in Staten Island?’

‘I know their clown—by reputation, at least,’ Suze said, but there was a tone in her voice, her eyes piercing. ‘And I know they’re… shall we say related to Mr Charbonneau? Clown people are adjacent to bats, you know. They keep clowns enough for us to be. Are you leading up to telling me why you act like you and Pippin have some way of talking?’

‘I am, yeah,’ Aix said, worried about whether this was strictly allowed. ‘I learned where clowns come from, recently. It’s uh, it’s a lot to take in.’

‘This is Baltimore, hon,’ Suze said, chuckling. ‘Home of Edgar Allen Poe and John Waters? You know?’

‘It’s… New England weird, though,’ Aix tried to be subtle about it. ‘More… Lovecraft weird.’

Suze looked at Aix, then looked out at the clowns, then looked at Aix. ‘Are you implying that joeys are some kind of elder god relative of Cthulhu or something?’

‘Well, they’re more like grad students, not gods,’ Aix said, ‘But um, clowns are descended from the Goat of a Thousand Young. They’re… they’re her Thousand Young.’

Suze sat with this for a minute or two. ‘Huh,’ she said, finally. ‘Well,’ she said, and paused. ‘That does explain some things.’

‘Obviously that’s—that’s not really something I’m sure how to break to people, because Lovecraft treated the Starfolk like they were all scary monsters. And I know horror clowns have enough to deal with.’

A van pulled around to the lot behind the building. It was a distinctive shape and colour of green with equally distinctive pink and purple airbrushed zig-zags that said it was from the nineties, and Suze nodded to it.

‘That’ll be Simon,’ she said, but didn’t get up. ‘He’ll be out here in his own time.’

‘Okay,’ Aix said, and watched Pippin sitting down and taking off her shoes. The ground was the bouncy soft kind that was almost too safe—for human children, at least. For clowns it was perfect, since they did more serious acrobatics, barefoot. Shoed clowns were a cruelty practise of the past, in respected clownkeeping. Pippin neatly tucked her socks in her boots and immediately shinned up a sliding pole.

‘Starfolk are psionic, they communicate natively by telepathy. Clowns have the same… frequency? I don’t know how to explain how to use it to other people, but my teacher indicated that the learning goes both ways—they have to figure out which frequency we use, and they can adapt to that.’

‘That would help with so much of husbandry, you realise,’ Suze said in a low voice. She’d been listening intently, though she hadn’t met Aix’s eyes, for which they were grateful. ‘And rescue. Can’t tell you how many times we could have used the ability to talk to them.’

‘I can imagine,’ Aix said, ‘I used to volunteer when I was younger. I had to stop because… people are just. So dumb and cruel.’

‘I don’t know how Simon does it,’ Suze agreed, ‘then again, he says he wouldn’t be able to raise foolies, because losing foolies just tears him up—oh, speak of the Devil.’

Simon was coming toward them, from the gate out to the parking lot. It was a sturdy gate of reinforced wood, the fence high and cinderblock for practicality, and painted with colourful polkadots on the inside, stripes on the outside. There were trees and plants inside the wall to keep the yard from looking too much like a box.

Simon himself was a very tall, fat, white fellow, in paint-splattered overalls and a tie-dyed t-shirt, a worn baseball cap on his head, and very green, pale eyes. From the look of the hair on his freckly arms he had hair that was probably curly and dark red. He wore a very short beard that confirmed the curly hair theory. He looked kind, Aix thought. Before he got to them, he paused and took a disposable mask out of his overalls pocket, opening the crinkly plastic wrapper, which got many of the clowns’ attention.

‘No,’ he said, idly. ‘Not for joeys.’ He put the black mask on, hooking the straps to some mismatched buttons he’d sewn on his hat, adjusted it a bit, and continued the rest of the way toward them. ‘Sorry, nearly forgot. It’s… asalaam alaykium, right?’

‘And peace be upon you and your family,’ Aix returned. ‘This is my friend Saintie, he’s helping me move here. I’ve got gunshot deafness from being kidnapped and shot at yesterday night, so if you could speak clearly but in a normal volume, that would be helpful. Anyway,’ Aix said, believing that if they just soldiered on and didn’t give anyone time to react, they’d force people to not comment. ‘So, Pippin saved my life, because she got The All-Mother to come eat the woman who kidnapped me.’

‘No, no, she’s not a deity. She’s a grad student. From… uh, well another dimension or galaxy or something. Haven’t you heard of Cthulhu before, at least?’

‘Oh yes, that. So, all those… beings… are real, but they’re… not gods.’

‘No—and I’m not saying that in a dismissy sort of, uh,’ Aix sighed. ‘I feel like I started this wrong. Okay, so I’m a witch. I know how I’m dressed, but just… ignore that for a second, I’m going through some things. I’m an oracle, and I had this dream a few weeks ago, in this cavern where Cthulhu was. He’d been trying to communicate with somebody on this planet for ages. I was the first person that understood that’s what he was trying to do. So once that happened, a bunch of other things happened, I met a bunch of people—including Saintie—’

‘—and when we stopped here in Baltimore, I got kidnapped, and I tried to call out to somebody the way Cthulhu had called out to me, in Dreamspace, and I got… Pippin. She said she was going to go get Mommy, who ended up being the Black Goat of A Thousand Young, and Pippin hasn’t left my side since. And she talks just like Cthulhu does, with telepathy. She was my ears last night, off and on. She can understand everything you say, which makes me think it’s likely all clowns can.’

Pippin leapt on the table, and following her was a clown with only half a tail, her fat tendrils held out to the sides of her head, like pigtails rather than a jester cap. She was dilute, and probably a circus or party. Pure circuses were rare these days, with the decline of circuses in general.

‘I was wondering when you’d start using me as a translator,’ Aix told Pippin, smiling. Go ahead, what’s her question?

In reply, Aix was given a memory—several, all of them coloured by fear and trauma. Being kept in a basement, being hungry, being ignored, and—one very awful memory, of how she lost her tail.

Aix took off their glasses, shaking by the end. St Croix had a hand on their back, half-hugging them.

‘She—she doesn’t understand,’ Aix said, crying. ‘She—no, I’m fine—she doesn’t understand abuse, she wants to know why it happened. Oh gods, come here, baby, come here,’ they said, and hugged her tightly. They were careless, and selfish, and it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. You’re a good Beeper and I love you and it wasn’t your fault.

‘Oh, Beeps,’ Simon said, petting her as she honked her scratchy honk, a little distressed at how upset Aix was. The other joeys were picking up on it too—they were very attentive to crying—and drifting over.

‘Did those people get arrested? Can I kill them? I definitely could if you wanted.’

‘The people that found her weren’t the people that put her there,’ Simon said, privately agreeing with Aix; he didn’t need to see Beeper’s memories to know what she had probably suffered, he’d rehabilitated her through the aftermath. ‘They were just as surprised as we were to find her in that basement. And that makes it worse, I know it does. What did you tell her?’

‘She—she asked me what she’d done wrong, she—god, she showed me her memories of the abuse. And I told her she hadn’t done anything, that they were just cruel and it wasn’t her fault.’

‘You’re a good egg,’ Simon said. ‘It’s been years, and every day I wish I could explain it to her like that. I’m so sorry, you probably weren’t ready for that.’

‘She doesn’t know. She’s communicating the way she knows best. I’m fine,’ Aix insisted, reaching under their veil to wipe their eyes. ‘She’s okay now, she’s safe and loved. That’s all that matters.’

If anyone else has questions, please don’t show me any more memories about being hurt.

‘Shh, baby, shh, we’re okay now. We’re both safe and loved. It’s gonna be okay.’

‘No, I’m a witch,’ Aix said, and hearing it made them feel more confident. Pippin took her turn to hug Aix, purring and sitting in their lap, lifting the niqab a little to poke her head under it so she wouldn’t pin it down. She was a quick learner, and had figured out that Aix always gently pulled it out from under her. ‘Which is what therapists are a pale reflection of, really.’

There was a cackle from above, loud enough that Aix startled, and the joeys suddenly scattered. Aix looked up at the movement to see one very casually leap down from the roof, landing into a fluid roll before springing back up to his feet again. Instead of one or two tendrils, like the other clowns, he had five, all of them held curled forward in Venetian style.

The harlequin was wearing nothing, though it took a while to figure that out, his motley pattern was so perfect and bright. He moved with the surety and grace of a very old being that was very comfortable and knew every inch of their own body, his ruff the wild type that went down his chest and back.

Aix had never seen a zanni harlequin before—he could be nothing else, only zanni had blue markings.

‘Pepper,’ Simon said, sighing in a way that said he was used to this behaviour. ‘You are not supposed to be on the roof.’

Aix looked at those unsettlingly piercing eyes for a while, reflecting that they were very near the colour orange that Cthulhu’s were. Until they turned green, and then purple….

Tell your saint I want to fuck him. Pepper said to Aix, ignoring Simon entirely.

Pepper tilted his head, black lips in a smirk that looked like he’d been the model for every Venetian mask with the same expression that had ever been made. He bowed to Aix in respect.

I do, as it happens. I’m far too old to care for these half-witted children they’ve made of us. Would you fuck a dog?

No. But I think you should know, the reason humans in this culture don’t fuck clowns anymore is because we’ve started valuing consent, and we can’t get it from clowns, not in a way we understand.

Aix gave it some thought, but was aware they were being watched. ‘Simon, Suze, could you… give us a minute? Pepper wants a private conversation with Saintie.’

Simon got up, despite his misgivings. He looked at Suze, and she just quirked a brow, half-shrugging as if to say, he’s Pepper, what did you expect?

‘Holler if you need anything,’ Simon said, because he was southern, and he couldn’t just leave without saying that. He went off a little ways away, Suze starting a juggling game with the other joeys to keep them occupied.

‘With me?’ St Croix was surprised, looking at Pepper incredulously. ‘What do you want to talk to me for? We just met.’

Your face does not only belong to you, Saint. I knew someone with it in New Orleans.

‘He says he wants to fuck you. He also says that he knew your family from New Orleans. Is there… a relative you look like?’ Aix asked. St Croix shrugged.

‘No idea. Photographs were expensive. The only relation I have any media of is Alix St Croix. There’s a single recording of him singing St James Infirmary that I digitised a while back.’

‘Auntie… so, probably Auntie Esther, then.’ St Croix said thoughtfully, after Aix translated this, still talking to Pepper directly, as was polite when having a translated conversation. He kept an arm around Aix, though, so Aix wouldn’t feel ignored. ‘I named myself after him,’ St Croix said to Pepper. ‘But I’m not him, you know,’ he added. Pepper shrugged.

I still want to live with you. Simon will say no. But I am Radioman’s clown, and Simon knows I’m bored. He has kept me safe enough, but safe is not very interesting. We zanni are meant to travel, not stay in one tent forever.

‘Harlequins are the trickster rôle, aren’t they?’ St Croix asked, thoughtfully. ‘That’s sort of what I do… and if you were my Great Uncle Alix’s clown, and you want to reunite with your family, then shouldn’t it be up to you? Granted, I’m not sure about the fucking, but this is more about my family. You’re part of my family. And,’ he added, with a winning smile and a bounce of his eyebrows. ‘The other side of my family are the Coney Island Hexts; they’ve been running freakshows on the midway for centuries. Just, if you want to get back into it.’

Pepper hummed. It’s been a long time since I was in New York City. It looks very different now. Taller, less horses.

‘I don’t… know much about clown lifespans….’ St Croix said, glancing at Aix.

‘They don’t die,’ Aix said. ‘They just… they just don’t. Pepper, can I ask—why did zanni ever let humans keep them as pets? Why did you… I mean, obviously you’re people, and…’ Aix trailed off, nervous and not sure how to navigate the delicacy of the question, being as they were not any kind of ethnicity that had ever been enslaved.

Pepper smirked, laughing that low, rich laugh of his, that made you worry about everything. If we were people, you would make us work, like you do. If we were livestock, you would make us work, like horses do. Pets don’t work, pets get to play all the time. And even when humans are cruel, there are always humans that are not; and animals are never at fault for their misfortune, not like people. We see how you treat other humans. We learned what not to do. So we will be leisure-pets, companion-pets, for pleasure and for luxury. Not useful. Art is quite useless.

St Croix grinned. ‘I like that level of mindfuck, sir. I think you and I could be a good team of cultbreakers—and don’t worry, it’s not exactly work. I like to bedevil terrible people that take themselves far too seriously.’

Pepper’s wide grin and subsequent rolling and villainous laugh sent pleasant shivers down Aix’s spine. When Simon looked over, Pepper merely lashed his tail mockingly, his ruff fluffed all the way up, and colours brightening with his uplifted mood.

But he also hadn’t missed the way it had affected Aix, and suddenly those alarming and mischievous eyes were focussed all on Aix. Ohh, does the Dottore want to fuck Arlecchino? Hmmm?

You know the rules! Poor little Pedrolino, I see why the little one adopted you so quickly. She’s older than she looks, you know, and only pretends to be Pedrolina. He tilted his head. Or perhaps she doesn’t know, perhaps she had no troupe to tell her, once she was grown…. He covered his sadness with anger, but Aix could tell. Telepathy made reading nuanced emotions a lot easier for Aix, because for some reason the telepathy targeted their synaesthesia and lit up the emotional tones with colours.

Tell me what? Pippin woke up, squeaking and uncurling from where she’d been napping on Aix’s lap. Pepper came closer, and crouched down.

Pippin sparkled in confusion, but gave it some thought. She looked up at Aix, and then set her face into the little determined furrowed-brows-and-pressed-flat-lips expression that she wore oftener than a Pierrot should. Pierrots didn’t Solve Problems, and Pippin did. Pierrots didn’t Take the Lead or Make Decisions, and Pippin did. Pierrots… really did not have any sort of Gumption, or Moxie. But Pippin did. Maybe she was a Columbina. And after all, Pepper would know. He was very old.

Mind you take care of her, Pepper said to Aix, with warning. Aix didn’t need the warning, however, and found the strength of aggression to stare back at Pepper just as hard, not minding the way his eyes changed colours constantly, even, appreciating the control it took to idly shift his Mask that finely, just because he felt like it.

They showed Pepper exactly why there was no reason to worry about that; they showed Pepper all their rage, and how they used it. They showed how protective they were of the small, because they had been hurt, and abandoned, and neglected, and they never wanted anyone to feel like that. Pippin was in no danger from being given human poisons, either—Aix knew how to pamper without harm, they could say no if Pippin wanted something harmful for herself.

Pepper’s smile meant more than any approval from a human being ever had. He dropped his gaze to look at Pippin again, kissing her forehead. It’s good to see another zanni again.

Pippin reached her arms out for a hug, wiggling, and Pepper rolled his eyes and looked away, but opened his arms, catching her when she leapt on him with a happy beep—and he purred too, just like she did, as Pippin wrapped her tail around his chest and nuzzled his cheek with her face.

16. The Knavish Saint

‘So,’ St Croix said, as he trotted up to Simon and Suze. ‘Pepper belonged to my Great Uncle Alix, back in the ‘20s, in New Orleans. He wants to stay with me, now that he’s found us again, and I want to take care of him properly; but I’ve never had a clown before. I’m a fast learner, though, and my lifestyle has plenty of enrichment for a harlequin. Are there some books I should read?’

‘I have reservations about this, but it’s not because of you,’ Simon said. ‘It’s because… there’s legal problems. Pepper… Pepper did some bad things.’

‘He set a man’s house on fire in 1986,’ Suze said frankly. ‘Though I’m pretty sure said asshole deserved it. We couldn’t prove anything, but harlequins aren’t violent like that, not unless you really torment them and they can’t escape.’

Those were, St Croix though, exactly the kind of skills that would be not at all a hindrance, in St Croix’s life. ‘Was he a white man?’

‘And Pepper doesn’t trust white people—men or women,’ Simon added. ‘And he hates police. He puts himself between our black volunteers and white people, particularly cops, and gets very… suspicious. Guarding. He seems… very aware of antiblack racism specifically. I won’t pry, but knowing he was your family’s clown… that confirms some things.’

‘I’m not gonna tell you what he probably saw, but if he was close with Great Uncle Alix, he’s massively traumatised by death and racism, yeah. Which is why what I do with my life would probably be really healing for him.’

‘I’m a cultbreaker. I got into it because of what happened to Alix, and I go around ferreting out all the nasty little bastards that don’t get on the news, because they’re slick about it. The human monsters.’

‘Pepper made that clear, don’t worry. This isn’t work, and I wouldn’t force him; but he’s bored, and given his personality, I think putting him into an environment where he’s allowed to bedevil The White Man is what he needs.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not a peaceful or polite person, I won’t ask him to be well-behaved.’

‘But can you protect him?’ Simon pressed. ‘Legally, I mean—he’s got a record, if he makes more trouble, that’s it for him. They’ll put him down.’

St Croix sucked his teeth, thinking on how to phrase his reply without outright revealing the existence of the massive half-criminal underground network that served the Hunting community. ‘I’ve got a cousin in Baton Rouge, keeps me a cipher on the internet. Can’t put down what you can’t catch. I travel a lot, through private channels. Always on the move, really—and I don’t know a lot about clowns, but I know enough to know they originally lived with travelling shows, right?’

‘Yeah. I’m a little protective of Pepper,’ Simon admitted. ‘He’s been with me for a while, and I fought for years in court with Suze and our mentor to keep him from just being put down as a nuisance animal. I’m… understandably a little hesitant to let him go. I promised him I wouldn’t make him go; but if he wants to go with you, that’s different.’ He sounded like he was trying to convince himself, but St Croix could tell it was just that this was sudden, and he truly cared. ‘C’mon inside, I’ll get you the booklist, and the forms.’

‘How about I do that, Sy?’ Suze said, clapping a hand on his back. ‘You stay here, maybe Pepper will talk to you through the kiddo over there.’

‘And they wanted to meet you,’ St Croix said, smiling. ‘Unlike my clueless ass, they’ve got a Special Interest in clownkeeping. I think they’ll be a better fit for Pippin, than René.’

Aix laughed, in the distance, and they looked over to see Vim and Verve, twin horror-circus mixes who had belonged to an old magician that had since died, doing a magic routine for them. They’d also lifted their veil, their face framed by the black chiffon of it now; St Croix knew they did that when people were distant enough, to get a bit more fresh air. The niqab was more comfortable than a medical mask, but it still got stuffy underneath, especially in the humidity.

‘I know you don’t know us, but on behalf of my great uncle, thanks for taking care of Pepper,’ St Croix said, quietly. ‘It means a lot, getting a piece of him back, in a way.’

There was the sound of car doors opening in the parking lot, and a chorus of trills and peacock-like calls from the same direction, and the other clowns not entertaining Aix flared up—the drag mixes fluffed and sparkled their Flash, eyes on alert. St Croix raised a brow, and Suze chuckled, as did Simon.

‘Hallooooo~!’ trilled a very old fashioned sort of gay lilt, from the gate to the parking lot. ‘It’s Auntie Basil, poppets!’

St Croix stiffled a gleeful cackle. ‘Oh, I love elders in the community,’ he said, grinning as he followed Suze inside.

Aix looked over to see an older man in an exquisitely flamboyant suit (with matching mask) and cane being let in by Simon. He was a good deal shorter than Simon, a bit round but not as impressively as Simon, and wore a cock-brimmed fedora at a Quentin Crisp-ish angle, lilac wisps of hair showing from under the brim. Towering over him were no less than three purebred drag queens in full show plumage, though they had the sharp gothic colouration and markings that said they were crossed with horrors somewhere.

Pippin beeped excitedly, and ran over to the drag queens, her tail high and sparkling cheerfully, her arms up. Mommies!

‘Bless my soul!’ Basil said, as Pippin came over—his queens all cooed and fluffed their skirts immediately in motherly instincts as soon as they saw Pippin. ‘Whose little fooly are you, precious?’

Pippin bounced from foot to foot, reaching up her arms, begging the queens to pick her up. They fluffed and bickered briefly with one another, but the one with the sharpest and most regular stripes finally seemed to have seniority, picking Pippin up, the others crowding around to snuggle and kiss and make much of her.

‘She’s not a fooly, actually,’ Simon said. ‘She’s got dwarfism of some kind, I think. She’s the little one I found at Nepenthé in July.’

‘Oho! So you’re little Pippin!’ Basil said, tickling the bottom of Pippin’s little foot. She giggled. ‘Girls, girls,’ he said, shooing his drag queens. ‘Go on, mingle with the populace while Mumsy visits with Uncle Simon.’ He glanced at Simon and quirked a perfectly-pencilled brow. ‘And guest? Guest that Pepper approves of?’ He raised the other brow, seeing Pepper idly twisting himself into knots while the hijabi took off her cat-eye glasses and pulled her veil back down over her face, and seemed to be carrying on a whole conversation with him while she did.

Simon just started on over, taking care to slow his pace to mind Basil, who moved slow these days (not that he’d ever bothered rushing himself for anyone’s sake).

‘Hi!’ said the blue-eyed stranger, a little breathless and smitten. ‘I’m Aix. You’re—you’re Basil Montgomery, aren’t you?’

‘Oh dear, my reputation has preceded me,’ Basil said, sitting down and tipping his hat to Pepper. ‘Pepper.’

Aix lifted a hand, wobbling it. ‘Pippin said she thinks René has too many pets already, and he doesn’t pay enough attention to her.’ And then they waited for the questions.

‘Really? My, that’s quite a talent. I’d ask if you’re one of the munge-palone, but it’s a touch early in the evening for them to be about.’

‘I’ve always wanted to learn. I… augh, this is weird to explain when I’m dressed like this.’ Aix said, twisting nervously at their fingers.

‘I’m going through some things,’ Aix said, not sure what the word meant, but still struggling to speak, overwhelmed by meeting someone like Basil, someone so much like what they wanted to be.

‘Darling,’ Basil said, finally having it click together—he put a soft, well-manicured hand on one of Aix’s, feeling their nervous wringing go still and instead those pretty fingers wrapped around his like they were a lifeline.

Aix didn’t know why they burst into tears, but suddenly they were crying, and they didn’t know what to do about it, and they weren’t even sure what was wrong—possibly because it was several things. They couldn’t stop, no matter their trauma surrounding crying more than a few seconds, something was broken and everything just flooded out, to the point that Aix lost some time, and when they phased back into reality they were surrounded by lots of drag queens, and Pippin was hugging around their neck.

When the dear little chicken burst into tears, Basil let her keep holding onto his hands. He’d helped many people through nervous breakdowns, and they happened a shocking amount when young queers met him. Simon didn’t ever know what to do with crying people, bless him, but he got to his feet carefully, quietly.

Simon went inside, heard Suze and St Croix talking and followed the sound to the office, where St Croix was filling out adoption forms. Suze glanced up and saw his expression.

‘They’ve been through the wringer, and from what I know of them, they haven’t cried about any of it yet.’ St Croix said, but stayed in his chair. ‘They’ve wanted to meet someone like Basil for years, I think—just, an older queen like them. That’s their gender, but they’ve never met anyone elder in the community like that. Just… there’s a lot going on right now,’ he said, sighing. ‘Is Basil going to be annoyed by crying boys?’

‘He’s the most maternal person I’ve ever met in my life,’ Simon agreed. ‘I’m the one that doesn’t know how to emotions. I can calm down a joey no problem, but a human? I’m lost.’

St Croix finished the form he was on. ‘I’m gonna go check on them, just because I’ve got medical training and all, but I think this is one of those things where the best thing is to just… let them have the safety of comfort. I know this isn’t your job.’

‘It’s okay,’ Simon said. ‘Really, it’s fine. There’s no better place to seek comfort, all the clowns out there are… really, it’s fine.’

‘We’re unofficially a haven for the queer community, here, anyway,’ Suze said. ‘I can fill out the rest of this, I’ll bring out the other stuff you need to sign, it’s no problem. Go see your friend.’

St Croix nodded and headed back outside to see Aix had been surrounded by some drag queen clowns that hadn’t been there before, and he assumed they belonged to Basil, who had moved around to sit next to Aix on the bench, holding them gently, Pippin sitting on Aix’s lap.

Saintie here Duckie! Is okay Duckie, is okay! but her comforting had a bit of a desperate, worried edge to it. Aix knew it was because they hadn’t been answering her, and couldn’t even talk with mouth-words enough to explain why, right now. All they could do was hold her.

‘Hey,’ St Croix said softly, crouching down and sitting on the ground at Aix’s feet, looking up at Basil. ‘Sorry about this.’

‘Hush,’ Basil tutted. ‘This poor little chicken is suffering, and not that I need to know why or how, but I don’t know what to say.’

St Croix thought about it; the problem was, despite how talkative and open Aix was, and how many days they’d been travelling together, and how good St Croix was at reading people… he’d still not known Aix for long. The most obvious reason may not be the reason at all—Aix wasn’t repressing the trauma from being kidnapped and around a gun, it actually hadn’t been all that traumatic for them, since they’d solved the problem so well and gotten support so immediately. They’d told St Croix that despite having a few moments of being scared, things hadn’t taken long enough for the fear to really set in. And with Basil looking how he did, and being what he was, and the way Aix had been struggling with gender (and they spoke to Erastos and St Croix about that more than the girls)…

‘No, but that’s the third pronoun I’ve heard,’ Basil said, without judgement, only concern.

‘Is that, dare I hazard a guess, the “things” in “I’m going through some things”?’

‘Aren’t we all, dear,’ Basil said, chuckling softly. ‘Aren’t we all. What’s your name, my dear? I don’t believe I caught it.’

‘Ah, everyone calls me Saintie. St Croix. I came here with Aix because he wanted to talk to Simon about Pippin being special needs, but uh, things snowballed. There’s the whole… Aix can talk to clowns thing. And all that entails.’

‘Well, psionics. Also, I should mention, Pippin saved his life last night. He got kidnapped by Ana Heeren, know her?’

Basil was hugging Aix harder the moment he heard the name. ‘Oh my darling, oh poppet, you brave soul, that wretched… bitch is too polite a word.’

‘Ah, yeah, she’s dead now. Pippin’s—well, all the clowns’ mother, really, but Pippin called her. She uh, she took care of the matter.’

‘She had it coming,’ Basil said airily, and Pippin beeped in agreement. Basil skritched her little downy ruff. ‘That was a very brave thing for a Very Small Animal to do, Pipkin.’

St Croix put a hand on Aix’s knee gently, letting him know St Croix was there. ‘So uh, these are drag queens?’

‘Of the joey variety, yes,’ Basil said proudly, ‘my showgirls. The striped palone is Bettina Juice, this red one is Dahli Doom, and Nebula Void is the lovely dappled girl sitting next to you.’

‘Betty Juice?’ Aix said suddenly, voice watery, sniffling. Basil offered him a handkerchief, and Aix took off his glasses, reaching under the veil and drying his tears. ‘As in Beetlejuice’s drag name?’

‘Oh you are a treasure!’ Basil said, as Bettina preened, making the white stripes Flash blacklight blurple, showing off. ‘Of course, our Bettina is very much more glamorous than her namesake.’

‘Oh, tush,’ Basil said, pursing his lips. ‘None of that, dear boy. Everyone cries on Auntie Basil, it’s quite all right.’

Duckie okay? Pippin asked, worry in her little upturned brows and black pout.

‘Aix is a genus of duck,’ Aix explained. ‘Wood ducks, and mandarin ducks.’ He looked around. ‘Wh… where’s Pepper?’

‘Oh, never ask that, Duckie, dear,’ Basil advised wryly, as the drag queens tittered, Bettina fanning herself with one hand, sighing adoringly.

‘Welp,’ he said, and then suddenly sprinted toward the wall, jumped, and climbed up onto the roof. Up the sheer wall.

‘Parkour!’ Aix yelled, beaming and excited, tears completely forgotten with a thrill of the joy of watching a human do something extremely human.

There was a surprised squawk that turned into Pepper’s cackle—only this time, it sounded more delighted. Aix giggled.

‘Pepper used to be Saintie’s great uncle’s clown,’ Aix explained. ‘Before you arrived, he was just saying how he wanted to go live with Saintie.’

To Aix’s surprise, there was almost universal consternation from not only the three drag queens, but also the other clowns, who hadn’t been paying attention before.

Bettina got up with a determined fluff of her striped plumage, taking out a mirror and adjusting her Mask just so, and looking assessingly up at the roof, taking off her heels.

She popped her tongue contemptuously at him, and fluffed up further; Basil reached over and covered Aix’s ears when he saw the back layer of her skirt flip up into the display-fan.

The piercing cry startled a flock of crows off the powerlines—they took off, screeching in annoyed alarm. Aix lifted their hands so Basil could take his away, and Basil set his cane on the ground, uncrossing his legs and pushing himself up. ‘Come on, dear,’ he said to Aix, ‘She won’t let up until she gets what she wants or gets tired.’

Aix picked up Pippin, who had her own little ears covered too, and followed Basil inside, just as the other two queens started up, joined by the less refined and practised calls of the mixed fosters.

‘Wow,’ Aix said, when the door shut. ‘I figured they were loud from the videos I’ve seen, but she’s got the lungs of a bull elephant.’

‘She’s been after Pepper for years,’ Basil said, but Pippin was fussing and reaching up for Aix’s face.

‘Oh um, I kind of got shot at yesterday, kinda got a little deafened. I’m supposed to be avoiding loud noises.’

Basil pulled him into a tight embrace immediately. ‘You should not be able to say that so casually,’ he said, in a fierce mutter that was suddenly very weary.

‘They lord, Basil, is she in season or something?’ Simon said, as he came out of the back.

‘Ohhh, that would do it,’ Basil sighed. ‘Maybe you can explain why he’s never interested in any of the queens, no matter how good their pedigree.’

‘I… yeah,’ Aix said, feeling sort of bad about it. ‘Um… he… he says you bred the domestic clowns into… how did he phrase it… “these half-witted children you’ve made of us”, I think it was. He’s not interested in them, like, sexually, because they’re dumb babies to him.’

‘That’s odd, usually domestication makes animals more intelligent, not less.’

‘Maybe Cthulhu would know,’ Aix said, without thinking about it, looking down to arrange Pippin to balance on his hip, going over to sit down on a wicker loveseat that still had the pastel watercolour upholstery on its cushions. He pulled out his phone, starting to type a message to that effect to Victoria.

‘He “parkour”ed up onto the roof. Pepper sounded delighted about it.’

Simon chuckled, but Basil could tell he was a little sad, and patted his arm. ‘It’s hard to let them go, I know, darling.’

‘And lose their hearing entirely? No, the best you can do is wait it out,’ Basil said, ‘come on, I need to make tea for everyone.’

‘We’re gonna get complaints…’ Simon fretted, but followed him down the hallway.

‘She knows better than to make noise for that long, dear. Now, what’s this about Cthulhu…?’

St Croix found Pepper around the time the shrieking started. At first, he thought it was a peacock; but there weren’t feral peacocks in Baltimore—well, that he knew about. ‘What the hell,’ he said, and Pepper snorted, rolling his eyes.

‘Queen call,’ he said to St Croix, in a strange voice that set each word out carefully, lingered on each phoneme.

‘Oh, so the girls call the boys?’ St Croix said. ‘Or do you not have genders?’ Was he going to have to figure out how to explain gender to Pepper? St Croix felt like, somehow, Pepper would already know what genders were. Pepper canted his head, narrowed his eyes, and St Croix felt… something. He mirrored Pepper’s head-tilt, focussing on his eyes, which were starting to swirl….

‘I heard that!’ St Croix said. ‘ “must be a way to talk to you”. That one!’

You sound very much like him. Less trained. People don’t take proper diction classes now, it’s a shame you waste your voices like that. And she’s no more a girl than your Duck is.

‘Hmm, you know I’m actually not sure how much you know about Aix’s gender, so I can’t say whether that’s accurate.’

‘Hey,’ St Croix said, warningly. ‘I get you’re a bastard, but there’s limits.’

Am I wrong? He seems deeply troubled, a clown without a rôle is no clown at all.

St Croix sensed there wasn’t malice there, simply a harsh unwillingness to gentle the truth, and a lack of a nurturing personality. Some people weren’t. St Croix sighed, looking out over the city, toward the harbour. It wasn’t as spectacular a view as it might have been—the building had once been a grand one, but the city had built up considerably taller since then—but if you looked toward the harbour, you could see the trees from the park.

The cries got a little more desperate, from below. Pepper switched his tail in annoyance, Flash turning more red.

Pepper fluffed, at that, slanting an unmistakeably flirtatious expression at St Croix. Everyone loves bad, naughty, clever Arlecchino. Who can protect the troupe, the foolies, better than he can? Who can cause problems for the Dottori better than he can? Who can find the best of fruits that must be stolen from Dottore’s tree better than he can? He was fluffed out and proud, but looked toward the edge of the roof with a strange mix of disdain and wistfulness. But they are children. They will always be children. Pretty, with their grown stripes, but footling mummers at adulthood.

‘Then let her down,’ St Croix said. ‘When a kid has a crush on you, you don’t just let them go on pursuing and hoping. You turn them down, so they learn to turn to other, more appropriate people.’ St Croix decided to go for one of his usual tactics with proud people. ‘Or are you too scared to tell a pretty girl “no”? Hmm?’

Pepper flared, with a flash of anger, before realising what St Croix was doing, and laughing, getting to his feet. You cannot trick me, young Saint. Nevertheless, he crossed the roof and leapt down again. The crying stopped, and St Croix crept to the edge of the roof when he heard the fluttering noise of many feathers and the clicking of heels, and lots of excited cooing and trilling sorts of noises. The three drag queens had pounced on him, the striped one the most aggressive, and the other less purebred ones were keeping distant, lower in the social order, but still eager and interested, fluffing what plumage they had.

Pepper was quick, and clever, but he was still only one against three very determined queens, and finally made a loud cracking noise, with the sharp, rigid plumage of his ruff,[15] that caused them to instinctively draw backward, give him room. He went up to Bettina first, kissing her hand and dancing with her, courtly and romantic, and she fluffed and blushed theatrically and cooed as he dipped her low…

…only to have him drop her, without ceremony, and turn toward Dahli, who seemed a little hesitant after watching him do such a wicked thing to her compatriot, but was gradually reduced to the same blushing and smitten mess…

He grabbed a handful of her feathers and yanked them out, making her squawk indignantly and claw at his face with hands suddenly terrifyingly sharp. He only laughed and stuck his striped tongue out, before grabbing Nebula, who was not fooled at all, and struggled and kicked him, running away a few yards before turning to scold him like an angry goose, honking and hissing. Pepper laughed at her, rudely, and blew a raspberry, before vaulting back onto the roof, very pleased with himself.

Someone else might have made a comment about how Pepper needn’t have been so mean, but St Croix had no beliefs about everyone having to behave in the same way; he just accepted people where they were at, for who they were. ‘You just had that locked and loaded, huh?’ he teased. Pepper chuckled.

It’s been too long since I have had a Dottore that appreciated me properly. And then he quieted, his Mask turning blue and wistfully sad, as he looked at the sunset-coloured sky. Thank you, was quieter, for reminding me of who I am.

‘A clown without a rôle is no clown at all,’ St Croix said, figuring clowns were probably people that appreciated narrative echo. Pepper gave him a smile that went a little deeper than just the Mask, and coiled his tail around St Croix’s arm, just slightly.

St Croix smiled, but pretended not to notice the affection Pepper put into the old jazz slang, or how close he was letting St Croix be.

17. The Underground Carriage

‘I honestly just came here to get some advice about Pippin and talk to other clown people,’ Aix said, sitting around the large wooden table in the break room with Suze and Basil (Simon was outside minding the joeys), cupping a mug of tea in his hands. ‘I didn’t mean to get my issues all over you, I’m sorry.’

‘And you got rid of a really scary monster,’ Suze added. ‘You fuckin badass.’

Over the last hour, as the sun had set, Basil had coaxed most of the story of the past 24 hours from Aix, by putting on a face of being an incurable gossip and busybody. He was, but the point was he made show of it because otherwise the boy was not going to open up, out of a very heartbreakingly familiar attitude that One Doesn’t Burden Others With One’s Problems Ever, Particularly The Nasty Traumatic Ones.

Basil made him mint tea for his nerves. And that’s how he drank it. No sugar, no milk, just tea. Mint tea. Lots of mint tea. When it was full dark outside, and Simon had brought the shelter clowns into the large room that had once been the chapel of the ex-church for the night, locking the gate and taking over at the desk, and Suze had just gotten up to go home when she came right back into the break room—and René was with her.

‘Oh,’ said Aix, completely not grasping the gravitas of this event. ‘Hi, René. You got my note?’

‘I did,’ he said. ‘I thought I would enjoy an evening stroll across town to see you, and perhaps take you to dinner.’

‘And Pippin,’ Aix said, and Basil was about to faint with how oblivious the child was.

‘I wonder if you might let Pippin stay here for a little while longer,’ Suze said, ever the cavalry. ‘It’d be good to just look her over, and she was having a lot of fun with everyone.’

‘Oh…’ Aix trailed off, then their eyes widened. ‘Oh.’ He looked up at René. ‘You… you came all the way here. To ask me to dinner. With you. Alone.’

René, unflappable and suave as he was, kept his expression very grave, only smiling a little bit as he bowed his head to Aix in affirmative. Aix picked up their purse, zipped it closed while they got to their feet, and took off their glasses, flipping the niqab back down and putting the glasses back on through the slit. Then, tried not to babble nervously, or turn him down automatically, or… mess this up. Spontaneity wasn’t something they were good at anymore, but it was something they wanted to practise more often.

Now that they knew René had come here intending to go on a date, Aix let himself notice René’s outfit; the man always dressed like a goth’s wet dream—his long black curls were pulled back with a blue ribbon at the nape of his neck, and Aix could see small accent braids here and there, and the kiss curls rather than sideburns (of course—he always had those), his milk-white skin clean-shaven; but with how dark his hair was, and how pale his skin, there was a blue shadow along his jaw, hinting that he was probably an otter, beneath his clothes…. He still wore high collars and cravats, but his shirt was dark blue and his cravat the same, the better to draw attention to the fact that his dark eyes were sloe-dark, not brown. His lips were not painted today—well, not with the usual dark colour. They shone like they were glossed or something, and might have been stained quite subtly, for all Aix knew—really good make up was hard to notice, even if you were good at noticing like Aix was.

His midnight blue (and it really was midnight blue, a single shade above black) suit was a little bit Regency in the shape of the coat, how it nipped in at the waist and flared out again, the buttons on the double-breasted front higher up and closer together than usual, with wider notched lapels than modern suits usually had, sapphires shining in his cufflinks and his trousers tailored to show off his thighs, flaring subtly at the knees and the waistband coming high, covered by a self waistcoat, probably to make him look taller. The heeled and pointed monkstrap shoes helped—Aix knew because they also needed to take care to elongate their legs when they dressed in suits, because their torso was so long and they were so short (well, for mainstream ideals of masculine). It was breathtaking, really, but Aix was so used to Don’t Stare Don’t Stare that he rarely let himself register this sort of thing in person.

René enjoyed Aix finally noticing—Aix seemed to need to turn it on manually, which was not completely unfamiliar to René, but he had not ever wanted anyone such as that, before. He simply had never met any that were terribly interested in sex, or in him. Should he ask more formally? Rituals were important, and he supposed it couldn’t hurt. ‘I would be pleased to have you as my guest for dinner tonight, Aix; will you consent to allow me to take you to Valdemar?’

Aix smiled—being asked directly was really so important, so much better than guessing. ‘Yes,’ he said, managing to look up into René’s eyes for a few breathless moments, ‘yes, please. I would—’ he had to look down again, at their joined hands—when had he taken René’s hand? ‘I would love that, René,’ he said, swallowing the butterflies in his stomach, delighted, before his Responsibility Brain reminded him he wasn’t here alone.

Where was St Croix? Aix supposed he was still playing with Pepper. ‘Um, hang on, I have to use the w.c, before we go,’ he said, and darted off to the bathroom again, using the moment to himself to text St Croix.

Aix: René’s here and asked me on a date. :0 When you head home could you take Pippin home too pls?

I’m hanging out with Pepper and Pippin’s having lots of fun in here. I think she’d like staying longer.

Aix felt relieved at that, and took a moment to make extra sure his nails were clean, washed his face, freshened his eyeliner, and completely re-did his hijab so it was nicely arranged again. He was glad he’d chosen the plain black zip hoodie rather than one of his worn oversized fandom ones, because it looked nicer and he wasn’t sure what kind of fancy restaurant René had in mind, but he hoped it wasn’t too fancy, because he wasn’t dressed (and couldn’t dress) for that sort of thing. A very long, full, black skirt and a black hoodie with a black hijab would have to be good enough, because that was what he had on.

He hoped he hadn’t taken too long in here, as he hurried out. ‘Okay hi sorry,’ he said, a little flustered, ‘so um, where are we going?’

‘I have a private table at Valdemar for entertaining mes amours. It is quiet.’ He offered his arm, and Aix took it, and René led them outside after they bade everyone goodbye.

Aix walked with him in silence a while, as usual unable to focus on where they were going because he was with a person and it took all his focus to socialise. ‘It’s not far to walk, is it?’

‘Non, cherie,’ René said, and opened a door in the narrow side street, that had looked like it was locked and uninteresting. It revealed the distinctive wooden panelling of the Underground’s elevator cars, and Aix’s wheelchair from Manhattan was waiting there.

‘Oh!’ Aix made sure it was braked and got settled in it immediately, putting the straps of his purse in the spring-hook on the left armrest, while René shut the door, and pressed the switch that would start the elevator down. The presence of the chair meant that Victoria had arrived; she’d said she would be coming soon, Aix just hadn’t realised how soon.

But he didn’t really want to think of her, at the moment. It was odd to have so many different people that he had to actually pick someone to focus on. ‘Thank you,’ Aix said, ‘for bringing my chair.’

‘De rien,’ came the reply, and René reached out as though to instinctively caress Aix’s face, then paused, going to gently put a hand on his head.

Aix chuckled. ‘A hijab really is just a really big scarf, it needs to be fastened with something. The old ways are the best ways.’

Because of how quiet the train stations were, they could keep talking as the elevator stopped and the door slid open, René waiting for Aix to go first, before following; and René had enough proprioception to not constantly block instinctive paths, or trail awkwardly behind or forward. It was nice, to walk with someone like that. It made Aix completely forget the chair wasn’t part of them, which helped a lot with the whole ‘I’m Still Adjusting To Using This Aid’ thing, and also helped with the general environmental ableism that was so overwhelming when you weren’t used to it. Not that the BUR had much of that, everything was very well-designed, even considering that the station was much busier than Aix had ever seen it—and his wasn’t the only chair, not by a long shot. There were half a dozen, all custom jobs like his, mostly with people that were obviously not at all human, because… Aix was kind of the only human here. Well, Aix thought to himself, was he? He was culturally human, he supposed.

People were staring at him—wait, that wasn’t bad, that wasn’t bad, Aix told himself, trying to calm down, which was hard because his brain helpfully reminded him that the vampires could hear his heartbeat speeding up.

A person with a black beard much fuller than a human’s could get came up to them. There was gold threaded through the braids in the blue-black of their hair, the way silver might be for humans, and a lot of gold jewellery in the form of beads and coils threaded through the braids. Their eyes were hidden behind goggles, so most of what was visible were some impressive eyebrows and a very pretty nose that had a large two-colour gem hanging from a septum ring of gold in it, as well as their long and knotted hands, long and with an extra joint on each digit, each one rosy at the joint and at the tip, a sort of spirally marking on their reddish-pink nose and long pointed (and whisker-tipped) ears. It reminded Aix of one of his favourite types of fae that he’d learned about long ago, but never seen. Of course, they also looked more than a bit like all the depictions Aix had ever seen and read of dwarves, too… but the red spirals, and the joints, that was something different from dwarves…..

‘This the new one, then?’ the fae asked, in a surprisingly smooth, low voice, that could be much more clearly heard than one expected, even with all the wonderful acoustic design of the station, there was still the echo generated by the tunnels themselves.

‘That has not been decided as yet,’ Renée said, but Aix said, immediately after.

‘I just decided, actually. I am the new one.’ And put out their hand. ‘I love that gem in your septum ring, what is that?’

‘Tourmaline. Found it not far from here. Not enough of the bauble kind for the human to take heed, but just enough to make a gift for me. Not meaning to do you a rudeness, but are you a djinn?’

‘What? Oh, well…’ Aix wobbled their hand. ‘I was told the word “djinn” is very similar to the word “fae”, so I’m not certain. I was raised by humans, that’s all I know. The veil is because of the plagues upstairs.’ Because surveillance, social media voyeurism, and biometrics were a plague, in Aix’s opinion—that was why, when it was bright enough, they flipped the other layer of the niqab down over the eye-slit, and went full burqa. It soothed their paranoia like nothing else.

‘Ah,’ the fae said, nodding. ‘Aye, a wimple seems far more practical than those fiddly little scraps of paper I’ve seen about. Well, wanted to get a look at the witch that sent off the Lichcaller. You’ve quite a job—I reckon Milord has been trying to break it all mild-like, but that’s vampires—but you’ve a big mess ahead.’

‘Don’t wory, I’m a proper witch, I don’t mind hard work,’ Aix said, feeling much more comfortable saying it to one of the Folk than he would saying it to a human. ‘I’m just settling in, have to set up a hearth somewhere and all that sort of thing.’

Jargoraad laughed at this, beard curling in a pleased smile. ‘Well, that gives a fellow hope. Herself always put on more airs than a vampire, thought she was better than us. Good to see you’ve got some dirt under your nails.’

‘I’m bluecollar, yep,’ Aix said. ‘I hope I can be a better fit for the community.’

‘I’m a seiðmann, and a kinaidos oracle,’ Aix said immediately, figuring if any community was going to understand without explanation or ‘translating’ to modern ideas, it would be this one. It felt… good, to just use the right words. ‘Mostly I lay the cards and know who to talk to.’

‘Oho! One of Lokke’s witches! Well! That’ll please us knockerfolk, I can tell you true. And an oracle… hm, that’s none of our sort of thing. I reckon you’ll want to stop by the harbour and see the wyrms about that, they’re of that tongue.’

Aix paused, wondering. ‘I was here for a short time in 2009,’ he said. ‘I went and visited them before, though I don’t know if they would remember me.’

‘They mark everything and everybody, and they’d have marked a witch such as you. Where did you stead?’

‘Oh, um, somewhere in Canton, on the end of a row on Clinton street. With… kind of a scary group of humans. We had to leave after six months. The view from our roof was beautiful, though, we could see the Natty Boh sign, which I think is cute. It would have been a beautiful rowhouse with some care in the restoring.’

Jargoraad offered a card of hand-made stock to Aix. ‘You call my kinsman Binqx then, he’s a builder-above-ground. A wonderful timberwright, and he knows bricklayers and suchlike.’

‘Thank you,’ Aix said, tucking the card into their purse, and watching him go, feeling cautiously pleased, and more than a little surprised at how well he’d socialised.

This was the first René had heard Aix speak in detail of where he had lived and when, though he’d mentioned living in Baltimore before; of course, he couldn’t keep track of everyone in the city, but there were only so many ends of so many rows. ‘You could, perhaps, live there again.’

‘Oh, the house is probably ruined now, it was pretty much falling down when I lived there, so if it’s still standing they would have “rennovated” it all to hell before anyone could live in it again. And I don’t remember the number, I’m bad with numbers.’ But even thinking about it was jogging their memory. ‘It was… blue. It was a blue number. That’s not helpful to anyone but me, sorry.’

René was prevented from answering by the train arriving, and Aix instinctively moved quickly, rushing to get into the car, obviously used to the automated, human systems, which this railway wasn’t. The doors were closed by the knocker magics, which were not operating on time but on sensing who was heading for the carriage. But Aix was already inside, and René could tell him in a moment.

‘—need to hurt yourself, honey, the doors won’t close on you, it’s all right.’

René was glad to hear the mellifluous tones of their resident Southern Belle, who was quite stand-out from the crowd in her summer white dress and perfect victory rolled blonde hair. She looked up and her green eyes widened to see René. ‘Oh my goodness, Lord Charbonneau! Why, I haven’t seen you out here in ages!’

‘Miss Leigh-Sinclair,’ René said, with a smile that was more than polite, as he sat down across from her. ‘This is our new witch.’

‘Thanks, it’s nice to be back. It’s changed a lot—for the better,’ Aix added. When he’d lived here last, the city was half-empty and blighted.

‘It surely has! Why, I remember when I moved up here with my Mistress, just after the fire in ’04—that’s nineteen-oh-four, mind.’

‘I figured. I didn’t know there was a big disaster here in ’04. That’s such odd timing, given the huge quake out in Frisco around the same time. And the fires after,’ he added, grimly. ‘I suppose Baltimore might have rebuilt things better and with less slapdash than San Francisco, given y’all weren’t hosting the World’s Fair.’

‘We did,’ René said, intrigued. ‘I have never experienced an earthquake.’

‘Oooh, gives me the shivers just thinking about it! It must feel like the end of the world,’ Miss Leigh-Sinclair said.

‘I don’t even wake up,’ Aix said, shrugging and laughing at their expressions. ‘I bet you don’t think hurricanes are scary,’ he pointed out.

‘Why do you think Californians are so chilled out? We know the ground could open up and swallow us whole at any time; nothing else is terribly important. If you’re properly Californian, anyway. I’m third-generation at least, possibly more, I don’t know. My daddy’s people came from Naples to Los Angeles. Anyway, you want a lot of little quakes all the time, that prevents the big scary ones. There’s no guarantee of that kind of thing with the weather. People can affect the weather. That scares me. Well, that and fracking. Fracking can probably screw with tectonics,’ he added, as an afterthought.

‘Oh, fuck fracking,’ said a nearby fae that looked of a kind with Jargoraad. ‘Sorry, Miss Leigh-Sinclair,’ he said, but didn’t sound terribly contrite. ‘Glad there’s a ban on it in the human state of Maryland. You can’t even bedevil the rig, that just makes it worse.’

Aix had forgotten that Maryland was culturally southern, meaning you could just have conversations with random people, rather than it being considered rude. It was nice, because Aix was more inclined toward the southern and rural politeness of ‘Striking Up A Conversation With A Stranger Is A Polite Acknowledgement And Affirmation That They Are A Person And You Respect Them’ than the northern and urban politeness of ‘Everyone Is Overwrought And Rushed, Don’t Take Up More Time And Space Than You Absolutely Have To’. It just reinforced that he wanted to live here, he thought, adding it to the list.

‘Are there enough people down here to organise locally about clean energy?’ Aix asked.

‘We’ve got our own grid,’ the miner said. ‘What the humans do used to not matter.’

‘Well, showing up is half the battle,’ Aix said. ‘Politics is about showing up to local elections and meetings. Maryland’s small, you can probably change a lot.’

‘Most of us are nobody, in the law’s eye; but you were human-reared, weren’t you?’

‘I was, yes. Unfortunately,’ Aix said, with humour. The fae laughed. ‘But still,’ Aix pressed, feeling this was important. ‘I’m sure there’s some sort of way to forge some citizenship. You live here too, and participating in the human coloniser government is an important part of changing things for the better, however unpleasant it may be.’ Aix felt like that was a little bossy, but had also tried very hard not to say anything like, it’s your responsibility even though he felt that was true.

He, also, didn’t expect to be listened to; it was a surprise when the miner made a thoughtful frown.

‘Well,’ he said, stroking his coppery beard. ‘I reckon there’s no use griping about a leak if you won’t try and fix it yourself.’

‘Exactly!’ Aix said, hoping he sounded encouraging and not patronising. ‘And starting local you can see the changes better than if all you focus on is the big picture. It’s more than voting for president and it’s more than voting. Just show up to a local meeting and talk to folks.’

The train stopped and the miner got up. ‘Nice meeting you, Witch,’ he said, ‘I think you’re a better one than the Lichcaller already.’

Aix finally realised what that odd word was—Lichcaller, not Witchcaller. They knew what a lich was, sort of; and everyone else had called Ana a Necromancer, so he figured that’s what it must mean. ‘Do… do those sort of fae, the miners, do they only speak Germanic words?’

‘Oh yes, it takes a bit of getting used to,’ Miss Leigh-Sinclair said with a nod, smoothing her skirts, the taffeta rustling. ‘The younger ones, like him, they will use some of the newer words—grid, and electricity, and so on. But it’s quite something to converse with them—it isn’t that you can’t understand, but it’s terribly odd.’

‘I don’t really know a lot about that. Dmitri apparently talks to the dead, so it’s that kind of -mancy?’

‘Oh, good evening, Milord, Miss Leigh-Sinclair,’ said a very pale, elegantly-dressed transwoman just getting on the train. Her voice had a slight Scottish brogue to the vowels, and she was very pink, with very white hair, and Aix would have thought her to have albinism except for her very black eyes. She had a strong nose indeed, very aquiline, and very sharp, pointed nails that seemed naturally dark greyish-black. Aix wondered what she was, but of course that wasn’t polite to ask.

‘Ma’am,’ Miss Leigh-Sinclair said, with a friendly smile of her cherry-red lips.

‘Miss Glass,’ René said. ‘This is our new Witch. Aix, this is Miss Glass, she is our resident swan maiden.’

‘Hi,’ Aix said, awed by how pretty she was, and that she was a swan; but feeling as though commenting as such would be seen as patronising. ‘I like your earrings.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, smiling, but then frowned, in confusion, holding to one of the poles for balance as the train started moving again. ‘Our new witch?’ she repeated.

‘Ana is dead,’ René explained, and her brows raised in surprise and understanding, looking from René to regard Aix with a lot different of an expression.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Well, I thank you for that, then. She was a pall over this town. That’s why you’re out and about again,’ she said to René, pleasure replacing the worry from before at the sight of him. ‘I might move back into town, if that’s true. Where are you going? To Mr Gold’s office?’

‘A property lawyer and realtor,’ Miss Glass explained. ‘He’s a rarewere, like me. A lion. There’s a lot of rareweres in Baltimore.’

‘Cool!’ Aix said. ‘I definitely want to see him, but um, René’s taking me on a da-ate.’ Aix lilted it with a bit of campy excitement in hopes that would make him feel less self-conscious about it. ‘We’re going to—where was it? Valdemar’s?’

‘Oooh, I just love Valdemar!’ Miss Leigh-Sinclair said. ‘Mr Honeycutt will be quite pleased—ah, this is me, I’m off. Lovely to meet you, Ms Aix!’

‘Bye,’ Aix said cheerfully, reflecting it was so nice to not feel dysphoric when people called him ‘she’. He had made a lot of effort to stop caring about pronouns and things, and wanted to keep it that way. It meant nobody could hurt him with them anymore. They were only words for how he was dressed and what rôle he had, anyway. ‘Mr Honeycutt? So “Valdemar” isn’t the owner’s name?’

‘It is a reference to Poe,’ René said, pleased to watch Aix so immediately and easily converse with everyone again. He really did sparkle when he was alone, just as he’d mentioned in conversation the first night he’d met René. ‘The Case of M. Valdemar.’

‘Oh, I haven’t read that one,’ Aix said. ‘Poe’s my very favourite poet, but it’s been a while since I’ve been able to read anything so dark as his short stories.’

‘Mr Honeycutt is a boar,’ Miss Glass said, and nearly explained the spelling before Aix lit up and asked, eagerly,

‘Oh my god I love mushrooms! Truffles are so good I mean I’ve only ever had truffle oil but hnnnnhit’ssogood,’ he said, voice scraping low in his chest in an enthusiastic throaty laugh.

‘They have a lovely mushroom soup with truffles,’ René said. ‘And crab with truffle butter, of course.’

‘I don’t know if I can have crab,’ Aix said thoughtfully—and a little apologetically, because he knew it was the local meat of choice. ‘My mom almost died of lobster once, so I am understandably a little nervous about sea-bugs. I have tried shrimp and nothing happened, but also I… don’t really like it? I’d rather have fish with inside-bones, if I’m having fish.’

‘Ooooh, oh my god that sounds amazing! I’m so hungry, augh,’ Aix said, laughing at himself. He never noticed he was hungry or that food was fun until he was really talking about the fancy stuff. Feast-food was something he could get excited about. ‘I hope I can find something without alliums.’

‘He is very accomodating,’ René assured Aix, touching his forearm gently, rings catching the light. ‘He is a chef à la française, and loves a challenge. You will be taken care of.’

Miss Glass pulled her book (Russian Information Warfare) out of her messenger bag and quietly left them to their conversation, smiling to herself. It had been so long since René had been happy….

18. Haunted

They went farther up the 6 line than Aix had been before, and Aix got to observe the population distribution a bit, though there wasn’t enough information to see a pattern, yet. René kept getting greeted, and kept introducing Aix as Our New Witch, and Aix kept chatting with everyone—because he couldn’t just not, he was chronically lonely, and polite, and he liked chatting with everyone—and he kept waiting for it to go bad, to go wrong, for him to get overstimulated or tired, but he didn’t. He got hungrier, but he had emergency snacks and a small water bottle, and so it was okay.

He learned that the werewolf pack lived farther out in the suburbs, and were mostly white. He learned that they were not nice, and nobody liked them, which was quite startling because Aix had never met a werewolf that wasn’t likeable, before. He met a few more of the knockerfae, a stunningly gorgeous black vampire whom even René only addressed as ‘Mistress’, and a nervous fox family that had moved to Baltimore only a month ago, and hadn’t met René yet. They had a couple babies, and Aix (who adored babies, and hadn’t seen any in years) cooed over them delightedly.

They were only one stop from their destination when a sidhe got on the train. By then, the car was half-full, and so there was an audible tense silence as the sidhe stepped through the doors; Aix looked up on reflex, and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

A face he’d only ever drawn years ago. A face he thought he’d made up. Garnet-red curls fell in a frothing cascade around glowing white shoulders, eyes perfectly the colour of a Crayola cerulean coloured pencil, high arched brows, sharp-edged and thin, pointed and fashionably hooked ears draped in fine gold chains, and perfect beestung Jessica Rabbit lips covered in actual gilt as smooth as though it were molten.

‘Prince Garnet??’ almost echoed, hanging brassy in the air. The sidhe looked confused, tilting his head, and Aix felt a flash of embarrassment before he realised there was no reason Garnet would be able to recognise him. But he was coming over anyway, his clunky platform boots moving as lightly as ballet slippers, the chains hanging off his raver pants and the kandi bracelets all up his arms rattling and clinking musically rather than with cheerful but ordinary clacking. He sat down in the seat across from them, leaning forward and peering at Aix.

‘Um. I. Not directly, I don’t think. Always wanted to meet you, but he kept evading it. We… might have talked on the phone once? In 2007?’

‘Oh!’ He said, gasping hugely and drawing back, eyes wide. ‘Oh you drew such a nice picture of me! I remember!’ He looked frightened. ‘Is…’ He got up and gestured for René to move over, and squeezed between him and the edge of the two-person seat, leaning very close to Aix to whisper, fearfully. ‘Is it gone?’

‘The thing. The thing that was eating my heart. Did you escape? It ate your heart too, oh… but you seem better now!’

That confirmed it. Auntie Sokeenun had… well, you didn’t speak its name. Or think it too loudly. ‘Yeah, I escaped a few years ago. Got a divorce. I thought it had made you up. Glad to be wrong,’ Aix added quickly. ‘But um—oh, okay,’ he said, as Garnet was suddenly hugging him, practically sitting on his lap.

‘But you’re all different now!’ Garnet said, gesturing with one unfairly beautiful hand to Aix, managing to indicate in one sweeping motion the change of clothes, the chair, and quite possibly the last thirteen years.

‘I’d rather not go over everything from the past thirteen years, most of them were unpleasant. But I’m Aix now, and I’m the town witch, because I caused Ana Heeren’s death, and René is taking me on a date.’

‘Stars!’ Garnet said, as the train stopped. ‘I shall have to come visit more often!’ and he got off the train without another word, sort of flitting like a little butterfly. Aix felt unoffended—he sort of knew that’s just what Garnet was like, even though he couldn’t remember how or when he’d learned that.

‘You are full of surprises,’ René said, as the train started moving again. ‘I will not ask how you met, but it is quite auspicious you already know one of the royal court.’

‘I don’t know how much of what I know is true, though it seems like the stuff I do remember is,’ Aix said, thinking of the way Garnet had been dressed. ‘Does he like those little vending machines with sticky hands and bouncy balls?’

‘Oh yes,’ René said. ‘It made people like Ana underestimate his intelligence. As does the love of attending raves, and doing ecstasy.’

‘Living the dream,’ Aix said, admiringly. He’d always wanted to do the raver thing, just because the way they dressed, the dancing, the drugs, the preponderance of glow-in-the-dark and blacklight neon… it all seemed like a lot of fun. He’d even made a little androgynous raver character named Taylor when he was a teen, and daydreamed about when he’d get older and be able to drive and go dancing and have fun.

He never had, and sometimes he sort of grieved that; but now he knew of at least two clubs where he would feel comfortable getting up and dancing a little bit if a good song came on, even if he’d lost his taste for rave style specifically. Or rather, diversified, because of continuing to explore musical genres—something he’d started as a young teen wanting to see why all the adults he knew made so much of how terrible country and rap were.

‘Oh?’ René prompted, hearing Aix’s voice go soft and wistfully nostalgic.

‘I used to be very into the idea of going clubbing and just dancing all the time. I loved dancing, when I was little. Dancing and gymnastics were my favourite things to do.’

‘Oh la, chéri…’ René said softly, putting a hand on Aix’s. He wasn’t entirely certain why Aix could no longer stand for a few seconds, or walk more than a few feet—one did not ask—but to know that Aix had once been not just ambulatory but a dancer…. He knew from Dmitri that pity was rude, but his heart did break in sympathy. ‘I know what it is to be kept from what brings you joy,’ he said, squeezing Aix’s hand in his own gently.

‘Well,’ Aix said, cheerfully, ‘With enough physical therapy and assisted training, I can do aerial silks and swimming again, so,’ he shrugged. ‘I mean yeah it sucks, and I miss being able to walk four miles a day or do tap dance and a handspring, but eh. I have a lot of other fun things I do now, so it evens out. Nobody’s eight years old forever, you gotta deal with your body stopping being able to do stuff. And Dmitri promised he’d teach me old-style ballet when I was cleared by a PT. Not the jumps, obviously, but just some of the gentler stuff that stretches your hips and helps your posture.’ Saying all of it was necessary, or he’d spiral down into grief; and he was tired of grief. Being sad about what couldn’t be didn’t solve anything, and Aix had been a lifelong practiser of optimism.

‘He is a beautiful dancer,’ René said, not hiding his warm tones. ‘You know, when the pole came to be, and after I put one in the club, I invited him to try it?’

‘Oh my god,’ Aix said, beaming and leaning forward in delighted anticipation. ‘And? And?’

‘And he is English,’ René said, with a laugh that was as gay as it was petty. ‘ “A ballet dancer does not go about undulating against a pole like some kind of—of stray dog!” ’

Aix cackled, as much at René’s rather good impression of Dmitri as the story itself. ‘Oohhh god. Oh. Oh man. Victoria did say he was stroppy before she tamed him.’

René chuckled. ‘Ah, but it is fun to wind him up, you know. He blushes so prettily when you say filthy things to him.’

‘Oooh,’ Aix said, then, ‘I wish you’d say filthy things to me,’ fell out of his mouth without his permission, because he was not used to being taken seriously.

But Aix didn’t say anything, even though René let the silence go on for some time, and Aix just kept—looking at him. He didn’t know how to follow up with anything. He didn’t know other than making eye contact, and keeping it, and hoping to god[16] that René remembered what Aix had said about eye-contact being extremely deliberate.

René arched a gorgeous brow, his lips parting in surprise, before a slow curl of a smirk started to tug them over on one side, and suddenly he was On and Aix was wet.

‘Right here, petit?’ René managed to be heard despite murmuring low, his hand still holding Aix’s, but now his thumb was brushing softly against the inside of Aix’s wrist, and shivery pleasure was making tingles dance over Aix’s skin, as René turned a little more toward him, leaned closer, his eyes so intense, so gorgeous and depthless-dark….

‘I could you know,’ he went on, in a perfectly, seductively, villainously wicked purr, ‘no one would stop me. No one would dare… but,’ he said, remembering just in time that Aix was not yet brave enough to be shown off, ‘I think I would rather have you all to myself, perhaps after dinner….’

The train stopped, and René lifted Aix’s hand to his lips, brushing a kiss across those lovely knuckles. ‘This is our stop,’ he said, still in that same purr, still trapping Aix with his gaze—he didn’t have many lovers who enjoyed that particular power, but he’d already been gifted with knowing Aix was one of them. He only held it a few more moments, before getting up and releasing Aix as he let go of that pretty hand.

Aix did not take long to recover, for which René was glad, and was soon out of the train, wheeling over to the end of one of the carved wooden benches and putting the brakes down. René followed, sitting on the end of the bench.

‘I’m okay,’ Aix said, after the train had pulled out of the station again. ‘Just—processing.’ They brushed the backs of their fingers against one another lightly in a repetitive fidget, not really looking at anything, just staring off into the middle distance. ‘I haven’t—I don’t get pursued. Ever. So it’s a little. It’s not computing. That you mean it.’ Because I’m nobody, I swear I’m nobody, echoed in his head again—but at least he didn’t say it, this time.

René thought on how to answer, carefully. He touched Aix’s shoulder, over the layers of black fabrics, and said, ‘Well, I have all the time in the world to keep pursuing you.’

Aix smiled, looking up at him, and got out of the chair to join René on the bench, so he could hug him comfortably, wrapping his arms around René’s chest. René held him.

‘This would be easier if I were dressed to match you, I think,’ Aix said, after a moment, before pulling away, and thinking about that thought a bit, turning it over in his hands.

‘No, no,’ Aix said, on half a laugh. ‘In a suit, with a froth of lace at my throat.’

‘You just brought me to the brink of orgasm with like six words and a hand-kiss and “a froth of lace at my throat” is what undoes you?’ Aix teased.

‘Ah, but Domine never has poetry written for him, petit—he is the one that does the writing.’

René raised his brows, glancing at Aix. ‘It comes with a rôle, petit. Do you want it so soon?’

‘I need it,’ Aix said, pressing closer. ‘Vanilla power dynamic is… weird and.’ He made a face, sticking out his tongue a little bit. ‘Icky.’

A gentle chuckle, and René’s arm went around his shoulders. ‘But you would rather do it dressed a pretty little fop?’

‘I…’ Aix sighed. ‘Yeah. I can’t—like, right now I don’t own clothes that do that, because for the past few years I haven’t really been…’ Aix trailed off, trying to figure out how to phrase it. ‘I’ve been too busy surviving to do sexual displaying,’ he said, as always feeling frustrated that the only way he could talk about this sort of thing was resorting to naturalist language used on things like birds. ‘I haven’t had the resources to produce sexual display plumage.’ And it took a lot of them—suits were difficult when you were fat, and doubly when you were bottom-heavy, and even worse when you wanted alternative fashion like steampunk or goth. A good suit was tailored. A better suit was bespoke. Neither were in Aix’s budget when he could barely afford socks, and he noticed when things didn’t fit him how they should, which was an unfortunate curse of having been brought up by affluent women who liked to sew clothes as a hobby.

But, the ugly part of his brain that he hated, that viewed people as a source of material needs (because he’d been poor so long, and usually charity was all he had to survive on), pointed out, but: René might buy him things. If he put out, René might buy him lots of things…. Aix pointedly ignored that voice. It was hard. It was frustrating, because he knew he could never be charming enough or social enough to actually have that work. Sooner or later—usually within seconds—the façade came down and everything was sabotaged before it began, because Aix could not lie to people.

He probably should have connected that with I’m A Changeling sooner than just now.

‘You shall have the resources soon, mon cher petit paradisier,’ René said, and did not miss how Aix seemed to react badly to it—from the sudden bite of fear in his scent, the promise had triggered some terrible memory, perhaps of someone before he had been forced to rely upon. Erastos had warned him of that, and René was not unfamiliar with boys who had been inflicted with terrible sugar daddies. ‘I know you do not believe me,’ he said, stilling but not pulling away, ‘that is wise. You are providing equal exchange already, these are not gifts.’

‘I’m a utility, and vampires are good at maintaining utilities,’ Aix said, which seemed to make him feel better, despite it sounding rather horrifically objectifying to René. But if it was what helped Aix, then René would remember. ‘You need electricity, you need water. You need a witch.’

‘I do. And I enjoy the care and keeping of submissive boys for its own sake, even if you weren’t a witch.’

That seemed to get through—the last of the tension drained from Aix’s shoulders, and he hugged René again. ‘God, I’m so tired of being traumatised,’ he muttered. ‘Like I’m not even upset by the trauma itself anymore I’m just. Tired. Of it.’

‘I believe that is a sign that it is healing,’ René chuckled. ‘It was for me.’

Aix smiled at him, granting another tiny moment or two of those big blue eyes shining at René, before they flicked away again, and Aix got up, going to sit in his chair once more.

19. Valdemar

Valdemar was in the building that had once been the Royal Theatre. During the seventies, the immortals of the city had saved many such buildings from the urban blight, though not always in their original form. Valdemar was one such—the theatre had been saved by the vampire known by even René’s master as Mistress, and had been for many years run as her private domain. Like the humans of the city, the vampires had also segregated—Mistress had never considered herself part of René’s master’s domain, and simply annexed the parts of the city he had neglected, most of them in black neighbourhoods. For his part, René’s master had been unfailingly polite to her, and she to him, and there had been an unspoken peace between them for decades, and the political waters of Baltimore’s vampires hadn’t even but rippled softly when she’d taken over the Royal.

With the rise of the new media, however, and her power shifting to other avenues, she had sought someone who could take over the theatre, at the dawn of the new millennium, and that was when the black boar and his large family had come to town. Displaced—as so many were—by the Louisiana hurricane of ’05, they successfully revitalised the neighbourhood by turning the Royal into a fine restaurant, whose revenue was used to run a grocery store that had full services—a butcher, a baker, even a candy shop, the walls of the grocery store paying homage to the rich history, their music still echoing to all corners with bounce and swing of jazz. The neighbourhood had domain of the lower floor, and the visitors from Canton and Riverside with their ritzy money largely ignored the grocery store, going up into the mezzanine and upper levels to have their fine cooking—and it was fine cooking, the finest, with truffles.

And the truffles were a bounty the neighbourhood enjoyed too, not that there ever were any for certain people who tried to come get them. Mr Honeycutt and his family guarded the truffles as carefully as any mushroom-hunter guarded their harvest, and were devoted to fighting gentrification.

Nobody dared pester a building that, at any time, might have half a dozen or more of the fanged aristocracy entertaining guests in its walls. Philadelphia Avenue was no longer a stop in the black jazz circuit, but it was nevertheless, in the 21^st century, a thriving black community—there was a recreation park next door, and the rowhouses surrounding gradually revived, in the years following, the neighbourhood fed by the Royal Grocery Basket.

Aix heard all about this as he and René made their way the few blocks down Philadelphia Avenue. The streets were quiet, and the pavement was a little difficult in places—but Aix only had to stop, the first time, fold his hands in his lap, and René noticed immediately.

And so they went on with the history lesson like that, with René pushing Aix along the sidewalk, until they arrived. Aix learned that the reason the station was so far from Valdemar was because that would have run it too close to the human subway.

He also learned that Valdemar’s elevator was currently unavailable. The sign was very apologetic, explaining they had decided to time the repair to take advantage of the decreased traffic owing to the plague. The stairs that curved up to the second level were beautiful—Aix was reminded of the beautiful staircase he’d found in a theatre in his first days in New York, years ago—but there were a lot of them, because theatres were very tall. He sat in silence for a few moments, trying to think of what to do.

Aix considered it, looking René up and down and pushing the brakes on, getting up to get a better sense of how they compared in size. René was thin, and only a couple of inches taller, and Aix was sure René was strong enough to carry him, but the problem was how awkward it would be, carrying someone basically the same size as you. The Princess Carry wasn’t really made for that, and that was the only socially acceptable one in this situation.

‘I’d have to leave my chair behind, and that concerns me,’ Aix said, because he knew better than to comment on the height and size of a man who was smaller than what was considered masculine. ‘How far is it?’

‘It is this staircase up to the main entrance, and then up a small step into my box. It is perhaps…’ he thought only a moment, ‘Thirty-six steps, and a hallway.’

‘Alas, no. But I can go up myself, and request they send a brace of strong people to help carry you, hm?’

‘Oh yeah, two people making a chair out of their arms would work,’ Aix said thoughtfully, sitting back down in his chair.

Shortly after René disappeared around the last visible bend of the stairs, Aix’s phone rang. It was Victoria, so he answered it.

‘I have a minute; the elevator’s out of service, so René is getting me some help upstairs.’

‘Oh of all the nights for it to be out! Well, they’ll treat you right, don’t fret, darling! Now, what I wanted to tell you—Dmitri and I are staying at the Ivy Hotel in Mount Vernon. It’s run by the local wererats, when you come see us—in your own time, dear, no rush!—we’re in room five, and do say you’re a friend of the Arrowsmiths, dear, I’ve told Effie all about you and she’s simply dying to meet you!’

From the exceedingly heavy and breezy colour of her accent, Aix figured Victoria was in very high spirits. ‘I’ll do that. I’ve decided to stay and be the Baltimore Witch; also I’m trying to adopt Pippin and I made friends with the local clownkeepers.’

‘Also like, everybody wanted to talk to me, on the train. Oh! And prince Garnet? Lives here?’

‘Do you know him? Oh my goodness, Aix, you rascal! You never said!’

‘I didn’t know he was real—long story. Oh, I hear footsteps, I gotta go. Love you bye.’ Aix didn’t realise what he’d said until after he’d hung up and was tucking his phone away, but decided—as always—not to be mad about it. There was no reason to be embarrassed about telling someone something nice.

René had brought back two muscled people—one was a woman with very dark brown skin and a soft expression on her face with her obviously copious natural hair pulled back in a white turban that matched her chef’s whites, her mask the same houndstooth as her pants; and the other was a man that was likely a relative—he had a neat little beard with a silver streak in it, his hair in short twists, and was in a suit that said he was probably something front-of-house, but not the owner, because René had said the owner was also the head chef. Both had very, very dark brown skin, it was almost luminous, and were not simply large in the sense of tall and burly, but also had plenty of fat padding the muscle. He didn’t have a mask on, which made Aix slightly nervous—but then, for the past few hours, nobody immortal had been wearing a mask, either, and Aix had asked, and knew by now that the plagues didn’t jump from humans to anybody else. Maybe he was one of the boar family.

‘On behalf of all of Valdemar, we are so very sorry about the elevator being out of comission for repair, madame,’ the man said with a little bow.

‘It happens,’ Aix said, always very easy-going about it, almost to a fault. The Cripple Smile, Victoria called it. ‘I’m Aix.’

‘Oooh, I love bread,’ Aix said, and she laughed, and Aix was smitten instantly.

‘Monsieur Charbonneau said you could stand well enough to climb into our arms?’ Mr Sweet asked.

‘Yes, do you, um, do you know Chair Arms? I don’t—I don’t actually know what else it’s called.’

‘I know Chair Arms, Uncle Earle,’ Queenie said, and explained it to him. Aix got up when they were in position, and did a pretty good job of not feeling embarrassed about being carried. René followed, easily carrying Aix’s purse and the empty chair up the stairs.

‘My wife and I do this for our daughter sometimes,’ Queenie said, as they went up the wide stairs. She had a bubbly sort of voice that was always at the edge of a laugh, and reminded Aix pleasantly of one of his Aunts that he’d only met once. ‘We didn’t want to stop picking her up when she got big.’

‘Aww,’ Aix said, charmed even further. ‘That’s so sweet. How old is she?’ Because he never asked names, ever. Especially given his new position of power. People kept giving them to him (except the fae), but he never asked.

‘That’s a fun age,’ Aix said. ‘I liked being eight. That’s when Disney’s Hercules came out.’

‘Oh we’re the same age! I remember seeing that here, when it was still a theater.’

‘Oh wow, that must have been amazing. René told me the history of Upton on the way here. I can’t believe I’m in a building that Cab Calloway performed in!’

‘I never missed a performance,’ René said quietly, and Aix figured that meant these two people were part of the nightfolk.

Queenie kept Aix chatting while they slowly made their way up the spiralling stairs, and because of the setting, Aix’s conversation naturally began to mention his childhood in Hollywoodland. She asked him questions about Disney secrets, and he was happy to tell her all the little things he’d grown up with backstage. When they got to the top of the stairs, Aix knew he had to reassure them they could set him on his feet, but waited for René to have the chair set up and braked.

‘Okay, I can stand long enough to get into the chair, thank you so much Ms Queenie, Mr Sweet.’

Queenie stayed to make sure he was settled. ‘What’s your favourite bread?’ she asked.

‘Sourdough, because Californian,’ Aix said, arranging his skirts so they wouldn’t get caught in the wheels as he answered. By the time he looked up, she had disappeared. Well, she was the bread baker, she was probably busy, Aix reasoned, admiring how silently she’d disappeared.

A younger woman with lots of pretty eye-makeup and her natural hair in very fancy updo—with the fancy little plastered-down kiss curls that Aix knew had a special name but couldn’t remember, at the moment, what it was—came up to them, dressed in a waistcoat and a violet shirt and matching mask that made her skin glow a little bit. Her nails were very pretty, a French style but the white parts were subtly lace patterned.

Aix happily followed, enjoying how his wheels glided smoothly over the velvety purple carpet of the floor, but made note that he needed to ask where to wash his hands. Constantly wheeling yourself around meant your hands were always grubby, which Aix did not like, but he hadn’t gotten gloves yet, even though they’d poked around in sports stores looking at various kinds of gloves for everything from biking to archery, with no luck. Victoria had a custom pair, and what Aix really wanted were those—they were padded in exactly the right places, with full-grain leather.

The restaurant was beautiful, with a big crystal chandelier that was obviously from the old theatre, lit with soft neutral-white LEDs (Aix could always tell—LEDs strobed), with little flamless candles on every table. Aix made a note to turn theirs off or hand it back to the hostess when they got to the table. It was quiet, the sounds of people at their tables mixed with the sound of quiet music that Aix gradually realised was proper jazz, the kind that didn’t noodle all over the place but had a proper structure—stride, he realised after his brain recognised the tune well enough to start putting lyrics to it.

René kept pace beside him, and so Aix asked, quietly, ‘I need to wash my hands before we eat, is there a bathroom close to your table?’

‘There is a small sink for just that purpose,’ René said, and Aix was surprised, but pleased.

They left the main dining room—which was the old mezzanine of the theatre—and went into a wide hallway covered by a gauzy curtain of shot purple and red silk; it was lit by softer, blissfully incandescent lights that did not strobe or flicker, set into sconces on the wall that matched the deco style of the building.

‘Are you the new huntress everyone says the Van Helsing brought into town? I know it’s not good to listen to gossip, I swear I’m just worried about the… her.’

‘I’m the new witch,’ Aix said, with gentle emphasis. ‘She’s gone now, she can’t hurt you anymore. She messed with the wrong monster and got eaten, finally.’ Aix figured she was the kind of person who’d had it coming, especially because of all the fear everyone used to talk about her, not even saying her name and all. Aix had only known her for like an hour, but the more he learned about her the more he hated her guts. ‘I don’t use violence, I use mouth-words like an adult.’

She chuckled, but it was a little more relieved than amused, René could tell. ‘I heard there was a witch, but nobody mentioned she was a Muslim lady.’

‘I’m not exactly either of those things.’ The linking of those two things was something he was starting to get anxious about; he didn’t want to ‘give a bad impression’ of Islam to other people, he certainly didn’t want other Muslims feeling he was being disrespectful, but he hadn’t figured out how to navigate any of that nuance yet, and had lost his teacher only a week after starting to dress in hijab. ‘I’m a changeling, and my Muslim teacher said that’s the same as being a djinn, and we’re a different people, so we do things a little differently than humans.’

Even explaining made Aix feel like it was the wrong choice, since one of the rules he’d learned was Rule Number One Of Islam Is Mind Your Business. Oh well. He was only one person, he couldn’t be perfect and he knew he had a very big struggle with holding himself to impossible standards of perfection. He was doing his best, and that was all he could do.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, and Aix was glad she didn’t apologise. ‘Well, there’s a mosque a few blocks from here. I don’t know if we have any djinn or anything in Baltimore—do you know, Lord René?’

Ah, so the ‘mister’ was only for when humans were around, Aix thought to himself.

‘I imagine if there are Muslims, there must be a few,’ René said thoughtfully, ‘but they keep to themselves, and since our witch does not allow their Islam to intersect with their craft, I imagine that should not change much.’

Aix felt a flood of gratitude toward René for saying that. ‘Once I set up, anyone can make an appointment,’ he said. ‘And I can sort of get a feel for what people need from me, and they can get a feel for what I’m able to do for the community. I hope I can help.’

‘You’ve already helped a lot, believe me,’ she said, opening the heavy, padded door and holding it. ‘There’s some steps, do you want help?’

Aix stopped at the softly-lit threshold, saw there were two steps down into the small rounded box, which looked out over a darkened space, the stage curtains light only by the faintest ghost light that shone on the red velvet of the draping. ‘Nah, I’m good.’

He pushed the brakes on and got up, taking his purse, and lifting the brakes again to push the chair down the steps and tuck it out of the way, then set his purse down in one of the three velvet-padded chairs around the table, sitting in the one next to it. René followed.

‘Tyrone will be with you shortly,’ she said, and closed the door silently. After she did, René gestured to a curtain a foot or so from the door.

Aix got up and crossed, pulling the curtain carefully aside to find there was a small black sink set into a niche, with a brass tap and his favourite X-shaped knobs, and a mirror with soft lighting to either side, it looked as vintage as the building. He washed his hands thoroughly with unscented soap and felt much better, and decided to just take off his niqab for the duration of the meal. You couldn’t eat very well with a niqab on, though Aix had just about figured out how to drink with one on (with a straw, but then again he always drank from straws). He adjusted his hijab, before the desire to just. Take it off. Occurred to him. It was terrifying as a prospect, but he resented that fear and he knew damn well that you weren’t suppsed to wear it because you were scared—even before he’d finally met a Muslim and investigated the whole matter, he knew enough to know that.

He took the pin out (it was one of his long quilting pins, and had a butterfly of yellow plastic on the end), and started unwrapping the thin black jersey. René could see him—the sink was just in a niche, it wasn’t in a room or anything—but, true to his polite nature, did not comment when Aix returned to his seat, tucking the fabric in his purse.

‘If we’re being served by people that can’t carry the plague, then there’s no reason to worry about it,’ Aix said. ‘And this is as much into boy mode as I can go right now, and it… helps.’

René was starting to understand that Aix had to talk through everything he was doing or thinking; he did not mind—Aix’s mind was so alien, even moreso than the usual modern person, that it was a welcome tutorial.

‘Would it be inappropriate to comment on how much I appreciate the privilege of being able to admire your face?’

‘Not if you put it like that, no,’ Aix said, shyly. ‘Seeing my face is a privilege, and a gift.’

‘It is,’ René agreed, smiling. ‘I am so pleased that you decided to stay with us. I can take you to see Mr Gold tomorrow, if you would like.’

Aix almost asked about seeing him tonight, since Aix was so excited about houses generally, but stopped himself just in time, remembering that this wasn’t simply dinner, that René was interested in him sexually. Which was so intensely hard to believe that Aix kept forgetting. When had he compartmentalised sex away from everything else to the point of forgetting it existed if anything else was happening? He hated that society did that, why had he fallen into the habit of it? Well, he knew why—survival—but he didn’t want to anymore!

‘Hey, so, um, I haven’t—I don’t remember how to talk about sex with someone. I’m a little rusty at all that kind of socialising. But I want to. Um. Do that. I was enjoying the flirting I’m just. Out of practise.’

‘We can start with simple truths, there is no need to be ashamed of that,’ René assured him. ‘You are a breathtakingly attractive boy, and I very much desire permission to make you come.’

‘Mmm, I love how you phrase things,’ Aix said, with a shivery laugh. ‘Mercy.’

There was a soft sound beyond human hearing, the signal that someone was outside the door, and René pressed the button beneath the surface of the table to signal them to come in. The door opened, and a server with light brown skin and tidy cornrows in a curvy pattern came in. He did not, because this was a high end restaurant, even flutter a lash at Aix not wearing a headscarf, even though Aix was sure he’d been told.

‘Good evening Lord René, madame. My name is Tyrone and I’ll be at your service this evening. Would you like to begin with appetisers? There is a fresh salad of baby greens with a summery vinaigrette and sugared pecans that is quite excellent, this time of year, and we have a full compliment of soft beverages and mocktails, including non-alcoholic wines.’

‘There are spirals of vidalia onion, yes, and the vinaigrette is seasoned lightly with garlic and other herbs, including our famous black truffles.’

‘Ah,’ Aix said, ‘I’m allergic to garlic and onions, is there a way to leave those out? Maybe have a different dressing?’

He smiled. ‘The dressing is made fresh for every serving, madame. We can simply make it without your allergens, if that is sufficient to your needs.’

‘Yes, that’s enough, thank you,’ Aix said, relieved that their learned panic was being shown that not everyone would react with scorn and sadistically gleeful refusal to cooperate. ‘I would like the dressing on the side, please.’ He liked to add it a little at a time, or dip the fork tines before each bite, depending on what the dressing tasted like. ‘I’ve never had non-alcoholic wine before, what kind of wine do you have with salad?’

‘A tart white is our usual recommendation, madame. We have a lovely Sauvignon Blanc with no alcohol that I can bring for you.’

‘I would like that, thank you, and a glass of ice water with a straw, please.’

René was startled into a laugh—he had a pretty laugh, Aix reflected, and it was the first Aix had really seen his teeth, which were lovely. His fangs were double-edged, flat across with the sharp edges along the sides, rather than the conical knife of a predator like a cat or a dog, with the sharp edge on the inside. It was interesting, evolutionarily and biomechanically. Teeth were an accidental interest of Aix’s, considering how hyperfocused on his own mouth everyone had been for his whole childhood. He’d always wanted fangs, and after meeting quite a lovely dentist during his time on the street in the bay area, he knew how to go about getting the permanent kind. However, meeting vampires had opened up the ideal possibility, which was to become one of them.

‘Oh, I don’t really remember why I think that, it’s just such a vampire sort of word. Also, when I was a young person I stumbled across the vampire winery, and that’s where I first learned syrah existed.’

René chuckled, shrugging expressively. ‘I do not like modern ideas of wine.’

‘Ah,’ said Aix, and René wondered at how knowing his tone was. ‘Yeah, I don’t either. It’s just a drink.’

‘Exactement. Once, everyone drank wine. There is good and bad, but all of this fluff about “notes” and “nose” and so forth—’ A derisive and queer little laugh, a sharp gesture of his hand. ‘You would think they were speaking of perfume!’

‘Hm?’ René’s enjoyment of their mutual irritation was paused by confusion. Aix seemed to do that a lot, René made note to observe more closely if it was a sign he was afraid or otherwise upset, or if it was simply how his mind worked on a different set of associations. ‘From where?’

‘You are full of surprises, cher petit! How on earth did you learn that perfume comes from Grasse?’

‘I read it in a book somewhere,’ Aix said, which was true and misleading—the book had been called Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and had been one of the many out-of-his-wheelhouse sorts of books he’d read when he’d first moved out, and wanted to try to read books that felt more grown-up than the genre mysteries he’d grown up reading. It had been delightfully clear the author had suddenly plunged into researching perfume, and loosely constructed a story around the desire to infodump. Aix loved that in a story, as it was his favourite way to learn things.

‘Yes,’ René said, ‘all those ages ago, when my heart beat, I was born in Grasse. And there I grew up, playing among the rows of lavender bushes of my family’s fields.’

‘Gosh, that must have been so amazing, all those fields of flowers. I still remember the smell of my family’s macadamia orchard.’

‘Ah, yes,’ René said, appreciating that Aix’s enjoyment of the idea was rooted in experience, not naïve imagination, ‘there is nothing like it. Perhaps you can visit, some day. I am good friends with Maestro Phrixus. Do you like opera?’

‘No,’ Aix said. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I appreciate the skill and training it takes, and I will defend the castrati to the death. I was opera trained, as a child, but I started wanting to learn how to sing more broadway style and my teacher couldn’t teach me, so I kinda stopped training. Didn’t stop singing though.’

‘I never stopped playing pretend, and I’ve always wanted to take classes for acting; but the thing is I’m really shy. Being the centre of attention is so terrifying if I’m not singing or dancing. And even then, it’s scary but I can shut it out because I don’t feel like I’m interacting. I close my eyes a lot when I’m singing. Which is frustrating. I don’t want to be scared. I know why, but what I need to overcome it is…’ Aix almost said ‘not available’ but checked himself—he didn’t know that was true, especially not now. ‘Well, I haven’t had access to any of that, before.’

‘I need people who understand and accept that I’m very sensitive and that primarily I need to build up my confidence, or I won’t keep trying at all I’ll just give up immediately. You can’t give me the tough love treatment. You can’t have that “well if I don’t tell you what you did wrong how will you improve” bullshit with me. That’s why I’m like this in the first place. Being mean doesn’t help. Humiliating me doesn’t help. Assuming I am overconfident and you need to “take me down a peg” does not help. Punishment is not a good incentive, that just means I’m so terrified of punishment I don’t even start to begin with. I take everything personally that is part of my mental illness so I cannot actually change it.’

René put a hand on Aix’s shoulder, gently, grounding, knowing this kind of wind-up into frenetic panic while trying to be vulnerable was frantically covering up real terror from wounds that had never healed, had never been given any love or safety to heal. Cameron, George, Michel, Jasper… René had many boys who had been sent to him, René told they were broken and beyond repair or function. They were simply soft, and neglected, and needed someone to stop clawing at their wounds and calling it healing. ‘Someone humiliated you quite young, repeatedly, didn’t they?’

René knew a push, here, now, could either make or break this trust; he had the experience to know how exactly to do it.

‘As you wish,’ he said softly, wondering if Aix reacted the same to that phrase as Cameron did. After so many years with Cameron, René had grown to like the allusion for its own layers. ‘But Nepenthé is exactly the place you will find such encouragement and gentleness, when you are ready.’ He smiled. ‘We have needed a new M.C. for some time.’

‘Oh, yes, that would suit me,’ Aix said, brightening, and relaxing a bit. ‘That’s just being the storyteller of the show. I know I can do that.’

The salad and wine arrived, and this time it wasn’t Tyrone that brought them, but a very large, very black man with the long thin locks of hair decorated with many colourful beads and pulled back from his face in a rainbow scarf. He had a generous belly but his chef’s whites fit exquisitely, which always made Aix feel pleased—he liked people to have comfortable clothes, and knew what it was to have clothes fight your belly—and after he unloaded the small black tray, he pulled up the empty chair and flipped it around, straddling it.

‘Well,’ he said, with a bright smile and a voice like rolling thunder, with a strong Cajun shape. ‘I’m Chef Honeycutt, and you must be the witch. They said you were all veiled, though I suppose I shouldn’t say anything about it. But I’m not as polite as René, you know, cher.’

‘Ah,’ he said, knowingly. ‘Well, that’s only right, for a witch. Tyrone tells me you have allergies to allium, which makes me think you have the ancient palette.’

‘Oh—I’ve never heard anyone else call it that before,’ Aix said, surprised and pleased—Auntie Sokeenun had called it that, and it had made Aix feel a lot better than when all he had was the medicalised language that made him feel like some kind of failure of a human being. ‘Yes, I have trouble with sugars. Alliums are the worst, but I can have bread and dairy that’s heavy on butterfat. Milk is still a no, but cream and things are all right.’ Aix bit the inside right of his lip. ‘Fructose is something I’m careful with too—no honey, no super sweet cultivars of apple or grapes that are so popular. I’m not a huge fan of cane sugar, like it’s… I’m very sensitive. If I make whipped cream I put like… maybe a scant quarter cup per pint? Maybe. But I can taste cream as plenty sweet, and vanilla too.’

‘You bake! Well, that makes this conversation easier! I know meat is on your menu.’

‘Yes,’ Aix laughed, ‘meat is the safest—oh, but I’m slightly allergic to pork, and also bananas—genuinely allergic, I get itchy if I have them too often. I might have a deathly allergy to lobster, but obviously one doesn’t exactly want to test that theory.’

He pulled out a notebook and jotted things down as Aix spoke, and as Aix tried the wine and the salad (both were very good, and Aix really enjoyed being able to drink wine—it was one of those things that felt very grown-up, and it was rare he felt like an adult), they got into more and more detail about what Aix was going to eat tonight. Honeycutt seemed delighted the more Aix revealed they knew their way around a kitchen, and Aix was as always surprised at how much he knew—he hadn’t used the knowledge in so long that he’d forgotten it was there.

For his part, René was quiet—when he brought guests here, it was for the guests to be fed well. Vampires didn’t eat solids, though René didn’t know a single one that didn’t have a favourite wine. But Aix’s scent said he didn’t eat enough, and it was good to see it was a very traditional reason, rather than a modern one. René could understand, could fix hunger, and the nervous self-starvation that poverty trained into a boy—he could not fix dieting as easily, that was more complicated a problem. And Honeycutt was happiest when feeding those unused to feast—it was his calling, to feed the hungry. The restaurant was more of a way to give the neighbourhood a place to practise the skill of fine cuisine and hospitality, and to get the money from the rich circulating into a proper community, rather than simply moving from rich pocket to rich pocket—the feeding and tending of the community around it, the harvest he shared on the shelves of the grocery store beneath them—that was his life’s work. The more Aix admitted to missing this or that, the happier Honeycutt was in anticipation of giving it to him.

René had no idea why boars had such a bad reputation—he was perfectly happy to have them in his city, to watch how their presence made their territory flourish and bloom with green things and fine foods. For it wasn’t simply that they—like all porcines—could find truffles. No—a wereboar’s presence seemed to generate them within the soil, seemed to have an overall generative effect on the land where boars made their hearths. They were pigs, after all, in the ancient symbology of Plenty and of Feast, of Harvest and Fertility. It was a shame so many cultures painted them with contempt, René thought.

And too, René was no longer at all ignorant of the dynamics between races and nationalities—most vampires had to learn or they’d find themselves quite dead. To his advantage, René had always been more of a listener, an observer. His profession in the erotic performing arts also gave him a much more comprehensive education on social injustice merely by exposure, and because it had always been ill-favoured, despite only recently being made outright illegal. As well, the dynamic of power between individuals was one any vampire was very sensitive to, particularly after a few centuries, and particularly because so many had service or subjugation in their past. René paid his due to the community, and listened to make sure he was indeed continuing to do so. The methods for that tended to change, and quickly. And he had stumbled, ignorant and segregated, until the riots in the sixties and seventies had given him sharp awakening, and struggled to find ways to help without becoming yet another yoke. The Honeycutts choosing Baltimore as their home had been a welcome relief—people of colour were few, in the local nightfolk of Baltimore, which was a worrying contrast to how many there were in the human population.

Aix and Honeycutt worked out a menu for the evening, which included Aix’s very favourite dessert of tiramisu, and soon Aix and René were alone again, the salad finished, and the wine refilled.

‘Shall we negotiate sex, Domine?’ Aix said, and sounded—and moved—with much more confidence. Whether it was the wine glass, or having slowly settled into masculinity over the past few moments, or the way Chef Honeycutt had put him at ease and gotten him laughing again, René couldn’t say. Aix was a boy now, though—a type of boy that did not exist much anymore, the type of boy that was René’s long-abiding preference.

‘Shall I go first, and tell you my desires?’ René asked, a smile in his eyes but barely touching his mouth.

‘I think perhaps that would be best, though to be bluntly truthful, it will mean I rifle through my own and only pick the ones that match. Still, if I go first I won’t go at all, and we must start somewhere.’

So, Boy was where he kept all his confidence. René took a sip of his wine, gathered his thoughts. ‘I would like to bite you, once you are well-fed enough to take it without harm.’

‘I would like to be bitten,’ Aix said amiably, ‘say on, old thing, say on.’

Ah, and English charm, at that! Delightful. ‘Have you been fucked in the manner boys are fucked, before?’

‘So elegant,’ Aix teased, giggling and taking a sip of his wine, ‘yes, I adore anal sex. It’s been years, and it is so affirming, you know. The quintessential act for the male homosexual to assert his status as such, I always felt.’ It was amazing, Aix thought, what a glass of wine in one’s possession could do for one’s confidence. A prop was a beautiful thing, a prop such as a cigarette or a wine glass even moreso. It didn’t have to be alcohol, that wasn’t the point, the point was that it was adult, the very action itself.

‘What, with an enema and stretching and toys? Yes, my ex husband was many terrible things, but he was not terrible at sex. And,’ he added, swirling the wine, watching it catch the light and sparkle gold, ‘you have hit upon a kink of mine: I have always adored being filled up, so I shall be a terribly good boy for you.’ He hid behind his glass a little, at that, shy after being so daring.

‘Mm,’ René said, deciding to remain breezy and conversational—they were negotiating, it was polite to remain merely flirtatious, theoretical, for the moment. ‘That is very gratifying, petit. Usually it is seen as merely something to be tolerated for the sake of hygeine.’

‘Oh no, not at all, not for me. Though… I do find myself a bit at odds with the usual fare for enema-focussed erotica. I don’t like punishment or humiliation, you see. For me it is about being full, and the fullness feeling safe and warm. Perhaps the dom is pushing me a little, but it’s always, you know, things like, “you can do it, I know it’s a lot but you’re being so good for me” sort of thing. Very encouraging.’

‘I do!’ Aix said, pleased. ‘Yes, I’m very disciplined, and I like to show it off for my Dom. Sort of… “look how good I am Daddy, aren’t you proud of me?”.’ He paused. ‘Ah, sorry, I was raised in the world of jazz, the “Daddy” sort of slips out.’

‘Well, I never used to make it, because I thought “Daddy, as used in jazz” was the tone everyone used it in. But then the internet purity movement exploded everywhere and started on this nonsense about “anyone who uses Daddy must be into ageplay”, which was both bewildering and rather terrifying. Ageplay is something of a squick for me, I must say. Oh, do you know that word?’

‘Cameron has explained it to me. A useful term. What do you think of as ageplay?’

‘Well, that I have no interest in pretending to be a child and in my dominant pretending to be my parent. And I don’t generally want to even be around it, though of course Thou Shalt Not Judge Others For Their Kinks.’

‘Of course. Being my age, I cannot have preference for my partner’s age. But, I do prefer to not have to teach them the fundamentals. It grows… tiresome.’

‘Yeah I’ve never wanted to be the more experienced partner. When I was a virgin I was with virgins, et cetera.’ He fluttered a hand, and then paused, sipping his wine thoughtfully, ‘Do you know, I don’t think I’ve been with anyone that wasn’t exactly the same experience level as me; and, honestly, I prefer that or my being the less experienced. Never understood the appeal of virgins. Girl, I don’t want to be a teacher! I want to bottom for some of this!’

They laughed together, and it was nice, and Aix was startled at how strange it was, to laugh with someone again. He’d been doing it a lot more lately, with everyone new that he’d met in the past… god, had it only been a few weeks? Not even a month, really.

‘It is so good to hear the old words,’ René said, with a wry curve of his lips. ‘It has been a very long time since I have submitted.’

‘It is rare that I want to,’ René said. ‘Everyone is so very much younger than me, now. But I do bottom still, occasionally.’

‘Ah, chéri, so refreshing to be around someone who knows there’s a difference between bottoming and submitting!’ Aix said, laughing delightedly. ‘Well,’ he said, thinking on it, ‘I think—if you ever want to, of course—I would enjoy topping you for anal sex. I like service topping. It’s rather a lovely high, making someone orgasm under my fingers…’

‘They are,’ René said, eyes flicking to them. ‘Lovely fingers. So very long… I imagine you have grown very skilled with them, over the years.’ For it seemed Aix was quite sexually experienced, and René already knew he had been married to his ex husband for all of his twenties. If said ex husband had been ‘good at sex’….

‘I have, yes,’ Aix said, tracing the rim of his wine glass with the middle one of his right hand, knowing the pose was elegant and showed them off. But he had always been very pleased with his hands, they had always been very pretty and graceful. It was one of the few parts of his body that he’d never felt was ugly or unacceptable, and he cherished that. ‘I prefer using black latex gloves—and not simply for safety. It helps with friction and smoothing things out.’

‘Oh yes, well,’ Aix said, grinning, ‘I’m a little bit Überwald, you know. Just a touch of the old “throw the switch, Igor!”.’ He giggled, rolling the ankle of his crossed leg. ‘Are you familiar with Discworld?’

René quirked a brow. ‘Vampires are familiar with all stories we appear in. We have to be.’

Aix’s smile fell off so fast René could almost hear it hit the floor. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, grimly. ‘Yes, I’m not best pleased with the anorexia-positive narrative Pratchett did, with them. I don’t think he meant to, but he didn’t think the joke through…. But I like Otto and Maladict quite a lot.’

‘Mm,’ René hummed, ‘I was very pleased with Maladict. He reminds me very much of one of Lord Roseblade’s boys.’

They were interrupted by the reappearance of Tyrone, who brought in the entrée: slices of steak and mushrooms in a cream sauce, served with a basket of fresh hot sourdough bread that smelled heavenly and had hot melted brie with truffle in a dish on the side, and more wine—red, this time, if Aix was recalling what little he knew of wine properly. The portion was not too generous, nor too small; it seemed just right, Aix thought, but put a hand over his empty wine glass in what he hoped was a polite refusal; he’d forgotten to talk about wine with Chef, and so hadn’t remembered about red wine headaches until now. Tyrone didn’t even ask, and simply refilled Aix’s water.

‘Could I have some iced black tea with mint and a straw, please?’ That was a similar flavour profile to red wine, Aix thought—and anyway, tea had a nice, astringent, palette-cleansing property that he very much liked with anything. And surely they had mint, they served lamb after all. They had to have mint.

Aix liked that he was leaving off the gendered honourifics. ‘Thank you so much.’ When Tyrone left, Aix finally was able to really take in the food, switch off the Be On Best (Least Autistic) Behaviour For Strangers mode and use the energy on sensory input. ‘Wow, this smells amazing.’

‘It does,’ René said. ‘May I kiss you, after you have a bite?’ He was ready to explain this, but Aix seemed to grasp it immediately.

‘Sure,’ he said, sipping the water, enjoying the narrow straw. The narrow straws of fancier restaurants were fun-small, and his straws at home were the reusable kind, so they didn’t have the same mouthfeel or nice thin edges. Tyrone came back with a highball glass of tea with fresh mint in it, and Aix thanked him automatically, before sampling the tea.

After he left, Aix knew they would be left alone for a longer time, and could therefore get back to the negotiations. He cut a slice of the meat off, and made sure to get a mushroom and sauce to taste, and it was. Wonderful. He wasn’t a moaner, but he wondered if the expression on his face was loud. He never knew what his face was doing, which was part of why wearing a veil felt so soothing. Still, he didn’t mind René seeing him, now. It was strangers that he hadn’t chosen to interact with that made him nervous.

‘Is it good?’ René asked quietly, and smelled the effect—Aix had been curiously unaroused despite their talking of sex, which was usually a good thing for such conversations; but now, with those three words, somehow Aix was flush and sweet with desire. Perhaps it was merely the sensual pleasure of his voice feeding the sensual pleasure of the food—Aix had already mentioned René’s voice was one he favoured, and Aix certainly wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last. But… there was something other than simply René’s voice. What was it? Not being watched, so…

‘Yes, Domine,’ Aix said, breathlessly, not sure how to mention the layers of meaning, the dynamic of a predator animal asking that of a prey animal, and how he really liked that tension….

‘What is it that I said that caused this, petit? Tell me what kink I have stumbled over.’

Aix dropped his gaze, tensed, but then the tension went from cringing away in fear to set with determination. ‘My fursona is a sheep, because… because I like being fattened up and teased about my dom eating me up.’

‘My best friend,’ Aix said. ‘I’m… I’m not sure if they’re a werewolf or just want to be. I’ve been wondering how to ask them without breaking the… masquerade?

‘Mummery,’ René said, hiding a gentle laugh at where Aix undoubtedly had pulled that guess.

‘Mummery. Ooh, very medieval. Anyway, if they aren’t, they should be! They’d make a good one. Can you like, nominate people? Sponsor them?’

‘I would speak to St Croix about that, chéri; but later.’ He leaned forward, contemplating his wine, tracing the rim with his middle fingertip with the same careless grace Aix had used to show off his own hands. ‘I am no wolf….’

‘Lanky and with a long silky coat and a big purr. Do… it’d be neat if vampires purred.’

René purred at Aix—the way humans could, particularly Francophones. Aix shivered, giggling and actually wiggling in glee, kicking his feet a little.

‘Oui, Domine,’ Aix said, showing he had a submissive’s ability to be demure and flirtatious at the same time.

20. The Baltimore Kennel-Owners Association

She wasn’t waiting by her phone though; there was plenty of work to be done, cleaning up after a hunter’s death, and Michaela was currently going through Ana Heeren’s storage unit, because even someone like Ana still practised ‘keep all your Hunting stuff out of your house’. It was boring work, going through and destroying papers and evidence that monsters existed, so Michaela was multi-tasking, giving Amber a ring and telling her Aix’s stuff needed to come to Baltimore, though she wasn’t sure where they were going to put it yet. Amber was concerned—she and Aix had hit it off immediately, and she’d apparently picked up a kitten on her way through Texas that she was planning on giving to Aix as a housewarming gift.

‘No, no, he’s had a windfall and is just still looking for a place. I’ll tell you more when you get here. I know he’s meeting with a realtor soon, and he’s currently a very honoured guest of a colleague of mine.’

Amber knew what ‘colleague’ meant, from Michaela. It meant the kind of thing you definitely couldn’t talk about over the phone.

‘Well you take care of him. He’s a good kid and if he needs a job I’ll put him through driving school.’

Michaela smiled. ‘Don’t worry, the problem is that there are lots of people who want him around.’

Michaela smiled. ‘Yeah, I’m with you on that. He got to town and just waded hip-deep into solving problems, so now they’ve convinced him to stay, but that means he’s gotta look for digs where he can set up shop.’

‘Ah, gotcha. Well a ten-by-ten storage unit will fit all his stuff, I’ll spot the rent for a month. Don’t tell him about the cat, I wanna surprise him.’

After hanging up with Amber, Michaela cracked her neck and continued going through Ana’s storage unit. She wished Heather hadn’t immediately fucked off upon reaching the coastal city, but what could you do? Fae were fae, and Michaela would never begrudge a selkie the freedom to get the fuck off land after being landlocked for a week. Even Aix had been a little single-minded about seeing the bay as soon as they’d reached Baltimore.

Over the next hour, the sun set, and Michaela had finished collecting or destroying all the incriminating stuff from the storage unit; she paid the clerk to forget her face, and she was just finishing up a letter to her fathers when there was a call from René’s club.

Michaela steeled herself. ‘I’ll be right there, give me ten minutes; I was just cleaning up after the Heeren.’

She appended the letter briefly with this news, folded it up, and put it in the security envelope—the mail was the only secure communication left, other than the landlines that required constant supervision and checking to make sure they were not being tapped or found. Immortals were good at keeping on top of their correspondence, though most of them bitched about how slow it was these days (only getting delivered six times a week was unacceptable to immortal people who were accustomed to the mail getting delivered six times a day). Michaela only stopped to drop the letter in a post box, before heading back to the secure parking spot at one of the BUR terminals. The nightmare maze of narrow, one-way streets in downtown Baltimore was not something she wanted to deal with in a compact car, let alone the Moonbus, which had, in its previous life, been a full-sized school bus. She took her old duffel bag of essentials, shouldered Matilda, and got on the train to Whorefang Road.

As usual, nobody even looked at her—which wasn’t so different from most public transit, really. Except this wasn’t normal public transit, this was the public transit of the Otherfolk. But Michaela was The Van Helsing, and even though she’d proven more than ten times over that she wasn’t trigger-happy, she was in Baltimore, which had been crushed under the heel of Hunters since Ana’s mentor had come to town in the seventies. She was, also, armed. So she moved slowly, and calmly, and did not make eye-contact with anyone, and did not look at anyone vulnerable.

When she arrived at Nepenthé, it was closed (it was always closed on Wednesdays), but the wolves had arrived from the suburbs, from the spotless SUVs parked all up and down the street, and when Michaela got into the club’s closed but unlocked door, she heard and saw that they were acting exactly how you’d expect white suburbanites in an exclusive private white suburbanite secret society to act, and they were menacing Aix, who was in a wheelchair.

Michaela saw red. She fired off a warning shot at the one nearest Aix, Elcox, who happened to be the shittiest Big Dad Wolf she’d ever had the displeasure of meeting (he hated the term BDW, which was the widely accepted term, and insisted he was an “Alpha”—which just proved Michaela’s point). The bolt wasn’t silver, but Matilda’s draw-weight was enough that the bolt hitting his shoulder knocked him back with the force, and it broke the momentum of his pack.

And then Aix screamed, loud enough to rattle windows. It was a loud scream—he had a loud voice and knew how to project—but there was something a touch magical about it, something that echoed beyond reality, made the shadows get a little… tentacley.

And there was a hooded figure standing over him, in the next moment, wings of skin and bone spread protectively, eyes flickering in and out of existence on them, the outline difficult to keep hold of, like a perpetually-shifting octopus, or some kind of AI-generated image that kept refreshing.

‘Everyone shut. Up,’ Aix said, and Michaela was proud of him for standing up to them.

‘You shot me!’ Elcox shouted at Michaela, more offended than hurt. Michaela just locked gaze with him, like she always did with wolves.

‘The witch says shut up, you shut the fuck up, Elcox,’ Michaela said, with razor smile that promised more crossbow bolts. She saluted the tall, Lovecraftian figure crouched over Aix. ‘Cthulhu, I presume? Hope I’m pronouncing that right.’ She said that mostly to let the wolves know exactly what they were dealing with; hopefully it’d put the fear of Aix into them.

‘You lost your right to access me the minute you were violent!’ Aix interrupted, with a voice like thunder. Cthulhu seemed to get bigger. Some of the lower-ranking wolves were wise enough to slink out, tails between their legs and a whine in their throat; but not Elcox. Where the hell was René? Michaela thought. It was full dark, was he still waking up? Likely, unfortunately—it was early enough that he might be having breakfast, and vampires couldn’t be easily interrupted from meals. Which was probably why the wolves had shown up with this timing, the bullies—trying to get Aix alone and undefended.

They hadn’t counted on The Van Helsing, though, Michaela thought with a grim satisfaction.

There was a furious beeping—like the angriest, tiniest goose in existence—and a rock made of marble, of all things, pelted from somewhere in the rafters toward Elcox, twanging off the crossbow bolt sticking out of his arm. He yelped, eyes flashing gold as he searched the direction it had been thrown in.

Elcox finally flinched, at that horrible eldritch voice in his head, and slunk out—still glaring at them, blood trailing from a cut on his cheek where the second rock had hit him.

‘It wasn’t even silver-tipped, ya fuckin’ hound-dog,’ Michaela scolded him as his eyes met hers. ‘G’wan now, git!’ she said, exactly the same she’d shoo off a particularly vexing bear or raccoon from her trashcans.

When he’d left, she locked the door and wedged a chair under the handle for good measure. When she turned back, Aix was shaking, and also wrapped in mostly purple tentacles; but he was leaning into the strange embrace, and Michaela knew he was being comforted, even if she couldn’t hear it. She sat down nearby, but not too near.

‘Hey,’ Aix said, sounding less shaky than they looked. ‘You’re probably wondering where René is, and who let them in. It was. It was me. They didn’t open with barking at me, and I didn’t notice how many there were before they were pushing past me. And I.’ Aix covered their face in shame, hands still trembling. ‘I’ve only ever met nice wolves.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Michaela said, after what was probably too long a silence; but she wasn’t like Victoria, she wasn’t too good at this emotional stuff. ‘You gotta think of this pack as more like a bunch of rich people’s dogs. Like… Georgette, from Oliver and Company.’

That got a weak laugh. ‘Felt more like Roscoe and DeSoto.’ He straightened, shaking himself and holding his head up. ‘Still,’ he said, determined to pick the best out of the situation, as he always did. ‘Did you hear me? I can’t normally be that articulate when I’m unprepared.’ He was rather proud of himself, for that.

Pippin slid down one of the brass poles on the stage, and bounded across the floor and up into Aix’s lap, babbling concerned-sounding noises that mimicked human speech but absolutely did not arrange themselves into any kind of recognisable words. Her tail was swishing in agitation, even after she settled in Aix’s skirted lap.

‘Hey, looks like you saved me again, huh?’ Aix said, as Pippin purred and rubbed against every part of Aix she could reach, her Flash starting to glow again, blue and white.

The mass of increasingly amorphous tentacles pulled back into a tall humanoid shape, extremely slender and shrouded in a tattered black robe with a deep hood, long tendrils the only visible feature emerging from the darkness of the hood, and long, bony purple hands from the sleeves. The shape looked… familiar, somehow, but Michaela couldn’t pinpoint where she’d seen its like, before.

Aix smiled as Cthulhu reached a hand out to Pippin, who all but ignored him, focussed on Aix.

‘You all did,’ Aix continued, looking at Michaela, and then up at Cthulhu, before pausing at the new appearance of the latter, and then wrinkling their nose in a mischievous smile. ‘Cthulhu,’ he said, in a low voice trembling with laughter un-pealed. ‘Why are you making yourself look like an illithid.’

Aix snorted, laughing—and it went a little hysterical, but Michaela just went and got an ice chip from behind the bar, pressing it into Aix’s hands gently. Pippin was very curious about the ice chip, but Michaela had gotten extras and handed her a smaller one to play with. Aix held the ice tightly, and slowly calmed down on his own.

And there was Jasper, the usual barkeep, a lovely Sikh silver bear (not literally a bear—though he was, like many of Baltimore’s werebears, a man of colour) who was currently dressed to his usual nines, brown and gold brocaded silk sherwani and saffron turban setting off his brown skin, making it rather luminous, particularly because he’d put a little bit of golden shimmer powder on for decoration.[17]

‘The Baltimore Kennel Club is what happened,’ Aix’s voice was a little watery, but sarcastic and biting as he got during the—so far—brief flashes of drag queen he’d shown. ‘Oh, Jasper, this is my boyfriend, Cthulhu. Cthulhu, this is Jasper, he’s one of René’s boyfriend-vampires.’ Aix wasn’t sure if that was the right term, but to him the word ‘boyfriend’ was a very Legitimate Relationship word, and he wanted to grant all of them that kind of respect.

‘I came up here to see if you were having trouble finding a snack for Pippin….’

‘I never got there,’ Aix said dryly, finally reaching for his wheels and moving toward the end of the bar, where the counter opened to let in the barkeep. ‘Michaela showed up just in time, and—Pippin, where did you get rocks from?’

My room… trailed off, with the knowledge that Throwing Rocks was Naughtybad.

‘Okay, well, sometimes it is okay to break the rules, like when someone is being violent. That is okay and you did a good Pippin thing to do.’ Aix hugged her, and looked up at Cthulhu. ‘And I’m glad you came, too. That helped enormously.’ He sighed, trying to gather his thoughts, which were jangling around like spoons in a glass. ‘…Thanks for shooting that asshole, Mike.’

‘Just doin’ my job, yer honour,’ Michaela said, with a little salute, and Aix giggled. He and Michaela had talked about how it was hard to be polite in a southern and non-gendered way, and Michaela had been rotating through various honorifics for Aix.

‘You shot one of them?’ Jasper said faintly, even as he filled a glass with water and brought it over to Aix.

‘Calm your magnificent tits, Jas, it wasn’t silver,’ Michaela said. ‘I was too far away to shove him. Things were escalating. The whole pack shoved in here to gang up on the local witch, and they sent them running after I bought them a second to breathe.’

‘I made a mistake, and Michaela, Pippin, and Cthulhu helped me deal with it,’ Aix added, in a blunt voice that was clearly full of inwardly-focussed rage. ‘I was so high on the joy of everything that’s been happening lately that I forgot, for a moment, that straight people existed.’

‘Happens to the best of us,’ Michaela said, knowing the first mistake always hit people hard. ‘You did good sticking to your principles. I admire that.’

‘Ye!’ Pippin agreed. She held the half-melted ice chip out to the world generally, her Mask distressed, and the usual blue-black of it pulled away from her little hands to show how red the ice had made her skin. Jasper took the ice chip from her and tossed it int the sink behind the bar counter, as Aix dug through his purse and pulled out part of his discarded hijab’s fabric, wiping her little hands dry and holding them in his.

I know baby, when your hands get that cold it hurts to warm them back up; but we gotta warm them back up, okay? I know it hurts. It will go away sooner if you wiggle your fingers, can you do that for me?

She stopped squirming, flexing her hands, her tail perking back up when she learned it did help the pain go away, until it was just buzzy and almost tickly, and then went away.

‘Does… Does Cthulhu talk, Aix?’ Jasper asked, and Aix looked up, then up at Cthulhu, then back at Jasper.

Ah, no. Humans have quite variable brains, it means every new individual has to be bonded with slightly differently.

Made of plastic, it’s fantastic, Aix’s mind sang, with a bit of humour. ‘Um, okay so, apparently that was private thought-speech. Let’s go downstairs, though.’

21. The Dragon King

‘So, that was fun,’ Aix said, on their way down in the elevator, with a sort of farcical cheerfulness. ‘Let’s never, ever do it again.’

Pippin beeped happily when the elevator doors opened and George was standing there, in his very sleek charcoal grey suit that was still very English Regency in cut, his gold hair still styled exactly as he always had styled it, his only accessions to the modern world the very subtle makeup to darken his pale brows and lashes. Aix always privately liked that his shoes were recognisably from American Duchess; it spoke to the quality of their shoes, if a vampire from the centuries they reproduced would wear them. George bowed to them, and gestured with the kind of servants’ elegance that looked theatrical to modern people not used to Staff.

Aix loved it, personally; he reached back a hand to tap his same shoulder, a gesture he’d copied from Victoria, her silent sign for ‘push me’. Cthulhu had learnt it, of course, staying with her, and did so, following George down the softly-lit, blue-wallpapered and walnut-panelled hallway. Aix’s chair had a horizontal bar, rather than the usual pair of handles, and said bar could be removed if desired. Aix had been terrified of strangers grabbing it and pushing him, but so far he’d always had someone with him when he went out, to guard behind him.

Now, as Cthulhu pushed him, Aix could hold Pippin loosely in his lap, his hands gently around her middle; but she was quite content to sit on his lap, babbling and miming excitedly at George like a talkative cat. He answered her with grave little ‘do you think so?’s and ‘my word’s, and ‘just so, madam’s, and other such little comments that delighted her to no end. And, because Pippin was busy talking, nobody else had to talk, and could use the few minutes to gather their nerves—Aix certainly needed to.

Aix wasn’t exactly nervous about meeting the person everyone very assiduously did not call ‘Dracula’ or ‘Vlad Dracul’ or anything of that sort. It was The King and The Voivode and, once, when they’d been in a Wafflehouse the day before getting to Baltimore, Our Esteemed Colleague From That One Town, You Know, With The View Of The River? Which just reminded Aix pleasingly of John Peters (You Know, The Farmer?) from his favourite weird radio show.

Because of the secrecy, the conference call equipment had been custom-built by the knockers, and was all analogue, which meant of course that the sound quality was a great deal better than anything VOIP could manage. It was also more beautiful, and Aix was starting to realise that, perhaps, the knockers were the true inventors of steampunk.

There was modern sound-dampening plastic making up the eight carrels the long, carved oak conference table was divided into, though they were not featureless but set into carved wooden frameworks just as though they were panes of glass. The chairs in front of each carrel were generously-proportioned and upholstered in blue velvet, and the microphones were on articulated brass stands oiled to utter silence, with windscreen and pop filters that Aix knew, just looking at them, would make everyone sound disturbingly real and in the room. There were also the big, chunky headphones that Aix had grown up using (well! His father had been a sound stage tech, after all).

George moved toward Aix, but slowly enough that it was not surprising, and reached for Pippin, who eagerly leapt into his arms. Aix supposed it was best if she didn’t stick around—she still needed her snack.

‘Thank you,’ Aix said to George, who gave a little bow of his head before shimmering out of the room. Aix put hands on his wheels, which was enough of a sign to Cthulhu to let go of the chair, and Aix got himself around the table, heading for a seat with view of all the other seats, and the doors. A nice secure corner. He did not like having his back to a room. Locking the brakes, he got up and into the chair in front of the carrel, and put on the headphones, adjusting them and the microphone, ready to just start. He’d been so focused and fascinated by the tech that he hadn’t noticed what anyone else was doing. He felt Cthulhu settle behind him, radiating comfort and protective safety, and Aix saw René and Michaela were the only two people left in the room.

‘The King speaks with a heavy accent, but he usually goes slower because he knows this,’ René told Aix. ‘It would be helpful if you spoke without slang, can you do that?’

Aix straightened up, leaned away from the mic to clear his throat, curved his mouth into a smile-for-speaking, and turned on the Phone Voice, which was low and velvety, but which Aix knew sounded extremely female even so. ‘Oh, you mean my Radio Voice?’

‘Oh mercy,’ Michaela said, fanning herself with a hand. René chuckled, shaking his head at his own caution, and flipped the switch. The Voivode was used to waiting—most immortals were exceedingly patient about being put on hold—and it was especially pleasant in their phone network, which didn’t have hold music of any sort, simply silence.

‘Voivodul Drăculești?’ René said, with perfect and memorised diction. Aix heard a smooth, deep voice answer.

‘Good evening, this is Aix,’ Aix said, because he hadn’t practised saying Voivodul yet, and didn’t trust himself not to screw it up. Romanian may have been a Romance language, but it was the one Aix had heard the least often. ‘I have decided to replace Ana Heeren, and stay in Baltimore in an official capacity as witch.’ There, that sounded professional and clear, right? Aix had no earthly idea what he was expected to say, but he was glad to focus simply on the task of not using contractions or slang, because that distracted his brain from becoming anxious. He could be on the phone, he knew he was good at being on the phone—and it was quite pleasant, with such good sound quality.

A low hum that made Aix squirm. ‘Well, it is gratifying to know the new Hunter was taught how to speak.’

‘I am a trained opera singer, Your Grace,’ Aix said, erring on the side of medieval appellations for rulers. This seemed to please the King, because he laughed softly—and it was a smooth, sexy sort of laugh, lower than his speaking voice.

‘So polite. You are terrified, are you not? You sound young enough to only know fear.’

‘Only knowing fear means I function better terrified,’ Aix heard himself counter, with rather more expression to his voice than the measured and careful way he’d been speaking so far. ‘It’s calm I don’t know what to do with.’

The laugh was louder this time, surprised into the sort of unschooled sound natural laughter was. Aix felt better, he always did when he got people laughing at something he’d said. If people thought he was funny, he was safe. If he was entertaining, he knew he was desired and liked.

Aix thought on that. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was at a café and she abducted me, and took me to a warehouse. I’m still not entirely certain of what she wanted. She told me René meant me ill—while tying me to a chair, mind you—and when I began to recite the reasons torture is not an effective method of interrogation, she became insulted, and insisted she was not torturing me, when of course, that is all one thinks of when one is kidnapped and dragged to a warehouse and tied to a chair by a violent person.

‘Michaela had warned me about her, so I knew she was violent, and…’ Aix paused, unwilling to ascribe mental illness to someone but also having observed the usual signs of unregulated rage in Ana’s behaviour. ‘And that her morals were not focussed on reducing harm or keeping people safe,’ he said, finally. ‘I am a cripple and use a wheelchair, and so a person like The Heeren, who is not only athletic but carrying a gun, when I cannot run from her, nor fight, should she become hostile….’ Aix didn’t know how to end the sentence, but was glad to feel Cthulhu wrap a few tendrils around one of Aix’s arms in comfort. ‘My judgement of who and what is violent is by necessity more sensitive because of how easy I am to harm,’ he decided to finish, feeling as though the whole thought was clumsy, and unclear, and hating that; this was the kind of sentence he needed to see.

‘Anyway,’ Aix went on, screwing the smile back on, ‘while The Heeren was ignoring me in the back of her van, on our way to the warehouse, I went into the Dreamscape and called for help. Through my efforts, The Black Goat Of A Thousand Young was called to the warehouse, whereupon she proceeded to reduce The Heeren to a dark stain on the concrete.’

Aix did not want to bring Pippin into this, and did not quite want to reveal the nature of clowns—it might cause vampires to turn on their pets, and Aix couldn’t stand the thought of that. He liked clowns, and people were suspicious enough of them without wild misconceptions about Cthulhu’s people being brought into it.

‘I have been attempting to read of these star-people. But The Van Helsing says the writings are wholly inaccurate. This does not surprise me, of course, but I have little knowledge of how to judge what is accurate.’

‘Cthulhu is currently sitting next to me, but his people do not speak with sound, so I have to translate. Would you like to ask him questions?’

Put those on, he wants to talk to you. I can translate your answers into verbal words for you.

Cthulhu pulled down his hood, revealing that he had the same face as Aix had remembered—complete with the many eyes that opened and closed expressively.

That would be best, as I have not been able to adequately research the mechanism of human speech enough to create a suitable apparatus, yet.

…I have perhaps been a little distracted from studying it by written language, and the many things about kink Victoria and Dmitri were teaching me. That is… also why I forgot to come and see you in the Dreamscape. The knowledge I suddenly had access to was overwhelming.

Aww, don’t feel bad, buddy, I know how exciting it is to suddenly be in a library after not having one for a while. And you’re not the only Academic friend I have. There was a fondness there, and a sense that Cthulhu’s ‘absent-mindedness’ was deeply endearing.

Cthulhu opened more eyes as he examined the headphones, before carefully putting them on.

I am unsure I wish to meet him before I have made contact with the people whose land I am on.

‘Cthulhu is unsure he wants to meet you before he has made contact with the local Native people,’ Aix said, wondering what the reaction to even a polite ‘not yet’ would be.

‘The mortals? Before the Children of the Night?’ the Voivode sounded more shocked than anything.

Despite our reputation, and perhaps what we seem to you, I am a perfectly ordinary person, where I am from. There is nothing so remarkable about me, or indeed any of my colleagues that have attempted contact; but alien people coming to this landmass have a long and violent history with the Indigenous people; Azathoth wished us to make respectful impressions for our people, not violent ones.

Aix was starting to panic about remembering all of this, but Cthulhu sensed his struggle to recall the exact words, and put a hand on his back. Aix, you needn’t quote me precisely, this is not an equation.

It’s rude to paraphrase someone you’re translating, Aix said, a little desperate to perform respect, since he’d never really known how to make clear to people he felt it.

I know you are not being disrespectful, little one. He tried to use the appellation because it had made Aix feel calm and happy in the past. It worked now, and Aix took time to breathe, and calm himself.

‘He says that despite the reputation he and his people gained over the years, and despite the things they can do, they aren’t particularly extraordinary in the way Nightfolk are. Additionally, he’s now aware enough of the context of yet another alien coming to this land that he wants to pay proper respect to the Indigenous people before he moves on to others, because his mentor, Azathoth, taught him to be a person of honour.’

‘May I ask you something, Cthulhu?’ Michaela said, and waited for him to nod, all those orange eyes blinking peaceably at her. ‘Your people are all psionic?’

‘Okay, that poses a really difficult legal question, then; psions are part of the Mummery, they’re considered Nightfolk under the Treaty, because they can harm mortals and mortals cannot usually defend against it in any way, and so psions must be kept in check by Hunters. Now, I am in no way saying this as a threat, but you and your kin have a body count already.’

Aix’s stomach dropped in terror, but Cthulhu blinked all of his eyes a few times, thinking on this.

She is correct, and it does not matter to the dead or bereaved that it was accidental, or due to misunderstandings.

Sweetheart, not to say you shouldn’t contact the Indigenous folks or anything, but she has a point—I do not want you to subject yourself—or anyone else—to the mess that is the current justice system in any country. They’d ruin your life for their emotions and damn practicality—or justice!

You can stop doing it—which you did—and you can continue helping people and being kind. No amount of causing you pain or suffering is going to bring those people back from the dead, you know? It was an accident, you learned what you did wrong and immediately corrected your behaviour. That’s all anyone can ask of you.

Aix’s words were full of conflict and knowledge of several opposing opinions—it was something he had thought on a great deal, and seen many human perspectives of, and drawn his own belief out of that large body of data. Thus, Cthulhu respected his opinion as wisdom.

The subject of morality was something Cthulhu had struggled with, though it was not in the same fashion as his colleagues—they struggled to remember smaller beings had the same feelings they did, whereas Cthulhu had been gently corrected many times for being too careful, too obliging. It was why understanding how he had harmed all of those humans had been so hard to countenance. He had been obliging them, he had been trying to do as they wanted him to.

The problem was, he’d had no idea that what they had wanted was very, very bad for them.

Michaela watched them converse—now that she could see Cthulhu’s face, it was clear he was saying things to Aix, and that they were having a deep conversation. ‘They’re conferring,’ she said, mostly to telegraph the silence for the Voivode’s sake.

‘You be mindful of that phrase, Voivodul, that’s unique to one of Aix’s gods, and I don’t think he’s a god even you want to annoy.’

‘The Devil isn’t a god, he is a servant of one,’ Aix said immediately, and a little sharply. ‘Michaela means Loki. And she was acting exactly in a way to honour him,’ Aix added. ‘You’re right, Michaela; and it’s important to have a trickster’s questioning in these conversations. Thank you, Michaela,’ he said, both for the questioning and for being ready to demand Aix’s gods be respected. Nobody ever did that, for Aix, and it meant a great deal.

Aix tensed, unsure how to respond correctly to teasing like that, but hating it; there never was a response that didn’t cause more pain, it was just punishment for showing anger at all. It reminded Aix that this was, before anything else, an authority figure.

The phrase was so incredibly human that it startled Aix, and he looked at Cthulhu in utter bewilderment. Cthulhu tilted his head slightly and gave a little shrug.

Aix’s heart went out to Cthulhu, in that moment, and he took off the headphones so he could hug Cthulhu, trying to convey that he was very grateful, but also had been reminded how much he’d missed being around Cthulhu, and talking to him, and it really hit Aix, suddenly, that Cthulhu was here, was here and in the real waking world, and touchable and everything. And small—well, smaller. He was still bigger than Aix. Aix took strength from Cthulhu’s faith in him, his respect. Aix was still the human Cthulhu referred to above all others, not anyone else.

I think it’s a fine idea to meet Auntie and tell her your intent and ask her what would be the best way to communicate that respect of her people and their home; but I also agree that the mortal world is not the part of this world that can handle alien contact right now. The dominant powers in the human world, right now, are not mature enough to even stop killing the planet and take care of everybody; they would absolutely use first contact to destroy you and everyone else even faster.

Aix shared with Cthulhu the stories humans told already about this, the way that many had already thought about these ideas; most of the stories were bleak and hopeless, with one single bright spot, that (even with that optimism) still opined that humanity would become more oppressed and violent before getting better, after first contact—even with a race that resembled them more than Cthulhu did, even in a storyworld where humans were always trying to be the best version of themselves.

And, too, Aix shared all the stories he wanted to show Cthulhu to teach him about the current state of affairs—there was so much learning to do. Cthulhu shared back what he’d already been learning from his short stay with Victoria and Dmitri—he had been learning from the vampires and wolves of the city, who were pleased to teach him history they had been alive for.

Aix was vaguely aware there was a conversation going on without him, he heard the shapes and colours of Michaela and René’s voices; but he tried to trust that they were giving him time, were just assuming he and Cthulhu were having to discuss things—which wasn’t inaccurate, Aix reminded himself angrily. It wasn’t a lie.

Why did he always think he was lying to people when he wasn’t debasing himself in front of them?

Not the time for going through a Trauma Box, he thought to his brain, angrily.

Michaela was, after forty-odd years, very good at chatting with the vampire king; she knew his particular turns of phrase, the quirks of his abrasive playfulness, the way you could be quite blunt with him in comparison to modern people. And, also, the fact that he was always irritable at baseline over the phone, because of the way the high pitched hum of electricity got to him. That irritable mood made him provoke people, because he was a warrior and combat was, at this point, part of his personality.

Michaela also knew Aix, in his own words, ‘was not even in the vicinity of fucking around’, and treated every attack as an intent to kill. He did not play-fight, because he did not find conflict enjoyable—only predators fought for fun, in Michaela’s experience. Prey animals of the sort Aix was fought only to defend their lives (or the lives of others), and their aggression tended to be either zero or lethal, with no understanding or desire of in-betweens. And, too, Michaela knew that Aix’s fursona was a sheep, horns and all—if a sheep decided to ram you, there was no hesitation, there was no posturing, nor threats; you were just knocked down immediately and quite possibly trampled to death if you didn’t have the sense to retreat. It wasn’t compatible with how Drăculești tested people, and Michaela was grateful she and René were both here to keep things from becoming a diplomatic incident.

Drăculești also liked Michaela, and so flirted with her—something rather novel for both of them, since she was the first female Van Helsing, and he (like most immortals) found Michaela’s enormous stature and fatness to be extremely attractive. He (and many other vampires) also found her long red hair attractive. It was nice to be able to go all femme fatale, Michaela had always found it quite necessary to her self-esteem, given that modern people were so incredibly awful to her for the same traits. After a bit of that, however, he turned his attention to René’s silence.

‘You have already met me, Voivodul,’ René said, using the soft, coquettish voice he always fell into when speaking to a Master—he didn’t like that he still did that, but he knew it would fade in time.

‘I know how broken a whore you were when Diedrichs was Lord Baltimore, but I do not know you free of his yoke. You have clearly demonstrated you have leadership, strange as your methods are to me.’

‘I am no warrior, only a tradesman,’ René said, with a touch of humour. ‘And I use my tradesman’s tools.’

‘Ha! So you do, Lord of Whores. And this witch? She is a strange mix of fear and ferocity—but women often are.’

‘He is not a woman, Voivodul,’ Michaela said, because she knew Aix wasn’t A Woman, though what he was seemed to be something he was still figuring out.

‘He is a beautiful boy, such as your son,’ René said gracefully—it was terrifying to speak well of Aix, René was so used to his old master, and the sadism of superiors in destroying anyone René even looked at a little too long; but that was then. That was then, he told himself. They were gone. And Aix was strong, and had the protection of a being perhaps older than humanity itself. ‘And he uses the tools of his own profession. His voice is powerful, and his mastery of language I have not seen in some time. Certainly not in one with such power of will and such devotion to gentility. It is the gentleness of the humblest pullet, who takes in kittens and ducklings alongside her own chicks, and protects them all as her children.’

René looked across the table, and saw Aix sitting with his elbows resting on the table, hands halfway buried in the hair at his temples, wide-eyed and staring at the surface of the table with the sort of expression that had many potential emotions but the only definite one was ‘speechless’.

I believe it is called a compliment. He is accurate in his assessment. I have heard many people describe you similarly. Why are you surprised? Do you not know yourself?

Um… no, hon. I just do things. Part of my madness is that I have a big scribble where my sense of self should be.

That’s good to hear, but I can’t put it all together cohesively myself, beloved.

‘He’s a good match for you, then, and for the city. I will call for a meeting of the Councilium Vampire in thirteen nights, for the purpose of swearing in a new race under the Treaty.’

‘Is this acceptable, Cthulhu?’ Michaela made sure to ask. ‘Do you have the authority to speak on behalf of all of your people?’

I have been the first to succeed wholly at communicating with this world and its inhabitants; that means I am the only one with the authority, and am obliged to do so.

‘He says that because he’s the first to successfully communicate with Earth, that means he’s got both the privilege and the responsibility of being the only person with the qualifications necessary to speak to us on behalf of his people.’

Does the Concilium Vampire only have vampires? I am not fully understanding the nature of the Treaty or the authority of this Voivodul.

‘He wants to know if the Council is just vampires, and if so then why would the Treaty refer to everyone else as well—actually, I want to know that too. What exactly is the governing structure, here?’

‘New,’ the King said, chuckling. ‘We have not had it long. The Treaty is still something of an experiment.’

‘My grandfather and the King drew up the first version,’ Michaela said, to give Aix perspective. ‘Since then, Opa travelled all over, contacting all kind of folk and trying to get them to join the Treaty. My daddies continued that work, and did the lion’s share. By the time I came along, most everybody had agreed to it, and it had expanded to be more functional as a foundation of government. We… have a government, but it’s still setting up. We don’t have many people like you, Aix. You’re only the second one that does things your way.’

‘You mean Victoria? Seriously?’ Aix was shocked, and laughed. ‘So her whole thing with Dmitri, with taming Dmitri… that’s new, huh?’

‘The Devil of the Cloisters was quite the predator, before he picked the wrong prey.’

Aix felt his smile fall off so quickly he could hear it hit the ground. He looked at Michaela, and felt as though he was at the edge of some kind of story he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear from this source. The Devil of the Cloisters was the kind of title a serial killer had—a real one. A human one.

He’d thought… he’d believed Dmitri and Victoria, when they had said he was only a serial killer by virtue of being a vampire.

Had… had he put her in that chair? The thought was chilling. Aix felt sick. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He didn’t want to know. He ripped off the headphones and shoved back from the table, getting out of the chair and completely ignoring his wheelchair in his state of mind, leaving the room and going out into the hallway, pulling out his phone, heading for the elevator.

Cthulhu wasn’t sure if he should follow—he tried to reach out to the two people in the room, without harming them, without doing too much… the Averays had been people he could talk to, and the Man Who Was Hap’s Friend… but Cthulhu had been too afraid, to reach out, to bond with others, and he only realised that it was Aix’s fear when Aix left the room and took it with him.

Aix hadn’t been so afraid, in the Dreamscape. And yet it was something he was so accustomed to, that he did not even have full awareness of it—and so Cthulhu hadn’t either, as it crept into him.

René paused, looking at Cthulhu’s eyes across the table—looking into them. They swirled, and he felt the psionic power, though it was alien, and terrifyingly huge, even compared to the power of his old Master. But it was not malicious, like his old Master, and so René tentatively reached out with his own power.

Your mind is different… colours? Ah, I have seen these colours in Aix, in the very earliest parts of his mind.

Have you? Ah, but he said his cradle language was French. The colours are a different language than the one you hear spoken now.

Oh, my friend, that is a question that some devote their entire lives to exploring. But it is good that we can communicate with you more directly.

‘Voivodul, Madame Van Helsing,’ René said, ‘it seems Monsieur Cthulhu has found a way to speak to me.’

‘Why?’ René asked simply. ‘He will go to Victoria, and she is the best person, do you not think?’

Michaela—slowly, and reluctantly—sat back down. ‘Point,’ she said, ‘and you upset the witch, Voivodul, though I doubt you care very much.’

‘I do not know him well enough to understand why, and cannot care until I do. But I have upset you, and that concerns me. You know me well, and would only be this angry if you knew I had violated my own code of honour.’

‘I am, and you did,’ Michaela said, sighing. The King had been more enthusiastic than she had expected about learning therapy techniques, but it was still difficult for him to understand the concept of mental illnesses that weren’t trauma without re-categorising someone entirely as slightly less than a person.

Well, she thought, Aix had a trauma in spades, and often said that it controlled more of his life than any other mental illness he had. But then again, Michaela thought, Aix truly did not notice how autistic he was, most of the time. He was so used to being the least autistic person he knew, that he had a skewed calibration of what ‘normal’ meant.

‘He is an oracle, Voivodul, and those are only chosen from very specific kinds of madness,’ René was already saying. ‘The thing that makes him able to call forth gods and speak to beings that have been trying for all of human history and failing is the same thing that makes him fragile. He is not of Christendom. The old gods make their people very differently than the new.’

And there was René, Michaela thought, his age making him able to step back and reinterpret what modern culture called only ‘mental illness’ and putting it back into its human context.

‘You cannot tease him or toy with him, Voivodul,’ Michaela added, figuring she’d just focus on the practical—it’s what she was good at, and what the Voivode was good at too. ‘He is the opposite of a warrior.’

‘What, pray, is the opposite of a warrior? I have heard it is many different things, from whore to coward—and your witch does not seem the coward.’

He is better than warriors. Killing and violence do not require bravery; being faced with certain death, and coming out of hiding naked, and offering love—that is brave. It is baffling, and it is gentle—and it is very, very brave.

René smiled fondly, hearing this fierce loyalty—Aix engendered such fierce loyalty, because he gave such fierce kindness, such fierce acceptance, so immediately and instantly. It was so extraordinary, and it was so heartbreaking that he did not yet understand or notice how extraordinary it was. And, too, it was not simply words—for Cthulhu knew little of Words. They were floating concepts, they were shared memories and impressions, and René wondered at them, in no little awe. He had always thought that the Voivode was the most powerful, the most graceful and practised psion—but Cthulhu put him to shame. René saw what Cthulhu meant—the enormous size Cthulhu had been when he had met Aix, the cavern in the mountain, the way Aix very matter-of-factly and cheerfully offered to help, the way he immediately saw this enormous creature, and was afraid, and reached out his hand anyway, because yes, Cthulhu was big and yes, he certainly could do harm—but he was, more importantly, alone and possibly hurting, and Aix couldn’t let that be just because he was frightened.

‘He is something that lacks unadulterated titles,’ René said, slowly and thoughtfully. ‘Monsieur Cthulhu has shown me a little of their first meeting. There was every reason to be afraid, and any warrior would have attacked a creature the size of a castle—indeed, many did. Aix knew what he was, what he might do; he knew the tales. But he still saw things a warrior would not, beyond that: that this creature was alone, and chained inside a cage, and that he might be in pain, that he might be afraid. That is the opposite of a warrior, Voivodul. An Innocent, you and I might call him—though he lacks the naïveté one expects an Innocent to require.’

He would be distressed to be compared to that deity. Cthulhu said, when René showed him the comparison to a deity Cthulhu knew Aix viewed with deep terror and rage. He would be very distressed. His gods are those whose people were murdered by the people of that one.

Has he never in his life met a single person worshipping that deity who was kind?

No. Why is that surprising? It is a religion that worships death over life, and preaches violent dominance over the world. Kindness does not come from that philosophy.

René was shaken by this, though he wondered why that should be. He had simply always gone about believing everyone had met some good Christians, because obviously, there were so many, they must have. He had thought himself very progressive on that—he had crewed a ship full of men of different religions, he still knew some of them as brother-vampires—Jasper, for example, had never wavered in his Sikhism ever, though he did not consider himself devout so much as habitual. And there were plenty of Jewish werewolves and even a few Jewish vampires. And then, of course, the fae were all their own ways, older ways than man. He had even known a few Muslims, though it had been a very long time ago, when he had been alive and sailing.

‘He’s a very humany human,’ Michaela said. ‘Because he’s not really human at all, not by nature. He was raised human, and so he’s more human than the rest of us ever could be, because he had to learn it on purpose.’

Thank you, Michaela Van Helsing. I think Aix would be pleased with that description.

‘Ah, Monsieur Cthulhu finds your description better than mine, Madame,’ René said, conceding it without rancor. ‘Apparently my witch is as allergic to Christianity as we are.’

‘For good reason,’ Michaela said, knowing exactly why—because she’d asked, surprised, and received a bitter answer. ‘For very good reason. Properly, he’s a Seiðmann, not a witch—“witch” is a Christian concept, in this world….’

Metasepia: Victoria, I need to ask a really serious question about Dmitri.

Metasepia: I’ve just been in a meeting with the big Д and he called Dmitri The Devil of the Cloisters.

Metasepia: And he said Dmitri ‘picked the wrong prey’ in regard to you taming him.

Metasepia: Victoria did he. Was he the one that made it so you need a chair??? I’m sorry I’m sorry I know that’s rude to ask I don’t know how to phrase things elegantly right now I’m scared and I’m upset. I ran out of the room because I didn’t want some ancient combat-happy vampire telling me, I wanted you to tell me. I’m hiding in my room rn. 😭😰

Aix wished Pippin were around, as he sat on the bed, the curtains drawn, the only light from his laptop’s ambered-out, dim screen. He hugged his black pegasus plushie and watched the screen, unable to even countenance distracting himself with talking to other people or searching for random objects and colours on shopping websites.

NineInchNeedles: First of all, I don’t at all mind you asking about this, considering the circumstances and your personal context. So please don’t worry about being rude, darling; you’re frightened and you’re in shock, and if your first instinct *even so* was to immediately walk away from the trigger to that and come ask *me*, you’re already doing *more* than the bare minimum.

Secondly, no, Dmitri is not why I use my chair. I was already using it as much as you currently do when he targeted me. That’s *why* I was a target—back then, he hunted like all predators do.

I was using a frame Uncle Furfur had made me at the time, and I was a fat goth woman, and I was alone. I wasn’t *lonely*, however, as he assumed; and I certainly wasn’t someone that wouldn’t be missed—again, as he assumed. Still, I was young enough to—perhaps foolishly—believe I could handle him, that he was my fated Darling. You’ve met Abi Gaspar, and Uncle Furfur—they’re quite threatening when you first meet them, or if you’re not in the context of our family. So, I knew he was a monster, but I had grown up with *nice* monsters, and I hadn’t ever met one that wanted to harm me.

If I had not been disabled, what he did to me would not have put me in the chair. I will spare you detail, but in brief: he forced me into standing for several hours. There’s a reason I so personally understand the nature of the stress injury you gained from a week of xmas retail, you see.

He didn’t *intend* for this, but after he had me restrained in the usual manner of his victims, I began to be… extremely Jewish, I suppose one could say, as I learned it from my Jewish side of the family… at him, and *argue* and *question* and even *heckle* everything he was doing and saying, and he is English enough to be unable to resist the urge to snark back.

It saved my life. He had never caught anyone that was not afraid of him, or I suppose that was afraid of him and their first instinct was to try and argue him out of it in such a reasoned and thorough manner. I asked him questions about vampires, about himself, about not his murders (it became clear immediately he was the Devil of the etc) but about *himself:* Who was he, what did he do when he wasn’t murdering, did he have any hobbies, that sort of thing. I knew the best chance was to simply treat him like a person, and hold him to the same standard, and show him *I* was a person.

It took long enough that by the time I talked him around several of my joints had subluxated, but one doesn’t pay attention when one’s life is dependent on not interrupting the conversation. By the end, he took me to Sleepy Hollow himself, and availed himself on the mercy of my family. I would not say he felt *guilt* or *regret* at having murdered anybody, but by then (so he tells me) I had captured his heart, and so he felt the traditional obligation to court me properly, and care for me. He was a little condescending at first, but Grand-mere and my mothers and I trained him out of *that* sharpish.

I won’t say he’s so submissive and attentive out of pity or guilt, because that’s not what it is. He simply didn’t realise he needed to submit to a dominant in order to feel fulfilled in his life. He made amends for harming me by paying for all my medical expenses and acting as nurse—and it is difficult to make clear he does not resent doing this, because we live in a world where people assume resenting one’s obligations or sense of honour is the default, as though doing anything that isn’t wholly selfish comes with a sense of resentment. It doesn’t have to, not even for monstrous people. Indeed, Dmitri was terribly unhappy being selfish, and has felt much better helping me and others than he ever has merely being a common-or-garden murderer.

He stopped going after vulnerable people, and started hunting challenges—I purposely appealed to his Victorian Great White Hunter, I’m not at all ashamed to say, when I proposed he change his ways—and I am no longer in pain from my injuries. My condition is simply the kind that gets worse as time goes on, just like yours, and after I turned thirty-five I decided that all the physical therapy was no longer really worth the time and effort, and switched to being in a chair full time.

I know my reputation with the Voivode is that I am a baffling and powerful “Jew Sorceress” that he respects but still views as somewhat Other, and that his way of understanding my power of oratory and argument is to see it as magic—which, to someone who learned to attack problems with a sword, it *is*. He is medieval, and Orthodox Catholic, and despite his words sounding quite harsh and even prejudiced to our ears, it is merely a language barrier.

Darling, I am only ten minutes away. Won’t you come see me, after reading this, so I can give you a hug? I can send Dmitri on an errand if you do not want to see him, but he says if you want to question him he will answer anything, and stay kneeling on the floor and bound in silver, if that would help you feel safer. We—or I—can also come to you.

I did not know you were having this meeting tonight, and I am upset not to have been invited, considering you and I approach problems similarly, and my name was likely to have been brought up by the Voivode.

Metasepia: Thank you for sharing all of this with me. I wish you were here too, and I think I probably made a terrible first impression. Could you come? I bet you’d be able to make them let you into the meeting, if its still going on when you get here that is.

Metasepia: Um, no. No I think not seeing him would make it worse, because I’d have time to build up this scary alternative without him there. It helps to know he isn’t responsible for disabling you, and that he?? Actually was a terrible person and *changed willingly*??? That means a lot.

Metasepia: It would also feel better to have another non-Christian in there. I don’t know what Michaela is, and she defends me okay bc she’s always Ready To Fite (ง°-°)ง, but I’m not really sure if she’s not-Xtian.

NineInchNeedles: She is, as she puts it, ‘Bluegrass Murder Ballad Christian’, which is not Christian enough to Turn any of the vampires (yes, you can do that). I would say she’s genuinely quite experienced interacting respectfully with all kinds of religions, not the least of which is because she’s my best friend. She *will* defend non-Christians against the immortals from Christendom. She knows how to use her privilege as a Hunter and as The Van Helsing. Find Jasper, if he’s about. The Sikh gentleman. He’s quite restful if you need a break from the Xtian goyim.

There was a knock on the door, and someone opened it just enough to speak, when Aix didn’t answer.

‘Forgive me for intruding,’ a polite voice said, ‘I am not over the threshold. I have your chair, I was concerned when you ran past without it.’

‘Ah.’ There was the slight squeak of the tanker chair at the desk, and Aix assumed he’d sat down; Aix always wanted people to sit down.

‘He probably thinks I’m so rude,’ Aix said, starting to feel panicky and helpless about it, like he always did when certain social situations seemed too hard for him and he made mistakes, or ran away.

‘If he became offended at mortals running away from him in fear, he would not be a vampire,’ Jasper said, and Aix could imagine his hoary beard curling with the smile in his voice.

‘Sometimes,’ Jasper chuckled. ‘Sometimes I did, truly. But now, ah, well, I only use that for throwing troublemakers out. But you are different. You are like Pippin, you wish only to make people smile and laugh. As does the Sawbones.’

‘No, just surprised he was a ‘bones, is all. I know pirates voted on captains, and that captain wasn’t much of a thing except in combat situations.’

‘A bit,’ Aix said, smiling a little, closing the laptop and thinking about getting off the bed, or opening the curtains. But he didn’t want to be seen, right now. If Jasper was willing to talk to him without needing to see him, that was nice. ‘Particularly the history of western medicine. I was very into plagues and plague doctors when I was thirteen or so. I collect medical antiques—well, I will, once I can like, afford to have that kind of hobby again. If ever,’ he added, somewhat bitterly, then immediately felt embarrassed and scared at expressing any modicum of pessimism. ‘Anyway,’ he said, forcing himself to sound cheerful. ‘Victoria’s on her way and she’s mad at not being invited to the meeting.’

Jasper laughed. ‘Oh, I wish I could be in the room when she joins the meeting. She is the only mortal brave enough to scold him. It is something to see Mrs Blackstone in a high dudgeon, she is so very polite and yet her tongue is very sharp.’

‘I will not participate, but to watch it unfold is more enjoyable than any theatre.’

‘Same, same. I love other people’s problems.’ Aix felt a little better, his thoughts more coherent, and said, ‘Um, Jasper? Could you go tell them Victoria’s coming?’

‘Yes,’ Aix said, solidifying his resolve. ‘Yes. I won’t come back without Victoria joining me.’ Setting that boundary felt good, because it felt like angry lashing out, but actually wasn’t. ‘Also, um, I’m okay. I just needed to have a moment to calm down, and I needed to talk to Victoria about her history, not someone else.’

Aix heard him leave, and heaved a big sigh, and then his phone rang. He looked at the caller, who had never called him before, but was in his contacts.

‘Oh, you’re awake! Mike said I shouldn’t surprise you with things, is that true?’

‘I don’t really like surprises, even if they’re nice. I can act surprised though, if you want.’

She laughed like a wildfire, ‘Well, promise you’ll act surprised when I bring you your new kitten, then. Mr Christopher Monday found him in Kansas and brought him to me. The vet I stopped in at told me he’s all right, probably eight weeks. Got him his first shots for you.’

‘A—a kitten?’ Aix said, voice going all high and soft and tears springing to his eyes. ‘You got me a kitten?’

‘Um, no, I can’t right now, I’m—I’m in a meeting. But tomorrow afternoon! Oh my god, Amber. A kitten. Oh my god. Thank you.’

‘Well, you said it’s not a home without a cat. I’ll let you get to your meeting.’

‘Thank you again, Amber, I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Aix said, and hung up, and then tossed his phone on the bed and bounced and flapped excitedly. ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’

He left the bed and stood to flap a bit more effectively, turning in a little circle. He wanted to jump up and down, but his feet were too fragile for any kind of jumping anymore, so he just bounced with his upper body instead. ‘Eeeeeeeeeee!!!’

‘Eeeeee!!’ echoed Pippin, from the corner by the bathroom. Aix turned, and smiled.

Aix decided to let it go, and sat down on the edge of the bed, carefully tossing the curtains clear of where he was sitting. ‘I just got some wonderful news, babyponkin. We’re going to have a little friend live with us. Do you know what a cat is?’

‘Ear!’ Pippin said, in a perfect imitation of a kitten trying to gain attention. She showed Aix the memory of the cat colony that had raised her and been her family, and Aix learned—to his delight—that Pippin considered herself part cat, because she had been raised by them. That explained all the cat-like behaviours and sounds.

Oh, she was very excited, her Flash was all lit up rainbow and her Mask was bright, colours moving around on her skin in surprisingly complex gradients and stripes. She did a little handspring and some tumbles, and Aix laughed.

Duckie’s friend Amber found a baby cat and he is going to be your little brother, okay? We’re going to see him tomorrow.

Pippin wanted to know—just to be sure—that the cat was a cat cat, and not a humanspeople cat. Aix giggled, and assured her that yes, this was a realio, trulio little baby kitten.

Two full moons. Aix replied, because the moon was the most universal clock he could think of, as he got up and went into the bathroom to get some water, and to splash his face. Pippin made a squee noise at this information, and Aix heard her running around in the bedroom, as he took off his cat-eye glasses and turned on the water to splash his face. After that, and a drink, he felt better, and came out, getting his laptop off the bed and putting it over on the desk, as Pippin flipped and did cartwheels all over the large space between the bed and the wall that had the door to the hallway in it. She seemed to know how to manage her own energy, which was really nice. That and her control over her Mask, and all the different colours in her Flash, made Aix wonder just how old she was.

He sat and watched her play for a while, and was a good audience when she started putting on a show, and then there was a knock at the door, and she stopped with a big clownish expression of surprise, mid-pantomime. Aix giggled, and got up to answer.

‘Who is that?’ he said, and she beeped at him, tail high and inquisitive, as she followed him to the door. Victoria and Dmitri were there when he opened it—he hadn’t realised that much time had passed.

Victoria was in violet, and beamed upon seeing Pippin. ‘Well, hello, darling!’ she said, exactly like an auntie.

‘Tata!!’ Pippin said excitedly, stamping her feet excitedly and reaching with grabby hands, but not jumping on Victoria until Victoria patted her lap, whereupon Pippin climbed very carefully up Victoria’s Very Sensible Wool Skirt, and got a hug.

‘Oooh, how’s my favourite smallest niece, hm? Can you say hello to Tonton?’

Pippin hesitated, sensing the tension between Dmitri and Aix. Duckie scare? Duckie scare of Tonton?

Maybe. Tonton is a dangerous man, and Duckie didn’t know quite how dangerous until a little while ago.

‘No,’ Aix said, firmly. ‘No, do not call Big Mommy.’ He picked her up, balancing her on his hip. ‘Sweetheart, I love you.’ He kissed her. ‘But no, I do not need Big Mommy. I’m not in danger. Now, Mommy and Tata have to go do Work, okay? Not for little joeys.’

Pippin made a big show of yawning, sticking out her little striped tongue and showing her little fangs. She fluffed up at Dmitri, but didn’t seem very committed to being threatening at him, her Mask all in shapes of confusion.

‘Tyohed,’ she announced, and got down, going over to Aix’s bed and disappearing into the black curtains. Aix looked back at Victoria, and Dmitri.

‘Not at all,’ Dmitri said amiably. ‘It’s been too long since I’ve spoken to the Great Dragon, himself.’

Victoria pushed the brakes down and pushed herself up onto her feet so she could hug Aix properly, squeezing him to her bosom (she was taller than him by quite a bit—she took after her mother October that way). He hugged back, glad to have so many friends that liked to hug and were bigger than him, now. After she sat back down, Aix got an idea, and while he couldn’t look at Dmitri, everyone knew by now that Aix just didn’t look at people unless he was challenging them, or inviting them into his mind.

‘Hug for Dmitri too?’ Aix asked, trying not to be embarrassed that his brain was trying frantically to come up with jokes and failing to do anything but baby-talk. He couldn’t be embarrassed, that would feed into Dmitri’s, and he was English, so it would reach singularity instantly. Still, one had to ask permission to touch someone.

Victoria wheeled further into the room and cleared the path between them, and Aix found out that Dmitri gave very good hugs. They weren’t the invigoratingly squeezy kind, like Aix had always gotten from his dad and always gave as his default; they were steady though, not too hesitant, just… anchoring. Secure. Dommy, Aix thought. René’s hugs were like this. Aix wondered if Dmitri was a switch, or was like Aix and submitted to some genders but dominated others.

As Dmitri held him (and it was nice to be aware that Aix was leaning on Dmitri, and Dmitri was just letting him, and could hold him up), Aix rested his head on Dmitri’s chest and breathed in the scent of him—the fine wool of the dark blue suit, the perfume he wore, which Aix couldn’t identify as more than just ‘soft, vaguely sweet, floral?’ and ‘high-quality’, and, under all of that, the chemical-sweet smell of his hair toner.[18] He, also, purposely went over Victoria’s words, purposely reflected on Dmitri’s history of cruelty.

But that was the thing, wasn’t it, Aix thought, it was a history. It was a past. And Aix had a history of cruelty too—he’d been very unstable, and very cruel, and also creepy, and these things haunted him, because… why? They were in the past, and he did not do them anymore, and the people they had affected would never see or hear from him again, nor he from them. And was it so different from the fact that he’d had to decide forgive his father so he could allow himself the same mistakes and missteps, however egregious? Wasn’t a lack of room for imperfection one of the things he hated most about certain people in his life, like his mother, or her family, or his ex-husband? If he treated Dmitri without that allowance for him to change, it would sabotage Aix’s ability to let himself be better than he who he had been.

Aix thought about his favourite definition of redemption. Namely, that a person doing the work of being better was doing the work rather than seeking recognition for it, and that doing the work was the important part. The idea, which was so alien to Aix and his gods, that no matter how far down the path of malice you went, that you could always, always turn around as long as you were still upright and walking. And that you should be allowed to turn around, at any point in that path. There was no sense of ‘point of no return’, and that idea had been new and potent and something Aix tried to think about a lot.

He’d only ever grown up with the Puritanical idea that there was no such thing as redemption, no matter what you did to repent; and that grace was conditional, and nothing could make up for even one mistake or loss of control.

‘Do you need to sit down, Aix?’ Dmitri said gently, after a time. Aix pulled back, looked up at him, into his very pale, clear blue eyes.

‘I need to tell you something,’ Aix said, ‘so please, don’t interrupt.’ He paused, knowing it would be halting and slow, even more than his usual long pauses while he put the next sentence together. ‘I know what it’s like to have a past full of actions that other people would judge extremely harshly, a past you can’t change, but have learned better from.

‘I know what it’s like to have people not allow you to be better than that, not allow you to change and learn, to continue to insist you have to be punished for what you were like, not what you are like.

‘I’m not going to do that to you. You’re who you are right now, and who you choose to be. The fact that you have to decide to make the kind decision, the fact that you have experience not doing that, means the decision to be kind has more weight, to me, because it’s an actual decision. A man with blood on his hands, who tries to wash it off… it means more, it means you know what dirty hands look like, and know when yours are, more than someone who has never had to notice.

Dmitri’s face was hard for Aix to read, even harder than normal because he was blond, but he put a hand up near Aix’s face, and when Aix didn’t pull away, he gently cupped Aix’s cheek, moving his hand to slide his fingers through Aix’s curls. He broke Aix’s gaze first, eyes flicking down to Aix’s mouth, to his hair, before he pulled Aix back into a hug.

‘I am not a poet, like you,’ he said, breath cool on Aix’s hair. ‘Words have never been my forte. So… thank you, Aix.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Aix said. ‘Okay, now I’m gonna sit down.’ Dmitri let him go, and Aix went over to his wheelchair. ‘I take it they know, or else the meeting is over?’

‘Oh, it’s not over,’ Victoria said, with steel in her smile, as she led the way down the hall. Dmitri followed beside Aix, the hallway more than wide enough.

‘His Majesty is relentlessly curious, and our Cthulhu is proving very much the same.’

‘Oh good I’m not the only person who calls him something like “Your Grace”.’

‘Your Grace?’ Dmitri played up his shock. ‘That’s for a Duke, Aix.’

‘It’s perfectly respectful for a King up until Henry Eight,’ Aix said airily, knowing very well Dmitri knew this already, and enjoying the comical banter, ‘and His Grace is from the 1400s, if I recall my history correctly.’

22. Getting Away with Murder

‘No. Absolutely not. You can’t have my surname. I don’t care what tradition is, Names Have Power and I don’t let myself be pinned down by them. I’m the Witch of Baltimore or whatever the hell else you decide my Call is, but you do not get to use any part of my legal human name. Period. End of discussion.’

‘The Treaty specifically exempts the fae and demons from having to write down or be known by names,’ René said, ‘as they are so private, in those cultures.’

‘And Aix, honey, you can stop dancing around the idea that you’re fae—Heather says you’re fae,’ Michaela said gently.

‘Darkwing,’ Aix said, suddenly, expecting laughter and finding none; he realised a beat later that none of these people were the right age or general category to get the allusion. ‘Call me Darkwing.’ He was surprised that nobody was calling him on the joke. Could he actually get away with this? How long until someone noticed? Surely not long, the duck comics were a huge thing in Europe… well, had been for the whole 20^th century… which most of the vampires probably weren’t from at all….

‘Aix is a genus of duck, I’m picking a name in the Nocturnal Community… Darkwing. It just rolls off the tongue.’ Oh my god, I’m getting away with this…!

After the Voivode hung up, Aix bit his lip to hide the slightly guilty but gleeful smile spreading over his face. ‘I. Cannot believe. I got away with my alias being Darkwing.’

‘It’s pretty,’ Michaela said, ‘but you’re grinning like a cat with the canary.’

‘Welp, I need to go to bed,’ Aix said, with a mischievous closing of any opportunity to question him, and then hesitated, realising that Going To Bed was now a somewhat complicated decision. He thought about it while everyone got out of the room, letting the wheelchairs go first—which was odd to Aix, who was used to just waiting for everyone else to get out of his way and go after them.

He and René hadn’t exactly fucked yet (though they had literally slept together), despite the date going very well, because sex negotiations had gone on for hours and had involved eventually showing René the smut Aix had written, which had absorbed them both in conversation for the rest of the night. Neither had minded, in fact it was sort of nice to mutually be content with talking about sex and discussing smut with the same depth and enthusiasm as some people discussed other literature, while sitting on a bed together like it was a sleepover, and just…

René really, truly took Aix seriously about ‘needing to get used to being allowed touch again’. So that was what they’d done, in between talking, during talking, while René had read the stories on Aix’s laptop—they’d just… sat close, touching, René casually having an arm around Aix, or Aix draped in his lap, or Aix playing with René’s hair… and they’d shed clothes as Aix was comfortable with it; but René was a professional and actually understood nudity being non-sexual, and even erections being something he could ignore, that did not need attention.

He’d understood how frightened Aix was of erect phalli, Aix wasn’t the first lover of his to have been raped before meeting René. He’d understood, and had reassured Aix, and had stayed gentle, even pushing Aix away from his cock; and that was really such an enormous thing for him to have done, for Aix, and it made Aix all the more attracted to him, for how safe he felt around René.

It had been a long, long time since Aix had felt safe around a man—of any kind, trans or cis.

Cthulhu gave Aix a different fondness entirely—there was nothing about him threatening, nothing that tripped any wires, and that was nice too; but he was inquisitive, and even as much as Aix liked answering questions…. well, after the meeting, Aix was not really up to being a stranger or explaining things, anymore. He tried to convey this to Cthulhu, without rancour, and express that he was very happy Cthulhu was here and no longer trapped, but that Aix needed to rest from explaining things, and that he wanted to sleep with René.

I do not sleep, as you know. I agree that your mind needs to rest. Perhaps playing with René will help, I know that is his profession? Cthulhu was unsure about what a profession was, since it had been explained it was often separate from someone’s favourite thing to do—commerce was a bit confusing to him, though he understood the basics of barter, the complex monster that was capitalism was still utterly incomprehensible.

I know, darlin’. Paying for sex is a complicated idea for me. Sex is complicated and full of all kinds of scars. But René understands that, and more importantly has experience with having lovers like that, and it’s helping it heal enough to be… less complicated.

I am glad, then. René mentioned a library, while you were away, and invited me to use it. Cthulhu made sure to share how excited he was about that, especially since there were those who would assist him with reading the books. Aix replied with the same fondness as before.

You’re so cute! I’m so happy for you. You go learn the things, baby. Learn all the things.

‘Aix, darling,’ pulled Aix out of their thoughts and conversation with Cthulhu, looking over at Victoria. ‘Dmitri and I are leaving, dear. I want to hug you before we’re off.’

‘Oh!’ Aix got to his feet. ‘Okay, yeah. Sorry, was thinking about logistics.’ He opened his arms, and hugged them both good-bye before they went down in the elevator to the train platform.

‘I’ve got to see Amber tomorrow afternoon, you can come if you want! Pippin has a new little brother because Amber found me a kitten!’

‘Oh!’ Victoria laughed her lovely syrupy laugh. It was like a smoother and more candy-flavoured version of Aix’s favourite teacher’s laugh from childhood. ‘How wonderful! I would adore meeting your new son.’

Aix loved Victoria all the more, for seamlessly accepting Aix’s propensity for calling cats ‘baby’ and ‘child’ and other such things. It did not at all matter to how he treated them, but people got very strange about it.

‘You can keep him here until we find you a place to live,’ René assured Aix. ‘I have already arranged for Cameron to take you to see Mr Gold, tomorrow. His office allows companion animals.’ He smiled a bit wryly. ‘And he is very fond of cats, of course.’

Aix took the moment to hug Michaela, who lifted him up (because he’d told her she could definitely do that when she hugged him, anytime), crushing him lovingly to her softness before putting him down again.

‘You did great,’ she said quietly into his ear, so no one else could hear, and Aix’s heart soared. After the elevator doors closed, and it was just René and Cthulhu and Aix, and Aix had settled back into his chair again, he returned to the thought of logistics.

‘But of course, chéri; and you, Monsieur Cthulhu? I am told you do not understand sleeping.’

Sleeping is fascinatingly alien, I have been studying it; but we do not have such a mechanism in our biology, no. Aix and I were discussing my staying in the library and studying with Jasper and any others willing to teach me. I think the library will be my usual place to go when everyone is asleep, as I began to do that when staying with the Averays, as well as the Blackstones.

‘Then I will be pleased to know you are enjoying our collective efforts over so many centuries, and bid you a good night,’ René said, with a polite bow. Cthulhu mimicked it—and he was a good mimic, Aix thought admiringly, which was good and right and very cephalopodian of him.

23. Boudoir Conversations

‘Well,’ René said, looking down at him and offering his hand, ‘shall we continue our conversation?’

Aix had no idea why his brain decided now was when it was going to dredge up that the phrase, said by a vampire, about the precursor to a homosexual relationship, was something from the Vampire Chronicles. He didn’t exactly laugh, but his face… did an expression, and René raised a brow, one side of his mouth tugging into a smile, and Aix realised as he walked away down the turn in the hallway that led to his room,

‘You said that on purpose,’ Aix said, grinning at him and finally giggling as he followed. ‘You—silly bastard.’ He felt a swell of something that felt good in his chest; he didn’t know what to call it, just labelled it ‘Bonding’ and focussed on trying to catch up while still laughing, failing, and stopping. ‘Come push me, Domine!’

And René was there, and leaning down to kiss Aix’s temple with a soft click and press of his lips, which were warm, and Aix knew he made them warm on purpose, just for that kiss.

Aix’s breath caught. René called Cameron ‘chou-chou’, and never Aix, and Aix had assumed it was because ‘chou-chou’ was Reserved For Submissives. ‘Did… you… you only call Cammie that,’ Aix said, his voice going all small and soft and pet-like, using Cameron’s nickname that Aix had only ever observed in use when he was on his knees at René’s feet. In reply, René’s long fingers buried into Aix’s hair, sensually carding through the curls, long nails gently trailing along Aix’s scalp and sending cascading tingles down his whole body.

‘Mm,’ René said, hearing the realisation, and pushed him gently into René’s bedroom. It was gratifying, that Aix noticed these things; René was very accustomed to the usual sort of person who did not bother, did not listen. Monoglots were very dull people, René found; all French sounded the same to them, they didn’t listen, which really sucked the fun out of using it for specific phrases. Aix, however, understood René’s purposeful choices, and—René hoped—the way he used French to also add additional layers of gender support. French was much more elegant and capable of that, than English and her mere pronouns. Every word in French had a gender variance, and that could be used for great kindness with transgender people, and René did so, as often as he could. However, being a whore (and he wore the title with pride), he also had gotten into the habit of delineating endearments that were only for certain people, who had certain roles in his life, who were granted certain intimacy. ‘I only call my boys that.’

René’s bedroom was private now, with a lock on the door and his new bed built into the corner, the cabinet made of carved mahogany lined in pest-repelling cedar, with patterns of roses and acanthus flourishes carved inside and out, the sides that closed the bed into a box having hidden hinges, able to be unlocked and opened up for making the bed.[19] Otherwise, however, they locked securely, and only René knew how to unlock them.

A separate door was set into the open side of the bed, for regular access. It locked too, but was only locked when René was asleep. This meant he could not have food next to him when he woke (a preference for most vampires) unless it slept with him; but it was worth the slight discomfort. And he knew Aix loved everything about his bed that was safe and locked; and René was an ideal sleeping partner for Aix, who did not like to be too hot, but wanted to be under a pile of blankets, and moved so much but paradoxically also woke up at the slightest movement from the bed.

Aix loved René’s room. It was a dark and decadent but French Rococo style all in dark red woods and deep violets and black velvet, that had been modified over the continuous years of use to be more kink in motif, with a well-oiled sex swing of black leather and brass hanging from its own medallion in the ceiling, which was deep blue and violet and muralled with the night sky and a very 18^th century painting of a nebula. Every inch of wall was covered in beautiful black plasterwork, or paintings of beautiful men (of all sizes!) in sensual pleasure in intricate frames, or artefacts and treasures. It was a dragon’s hoard that a museum would probably kill for, but it wasn’t dusty relics that didn’t work and weren’t functional—everything, no matter how old, was in use, from the carved and delicately painted escritoire in one corner, full of secret drawers and compartments, to the armoire by the bed that held all of René’s toybox—all of it—the doors having their panels painted with the most beautiful, properly sensual and attractive depictions of Eros and Pan that Aix had ever seen.

There was a pair of large false windows that stretched floor to ceiling, one on either side of the large fireplace, with heavy curtains of black velvet that shimmered when the light caught the scattering of actual diamonds and sapphires sewn on like stars; but the window-lights were dark, just now, in favour of the sconces that glowed with the same bioluminescence that lit the Averays’, and the BUR—except René’s lights were a peachy pink, not mushroom green. Aix wondered what it was, and whether he could get some for himself in that pink—it was the very same pink as the lightbulbs he’d grown up with, that weren’t made anymore. They weren’t obviously pink; indeed, the pink colour barely noticeable, simply giving off a sense that the light was ‘warm’ and ‘flattering’—unless you were sensitive to colour, or knew what you were looking at.

There were lots of places to sit—chaise lounges, a settee, a tête-à-tête… all of them upholstered in a deep blue-coloured version of the not-leather Aix had also seen in the train cars, their carved mahogany frames shining with gold tracing. The floor was sprung and made of hard-wearing wood, like all the floors down here, and covered in plush dark cut carpet (probably the most modern thing in the room). There were radiators all through the building, particularly underground; but this room had a fireplace with a beautiful brass screen mounted like a gate at the firebox opening, with a brass fender bench padded with black not-leather. There was no fire in it now—it was only June. The presence of brass where one expected iron kept sticking out to Aix as being conspicuously friendly to the fae; it felt passively hospitable, in the same way seamless integration of ramps or the presence of benches and railings did.

Aix had been quiet, just thinking on what René had said, the… not casual exactly, but the deliberate? No, the… well, it felt sudden on Aix’s end, but there was no way something like that wouldn’t feel sudden. Any change like that would have felt sudden to Aix, it wasn’t like he had the ability to notice any kind of ‘signs’ or ‘signals’ before something was announced.

Aix parked the chair by his favourite of the chaises, and moved to it, slipping off his pointy monkstrap shoes, battered from years of wear, and getting out of his skirt, which was a little too snug to be comfortable for long periods, but it was his only skirt.

God, he needed clothes. Shopping for clothes had been something he’d been avoiding or just unable to do for many years. It was particularly bad now because just after getting housed three years ago, he’d gone into quarantine and hadn’t needed clothes, particularly since he’d been living in a desert. He’d spent what money he had on things like appliances and bedding and small tools to make everyday life prettier and easier, and clothes had been low priority because why bother getting dressed when he wasn’t leaving the house at all?

Also, Aix thought, with some smugness, why would he go about wearing clothes when he looked so good naked? The top surgery scar was a little wonky, but it was clear as a shout: ‘I’m not cis. I’m not female. I don’t care about looking “normal”.’

He pulled off his slightly ragged oversized hoodie, the one that had the two villains he knew almost nothing about but that he and Velquin, his best friend, had written scads about, the screenprinting cracked all to hell, the cuffs of the sleeves stretched out. It was the perfect length for a sort of short dress, for not really touching his skin while he was wearing it, but it was worn out and the shop had stopped carrying them in this size, and that was frustrating because he’d gotten attached…. He tossed it in his wheelchair, along with the skirt, and tuned back into the present, all the contemplating of the beauty of René’s room, his need for clothing and the politics of sizing and bodies happening in the span of the few seconds it took to get in the room and undressed.

He’d been calling René ‘Domine’ off and on for a couple of days by now, ever since the date the night before, so it did make sense that René would feel it was perhaps going to be welcome, and Aix even appreciated that he took his time—the Dom should, because submissives were usually a little overenthusiastic to give respect, but a Dom that was over-eager was not really a dom at all. Doms were supposed to embody control and patience.

‘René,’ he asked, looking up. ‘I’d like to do something a little more than we have been, tonight. I don’t know what. And I don’t know how to take a small step toward sex without just jumping into the deep end—which I don’t want to do, yet—but. I’d like to do some submitting and obeying.’

René had only taken off his coat and tie, and was in shirtsleeves, the corset-style lacing up the back of his waistcoat visible, and highlighting his very nipped-in waist, his trousers cut to accentuate his very pretty hips. He sat down beside Aix, all attention, but not trapping Aix in his gaze.

Aix nodded, and René pulled him close slowly, wrapping him in a protective embrace.

‘I have not been able to stop thinking of filling you like a little hot water bottle,’ René said, not sure if that was the right way to approach the kink, but feeling better when Aix giggled and the scent of his arousal warmed the cool air.

‘Mmm, it is a bit cold, down here…’ Aix said, in a small voice René had heard slip through more than a few times. He’d never remarked on it, because Aix was so obviously not ready to allow himself to set down his learned diction, but René was fond of the way Aix spoke to Pippin, the particular and unique dialect of Small Speech. ‘And that might calm me down, if I were sufficiently um, sealed.’

René nuzzled him. ‘I will have to get the right equipment, then. But I can fill you with silicone, though perhaps that is too much for you, right now?’

‘No, no, plugs and passive fullness are very low key, very… safe,’ Aix said, nestling closer. ‘You get it.’

René raised his brows, leaning back to look down at Aix. ‘Cock-warming? Really?’

‘Well, um… last night, and this morning when I woke up, and… you… you didn’t. Do anything. You even pushed me away. It—it helped me feel safe, like you weren’t focussed on that. And like, your job makes me feel like you’re a lot safer to relax around, because you can’t have hang-ups that would harm other people if you’re a whore, so.’

‘Oh!’ Aix said, and laughed at his overthinking. ‘Oh, right. Why would you? Sorry, yes. Yes,’ he said, quieter, leaning his face in René’s shoulder, pleased when René started petting his hair.

‘When I was fourteen, the first time I had a cock in me, it was when I went to see my boyfriend and wake him up, and I sat on top of him and put his cock inside me and just… sank down. And everything was different.’ Aix said, and paused, giving that thought the space it needed. ‘We both just sat there, sort of stunned. I felt like a puzzle that had been completed. But I never wanted it to move. I just. Wanted to be full, like that. To have all the spaces filled up.’

This was mild, as ‘unusual’ went, but to have that first sexual experience be even slightly unusual, to have that one feeling that set the tone for everything that came after: To be a completed puzzle, to have all his spaces filled up…. It was refreshing to René, but Aix clearly had determined he was freakish, perhaps not unreasonably given what René knew of people’s attitudes about Aix’s main body of kinks; René wanted to coax him into being comfortable with it, with his creativity. Aix was a wildly creative sexual being, and René could not countenance how anyone would not find that utterly entrancing. It had, however, been a very long time since René had been human, and quite a few centuries of existing and experiencing tended to make one seek out the strange and unusual, those with tastes that might seem alarming or extreme—to the living.

Inflation was Aix’s chiefest of pleasures—and a kink René had never met, in person or otherwise. There was much of it in the archives of erotic art Cameron had shown him when Cameron had finally opened up to him, years ago; but merely looking at the art did not illustrate why people liked it, which was why René was so pleased to have finally run into someone that did, and could elucidate; still, Aix’s pornography—the kind that he wrote, for he didn’t collect any written by others, not really—was much, much different than anything René had encountered before. Aix had said, ‘that’s most people’s first comment, yeah’, with the resigned tone of someone who had given up on ever finding someone he didn’t have to first explain himself to.

However, René knew, he had then made himself stand out from that crowd, because he understood from personal experience—grokked, in the useful modern parlance—the fact that being overfull felt safe, more than anything else. It was about feeling safe from a demon that did not haunt as many as it once had, but had (and still did) haunt Aix:

Not merely the hunger of one who could afford to eat and was prevented by fear (Aix had a name for this one, shared with the former Hunter of Baltimore), not merely the hunger of one who did not know when they would have their next meal, not merely the hunger of a body that rejected the only food available, not merely the fear of eating from the act of it being painful—not merely any of these things, but all of them, all at once, all the time. To have a fantasy focussed not on eating itself, but on having eaten, became central to his daydreams… why should he fantasise about tastes and textures and swallowing, when he had never known pleasure from these things? Yet to dream about the safety of satiety, without having to suffer getting there, well….

René had known want. He had lived and grown up in a time when it was common for everyone to daydream of feasts alongside their dreams of fucking—the concept of feasting, dancing, music and sex was not called ‘making merry’ for no reason. René had, therefore, been making no secret of how he wanted to feed Aix until Aix was well enough to be bitten, satisfying both of their hungers. Aix had not objected to this, not at all. It was an undercurrent of fetishistic pleasure, in fact.

‘Mm, to be held warm and safe in Domine’s lap, in the closest of embraces, oui? To know he is paying attention to you, yet to not have to entertain him. Ah, but you could even be in my lap and sleeping, and you would still know you were on my mind, and satisfying me. And I would not have to leave your company, not even if I wished you to rest, or some other boring matter needed my attention.’ He chuckled. ‘I have made schedules and shopping lists with a boy on my lap, my cock inside his pretty ass.’ He stroked through Aix’s hair, and thought on how to mention the intriguing detail of Aix’s body. ‘But you have a special pocket just for me, don’t you?’ he said, carefully nonchalant.

‘I do,’ Aix said, tucking his bare feet up and under him, nestling closer and putting his arms around René, sinking down a little toward his lap. René took this as a good sign, and shifted on the chaise, settling his back against the corner made by the back of the chaise and its scrolling arm, and put one leg up, the other flung wide enough to make room for a boy, foot still on the floor. Aix waited for him to settle, and then draped along the length of the chaise and settled with his head on René’s belly. He was pleasingly heavy in a soft way, like Jasper; but Aix was alive and therefore warm enough to be soothing.

‘I never realised those things…’ Aix said thoughtfully, ‘but you’re right, there is an element of knowing I don’t have to perform and yet I know I’m being the sort of core kind of… um, well, of worth… full.’ He frowned, wrinkling his nose. ‘I know it’s entirely a bad thing that I only relax and think I’m not about to be attacked when I’m actively touching the other person’s genitals. I’m aware.’

‘And you learned this from some part of your life, and it was true and remains true in much of the world,’ René pointed out. ‘It is a naïf who merely says that is not a good thing. But we have both seen too much of the world to believe it is not true, chéri.’

‘Ah, there’s the French cynicism,’ Aix teased, and René laughed. ‘I was wondering where it was hiding.’

‘Oh, yes, that was very pretty, René. Much better than “bonus hole” or “slit”, definitely.’ He took off his glasses to nuzzle at René a bit, to show his appreciation. ‘Am I your first transboy?’ he asked.

‘Ah. I will not ask why you assume anyone has only ever met two, of course. I know. I have met a few, but never had any. They were never my sort of boy, before you. Always very butch, very rough. Not at all the sort of boy I take to bed.’

‘The sort of boy that says I’m being trans wrong, and I can’t expect to be taken seriously, blah blah blah, “I’m femmephobic and a misogynist, but you can’t call me on it because that makes me dysphoric, wehhh,”’ Aix said, dismissal and mockery hiding real anger and pain. ‘You know something funny? My ex—also trans—chose to be literally the most stereotypically pretentious asshole of a guy, it’s fucking hilarious. He chose that. He had to work real hard. He could have been any kind of guy he wanted, and he chose that kind of guy! Meanwhile, I saw Vincent Price, and Maestro Forte, and every fop-coded villain with a delicious voice in animation, and went, “him. I want to be like him. I want to be sexy and pretty and powerful. I want to be in charge of the story”.’

‘A much better aspiration of masculinity,’ René said, ‘though I am biased, being one of those sorts of men.’

‘Mm, is why I like you,’ Aix said, flirtatiously, and René gave what he always thought of as his theatrical laugh—it was low, and perfectly villainous, and crafted to be quite wickedly seductive.

‘Ooooh, Mr Charbonneau,’ Aix purred, shivery and pleased, as René’s hands stroked along his naked back.

‘Mm, yes, mon sorcier?’ René said, used to the meandering, june-bug nature of Aix’s conversational style. ‘Qu’est-ce que tu désires, chou-chou?’

Aix went quiet, thighs pressing together—René adored that he expressed arousal in such an old, traditional sort of way. ‘I… I want to obey you. Simple things, to build a rapport and trust. “Kneel”, “sit”, “open”, little things. Not… not really training? But not… not training.’

‘Kiss me, mon sorcier,’ René said, and Aix wrapped arms around his chest and squeezed, before shifting and carefully moving up to kiss him. They hadn’t kissed, before, and René was surprised at how slowly Aix went to it, soft and seemingly fascinated by the softness of René’s lips, savouring the act of kissing with a sort of all-consuming focus. He did not pull away, did not merely chain a series of single kisses together, but worshipped René’s mouth with his own, with no hesitance, and no guile, and nothing in his mind but the kiss, and the feeling of the kiss, and the taste of the kiss, and it was intoxicating, and René gladly lost himself in it for long, long moments.

Aix didn’t even break for air, because he breathed through the kiss, and they were there a long time, René resting his hands on Aix’s soft hips—

Aix cut his tongue on one of René’s fangs, and froze, slowly pulling his tongue back in his mouth, pulling away, sitting back on the sofa, and finally, once safely away from any chance of accidental collisions of limbs or faces, put his hands to his bleeding mouth, and reacted.

Contrary to causing further confusion, Aix looked at him, swallowed. ‘You can? Magically?’

René nodded, ‘Come here, please,’ he asked, and knew this was a test of faith in his control, trust that he valued Aix’s life. Every vampire was prepared, at some point or other, to see their lovers’ eyes fill with terror, to see their bodies tense in fear like spooked rabbits.

Every human, at some point, no matter how long they’d been with you, thought, but what if he does lose control? He could kill me. And it was heart-breaking every time; but you either became understanding of your power and the fear it could engender, or you became consumed by self-loathing. René had done his time in Self-Loathing, he had grown tired of it—as many of his friends in the coven of blood-drinking had.

Aix did hesitate, but did not look at him, and so it was better. He swallowed again—René could tell he was bleeding a lot—and said, ‘Okay, yeah, because if this doesn’t stop I’m gonna pass out.’

René didn’t say he wasn’t bleeding that much, because there were other things—horror, illness—that might be causing that risk of swooning. He sat up, and leaned forward. ‘I have to lick it.’

‘You are very astute, you know, it’s very frightening,’ René said with a fond smile, cupping Aix’s face gently. ‘Open.’

Aix did, instantly, and René said, ‘Good boy,’ before kissing him, open-mouthed and very, very gentle, retrieving some of the healing liquid from the gland beneath his tongue before dipping his tongue into Aix’s mouth and licking the cut. The bleeding stopped immediately, and Aix just started kissing him again, without pause, which gave René the opportunity to enjoy the small taste of his blood—well, if it had been enjoyable.

It was slightly ill, and so there had been no temptation. René liked well-fed boys, and despite Aix’s plush hips and arms, he was not well-fed, not yet; and perhaps there was something about it that may never make it palatable. But you couldn’t tell someone that, it was rude; even if René hoped it would stay true, because it would keep Aix safe from anthrophagic monsters like himself.[20] Of course, there was the selfish part of him that wanted to bite, to drink, to mark Aix as his; but René had learnt it was far, far worse to love someone delicious.

There was no way to know, and René could only pamper and feed his witch, make sure he felt safe, and see what happened.

Eventually, René pulled away from the kiss, ‘Good boy,’ he said, ‘I could get drunk on your kisses, chéri.’

‘I’m glad you kiss the same way,’ Aix said, ‘I like how I kiss, and nobody else seems to do it my way. They’re always so rushed, like they just want it to be over as soon as possible.’

‘The grand advantage to an immortal lover,’ René said, ‘but come, it is late, dawn is soon.’

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, suddenly feeling the tiredness, realising he’d stopped being able to focus because of it. But that wasn’t unusual—he focussed on one thing, and if people were around, people were that thing. ‘Can I… can I undress you? Please, Domine.’

‘If you can’t enjoy the sensual pleasure of your own clothes, your boyfriend’s are fine,’ Aix said with a giggle, pleased when René joined the laughter, starting by gently taking off one of René’s shoes, setting it neatly just under the chaise, and getting down on the floor to take off his other shoe. They were custom, they had to be, because Aix had never seen a shoe like this outside of a museum, and never in use. You could reproduce historical clothes with fabric and thread and things that were still available, and end up with something mostly exactly the same; but shoes were another matter, and shoes, unfortunately, were the historical item of fashion that Aix always wanted the most—probably because pretty shoes had never and would never come in his size—and he envied René’s shoes, envied everyone’s shoes. Especially now, when it wasn’t a matter of money—the stress injury to his feet had permanently disfigured one, and he held little hope of ever having the pretty shoes he’d dreamed about when he was young.

‘Where did you get these?’ Aix asked, he supposed because he was masochistic.

‘There is truth to the stories of the folk making wonderful shoes,’ René said, not knowing how to offer—last time he had even made overture, it had done harm. ‘There is a shoemaker in Venice. If you do not mind his kink—George does—he is the best in the world.’

‘I have that kink,’ Aix said, ‘but not the money,’ he said, sighing. He still wasn’t really sure about the money question, here. He couldn’t take money for being a witch, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be a landlord or anything gross like that, so he had no real idea how he was supposed to have an income. In NYC he had a lot of little gig offers, and living in NYC part-time would mean he could still do those, he supposed… he really loved the idea of teaching people to read, sharing with them his love of English and stories and reading. He wasn’t going to give that up, that was the most important job on the list Virginia had made for him.

Trolls liked shoes, Virginia had said when they’d been talking about it. ‘They’ll bitch about your shoes, it’s just a thing, they have a thing about it. I don’t know if it’s a fetish? I’ve never been able to figure that out. But it’s a Thing.’ At the time, Aix had just noted it and not thought to ask if trolls made shoes.

René shifted to sit up on the chaise, and put Aix between his legs. Aix was able to stand on his knees (usually a painful prospect, but the carpet was very soft, as was the floor beneath) and unbutton René’s waistcoat, stroking over the blue-on-blue pattern on the jacquard fabric, pleased at the soft tingling when René started to play with his hair again, caress his skin. It was nice to be around someone that had the same love of just enjoying the feel of things, running one’s hands over things that had nice textures. And René’s long nails on his scalp was just giving Aix a steady buzz of pleasure that didn’t stop.

‘Good boy,’ René murmured, knowing that the English was important, for this particular ritual phrase. ‘So gentle.’

Aix had a kink for clothes, for fabrics, for beauty of this kind. Did he know? Did he simply think all fops and dandies and fashionistas were so mesmerised by clothing, so loving and tender with every garment? What a lovely world that was, but it wasn’t the truth—it wasn’t about the clothes, for most, it was about the status, and the cost, and the fashion.

But René, like many pirates, liked fine things for the sensual pleasure of touching them, and came from a life that was not accustomed to fine things, and so appreciated fine things.

‘Ohhh,’ Aix sighed, as he opened the waistcoat. ‘it’s lined in silk, oh my god…’ He pushed it gently off René’s shoulders, and carefully touched the shining blue of the satin, and gasped dramatically. ‘Is this hand-woven,’ his voice dropped to a whisper like one handling a reliquary of a saint. ‘oh my god René is this hand-woven satin silk dyed with real indigo.’

It was René’s absolute pleasure to say, with a little bow of his head. ‘It is.’

And he swore Aix came on the spot. It was of course, difficult for René to tell, with a boy that didn’t ejaculate easily, and Aix was silent, not a moaner in any situation.

‘My shirt is hand-woven linen,’ René said, ‘dyed with indigo and I think walnut, to make it black.’

‘There’s blackwork on the placket René,’ Aix pressed his face into René’s chest with a whimper. ‘Oh my god. Oh my god I’m gonna plotz.’

‘Are you not already?’ René asked, hiding a smile in his eyes, ‘I should like to know what you call a plotz, if this is not it.’

Aix giggled, squeezing him in a grateful hug. As much as he liked to make people laugh, it meant a lot when someone tried to make him laugh. Mirroring was definitely a language he understood.

‘Aix, chéri, please let me buy you a wardrobe,’ René said, when Aix pulled away, René catching his face gently in his hands. ‘Please, seeing the pleasure it gives you is payment enough.’

Aix eyes filled with tears. ‘Even one piece of this outfit is thousands of dollars, René…’

‘And you are worth it, your pleasure is worth that, bijou,’ René said firmly. ‘Never doubt it. I would board the fiercest of the Trading Company’s ships to get you silk enough to wear every day, and ask nothing in return but to be allowed to see you like this, so happy.’

‘I like that grand larceny and murder are your first thought,’ Aix said, trying to waylay the tears, kind of glad René wasn’t letting him hide them or ignore them. He’d started to notice a bad habit had developed without him realising, the classic one of making jokes whenever he was having emotions or feeling vulnerable. He just didn’t know how to be sincere anymore; the world had kind of trained him that he’d be punished for it, that his sincerity was too much, was uncomfortable, because his life was full of experiences that made others uncomfortable to hear about.

René chuckled, but it was warm and low and came with a kiss. ‘Tesoro, if you were on my ship, my apprentice, we would all adore bringing you offerings of fine things, just to see you enjoy them.’ It was the first he’d shown off another language, but it was a word that just suited Aix right down to the ground. Most of René’s boys ended up with an endearment all their own, just for them.

‘Ah yes, the good Doctor.’ There was more than a soupçon of flirtation in Aix’s tone.

‘Mm,’ René said, knowing about Aix’s medical fetish—all of his early pieces of erotica showed not only a medical kink, but specifically a Victorian one. There was no interest in modern medicine, and that had intrigued René, though he hadn’t wanted to ask about it, yet.

‘How did you come by that profession?’ Aix asked, as he lovingly, carefully unbuttoned René’s shirt collar; it was attached, but René still preferred his shirts to not open down the front. It was needless waste, in his opinion (and his tailor agreed. Vociferously).

‘Ahh, so you were working class,’ Aix said, with that strange approval immortals had been confronted with in the past few decades. The French ones handled it better than most, though that depended much on what side they’d been on during the Revolution. Being that he’d been an indentured whore paying an impossible and growing debt to his Master by then, René had been on the side of the guillotine.

‘Poverty has never been as poor as it is now,’ Aix said, lingering on the black pearl buttons, which were carved like tiny roses, each one. ‘Go on, though—I admit, I’m surprised there was a connection between soap and medicine back then.’

‘Ah, things were not so bad as historians say,’ René said. ‘Everyone has known about washing being a good thing. Why would soap be such an industry otherwise? And you know well the Islamic ways. Many people in Grasse did lively business with Islamic traders—where else would we get such absolutes as only they can grow and extract?’

‘Mm, Jasmine, and sandalwood, and musk, and vanilla—but didn’t France colonise a bunch of places to get all that without having to trade with them?’

‘Oui, later; but it was never as good as the things coming through Lebanon, nor as close. And the Spaniards and pirates ruled the western Mediterranean, when I was growing up. That is how I became a pirate, in fact. I went to the docks and wanted to travel with the ship, and pick out the extracts myself, and see a little of the world.’

‘Ahh, and your ship got captured,’ Aix said, leaning back and getting off his knees, as René pulled the shirt over his head, baring his torso. He was scarred across his back from the lash of a cat, and his bloodless white torso was covered in dark curls over his chest, down his belly, over his arms and absolutely everywhere below his collarbones. He was the sort of man that current society demanded follow a truly draconic regimen of hair removal to be ‘acceptable’ to the mainstream, and the fact that he didn’t but for beardlessness was… Aix was hungry to touch, to feel the satin curls and maybe some of that body-pride, some of that insouciance, would rub off on him. Aix had always been made to feel shame about how hirsute he was, and all his hair had started appearing at the tender age of eight, which was doubly mortifying for someone who was supposed to have been a girl. Having René think he was pretty, and the profession René was in… it spoke loudly.

René was not unaware of this; women patrons often threw themselves at him; but he knew they imagined something very different, beneath his fine suits.[21] These days, René merely acted as master of ceremonies and gracious host—he only ever did strip-tease for the festival celebrating male beauty and sexuality, and only then for invite-only male audiences, which were always shocked that the pretty, femmy, foppish Frenchman who owned Nepenthé was a bear.

Well, with his slender frame, René had heard ‘otter’ used more often. He’d been changed at a lean and only slightly padded thirty, and vampires did not have the ability to consume fat, and so did not put it by. It was one of the reasons they grew, almost universally, to appreciate it so much in their mortal companions.[22] He admired Aix’s very Italian hips and softened limbs, as much as the naked, raw ache in the gaze Aix had turned on him now. René could almost see those pretty hands trembling with the need to touch him.

‘Chou-chou, you needn’t wait,’ he coaxed, and rather than launching himself in a frenzy, Aix leaned forward very slowly, starting to unbutton René’s trousers. ‘It’s all right, tesoro,’ René murmured in his gentlest tones, stroking that pretty face with the backs of his fingers. ‘Go as slowly as you like, chéri, you know how patient Domine is, non?’

Aix nodded, leaning into the caress and biting his lip. He couldn’t really appreciate the fabric, at this point, now that a cock had come into the equation. But he wasn’t going to look away this time, or ignore it. He had slept beside René all yesterday, and nothing bad had happened at all, he reminded himself. Nothing had happened, good or bad or anything. Nothing. They’d cuddled and there was sleeping and not even kisses or anything, René had listened and he was being careful and—and Aix didn’t want to be this scared.

René switched entirely to French, after a while, and kept gently petting his head, his face, his shoulders and neck. It helped, and so did the scent being soft and clean and (of course) complex, and the touch of the thick curls around his cock being satiny and obviously lovingly oiled and conditioned. Aix chose to keep going, chose to push himself, but even though he was impatient and hated being scared, he new he couldn’t push too much or too fast. He tried to think about the colours of things, the textures, the smells, the simple things like that, rather than any implications or social things.

René’s trousers were very modern in that they fit closely all the way around, not just in the front, and were pieced in the more modern way, that did not crease oddly. He didn’t wear underwear, and this close, Aix could see that his trousers were made asymmetrically, and he dressed to the left (Aix wondered if it had to do with handedness—he’d not seen René write yet, so he had no idea what hand he used). Like most Christians older than the 20^th century, René had a foreskin, and a very generous one; Aix’s Hellenic sensibility found this to make his cock even more… ‘polite’ was the only word that came to mind, though it wasn’t exactly the meaning Aix wanted. Less aggressive, perhaps. Covering the glans really did make a difference.

It was ‘sleeping’ now,[23] vampires could control that, and Aix leaned forward to kiss the velvety skin. A cock with a foreskin was something he’d never had access to, and René’s was very beautiful, particularly so bloodless. Red was a very aggressive colour, so a vampire’s instinctive conservation of their blood by not having it in extremities actually helped a lot, helped remind Aix this wasn’t a human, this was a monster that had very, very good crypsis.

‘Il est tres joli,’ Aix said, trying out his now-shaky French. It had been more than a decade since he’d been around anyone who spoke it, and those years had been spent shamed for being anything better than his ex husband, who was not nearly so worldly as he pretended, and nowhere near Aix in that regard. So, Aix had… forgotten it. He hoped ‘joli’ was the right adjective, it was one of the few he still remembered.

‘Ah,’ René said, pleased as always whenever he heard Aix speak French again, ‘Merci. Il vous-aime.’

‘Oh surely I’m not a vous, René,’ Aix said, quirking his brow and giving that lopsided, wry expression as he looked up at René’s face.

‘You are,’ René said. ‘You have remarked on how refreshing my formality is.’

‘My face is like an inch from your cock and you’re talking about formality?’

‘I have,’ René said, with faux-airiness, tossing his dark hair and splaying a hand on his chest, ‘a deep sense of professionalism, mon sorcier.’

Aix tried valiantly not to laugh, but was smiling. ‘…I’m glad he likes me,’ he said, softly, and gave the cock another kiss, before pressing his face into the curls over René’s mons and enjoying the satin wool of them, breathing a deep lungful of scent—Aix was very scent oriented, something which he and wolves bonded over—and sighing, letting René’s petting soothe the last of the tension away.

René was used to this from his boy-cats, but had not expected it from Aix. He had tried to not really expect anything from Aix, and yet he found himself still surprised by how old Aix’s behaviour was, compared to his era. René tended to cultivate his food, feeding from his boy-cats mostly, as they could tolerate more drain; but sometimes a mortal was a nice change of pace, and René liked to keep abreast of changing sexual tastes rather directly. After the seventies, only a very specific kind of mortal would be interested in him, and René was unpleasantly introduced to what it felt like to be seen as ugly, for the first time in his long existence. He was already familiar with being fetishised, but being fetishised for his body rather than his nationality and accent was a whole new layer of unpleasant. Still, bears were mostly excellent, it was simply that René didn’t often feel like bear for luncheon. Usually, he was happy to see them fawn over Jasper, and sit in his little corner booth draped over with Cameron, and Michel, and his other boys, and seem ‘taken’.

But Aix’s attention reminded him what he’d given up, and how nice it was to have the attention of a delicately pretty boy.

‘You use olive oil—that’s not part of the perfume, but with how soft your curls are there’s some kind of conditioning regimen happening, and when I say I am so into that.’ He inhaled the scent again, ‘…I think there’s vanilla?’

‘It’s very soft shapes, not typical for modern masculine scents, I think? I like that,’ he added, wanting to make sure René understood that part.

‘You are right about the softness of the notes; my favoured scent was masculine once; but you are right, it is not the bitter cacophony of fear and insecurity considered so strong and masculine these days.’

Aix laughed against his skin. ‘Trufax,’ he said, and tried to pick apart the scent some more, ‘Whatever else, there’s… the white version of it, I think. White musk? White um, I know there’s other stuff…’

René smiled. ‘ “White” merely means it is synthetic rather than natural; and no, I do not use synthetic notes.’ He wondered if Aix would object to René still using the parts of animals, but Aix only hummed and said,

‘Yes, one of my favourites; I wear it well. My father always said it meant I was destined for luxury.’

‘Non, unfortunately it sours on me, and one does not use ambergris and musk, merely one or the other; but I have access, if you would like to know what it smells like. The merrows make their fortune selling it to us.’

‘Non, chéri! You did very well, those are the only base notes, and the base notes are all that is left, at this time of night. Good boy,’ René said, and Aix made a tiny squeal in his throat, leaning back as René shifted, pushing down the waistband of his trousers so Aix could pull them off the rest of the way, revealing the shapely curves of his legs, which were shorn, trimmed short in a gradient on his upper thighs and tapering to bare—but there was a reason:

He was wearing stockings, and they were impossibly fine, black knitted silk, clocked and brilliantined with what Aix knew were real gems.

Aix carefully put his face against René’s calf, whimpering softly. ‘Daddy why are you so luxe.’

‘Because I am a decadent, hedonistic, libertine fop, chou-chou,’ René said, then added, with a touch more dominance. ‘And tomorrow, when you wake up, you are going to let Domine dress you in fine things.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Aix said, quietly and with effort—but it was not reluctance to obey, or resentment—René knew what those sounded like. It was self-loathing, so acute and so well-worn that Aix probably didn’t realise how deep and poisonous it was.

René was going to fix that, he thought, as he watched Aix roll down his stockings carefully, kissing the exposed and sensitive skin. René could never stand having any hair on his legs, particularly because he’d grown up with stockings, and he had always enjoyed how sensitive they were, shorn bare like this. It took work, and a lot of it, but the sensual pleasure of stockings on bare skin was worth it—particularly since he had gained access to gossamer silk, which was so much finer and more stretchy than silkworm silk. Fae really did have the best textiles.

Yesterday, they had slept with René fully clothed—he had pyjamas of comfortable silk, and did not mind changing into them for Aix’s sake; but it was a courtesy, rather than a preference. René, like Aix, preferred sleeping naked. René followed Aix to the bed, opening the door.

‘You go first,’ Aix said, ‘I get nervy when there’s someone silhouetted in a doorway and I’m in bed.’

Another awful detail suggested from that nightmarish past, but René knew this particular one very well; he kissed Aix’s cheek and went first, as requested, settling down and watched as Aix more carefully crawled inside and shut the self-latching door behind himself, leaving them in complete darkness—and quiet, as the walls and ceiling of the box were sound-proofed. It was not too big a bed, but comfortable enough for two people much larger than they, and Aix carefully crawled over René, wanting to have him between Aix and the door. He’d done this the day before, so René was prepared for it.

‘I love how quiet it is in here, I don’t need earplugs,’ Aix said, happy. It had been a little nerve-wracking to sleep without them the first time, but Aix had practised off and on with that, and even though he was still nervous about soft noises, there hadn’t been any down here—they were too far underground and René slept literally like the dead. Despite being a nervous sleeper, to the point of needing earplugs, Aix slept better and less fearfully without them.

‘Mm,’ René said, leaning over to kiss him gently. ‘I like having someone to sleep with.’

Ah yes, the fact that Aix was apparently the only person René had ever met that didn’t freak the fuck out at sleeping next to someone that wasn’t breathing. But that was ideal, to Aix—to have someone soft and human-shaped to sleep with, that didn’t do anything like move or snore or talk in their sleep. Vampires weren’t the stiff kind of corpsy, they were the limp kind. And René warmed up over the course of their sleep, helping Aix’s body not to overheat (which it tended to do when he slept, these days—very new, very frustrating). The mutualism pleased Aix very much, and he nestled down, trying to figure out how to fit against René comfortably, ending up on his side as the little spoon, René closely against him, one arm very carefully over Aix’s chest, under his arms.

René knew there was a chance of waking up differently—Aix moved a great deal, but always gently and never tangling in the blankets, lifting them up and moving beneath them even when half-asleep, before letting them settle back down. It was a very interesting talent, apparently one that ran in the family.

24. Dawn Chorus

Quite apart from usual, Aix woke up after a whole nine hours, and kissed René’s cheek, even though René couldn’t feel it, and left the box bed, making sure to shut the door until it clicked locked, and then went to shower.

The guest bathroom was charmingly 90s mod, but René’s bathroom was… well, it wasn’t Baroque, like his bedroom, only because Aix suspected Baroque was too hard to keep clean; no, instead it was breathtakingly, unsettlingly, Gothically Nouveau.

A mosaic of tiny glass tiles mimicking the whorls and eddies of water (or perhaps smoke) in high Nouveau style covered the floor and the raised, organically-curvy dais under one of the false skylights, the tiles covering the sunken curves of the keyhole tub, which Aix had only ever seen an example of in one drawing. René’s was blues and purples, a pattern evocative of a pond, with shining brass faucet in the shape of a flower, and wide, deep steps down into the tub curved just right for laying in, the edges of it demarcated with dichroic glass in concentric ripples that mimicked the patterns of foam on water. Aix wanted to use it, but had a bit of difficulty getting a bath started—it was just so much time, and waiting, it was hard to sustain the enthusiasm long enough to have the tub fill and then soak there? With nobody to talk to or anything? He’d managed a bath in a clawfoot tub once, and it had been amazing, but it was difficult to get himself to do it again because of how awful his ex had been about him daring to do something that made Aix feel good…. But Aix wanted a bath, and a bath with René was possible in a tub that big….

Or… or maybe Cthulhu liked the water? Maybe. Aix wasn’t sure about the etiquette there, but tagged it for later, since he was going out to look at houses today….

The shower was just as beautiful, tucked away in a corner, another false window lighting it, the tiles in here paler colours of lilac and roseate and soft aqua blue, like a dawn sky. The quarter-circle curved archway had a door that was glass etched with an image of a lissom boy merrow, and there was a bench in the shower. Fresh black towels monogrammed with a black R were hanging on rods integrated into the copper pipes of the radiator system, warm and ready.

It made showering much, much easier, and Aix found he was able to gently re-align his association of lavender scent because of René’s soap, which was not simply harsh artificial lavender but was fine-milled, the scent softened with vanilla and probably a touch of musk or something. René’s waist-length curls meant Aix could share his hair products, too (and since Aix had less hair, he didn’t feel very guilty about it).

Aix wore perfume instead of anything from the deodorant aisle, and since finding out René was from perfume country, Aix had been hesitant to wear his various ‘body spray’ style perfumes from the store at the mall. He knew they were artificial, and not of quality; the knowledge of fine things was only a curse when you couldn’t afford fine things, Aix thought with annoyed despair.

…tomorrow, when you wake up, you are going to let Domine dress you in fine things.…

Reasonably that also meant perfume, Aix thought, particularly if René was from Grasse. It would be nice to have a perfume that suited him, that he could just keep getting the same one. He’d found a good one but a cursory search on the website for the shop said it was no longer being offered, which was frustrating.

Was there a Nez in Baltimore? Aix wondered. The idea of going to an expert and talking to them about their expertise was one of Aix’s favourite things; he was autistic, and one of his joys was learning new things from someone who knew everything about them. It wasn’t the same out of books or impersonal tutorial videos; Aix needed to learn from a person who was enthusiastic and good at explaining things, the old way people learned things: from autistic people with a special interest, Aix thought with fierce satisfaction.

Or, he supposed, was it changelings and fae with special interests? The idea he’d run into at some point years ago, that ‘changeling’ was how people understood autism, had been one he adopted immediately—it was nice to think of himself as being another sort of species entirely from human, because humans often seemed so alien to him. But then Heather had said he just… was fae, was an actual changeling, and that yes, in fact, literally everyone with autism was a changeling of some kind, even if they weren’t exactly fae, they were something, it was very much a literal fact.

That was very cool, but also weird as hell to think about. He had parents somewhere, different parents, which was just like he’d always imagined, as a child in a broken home, in a family that rejected and did not understand him. He wasn’t at all eager to meet them, not in his rational mind, that knew he had so much trauma from parents of any kind that he now mistrusted them as a whole group (and anyway, what kind of parents just abandoned their kid like that? Not good ones).

Still, it was sort of weirdly comforting, knowing he’d been right about something like that. It sort of made the rejection easier to understand, on the basal level that didn’t respond to therapy.

Hey, Daddy
Won’t I look swell in sables?
Clothes with Paris labels—Daddy!
You oughta get the best for me!

Hey, Daddy!
I want a brand-new car,
Champagne, caviar—Daddy!
You oughta get the best for me!

Here’s ‘n amazing revelation:
With a bit of stimulation,
I’d be a great sensation,
I’d be your inspiration—Daddy!

I want a diamond ring,
Bracelets, everything—Daddy!
You oughta get the best for me…

René heard the singing when he emerged from the bed, Michel waiting to feed him. Michel—a very beautiful and wonderfully tall black man with dark brown skin, another werecat[24]—quirked a brow at René silently, smiling; René gave an answering smile and a very Gallic shrug, sitting down beside him on the chaise and settling into their favoured position, Michel sitting with his back against René, bending his neck and giving the beautiful, soft noise he always did when René bit him, his cock rousing even further, the human glans shifting to a feline’s smooth point covered in soft spines, Michel shivering as René gently stroked them, sweetening his blood with pleasure.

René hoped very much Aix would not interrupt; Michel was shy and spooked easily. The singing stopped, but the water didn’t, and after Michel had come, just as René was finishing closing the bite on Michel’s neck, the water stopped and Aix started singing again, his voice much lower and smoother now.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper, ‘I love you’
Bird singing in the sycamore tree,
Dream a little dream of me…

‘He is,’ René agreed, still running his hands over Michel the way Michel liked, after an orgasm. The years of a cabaret needing a regular singer were over, but René rather missed them, and… but no, Aix was not merely a pretty boy, he was their witch, he had an occupation already.

Say, “nighty-night” and kiss me,
Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me
While I’m alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me…

Aix had to pause singing because he was brushing his teeth, and there was a knock on the door just as he was rinsing his mouth. Hurriedly splashing the foam away, he said, ‘Come in!’ and dried his face.

Aix ducked his head and covered his bashful smile, which René thought was particularly endearing given that he was naked, his hair slightly damp.

‘It is afternoon. I will be as veiled as you, or take the car and stay inside.’

René chuckled. ‘Ah, chéri, do you know how long it has been since I have been permitted to leave this building without myself or my club being accosted by Ana or her police friends?’

René was—surprised, at the fact that he was so moved that his eyes pricked with tears, vision blurring. He hugged back.

‘I’m fuckin’ serious, dude! If they thought of her as a cop they’re gonna retaliate and I’m not having with that. Not in my steading! I can call Cthulhu’s people! I will go full Weirdmageddon on this!’ Aix’s anger was a little frenetic, because it was disguising real terror.

Ah yes, the modern terror of the police; and yet, for those now called queer, it was not so modern at all, but… what had Victoria called it? Generational trauma? René held Aix a little tighter.

‘Aix,’ he said, because he knew using the name would still his witch. ‘Aix, I have been a pirate against the East India Company, I have been a male whore with a brothel for longer than this country has been a country.’

‘They have a lot more weapons now,’ Aix said in a smaller voice, the anger washed away, uncovering the terror as he clung to René.

‘Oh, la, chou-chou,’ René said softly, holding him snug and safe, and feeling very old, suddenly, ‘but they always have a lot more weapons, or more spies, or cleverer disguises. But we are still here, chéri. We are here and they cannot be rid of us.’ He pulled back, cupping Aix’s face, kissing him, resting their foreheads together. ‘They are only the same men as they were through the past few centuries, petit. I would rather my witch were enemies with them, than friends of theirs.’ He pulled Aix close again, ‘You have freed me, and I will protect you.’

Aix held him, but it wasn’t so desperately panicked now, it was stronger, steadier, more grounded in the history René knew Aix knew already.

‘I can’t protect anyone from actual violence,’ Aix said, eventually. ‘I’m so scared, René. I don’t know what everyone expects me to do if there’s a real threat. I just got lucky, asking for help and—and Cthulhu and Michaela being here when the wolves were, yesterday—’

‘Mon sorcier, have you considered that perhaps that luck is your power? That the names you ask for help, that you think of exactly whom, that you can bring yourself to ask others for aid so easily, is the thing at which we marvel? It is not easy for everyone, doing that.’

‘It’s… not?’ But Aix knew it wasn’t, otherwise why would so many character tropes involve not doing it? Otherwise why would he have so many memories of being punished and abused for the crime of asking for help? Otherwise why would 2019 even have happened.

‘I… I guess I knew that, but I didn’t… register it,’ he said, as usual struggling with explaining exactly how he could know something and not apply it to himself until someone else connected the dots for him.

Aix had nothing to say to that, completely gobsmacked. It was so totally, completely, and entirely the opposite of everything he’d been told and how everyone had treated him his whole life. He was autistic, that meant he couldn’t do those things, right? that was kind of the whole point. Autistic people got ‘rejected by their peers immediately’ as kids, Aix didn’t have friendships like normal people, had drifted transient through his entire life until now. He still felt transient, and having been on the street had made him feel like ‘Homeless’ was a status he’d never shake free of.

‘I… what?’ he said, sitting down on the nearest piece of furniture, utterly flabbergasted. ‘You can’t… you can’t be serious.’

‘You cannot hold yourself to human standards, chou-chou,’ René said softly, sitting beside him. ‘You are among your people now, you are home.’

If Aix was a changeling, he needed to be told that, to know that the effort he made all his life, the things he’d learned he needed to do in order to be seen as Polite and even Respectful no longer applied. The ways he’d been told he was wrong were just him being Faerie, and so far, René had seen him have perfectly reasonable and very charismatic social skills—for Faerie: He didn’t look at faces, he didn’t introduce himself, he didn’t sit ‘unnervingly still’, he didn’t ‘talk with nothing to say’, he wasn’t ‘suspiciously obliging’; in short, he didn’t make any of the mistakes that René had made upon first encountering Faerie culture.

Given he’d only ever been in human culture, though, he also likely didn’t notice this, not yet.

‘Now,’ he said, knowing Aix did not like to linger on revelation, ‘stay there, petit, let us dress you… ah,’ he said, at the tapping on the door. ‘That is George, with coffee for you.’

Aix immediately got up, somehow George was in a category of People I Don’t Want To See Me Naked, and fled to the bathroom, knowing there was a robe in there, even though it was René’s and probably not big enough around. They were of a height, but René was smaller around the hips (not difficult—Aix didn’t feel big around the hips, but according to the measurements of most clothing, he was). It was soft terry, very plush, and deep blue, and Aix put it on, making sure it didn’t gape too much before going back out to see the pretty tea-cart with its carved wooden wheels and curvy rails, a tiered plate of pastries on the top, along with a porcelain coffee service for one. As Aix came closer, sitting back down on the settee George had stopped the cart next to, he noticed the sugars were little roses, some of them pink.

René laid out an outfit for Aix, expecting him to comment; but Aix didn’t comment, for a few moments, and René wondered why, looking over to see Aix busy calculating with his fingers… something.

Aix stared at the tea set and his hand, trying to figure—without scrap paper—how many cups of coffee he would need before hitting his limit of exactly six ounces, how much he could fit in the cup and have space for all the cream he used, and how many sugars he might need given that he didn’t usually even use white sugar but chocolate syrup.

He’d really gotten extremely fussy over the past three years, he realised with some despair and more than a little annoyance. The problem was that it wasn’t without cause—overdosing on caffeine was very easy and very unpleasant. Still, knowing that the coffee cups were exactly the right size, because it was an old and formal coffee-set, helped. George had stayed, and cleared his throat like a sheep on a far-off cliff.[25]

‘I can only have six ounces of drip-brew light roast coffee per diem,’ Aix said in reply, ‘but I add about four ounces of cream—I think, I never measure the cream. Usually I use my blender cup, and that’s sixteen ounces, but there’s five ice cubes and a jigger of chocolate syrup, and the six ounces of coffee, and then I just add cream and fill to the top.’

George shimmered off, and Aix, unburdened with the math he’d been doing, turned attention back to René.

‘Jasper would adore your coffee order,’ René said, with a smile. ‘But here, chéri, but these on first.’ He held out a bundle of black clothing, and Aix was just glad he’d either keyed into Aix only wearing black, or possibly remembered it,[26] or was just as goth as he looked all the time. Aix wasn’t going to have assumed the goth thing, because René was usually in very dark blue, which set off his eyes best.

Aix untied the robe, moving away from the coffee cart and discovering the bundle was an old-style linen shirt, a pair of those lovely stockings of the kind René had been wearing last night, and slops with an elastic waist and modern piecing. The fabric was very dense, and the thread making it very fine, indeed; it had to all be hand made, from the roving upward, and was soft as a dream. Aix put his face in it, smelling cedar and lavender from the wardrobe, and sighed at how soft it felt against his sensitive skin.

René, back at his closet (the wardrobe by the bed was for sex equipment) snuck a glance at Aix when he heard the little moan, and saw the boy practically rolling around in the linens like a pleased cat. He smiled, but knew Aix was a little skittish, and didn’t want to spook him, so he went back to looking through his wardrobe for his more oversized pieces. Aix was narrower in the shoulders but wider in the waist and hip than René, but not by very much. Something that could be worn open, then… there was the coat from Siramargian, a recommendation from a film composer René had met years ago—

‘Ah, you know of her?’ Every conversation was making René feel more and more the comfort of being in the room with another fop, again.

‘My first job I worked at a bookstore and saved my paycheque for months to buy that coat—mine was red—and she had to custom make it because I have a ribcage that is apparently too small to be believed. It wouldn’t fit me now and I left it with a friend in Brooklyn a decade ago but oh my god her stuff is so good. When it arrived I stripped naked and put it on and it was so wonderful I came.’ Aix paused, as though he hadn’t meant to say quite that much, but René was pleased to see him relax enough to babble enthusiastically about things.[27]

‘She’s a good tailor,’ Aix concluded, and got up, coming over to René. ‘That looks… ahhh yeah, you gave her real silk to use.’ It was a black and blue brocade, with the edge in a plain black chenille, and a blue satin silk lining; the buttons were also different from the ones Aix knew she used—these were of finer quality, pewter instead of brass, and had a heraldic sea-lion rampant with a tiny sapphire eye on each one. The detail was exquisite.

‘Yes, and finer brocade. She was very accommodating. It would fit you, this one.’ René leaned over to kiss Aix’s cheek. ‘Go on, chou-chou, put your linens on and then you can wear this.’

‘You… you probably don’t have a waistcoat that would fit me, do you?’ Aix said, trying not to hope.

‘Alas, no,’ René said, draping the heavy, ankle-length coat over one arm and stroking Aix’s face with his freed hand. ‘But soon, chou-chou. Soon.’

Aix put on the shirt, and just as he was about to ask René to help with the little buttons, the door opened.

‘I need help with the buttons,’ he said, even so—because he was well-aware George was listening, and smiling a bit at the small sound of that little throat-clearing noise, which really did sound quite ovine, but somehow dominant. Aix very much hoped George was a dom, and was starting to find himself rather attracted to him. René smiled at Aix, stepping away.

‘As you say, sir,’ George said, and Aix was trying very hard not to grin, though he wiggled, unable to help himself, biting the right side of his lower lip to stifle a smile—in vain. Still, as soon as George actually got to him, there was frisson, so much that Aix went a little wobbly at the knees.

Contrary to being rough, George was very gentle, manifesting a button-hook from somewhere and using it to fasten the tiny buttons of black pearl that fastened the shirt, each button carved in the shape of a tiny peony.

Aix sat down to very, very carefully put on the stockings after that, worried they were going to get ruined on him, because he wasn’t at all used to his feet not being a mess; but Michaela knew somebody in a small town in Tennessee that owned a salon,[28] and even though the last (and only) time Aix had gotten a pedicure it had been a bad experience, he’d braved it because Michaela had assured him, and it had been very nice and now Aix had pretty toes again, and the fancy gel (which he’d gotten in hot pink with the white French tip) actually helped set them into the right shape.

Thinking of toes, though… Aix still couldn’t find sandals that worked for him, that he liked. He was Californian and from the beach, he didn’t like having to wear shoes, and had spent most of his youth barefoot or in sandals (he had very fond memories of a pair of platform foam and jelly strap sandals from when he’d been about thirteen, and often wistfully looked at all the similar ones on offer from the only goth shoe label in America, none of which came big enough). If René knew a shoemaker, though… Aix was very excited about that. He’d save up for months for good custom shoes if he just had access to a shoemaker.

The problem with the modern world was that it was so difficult to find the old professions, anymore; and when you could find them, you had to be super fucking allistic to communicate with them at all, and have lots of money for travelling to wherever they were.

Aix traced the curves of his own feet, fascinated by how soft the skin was now, and as always loving the plasticky smoothness of the fake nails. He carefully rolled the stockings on, and immediately realised they were not going to go much past his knees, so he folded them down, then put the slops on. It was novel, to wear such a garment—it was pieced in a modern way, but the rise was higher than modern clothes, which meant it actually came to his real waist, comfortably. He didn’t like how it looked, but it was comfortable and it fit, which mattered a bit more. He could recalibrate his eyes.

He went over to the tea tray, pleased with the glass measuring beaker and delighting quietly at the jars of hot chocolate mix from his favourite spice shop. He measured everything carefully, using the glass swizzle to stir the powder into a little coffee, then pour the rest in, and the cream, and finally had a sip of coffee. It was lovely, and Aix felt better afterward, starting in on the pastries—some of which, he found out, were savoury.

Which was about when he realised he didn’t see his shoes where he’d put them last night. He finished his bite of pastry, and said, ‘George, did you move my shoes?’

And George was just there at his side, which Aix very much liked. ‘I took the liberty of polishing them last night, sir,’ he said in that soft, smooth baritone.

‘Thank you,’ Aix said, feeling embarrassed about the state of his shoes—he’d only ever polished them a couple times, and they were bashed all to hell despite Aix only wearing them inside—but he managed to keep himself from apologising, because one of the things he didn’t like doing was apologising for everything, since he found it so damn annoying when others did that. Apologies should mean something.

‘Just… highly aware I’m extremely poor and in a place that extremely isn’t, is all,’ Aix said, and tried to joke, ‘I can’t afford to breathe the air, here, you know?’

‘I do,’ René said, and canted his head. ‘But we are pirates, are we not? We steal whatever rich things we desire.’

‘That… makes me feel better, thank you,’ Aix said, sipping his coffee. ‘I forget. Because of all the…’ he waved a hand. ‘Online stuff.’ By now, he’d told almost everyone new in his life that for almost the entire past decade he’d only had access to online spaces for socialising, which had, he had to admit now that he had real-life examples, skewed his perspective, and affected him deeper than he wanted to admit.

‘I just—it’s my favourite profession, I think. Because it’s so hard for me, and yet it’s sort of…’ Aix trailed off, trying to figure out how to put it. His favourite song about it was from a little-known musical, and the lyric was ‘you sell it your way, let me sell it mine’, addressed to the upper class women who fancied they weren’t whores, when it was simply unsaid that all women were exchanging sex for livelihood, whether it was directly for cash or bartering in a marriage—at least, that was the world Aix had grown up in.

‘The only profession, for those born with your body shape?’ René suggested.

‘Yeah, exactly! But like… even blue-collar work is selling your body, isn’t it? I destroyed my feet working retail, and—and for what? Nine dollars an hour?!’ Aix was still massively horrified about this, about the permanent damage that had done, and how nobody he’d gone to for help had even thought to mention this—or indeed, to help him.

Ah, René thought, there it was. The answer to the question. He held Aix, wondering if it would go amiss to ask if there was nothing to be done, truly, or if it was simply that Aix could not afford it by himself. But René had to be careful with gifts; he would wait, then, for Aix to settle, before giving more gifts. He kissed Aix’s temple. ‘Shall I let you linger, to lance your wound, or shall I offer you a new subject, chou-chou?’ he asked softly. Aix nuzzled into him, wrapping arms around him.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how to deal with this, that’s why it keeps being something I want to tell people, you know? I just—I don’t know what to do, I don’t know and I just keep wanting to grab people and tell them because nobody—nobody told me! I didn’t know! I just got told the pain would go away that I was just—just getting used to working again! When my arches were literally being destroyed and—and I can’t fix it!’

‘Oh, la, chou-chou, I do not have perfume that would suit you; but,’ René said, taking Aix’s hands, ‘we can go and see Le Nez and make you an appointment.’

Aix squeezed his hands, which were nice and cool, and took a moment to admire his hands again; René hadn’t yet put his rings on for the day, nor his makeup, and his nails were long, and thicker than normal, and filed to a pretty almond, though Aix recalled René having told him that one of the few things correct in published stories of vampires was the ‘glass-like nails’—technically it was because they were claws, and could extend like a cat’s, though not with the same mechanism.

They were beautiful, Aix thought, and all the more for the tiny rhinestones glued to René’s. ‘I would like that,’ Aix said, and looked up into René’s pretty eyes. ‘Can I watch you put on makeup?’

‘You do!’ Aix rushed to reassure him, ‘You do, it’s not—it’s not obvious, I just notice because I really like makeup. It’s my favourite magic.’

‘Oh yes! And just as forbidden as magic, too. Wanting to be pretty is a sin, you know,’ Aix said, with the satirical cheerfulness and flashy but brittle smile he used for mocking things he’d been taught.

‘Ah,’ René said, somewhat ruefully, ‘so, your maternal family’s Puritanism did not dilute, over the centuries.’

George returned, and from the little squeaky steps with him, so had someone else.

‘Pippin!’ Aix said, turning and holding out his arms. She gave a happy beep and jumped into his lap with surprising gentleness (well, if you were used to cats and their disregard for their own weight). ‘How’s my girl, how’s my little beany-bean? Are those squeaker shoes?’

‘Ye!’ Pippin wiggled her feet, which were clad in tiny blue baby shoes that had little fox faces on the front, and from the sound with every step, squeakers in the heels. René smiled, seeing them snuggle.

‘I am glad we have found her such a boon companion, though the boys shall miss her awfully.’ He knew he hadn’t given his blessing overtly yet, and that Aix needed to be told with clear distinction. Pippin purred as he reached a hand out to her and she butted up against his palm, nuzzling and wordlessly asking for skritches, which he gave gladly.

‘Not at all,’ René said. ‘I wish nothing but happiness for Pierrette, even if I cannot give it.’

Pippin jumped off Aix’s lap and went over to where George had set Aix’s shoes down (by the coat on the valet-as-in-furniture), picking one up—it was more than half the length she was tall—and carrying it over to Aix.

‘Aw, thank you, bibi,’ Aix cooed, noticing the shoe had been re-buckled and bending down to unbuckle it—it was messy, but his right foot had a bone callous on the tarsometatarsal, now, and it made shoes difficult. It also made not feeling visceral body horror difficult, because he couldn’t get rid of it himself and all he thought about when he looked at it or thought about it was cutting his foot open and grinding at it with a Dremel and that was not a happy thought, especially considering how sensitive feet were and how utterly sadistic and unhelpful all the podiatrists he’d gone to had been. He’d given up, though Victoria’s mention of a vampire surgeon in Brooklyn had re-lit that spark of hope.

Pippin got his other shoe, and squeak-squeak-squeaked back over to him, setting it down and throwing her hands up, tail high and flagging cheerfully.

Today, Pippin was wearing little dark blue gingham overalls with gathered ankles and a little blue t-shirt beneath—that covered her to the elbow, clowns were very fussy about that. They didn’t show their thighs or upper arms, not unless they were actively displaying for mates (or bathing). Aix had seen Pippin in the shower, she was definitely just small but fully grown; but clowns didn’t have a discernible yearly season, they just seemed to go into it like humans, whenever they decided conditions were right or the right person came along that they wanted. The short sleeves showed off her little wrist ruffs, which had tiny feathers but weren’t all down like the rest of her. She reached in the little front pocket of her overalls (Aix admired this; whoever had made that had made it for clowns, they preferred tummy pockets to hip pockets) and rummaged theatrically for a bit, her little tongue poking out, before pulling out in triumph a tape measure.

‘Un mètre ruban!’ René said, with theatrical surprise, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’on fait avec un mètre ruban ce soir, Pierrette?’

Pippin walked over and put the tape against the leg of the sofa they were sitting on. ‘Hmmmm,’ she said, with her Mask all in thoughtful frown. She went over and measured the tea-cart wheel. ‘Hmmmm.’

Aix was treated to the idea—difficult to convey in mime or words—of looking for a house that would fit Duckie and Pippin and Little Brothercat and Eight Foot Joe, this last of which surprised Aix into a shriek of laughter because that was apparently the nickname she’d given Cthulhu.

‘Sorry,’ Aix said, aware that—when surprised into that sort of shriek—it was startlingly loud and sudden. ‘She—we’re going to look at houses. Also she—she gave Cthulhu a proper clown name.’

‘Do not apologise for laughing merrily, chou-chou,’ René said, touching Aix’s arm gently in emphasis. ‘Come, I shall paint my face and then yours, yes?’

Even wearing a veil, it was nice to know he was pretty beneath, because he was lifting the veil a lot more these days, hanging about with people who couldn’t catch or carry diseases of any kind. And, anyway, grooming was one of the ways he felt loved by others, and one of the ways he showed his regard to others.

‘Ear!’ Pippin mewed, and Aix picked her up immediately, which she quite liked. She hugged Aix around the neck and kissed his cheek.

‘We’re going to put our faces on,’ Aix told her, following René over to the vanity, and feeling well cared-for when René pulled over a comfortable chair near the little pouf in front of the vanity table—this latter of which he himself sat upon, and put on a headband of black towelling, and began.

He’d been in a subway car in New York, one of the newest ones, that was empty in the middle and only had long, blue hard plastic benches along the sides, with poles in the middle. He always sat wedged at the end, against the guardrails by the door, because he liked to sit in corners, it helped with keeping your balance.

A lady had gotten on, bare-faced, and as the train started to pull away, making a long haul sort of go between stops, the lady pulled out a makeup pencil, and had begun to utterly transform her face. All the colours were almost invisible on her skin, but as she blended them in—quick, well-practised, passionless with skill—she transformed, and it was all the more magical for how Aix understood her to be doing it. That was concealer, that was a colour correction, that was doing this manipulation of light and shade and tone…

When the train had stopped, she was a different woman, and had simply gotten up and walked away to live the rest of her life that way, utterly uncaring, all unknowing of the awed child inside of Aix, gawping with the wonder of one who had witnessed a great working of magical power.

Aix thought about that woman a lot, about her magic, so casual and mundane to her, yet so sublime to Aix. Aix, who had been told that wanting to look prettier was to be frowned upon; Aix, who had been raised with the message that as a girl he was allowed to do anything he wanted as long as it was being a boy (but not a real boy, what on earth was he on about with this ‘I’m trans’ stuff, I don’t understand, you’re so girly); Aix, who had then had been sharply told, at the tender age of twelve or so, that all he was good for was sex, and that he had sinned by becoming beautiful. Well, not all of this in so many words, not in any words at all—those descended from the Puritanical English were not people who spoke about anything. But children, even changelings, will listen—even if they have been denied the words to articulate the lesson, they still learn it.

Aix watched René do the same thing as the woman on the subway all those years ago, turning up the vanity lights—they were warm, marvellously incandescently warm, and Surprise Pink, the perfect colour for putting on makeup—and starting to open the little drawers, taking out his jars and bottles and pencil-crayons. Being bloodless, René needed different illusions of colour and cream to give that undefinable brightness to his skin; but then, Aix saw lilac-coloured powder, and realised quickly this was not going to be an illusion of life, but something more artistic.

The cadaveric nature of vampiric skin only needed to be hidden before the 1980s, after all.

‘So,’ Aix said, watching René set everything out (could you call it mise en place when it wasn’t food?), ‘You are a goth.’

‘But of course,’ René said softly, as he lifted the lid-applicator of an old brass kohl container and started lining his eyes—the old way, by putting the tip in the corner, closing his eye, and drawing it carefully toward the outside corner. ‘You were in doubt?’

René hummed, picking up a slant-tipped pair of tweezers and sharpening them briefly before pulling the small mirror close. ‘Very fae of you,’ he said. ‘George.’

‘In the library, sir; he has been quite absorbed in linguistics. His speciality of study, I’m told.’

‘Ah, yeah,’ Aix said, looking away from René—he couldn’t watch plucking or anything that looked like it hurt—to look up at George. ‘He’s a grad student of linguistics. Oh, do you want George to hold you?’ he asked Pippin, who was reaching up for him now that he was closer and making little impatient noises in her throat.

‘I believe you taught her that, sir.’ George said, submitting to Pippin’s request and picking her up under her arms, holding her close to his chest in a way that made him that much more attractive to Aix; Pippin immediately wrapped her legs and tail around George and purred as he skritched her ruff, Pippin making it sparkle blue and yellow and pink in happiness.

‘She says you’re her favourite,’ Aix told him, smiling. Pippin shared with him how happy she was to finally be able to tell George that, hugging his neck and purring as she rubbed her face in her feline (and definitely not clown-like) way against him.

‘That is most gratifying,’ George said, but the passionless façade cracked a little as he touched noses with Pippin’s little red one, and Aix could see a blush—blonds blushed just as obviously as redheads. Pippin beeped, of course, because that’s just what you did when you touched noses.

Aix glanced back at René, saw he’d finished with the tweezers, and was brushing on contour in a way that Aix envied—wearing glasses meant he had to get very close to the mirror to do his makeup, and that made it a little difficult to do the larger sweeping shapes that contouring required.

‘Glasses,’ Aix said. ‘It means I can’t really get farther than a couple inches from the mirror.’

‘Ah, well, I am here,’ René said, continuing. ‘Would you like to shave before we begin with your face?’

Aix thought on that, while battling the instinctive shame at acknowledging he had any facial hair—even the men in his family were shamed for having it, and he’d been raised thinking any kind of facial hair was a sign of slovenliness.

Why Duckie sad? Duckie need help? George help!! He a Helper. Pippin looked up at George and beeped.

‘Hep Duckie pae, George,’ she said, because apparently she could read Aix well enough to know he needed help but also needed help asking for help, and oh dear, Aix thought, putting fisted hands against his cheeks so the backs of his fingers could cool his cheeks (he was fairly sure he didn’t blush, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the emotion) and hide his face, at least a little.

‘That would be nice,’ he forced out, because there was nothing fucking wrong with this, there wasn’t.

Stupid trauma. Shut up, Kyle! Aix thought angrily, using the name he’d always called the nasty, mean part of his inner monologue.

‘I shall have to put you down, madam,’ George told Pippin gravely. ‘Do you think you can bear it?’

‘Very good, madam,’ he said, setting her down on the floor gently. Aix giggled as he realised…

It took the giggle from the vanity, the giggle that turned into René stifling his laughter, for Aix to realise he’d made a pun.

As both of them were not looking at him, George allowed himself a very slight smile that didn’t reach his mouth—Pippin saw, however, because he allowed her to see such things, and it was likely one of the reasons she liked him so much. She understood the art of being the Straight Man, of letting others make all the punchlines. George had been a clown, in his youth—of the professional variety, not the animal variety—and he understood them. Pippin was much, much older than she looked, and while he hadn’t known her, he’d heard of Smallest Pierrette from clowns he had worked with in his life as a human, and it was no doubt this was she.

‘I shall fetch the razor,’ he said, with a bow, and Pippin followed him as he left the room.

25. Edges

George had returned with his full barbery kit, and was now standing behind Aix, having offered to cut the damaged bleached parts of Aix’s hair off, and Aix deciding why not, it was about time, and launching into a story about the only time he’d gotten a haircut he liked, when he’d just come out as a boy, at 19, and had brought a photo of Ronald Colman in A Tale of Two Cities to the hairdresser (who had been delighted to be handed a black and white photo from the Golden Age of Hollywood). When he finished, though, he went a little quiet, and started humming to himself.

René was sitting close beside Aix, and realised he recognised the tune Aix was humming.

‘I’m nervous about the straight razor,’ Aix said. ‘It’s just stuck in my head now—sorry, George.’

‘I have a very steady hand, sir,’ George said in that low murmur, the silvery, shivery sound of the scissors accompanying, the soft pull of the comb.

Aix loved having his hair cut, but he’d not often been able to find anyone who knew how to cut curls without yanking or ironing them straight, so he’d gone without haircuts for most of his adult life. It didn’t help that salons and barbershops were extremely gendered spaces, and Aix avoided those.

‘Mm, but George, you are from a time when people were used to straight razors being wielded other people on a daily basis. I’m not.’ Aix winced internally at how that probably sounded argumentative when really he was scared—but you couldn’t just say you were scared to people, Aix had learned that; they didn’t listen, in fact they usually got offended and scarier if you did.

‘That is understandable, sir, might I offer the comfort that I am also well-versed in how knives and other implements may be used in the boudoir, and the necessary precautions of checking your consent with every stroke?’

‘Oh that—that does help, yes. Making it—making it kink helps. Are you… okay with that?’

‘I’m—aware,’ Aix said, his pulse quickening, now that kink had been brought up; but he didn’t know, he never knew, how to address it, so he just said, ‘I used to be in service.’

‘Most in service these days are not aware,’ George said, and Aix noticed the dropped honorific immediately. Nothing else had changed, but nothing else needed to.

‘Most in service didn’t grow up on stories involving Downstairs, sir,’ Aix said, picking the honorific up.

Pippin, who had been happily sitting in René’s lap until now, suddenly perked up, her Flash brightening and turning violet, which was a colour she hadn’t done before. She got down and walked out of the bathroom, carefully picking around the locks of bleached hair on the floor.

‘Where you goin’, baby bean?’ Aix cooed, even though he couldn’t turn to watch her.

She beeped in affirmation, which was a little distant now that she was in the next room.

‘Cthulhu’s on his way from the library,’ Aix told René, who got up, tracing Pippin’s path out of the room—and quietly shutting the door behind himself.

George let the scissors be the only sound for some time, quietly not simply trimming away the damaged hair, but also shaping just slightly, so that it would look flattering while growing out—he had no doubt Aix would grow it out, witches and pretty boys ought to have long hair, and Aix was both.[29] It was a great insult that everyone had such short hair these days, given that fleas and lice were so very rare, and easy to keep away.

Well, soon, George would be able to touch that long and beautiful neck… and to have the Hunter submit to him was more than George could ever have dreamed, let alone submit to him while he had a razor in hand….[30] And, perhaps, perhaps he would be granted dominion over these curls, as he had them over so many others.

He set the scissors down on the sink counter, which was made of one solid piece of carefully-polished labradorite. The scissors gleamed, but Aix did not see them, he was not facing the counter, having asked to face away from any mirrors.

That was part of the reason that it was a relief to have his glasses off. It also made the fear less, made the world quieter—because his brain was quite happy to start ignoring most of the input from the eyes in favour of being able to devote more bandwidth to everything else, all of which worked much better than the eyes ever had.

When he heard the scissors get set down—distinctive noise, scissors, nothing else sounded like them—Aix swallowed, nervous as he never was with René, or Dmitri, or Victoria. None of them were his peers in quite the same way. George… was. But he was more properly educated, more practised, more skilled.

‘Tilt your head back, pet,’ George murmured, and Aix closed his eyes, doing so, knowing he was tense, and scared, and… he wasn’t sure he could do this.

George’s hands were just warm enough, as they carefully pulled Aix’s curls back from his face.

‘Good boy.’ George watched the tension relax a little, but not as much as he’d thought it might. Ah, but this was a divorcé, so that phrase was not untainted…. Gently, he moved his hands to Aix’s throat, just stroking it, tracing the curves gently with his fingers. ‘It’s all right, pet, you’re safe with me.’

‘I think we should keep going with “pet”, and not “boy”,’ Aix said softly. ‘Please, sir,’ he added, but not nervously.

Aix appreciated the reminder to check his politeness at the proverbial door. He thought for a few moments, decided that he was as ready as he could be. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good, sir,’ Aix said, and gave it some thought. ‘ “Boy” is still being decontaminated. “Sweetie” is right out, though you don’t seem the type.’

‘It is a very American endearment,’ George commented, as he clipped the strop to the hidden ring beneath the edge of the sink counter, fastidiously set the roll that contained the razors out on the counter above it and unfastened it, unfurled it, and turned on the hot water. There were towel-warmers, but George did not much like them; running water was quite enough technology for him, and the hot water here was both nigh-instant and nearly boiling, because vampires liked warmth and had no need to fear burning. Thankfully, Pippin seemed to not have any interest in faucets.

He closed his eyes and slowly breathed in, concentrating on Aix’s scent, and thinking on the soaps in their carefully-separated compartments in his barbery case. Which would go best with Aix’s scent? It was a unique scent, not quite female and not quite male either, something in between—which was challenging, given perfume was reliant on elements that differed between sexes.

Well, he’d noticed the state of Aix’s skin was dry and delicate, so perhaps the merrowmade whale soap that was scented only with the faintest ambergris, it was nourishing.

‘I have just used straight-up olive oil before, that seems to be the best thing,’ Aix said. ‘It’s a big production to put on all the time, even though I should.’

Ah, then the merrowmade soap was the best choice. George came back over to the chair, taking care to make his steps audible, and moved slowly. ‘I’m going to lather your face with a brush, pet, are you ready?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Aix was glad for the warning; he needed those, he startled easily when people touched his face.

The brush was soft, much softer than any of the ones Aix had ever used (he’d briefly flirted with traditional shaving methods, though he’d used a safety razor), and after the lather with the brush, Aix felt George’s fingers exploring the lines of his jaw and face gently.

‘Mm,’ Aix hummed, and lifted a hand, wobbling it. When George drew his hands away slightly, Aix answered, carefully. ‘Jaw didn’t grow. Was surgically fixed. Is okay now.’

George took the explanation without follow-up question or comment, which Aix realised he… really appreciated. There were times he was ready to joke about it and go into detail for an hour, and this was not one of those times. Instead, George’s hands carefully, gently continued pressing along the lines of Aix’s jaw a little more, probably making sure he knew the weird crooked lines of it, and then, just briefly, Aix felt the lightest of kisses on his forehead.

‘I’ll be back with a hot towel in a moment, pet. You’re being very good for me.’

Aix had to work hard not to wiggle in submissive delight, at that, before he felt Cthulhu’s voice in his mind.

Jasper taught me a little of human history last night, and stories from both sides of colonisation, to help me understand it better. I still do not, but it is a more comprehensive lack of understanding now. And there are so many languages in this world! I did not even realise what a language truly was, when you called me a linguist.

I’m so happy for you, beloved, and am eager to talk about this later; I need to concentrate on the physical right now, though. Remind me to tell you about my conversation with Morpheus.

Aix could feel Cthulhu’s eagerness, and it was sweet, but part of him missed the sort of alien and isolated feeling of their conversations before; still, he knew it was better this way. Cthulhu wasn’t a dream, didn’t solely belong to Aix, he was his own man and could do as he liked, and Aix wanted him to be happy.

He just sort of wished he’d actually been able to find Cthulhu in the mountain, rather than whatever had happened to make it so he’d met the Averays first. He’d wanted a quest. And it wasn’t fair, and all, but… Aix made sense of the world through stories, and this wasn’t really fitting into a story pattern yet, and so it was Upsetting.

The hot towel was very hot, but just hot enough, and soon, Aix heard the sound of the blade being drawn across the strop. He tried to breathe, tightened his grip on the arms of the chair. His brain, helpfully, started on the Sweeny Todd again.

These are my friends,
See how they glisten!
See this one shine!
How he smiles!
In the light!
My Friends!

Aix felt Cthulhu’s confusion at this, but he withdrew. Aix felt a little guilty—had that been too harsh?—but he hadn’t said anything untrue….

George took the towel away and set it aside, glad to see Aix’s eyes were still closed. They were large, doe-like eyes, sad and soulful, which was rather difficult for blue eyes to do, unless they were—like René’s and Aix’s—very dark, violet blue. Certainly, George’s blue eyes were far too pale to be anything but piercing.

Aix was very still, fearfully still, like a cornered rabbit. After the first stroke, he calmed down, and every subsequent one as well. George had a pattern, for new people—warning, stroke, praise. It usually worked very well, and Aix was no exception to the rule.

George spent most of his time inside Nepenthé, being of a temperament and profession that did not weather the modern world very well. He did, however, like certain advancements to things that helped this part of his profession—numbing agents and antiseptic, barbacide and borosilicate glass. The green and white bottle of numbing antiseptic, with its red spot, had been a new but steadfast replacement for his previous astringents. The aftershave was merely ritual and scent, after that—but for Aix, considering the dryness of his skin, George went for a bit of oil instead, to put moisture back in the skin.

And Aix was no longer frightened, and no longer even speaking—he was a chatty little bird, and so that George could have gotten him to the point of soft humming and intense arousal (and it was intense, scenting the air, mingling with all the other perfumes interestingly) said there had been a great success, perhaps even the revelation only submissives could attain during a session. Certainly, George felt the similarly trancelike counterpoint to that state.

‘We’re done now, pet,’ he murmured softly into Aix’s ear. ‘You were so very good. Can you come for me?’

This was a gamble; George never knew if someone was the type to be so affected, but he had gotten, over his relatively short (for a vampire) two centuries, very good at predicting such things.

It was difficult to tell when someone of Aix’s form actually did come, but you could, if you were paying attention. If you had a supernatural sense of smell.

René sat at the vanity, going over his colours of makeup and listening, watching Cthulhu in the mirror. He had picked up human mannerisms so quickly—things like pacing, which is what he was doing now, in front of the fire René had lit. In borrowed clothes (he had simply changed shape to fit into them), he looked very… not human, there was nothing human about his face, his head, his hands… but he was more tangible, perhaps, in the suit he was borrowing. It looked extremely fine on him, and also made his worry, his sadness, seem more understandable somehow.

I have been distracted. And he pushed me out. Does he tire of me? We have not connected since he freed me.

René, also, found himself seeing a side of Aix he had not before, through Cthulhu. It was his policy to listen, when he had little knowledge of the facts, and not to speak.

I know nothing of what has happened to him since then, and have been told something very frightening has happened, and I have seen the change in his mind. Is he different? Is he the same Aix? Humans are so changeable, it frightens me.

But I feel he does not miss me. I feel I have done him harm somehow, though I do not understand what I did.

…but. But, René had a feeling he knew what Cthulhu had done—or rather, what he hadn’t done. ‘You said what you did to harm him, just now,’ René said, gently. ‘You have not connected. This early, you must do that more often.’

Cthulhu stopped, looking at the fire for some time. The only sound was the crackle-dance of the flames, and the soft click as René set down containers of loose eyeshadow one by one, or the shuffle as he slid them between categorical groupings. He’d worked out all the neutrals, that was easy enough, but picking out what colours to adorn his new boy with, that was always difficult.

And they kept shifting, he wasn’t sure how until he saw a little tail reach up from under the desk and scoot a blue one back into the ‘yes’ group.

He leaned down to look under the vanity, to see Pippin there, her eyes gleaming in the shadow. She waved.

‘Non, Pierrette,’ René said softly, and beckoned her. ‘Viens ici, viens t’asseoir avec moi, si tu veux m’aider; mais,’ he said, softly, getting an idea, ‘je pense que ton frère aîné a besoin de ton aide. Il est tellement triste.’

She beeped, running out of her hiding place immediately, all concern, squeaking and beeping as she ran over to Cthulhu and jumped up and down until she caught his hand and his attention. René watched them speak in clownish mime to one another, and reflected it was nice to see Cthulhu learning such a language that so many humans already understood, and learning from a peer.

Aix floated dreamily out of the bathroom, a little while later, still wrapped in René’s robe—it looked well on him, René always liked to see his clothes on lovers—and looking even more statuesque. He went over to Cthulhu and wrapped around him in a hug.

René glanced at George as he lingered in the doorway, and smiled. ‘Your skill never ceases to amaze, George.’

Aix found Cthulhu clinging to him, and was happy enough to cling back, before he felt Cthulhu push softly at his mind. May I come in? Please.

Cthulhu gazed into Aix’s eyes, opening more to focus, his own swirling, and…

Aix paused, and then blinked. Oh right! Morpheus. He borrowed the memories of you so he could show the family. So they would understand you weren’t a god or claiming to be. It’s okay. He’ll bring them back.

That is what is wrong. That is why you have been distant. You don’t remember our bond at all, it isn’t there. How is this possible? It wasn’t possible, that was the terrifying thing; you couldn’t just take a memory like it was an object on a shelf. That wasn’t how the mind worked, that was only… metaphor that humans used. Metaphors weren’t real.

They are in the Dreamscape. They are to Morpheus. He’s the god of dreams, and I suppose that means he’s god of the mind, a bit. Have you learned about gods yet?

Jasper told me a little, but he said your gods were different than his, more… human. Cthulhu couldn’t shake his visceral horror, and Aix hugged him tighter, surprisingly seeming to understand, but remaining calm and not simply for Cthulhu’s sake. It didn’t bother him, he knew it was a terrifying concept but he trusted Morpheus, and that trust… somehow inoculated him from fear.

Aix giggled. ‘It is, yes. Goodness, we need to get going, too.’ He kissed one of Cthulhu’s tendrils. ‘I’ll remember when Morpheus comes back, don’t worry. He didn’t steal them.’

‘He does not strike me as the type,’ René said, though he had no idea what Aix was talking about, as Aix came over to sit down.

‘Isn’t Mr Gold going to be wondering where we are?’ Aix said, as he took off his glasses and René tucked them safely in a drawer, where they wouldn’t get anything on them.

‘Close your eyes,’ René said, and started to apply the foundation with a brush. ‘It is not so much time as it seems,’ he said. ‘We both woke early. Don’t stand in my light, chéri,’ he said gently, as Cthulhu came up behind him. Pippin beeped and pushed him to a different spot, before climbing up on his shoulder for a better vantage. She loved watching humans put on Faces. Clowns couldn’t really see a human’s face without a Face on, and it had to be a Proper Face, not subtle. She conveyed this to Cthulhu in her conversational sort of way, though to the humans it sounded like babble, she was speaking to him in their shared psionic language.

‘Oho, we have narration,’ Aix said, smiling. He loved the sound of clown-babble, and Pippin’s was especially cute—being small, she had of course a high little voice, but she used her voice in a throaty, almost husky way. A Stout voice, Aix would describe it; a sort of Determined undertone to everything she said.

René chuckled, sitting back and looking at the finished layer of foundation, seeing if and where any concealing or colour-toning was needed.

She is explaining what you are doing, but not why. She does not understand the question when I ask.

‘It’s fun,’ Aix said, ‘makeup is a fun toy for shapeshifting. Are you going to contour me, René?’

‘I’m a little worried about the veil getting makeup on it. Oh—can we go for kind of a 1780s vibe?’

‘Mais oui, if you like. And we can make you a veil that does not press on your face,’ René said, starting on the contour powder. ‘Do you have thoughts on eyeshadow colours?’

‘Something to make my eyes look violet? I don’t know what colour that would be.’

‘Oh, baby, I can’t wear blue eyeshadow with blue eyes, that would wash them out,’ Aix said, between René’s sweeps of colour to the edges of his face.

‘I have blue paillettes,’ René said, as always avoiding the English word, because he absolutely mangled it when he tried to pronounce it. ‘We can perhaps tack one on as la mouche.’

Aix didn’t know what a paillette was, but it was fun to turn the word over in his mind, and try and suss it out, as he felt the soft brushes on his face, smelled the soft scent of the makeup.

‘I am not going to shape your brows just today, chou-chou, but they hardly need it,’ René said, as he finished up with all the contouring and blush. He wanted to use the whimsically-named ‘unicorn’ highlight, which meant it would be saved for last. He sat back, tilting Aix’s face this way and that, both admiring his handiwork and seeing where he needed to make something symmetrical, or how the colours were sitting. ‘Have you preferences for colour?’

‘I’m bisexual and submissive and you want me to make decisions?’ Aix joked, and René chuckled.

‘Honestly I just want to be pretty and I don’t know what colours would do that,’ Aix said, as René started on shading his eyes.

‘Then do not worry, chou-chou,’ René assured him, starting to gently brush colour into Aix’s brows. ‘Domine knows what would flatter you.’

Aix felt warm and tingly, at that. The soft kiss and gentle scrape of the various brushes was so soothing, and gave him sparkly tingles all down his scalp and neck and shoulders.

What René is doing to your face. It is a story, is it not? It begins with one thing and that thing changes to something else by the end.

…Oh, darling, that’s poetry. Aix said, and Cthulhu felt a rush of emotions there, an admiration, surprise, pleasure. Aix adored poetry, and it was something he saw as very attractive, and very loving. It’s one of the ways humans shapeshift, but I like your description much better.

‘Can you do your own eyeliner, tesoro?’ René asked, unaware of the conversation going on. Aix blinked, and nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, that’s the one thing I do well. Do you have something sanitary, because I do my waterline.’

René turned back to the vanity table, looking through the drawers until he found a clean and empty brass container for kohl. He had many of them, collected over the years; they were a common trinket that he had once used to hold medicines, since they were so much sturdier than glass or porcelain jars. ‘I have this, you can keep it,’ he said, opening it and waiting as Aix wiped the applicator with one of the alcohol wipes and then paused.

‘A particular soot from Faerie that mimics the antiseptic properties of lead and antimony without the deleterious poisoning, and a bit of coconut fat. It is,’ he said, with a little smile Aix couldn’t see, but could hear, ‘much safer than anything in a human shop.’ He paused, just a hair of a second, and then made his voice low and purring. ‘I took an oath, tesoro, I am a doctor, after all.’

It was a calculated risk, and yet—Aix shivered, bit his lip, practically purred at the reminder, his generous thighs pressing together again. But he didn’t say anything, and René didn’t push further, enjoying the buzz of pleasure from just that little bit of his favourite sexual game. Learning how to push someone’s buttons, to give them that particular pleasure, had always been better than even the finest liquor—particularly when it was a kink René had never played with, before.

Watching Aix put on kohl was one of those little actions that had remained the very same for thousands of years, and it was always comforting to an old soul like René to see something like that, a small reminder that no matter how the trappings changed, humans were humans still.

And his blue eyes looked so beautiful surrounded by black. It made René hungry for him. He knew, in that moment, what he wanted to do with the eyeshadow, and augmented those bedroom eyes in a way that everyone in the early days of cinema wanted, making them look bigger, darker, fresh-fucked and sensuous. It would be such a shame to cover them with spectacles, but René considered it a challenge, and made them look bigger, as though they weren’t big and doll-like already, because of how the spectacles would affect them; but in contrast, the brows Aix had been given were arch and villainous. It made the whole effect that of a sultry homme fatale rather than an ingénu.

Pippin saw what René was doing—she remembered when makeup looked like this—well, when it was supposed to look like this, anyway. Makeup had not been so very good back then. Now, humans had better Mask than clowns themselves.

‘Bientôt, petite,’ René said in reply to Pippin’s fussy little noises, as he lined Aix’s lips in dark red. ‘Bientôt.’

I’m impatient too, babybean, but it’s important I let people take care of me. I haven’t in so long that there’s a lot to do. Aix said, trying to be gentle, and share with Pippin how excited and worried he was to get going as well. He didn’t know what time it was, and he didn’t want to keep Amber waiting.

Pippin jumped from Cthulhu’s shoulder to the tête-à-tête, and hopped from there to a chair, then the closed escritoire.

‘Pierrette!’ René said, firmly but not sharply, pulling the brush away from Aix’s mouth to look at her.

‘She’s looking for a clock—babysweetheart, come here sugar. Come on, stringbean—there, we go, come sit with Duckie,’ he said, lifting Pippin up to sit on his lap as she came over at his beckon. ‘I just need my mouth put on, and then powder, and then I get my clothes on and we go see little brother, okay? I can’t smile at anybody without my mouth on, can I?’

‘Okay, I know it’s hard to wait. You’re being very good. Putting face on takes a long time, and we’re almost done.’ He skritched her ruff as he spoke. ‘You wanna help with powder?’

‘Okay, well just let René finish painting my mouth on, and then he’ll show you how to do powder puff, okay?’

René was put in mind of Simon, and smitten all over again in the same way. They were of similar cloth, René thought, as he went back to painting Aix’s mouth with dark red. He didn’t even need to falsify the shape, because Aix’s mouth simply was a Cupid’s Bow on its own.

But if René kissed him, and smudged the lipstick, then he’d smudge everything else, and they’d end up fucking on the floor, and they had things to do today.

René finished with filling in those unfair lips, and gave Aix a tissue to blot with, and Pippin climbed into his lap while he was putting aside his brushes. ‘Ah, chere petite miette,’ he cooed at Pippin, petting her and taking out the down powderpuff, opening the jar. It was no longer the old style of powder, because newer formulations were so, so much better. Pippin reached for the puff, but René held it away from her little hands. ‘Laisse-moi te montrer comment, cherie.’

Pippin put her hands down with a beep, and Aix closed his eyes and mouth, and held his breath. René was soft, touching the puff to his face rather than even tapping it, and it was less scary that way. Aix felt Pippin shift on his lap, heard René say something that Aix vaguely understood as telling her to take the puff, and try it, and Aix felt the puff again, a little less graceful, but no less gentle.

Aix felt shivery as René swept it over his face, and pressed his thighs together as he felt the brush swirl over his bare neck, his bare shoulders…

He really wished they were alone, suddenly; but if they had been, Aix wasn’t sure they would have gotten out of the door at all.

‘All done!’ Aix agreed, smiling at her. ‘Good job being patient, Pippin!’ And good job me too, Aix thought to himself.

Getting dressed was much faster, and after Aix had put on the underscarf, tied on the niqab, and was wrapping the hijab over it to hide the knot, he vaguely saw, through the black chiffon of the veil, René come over.

‘Oh—’ Aix let fall his hands. ‘Yeah, I can’t see very well through the veil, indoors.’

René arranged the thin black jersey, and pulled the veil back over Aix’s head, revealing his pretty eyes, bare of their spectacles for the moment, and carefully folded and gathered the fabric, pinning it in a more artful shape.

‘Oh wow, that’s gorgeous. Thank you, René.’ Aix said, when he saw it in the mirror. He happened to catch sight of Cthulhu, and realised with a start he hadn’t noticed him for the past… while. ‘Cthulhu? Why are you so quiet?’

You aren’t yourself, I am… unsettled, as much by that as your lack of concern over it.

‘Withdrawing and not making new memories with me isn’t going to help, sweetheart. And maybe you can share with me your version of that memory?’ Aix didn’t like the feeling that he was withdrawing, that he felt like a stranger. That was weird, but a sinking feeling in the back of his mind said it was also because the reality of knowing him was Too Much, that he was somehow disappointing, or that… because he knew a lot of people, wasn’t isolated and alone, that meant he wasn’t wanted anymore. He tried to share all of this, reaching out to a connection that was sort of not there.

I… I miss you. But you are different, in the Mindscape. You are different than you were.

You set loose a ripple effect, Cthulhu. You changed my life. You’re the reason I met all these people. And I’m grateful, by the way. I’m happier.

‘Because you’re blaming me for protecting you!’ Aix snapped, and immediately felt terrified. René paused.

‘What is going on? May I be included in this conversation, please? You’re both distressed.’

‘I had to give Morpheus a memory or two, and now I don’t remember those memories I gave him, and apparently that plus the fact that I’m moving has changed me beyond all recognition and that’s “unsettling”. And that hurts!’ he flung it like a weapon at Cthulhu, folding his arms where he sat in his wheelchair. ‘You’ve been ignoring me for this whole time because books are more interesting than me, a person, and now that you deign to notice me again I’m the fucking problem? You. Weren’t. Here. Maybe I wouldn’t seem so different if you hadn’t left me alone!’

Several colours and patterns rippled over Cthulhu’s skin in succession, for a few moments. Pippin squeaked, distressed, looking between them, tail switching back and forth, unsure which of them to go comfort. She went over to Aix when she noticed his thoughts were crying, and climbed gently onto his lap, letting him hug her as she purred as loud as she could.

‘Aix,’ René said, gently, knowing a person in high dudgeon didn’t take suggestions well; but René had authority over Aix, authority he had been given. ‘Go upstairs and tell Cammie to bring the car around.’

Aix nearly snapped, and René expected him to—but he visibly calmed, sinking into a softer mindset. ‘Yes, Domine,’ he said quietly, and left the room, Pippin still on his lap, clinging to one lapel of his waistcoat.

He went a little ways down the hall, toward the elevator, before stopping, putting the brakes on and just sitting there, holding Pippin, who touched his cheeks softly with her little fingers, tracing the paths of tears.

Oh, sweetheart, I can’t cry anymore when I need to, somebody hit me for it when I was little and broke it. He tried not to share the memory, but Pippin saw it anyway, and hugged him. For the first time, she shed her mask of being Small Babie and was a little more honest about how old and wise she really was, putting her hands on Aix’s cheeks and looking at him deeply with her big seal-eyes.

Aix cried, finally, and held her, and felt better. He didn’t know what she’d done, exactly, but he was grateful. Crying usually only happened when he was being bullied, now, and tears would get him hurt more; rather than when he was sad and in pain and could have felt relief from it.

Aix didn’t recognise the voice, but already tried to ‘calm down’, Pippin petting his face and doing… something to make him able to ignore that panic, and keep the tears flowing. Pierrot Magic, Aix decided. ‘Yeah? Who is it?’ he said, taking his glasses off and setting them carefully on Pippin’s lap.

‘It’s Cammie. Are you… you’re not okay, obviously, but… can I help?’

‘Huggins,’ Pippin said, peering over Aix’s shoulder at Cameron, who circled wide around Aix (it was a wide hallway) and knelt down to hug him, Pippin between them.

‘Hey,’ Cameron said softly. ‘You want to hang out in my room? It’s just this door right here, next to René’s room.’

‘I’m supposed to tell you to bring the car around,’ Aix said, sniffling. ‘I wanna get going—oh god, is my makeup ruined?’

‘No,’ Cameron said, getting out a tissue and gently drying the tears. ‘You’re fine, it’s faerie makeup, theirs is breakup-proof.’ He paused. ‘Oh no, you didn’t breakup with Cthulhu, did you? I mean, he deserved it if you did, but—’

Aix gave a watery, half-hysterical laugh, at that. ‘I don’t know. Let’s get in the car, I just wanna go get my kitten and look at houses.’

Aix nodded, sniffling, and Cameron got behind him, pulling the handle from the back of the wheelchair and pushing him down the hall.

The Car turned out to be, to Aix’s utter delight, a vintage limousine, painted dark Prussian blue. He gasped as Cameron turned on the lightswitch and revealed the vintage curves gleaming in the dim lights the garage normally had were,

‘1938 Packard twelve, though the interior is was re-done in the eighties,’ Cameron said, opening the back door and the trunk, which was nowhere near big enough for even a corpse, let alone the wheelchair.

But then Cameron folded down the back seat, which made room. That was definitely a modification, Aix could tell—but masterfully done, and the interior was seamless, as though the back seat had never existed at all, when Cameron was done. Aix whistled, impressed.

‘That is my Boy Thing That I Like, yes,’ Aix said, holding Pippin to his body as he flipped the footrests up and got out of the chair. ‘My dad was a Car Guy, and California is full of vintage car culture.’ Pippin wiggled to get down, and he looked at her. ‘Stay close, darlin, we’re gonna go soon.’

Pippin beeped her affirmative, and he set her down. She went over to Cameron for a hug immediately, her Flash lighting up red and amber and white—the colour of a car’s Flash—while Aix walked around the car to admire it.

‘She’s armour-plated, with bulletproof tinted windows,’ Cameron said, used to the car’s details by now, and enjoying them. He’d never thought of himself as into cars, until coming to René and slowly becoming, among other things, one of the drivers and mechanics, learning from the last one, Edgar, before Edgar had passed on. It had given him something else to fall back on, for when he retired from dancing full-time (something he’d done a year and a half ago, when he’d turned twenty-eight). ‘The seats have hand-tied springs—that’s original, we just had the springs cleaned and re-tied in the eighties—with wool and horsehair stuffing and velvet with leather piping, and wool carpet.’

‘Wow,’ Aix said, letting Cameron help him inside, Pippin following, climbing up and into the car herself, her Flash shining on the wood and the blue of the textiles inside.

‘Lu!’ she said happily, climbing up on the seat beside Aix. ‘Lu! Lu!’ She wiggled, her Flash turning blue.

‘You like blue, huh? Is that your favourite?’ Aix asked. She nodded, beeping. Cameron leaned down to look into the door.

‘I’ll get the chair inside—I think it’ll fit just fine—and then I gotta leave you for a minute to get some rope or something to tie it down, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Aix said, utterly confident that this parking garage wasn’t a danger to be in alone. It wasn’t a public one, after all. Still, his brain suddenly jolted with terror as Cameron closed the door. He leaned over and opened the door again, pushing it wide. ‘Hey uh, I’m gonna leave this open, okay? Can you leave the lights on?’

Cameron came back. ‘Oh yeah, sure. You wanna come with me? I’m just gonna be a few yards away at a little cabinet.’ He pointed to a metal cabinet that Aix could see from the doorway.

‘Sure,’ Cameron said, in a tone that said clearly he understood what Aix was suddenly nervy about. He gave Aix a hand in getting down to sit on the edge of the car, his legs out the open suicide door. Pippin stayed with Aix, humming softly and playing with his hair, which helped him feel better.

‘I’m so glad the chair fits, though,’ Cameron said, as he opened the cabinet. ‘There’s a few loops I can flip out that I can use to secure it, but we don’t use bungee cord on the Packard.’

‘No, we don’t,’ Aix said, understanding this immediately. Bungee cords were rough creatures, really for use with rougher vehicles, like trucks. Not like this… this limousine. ‘Does the car have a name?’

‘You can name her,’ Cameron said, shutting the cabinet, a coil of black rope hanging off his arm. ‘I bet Domine would let you,’ he said with a mischievous smile, going back around to the open trunk—hatchback, really, Aix thought, and they must have modified it to do that, for whatever reason—and starting to mess about with the rope.

‘Ooh,’ Aix said, privately agreeing—he had a strange ability to name things, so that even if the person hated him and the name, the name stuck anyway. He’d named all the pets his family had when he was a child, which had infuriated his little sister to no end. ‘I’ll have to get to know her, first.’

‘Where’s your kitten?’ Cameron asked, after he finished tying off the last knot. Aix realised he didn’t know, and dug around in his purse for his phone, sending Amber a message to that effect. She sent back an address, and Aix read it out to Cameron.

‘Oh, that’s not far. We’ll be there in… maybe half an hour if the traffic is truly horrendous.’

26. Pigs Ruin a Gift

A trucker friend of Erastos’, Amber was an ex-showgirl from Las Vegas, now a burly middle-aged woman with sun-weathered skin and piercing sea-glass eyes. Since Aix had so few things, and since Amber had been able to go independent and start her own shipping company with Erastos’ help, she’d been happy to have Aix’s things fill out some empty space in her trailer. She’d also been more than happy to talk with Aix and answer all their questions, and show him all the ways they prevented cross-contamination and harbouring vermin. Aix had also met her big silky brown cat, Mr Christopher Monday, that had jumped into her truck on a Monday and not left her side since. Aix had liked Amber immediately, for this tale.

The storage facility was in the industrial edge of town, right before it really started flattening out to suburbs across the highway, and catty-corner to Carroll Park. Amber was waiting on the little patch of grass in front of the wheelchair ramp, distanced from it so she could smoke a cigarette. Mr Christopher Monday was on a high-visibility orange harness attached to a leash looped around her wrist, and a tiny black kitten was in a pink harness and leash, lurching around the way kittens that age did, tail straight up in the air, arching at shadows. There was a pink cat carrier, open, at Amber’s booted feet.

The Packard, which was blue and gorgeous, pulled silently[31] into the only handicapped parking spot. Both cats perked up when the door to the car opened, and a young redheaded man in a purple mask that matched his dress shirt got out, walking around to open the trunk and pulling out the fanciest damn wheelchair Amber had ever seen. He wasn’t exactly dressed like a chauffeur, in his black jeans and dress shirt, but he was a little too formal. The painted nails and lined eyes, perfectly-shaped brows, the long intricately-braided hair and the clothes? Amber clocked him as a femme gay immediately.

The kitten arched and hissed, and Mr Christopher Monday, after thoroughly sniffing the air, opened his mouth in a flehmen sneer. Amber was curious at that; but waited patiently for answers; she was an observer, she’d always had to be.

Aix emerged, wearing beautiful eye makeup, and settled into the chair, and despite the fact that the sun had almost entirely set, only showing through a few weak breaks in the buildings to the west, the redhead opened a large black umbrella, angling it against the sun as the other occupant of the car got out, dressed all in elegant black and blue, face covered entirely by a veil, and not the style of Aix’s.

‘Hi,’ Amber called, putting out her cigarette in a pocket ashtray, and pulling a plastic bag of colourful N type masks out of her shirt pocket, putting a tie-dye one on.

‘Hi Amber!’ Aix called, waving, as a little tiny clown in little blue overalls climbed out of the car and beeped excitedly, trotting under the railings and over the grass, tail high and shivering like a cat’s, every step squeak-squeak-squeaking.

‘Prrp? Prrp?’ she said, slowing down as she got closer, crouching down and holding out her little ink-coloured hands. Christopher Monday sniffed and immediately nuzzled her hand and purred, his bottlebrush tail up and cheerful, as he was a friendly fellow. The kitten was a little more wary, but to Amber’s surprise he also did the same, and Pippin immediately rolled onto her side to play with him in the manner of cats, mewing and purring and seeming to know exactly how to Cat.

‘Who’s yer friend?’ Amber said, nodding to the shrouded goth as she picked up the carrier and made her way closer to the edge of the grass, so the wheelchair wouldn’t have to find a way around the railings and such. The little clown followed, which helped coax the kitten without Amber needing to drag him (he was still getting used to the leash). Mr Christopher Monday was used to his lead enough, and followed Amber everywhere anyway, faithful as a hound.

‘René Charbonneau, madame,’ came a French-accented male voice from behind the veil. ‘I am sensitive to light, alas, but I am pleased to meet you. This is Cameron, my boy.’ He gestured elegantly to the redhead, who waved and smiled, still holding the umbrella. ‘I hear we were once colleagues.’

‘That right?’ Amber said, glancing at the gloves, which had faceted blue rhinestones decorating them. ‘You a drag queen?’ was her best guess, given how similar drag and being a showgirl were.

‘Ah no, a stripper,’ René said, and Amber laughed like a wildfire, liking him more automatically; there weren’t many people that could mention her past in sex work as a compliment, but someone else in the business, well—and a man, at that! It was harder for men.

She whistled. ‘I’ve heard of that place, shit. That’s legend. Oldest gay strip club in the country, isn’t it?’

‘When did you get a clown, Aix?’ Amber asked him, as Pippin and Aix finally got the kitten to trust enough to pick him up and put him in Aix’s lap. Amber took the kitten’s leash off her wrist and gave it to Aix, who looped it around his own wrist automatically, and still kept his hand on the kitten. Amber liked his instincts.

‘René was fostering her,’ Aix said, as he gently introduced himself to the kitten, ‘she sorta latched onto me after the attack.’

Amber hugged him, careful of the two little ones in his lap. ‘Mike told me about that,’ she said. ‘You did good. Oh, and, speakin’ of—’ She pulled a keychain out of her pocket, that had a key to the storage unit and a pink can of pepper spray. ‘Got you a weapon.’

Aix immediately thought of the werewolves, and was pretty sure he got kind of a worryingly manic smile in his eyes. ‘Hohohoheheheh…’ he laughed his little Goblin Laugh again, attaching it to the collection on his lanyard, which was currently looped onto one of his purse straps since he’d been prepared to see a kitten and didn’t want to teach it to play with not-toys. ‘Thank you, Amber.’

She chuckled; Mike had said Aix had gotten much sillier as he’d gotten less tense, and had the fun sort of eccentricity some people got after being alone for a few years, of lots of silly little voices and flourishes to express himself. On top of clearly having found a sugar daddy who liked to dress and pamper him, shower him with gifts… it was good to see him looking so different, sounding so different.

Amber knew she couldn’t exactly ask for details, the way she couldn’t exactly ask for details about Mike’s job; but she picked up a lot, and she had once been in a career you also had to talk around. She knew there was more than humans on this earth, now, and that there were folks in the thick of that, like Mike, and Aix, and the bitch that had nearly killed Aix a few nights ago. She knew there was something that had happened when Aix had accidentally killed his assailant, something of the ‘got rid of a town menace’ variety, but also of the ‘well if you get rid of them you take their rôle’ variety. It didn’t have to make sense, much; but Amber could read people, mostly by how other people acted around them—if Charbonneau was a pimp, he was one of the rare ones that was a former whore, and wanted to be better to his boys than his Daddy had been to him.

Nepenthé had a reputation, all right, and it was one that supported that theory.

Mr Christopher Monday was sniffing around Cameron’s feet, doing that flehmen response again, his tail lashing in confusion or maybe indecision.

‘I’m confusing,’ Cameron said, unbothered. Pippin climbed down off Aix’s lap and trotted over to Mr Christopher Monday, babbling at him and patting Cameron’s leg.

Aix, stroking the kitten, who was rapidly falling asleep in a little loaf, paused, looking over at Pippin; but he decided not to say anything, looking up at Amber. ‘Thank you so much for the kitten, Amber. I love him.’

‘His little microchip has your number in it—oh, right, gotta give you that paperwork the vet printed for me…’ She patted down the pockets of her jacket, pulling out a folded packet of papers and offering it. ‘Here, microchip information and his vaccination records. He’s had all his shots, and there’s a schedule for the ones he needs when he gets older.’

Aix just put it all into his purse with only a cursory glance. ‘No health issues?’

‘Nah, he’s a healthy little mite, once we got him all fixed up.’ She didn’t mention the fleas, she knew Aix had trauma about it and didn’t want him worrying. ‘You wanna see the storage unit?’

‘We will wait here,’ René said. ‘It’s a lovely sky, I have not seen it in some time.’

‘So what’s the story here, Aix?’ Amber asked, after they got into the building. ‘Mike was vague, she usually is when it’s weird stuff.’

‘Uh, well, there’s a reason for that,’ Aix said, not great at keeping secrets at the best of times. ‘I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you more than she has.’

‘But um, I can say that this woman that kidnapped me and uh, shot herself accidentally,[32] has been harassing René to the point of him just… not leaving the house. That’s probably why he’s staying outside.’

The fact that René just hadn’t been outside in more than a decade was heartbreaking. Aix hadn’t needed to have it explained why a vampire would feel extremely unsafe outdoors or even interacting with a fucking necromancer; he could add.

‘Jeeeeezus,’ Amber said, stopping at the unit. Aix locked the wheels and carefully got up, balancing the kitten, who complained at his warm bed moving.

‘Aww, I knowwww,’ Aix said softly to him, as he put the key in the lock. ‘I knowwww, I’m a mean old man…’

‘No, thank you,’ Aix said, ‘I need to know I can open it myself, because you’re not gonna be here when I come again.’

Amber held the kitten for Aix while he opened the door, carefully but by himself. The unit was the smallest one, but even so, Aix did not have a lot of stuff. He looked at it for a while, quietly.

‘That’s my whole life that I rebuilt by myself,’ he said, quietly, after a few moments.

‘It is, you did great,’ Amber said, knowing from experience how sobering it was to both start over from nothing and also to look at your life packed up into little cardboard boxes. Aix closed and locked the storage unit again.

‘Thank you for this, again,’ Aix said, turning to Amber and hugging her, before settling back down in his chair and taking the kitten back. ‘Um, you probably need to get back to work, and René is taking me to see a realtor today and look at houses.’

‘Who, René?’ Aix said, and realised what it must look like. ‘Oh um, yeah. I wish I could explain this to you, I’m sorry, Amber.’

‘As long as he lets you have friends and your own bank account,’ Amber said, starting to push him back toward the entrance.

‘Yes,’ Aix said, firmly. ‘Yes, definitely. He’s just sort of, um, he wants me to stay here and he knows that means he needs to offer me a house and a way to earn a living, because that’s what Virginia’s offered me up in New York. I think that’s pretty green flag, that he asked me to stay and I told him, “okay, this is what I have in New York, so you have to offer me that too” and then he just… did. And is,’ Aix said, frowning as they tried to work out what tense was correct for that rambling sentence. ‘Anyway, I’m planning on splitting my time, half here and half in New York, because one of the little gigs Virginia offered was teaching people to read and I can’t not do that, that’s like, so importa—oh no. Oh god. Oh no.’

There were two police cars in the parking lot, and Aix felt Cthulhu’s voice, because he was in the car, still, hidden.

They cannot see you, but stay where you are, perhaps go deeper into the building.

He was quiet, and Aix knew things had been a little tense between them, but Aix was calmer now, and whatever René had told him had smoothed things over, and Aix was willing to call it solved—he’d spoken his piece, it was solved to him.

She quietly wheeled them outside, to the other side of the building, in the back parking lot that was for big rigs like hers. Amber’s had a picture of a beachy sunset and running horses airbrushed onto the cab, and Amber opened the passenger door, Mr Christopher Monday leaping inside immediately, Pippin climbing nimbly up after him. Aix held the kitten to his chest as he got out of the chair.

‘I’ll put this in the back. You get yourself and the joey in the shower until I tell you it’s safe, okay?’

‘I suppose asking if there’s a possum belly would be weird?’ Aix asked, and Amber chuckled.

‘The weird shit you know—yeah, but I can’t show you until I get back. You need a boost?’

‘No,’ Aix said, climbing up into the cab and shutting the door as quietly as he could, before unhooking the kitten from the leash so he could go hide. Mr Christopher Monday picked him up as soon as he got on the cab floor and took him up to the bed that was over the little booth.

Aix was surprised she called them that, but took it in stride. ‘Yeah beeble, the rozzers are here and harassing René, so you and me have to hide, okay?’

Pippin nodded, dimming her Flash and making her Mask splotchy camouflage greys that would help her disappear into the shadows—if she hadn’t been wearing her cute little outfit, anyway. Aix quickly found the closet-sized bathroom, which blended into the faux wood panelling of the walls, and Pippin followed him inside, taking off her shoes and putting them in the nearest cupboard she could reach.

It wasn’t as cramped as Aix expected in the bathroom, likely because it was made for a woman Amber’s size (she was very tall, and fat, just like Michaela), and waited. There was a sound that vibrated through the truck, and Aix figured that was Amber closing the trailer doors, and then the door opened and the cab rocked like someone was getting in.

Amber: That’s Tim, him and Elvis are giving us cover. I’m gonna pull out and drive a little way off. This has happened before, don’t worry kiddo. Truckers hate cops too.

Amber checked her mirrors, backing out of the spot as she flicked on the radio, hearing the back half of a message.

‘Mustang Mama, I say you’re all clear to get on the 95, King Coyote and Fat Wizard standing by to escort the lady.’

In the bathroom, Pippin insinuated herself into Aix’s lap, hugging him as he typed a message to Michaela and Victoria.

Aix: The cops came while Amber was showing me my storage unit. Amber hid me in her truck and we’re going somewhere like she’s pretending she’s just leaving. But I’m worried about René being trapped outside with cops. ;A;

Michaela: I might have already mentioned you as my partner a few days ago. >:3c

Michaela: If you can, let Amber know V and I are heading over. Call Gin if you have to and head all the way up to NYC. You can train back down when the coast is clear.

Aix frowned, feeling upset and angry that his plans were being messed up. He wanted to protest, and he even typed out a rant before he looked at it and deleted it. He put his phone away and hugged Pippin until he calmed down a bit, and opened the door to the bathroom, going carefully out and sitting at the dinette.

‘Heyo,’ Amber said. Aix sighed, and carefully made his way up to the passenger seat, buckling in.

‘Mike says I should skip town. She’s. Said that before. I didn’t listen. But… I guess she’s right.’

‘Feels cowardly,’ Aix said, sullen and cross about it, folding his arms and hunching with his mood.

‘You ever seen any ghosts or anything?’ Aix said, impatient with the Mummery, wanting to talk to Amber.

‘Sure, yeah. Met Mike covered in blood from some kinda monster something out in Sonoma county in…’ she sucked her teeth as she thought, ‘ ’07? ’08? Somewhere around there. Picked her up on the side of the road just before the thing reached the edge.’

‘And she says you can’t know stuff?’ Aix was shocked. He figured once you had a run-in with a monster, you got to know.

‘Ahhh, so this is that kind of stuff. He’s that kind of goth.’ She glanced over at him enough to wink. ‘Gotcha.’

‘He’s. Been an actual whore. Back when it was legal,’ Aix said, massively relieved. He could avoid saying ‘vampire’ or anything specific, he just couldn’t avoid René being immortal. ‘This woman was… in Mike’s profession. And was the one for Baltimore. So uh. So when she died, someone had to take her place. And that’s me.’

She showed Aix that she was sitting with the cats in the bunk, tucked well back from the edge. She knew how to travel in a vehicle like this, she’d done it a lot during the times she’d been with a show. She was immensely happy to be around not just Little Brothercat but also Mr Christopher Monday. Aix made mental note that perhaps they needed more than one cat.

‘Cos I’m a witch,’ Aix said. ‘Because I sort of lied when I said she shot herself.’

Amber laughed like a wildfire. ‘Well, shit, son! Remind me never to get on your bad side.’

The radio crackled, and Aix didn’t catch everything, but a man’s voice said something over the radio, and Amber reacted like it was addressed to her.

‘Hold on—10-4, King Coyote. Play dead for a minute.’ She looked over at Aix. ‘So, we headed to Manhattan?’

Aix understood that intellectually, but creature comforts had become his anchor, his coping mechanism. And he… didn’t like that, really. He didn’t like that routines and specific objects had become something he relied on, even though he understood why. He didn’t like it, it wasn’t very Adventurous of him.

However. There was one object he really needed, if he was really leaving, even for a night. ‘We need to stop at Nepenthé. I need to grab my plushy. I lost her once, I’m not going through that again. It’ll only take a second.’

‘Oh! That’s good, yes. It won’t be Mike, she’s busy distracting the pigs.’ Aix got out his phone and was already typing to George, though, because he knew George was the perfect person to ask. It was odd to think he had a cell phone, but he used it specifically for this sort of thing.

Aix: Peelers need avoiding again, I’m headed to nyc. Can you pack a bag that includes laptop, my pillow, and my black pegasus stuffed animal please?

George: Your things will be packed entirely and waiting. Shall I await you or send Lance to meet you elsewhere?

Lance was the bouncer, Aix had met him briefly. ‘Where should someone meet us?’

Aix stared at the message, realising he always assumed nobody cared, and just got on with his life about it; but it felt… it felt really good, to have someone ask.

Aix: I’m safe. In a big truck with Mike’s friend the trucker. She’s good people. Mike and V are heading to René to help him.

George: Very good. I shall inform Mr Gold of your predicament, he will understand.

René was very good at hiding his negative emotions; centuries had given even more practise, and he was older than the country he lived in, and had watched its laws be written. He knew his rights and how to press his advantage, particularly since the first cruiser hadn’t shown up until it was dark enough that Cameron could put the parasol away in the car.

With Heeren gone, with his master gone, René was more powerful than he’d ever been. What cared he for the spoilt mercenaries of the crown, after all? He’d seen a hundred of their like, they never changed.

Are they? Cthulhu could tell René was a human… capable of cruelty, capable of violence; all the vampires were, but unlike Dmitri, unlike many of the humans Cthulhu understood were called ‘soldiers’, who genuinely gained pleasure from hurting others, René approached violence differently than Cthulhu had encountered before. He never started it, but he had experienced a life where others threatened and attacked him often, expecting him to cower; but he had grown up knowing his worth, and fighting with steel and taking with force, and even his cruel vampiric master could not beat this strength out of him.

That is what this has always been about, chéri. The old huntress kidnapped our Aix because of you, and these men are continuing her quest.

There was a strange mix of emotions under those words—tightly-held anger at Cthulhu and the police both, annoyance at how utterly frivolous this encounter was, worry for Aix, even as he felt sure Aix was in safe hands…

After sending Aix out of the room, René had told Cthulhu all of what happened, and given context for it as well, and Cthulhu had understood what horror was, in that moment. René made no politeness, not like Aix—he blamed, and he wielded guilt like a weapon, and yet he was right too, in asserting that Cthulhu deserved Aix’s anger, that Aix was righteous in it, because of all that had occurred, that Cthulhu had caused and then abandoned him. Not on purpose, but intent didn’t matter when it came to harm one did due to neglect of one’s duties as a lover.

Cthulhu had not put together, foolishly, that the great loyalty and love his human had given him was not free, that it was expected in return. He had defended Aix from the wolves, and he had helped with the Voivode, but that was easy—the harder, more important thing was to continuously be there, not only be there in emergencies. It was alien to Cthulhu, and he couldn’t shake the horror of knowing he had memories Aix did not; but René had made clear that it was expected he either set it aside and make new memories to bond with, or leave—Cthulhu could not have a human’s love and not tend it properly. Languages were more than words, they were behaviours and patterns too, called ‘culture’; and once René pointed that out, explained it, Cthulhu felt eager to learn and do more of that, to become more fluent in this one type of human, rather than trying to learn all of them at once.

And now these ‘police’ were interfering, were harming Aix and driving him away again, because they were like the soldiers, they wanted to kill everything beautiful about humanity, because of reasons Cthulhu could not understand. They were part of the violent group that Victoria and others had explained, that was called ‘fascism’ and ‘authoritarianism’ and ‘imperialism’ and ‘hatred’.

He was angry with them, now; angry like the other humans he’d spoken to. He understood, now, not simply by having it explained in theory, but now it was in him, it was personal.

They were supposed to be leaving to look at places to live. They were supposed to be doing something enjoyable. There was no cause for the police to be here, to be interrupting them!

Cthulhu opened the door to the car, and emerged all at once, towering over all the humans, even the very tall policeman. He didn’t know how to be frightening, not really; but luckily, just looking like this was frightening enough.

‘Well?’ he said, having been working since the night before on making the organs necessary to make sound. He saw their terror, their guns pointed at him all at once, and saw how frightened they were, and how they wished him to be punished for frightening them, and he understood, now, why everyone he had met was so angry at them. ‘You wanted to meet me. Here I am.’

It was a simple matter to make certain molecules set alight, guns were very dangerous machines, and there were crashing explosions from them as they went off in their owner’s hands, burning them and causing the police to drop their weapons, melted from the plasma Cthulhu had made the gunpowder into.

René enjoyed their screams, their fear, smiling. ‘Did you not wish to know if he was here, mignons?’ he called liltingly, over their screaming. ‘Why are you so upset? Is this not what you asked me to do?’

René watched them for a while, and then turned to Cameron. ‘Start the car, Cammie.’ After Cameron turned to obey, René glanced up at Cthulhu, a smile playing on his painted lips.

‘Impressive dramatic timing, chéri. Well done. Is it true, about your people being able to induce helpless madness?’

Cthulhu thought about this. The human brain was something he was learning more and more about, the more minds he encountered, but… there was something he wanted to try.

I call upon Pan, god of madness, to afflict these police without killing them, and to lift it at your leisure.

He didn’t know exactly how ‘praying’ worked, but he knew one didn’t expect any tangible or immediate response.

He got in the car, and René followed. Almost immediately, René picked up the car’s telephone, dialling a number.

‘Hi, I’m in Sparks with Amber, we’re waiting for Lance to bring me my stuff so I can go up to New York for a while until the cops lose interest.’

As much as René wanted to tell him to come back, he knew things would remain this way for some time—it would get worse before better, the living were still young enough to hate change.

‘We will join you when it is closer to the date of our flight out to Bucharest, yes?’

‘I know, chou-chou.’ René said, pursing his lips in sympathy at Aix’s disappointment, ‘I’m disappointed as well; but they will still be here. The important thing is that you are safe.’

‘Can you tell Erastos and St Croix what’s going on? I texted Victoria and Mike, they’re apparently playing detective and on their way to you—are you okay?’

‘Ooooh, that sounded villainous,’ Aix’s voice sounded eager and had a wicked laugh beneath it. ‘What did you do?’

There was a long pause. ‘…oh my fuck you’re hot. Jesus. I need to lay down.’

Cthulhu glowed with pleasure, his skin brightening with colour and flirtatious patterns. ‘I am happy you like it, little one.’

René chuckled, just to add to Aix’s arousal, and enjoyed his strangled moan. ‘Tell Lancelot to remain with you, chou-chou. I would have you watched over. I can give your contact information to Mr Gold, and he can help you take a first look remotely?’

‘Oh, yeah, that would help me have something to do, thank you. Um, who is… paying for the house?’

‘It is compensation for causing Heeren’s death, petit. You shall own it, I will arrange it with Erastos so that doing so does not give cause for the government to harm you, never fear.’

‘Okay, thank you. Because… yeah, if the house is in my name that’s an asset, meaning I will be expected to sell it in order to qualify for… anyway, it doesn’t matter, Erastos knows I want to get off SSI anyways. Thank you, René.’

‘De rien, chou-chou. I should be thanking you. Give my regards to New York.’

27. Ostentations and Clowders

‘You don’t have to drive us all the way in, Amber,’ Aix said, as they got closer to the city. ‘I feel safe around Lance, I can use the subway if you get me to a station.’

‘Yeah, Lance is good. Um,’ Aix checked the map Victoria had given him of accessible stations. ‘…Canal and Broadway is the only accessible station. The one in the village, the 1? That’s only got stairs.’

‘Ah shit. Well, that’s okay, just a few down and that gives me more of a turning radius to get back into Jersey.’

Traffic was such a standstill that it didn’t actually delay anybody to get the chair out of the back, and Lance being there meant he could do it, and Amber stayed at the wheel. Aix tried not to stress about it, waiting on the sidewalk with the kitten and Pippin hidden in the carrier, clutched to his chest.

A group of drag queens all in pink with rhinestone masks, along with other assorted gays with assorted other gaily-coloured masks, passed by; and the very tallest drag queen screamed like an excited cockatoo at Lance and then started speaking Hawai‘ian at him.

Lance looked up, and his eyebrows went up in shock, even as he shut the doors to the trailer, quickly and efficiently locking it again, before knocking on the walls to signal Amber. He answered as he moved the chair onto the sidewalk; and to the pink drag queen’s credit, she waited for Aix to settle down before approaching, though she kept talking excitedly with Lance.

Aix tried not to feel nervous as he went to settle into the chair, balancing his rolling backpack and the carrier and the drawstring bag over his shoulders that had his pillow in it as he came over. There was a sharp whistle, and the shortest drag queen, who had brown skin but the green eyes and Mediterranean features Aix hoped were Italian motioned to one of her butch friends.

‘Oh—thank you,’ Aix said, as Dean came over to help him. Dean was a butch of some sort of gender, very very handsome, in a suit, and with the kind of haircut that meant a few brylcreemed strands fell rakishly over his forehead as he took the rolling suitcase and duffel.

‘No problem, sweetheart,’ Dean said in the same broad accent as his shorter companion (family member?), and Aix heart fluttered. He wasn’t much into the butches usually, but that Noir-ish sort of dandy always got to him. ‘I’m Dean. Queen Zo Sinnamon is my cousin. I guess you know Princess O’s little bro, huh? Small world.’

‘Yeah, small world,’ Aix said, a little flustered still at Dean’s charm. ‘I’m Aix,’ Aix said, overwhelmed by immediately running into a group of a bunch of people that were friendly and queer and pretty. He felt underdressed once again, and uncomfortable in his veil. ‘I’m a he-him or,’ he added, feeling daring, ‘the gay she.’ He’d never been around people who knew how to say ‘she’ so it was the Gay She, before, but drag queens were those people.

‘Ohhh, family!’ Sinnamon said, delightedly. ‘Where ya headed, The Howard? The Tribeca? What.’ She cracked her gum.

‘Ahhh, so ya headin’ fa Lafayette street’s entrance,’ Dean said, nodding.

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, Lance pulling the handle out of the back of the chair gently and starting to push him. ‘Where were y’all headed?’ He tried not to wince at the twang in his voice.

‘Home, but I can come with ya,’ Dean said. ‘Howzabout you, Enz?’ he asked Sinnamon.

‘I’m headed that way,’ said the only white person in the group, a blonde glamour queen with a fan, ‘may as well take the Q. I’m Pinky Focks, by the way, darling.’

‘I’m Mitch, this is my girlfriend, Queenie,’ said the other butch, who was bigger and dressed far more casually, in a t-shirt with the lesbian flag that showed off her muscly arms and the pinup girl tattoos on them. The one she introduced as Queenie was very femme in a mink coat and peekaboo curls kind of way, and reminded Aix of the real Cruella De Vil—the one from the book, who wore an Absolutely Simple White Mink Coat and whom Aix had always imagined as being very severely, very lethally pretty.

‘We’ll tell Zia so she doesn’t worry,’ Queenie said to Queen Sinnamon and Dean, and Aix wondered if they were related, even as his heart leapt at the word ‘zia’. ‘Zia’ meant they were definiely Italian. Like him.

‘I cannot believe we just ran into you,’ Princess O was saying to Lance, as they continued down the sidewalk, and Aix noticed Dean kept on one side of him, and Princess was beside Lance, with Sinnamon on Aix’s other side and Pinky leading. It gave him an actual escort, protective flanking on all sides.

Little brother scare. Scare big noise. I tell him is okay, we safe in here in the safebox.

Yeah, you’re safe. I know it’s a lot of noises and smells, we’ll be underground in the human ferry road soon, and then we will be home. Thank you for staying hidden.

The elevator was only big enough for Dean, Lance, and Aix, so the others met them underground. To Aix, the subway station seemed weirdly empty; but it was also somewhat comforting to be somewhere people were more masked, and to see more Muslims just scattered around, along with Sikhs and even a group of Hasidim. Aix always felt safer the more different religions he saw, and this city was the only place he’d ever felt the constant threat of Christianity ease off.

The train car was mostly empty this time of night, and Aix only realised he had forgotten to call Virginia in all the excitement when the train started going and it was impossible to do so.

On Aix’s lap, the carrier wiggled, and Aix felt Pippin’s frustration. She wanted to come out and see the Humanspeople Mommies, and be made much of.

‘So hey,’ Aix said, ‘Um, you should come and hang out with me in my apartment. I know it’s late. I don’t. Have a lot of stuff in there, but… lots of the people in my building are nocturnal, and they’re nice.’

‘Pinky has like seven exes in there,’ Princess whispered behind her fan, barely holding back a giggle.

‘I have a couple friends from the auto shop,’ Dean said, as Pinky glared at Princess, who stuck out her pierced tongue. ‘This is our stop, c’man.’ Dean got up, and gave a hand to the femmes out of the train and onto the next one.

‘So, what’s the story?’ Dean asked, after they all got settled on the F train, which had the older and more personable arrangements of orange and yellow seats facing every which way. It made navigating harder for a wheelchair but it was still more personable and friendly, and Aix liked it better. ‘Why were you on a big rig?’

‘With horses on it,’ Pinky added dreamily. From the rhinestoned riding habit she was wearing, Aix figured her for a Horse Girl.

‘That’s Miss Amber,’ Aix said, ‘she’s a friend. It’s a long story, but um, basically I came here in an emergency situation, and my place at the Castle doesn’t exactly have any food or anything. I hope somebody’s awake,’ he said, fretfully. Maybe he should have eaten something when they’d stopped at Big Z’s….

‘Aww, the baby wants to have a say too,’ Sinnamon cooed at the carrier on Aix’s lap. ‘Hi, baby.’

‘Yes but I can’t, um… I just can’t,’ Aix said, glancing around the train car as it slowed to a stop at a lonely platform. He was so nervous he didn’t see Princess O narrowing her dark eyes thoughtfully. She leaned forward, over Sinnamon, who was much shorter than her.

‘Ahh, you got an Italian Particolour in there, huh?’ she said, a grin clearly audible in her voice, even though the mask covered it.

Aix recalled what Victoria had said, about clowns having been banned from the city because of racist policies reacting to Italian immigrants bringing them from the old country. Knowing that other people still smuggled them in under euphemisms was comforting.

Pinky was craning her neck, fan flipped out to hide her mouth from anyone eavesdropping. ‘How are you hiding one in a carrier that small?’

‘She also very wants attention from a bunch of drag queens,’ Aix added, as a concession to Pippin. ‘We have that in common,’ he added, in another burst of daring that immediately bent in on itself to become shyness, his eyes dropping to the carrier.

‘Aww, povero buffonina,’ Sinnamon cooed to the carrier, moving closer and putting her hand against one of the mesh sides of the carrier. Her heart melted as she felt a tiny hand push back, saw a tiny face. ‘Well, you’ll get a lot of attention from us.’

When they arrived at Lexington and 63^rd, the station and streets were even emptier, and Aix’s new friends assured him that as soon as they were inside the elevator or lobby of Wolf Castle Towers, it was safe to let Pippin out. In the half-lit lobby of the Castle, there was one of the trolls at the desk, her face hidden by a mask and her ears by a worn-in hoodie with the logo from Wicked.

‘Ladies,’ she said, in the lower part of her register; she didn’t have a smooth voice—Trolls didn’t—but it was still that flirtatious quality. ‘Sir,’ she said to Dean, after, and then, realising who Aix was, standing up and leaning forward to look at him down in the wheelchair, curious and wanting to grant him the respect of eye-contact. ‘You’re the witch, aren’t you?’

‘I am,’ Aix said, ‘Is Mrs Monday-Clovis awake? Or Mr Monday-Clovis. I don’t have my keys yet.’

‘Yeah, they just walked in a few minutes ago. Try the roof if they don’t answer the door. Your stuff isn’t here yet.’

‘Oh yeah, um,’ Aix said, then made a decision. ‘Could y’all give me a second?’

‘Sure thing. Here, gimmie the bambina,’ Sinnamon said, opening her arms for the carrier. ‘We’ll take her up to the roof.’

‘The sixteenth floor, then,’ Pinky corrected, sighing. ‘Come on, I’ll see if Fizzorum is home.’

Pippin actually beeped, and her Flash lit up again. ‘Duckie!’ she said, distressed.

‘You don’t have like, a cursed songbird in there do you? Virginia doesn’t allow that shit.’

‘Oh!’ the troll said, relaxing. ‘I mean, what joey?’ and she winked. ‘I didn’t see nothin’. That’s a cat.’

Aix went over to Sinnamon, who had set down the carrier on one of the many low tables around the lobby, and unzipped the carrier, seeing the kitten was still being very quiet, likely because Pippin’s arms were around him gently and making him feel safe. Pippin looked at him.

‘Hey, c’mere, beeble,’ Aix said, feeling safe enough—the lobby wasn’t full of windows, it was an older building, and so nobody could see in from the street as he got her out, petting the kitten a little and tucking the blanket around him a little more securely in apology. He seemed very happy and purry though, since meeting his big sister. Aix wondered if she could communicate with him, explain things that it was impossible to explain to pets. But for the moment, he was just grateful the kitten wasn’t traumatised, and let Pippin climb into his lap.

‘Ohhh you’re so little,’ Sinnamon cooed, the others gathering around her—Dean, Princess, and Sinnamon crouched down, and Pinky sat on the edge of the low table.

‘Ye,’ Pippin said, very pleased, as she hugged Aix around the neck, peering around at everyone with her big dark eyes.

‘Okay, Pippin, sweetheart, can you go with Queen Sinnamon and Princess O and Pinky Focks and Dean and little brothercat? They want to play with you while Mommy talks to Auntie Gin.’

‘And you can meet some other special cat people,’ Pinky said, in a soft-edged voice one was surprised to hear from her, because she had so far been the quintessential white bitchy fashionista.

Aix realised, with a pang of heartbreak, that Pippin might have been just as scared of the whole Heeren affair as he had been, and had been clinging to him as much for her sake as to comfort him. He hugged her.

‘Oh, sweetie, it’s okay, I promise. Everyone in this building likes me and will protect me from bad people like that. You just look after little brothercat for me, okay?’ Tell him I’m sorry I haven’t been able to sit with him for a good long time yet.

‘It’s true, if you are the witch I’ve been hearin’ about—the one that’s a teacher, yeah? You gonna teach folks to read?’ Dean asked. Aix glanced up at him, and nodded.

‘Yeah, that’s me. She’s scared because I was kidnapped by someone a few days ago, when I was stopped in Baltimore, originally on my way here. Pippin saved me, but it was still touch-and-go for a minute.’

‘Ah, jeez,’ Sinnamon said, but to Aix’s relief none of them overreacted; Pinky even leaned over to hug him.

‘Oh, no. Um, she’s dead now,’ Aix said. ‘But uh, she had rozzer friends. That’s why I’m here now.’

‘Ugh,’ Princess O muttered. ‘Well, don’t worry about that here, little one,’ he told Pippin in a sweeter voice.

‘Yeah, yer family now,’ Dean said. ‘Both of ya, and the little guy in there—he sleepin? Wow, that’s a bomb proof cat.’

Well, that explained it. Aix trusted her, he knew she was a bit older than she seemed, and knew cats.

‘Aix?’ called a voice from the elevators, and they all looked over to see Virginia, in a well-worn blue set of sweats and another handmade mask with a rainbow fabric. ‘Oh, hi Pinky,’ she said, ‘Dean. Girls.’ She looked back at Aix. ‘Sorry, the desk called me and said you were here. What happened?’

‘Ohhh,’ Aix said, in a soft sing-song, ‘a lot. Um, this is Pippin, she’s my new pedigree Italian Particolour cat.’

‘Ear!’ Pippin said, her Mask turning cat-like with a little nose and whisker-lines and a siamese mask. She was delighted with the giggling this caused.

‘Hm, well we do allow cats and she does look very polite,’ Virgina said, offering her hand because she wasn’t entirely sure how to interact with clowns, but it couldn’t hurt. Pippin put her little inky hands on Virginia’s and sniffed her hand, her long tail swishing. Virginia used her free hand to get a set of keys from her sweatshirt pocket, offering them to Aix.

‘Here, I brought you keys. Is that all you’ve got?’ she asked, gesturing to the bags.

‘Warren’s already making you something so you have some ready-to-eat meals right away. We got in from the theatre a bit ago.’

‘Thank you,’ Aix said, and handed one of the keys to Lance. ‘Um, here, Lance. If you wanna go up to my apartment and hang out. It’s empty, but it’s somewhere to put my stuff and let the kitten out so he can explore and stuff.’

‘Okay,’ he said, pushing the chair’s handle back in, getting Aix’s rolling backpack and slinging the rucksack over his broad, tattooed shoulders. Pippin hopped down onto the floor to walk, but reached into the carrier to take the blanket-wrapped bundle of kitten, carrying him herself.

After they left, Virginia settled on the sofa. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Mummery,’ Aix said, and Virginia nodded, silently leading Aix past the reception desk and into a back office, where another troll was sitting, just taking a sip of coffee.

‘Yeah, it’s fine. Reasonable exception. If you’re on break, you’re still on break even if you sit out there.’

‘Cool.’ He left, carrying the mug. When the door closed, Virginia sat down in his vacated chair.

‘What’s up? Victoria left town on Tuesday but she said it was an emergency and she didn’t have time to explain. And now you’re here, but your movers never arrived. Are you okay?’

Aix took a deep breath. ‘You know what you were telling me about being seized by Destiny and saving the kingdom…?’ and he told her. She didn’t speak—a feat for a New Yorker, they were very vocal listeners—until he was done catching her up.

‘—and so ironically, right as we settled all my stuff in a storage unit down there, I needed to come up here after all. I don’t have any food or bedding other than my one pillow, and I’m not really sure how I’m gonna survive up here without that, but I’m trying to have faith that everyone in this building might be willing to lend me something or other, just for a couple days.’

‘Jesus, of course we are,’ Virginia said, with feeling. ‘You ran into the right people—I’d trust Dean and his family with my life, and Tris—that’s Princess O—is actually a vampire’s familiar, down in Staten Island. Pinky works for that elf gentleman you met when you first came here.’

‘Oh, oh okay. So… so they’re all inside the Mummery, or whatever the term is.’

Virginia chuckled. ‘Yeah, yeah they are.’ She got to her feet. ‘Come on, Warren wants to feed you. He’s been practising. Oh, before we do go, though—are you planning to stay and teach?’

‘Yes! Yes, defs. I was planning to at least weekend here, or something like that. I’ve never split time before. If nothing else, to teach reading and writing to folks. That’s important.’

‘Oh good. Good. We’re struggling without a teacher, and you seemed like a perfect fit. Teachers are sort of few and far between, in this world.’ She opened the door and went out first, holding the door for Aix to wheel out. Mugwort had apparently been told who Aix was, because he was regarding Aix differently.

‘You go on ahead, Aix, I’ll be up in a minute,’ Virginia said, knowing what a burden it was to keep repeating a retelling of something awful.

As Aix wheeled off to the elevators, she turned to the two trolls and briefly outlined the situation in Eglenor style, trusting it would spread out into the rest of the building with speed (and accuracy; rumour didn’t distort as much, in a culture that didn’t have the printed word and relied on oral tradition), before going up to join Aix at the elevators.

‘So, we’ve got a twin mattress and bed that we moved into your apartment,’ Virginia said, as the elevator went up. ‘Everyone wanted the honour of giving the new witch a housewarming gift, so the apartment is… basically furnished? I know you said you were particular about décor, so I hope it’s not too awful. It’s all stuff that goes with the apartment, that um, storybook cottage aesthetic.’

‘I’m verklempt, oh my god,’ Aix said, tearing up. ‘Fuck. I. I’ve never had a community before.’

‘Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it?’ Virginia said, her blue eyes crinkling in a smile. ‘The furniture is mostly from the dwarfs, and you’ve got this gorgeous cuckoo clock that I figured we should put in the kitchen so it’s as far from your bedroom as possible, and the pantry is full of course, with non-perishables that work with your food stuff.’

Virginia knew this would be interpreted by Aix as overwhelming kindness, because Aix was like her, and used to a hard and heartless world; it pleased her to keep listing all the specific ways people were kind, knowing that Aix might be crying but it was good crying. The kid needed to know everyone had their back, after having to run from the police a few hours ago.

‘Oh! It’s here somewhere…’ he patted the pockets of his suit jacket and pulled out a crumpled fabric mask with a moon on it, putting it on. ‘Sorry,’ he said, sheepishly.

‘Hey, puppohs!’ Aix said softly, wheeling into the hall and letting the dogs all come up to him for petting.

‘Yeah, they’re frugivores, but if they’re broody they need meat or eggs. Pippin likes apples,’ Aix said. ‘And they can live on things like refined sugar, which nobody has ever been able to figure out, until now.’

‘Until now?’ Virginia asked, as they went down the hall. ‘Go home,’ she told the dogs, gesturing. ‘Go home, go on.’

‘Come on,’ Warren said, trotting off toward their apartment, the dogs swarming after him—all but Ticky, who whined loudly and hesitated.

‘Go home, Ticky,’ Aix said, copying the gesture, knowing dog commands were more somatic than verbal. Ticky whined, but at Warren’s soft bark, she obeyed, and Warren came back after letting them all inside.

Aix opened his new door with his new key, and didn’t look up until he got all the way inside. Lance was there alone, in the kitchen, the kitten wasn’t with him.

‘Hi, Aix,’ he said. ‘Everyone else went down to hang out with the werecats, I figured if anybody knew how to take care of a kitten, it would be them, I hope it’s okay.’ He was mixing something up in a big wooden bowl, but jerked his head to indicate the apartment. ‘I thought you said the apartment was empty.’

The wooden floor was now covered with a large dark green and gold rug with intricate leafy vine patterns, and there was a small chaise lounge upholstered in deep green fabric that perfectly fit under the window, and a carved mahogany desk that looked like someone had built it to perfectly accommodate a desktop computer, which was incongruous with it being a carved wooden desk. A beautiful painting of a glade hung on one wall, and…

‘How is there a fireplace,’ Aix said. ‘What the fuck oh my god I love it.’ It was brick, matched the kitchen’s bricks, and had a curved brass fender upholstered in sensible black wool, and a screen.

He went into the bedroom—whoever had arranged everything had known he was in a chair, there was very little clutter and a direct pathway between rooms that was nice and wide, also it looked as though the doors had been widened since he was last here, and he knew they’d been converted to pocket-doors since then, which was frankly impressive—and gasped at the sight of the bed, which was also, like the rest of the furniture, carved of mahogany wood, and though it wasn’t a four-poster or canopy, someone had hung curtains from the ceiling all around it. They were blue and green in a damask pattern of leaves and flowers in nouveau swoops and curls. The floor now had a wall-to-wall rug that had a pattern that mimicked a field of clover and strawberries.

Being in this room again reminded him of the conversation he’d had in here, sitting under the window, and he suddenly realised… ‘Oh my god! You told me about them before! The drag queens I just met!’ He came out of the bedroom, looking for Virginia. ‘You told me about them!’

‘Small world,’ Virginia said. ‘Apparently he hadn’t mentioned that to Tris.’

‘I didn’t want him to worry about Mom,’ Lance said bashfully, cracking eggs into the bowl and starting to stir again. ‘But she’s okay, really; and with how much René pays me, and how much Tris gets… we’re gonna be able to buy Mom a house back on The Island soon, or at least an apartment. And Leilani is staying with Mom now that I’ve left, so it’s not like I abandoned her. But Tristan worries, you know? He worries because he feels like he should be taking care of Mom.’

Aix listened while getting out of his chair and pushing it over by the hinge-side of the front door, taking his shoes off and leaving them beside it too. He didn’t really have any ability to countenance taking care of a mother, or wanting to support her, so he stayed quiet, and just walked around the apartment, opening drawers and looking at things. He tried out the comfy-looking swivel chair in front of the desk by the window, and it was actually wide enough for him, and deep enough. He started moving some of the little ornaments into drawers, quietly going through and cat-proofing as much as possible, sitting down at intervals.

Going back into the bedroom, he found that Lance had unpacked for him, putting things in the dresser and the closet, neatly putting his pillow and stuffed animal on the bed.

There were, also, masks in the dresser. George must have packed him some. They were all neatly folded in their own individual plastic bags, and they were black.

Aix stared at them for a while, thinking. They had head bands, not ear loops. He wasn’t sure he wanted to show his hair yet, though. He took off the niqab and the hijab, setting the pin down on the little shell dish on the dresser, and taking off the underscarf, and his glasses, putting the underscarf back on fresh, careful of his makeup, and putting his glasses back on again, and looking at his face. He was made-up, still, and now that René was so far away, Aix kind of felt like the invisible hand of his vampire lover was all he would have, for a while. It was intolerable, suddenly, to not show it as much as he could.

Were Pards like werecats? It seemed like they weren’t, because Cameron looked nothing like the nurse that had helped him when he’d fainted. Were they more or less likely to transmit the plague? Could he go unmasked? But then again, there were other humans around, so no, he couldn’t.

He wanted to get to know his fucking kitten, also. He hadn’t had any time to do that, yet! He tied the veil back on, but only the veil, throwing the burqa layer over his head and feeling a bit scared but deciding he needed to do it because he was scared. He shouldn’t be scared of making a different choice. He assessed his outfit, looked through the closet, finding that George had packed him poet shirts and had… found him clothes? There were new pants, and Aix found they actually fit perfectly when he shut the bedroom door and hurriedly tried them on.

He didn’t normally fit into pants, which was why he hated them; but when they fit… and these bell-bottom jeans fit. They fit very well. He didn’t have a full-length mirror anywhere; but just looking down at them, and feeling them, he could tell they fit. They seemed vintage, especially since they came up so high. Carefully but quickly, Aix swapped his current outfit for the new jeans and one of the black poet shirts, and felt very confident about himself, suddenly, and much less worried about everything generally.

He decided to go barefoot, because he felt like being barefoot, and the floor seemed very soft compared to all the concrete he’d been walking on, and went back out of the bedroom.

‘I’m going to go see where Pippin and my new baby got off to,’ he announced. ‘Did they say, Lance?’

‘Sixteenth floor, though I’m not sure which apartment, there was some indication that’s kind of a communal floor.’

‘Pards are like that,’ Warren said, with a bit of fond annoyance. ‘No respect for territory. Or doors.’

‘I think they just live in bigger and less organized groups, is all,’ Virginia said, squeezing her husband’s arm. ‘If Pinky is the one choosing, it’s probably 1609.’

‘Okay,’ Aix said, and paused at his wheelchair to get his keys, checking to make sure he had everything. ‘Do Pards feed guests?’

‘Zozo and Dean will make sure you have food, don’t worry,’ Virginia said. She wanted to ask why Aix was not getting in his chair, but that was a personal decision, and she already knew from Victoria that most wheelchair users walked a little bit, and Aix was more mobile than Victoria too. Maybe the chair was just for being outside of home territory, that made sense. There were certainly plenty of nice places to sit all over the hallways and elevators.

‘Yeah,’ Virginia said. ‘Carver didn’t know if you used a cane, but she figured you should have one anyway as a weapon.’

‘Would Carver happen to be a troll?’ Aix asked, trying to get a sense for which names went with whom.

‘She is,’ Virginia said, chuckling. ‘Originally she did not get her name from carving wood.’

‘Noice,’ Aix said in a low, boyish growl of admiration, but did not take the cane with him. ‘Okay, thank you so much for being here for me, I know I should eat but I’m antsy and need to do stuff.’

‘I’m making you some breads for breakfast,’ Lance said. ‘And I’m getting a sleeping bag lent to me so don’t worry about that.’

‘Okay, I’ll see you later,’ Aix said, and locked the door behind him—Virginia was glad he had city instincts, the few months she’d had to spend teaching Warren to lock doors had been nerve-wracking.

‘I think he’d really appreciate having meals he can just grab and eat, for a couple weeks,’ Lance said. ‘He’s going to Romania in a short while, on top of all this.’

Virginia, however, was narrowing her eyes. ‘Romania…? Oh my god,’ she said, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god.’

‘Uh, the… the King of the Dead lives there,’ Virginia told him, looking at Lance, who nodded with a confused expression.

Lance noted that Warren seemed visibly disturbed by this notion. What sort of werewolf was he, then, to have a tail at all times, and to not know about vampires? Lance was curious; he hadn’t been inside of this world for long, but it seemed as though this building were… very different from anything he’d seen in Baltimore, or been told by George. This place was in the Mummery, wasn’t it? Lance didn’t know how to ask, so he just kept baking, and spoke as though they knew.

‘I’m told it is fairly standard to bring a representative of a new people to meet the King, and to receive formal recognition for a new…’ he paused. ‘Hunter’ wasn’t the right word, but not everyone was a witch either. ‘Watchperson,’ he said, because Aix reminded him strongly of Vimes, in the way René reminded him strongly of Vetinari. ‘The Council has been called.’

‘I didn’t realise the Council meant Dracula,’ Virginia said, on a half-frantic laugh of shock. Lance chuckled.

‘I couldn’t believe it either. Nobody calls him that, by the way. It’s Voivodul Drăculești, or The King. Aix calls him Your Grace, he says that’s the medieval address for a King.’

‘So, how much of the book is true?’ Virginia asked curiously. ‘We’ve been reading the Dracula Daily thing for a while. My daughter set us up a whole book club on Dreamwidth with all her classmates talking about it, too.’

‘I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask, yet,’ Lance said, pouring the batter into a loaf pan. ‘I’ve met Ms Van Helsing, though.’

‘Oh, yeah, Mike’s a Van Helsing,’ Virginia said, laughing at her own obliviousness, ‘I always forget that.’

Outside, Aix went down to the elevator, sitting down on the bench inside as he went down to the sixteenth floor, telling everyone he had made it to Virginia’s safely and had met some new friends, and there was probably a party or something he was about to go to on the sixteenth floor.

When the elevator opened, there was immediately the happy noise of activity, and the faint scent of cats. Aix stepped out of the elevator, immediately seeing a naked calico Pard crossing the hallway from one apartment’s open door to another; she froze and looked at him, her tail fluffing out a bit in surprise, ears perked.

‘Oh!’ she said, and came up to him, sniffing at him and rubbing against him immediately, getting some of her white fur on his clothes. Aix didn’t mind. ‘You’ll want to see your baby, yes?’ She took his hand and led him down the hall and into another apartment—they all seemed to just have their doors half-closed, if closed at all. Aix didn’t catch individual conversations or noises, but the tones were all happy and calm, nothing was making him tense up.

‘He’s so sweet, and the little clown too. She’s practically a cat, herself,’ the Pard added, pleased in the way of all felines at this.

There were sex noises coming from a couple doorways, not loudly, and the smell of food from a few others. Everywhere was the general atmosphere of a party happening in multiple rooms, which was… Aix had always liked parties, at least, when they weren’t themed around binge-drinking and nothing else.

‘Yanameer, who is that?’ called a large but lithe pard with a mane-like ruff and brown and black tabby stripes.

‘You smell good, we should fuck,’ he said in response, and Aix… wasn’t even surprised, honestly. He almost laughed.

‘Maybe!’ he said, on a delighted laugh, ‘I need to eat and look after my kitten first.’

‘Oh it’s your kitten!’ he said, catching up to them. ‘I thought it was Dean’s, he’s so protective of him.’

It was a lived-in apartment, with lots of squashy low furniture and art all over the walls, and about a dozen people scattered around, most of them Pards. It felt like Aix had walked right into the first musical he’d ever known as a child, and he was enchanted.

Pippin and the kitten were playing with each other on one part of the sofa, and Pippin seemed to have foregone her clothing somewhere, because she was naked. Aix sat on the ottoman in front of their bit of the sofa.

‘Yi!’ said the kitten, bouncing up to Aix in the slightly-awkward way of kittens his age, ‘Ih!’

Aix slowly offered his hand to sniff, wishing he could still make high-pitched cat noises. He’d just embarrass himself at this point, he knew it. The kitten purred and butted against his hand immediately, and Aix heart melted.

I tell him all about humanspeople Mommy an how much Mommy luv he. Pippin said happily, sitting on the edge of the sofa and kicking her bare feet. He wam jump on Mommylap.

Aix saw the tell-tale head-bobbing from the kitten and leaned back, patting his lap. ‘Come on,’ he said in the little voice that he’d started using when his voice had dropped too low for him to do the falsetto most people used to talk to animals. The kitten launched himself off the sofa and Aix caught him. There was more than just Aix cheering this effort.

‘What are we gonna name you?’ Aix said, and suddenly the room went very quiet, and many shining eyes turned to him. Aix hummed softly to himself, and Queen Sinnamon, one of the people bracketing the part of the sofa kitten and Pippin had been playing on, sang softly,

Aix joined in immediately, pitch-perfect and not even having to pay much attention—the songs were etched into his heart indelibly, as any childhood-learned song was.

It isn’t just one of your holiday games
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you a Cat must have three diff’rent names

It was spine-tingling to hear a whole room full of actual Jellicle cats join in that song, which was rather spooky to begin with; but it made Aix feel welcome, and he felt the magic in him, spreading it with his hands over the kitten, weaving a protective spell of Aix’s love over him as Aix sang, and felt the power he always felt at singing together in a group.

28. Notes

It has been Utterly Miserable here in London for the past few years, and there are simply not enough Pretties about since Grunge took over fashion. I hope you are properly Grateful for your Bijoux, you old Whore.

Gazzie has met the most charming young tailor, he swans about the city like some sort of Regency ghost. Unfortunately, he is not at all right for us, but Gazzie at least commissioned a banyan from him, the poor love has been Desolate since his last favourite one wore out. He parted with it so the tailor had a pattern to use, and has picked out the most Fetching peacock teal damask lined in matching satin.

I have received summons to the Council, and I am Most Intrigued, my Detested! What on Earth has happened? The Gentry are all positively in a Flutter of gossip, all about The Prince of the Seelie Court’s Witch Friend, who Slayed The Great Lichcaller of your little Village. And there is such agitation among my dear little Joeys, I cannot think what is the matter with them! How is the little one you said adopted you in April?

I am delighted to hear of your misery as always, and have been watching the fall of your wretched English Empire with great delight and many glasses of champagne. It is no surprise to me that English boys cannot compare to the wide variety and healthy glow this fine country has always given the boys that live here in America.

I look forward to seeing your favourite Bijou in his new clothes; perhaps he shall look good enough to soften your envy of me.

As to the Council, what rumours you have mentioned are true—my new witch is a charming pet with face and form like that of the most beautiful Classical statue, and power to make the earth tremble, not the least of which is his powerful alliance with beings beyond this world’s comprehension.

Little Pierrette is doing very well, and my witch has adopted her from me—or, in the manner of Pierrette’s assertive personality, I should say that Pierrette has adopted him. They are quite happy together, and my witch can speak with clowns in their own tongue, which has caused some little sensation in Toone Street. The Old Renard has finally found a permanent home, thanks to this, with a descendant of an old Master of his.

My dearest friend! I am sure you have received word by now of the forthcoming Council; I am delighted to tell you it is because La Heeren shall darken my doorstep no longer! I was blessed with the arrival of a witch of your country, a Femminiello he says he would be called in Italian, and through his silver tongued magics he has slain her, and done me the honour of becoming my city’s Hunter—with La Van Helsing’s recommendation, no less!

I do hope you shall consider bringing your clowns to the Council, Pierrette would adore having playmates, and if you wish to know the inner thoughts of your dearest companions, it would be wise. I know you write to M. Grishakin often, and he has likely already told you of my witch’s especial power to speak to Les Perroquets. My witch also adores them, and sadly has been deprived of their company. America is, as you doubtless know, not at all appreciative of the Commedia, not properly.

I do hope you and yours are well, how is Mme. Starlight? I am sure she grows more beautiful by the day. And all of you will be pleased to know my witch has a Voice, low and versatile, perhaps a baritone? With a boy such as he it is difficult to say precisely, but it is of a pleasingly honeyed timbre, like sweet coffee. Mme. Noire may yet have someone to duet with, she might prepare to sing A Little Something by Melody Gardot, as I have heard my witch singing that to himself. Clever Cammie has also coaxed him to tell his favourite song: Complainte de la Butte as sung by Rufus Wainwright. I promise you, cher ami, I had no influence on this choice! It has apparently been his favourite since he was a child! When I asked him, he gave me quite a list of songs—Ne Me Quitte Pas, much of Eartha Kitt and Melody Gardot, and that a new crooner from Canada, Michael Bublé, whom I am sure you have heard of, though I have not. I am attempting to get him suitable clothes, though he has his own Gothic style and is currently having to reside in M. Blackstone’s city in order to evade the vindictive friends of La Heeren. Still, he takes the advice of Mme. Blackstone and so I am sure he will be well-appointed.

On behalf of The Darkwing, I write to disclose various needs for hosting him and vouchsafing his comfort and ease of movement.

Like myself, he makes use of a wheelchair, and requires the space to manœuvre safely, seating for bathing, and all other things that I have outlined during our initial correspondence on my own needs in this matter. He also has requested dishes of a lighter weight, and straws to drink from, though of course as one of the Folk he must needs have these things be other than Iron, Cold as well as Living.

Unlike myself, The Darkwing requires additional consideration for his P.T.S.D. He must be allowed a room with no servants’ passages, and to lock his bed-chamber, and not be disturbed while asleep. He also has a brace of small companion animals—a cat and a Pierrot—that are trained to stay at his side and ease his troubled mind when it wanders with their presence. He asks that others do not distract them from this task, because as frivolous as their behaviour may appear, it is important they be allowed to focus on him.

He cannot eat pork, semolina flour, legumes, shellfish, high fructose corn syrup, false sugars, stevia, soya, apples, grapes, dates, honey, egg yolks, or alliums save for the greens of scallions. He has expressed interest in traditional paprika hendl, and like Claudiu his favoured fruit is summer peaches. Gin is his favoured spirit.

As for lighter details, The Darkwing has interest in old architecture, paintings, sculpture, and is particularly interested in learning Romanian. Like many of the Council, he is a musician of piano and voice, and has marked interest in learning the pipe organ—I know you have a fine one, and he would be very pleased to see and hear it.

My usual needs have not changed, and I thank you again for being such a gracious host to both The Darkwing and I in these small ways, particularly in continuing to schedule meetings around the Jewish calendar. I hope you and your son are well, and remain as always,

I write to extend our most sincere salutations and welcome from my father, Voivodul Drăculești, and myself. As this is your first visit to our fair country, I will be acting as your guide and am happy to show you around București (Bucharest), she is a beautiful city, with many fine old buildings, and I will also act as translator. I am told I am a good teacher of Romanian as well, as D-na Blackstone has mentioned you might wish to learn.

We also have a fine pipe organ, and Maestro Vincenzo usually favours us with a composition or two over the span of a Council, as all the Songbirds do favour us with their musical talents. Rest assured that we have prepared for your comfort in every way, and the peach trees are doing very well this year, as they have been for the past half century. We have been buried in fruits, so to have guests fond of peaches is a blessing. Perhaps you can bring some American recipes, I would like that very much, it is difficult to find them and I know that peaches are one of the very popular American fruits.

One of my hobbies is cookery, which I hear that we share; I am always quite eager to have guests that enjoy food. It is a fine and enjoyable thing to work in the soup kitchen nearby, but cooking nourishing meals for many hundreds of souls is a different kind of cookery altogether than the intricacy of planning a dinner party for only a few, and I enjoy both.

One of my father’s newer pastimes is fruiting trees. The weather here in the walled garden is quite Mediterranean because of the southern exposure, and my father has been at espalier for the past century, so we have even been able to grow an avocado tree and, we are told by Lord Hellebore, keep it thriving. We also have a Meyer lemon and recently received a gift from Mr Slocum, a Macadamia seedling from the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, as he has recently employed a familiar from that land. Father has tended it so carefully, it is doing very well. I do not think there are any Macadamia trees that have been trained to espalier before, it is very exciting! Father is using the fan shape, because it is unclear what direction would cause the tree to thrive best.

Such twitterings there have been! We are all most grateful for your letter, and Aloysius especially extends his pleasure, as do we all—your witch has excellent taste in singers, and we are all the more eager to meet him. Is he a Musician, or simply gifted? I should like to hear him sing.

Roseblade is planning to bring his clowns with him, and Claudiu says your witch is bringing his therapy clown; when I told this to Felicino, he surprised us all and asked if he might, then, accompany me to Bucharest! I have not pressed him as to why, but I think it is a good sign, that he is interested in them again.

It has been too long since I have seen you, do bring along Cameron, I have heard so much about him and his violet eyes that I wish to see them for myself. Milady also has expressed a wish to meet him, and any others of your werecats. I think it may be wise to heed her desire, tesoro.

29. Melded Dreaming

Aix was in the cave again, but it was different this time—smaller, winding passages and dripping limestone, skittering spiders the size of cats. Aix moved along the path with a bit of trepidation. He and Cthulhu were no longer on the good terms they had been…

Morpheus was waiting, but Cthulhu—the way he looked now, the illithid-esque figure, tall and violet and elegantly sinister—was sitting with him. As usual, Morpheus looked friendly and kind, to Aix, and beckoned to him with one long hand the colour of the midnight sky, glittering with stardust.

I have just been talking with Cthulhu for some time. You are in no danger, songbird, come.

Aix swallowed, coming forward and sitting down next to Morpheus, who wrapped an arm around him, and kissed his forehead…

But he didn’t really feel any differently, as he’d expected, with the memories returned. He felt… exactly the same—other than having context now, even though it didn’t make sense that Cthulhu wouldn’t just try and make more of the same kind of memory to make up for the lack.

I have been attempting to contact your gods, because Jasper indicated this might help me understand your perspective, and you said something that I have been wondering about for days: ‘Why are you angry with me for protecting you’.

Morpheus has told me that there was a very high chance that, without your sacrifice, I would have been attacked by the gods and forcibly ejected from this world.

‘I… yeah,’ Aix said. ‘Everything has been happening so much, and you haven’t been talking to me in dreams, where we can be alone, so I haven’t been able to explain gods to you properly, and… just… I didn’t get a chance to tell you.’ Aix wanted to apologise, even though it didn’t make sense to do so.

My horror must have seemed the height of ingratitude, and for that I am regretful and understand how it was painful to receive. I did not trust what I could not understand, and that caused me to harm you.

‘…I think that’s the best apology anyone has ever given me ever,’ Aix said, a bit in shock. ‘Thank you.’ He got up, going over and sitting next to Cthulhu to hug him, surprised at how much those words had done to heal the pain he’d just accepted was going to be there for the next… forever.

He was so used to being hurt that someone acknowledging their part in it was shocking.

He held Cthulhu tighter. ‘Please come home. Please stay with me again. Help me build my life again, I want you to do it with me. I want you to help me name my kitten. I want Pippin to know you. I want to show you how the subway works, and take you to Marie’s Crisis, and see Broadway shows with you, and go grocery shopping, and watch my favourite movies and explain jokes and show you the aquarium and the art museums….’

I like the way you explain things best of all, Cthulhu replied, holding Aix and grateful that he had been able to finally have a conversation with some of Aix’s gods, to learn things from them—most important of which was how to better communicate with his human. Because only Aix was his human, even after Cthulhu had met others.

The gods were strange beings, and frightening in their inexplicability—they had been created by humans, whole-made (as Loki had phrased it) out of the imagination and belief of thousands of humans together, and were given power that had given Cthulhu a sense of abject terror to comprehend.

And Aix was one of the sorts of humans that created them. That’s what Storyteller was, that’s what Witch meant. That’s what Magic was, when humans spoke of magic. It was this, it was one aspect of this vast and terrifying cosmic power of Imagination and Creation that humans simply called ‘Storytelling’ and apparently dismissed as the least valuable of arts.

Yet Aix worshipped gods, not the other way around; because there was a cyclic logic to humanity—they created these terrifyingly powerful beings, but they created stories that said these gods had created them in turn. It was hard to understand, and apparently not even humans could explain it or think about it too often. Many, in fact most, refused to acknowledge their hand in the creation of their creators. Aix was somewhat unique in this respect, and Morpheus and others had advised Cthulhu not throw away the opportunity to learn from Aix.

Well, because humans had decided Cthulhu’s people must be gods—but all the more frightening because they held them up as a kind of ‘what if we hadn’t created some of the gods, would they be like this? Would they contravene the unacknowledged point of gods? Would they toy with us unknowingly and destroy us without a thought?’

After his first brush with divinity and magic, Cthulhu could well understand that horror, though he also felt a terrible guilt and sorrow at the fact that every interaction his people had with humanity—even wise Azathoth, whom Cthulhu had thought would surely have been the exception—had frightened humans to such a degree.

Though his interaction with gods thus far had been… oddly educational, if not what one could call ‘pleasant’. They were human themselves, the gods, but had the long perspective of an outsider, enough to explain humanity to Cthulhu; much the way Aix could, but with more age and experience. And not all gods were exactly the same kind of god, which was something Jasper had not been able to tell Cthulhu, as Jasper’s god was singular, and singular gods were very different from families.

Some, like the Norse gods, ruled over their families, or a realm, or did something the best and were god of it due to skill; but those of Olympus also were their domains of influence. Morpheus was dreams, as much as he ruled them as a realm, the realm was, also, him. He personified it, he was simply the concept of dreaming shaped into a person.

Hermes, who claimed Aix as a child of his, was communication personified, was commerce, was cleverness, was so many interconnected things that had many names but were simply all the same concept of movement. And yet there were other gods that seemed to be a mix of things that did not go together at all—what did truth have to do with medicine have to do with prophecy have to do with war-play? Yet there was Apollo, god of them all.

Knowing that many humans also didn’t—and, furthermore, didn’t expect to, was both comforting and even more disconcerting.

He had known humans were far more social than his race, and he had known that would mean they were far more complex; but somehow, Azathoth had neglected to mention that meant humans were contradictory.

He tried to convey this to Aix, struggling with it, and found Aix simply nodding, agreeing.

‘No it’s a feature, not a bug,’ Aix said, and Cthulhu felt his amusement. Aix glanced at Morpheus, who smiled with the tone of a laugh, and then back at Cthulhu. ‘You’ve been talking to Morpheus this whole time, bud. He’s like… the guy to know about contradictions in the human mind.’

Morpheus laughed fondly. I am only the god of dreams. Once, I was only the god of prophetic dreams. Do you mean to make me more?

Aix considered it. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘Humans know how dreams work, now, so it makes sense to me—dreams are part of the way the mind works, and I can’t think of anybody else that’s the god of the mind, just the way it is—there’s just Pan and Apollo, who are the gods of when the mind is sick. So, someone has to do it.’

‘The action of learning and thinking isn’t the same thing as the mind-as-a-noun, though,’ Aix said. ‘And “structure” isn’t a word I ever apply to Hermes,’ he said, wrinkling his nose in a smile and laughing.

Cthulhu had nothing to say to this—it was precisely the thing in action! It was exciting and terrifying, bewildering and, even through all this, deeply significant, the word humans called ‘sacred’, the word Cthulhu had no translation for in his own culture—and that was… well, it was.

Cthulhu sat there and witnessed his human blithely discussing a god’s design with the god himself, as though this were a normal occurrence, and marvelled silently, and felt a bit more than slightly foolish at how nearly he had given up this human’s kind regard out of his own fear of the unknown.

Aix woke up to the beautiful feeling of peace and excitement that coloured the first few weeks in a new living space, and rolled out of bed, taking a shower because it was so easy to step into, and coming out to see Lance was sitting at the kitchen bar drinking coffee, still in his black pyjama pants.

It was early, still dark out, and the clock on the brown wall-oven—which was an analogue clock of the sort one found on such appliances before the 80s—said six-thirty. Aix was used to rolling out of bed after only a few hours, though.

‘Mm, what roast?’ Aix asked, crossing the living room to the kitchen, not thinking twice about the fact that he was naked until he was already in the kitchen; but by then it was too late, and he just shrugged to himself.

‘Mm, that’s usually light,’ Aix said, as he started looking in cabinets, assessing what he even had.

Aix gasped as he saw the pattern on the china in the cabinet, picking a teacup carefully from the little brass rack of cups and saucers.

‘Oh my god! Oh my god this is Royal Albert Masquerade! And with the little Victorian handles, not the midmod ones! How did they know?’

‘I’m getting the impression this building is very… fairytales,’ Lance said, sort of glad he’d passed by the fine china for a brown workaday mug, because if he’d taken one of the tiny cups Aix now held in his hands, it wouldn’t have been as dramatic a surprise.

‘True,’ Aix said, thoughtfully, putting the cup against his mouth as he looked in the cabinet. The white china gleamed like new, the black and red roses decorating it looking just as lush as they did in photos. He’d never thought he’d ever have even a single teacup and saucer, let alone a full service of dinner and tea dishes, plus a coffee pot. ‘Who found all of this?’ he said to himself, and heard a beep, looking down to see Pippin had woken up. She was still naked from last night, and yawning, rubbing her eye with one little fist. Aix’s heart melted, and he set the cup down on the counter carefully.

Pippin put her arms up immediately, and Aix picked her up, balancing her on his hip as he poured himself coffee and found cream in the fridge—the fridge, which took a minute to find, because it was a wall fridge. Aix’s white whale was a wall fridge, and this one was in perfect condition, almost perfectly blended with the other wooden cabinets, brown with a sort of gradient that faded darker to the edges, like the other appliances, with the bottom cabinets being freezer drawers.

‘Oh my god Lance,’ Aix said, opening it and almost not registering the cornucopia of food inside, ‘do you know how rare these are?’

‘I’m friends with someone who has told me,’ Lance said with a chuckle, sipping his coffee. ‘I’d say they’d like you, but actually they don’t like anybody, so.’

‘Bupbup, don’t lean,’ Aix said. ‘I’ll drop you, Mommy’s not steady on his feet.’

Pippin immediately hugged onto Aix again. ‘Sowy,’ she said, kissing Aix’s cheek. ‘Apu peas?’

‘Okay, we can have apu for brefast,’ Aix said, nuzzling his nose with hers, making her giggle. ‘Let Mommy get coffee first, okay?’

‘Coffee vr podant,’ Pippin said in the low part of her register, with a sagely little nod. Aix chuckled.

‘You’ve lived with people who don’t function before coffee, huh?’ he said, and contemplated the consequences of setting her on the counter to sit. ‘No climbing on the counter, okay? But you can sit on it if I put you there. Understand?’

‘Because the counter has some dangers on it, and I don’t want you to get hurt. The hot things and the sharp things live up on the counter.’ Aix really, deeply appreciated being able to talk to Pippin like this. Having A Baby Pet was just one of those things, for him. ‘But I’m gonna set you down on the counter now and you can stay there as long as you don’t grab anything, okay?’

‘Tay,’ Pippin said, and Aix felt her share her emotions, that she was pleased to have The Rules explained. Aix put her on the counter and she kicked her little feet.

‘Where did your clothes from yesterday go, bean?’ Aix asked her, as he got down a measuring cup and tablespoon to make coffee with (he was always very precise).

‘Okay, well, George packed you some clothes, but you don’t have to wear them when you’re at home, if you don’t want to.’

‘What’s on the agenda for today?’ Lance asked, watching Aix measure coffee with the precision of an alchemist.

‘No idea. Settling in, I guess. Need to pick up an MTA card, touch base with Virginia about my job, and maybe see if there’s any pride events that I can go to before we leave for Romania. Oh, but first—we gotta get little mans some cat food, and I know exactly where to do that, so as soon as I’ve had breakfast we’re headed for Trader Joe’s.’

‘Yeah, the offal,’ Aix said, remembering one of the elderly Pards taking him into her kitchen and pressing a package wrapped in butcher paper on him. ‘But I want to get him bickies too.’ Aix sighed, looking at Pippin, who was watching him cut up the honeycrisp apple with great interest, ‘And we need to somehow find you some food that gets you all your nutritions, huh, beeble?’

But Aix remembered that clowns were still very much present, which meant that people had to be finding ways to feed them. He cut the apple up, put it in a bowl and got Pippin off the counter, going over to the small kitchen table and setting her down on it, giving her the bowl.

By this time, the kitten had woken up, and came into the kitchen, his mews already more like little beeps. Pippin honked back at him, between bites of apple, and Aix picked him up.

‘Hi, baby!’ he cooed, petting the little one’s cheeks and face; it had been so long since he’d held a kitten that said kitten seemed very, very small and impossibly fragile, and Aix kissed his soft black fur over and over, as he got out the package of mince, opened it, and put it in a little dish one-handed.

‘Ticky,’ Pippin said, finishing her apple just as Aix came over to the table with the kitten’s dish of food. Pippin held out her hands, sticking out her tongue in disgust at the sensation. ‘Washawash peas.’

‘Okay, hang on,’ Aix said, feeling pleasantly maternal as he set the kitten’s dish on the floor and made sure he was eating, before getting Pippin over to the sink and helping her wash her hands. He mentally noted that it would be helpful to have a sink and things just Pippin’s size; he knew they existed, he’d gone to a Montessori school. Maybe they could get them in blue….

The rest of the day, Aix had to run errands to get set up—there was food in the kitchen, but none of it was fresh. There were supplies to get for the kitten and Pippin, and as much as Aix wanted to run around in person doing all of it, he knew that New York also came with the advantage of everything—even fresh warm cookies—being deliverable, even before the plague. It was paradise if you could afford such things, and Aix suddenly could. It was a lot of signing up, checking out, entering credit card information, but soon it was all squared away. That only left one more thing…

Metasepia: I think I should set up a chat server for Baltimore but I can’t figure out how to organise it or if that’s allowed. Thoughts?

SineoftheFeline: There’s not official legislation on virtual stuff like that yet. I’d say for now keep it between just you and René, until we can get a consensus from the Wizards in Rochester—they run the Exchange for the phone lines, and are all IT people.

Metasepia: How is it harmful to say the entirety of IT and the internet and the everything is run by furries??? XD

SineoftheFeline: Some of us don’t know code okay!! All I can do is math! *Normal* math!

Metasepia: ur right. This is why I spent so long questioning whether I was allowed to be a furry.

Metasepia: Are u able to teach him to use Discord? Does he even type? I’ve never seen him type.

SineoftheFeline: he can type but not on a laptop because he learned to type on typewriters so he just. Destroys lesser keyboards.

SineoftheFeline: I mean he was good at fingering *before* learning to type, but he *has* mentioned typing has improved that skill. >:3c

SineoftheFeline: But yes I will teach him to use Discord so he can talk to you.

SineoftheFeline: He has a specially-made keyboard that’s very sturdy. Very clacky, because he likes the noise.

Metasepia: I ALSO LIKE THE NOISE!! 8D I have like a mid-grade clackity keyboard for my desktop. I want a vintage one though.

Metasepia: I’m gonna get started on that. My servers are really organised btw there’s separate channels for everything, because I can’t organise my head so I do it externally.

Metasepia: Ok here’s the invite link. I gotta go play with my kitten for an hour now. Ta ra.

30. Gathering the Party

Cthulhu had elected to stay in Baltimore for the fortnight before the trip, but he visited Aix’s dreams every night, and they were slowly mending their rough patch, spending what felt like hours talking, Aix using the Dreamscape to show Cthulhu all manner of things—biomes, history, animation, concepts, spaces…. Aix’s imagination was better than books; because, though written language was fascinating, it didn’t compare to the clarity of having someone who was really good at imagining things.

It was also somewhat dangerous for Cthulhu to travel at all, but he didn’t mind—not when he got to travel with Aix every night, to places that did and didn’t exist. Now that Cthulhu had worked with Morpheus to create a Dreaming limited to just Cthulhu and Aix, Aix could use it as a ‘sandbox’, and was free to show Cthulhu anything he wanted, to push at his skill with the dream magic safely.

Cthulhu had told Aix that he was not nearly as good at teaching as Aix was, whenever Aix had asked in return if Cthulhu wanted to show him anything. That had only led to Aix asking if it were possible to talk to others of Cthulhu’s fellows, perhaps Azathoth. Cthulhu had… hesitated.

Aix had registered shock, then fear, then had faced down that fear and said only, ‘Shob seems to like her kids well enough, and they’re all gentle and innocent. If she interacts with them enough for them to trust calling on her, she must have gentleness in her.’

Perhaps. I don’t know. The way you extrapolate behaviours and personalities like that is a magic I don’t understand yet.

Aix liked that Cthulhu was starting to incorporate words like ‘magic’, to practise with it as a word for the unknown. It was, also, a bit startling to have someone say Aix was good at social things. But… that had been happening a lot lately, and not just from Cthulhu, and also… Aix was starting to notice it. Notice his ability to observe people, notice how much he did know about social mores as he was explaining them to Cthulhu.

It was startling, to constantly feel like a stumbling child, and then to look up and realise how much you absolutely were nothing of the sort.

Because they were travelling in the small black plane that had brought Aix to New York and back in the first place, that meant there was once again no humiliating security regulations, and no fees, and not having to walk miles across the airport worrying about the plane being on time, and certainly no trials such as having to gate-check your wheelchair and use the too-narrow one that fit the too-narrow plane aisles so you could fit into the too-narrow seats where you might end up next to someone without a mask, and… well, flying while disabled and slightly tall was something Aix had hated doing even when he’d been able to afford first-class, he’d fight anyone that gave Victoria trouble for having her own plane so she could travel without harming herself.

The plane even had a suitably gothic (and slightly tongue-in-cheek) name: The Úlairi, the outside befittingly painted with a wraith riding a black and fiery horse; but the black also had a practical purpose: disguising the solar cells on the outside, that couldn’t power the flight, but could gather enough power to run the peripheral electrics that ran things like the small microwave and fridge on board (which were essential for long flights like the one to Bucharest).

Aix was glad for his new epicurean friends, that helped him assemble enough food for the trip. Food was always what made Aix the most anxious about leaving the house, really. Not now, though—he had friends who travelled—more than one, even—and they helped him learn how to actually pack (something he’d never been taught), even helped him realise that yes, the rolling backpack he’d gotten while homeless was not, actually, all that roomy on the inside, even though the wheels were sturdy, and that had been more important.[33] He hadn’t had much to pack in it for the road trip, but that meant he’d been able to use it to store all his sewing things. He didn’t use it now, though, he had a new trunk.

It was a restored antique, black and gold, lined in cedar and of the vertical type you could hang things in on one half, with drawers on the other, and many other little pockets and even a ribbon lattice in the back to hold small flat things.

Now, he filled it up with all the new clothes and shoes everyone from Eglenor insisted on giving him when people noticed he didn’t have a lot of clothes, and Aix was… starting to get used to what felt like overwhelming generosity, but which his best friend and Auntie, both from large communities, assured him was just how being part of a community worked.

But Aix and the Blackstones weren’t the only ones travelling—the plane would be at capacity this time, not just them but also Cthulhu and René, plus Michaela, and Hext, who was the werewolf representative. Aix hadn’t met Hext yet, but from the stories and the fact that he purportedly owned The Oldest Continuously-Operating Permanent Freakshow In The World, on Coney Island (of course), Aix was very keen to meet him. René was also bringing along Cameron, though Michaela was frustrated to not know why, exactly (and René wasn’t going to tell her).

Aix was starting to get the idea that Michaela did not much like René, and that René liked needling her a bit.

Aix was also starting to get the impression that René might share Aix’s problem with authority. That sort of fit, for a pirate, didn’t it? Aix was very hesitant to draw conclusions about people, even from observing them, but it felt like his relationship with both of these people was still too new for him to ask René directly, even if they had been talking almost every night on the chat server.

Aix had finally started talking to his old and established friends too, finally catching his Auntie and his best friends up on as much as he was allowed. He told Velquin a little of the secret stuff, because Velquin was a werewolf all but literally. Aix had taken great care to ask several people about that, and was pretty sure Hext was the one to have said it was okay, even though he and Aix had never directly spoken. Velquin reported that someone had contacted them about taking the change, and was very excited, and Aix was buoyed by the happiness of that too much to be anxious about the trip.

It was all very exciting, and Aix was glad to also be able to do most of the prep without leaving his building, because that meant he didn’t have to leave Pippin or Baby[34] alone with a sitter. Pippin was very excited in the goings on, and ‘Tata Vee’ even found a pretty rainbow baby dress and modified it to be extra fancy for her, in case she wanted to dress up. Pippin was extremely excited about the ruffled sleeves Victoria added, and the rows of matching ruffles that made up the skirt. She was upset that there wasn’t time before they left to show all the drag queens, though Pinky Focks was often enough in the Tower that Pippin’s upset was slightly mollified by him making much of her, and taking photos, and showing her while Aix explained they were showing all the other drag queens even though they were far away.

Nobody had ever explained a camera or the additional functions of what Pippin referred to as A Hello-phone to her; once it was, Pippin was constantly asking to be photographed, and to see pictures of her friends. She couldn’t read, but Aix showed her emojis, and she communicated with them, much to the delight of Lorenzo, Tristan, and even Zizo, Lorenzo’s elderly Auntie, who was also femminiello and had an old columbina that had been with their family since the 1700s, who took a great interest in Pippin.

The kitten was turning into quite the little adventurer; Aix was worried he’d be distressed by all the activity, but on the contrary, he seemed to want to be involved with anything Aix and Pippin were up to, smart as a whip, and all the moreso because Aix could actually communicate with him, tell him complicated things. He was very friendly, beeping happily at anyone new and sitting on Aix’s shoulder, or in a sling, or in his pink harness. He still hissed at the dogs, but to their credit the dogs were fairly used to cats by now, and didn’t have the doofy-but-alarming pushiness that usually made cats and other animals upset, and understood what hissing meant. He was very excitable, not nearly so smart as Pippin, but Aix and Pippin got him to understand they were going Big Outside, and there would be lots and lots of New Friends who would Pet him, and that was quite enough.

On the day of their leaving, Pippin and the kitten went early to the airport with Victoria and Dmitri, who knew exactly what to say and where to go to smuggle Pippin onto the plane (though ‘smuggle’ was a bit of a strong word—it was an easy lie to say New York was only the airport you were flying out of, and that you’d just come from Rhode Island, or Massachusetts, or Vermont—states where clowns were perfectly legal.[35] So, Aix was alone when he met René at the BUR station’s Central Park terminal, which was, like all the BUR stations, not nearly so grand and busy as its human counterparts. The really big station, Aix had learnt while sitting and talking with people also waiting for René’s train, was Swansea, in Wales, where more of the BUR lay directly parallel to the old human stations (they even had a necropolis train station beneath the now-defunct one in London, something Aix found very exciting).

The train arrived exactly on time, and while there were more people in Central Park Station, and not many had much interest in Aix, they were still courteous and aware of Aix in a way humans never were. Nobody bumped into him, or tried to grab and move his chair, so he could wait safely on the comfortable bench for the train to slow all the way down to a stop, and the doors to slide smoothly open. It was nice to not have the train screech alarmingly, Aix wondered again at how the Knockers did that; but first…

Aix tackled René as soon as he got off the train. René caught him with only a slight rock back, more of surprise than anything.

‘Quel accueil!’ René laughed, holding him tightly. He was surprised at how much Aix seemed to have missed him; even though, for the past fortnight apart, they had been talking via Aix’s preferred chat program, deepening their friendship. Aix had made an entire multi-section server just for the two of them, which René had needed Cameron to teach him to use, but it wasn’t difficult after he had learned. Aix, like many modern people, was champion at finding a cute video of a kitten, and then a moment later angrily ranting about the state of legislation on censorship, then talking earnestly about his feelings, and then… any other dozen tone changes. The sections helped Aix’s thoughts—and their mutual conversation—stay organised under the onslaught of modern overstimulation. It was a sort of outward mechanism for the organisation Aix’s mind lacked. Despite Cameron’s point of view about it being overwhelming, René had found it marvellously organised and yet more of a look into how Aix’s interesting mind worked.

‘I missed you,’ Aix said simply, and kissed him. René had said he liked when boys took initiative on kisses, and even though Aix was terrified of doing it without asking three times to make sure, he knew that was anxiety talking. René kissed back, kissed properly, slow and soft and not at all eager to pull away. It felt somewhat thrilling again, René thought, kissing in public; because of the plague making masks so necessary, seeing someone’s face was now somewhat scandalous, let alone kissing.

But Aix had taken off his mask at some point before René had arrived, and his beautiful face was close, and he kissed with all the reluctance to stop of a vampire at the bite, mouth soft and hungry, but not rushed. Never rushed. René was going to start needing these kisses… he gently dipped his tongue inside Aix’s mouth, delighting at the instant submission this garnered, and stroked Aix’s tongue with his, burying one hand in Aix’s soft curls, humming low and soft into the kiss, feeling Aix melt against him, slowly starting to dip Aix, thinking he might appreciate the romance of it. The steadiness of his arms calmed the initial tension in Aix’s back, and the trust was as intoxicating as the kiss itself.

‘Ah, mon cher sorcier,’ René murmured, squeezing Aix gently. ‘It is so good to see you again. You look well.’ And it was true—Aix had gotten some new clothes since René had seen him last, and looked far more boyish, stylish in a way that said he knew how to cobble together an outfit—a talent that René respected more than someone simply having a tailor to design everything bespoke. The trousers were a warm brown corduroy, the waistcoat a complimenting brown and gold pattern, with a shirt of peacock blue that made his eyes glow.

And new shoes—thank God, new shoes, René thought. They were just as pointed as the old battered ones, but of better, softer leather, and had the characteristic narrow and antique look of fae-made shoes.

Aix noticed him looking, and smiled. ‘You like my new shoes?’ he said, pulling up his trouser leg a bit to show them off. There was brasswork on the arch and back half of the boot, swirling and beautiful around Aix’s heel and up his ankle—René suspected it wasn’t just for the look of it, either, given what he knew about Aix. ‘I told Mrs Brogan about my thoughts on an exoskeleton, and she used bugs as a design inspiration for this! Isn’t it cool?!’

‘It is very cool,’ Cameron said, as he came up, his shoulder bag full of patches over his chest. Holding his hand was a tall and slender figure in a long black coat with a black leather plague doctor mask. Aix turned his chair to look, eyes wide and smile beaming.

‘That’s very good, I like that,’ Aix said, gesturing to Cthulhu’s whole ensemble.

Thank you. Cthulhu said, and Aix felt his pleasure at the praise. I am excited to meet the kitten at last.

Getting to the airport required two subway trains and the air train—on the human subway, which was much louder and dirtier and would have been way less pleasant—except that being with friends, chatting the whole way, made the whole affair much more fun. It was also late enough at night that the trains were fairly empty, and Aix always enjoyed the slight horror feeling of a mostly-empty train station. It reminded him of his favourite scary scene in The Wiz.

Oh, Cthulhu said when they reached the airport. Oh this is… lots of people.

New York is the most populous city in the whole country, it’s over nine million people in this little pair of islands.

Cameron hung back with them as René expertly found, snagged, and spoke with a staff member.

‘Right?’ Cameron agreed. ‘He just finds the person he wants, and they just know what he needs them to know. I think it’s powers.’

But René was coming back, with a uniformed staff member. ‘Come, we will follow Madame Jessica to the private terminal.’

‘Are you aware there’s usually some long delays to get out of here?’ Jessica asked, as they were walking.

‘Oui, madame,’ René said, ‘we are meeting some friends I have not seen in a very long time, I do not think the time will seem so much.’

‘Strange of you to fly outta here, is all,’ she said. ‘But it’s so late… I guess there’s advantage to flying red-eye.’

Aix just marvelled silently that, somehow, René was actually just conversing with a stranger. In New York City, where that didn’t happen. Aix would know, he’d not understood City Manners when he’d lived here before, and had gotten a lot of rejection for what he thought was just trying to be friendly.

René is psionic, unusually so for a human. I’m told it is more usual for a vampire human.

Ah. I… asked about that. He was very pleased and surprised you liked it. Should I not have told him? Cthulhu asked, feeling Aix’s fear in response, and his upset.

Usually you do not tell other people what someone else’s sexual preferences are, that’s rude; but it’s okay in this instance because you are my lover and René is, also, my lover. The intimacy between him and me and you and me is the same, that’s what makes it okay.

Aix’s attention was taken up after that because there was a man in a colourful outfit in the big lounge area, juggling. He was dressed in a fine suit that was vivid and had a patterned trousers, waistcoat, tie, and shirt—and none of them were the same pattern, yet they all worked together because of being the same colours of violet and gold. His brown skin shimmered with gold highlight and glitter, and his smile was wide and seemed somewhat mischievous. A good, Harlequin sort of smile, Aix thought.

Scattered around the luxe-but-featureless black sofas were people Aix mostly recognised: Michaela was in a dark red sweat suit and sitting closest to the juggler; Victoria was in her fancy wheelchair, the one she couldn’t push herself but that was extremely comfortable, wearing a simple twill travelling suit in her usual black and purple, crocheting something blue; Dmitri was by the darkened window, in a turtleneck sweater with his casual suit, chatting with someone entirely in shadow, which didn’t seem possible; but now that Aix knew vampires did have Powers, he chalked it up to shadow manipulation.

And Pippin was actually out and visible, dressed in a crocheted sweater dress of colourful yarn and throwing one of the juggling balls back and forth with the juggler, beeping delightedly. The kitten was on Michaela’s lap, and wearing his leash, which she had looped around her wrist.

‘Duckie!’ Pippin said, running over with the ball in her hands, arcing wide around the juggler. ‘Duckie enna en dottie wuff!’ Lookit! There’s a Dottie and he’s playing with me!

She threw the ball to Aix, who caught it expertly—he’d always been good at catching, despite what everyone assumed from his glasses. Her chatter, Aix could understand from the images that went with it—she was excited to meet another human-clown, and he’d been playing with her.

‘Ee!’ she said, throwing her arms up in a ‘yay’ pose after Aix caught the ball. You caught it!

‘I did catch it, yes, I can do that,’ Aix said, chuckling, and waving at the juggler with the ball as he turned, pushing the brakes down on his chair and standing. ‘You want it back?’

‘Sure, toss it on over, friend,’ the juggler said, in a big voice you could only describe as both ‘booming’ and ‘jovial’. Aix did, lightly, and the juggler’s pierced brows went up behind his small dark spectacles as he incorporated the blue ball into the other four he was playing with. ‘Nice aim.’

‘Thanks,’ Aix said, deciding he wanted to sit between Victoria and Michaela, the latter of whom gave him the kitten’s leash immediately. Kitten mewed, lurching over to his lap immediately, tail up and shaking. ‘Aw hi, beebee!’ he said, his heart melting as he pet the baby’s face, feeling the bit purrs, the little kneading starting up immediately.

‘This is Hext,’ Michaela said, of the juggler, who caught all five balls and bowed theatrically.

‘Cunobelinus Anaxagoras Maximillian Hexborne, owner of the The Oldest Continuously-Operating Permanent Freakshow In The Known World!’ he said in that booming growl.

Aix lit up, grinning, a delighted scream of laughter escaping without his permission, trembling with excitement.

‘And you,’ Hext said, delighting in the instant excitement, ‘are very special, so I hear.’

‘I, um, maybe,’ Aix said, though he wanted to say yes, but ‘yes’ was extremely difficult for him to ever say to anything.

He is. Aix remains unique no matter how many other humans I meet, there are none quite like him. Cthulhu volunteered.

Aix could not hide his face in his hands, because his hands were full of kitten and he was not acclimated enough to put his face in a kitten without having a full-blown allergy attack; this left him in something of a prone position, though he was fairly sure he didn’t blush. He just looked at the kitten and started petting, but Pippin turned pink and her Flash went all red.

‘Joe is correct; Duckie is very lovable,’ Victoria said supportively. Hext, surprised, laughed heartily, which didn’t feel as terrible as Aix had imagined.

‘Joe?’ he said, sitting down nearby to address Pippin as she came over, lifting her onto his knee. ‘I know he’s dressed like Dottore, but you must know he’s not one of you, little one.’

‘Oh that’s right!’ Aix said, remembering and looking up at Cthulhu. ‘Dottore was traditionally a human’s rôle in the Commedia dell’Arte.’

Cthulhu laughed, actually using his new voice, and Aix shivered—but he wasn’t the only one.

‘Ooooh,’ Hext said, visibly shivering. Michaela fanned herself with a hand, and Victoria looked up at Cthulhu thoughtfully.

‘You should practise with it then, my dear,’ Victoria said, in that tone that Aix mentally referred to as her Mistress Voice. He wondered what Cthulhu would make of it.

Cameron came over to their little group from where he’d been with the other vampires, looking a little pale and sitting down as soon as possible. ‘Hey,’ he said, faintly. ‘Aix. Um. You still plan on sleeping with René, right?’

‘I’ll sleep in the same bed with René, yeah. I would prefer that,’ Aix said, as always vaguely annoyed that ‘sleeping with’ was such a metaphor for fucking, when sometimes you just wanted to sleep with someone because co-sleeping was nice. ‘Why?’

‘Ah. Yeah he’s uh, I think he said someone introduced him to horror anime a few months ago.’

‘Oh neat, like Junji Ito and stuff?’ Aix said. ‘Oh, but, he’s not all… uh, I’m tryptophobic.’

‘No this is more scopophobia, which is why René and Dmitri are over there,’ Cameron said. Aix narrowed his eyes.

‘Oh!’ Aix said. ‘Oh, oh right. Oh okay, lemme uh, lemme go over there and advocate for myself. It’s nice of them but I’m not like, Generic Autism Needs Number Seven, especially since I’m a monster-fucker…’ Too late, Aix realised he’d been trying to avoid saying that phrase, because when there were real monsters it was probably objectifying and rude, and he froze. ‘Uh.’

‘Yeah no, you’re good hon,’ Michaela said. ‘We’re all monster-fuckers here. G’wan, don’t let those boys decide what you need.’

Aix went over on foot, holding the kitten against his shoulder and petting him. ‘Hey,’ he said, as he got close. ‘Cammie says the doctor’s covered in eyes.’

‘I didn’t know you was one of the types that hated ‘em more than usual.’

The thick Brooklyn accent threw Aix, for a moment, but he recovered. ‘Well, I like human-shaped eyes when there’s lots of them. Cthulhu’s got lots of eyes, that’s okay. It’s not the eyes that bugs me, it’s the expectation behind a human gaze in some cultures, about how you have to meet eyes or you’re Being Disrespectful, when meeting eyes, to me, is a sign of aggression or challenge. I’ve got a thing about clustered holes and rot, though.’

‘I do too,’ came the reply from the shadowy figure, and Aix heard a grin. ‘Growin’ up durin’ onna the plagues will do that to a guy.’

‘So, uh, Cammie says you’ve seen some horror anime, have you seen Helsing?’ Aix asked. ‘I’m guessing that, plus him saying you’re into eyes, means you like the Alucard design from there? You know, I’ve always wanted like, a tattoo sleeve of all the eyes and mouths from that monster design, it’s so cool.’

‘Yeah, onna my clients mentioned it to me, a real anime nut, that one. Recommended all kindsa things, but I said hey, kiddo, I don’t watch tv all day like you do. Got things to remove, stitches to make. Leave my girl with a list, I’ll get through it in the next few years.’

‘So you gonna show me, what?’ Aix said, and Scarpa laughed, and the shadows moved, and slowly revealed something that still pretty clearly had a human torso and probably human femurs and arms, but the hands had extra thumbs on the other side, and the face was… there were three extra eyes across his forehead, big and black, making a semi-circle with the positioning of his original eye sockets, which had matching big black eyes, just a bit too large and strange to be human; and more eyes going down one arm—that must be the off arm, Aix thought—all of them red-irised, just like in the animation. There weren’t mouths, but the eyes were all working, from the way they were focussing on Aix.

‘Wow,’ Aix said, really taking the time to take it all in. There was a lot more going on—horns, twisting from his head, and a tail, and who knew what was happening under the carefully tailored suit that bared all the eyes. ‘So mapping the neurons must be a helluva thing, the thoracic outlet isn’t exactly well-designed.’

‘I didn’t know,’ René said, reasonably. ‘He’s a vast sea of things, cher ami, I have only known him a fortnight.’

‘Most disabled people end up medical encyclopaedias, but I got kind of a head start,’ Aix said, shrugging. ‘Grandpa and his brothers went to medical school. Family dinners were a helluva thing,’ he added, grinning.

‘Come sit down, dear!’ Victoria sang across the lounge, not looking up. Aix turned, seeing Pippin already coming over determinedly. Aix couldn’t help but smile, at that—he was still getting used to not being able to stand anymore, and was so used to ignoring the pain—but he had Victoria helping him. He glanced at the three vampires.

‘Of course,’ Dmitri said, putting a hand on Aix’s shoulder gently. ‘Come along, dear, Victoria’s right.’

Aix noticed Dmitri wasn’t really coming with them, as he started back, ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘where are you going?’ He felt a little disappointed, after that little touch and endearment, at the idea that Dmitri wasn’t going to come sit and catch up.

‘I have to talk to the tower about take-off, I’ll be back in a moment, darling.’ Dmitri said, and actually leaned over and kissed him, and Aix didn’t have a chance to really register it before Dmitri was gone. Aix’s lips were tingling with the memory, and he felt pleasantly stunned, and a little floaty as he went back to sit on the sofa.

And then René gently touched him. ‘Chou-chou,’ he said softly, and when Aix turned, he slid his fingers into Aix’s hair and kissed him—deeper, longer, pulling him close, and Aix understood after the first few moments what he was doing, and… did not mind at all. If Dmitri and René were going to fight over him like this, he didn’t mind.

Boys had never ever fought over him before. He understood the appeal of the love triangle in that respect. He gave René a mischievous smile after René finished reclaiming his mouth.

‘I knew vampires were territorial,’ he teased, and René had the grace to laugh at himself, caressing Aix’s cheek.

‘No, no—well,’ Aix said, thinking about it. ‘I mean, as long as we keep talking about it, and as long as it remains a game—because like, I’m poly, you know that right? You can both have me, there’s not gonna be a—’ Aix put on a voice. ‘ “you have to choose, Princess, which one of us?” because,’ Aix laughed. ‘because that’s not happening. My choice is always “why not both?”.’

‘If you can get both of them to fuck you at the same time, you’ll be a legend,’ Hext said, and Cameron swatted him on the arm. ‘What? He’s laughing.’

Aix was laughing, sitting down next to Cameron, letting the kitten jump down and play with Pippin, who had come over to do just that.

‘You’ll do great if that’s the effect ya have on people,’ Scarpa said, settling down and drawing the shadows over himself again. ‘Can I ask you somethin’ personal? Only René mentioned you was a transman, and I do plastics for trans folks.’

Aix canted his head, engaged. ‘You wanna see my scar? It’s fuckin awesome.’

‘Yeah, I had her just go all the way across, because of…’ Aix trailed off, gesticulating. ‘You know, what she had to work with. She was so cool! Dr Sheppard, you know her?’

‘No I—I was living there at the time. With my ex husband. He went to her too. He was a bastard, though. Barely let my stitches dissolve before he was yellow wallpapering me onto the street.’ Did that work? Aix thought. Did that land, as a joke?

Why did he workshop everything he told people like it was a stand-up performance?

‘Not too bright, either, from the sound of it,’ Scarpa said, so far the most unflappable response Aix had ever gotten. ‘You need anything done, you come to me now, capice? I’ll do you up good.’

‘Oh wow, thank you,’ Aix said, meaning it, and curious, ‘Do you have like, fleshcrafting powers?’

Scarpa laughed. ‘Fleshcrafting, he says! What are you, some kinda writer or somethin?’

‘I’m a writer, yes,’ Aix said, beaming with pride, but before they could go on, Dmitri came back, looking a bit windswept, despite the braids his hair was pulled into.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’re finally clear for take-off, but as always, the window is small, so do let’s get going.’ Even as he spoke, Victoria was already tucking away her crochet and pulling the brakes up, and Aix joined Michaela in getting Pippin and the kitten into the carrier again. It was roomier than the one Aix had used last time, for which he was grateful.

Okay, Pip, tell little brother we’re going now, and he has to stay there with you until we’re all settled in the Ship, so he doesn’t get hurt or lost. Aix had been working on a vocabulary, simplifying down objects into one-word concepts like ‘ship’ and ‘outside’.

‘Push you, Aix?’ Cameron asked, and Aix nodded as Michaela walked off with the pet carrier in one hand, a red backpack slung over her other shoulder.

Aix didn’t really know what to expect, as the party made their way from the lounge down a little corridor and—for him, Victoria, René (who was pushing Victoria), and Cameron, the elevator. It was, thankfully, a freight elevator, so they all fit with room to spare.

‘I’m guessing Dmitri is not pushing you because he has to talk to the officials or something.’

A joke actually occurred to Aix, which was rare. ‘Call that… an air wolf,’ he said, and Cameron stepped back from his chair to lean against the wall of the elevator, muffling laughter. René chuckled softer, and Victoria said, severely,

‘You should tell Hext that one,’ René advised, as the elevator opened, letting them into a semi-sheltered but concrete-floored hallway. Aix started to feel excited as he felt the balmy warmth of the summer night, and Cameron pushed him to the plane, lit by the hangar lights. He loved liminal spaces, and starting on journeys, and without all the stress of Did I Remember Everything and Am I Waiting In The Right Place, he could just… be excited to be Going Somewhere.

But in this case, there was an extra layer—he had a passport now, he was leaving the country for the first time. And to go to Bucharest!!

31. Chasing the Dawn

As it turned out, there was only one bed big enough for sharing, on the plane. It was a box bed, and usually all the vampires shared it during the daylight hours of the flight—which were many, as they were chasing the morning—and Scarpa had been a last-minute addition, so nobody was sure Aix would be comfortable sharing with a stranger; but after sitting and chatting with Scarpa for a while (and it was mostly just them talking to each other for the first hour or so—Aix got along extremely well with plastic surgeons), both about all of Aix’s surgeries and also about surgery generally, Aix and Scarpa were fast friends—and Aix even felt like he could segue into the kinks related to surgery, something he’d never really spoken of with anyone.

‘Knowing you, it’s not what the rest of the world thinks of,’ Cameron said, ‘but I can’t figure out what it would be, exactly.’

‘Well,’ Aix said, ‘Because I don’t have male gaze, it’s… from my perspective. Like… context: I grew up being told I had a pretty body shape, and nice hair, but that I was hideous in every other respect. I wasn’t allowed makeup, or primping, or like… knowing how social stuff worked. I didn’t get a slut era in my twenties either, because by then I was stuck with an insecure killjoy. So it’s like…’ he gesticulated. ‘Like, what would be like, to not have to be The Smart Girl, but to get to be just… Pretty Dolly? Only for playing with. Only for makeup and getting the privilege of not having to be smart anymore. It’s like pet play, in that sense—except instead of a puppy, I wanna be a barbie doll.’

‘Didn’t know what she did had a whole name. You think she knows?’ Scarpa asked, glancing at René.

‘She knows everything,’ René said, with calm confidence, before turning to explain to Aix: ‘There was another ruler of Baltimore, parallel to my old master, who never dared bother her, because it was said she could… take your intelligence.’

‘That’s hot,’ Aix said, with heavy vocal fry. ‘I mean, if you can do hypnosis, then I’d believe someone can do brain drain.’ He wondered why they weren’t saying her name.

‘You have a phrase for everything, don’t you?’ René said, and Aix felt his approval, even though he couldn’t exactly even stand to look fully at René’s face, at the moment (he could sometimes, just not when he was socialising so energetically).

‘I’m a wordsmith, so if there isn’t a phrase I’ll make one!’ Aix said brightly. ‘I have a licence and everything. Will she be at the council?’

René turned to look at Michaela, who was playing cards with Victoria and Cthulhu and Pippin (to be fair, it was a simple card game).

‘Oh, like she’s gonna tell me if she doesn’t tell Scarpa,’ Michaela said, setting down a blue 6 card.

‘If Mistress does come,’ Victoria said, ‘she’ll probably bring Flossie. You’d like Flossie, Aix dear, she’s a sheep furry.’

Because Aix was in the box bed, Kitten and Pippin wanted to be in there too, but Kitten needed to be able to come and go, so Aix explained he had to sleep with Pippin with Tata Vee or Tata Mike or Big Brother Cammie, or Joe, and Pippin would be with him, and Aix would come and see him right away when he woke up.

They all slept at the same time as the vampires (except for Hext, piloting), and when Aix woke up, he made good his promise to Kitten, holding him and carrying him to the little kitchenette, singing quietly to him the song that Aix had woken up with today. He always woke up with a song stuck in his head, and he’d just gotten used to it, and the kitten needed to get used to him singing.

Pippin sang with him, perfectly in harmony, her voice beautiful and clear, surprising Aix into stopping, as he handed her a bowl of mixed fruit.

Pippin showed Aix a memory, the hands and voice of this friend—hands on a harpsichord, hands on a mandolin, long and pretty and strong and gentle hands, and a high and crystalline voice, many voices.

Aix didn’t think anything of it, just filed it away—Pippin had been the pet of some opera soprano or other, maybe a few of them at once? And they had taught Pippin to sing, that was so sweet.

‘We’re going to see some special opera singers, did you know that?’ Aix said, sitting down on the kitchen floor to pet Kitten, to make sure he didn’t get aggressive about his food. He purred, even though he kept busily eating his wet food.

‘Mhm, they’re very special. It’s hard to explain, but they’re the last ones in the whole world like them.’ René had told Aix about them, and Aix had been so excited he’d had to run around flapping for several minutes, screaming excitedly.

After the baby was done with the wet food (he always had dry food, he was a kitten and so didn’t have bad habits like overeating because he was bored; but wet food was for breakfast), he settled down for a bath, and Aix turned his attention, after throwing the paper plate in the bin (they had limited water), to making coffee, because everyone drank coffee, even the vampires. He made a little for himself, then went to sit at the remaining little table with his laptop, and write a bit. He wrote best in the morning quiet, and this morning was very quiet. When Pippin was done with her breakfast, he helped her clean her hands with some baby wipes.

‘Water’s for drinking in the airship, okay? Not for washing.’ Aix tried to convey the concept of conserving water for drinking, which was an alien concept for him to explain, as it was so normal in his mind—he was from the desert. But Pippin had never seen a desert, had never lived anywhere that water was scarce, so it was a little scary to her.

Victoria woke up first, and it was startling to see her walk around, even though this wasn’t the first time Aix had seen her walk around. She waved sleepily before disappearing into the bathroom, then coming over to sit with him.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, and Aix realised that the kitten was still a trip hazard in the kitchenette, and got up to get her some coffee, bringing over the cream and sugar packets, and a little swizzle for stirring, before going back to his writing quietly, knowing not to talk to someone before their coffee.

Cameron got up next, but all he did was climb into the box bed and Dmitri got out at the same time, fully naked, and latched the door behind Cameron.

‘Ashley,’ Victoria said, pointedly. He looked over at them, and had an entire conversation with Victoria with eyebrows and facial expressions, Aix pointedly staring fixedly at his laptop screen.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Dmitri naked—he very wanted to see Dmitri naked—but he didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, at the moment, and that was the only reason he was uncomfortable.

He realised he hadn’t seen Cthulhu last night, and reached out. Hey, you good?

That distracted Aix enough to relax, and he chuckled. ‘You have a co-pilot,’ he said, and hesitated. Dmitri had mentioned, when Aix had asked about his name, that ‘Dmitri’ was a name he’d had to take because his had become a female name over the years.

Dmitri sat down beside Victoria with a paper cup of coffee, dressed in a black silk robe. Though he went to bed with braided hair, Dmitri’s hair was still messy.

‘Morning is when you wake up. It’s… 8pm in the morning.’ Aix sipping his coffee, not looking up. ‘I will die on this hill,’ he said, deadpan.

‘Joe,’ Aix said, Cthulhu having decided he very much liked going by Joe, after Aix had fully explained all the layers of meaning.

Aix could meet Dmitri’s piercing eyes this time, because it was for a bit. ‘My man,’ he said, raising his brows, ‘He’s got no bones.’

Victoria snorted in a very ladylike way—Aix had read once a description of his favourite fictional high-society lady, that she ‘snorted like a purebred horse’, and he supposed that’s what it would sound like.

‘You’ve gotten wittier,’ Dmitri said, cradling his coffee in both hands. ‘I like it.’

‘Thanks,’ Aix said automatically, though he wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or if he should… fuck it, it was too early for anxiety, he thought, sipping his coffee. ‘Can I… call you your name? Or is that a wife thing?’

Dmitri didn’t answer for a few moments, sipping his coffee. ‘…Aix,’ he said, quietly. ‘Are you aware I want to fuck you?’

Aix went very still, and Dmitri could hear his pulse speed up. ‘I am now,’ he said. ‘I have been for… a while.’ He paused, halting, and saw Victoria put her hand on Dmitri’s arm, stopping him from interrupting. Aix was grateful—he paused for longer than normal when going off-script, it took longer to put words together when he had to assemble them from scratch. ‘I don’t know how to be subtle, or when is a right time to say anything, and… frankly, I don’t know why everyone keeps saying I’m so attractive and special. It’s… weird. It’s weird and I know that’s because I’ve been heinously abused and bullied to the point where if people aren’t doing that I get nervous like… when are they gonna start, you know? But…’ Aix sighed, hating this. ‘I don’t know the first thing about even passively accepting it, let alone moving past that. I want to. But… I don’t. I don’t know what this is supposed to look like. I’ve never seen it before.’

‘And nobody gives you the space or time to think on it,’ Dmitri said softly. ‘Or talk about it.’

‘Yeah,’ Aix said. ‘Thanks for listening,’ he said. ‘Um, what did you want me to do with that information?’

‘Well,’ Dmitri said, ‘hopefully, start negotiating with me more directly. I enjoy your sexual rhetoric, but you’re very… skittish.’

‘Lord knows you’ve the right. I remember being there,’ Dmitri said, softly.

Aix thought for some moments—or rather, took the time to try very hard to… what, exactly? Why was saying ‘yes’ always so hard?

This was that whole ‘being vulnerable is extremely hard’ thing, wasn’t it? This was that other side of ‘no boundaries’, this was ‘too much boundaries’. Shit. Fuck.

‘I haven’t had sex with anyone yet, and… I don’t… I don’t know how anymore. I’ve never stopped before, I don’t…’ Aix took off his glasses to put his face in his hands. ‘I don’t know how to start again, not now that I… that…’

Aix felt Pippin climb up beside him, and moved so she could crawl into his lap. The kitten followed, learning from her when to come see Aix.

‘Now that I know I was raped,’ Aix said, pushing the word out through the fear of censure. Saying it felt more forbidden than saying any swear word he’d ever learned.

Pippin hugged him, and Aix started crying, and soon someone was holding him, and from the softness and the scent, it was Victoria, slid around the curve of the booth to hold him. A moment later, on the other side, Dmitri joined her.

Pippin knew what that word meant, knew all too well. She knew it was a thing Duckie needed to cry about, and that was a pierrot’s special magic. We purr on Mommy make him better okay?

‘Prrp?’ the kitten said, purring as loudly as he could, kneading his oversized paws on his human mommy’s chest. Aix pet him, and kissed his face, and it was enough.

‘Oh, la,’ René’s voice was soft, and he sat across the little table, gently closing the laptop, reaching across to touch Aix’s hair, murmuring soft comforts in French. Aix reached a hand out eventually, and René held it, kissed it.

Aix sniffled, accepting a handkerchief from somebody and impatiently clearing his face enough that he felt like he could lean on Dmitri, hug him. ‘You should go fly the plane,’ he said, in a watery voice. Dmitri sighed, and kissed his temple.

‘I will return, and hear my name in your voice,’ he said, and then he was gone, and René was there instead. Aix was feeling almost done crying, and the kitten was making sure he didn’t hunch over, and Pippin and kitten were a comforting warm weight on his lap and on his chest.

‘You’re pulling glass out of an enormous old wound, chou-chou, it is bound to be messy. But as long as you keep pulling it out you’re not fucking anything up.’

‘Any vampire understands what it is to deal with something like that, darling, don’t fret.’

‘I’m not immortal,’ Aix said, not wanting to finish the thought—that he felt the clock ticking loudly, with every passing year after he’d found out he had a degenerative disease.

‘Yet,’ Scarpa’s voice came from where he’d just gotten out of the box bed. When Aix looked up, startled out of crying, Scarpa gave an intensely complicated wink at him that made Aix give a watery laugh.

‘Sure ya can; may as well take advantage of the Council meeting to do that. And petition who ya want.’

‘I suggest Maestro Phrixus,’ Victoria said. ‘He’s Neapolitan and a singer, it would suit you.’

‘Ye!’ Pippin said. ‘Duckie ae dottie maera dottie,’ she said, earnestly, to Scarpa, her little hands on the tabletop, eyes intense. Scarpa looked at her long moments, and smiled.

‘She’s mentioned she used to live with opera singers, and they taught her to sing,’ Aix said.

‘She just said you’re a singer, but you sing sad songs, have a low voice. Merlo, she says. Blackbird.’

‘Accurate,’ Aix said, hugging Pippin where he wasn’t cuddling the kitten, because he didn’t know what else to say. ‘Pippin likes sad country songs, and I know how to do that, so I sang to her a lot.’

‘It’s what they decided on, since bird metaphors were ruined by their old master.’

Pippin startled, and only Aix felt it—she was puzzling over that, something about it was making her wonder something, a big Maybe that, if true, would change a lot.

‘What’s goin’ on, sweetpea, what is it?’ Aix asked softly, watching her little tail swish back and forth, her Mask sliding back to the little ‘default’ it always returned to when she wasn’t purposely making it anything, making her look a bit sad no matter what, her Flash returning to a soft blue.

Pippin didn’t answer, though, yawning big enough to stick out her little tongue, and climbed over onto Victoria. ‘Hat.’

‘Mala Mala!’ Pippin said, half-climbing and half-leaping across the cabin to Michaela, who was still sleeping—she had a talent for falling asleep, deeply, whenever there was opportunity. ‘Brfs! Mala!’

The kitten squirmed and tried to follow, but Aix caught him before he put a paw on the table. ‘Bupbupbup!’ he said, firmly, redirecting the kitten down. ‘Not on the table. Table not for babies.’

The kitten followed Pippin’s exact path, and paused, waiting for Aix’s response. He did that, now, because of Pippin. ‘Thank you, good boy,’ Aix said, in a gentler tone, and the kitten continued, joining Pippin with far less understanding of how heavy his little feet would feel on Michaela, or any respect for not walking directly on top of her.

‘Okay, okay, I’m up,’ Michaela chuckled muzzily, a hand reaching up to pet them both.

They had, apparently, had a layover in Switzerland while everyone had been asleep, so that they arrived in Bucharest during the dark hours. It also meant everyone had slept a lot longer, which explained by Aix felt strangely well-rested. That he’d slept through a landing and a takeoff was a little weird, but then again, he was still working on years of sleep debt, had only been sleeping in comfortable beds for less than a month.

Their luggage was sent ahead, though almost everyone had a carry-on or backpack they kept with them. Even Pippin, who had picked out a little tiny one of her own, that was blue and glittery. Aix had his garish neon tropical backpack, that some of the dwarves had skilfully attached to a rolling frame, and they all spent the next hour or so on the train to Bucharest proper, chatting, and Aix liked that everyone wordlessly kept Aix and Victoria surrounded by friendly protectors at all times.

‘What are you going to name him?’ Victoria asked, as she worked on her hat.

‘I don’t know yet, I’ve been trying names,’ Aix said. ‘I started looking into the Ars Goetia just because of my favourite show and all…’ he trailed off. ‘But I can’t decide on one.’

‘You just keep doing the Mom Speak version of it,’ Cameron said. He was still a little pale (and nursing a sugary sport drink) from feeding all the vampires, but he was bouncing back.

‘Oh,’ Aix said, and chuckled at himself. ‘I’m used to having to talk around it, it’s divisive in my usual social spaces and all.’

‘Oh now there’s a thought,’ Aix said, contemplatively looking at the carrier, which now had a label with official Romanian information about how the kitten and clown within were properly vaccinated[36] and healthy and approved to come into Romania. ‘All Seventy-Two Demons In The Ars Goetia,’ he said, experimentally.

‘Yii!’ the kitten answered, knowing Mommy was speaking to him, having to yell to be heard over the noise.

32. Arrival at Castle Dracula

Waiting for the train from the airport that night was tall and beautiful man with long snow-white hair in curls and braids. He was dressed in a suit of fine linen that was a delicate lilac that matched his eyes, which were hidden behind his tinted spectacles, beneath the brim of his white fedora. Many people thought he was a model, but none approached him, not even the foreign tourists who did not recognise him.

Romania had no royal family, nor nobility. That wasn’t what Romania was like anymore; but even so, everyone knew this man as a prince, though not a one knew his name. Albinism was rare among humanity, and even though those with it were of late becoming more visible to the public and international eye, were surviving longer and no longer hidden away, being one was still very noticeable—particularly if you had very long hair, and dressed so finely. He had lived in Romania a long time, long enough and having done enough that he was affectionately known among the locals as The Angel. Nobody remembered when he had come to Bucharest, but that he came from the mountains, and never aged, and only appeared for two reasons:

This time, it was a large party, American, with a tiny clown and two people in fine wheelchairs.

The clown’s squeaking steps halted as she saw him, and he also regarded her with hidden shock; but her tail swished back and forth a few times, and then she turned away to look at another person in the crowd, another clown, and waved, beeping, as clowns always did when they spotted one another. The tall and spindling Småtrolde waved back, but did not honk back, as his breed was not capable of doing so.

Most of the party, Claudiu recognised—all but three: the one the Council had been called to see, all in a fine black suit that nonetheless covered all of him, and a bird-like plague doctor’s mask in black leather; and the youngest two, a pretty boy with long red hair and a werecat’s scent, and the other in the chair a little less grand than D-na Blackstone’s, an equally pretty but softer boy with a black hat covering his hair, and whimsically asymmetrical glasses covering the half of his face that didn’t have a mask on. He was all in black, but it was a more comfortable and casual black than Claudiu was used to.

His accent was wobbly, more unsure than incorrect. Claudiu reassured him with a smile. ‘Bună seara, Aix.’ He spread his arms a little. ‘Bine ați venit în România. Welcome.’

Aix looked around while everyone was greeting one another, enchanted with new spaces, a bit giddy at the idea that he was in Europe, he was so far away from everywhere he’d ever been. The architecture was new, but as Claudiu led them through the station toward the exit, the architecture got older, and Aix got more excited, pushing himself as far as he could, wanting to strengthen his stamina, but asking to be pushed after that. This time, Dmitri got there first, as Michaela was pushing her best friend.

Aix was too busy looking around and keeping track of Pippin (she wasn’t on his lap, she wasn’t on Victoria’s lap, she was wandering around and there was no leash and don’t panic don’t panic—) to pay attention to the conversation, though he wanted to, and was relieved when they finally got to the—bus?

It was a rebuilt bus, because of course it was—that was the only way two wheelchairs were going to fit on one vehicle, especially since Victoria’s was very throne-like. Aix’s was still bigger than any of the fancy ones he’d seen, but he liked it that way. It made people respect your space by force, which was needed. And he and Victoria were both people that, by their nature in many ways, took up a lot of space. It was something Aix was still learning to accept, but that had always been true—regardless of how many people tried to punish him for it, or convince him to take up less.

Once in the vehicle though, Aix could tune back into the conversation a bit more, especially when someone pressed water into his hands.

‘Do you want to stay in the hotel or at the castle, Aix, dear?’ Victoria asked him, and Aix paused.

‘I usually stay there and everyone uses it as the internet café,’ Michaela explained. ‘It also gets used as a sort of touchpoint for daytrips.’

Aix thought about it. They’d told him that there was no internet, unreliable cell signal, and barely electricity or phone line, up at the castle. All the wiring was confined to the lowest ground level, leaving the upper levels free of such noise. Aix could fully understand that, and had been looking forward to the profound quiet one usually only enjoyed during a city-wide blackout.

On the other hand, radio silence. No friends outside this little group, for the month they’d be here. That was frightening, but considering the group it was also a bit exciting.

The only other time he’d been that isolated he’d been in asylums, with nothing to do and few people to talk to; but this would be different. This would be with company.

‘No, I was looking forward to the quiet up at the castle,’ he said. ‘I can write to my friends, and I told them I’d be gone.’ He’d already prepared by writing phone numbers down, and buying lots of sheet music and stationery. ‘I’m sort of excited about the quiet, to be honest. And the trees. And didn’t you say there were going to be other clowns there? Pippin hasn’t had a lot of chance to hang out with other joeys.’

‘Roseblade has brought his two clowns, and there are our two, of course,’ Claudiu said.

‘We do, yes. Roseblade gave my father a drag queen and a white clown to look after me.’ Claudiu laughed softly. ‘The fruit trees we began to grow because of them.’

It was traditional to have clowns in pairs, one from the white group and one from the red group ideally, though many, many American clowns ended up alone because of how American culture was set up. Or you were like Simon and had twelve (well, eleven now). Like cats, clowns did best in even numbers. Pippin being a fifth wheel would be offset by her having a cat companion, though.

‘Roseblade shall be pleased to have a chibi pierrot for his Young Master Ban,’ Dmitri said. ‘He has been broody.’

‘…Did you just use the word “chibi” in a sentence?’ Aix asked, startled. ‘No, um, no judgement, I just—haven’t heard it in a long time.’ Or from a grown-up, Aix brain finished, because he never felt adult ever.

‘A young tenant explained it to me years ago,’ Dmitri said. ‘It is a useful word, I think.’

Aix got the distinct impression she had never encountered this word before. He showed her what it meant, and her Flash lit up bright and excited red-yellow-blue as she suddenly understood, Mask bright and happy.

‘Cheebee bees!’ she beeped, so loudly that the kitten mewed back from his carrier.

‘That’s right, you are chibi.’ Aix felt her delight, her euphoria, at finally having a word for herself, for what she was, and hugged her. ‘Ohh, Pippin, I know that feeling…’ he said, misty-eyed as she kissed his face and practically vibrated with joy. ‘She didn’t have a word for herself,’ Aix said, as he snuggled Pippin. ‘It’s important.’

The drive, after they got to the foothills, was long and switchback, but Aix had taken medicine before landing, and tried to just go unconscious to avoid the nausea. That meant he was waking up as the van was stopping, and apparently Pippin had decided to sleep with him, bc she was a warm and comforting weight on him, her tail curled up around her, little hands holding onto it for comfort, the puff at the end covering her face. It was how she usually slept, and it never stopped being adorable.

Claudiu opened the back of the van. ‘We have paved the path since you visited last, Doamna Blackstone,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It is asphalt now.’

‘Goody,’ Victoria said, as Dmitri controlled the speed that she wheeled down the ramp with vampiric strength. Aix followed, but with René’s help. The ramp wasn’t exactly shallow or wide enough to be entirely safe to navigate if you were a beginner, it looked like a cargo ramp, mostly. But once on the brand-new paved path, Aix grabbed his wheels again, and wheeled himself a bit.

‘Like, you know when guys lower their car so it hugs the ground? That’s a low-rider. You need a really smooth road to drive one.’

‘I’m from a very car culture part of America, yeah,’ Aix said, ‘I like vintage cars as pieces of art.’

‘That’s the politics tone of voice,’ Cameron said, following René down the ramp. ‘Cars are very politically charged for our generation.’

‘They dismantled the Pacific-Electric Railroad,’ Aix growled. ‘Do you know how comprehensive that was! Three counties!’

‘My witch is passionate about infrastructure,’ René said to Claudiu, with pride that completely disarmed Aix; which was good, but bewildering.

‘Ooooh, the dark flower is heeeeeere!’ sang a voice, and Aix startled with a cold drop of terror how did someone know that about him—and then he realised it was Garnet, this time in an outfit much more suited to a courtier or perhaps a prince, traipsing toward them from an unclear direction.

‘Okaaaay,’ Garnet said, keeping pace even though he managed to also give off the impression of skipping. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, everyone’s going to love you! I’ve been telling them all about you and your stories!’

He missed the utter terror and general consternation this caused in Aix, but René—and the others—did not.

‘Garnet, you don’t know me anymore. I’m not nineteen anymore, I’m thirty-four and I’m a very, very different person, and I do not want people to know who I was when I was A) a child and B) being actively abused by several people.’ Even though he felt everything about himself shaking, chest tight and voice tense, Aix tried to stay calm and just do what he always did: say exactly what he meant. It had never worked before, but it was all he could do. ‘What, exactly, have you told them,’ he asked, not actually wanting to go down this road but also needing to know, so he could do damage control.

Garnet paused for several moments. ‘About your stories,’ he said again. ‘Oh, and your singing voice. And your bunny rabbit! How is she?’

‘Dead,’ Aix said, voice going even further deadpan, ‘someone killed her.’

‘Oh!’ Garnet actually shed a few tears, and stopped to hug Aix. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Pippin growled at him, and he drew away, shocked—Pippin had a black Mask over the top half of her face, and had turned her eyes and her Flash red, fluffing. She hissed at Garnet, the white stripes on her tongue bright green in warning.

Aix felt a lot better, suddenly, and he even felt Cthulhu’s presence in his periphery—but they’d talked, and Aix had told Cthulhu if he needed help he would say so, but that Cthulhu simply showing he was standing by, ready, was enough.

‘Garnet,’ Aix began, carefully, ‘I like you, I want to be friends again; but we need to establish some boundaries, okay? Just… I really appreciate that you defined me by what I create, but you knew a child version of me. I’m a grown-up now and we need to get to know each other all over again, away from that person I divorced in 2019. I haven’t even seen you in over ten years.’

There was a tense silence after this—everyone present knew how quick to temper sidhe were, even if they were Garnet, who was fairly relaxed (even if it was at the cost of him being a bit of a god-help-us). But then Garnet straightened up and, sweeping his froth of dark red curls over one shoulder, bowed to Aix in the manner of the Faerie court.

‘Merry and well met, stranger,’ he said, in a more formal voice, and something in Aix uncoiled a bit. Aix gave a little bow of his head.

‘Well and merry met,’ Aix returned, feeling that was just the right response.

It’s okay. He made a mistake but he wasn’t trying to be mean. We’re starting over.

‘You handled that well,’ Victoria said softly, as Garnet skipped ahead, chatting enthusiastically with Hext, Michaela, Scarpa, and Claudiu about everything and nothing.

‘Je suis très fier de toi, chou-chou,’ René added, gently moving Demon down to Aix’s lap so he could caress the back of Aix’s neck, toy with the soft curls poking out from under his hat. Aix started petting the kitten alongside Pippin, both purring.

‘Being tactless isn’t a crime,’ Aix said, ‘And he’s the only person from my past that made any effort to say hi to me again, that matters to me.’

A large bird landed in the middle of the path, behind Dmitri and Victoria, silent, and Aix looked up to see it was an actual lammergeier. ‘Stopstop,’ he said in a hushed voice to René.

Oh, the bird I saw. Are we near where I was? Cthulhu asked, stopping as well to marvel at it. It is so big.

One of the biggest birds there is, Aix replied, enchanted, but pulling a blanket over Pippin and Demon. Shh, stay hidden, stay safe. Predator.

René knew who this was, who it must be; Milady could change into many animal forms, but she favoured vultures for flying. He’d never seen her turn into this kind—she usually favoured the white Egyptian vulture—but it was unmistakeably a vulture. He bowed his head in regard, but remained silent; she would speak if she wished to be known.

The lammergeier suddenly rose up without rising up at all, turning into black shadows, and then into a woman all in rich black fabrics embroidered with gold, her face entirely veiled behind layers and layers of burqa in fine black silk. In the orange light of the lamps along the edges of the path, only the gold really showed, making her seem half-there.

‘Oh!’ Aix said, wondering who this was—and what she was. ‘Um, Asalaam alaikyum,’ he said, his anxiety quite sure he was mangling the pronunciation, because nobody had ever sat with him and let him practise.

She said something he didn’t quite catch, let alone understand—he presumed the proper reply—and then, in English: ‘They said you would be veiled. Have you left Islam?’

‘It… wasn’t really working for me,’ Aix said, guiltily. But why should he feel guilty, it was true? Was he required to try it for a set period? No. It was just being honest. I’m allowed to change. I’m allowed to try things.

‘Mr Asher will be pleased about that,’ she said, with an undefinable tone in her voice. She went over to Cameron, and raised a bare and ash-brown hand to touch his face gently.

‘You can’t touch Cameron without asking him first,’ Aix said, sternly. ‘I don’t care who you are,’ he added. ‘I’m Baltimore’s witch, and Cameron lives in Baltimore, so he’s under my protection. Hands off.’

The stranger hadn’t moved, and Pippin got out from under the blanket as she felt Aix’s weight shift to get up.

Finally, the lady pulled her hand away, and Aix settled back down, still glaring at her.

‘Assume whichever one you want, but if you want to bother someone, bother me. Leave Cameron alone.’ Aix’s voice was low and dangerous, like he always felt when he said that last phrase. Pick on someone your own size! Thumped inside his chest, acting as an incantation to kindle the rage that was always burning low but never went out.

She stepped back, feeling a ward swirl up around the werecat, and looked at René, watching her without interfering. ‘You have nothing to tell him, boy?’ she asked.

‘You expect me to have him at my beck and call? That is not what a witch is for,’ René said, with careful nonchalance.

‘He is not an offering, Milady. He is here to speak with you, to meet you. He is a person.’

‘Ah,’ she said, understanding the trouble. Carefully, she used her own telepathy to and showed Aix and Cameron both her intention—she had not meant harm, not truly; like all conflicts, it stemmed mostly from miscommunication, misunderstanding. She was excited, in high spirits.

‘I don’t like being touched without warning,’ Cameron said, evenly, though he was still a little shaky. ‘It’s not just you, it’s anyone. Especially my face.’ He tried to give her a smile, lighten the tension. ‘The kitten’s friendly though, if you ask I bet Aix will let you pet his face.’

‘We were told to ignore the cat, and this little one,’ she said, gesturing to Pippin, who was glowing all her Flash bright red, lighting her eerily in the low light. Still, Milady started over, slowly. ‘But if I may pet the kitten, I would like to.’

‘Let’s get inside first, he’s a little startled,’ Aix said, cradling him and Pippin close. It’s okay, babies, I gotchu babies.

‘Once we get inside, there will be squawking and clamour,’ she said, but not without a smile in her voice, as she kept pace beside René pushing Aix’s chair.

There was a whistle—Michaela’s whistle, Aix recognised it—from where the other half of the party had ended up ahead of them. Cameron glanced at René, who nodded, and Aix was sad that he didn’t get a good look at Cameron first turning into his beast-form in front of Aix, before Cameron had bounded ahead of them.

‘From the fops,’ René said. ‘Milady thinks of them as being like unto a flock of parrots.’

‘They have brought all of themselves,’ Milady said, ‘and so far, all but the poison vine have arrived early, and all talk is about you,’ she said, to Aix. ‘You killed the Heeren, you found something Elder than even our universe.’

‘That would be me,’ Cthulhu said. ‘But I am not a god. I refuse to be. I am a person, as are my colleagues.’

It was still, Aix thought silently to himself, such a shiver-inducing treat, to hear Cthulhu actually speak. He was still shy of it, and Aix had told Victoria to stop being so pushy about it, knowing what it was to be unused to talking in a new language, and feeling self-conscious.

Michaela was waiting by the door when they got up to it. ‘Evenin’, Milady.’

They went inside, and Aix was glad to have a moment to gather himself, and look around the inside of the castle. It was a proper castle, but the inside had been retrofitted with insulation, and all other sorts of things. The closest Aix had ever been to the inside of a castle was the Armory on Park Avenue, which wasn’t nearly so grand or well-funded.

The floor and walls in the entry were the signature intricacy that Aix associated with Orthodox Christianity, all the gold and the gothic arches and the every inch being carved—except instead of saints and angels, it was all bat-winged grotesques and demons, and just plain old bats. A chandelier of sculpted bats hung from the ceiling, sparkling with light, and the sconces were all in the shapes of bats. There was an old and well-maintained radiator right near the door of shining brass, the largest Aix had ever seen, which Pippin immediately went to stand near, holding out her little hands.

‘A-ah,’ Aix replied, eloquently, just taking that in stride as she pet the cat, trying not to be disappointed that she was Muslim. People changed, it wasn’t his business. At least she wasn’t Christian.

‘Of course not,’ Aix said, but did not actually know of any other female pharaohs. But of course, not Hatshepsut, because Milady was here and alive, that meant nobody could have found her tomb… ‘It’s been a long time since I studied anything about Egypt.’

‘Have you seen Stargate?’ she asked, in a sort of sudden, blunt way that Aix was starting to realise was just how she was going to be.

‘It is definitely funny,’ Aix agreed, feeling like this conversation was getting entirely surreal. ‘Um, Pippin, you wanna come sit back in my lap, honey?’

‘Ye,’ she said, coming away from the radiator and climbing back into his lap, pulling the blanket over herself. Aix helped her.

‘We should get ready for dinner, yes?’ René said, looking to Michaela. ‘Is Aix’s room set near all of you?’

‘I shall see you at dinner, nedjem,’ Milady murmured softly, though she mostly spoke to the cat, and departed.

‘You go on ahead Mike,’ Aix said, ‘if René knows the way, I’ll just stay with him.’

Michaela hesitated, but she sensed what Aix was trying to do—he didn’t want to be hovered over, and Michaela had to admit she needed to learn to not hover over him. ‘Okay, sugar,’ she said. ‘Holler if you need anything.’

‘Come,’ René said, feeling Aix’s tension subsist after Michaela left them alone, but now far more free to touch his shoulders, lean down and kiss his hair. ‘I shall go with you to the mortal wing, it is full of comforts, and I shall paint your pretty face.’

‘Thank you, Domine,’ Aix said, as René started to push him toward what was obviously an elevator, beautiful and Nouveau, grander than the one Dmitri’s building had, but still in the same place in the centre of a winding stairwell, brass leaves and faux-organic curves crouched amidst the branches of the stairwell. It was unsettling and beautiful, and doubtlessly knocker-made.

Aix sighed as René closed the elevator and pulled the lever to start it ascending. Mechanical, not electric, which was kind of exciting—and weird, to a person who had grown up in the electric age.

‘So,’ Aix said, to fill the silence, needing to say something, ‘Milady is ancient Egyptian.’

‘She is the eldest vampire known,’ René said. ‘Her emoting has a learning curve. She was not angry at any time, she is simply abrasive at first, before you understand her humour.’

‘Millenia of language and cultural barrier will do that,’ Aix said, understanding instantly. René started petting Demon, who was still on Aix’s shoulders, and Aix felt the kitten start to climb up on René.

‘Non, petit,’ René said, gently peeling him away (Aix had clipped his claws before they’d left, so it wasn’t too difficult) and putting him in Aix’s lap, with Pippin, who lifted the blanket.

‘Oh, yeah, I was going to let him have some time by himself to explore my room,’ Aix said to Pippin, petting the kitten gently. ‘Get his things set up if they aren’t and then let him have a bit of time away from people. I need you to come with me to dinner though, bean.’

Again was that sense of something she needed to do, to see. Aix didn’t push, respecting she didn’t want to tell him. She was old, maybe she knew some people here. Mr Asher or something.

‘He says he is what is called both a demon and a djinn. Also,’ René said, ‘she was joking, in her way.’

The elevator arrived on the third floor, and Aix reached for his wheels. René put a hand on his shoulder.

Aix waited patiently while René did something with the levers on the control panel, then went out to wait in the corridor, which had a wooden floor and a red runner carpet, over the stone. There were radiator pipes, Aix noted, and wondered. There wasn’t electricity up here, but there was plumbing. Interesting.

Cthulhu had been awfully quiet; but he’d told Aix, in the couple of weeks before now, that he was sort of known for being The Quiet One, and observing more than interacting. Given his people did not have high social needs, Aix had worked out with him a promise that Cthulhu would reach out and ‘poke’ him if he needed social interaction, not rely on Aix to pick up cues that Aix could not pick up.

‘You can take your mask off now, Monsieur,’ René said to Cthulhu affectionately.

Aix let out a low and throaty laugh that startled René with how villainous—and delicious—it was. ‘Excellent. I support you, Joe.’

René gestured to the door to the right, which had a brass skeleton key sticking out from the old-fashioned mortise lock, and a paper sign pasted to it that had, in Claudiu’s big script,

‘Ohhh I love his handwriting,’ Aix said, wheeling over and standing up to admire the script more closely.

‘Well, I’d certainly like if you stayed in this room with me, yes,’ Aix said, unlocking the door and putting the keys in his pocket, opening the brass lever of the door, relieved to find the door wasn’t too heavy, swinging open on silent hinges. The air inside the room was warm enough that Pippin and Demon squirmed and leapt off him, both making a beeline for the radiator beneath the window.

Aix stayed standing, and pushed his chair in, parking it beside the door and hanging his purse over one arm and admiring the room. It had wall-to-wall carpet in a dark green floral pattern that Aix immediately clocked as being from the 1990s, and wood panelling on the walls that gave it a homey feel even with all the grand high fanciness of the carvings, which seemed a mix of Victorian Gothic Revival and… actual Gothic. There were fornications in the ceiling as the panelling gave way to the original stone, and no lights overhead, just increasing darkness. The sconces were that same glowing stuff, Aix realised, that bioluminescence—encased in little globes of glass or maybe crystal, the light had not seemed strange because it was the same colour as electric light, or firelight, but only now did Aix realise that didn’t fit with the fact that there was no electricity on this floor.

Besides the bedroom set of carved wooden furniture—canopy bed with heavy green drapes of velvet, grand armoire, curved low dresser, two night-tables and a marble-topped vanity and washstand—there was also a desk by a window, several bookshelves, and what Aix realised were photographs, blown up as big as old-fashioned paintings and put into the same ornate frames. They depicted landscapes of forests and mountains, grandiose and comfortingly familiar to Aix, who was from a place where Nature adorned herself with quite grand-scale vistas, indeed.

Did Claudiu do photography? That seemed like one of those odd things someone with albinism might have taken up, because of being so focussed, by having the disability, on light and how the eye worked. Aix was certainly fascinated with people and their ways because of being so terrible at participating in society, he could definitely understand.

He found his trunk sitting at the foot of his bed. The keys were in his purse, so there was no way anyone could have opened it to unpack it. However, the litter box was already set up, and from the positioning, the person who had done that was familiar with cats. Aix spotted the water dish on the marble-topped washstand, and walked over to open the cube-shaped trunk he’d packed the cat things in, finding that the person had indeed latched the food back up inside it. But that trunk hadn’t come with a lock, so he was okay with it. Servants were still odd to get used to, even though he’d been one for a while.

Aix turned to look at René, carefully staying across the threshold. ‘Yes, René,’ he said, and only then did René come through the doorway, shutting the door behind him gently and locking it.

Aix had brought all of their makeup, which was barely used, and René put it on for him again, borrowing a little of the special edition highlighter and lip gloss for his own face with Aix’s permission, the blue-purple shimmer making his monochrome look amazing. He found the pink flat-back pearls Aix had bought for Halloween and paused.

‘They were for a costume. I showed you that spider character right? He has the little pink eyes under his main ones on his cheeks, and I used the pearls and some spirit gum…’

‘Clever boy,’ René said, and Aix felt all glowy and ducked his head, smiling.

After makeup, Aix got up and, with help from the others (and Demon, who ‘helped’ in the manner cats always did), unpacked the rest of his trunk into the dresser and armoire near the bed. Pippin insisted on helping, though she was very quiet, uncharacteristically subdued. Aix figured she was just having Thoughts and a little tired from the journey. He was a bit subdued and quiet, himself. Not tired, exactly—he’d slept well—but it was a lot of change, to travel anywhere, and it helped to put everything away just so and get some of his signs of home on shelves and put his plush on the bed. He made sure the kitten had food and water and his scrap of scratching carpet on its little folding stand was set up properly, then kissed Demon’s little head.

‘You be a good boy while Mommy is at work, okay?’ he said. We’re going hunting. Was the best translation of where Aix was going. We will come back before morning. ‘I love you.’

Pippin kissed her little brother too, and they left, Aix locking the door behind him.

33. Parlour Full of Spiders

René was in a suit, and Aix could tell it was clearly the one that made him feel he looked the best—it was certainly very flattering, fine wool as always, blue-black, a fall of dark blue lace flattering René’s beautiful hands, which were decorated with many more silver rings than he usually wore. The lapels were wider, and the jacket cut more generously, than a typical black tie suit, with actual turn-back cuffs on the sleeves that matched the lapels, and a pleated gore in the back that fishtailed out. René was also in higher heels, that snapped on hard floors in a way that made Aix bask in the sensory delight of the sound. His nails were done in one of the new cat-eye style colours (blue of course). His hair was loose, though, the curls enviable as they spiralled around his face, over his shoulders and down his back.

Aix had been able to, several times in the two weeks leading up to the trip, go with Pinky or one of the other queens to thrift stores and other hole-in-the-wall shops only locals knew about, and get clothes his favourite way—with the added bonus of being able to get them tailored after. Pinky had even complimented Aix on his skill in putting an outfit together, which meant a lot, as Pinky had graduated from FIT and Aix regarded him with awe for it.

So, Aix had a put-together suit now, and he’d let Pinky nudge him into wearing a dark brown over black, because brown looked better on him. He felt far more confident now, in a three-piece with a vivid teal shirt he knew looked amazing, and Mr Tailor had changed the collar for him to be the big-pointed one from the seventies that Aix liked so much. And, since he was in a chair, the jacket was something he had to simply have with him, not wear; but that’s what the waistcoat was for.

As his old shoes were worn out, Aix had been gifted, by the trolls in his building, with new shoes. They’d fussed and definitely shown Aix why Virginia hadn’t been sure if the ‘shoe thing’ was a kink or not, but Aix didn’t mind either way, and thanks to them he was wearing a pair of very comfortable, pointy-toed opera pumps with a high and shapely heel, and the brasswork exoskeleton that was padded on the inside with layers of soft cork and wool felt, that gently held his arches where they should be. They were the most comfortable shoes he’d ever worn in his life, and they were easy to slip on and off as he wished—important, because Aix didn’t like wearing shoes, and couldn’t actually walk safely in heels. Sitting in a chair, his shoes didn’t matter but to decorate his feet and show them off; and the only reason he would stand would be to sing or move a few steps to a seat. He’d already practised walking in them, and done the obligatory ankle-roll, so hopefully—hopefully—he wouldn’t embarrass himself by doing it again tonight.

Pippin, contrary to what Aix had assumed, did not come sit on Aix’s lap; after they’d put all her clothes within her reach, in the bottom drawer of the dresser, she picked out her own outfit: the fancy rainbow dress, and the matching rainbow striped tights, and the little soft sheepskin boots with the pompom on the toe. Now, she trotted beside the three of them, singing softly to herself. Aix was quiet, listening, trying to figure out why the tune was familiar, waiting for his brain’s constant analysis of musical patterns to kick on with lyrics.

During the past fortnight, Aix had tentatively put on some of his favourite Broadway albums for Pippin, playing them in order so Pippin could follow the story; he hadn’t been sure she’d enjoy it at first, but she had quickly started asking him to do it, which was deeply flattering. One of the albums she asked for over and over had been the original Sweeney Todd. She was a pierrot, so it made sense she would like a tragedy, but… Aix also recalled what Scarpa had said, about the castrati not liking to be compared to birds due to some kind of past trauma….

‘Do you…’ This was insane, surely? But how to ask, when Aix hadn’t even met them, and had no idea if their names would have been the same for Pippin?

Pippin was quiet, and Aix sensed her frustration with him, and tried not to be too heartbroken. What was wrong? Why was she frustrated?

‘No,’ Pippin said, but then came over and climbed in Aix’s lap. Many big lots. Don’t know. Need to see.

It was jumbled, but Aix understood the frustration very well, and hugged her, his hurt at her rejection soothed by understanding she was just having very complicated ideas, as well as emotions, and it was hard to communicate the former through the latter.

‘I did say that, didn’t I—René, stop.’ When René did, Aix looked up at him And Cthulhu. ‘You two go on ahead, we’ll be just a little while.’

René gave him a little kiss, and Cthulhu paused, before gently touching Aix’s cheek.

Alone in the corridor, Aix turned all his attention back to Pippin. ‘I did ask the other joeys not to share memories that hurt with me, that’s true. That’s because they are strangers, and sharing hurts is something that you do with troupe.’

Pippin was quiet, and hugged Aix. Duckie heavy so much lots. Is big heavy sadpain.

Pippin was quiet for long moments, but Aix waited patiently, watching her Mask and her Flash go through furious, cuttlefish-like colour-changes as she had many thoughts.

Bad Miss Ana not frs bad dottie get eated up by Big Mommy, Pippin began, quietly, and with metaphors only. Aix saw her connect up the characters from Sweeney Todd to events she was referring to, masking the horror of reality with story. The opera singers she’d lived with had been like Joanna, locked away from the outside world; but too, they were like the songbirds humans used to catch and blind and keep for their pleasure. Pippin had been called Lacrimello, then—‘little sadness’, rather traditional for a pierrot—and her Friend had spoken to her the way humans always did their pets, confiding in Pippin all his fears, until Pippin determined she had to do something; but before she could, Friend had sent her away, afraid of what The Lady would do to someone as small as Pippin.

Pippin had not taken that lying down. She was no Harlequin, nor indeed a Brighella; but Pierrots were the most likely clown to mature into the most dangerously intelligent of the troupe:

Where the rest of the troupe’s purpose was to cause problems—on purpose (Harlequin) or by bumbling (Padrone)—Columbina solved problems. That was her rôle. She fixed everybody’s problems, because she wasn’t silly. She waited, and she watched, and she had thoughts.

They were vampires, though Pippin hadn’t known the word at the time—they were Magic Dotties, that was all she knew them as. They drank magic, and did magic with it, and Pippin managed to get some, using her clown magic to call out for help. She hadn’t been quite so clear on what she wanted in detail, back then, just for her Friends to be safe and free, and a vague sense that The Bad Lady had to go away forever for that to happen.

But Pippin had been frightened by Big Mommy at first, and had run away, and she couldn’t remember why anymore, but she was Lost by the time she thought about going back, and didn’t know how to go back. She’d known enough to drift toward other Magic Dotties again, finding other joeys and making known she liked to be around the Magic Dotties best.

She had been to this castle before—she knew Claudiu, and the King, and that’s what made her wonder—the moment she’d seen Claudiu she’d known she was right—she was Coming Back! But she didn’t know what to do, now. She didn’t want to leave Duckie alone, and she liked her new friends. Why did the world have to be so big? Why couldn’t they live next door neighbours?

Well, first of all, that was a very brave thing you did, especially for such a Small Animal. He booped her little nose with his, and got her to smile a little. Secondly—René told me Phrixus slew his Sire, so he must be lying, and I don’t know how people are going to react about that, so how about you wait out here, and I will go get Phrixus and we can talk to him alone, okay?

‘Duckie,’ Pippin said, with the fond exasperation only a very small, cute person could manage. Magic people bees have good ears.

Are you… saying there’s no way we can have a private conversation? The thought was terrifying, triggering Aix’s background hum of distressed paranoia into a klaxon scream.

‘Oh!’ and Aix laughed at himself. ‘Okay. Yes. Point. Well, if you’ve been here before, where could we go?’

Pippin got down and went further in the direction Aix was facing, stopped, and pointed.

She scampered back, tail high, as Aix carefully got to his feet, pulled the chair so it was out of the walkway, and opened the door, but didn’t quite go inside.

‘Hi,’ he said to the frankly enormous (well, to him) group of unfairly beautiful people in the room. ‘Could I talk to Maestro Phrixus alone for a moment?’

It wasn’t the first impression he wanted to make, but he consoled himself that it would likely be a better one, at least with Phrixus, because Aix had immense difficulty interacting with several people at once, let alone several new people. It was hard to keep details like names and personalities straight if he was getting all of them all at once.

Aix was faintly surprised at the rainbow hair of the tall vampire that rose from his seat by the fire and crossed the room. The colourful streaks were shown off by his hairstyle, and despite the sombre uniform of evening suit, his makeup and nails were just as vivid, almost neon. As he got closer, Aix realised the tuxedo wasn’t black, truly, but a deep aubergine.

Once the door closed, Aix got back in his chair, realising Pippin had disappeared, but feeling the sense, in the back of his mind, that she was in the garden waiting. ‘Walk with me,’ Aix said simply, trying to use the Witch Voice, that no-nonsense brisk authority, and started wheeling down the hall.

‘Is something wrong?’ Phrixus’ voice had the smooth and sonorous quality of someone rigorously trained, and sounded like it echoed from a deep well, though it was much higher than one expected from that timbre.

‘That’s a broad question,’ Aix said, ‘but I don’t think so, no. Not overall. It’s just something that needs, like, political acumen that I don’t have.’

‘Incidentally,’ Aix said, and Phrixus immediately caught the tone, in that; Phrixus opened the large, studded door to the garden for Aix, not at all surprised they were going to the garden to speak—it was a summer night, warm enough to spend time outside, the forest alight with the noise of summer insects and frogs. In the distance, he heard a fox’s scream.

‘You might wanna sit down,’ Aix said, and then looked out into the leafy darkness. Pippin? Where are you, baby?

There was a glow of blue from a rosebush beside the bench Phrixus was sitting on, and a soft beep, before, slowly, Pippin peeked out from her hiding place.

Phrixus froze, the world feeling like it had frozen with him, time falling away. He didn’t register what exactly he said, only that little Lacrimello was here again, was alive and here and in his arms again, with his little tiny beeps and perpetual babyish smallness, and it was very important that Phrixus kiss him.

Aix sat back and didn’t exactly watch, but he listened, as Pippin was greeted with tearful Italian and disbelieving affection. And he waited, patiently, vaguely wishing he’d been able to learn Italian at any point, beyond what little he knew from sheet music.

‘René did not say it was our little Lacrimello,’ Phrixus finally said, switching to English again, and then giving a watery laugh. ‘I don’t know how he could have known, but—to have him so close, all this time…’

Aix was aware that clowns didn’t actually have genders—they were like snails, in that they were hermaphroditic as a species, and any gender was merely something they performed. Still, it was just slightly startling, to hear Pippin called ‘he’ on top of a different name.

‘Bees Pippin bees,’ Pippin was saying to Phrixus, with comical seriousness. ‘Pippinella.’

‘Ah,’ Phrixus said, finally letting her just sit on his lap, pulling out a handkerchief to dry his tears, which had made mess of his makeup. ‘Of course, yes.’

‘Pippin, you wanna tell him what you told me, or do you want me to?’ Aix said.

‘Juju fori,’ Pippin said to Phrixus, who immediately lifted her down onto the ground again. She turned to look up at him, gathering herself, her Flash dimming with her seriousness. ‘I kill bad lady. Not Fixis. Me. I do. I call Big Mommy. Big Mommy eated her up.’ She gave the smallest little nod of emphasis, and then looked to Aix, who took the cue.

‘Pippin told me what happened with your Sire, in her way, and I can fill in the blanks,’ Aix said, and put up a hand when he heard Phrixus draw breath to interrupt, and went on, ‘but it occurs to me that this information might compromise your station as master of your household, and I don’t want to do that. On the other hand, the truth might be a positive thing too—Pippin and I don’t know enough to judge, which is why I pulled you out here alone, rather than dropping this in the middle of the council—and the King in particular. Okay, what’s your question?’

He actually looked at Pippin, ‘How long have you been able to speak full sentences?’

Pippin looked down at her hands, frowning, her little brow wrinkling as she puzzled on how to answer. She looked at Aix, who already knew the answer.

‘Joeys don’t talk to humans, because if humans knew they could talk, humans would make them work, and force them to either be people or slaves. They want neither of those things.’

Pippin nodded, her tail swishing back and forth as she thought on decisions she now had to make. Aix could guess at one—the classic one depicted by the Lovers card in Tarot: which path to take, between her past and her present, should she stay with Aix or go back to Phrixus? Aix couldn’t neutrally say what would be best for her, he had his own interests.

Eventually, she climbed back onto Aix’s lap, and cuddled him, curling her tail around herself, purring when Aix skritched her ruff.

‘In a way, I suppose,’ Aix said thoughtfully—he knew that many Christian sources had turned the old god of clowns into a saint. He’d been thinking a lot about that, and the discussion between him, Cthulhu, and his gods regarding exactly where the Starfolk fit into the cosmos was ongoing. He wasn’t quite ready to reveal that about clowns yet, though; that was for the clowns to know, and decide who to tell. Aix somewhat regretted telling Simon and the others, but the general consensus among the few clowns he’d been able to talk to about it was that Dotties[38] were Troupe, especially the keepers Aix had told. ‘It’s not really for me to say,’ he added.

Phrixus accepted that answer, studying the witch under the guise of watching Pippin enjoy herself in his lap. As he remembered her, she was very feline, wiggling around just like a cat beneath the witch’s gentle hands. It was so strange to see her in modern clothes, in colours other than blue and white and black….

The witch himself was in a chair that had once been Lady Blackstone’s, Phrixus remembered it; and from that, to the suit he wore, it was clear he was of humble origin and not ashamed of others knowing—something Phrixus respected more than others of the Council might, as he himself had also been only the seventh son of a humble baker. Phrixus’ fame and fortune, he had earned with the gift God had given him in return for his sacrifice, as any of the castrati did; and it seemed only right that a witch would be the same, particularly an American one.

‘René told you how succession works, then?’ Phrixus said, thinking on the situation at hand.

‘No,’ said the witch, and chuckled at Phrixus’ look of shock—a thrilling sound, low and wicked and perfectly villainous, hinting at a delicious singing voice, indeed. Despite the adulation given to him for his own stratospheric range, Phrixus himself, like most in his household, adored that which he heard most rarely: the baritones, the basses, and all their velvet and smoke.

‘I suppose,’ Phrixus said, and only his mastery of his own voice as an instrument overcame the shivering breathlessness that laugh instilled, ‘it is no surprise a witch is so perceptive. It is comforting,’ he added, softer, ‘to know that we were rescued by our little angel, and not…’ he trailed off, looking away. ‘Lady Blackstone tells us you worship Apollo.’

‘We don’t have good and evil, no.’ Aix expected shock, and questions, and assumptions; Christians always had them. It was a little easier to bear with Christians that admitted to being Christian, and certainly easier when they were Catholics, which Aix knew all the vampires were, being that they were all older than Protestantism[39]—but it was still something that made Aix tired, if only from the repetition. How do you know how to behave? Echoed in his mind so loudly that it took a moment for him to realise Phrixus had not actually asked the question. ‘Sorry, um, could you repeat that?’

‘Is it as difficult to become pagan as it is to become Jewish?’ Phrixus repeated. ‘I have asked Lady Blackstone before.’

‘It is very tiring, after so many years, to exist knowing that you have no hope of forgiveness, and yet cannot simply find camaraderie among the Fallen. All these years I thought I had somehow summoned a demon, or become one, and to know that it was something else, something called for the sake of one small creature’s love for us…. That there is not blood on my hands! Do you understand? Murder weighs heavily on the soul, even a damned one.’

Aix got the feeling there was a lot happening here below the surface; but, surprisingly, he could follow it all. ‘Yeah, I bet it does. I can’t imagine staying with a religion that hated my existence.’

‘…What is it like?’ Phrixus asked, quietly. ‘To have gods that do not condemn you?’

Aix had never had anyone ask, and was extremely pleased to have someone understand. ‘It’s everything,’ he said. ‘It’s a family that never rejects you, or abandons you. That nobody can separate you from.’ That part was important—Aix had been rejected by his birth family immediately, and separated forcibly from the ones that hadn’t rejected him; he’d also been institutionalised several times, and forcibly cut off from even friends. ‘And they’re not perfect, so you don’t have to be either. And—’ he paused. The giddy possibility that this entire household of people, of castrati, might be interested in joining him? In worshipping his gods? Aix often stubbornly said that a group of pagans was called an argument; but he was still human, he still wanted brotherhood with other people like himself.

‘And it’s just… I’m not sure how you view yourself, in terms of—of gender, or sacrificing… flesh. But um, when I got top surgery, I sacrificed that flesh to Apollo, and he—he honoured it. And Apollo made my body, so…’ so I know in Christianity altering your body is seen as insulting your god, but it isn’t for us. But Aix couldn’t quite summon the confidence to say that, having learned from years of interacting with Christians that they were contrary and no matter what you said, if it wasn’t praise, you were ‘persecuting’ them; and that if you weren’t Christian, you were automatically wrong even when you weren’t. Also, significantly, Aix didn’t know enough about the castrati to really know how any of them viewed their position theologically. From the perspective of historical record, nobody did.

‘No, no,’ Phrixus said, gently. ‘Eveline has had some, and I can infer that if you can give, you can also take away. She is the one of our number that is transsexual. And,’ he added, even softer-edged, seeing Aix’s tension, ‘I am sorry if my questions have seemed… interrogative. It has been a long while I have wished to leave the church entirely, but I have never met anyone without good and evil, that was… far enough removed from a single God. Even Milady’s ancient ways have good and evil, light and dark.’

‘I’m only cagey because I’ve been stolen from before; but to be fair, he was a Protestant,’ Aix said, feeling rather rebelliously gleeful at how derogatory he knew that could be, with old Catholics of any sort. ‘Also, Catholics already have the framework to understand polytheism. I’ve… not really met a lot of Catholics, to be honest. Nonna left the church while my dad was still a kid, and neither of my parents raised me knowing anything about Christianity, and most of America is Protestant, so.’ He shrugged. ‘I met, like, some watered-down American Catholics ten years ago, but they weren’t shit. Everything I know is from history.’

‘They do, I have opinions about that. But returning to the point… you… you want to convert?’ Aix needed to hear it in words.

Aix was reeling, at that; not because it was unpleasant, but because of the opposite. This was… not at all the conversation he’d been prepared to have out here. ‘Um. I. Okay. I need a minute to process that.’

‘Take longer,’ Phrixus said softly, getting to his feet. ‘I think we should go back inside.’

‘Um, yeah, what about… what about the whole matter of your Sire’s fate?’

‘If a clown is not a person, then they cannot be responsible for anything, and it still falls to me.’ He smiled at Pippin. ‘She was our pet, after all. But I appreciate your wanting to tell me privately.’

‘Yes; and I thank you for the warning, poor Felice would have startled badly.’

‘Fissielissie?’ Pippin said, and sat up to reach for Phrixus, making grabby hands. Phrixus obliged her, picking her up again.

‘He misses you so much, mimma,’ he said softly, kissing her face, his lipstick leaving yet another mark to join all the others there from his initial flurry of kisses.

Aix was treated to Pippin’s wordless longing for Felice in response—he had been her favourite keeper. It made tears burn in Aix’s eyes to feel her heartbreak.

Aix started back inside, Phrixus walking beside him, carrying Pippin, who had started babbling cheerfully, a sound that always cheered Aix up. The shapes were more Italian, and Aix loved that Pippin seemed to babble in several languages. He bit back the urge to start trying to figure out just where Pippin was going to live, and who to live with. He wanted her to be happy, and if that meant she would go back to live across an ocean and leave him alone then he’d heal. He loved her, and love meant putting someone else’s well-being before your own.

Pippin stopped abruptly in her chatter, and frowned. ‘No Duckie! No!’ she said, distressed.

‘Why does she call you that?’ Phrixus said, hiding a laugh as he carefully adjusted to several pounds of wiggly clown suddenly intent on getting down in his arms. ‘Hush, piccinina.’

‘She um, she’s picking up on my thoughts. Sorry,’ Aix said, but kept wheeling. ‘Pippin, let Maestro Phrixus hold you, baby, I can’t have you on my lap and wheel my chair this fast at the same time.’

She stilled, beeping. ‘Uu,’ she said, in the saddest tone imaginable. When Aix didn’t explain, Pippin’s blue Flash turned a little red in irritation. She beeped.

‘What thoughts?’ Phrixus asked, still remembering perfectly well how to interpret the expressive Pantomime of their Lacrimello.

‘Um, just—I was just thinking about how I didn’t—I didn’t know if she wanted to stay with me, or go home—she decided I need her and—I don’t disagree, but I can manage without her, she needs to be happy.’

‘Lyeen!’ Pippin said in a low growl, mimicked from one of the few jokes Aix had only minimally had to explain to her.[40]

‘I think she’s made her choice,’ Phrixus said, and noted how the witch’s lips pressed together, his expression tense and none too convinced.

‘He only sent her away for her safety—’ Aix began, sounding angry but only on the surface; and, for the first time in a long time, the bark did not fool the person hearing it.

‘That was centuries ago, tesoro,’ Phrixus took a sterner tone, and stopped walking, waiting until Aix also stopped, turned around to face him. ‘We will be happy to see her again, of course, but we have all changed since then. She has changed.’ The young had to be reminded that you could not simply go back, after long enough. ‘She chooses you, now, and it would be unwise to deny such a gift. There are none like her in the world, and there will never be again.’

Pippin beeped in punctuation, folding her arms. Aix couldn’t help laughing a little, at how cute that was; which was the point, he knew that was the point. He relented—and it didn’t feel like losing, either, it felt satisfying, because not once had Phrixus remarked on his tone, or how he needed to ‘calm down’, or anything; he’d simply responded like it was normal. Which it was.

‘Come,’ Phrixus said, gently. ‘We’ve all been very eager to meet you—and hear you sing.’

Aix had prepared for that, and to his relief the hours of practise he’d put in over the past two weeks—helped along by acquiring a real piano to practise with, musical neighbours willing to sing with him, and a couple of trips to Marie’s Crisis to acclimate to singing around strangers again—helped him feel less scared. So, instead of scared, he actually felt flattered, and excited—he had a host of new evidence saying he had a nice voice, and could sing well, so he could focus on having fun, now.

Phrixus opened the door with one hand, the other holding Pippin to himself, and held it open for Aix, who took a breath.

‘So, apparently Pippin is, in fact, Lacrimello,’ Aix said, getting the sense that Phrixus was hanging back slightly and waiting to have the news broken.

Phrixus wasn’t the only one of the castrati with colourful hair—they all did, and the one with a blue updo and wearing a little black dress that showed off a lot of leg gave a little scream, hand to his throat. The others were soon to follow with their own avian little gasps and twitters, a few starting to their feet. The whole effect of a flock of birds was only magnified by the surprised honking from the handful of clowns in the room.

‘How was I to know?’ René said, as the joeys did not hesitate at all to crowd the door, the castrati soon following. Phrixus parted them with laughter, the little pierrot sitting on his shoulders, throwing her hands up.

Aix laughed, and he wasn’t the only one—Pippin briefly had the spotlight to herself, passed from embrace to embrace and covered in many shades of lipstick as they all kissed her over and over. Aix had time to watch them, and see that one of the clowns had albinism, which he’d never seen before—but he had heard of, everyone who was into history knew about Charles II’s albinistic pierrot. Without Mask, he only had Flash, and didn’t use it much. He also seemed to be wearing paint in lieu of having his own markings.

All of the castrati had unnatural colours of hair—one was all shades of blue, one was the distinctive claret red that was the most unnatural colour you could get out of a box at a drugstore, one was a magnificent purple fading to pink, and another was a neon pink that Aix knew (from having dyed his own hair that colour) would glow under blacklight. All but two were in suits—red hair had a glittery olive-green evening dress that showed off a magnificent pair of store-bought tits,[41] and blue hair was in a less showy black dress of sparkly velvet. From how Pippin seemed to be staying in the arms of blue hair, that must be Felice.

Milady was by the fire in a chair, assiduously not paying attention; everyone else, however, was paying attention to the colourful flock of joy—including the people Aix recognised. Heather was here, wearing a quite sexy black sweater dress with minimal engineering, which gave her comfortably low curves that Aix liked but knew would not normally be approved of by society; she was standing near a very handsome bear, his beard and long hair oiled into gorgeous curls, and another middle-eastern man—less bear and more twink, Aix thought, just as beautiful, especially with his long black curls in jewelled combs.

Michaela sitting on a sofa by the window on the other side of the fireplace—all made up and looking amazing, Aix had never seen her dressed up before—in a gorgeous red dress that was the opposite of Heather’s—there was a lot of corset going on under there, Aix’s expert eye could tell, and she had her considerable, freckly bosom up on a platter. This was being enjoyed, clearly, by the unassuming brunet with big green eyes standing near her. He seemed like he was flirting.

Dmitri, René, and Victoria were over by another blond and a rather tall someone else in a suit, that was actually in a visard mask, and was standing half in shadow. Where was Claudiu? Was this everyone, or would more people arrive over the next few nights?

Victoria looked beautiful in a Belle Epoque style gown of black chiffon ruched over purple shot black taffeta, her posture as perfect as Aix’s wasn’t. He’d been trying, but a lifetime of damage didn’t go away in two weeks, even if he had been working every day at it—which he hadn’t, really. Exercise for its own sake had always seemed discouragingly Sisyphean.

Not the time for that, not now, Aix thought, and turned attention to the room itself—but not before realising he’d nearly missed someone, who was half-hidden by the open lid of the grand piano. Other than rather intense blue eyes, there wasn’t anything terribly remarkable about that one, and Aix was already struggling with all the people and avoiding all the eyes, so he turned his attention to the room itself.

The room was large as a hotel lobby, carpeted in dark red with an elegant pattern of acanthus leaves in a slightly darker red, and the furniture was all beautifully carved and upholstered in rich red velvet, the fireplace of black marble and the motif was more bats, and wolves, and speaking of wolves where was Hext? And Cthulhu? Aix had little time to wonder, before he was suddenly surrounded by colour.

‘Oh, hi,’ he said, to everyone collectively. ‘Um, hello—yes, hi, hello,’ he said, giggling as the clowns surrounded him with their signature style of affection, hugs and beeping nose-kisses. Joeys, he could handle—the kisses and petting from all the castrati—that was harder. Aix couldn’t understand most of the Italian, other than the repeated ‘grazie’; but Pippin, found her way to his lap again.

They say ‘detu detu Duckie. Duckie bes’ witch for fix brokened heart for bring Pippins homesafe.’

‘All right my dears, come now, let the poor creature breathe!’ rang out a sprightly English voice, bubbly and seeming to call back at least two of the clowns—the pierrot with albinism and the cheerful mix that seemed equal parts drag queen and harlequin—a very odd and volatile mix of breeds, Aix thought to himself.

The blond that had been by Dmitri was the owner of that voice, which marked him as being Roseblade, had to be.

‘He is no delicate English flower,’ Phrixus said, looking down at Roseblade—not difficult, he was easily the tallest person in the room.

‘I am half English flower, to be fair,’ Aix piped up. ‘But I do want introductions, because calling your by your hair colour feels rude.’

‘This jester is Vincenzo,’ Phrixus said, and Pippin beeped several times for attention.

Pippin made show of clearing her throat, sitting tidily on Aix’s lap. She gestured grandly. ‘Ena bu Fissielissie! Bu for Pippins!’

‘Nice to meet you, Felice. Pippin says you’re her favourite keeper she’s ever had,’ Aix added, knowing it would be nice to hear. Felice already had tear-streaks of eyeliner down his cheeks; but at that, more were freshly made, and he dabbed at the corners of his eyes.

‘Um, no, but there’s only one name that nicknames to “Wishes”, isn’t there?’

‘It might be because we know a Lorenzo in Manhattan, actually, so “Zozo” is taken,’ Aix said, smiling.

‘I suppose we have to be fair,’ Aix said with a giggle. ‘And what about this gentleman?’ he asked, gesturing to Roseblade, ‘Do you know him, too?’

The two drag queens fluffed, and the one Roseblade had called away laughed a harlequin’s wicked laugh.

Everyone is to be knowing Old Bastard. Was so intensely English-flavoured that Aix knew immediately it came from her.

‘Yeah, telepathy’s a helluva thing,’ Aix said lightly, ‘speaking of, where’s Cthulhu?’

‘He expressed interest in the kitchen,’ Roseblade said with a fluttering tone of foppish disbelief, ‘when Claudiu and Mr Hext went to check on dinner.’

‘You should meet everyone else, my dear!’ Roseblade said, intent on pulling Aix away and getting at least a few moments with him.

‘Well, yeah, I want to meet the joeys,’ Aix said, purposely obtuse, and turned to the two still nearby, ‘What are your names? I’m Duckie.’

The Clown—and she was a Clown, of the old-fashioned breed all the specialist Circus and Rodeo and Party lines had come from—presented her drag queen companion with a deferent and clumsy bow, her shapeless little hat falling off.

Said drag queen was also the old school—matronly and nearly a Signora, she offered her hand to kiss, which Aix obligingly did.

‘Tanti,’ she said, in a stentorian, syrupy voice that perfectly went with how she looked. Aix inferred it simply meant ‘Auntie’, which was a completely unsurprising name for such an old drag queen. Her very lush plumage was bronze and dark red, though that was a generous description; one would never dare to say a drag queen was a colour so pedestrian as brown, however. Even if it was a very pretty brown.

‘Enchanté, madame,’ Aix said, very gravely. This seemed to be acceptable amounts of respect, to her. Her companion, all in the warm-toned Mask of older types of clown, gave a springy-yet-clumsy bow, her little hat falling off for the nth time.

‘Varăvăr.’ But there were layers there that could not be translated and preserve the pun—so it was lucky Aix could see the translation as something other than words. He laughed, as much in delight at the clever wordplay as amusement.

This pleased her as much as it surprised her, and she fell over herself bowing and fluffing her plumage happily, her Flash bright and cheerful reds.

‘Well, darlings, go on,’ Roseblade said, gesturing his pair toward Aix. Breaking from the usual hierarchy, the harlequin insisted her pierrot go first.

This seemed to bewilder both English clowns a little. Luckily, the allusion was from something that Aix had happened to show Pippin, in the past two weeks, while he’d been trying to explain that singing was a form of magic. She hummed the haunting little song, and to Aix’s surprise the wispy outline of a white cat appeared, just like in the animation, made of magical light.

It wasn’t unknown for clowns to somehow manipulate their Flash outside their bodies for effect, but Aix had never seen it before—it was one of those things they just didn’t do anymore, but had allegedly done in centuries past, and seemed to need a whole troupe of mostly zanni to do. Looking around, these were mostly very old clowns, too old to have much domestication; maybe that was the key to it, though…. Aix made note of that for later talking with Simon (he still couldn’t believe he actually knew so many people he’d been reading the books of his whole life!).

From the excited rush of query Aix felt from the other clowns, toward himself and Pippin both, though, none of the clowns other than Pippin had ever seen animation before.

‘Ohh, we need to show them cartoons,’ he said to the room generally, trying not to sound too admonishing. ‘The Secret of Kells has a little cat with your name, sir,’ Aix said to Young Master Ban, who smiled delightedly. ‘And what about you, madam harlequeen?’ Aix asked her, surprised when she laughed.

‘Harlequeen!’ she repeated, in a harlequin’s raven-like voice. ‘Harlequeen! Harlequeen!’ She fluffed proudly, cackling so loudly it shook her skirts, the four-colour Flash marking her as quite old, despite her sprightly looks.

‘Oh, she’ll be insufferable now,’ Roseblade murmured. ‘And her name is Miss Motley.’

‘How am I the first person to make that connection?’ Aix asked him on half a laugh, ‘I’m not even good at puns!’

‘I beg to differ, darling,’ Victoria said as Aix joined her; he’d warned her that he tended to cling to someone at parties, and she didn’t mind. Pippin started wiggling her little hips, and Victoria met her eyes. ‘And what are you doing, young lady?’

She stopped. ‘Uu,’ she said in a descending tone, knowing by now that the big baby eyes charm wouldn’t work on Auntie Victoria.

‘Your older brothers may spoil you, but in a witch’s house we have manners,’ Victoria said, knowing that Aix was like her in how disciplined his animals were trained to be.

‘No,’ Victoria said. ‘Because I know what you’re up to—you just want to use my chair to climb up and see the strange gentleman behind me.’

‘Speaking of,’ Dmitri said, glancing at said stranger with a wicked smile. ‘You really should introduce yourself, Gaz.’

Gaz? Aix could only think of a little cartoon character, who bore absolutely no resemblance to the man before him. And why was Dmitri so intent on introducing him, anyway?; Aix narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Dmitri.

‘He really should, though,’ Dmitri insisted, grinning so wide it showed his fangs. ‘Gaz is famous.’

‘Not anymore,’ came the first words from Gaz himself. ‘And you should meet the King, first. Protocol dictates.’

‘Okay, Batman,’ Aix teased, but let him alone, turning away and glancing around the room, trying to figure out exactly which one of these people was the King. ‘But I think Pippin’s big return kind of borked introducing me in ranking order…’

‘The one flirting with Ms Van Helsing,’ René said helpfully, in a low voice.

‘Rank is hardly clear-cut, with us,’ Phrixus added. ‘He may be King of vampires, but he isn’t the eldest here, nor is the company entirely vampiric.’

Varăvăr came up to Aix’s side, silently getting his attention and asking if Pippin could come play with them. Aix was happy to grant his permission, wanting Pippin to have friends of her own species. Pippin looked at Aix, and silently asked for his chocophone[42]—he’d shown her you could, among its many different magics, watch cartoons on it.

Baby, we can’t have chocophone up here, it hurts the King’s ears, and it’s his house, so he gets to make the rules.

This upset Pippin; she quite liked the modern world, Aix wasn’t the first to show her the wonder of things like cartoons and recorded music. She climbed into Varăvăr’s arms even so, and the troupe moved off to their own end of the room. She shared with Aix, however, that she would still be available if he needed her; Aix was learning that she took her job as Emotional Support Animal very seriously.

Like usual, Aix was so focussed on the interaction in front of him that he completely didn’t register that he was being observed openly by most of the people that had never met him before. Most of them were not the type to draw attention until they wanted to, ambush predators as most of them were, and there were many silent conversations, dominance displays, and feints that tested just how bonded to René—and how protected—the witch was. Some, like Milady, were uninterested in acquiring Aix at all; some, like Heather, were only interested in keeping him safe; and some, like the eldritch but very earthly being engaged in conversation with Heather, were only testing the waters because of their contrary and mischievous nature, not out of any genuine desire to have Aix for themselves.

But René did have competition; he was yet new, and most of his peers knew him as subordinate and able to be pushed aside. Like many social animals, vampires tested their hierarchy, every gathering turning into a lekking ground—however subtle.

Roseblade was René’s primary rival, now that René was head of his own household; they were rivals in most things, had been since Roseblade had boarded The Audacieux and found a fetching young Frenchman as the ship’s doctor, with eyes like a midnight sky. And now, said Frenchman was coming up in the world, head of his own household after manoeuvring for centuries, having brought Phrixus’ house a priceless gift as his first act to them, and managing to somehow get rid of his pesky Hunter and gain a soft new one that could be seduced….

When the King reached out to Aix’s mind, assuming he had his usual room to manoeuvre on the subtle plane of the consciousness, he found himself suddenly and violently slammed into a high-speed collision of several trains of thought, though the trains were operating upside-down and using five-dimensional track, one of which was actively on fire. The madness almost sucked him down with it, and he pulled back only just in time.

‘I told you, you shouldn’t do that,’ Van Helsing said, with a smug curl of her painted lips. She was much, much more perceptive than all of her predecessors, even her great-great-grandmother, the first woman Hunter.

He, also, wasn’t so inexperienced as to think the mind was always expressed outwardly—though this level of disconnect was very new, and the whole of the witch’s mind was alien, almost as much as he imagined Cthulhu’s to be. It wasn’t even that the witch was only marginally human—the vampire king had seen Garnet’s mind, he knew what the fae were like—and it wasn’t sheer madness either—he had known his share of madmen. There was something uniquely odd about it, some unique combination of things. Was it Aix’s age? Aix was yet the youngest and newest, the first of that generation that the vampire king had met. Yet that would imply the boy’s mind should be more ordered, not less—that had been the trend so far.

Over away from the fireplace, near the window overlooking the view from the top of the cliff the castle was situated on, Heather was looking out at the stars while her two companions’ gaze was on a far closer star.

‘He’s delicious,’ said the bearded and ancient being beside her, the oiled ringlets of his beard gleaming red-black in the moonlight.

‘He moves with deliberation,’ said the only one of Phrixus’ household that wasn’t a colourfully-haired opera soprano, nor from Italy. Like the larger, bearded man beside him, he was from lands farther east, and south, where civilisation had begun. ‘A dancer’s grace.’

‘Aye,’ Heather said, shortly. ‘And he’ll dance again, mark me, just not on the ground. He’ll like you, Asher,’ she said to the bearded man. ‘You’re his type. An’ I’d wager he knows you,’ she said to the vampire.

‘Doubtful,’ said the vampire, ‘all have forgotten me, if I ever was there to forget.’

‘He knows you,’ Heather repeated, with her signature no-nonsense confidence. ‘Go on and ask him.’

‘Just ask him,’ Heather said, and pushed him; even with a vampire’s strength, it was hard not to stumble from the shove of a selkie her size. And it was not harshly meant—they had all learned that Heather, like many animals accustomed to being the largest in any vicinity, shoved and pushed her companions with no malice aforethought, simply to express she wished them to move. He’d seen others be sent sprawling to the floor; he was a dancer, and his grace saved him from such an undignified introduction to the witch, as he crossed the room and bowed politely.

Startled at being remembered for dancing, as though he were Mikhail Baryshnikov, he said, with naked and honest shock, ‘Yes.’

Aix bounced, wiggling like an overly excited puppy, his smile huge and lighting up the entire vicinity. ‘H-hi! Wow, I’m—um, sorry, I didn’t expect to meet someone famous, I’m a little overwhelmed.’

‘I am hardly famous,’ Bagoas insisted, out of disbelief more than anything, ‘I’m not even the most famous person in this room.’

Aix raised a brow. ‘You’re famous to me,’ he said mulishly, folding his arms. ‘You’re important to me.’

The way he said it, Bagoas felt it actually… mattered a lot. It was an odd selfishness, that was so generous as to dismiss modesty like that—you mattered to one person, despite the time, despite the way everyone tried to forget you—you mattered to at least so many people that this one person knew about you, and so needed to that it mattered.

A legacy was what all human beings really wanted, and a legacy was what eunuchs never got to have—supposedly.

And yet, here he was. Something huge and heavy lodged in his throat, at the magnitude of it. ‘That is—that is kind of you to say,’ he said.

‘You matter.’ Aix didn’t know how to convey the despite. Despite, despite, despite—despite was a strong word, a refrain of the individuals Aix thought of as ‘my people’—eunuchs, castrati, anyone born in between, in form or in spirit, who was born also into a culture that reviled them, that erased them. Despite. Despite it all, they made their mark. Despite the effort to erase them, they remained, enough to be found by their kin over and over. It mattered. And he could, at least, tell one of them that he mattered.

Was that what it was to be a witch? Aix wondered. Was that why he had been given a life, a mind, a personality, that was categorically incapable of remaining silent when what he wanted to say was kind, however gruffly he delivered the message? He decided yes, it must be. Magic was more than music, and wasn’t healing more than herbs and stitches?

Being from Hollywood, Aix had his share of celebrity connections and meetings—they were all terminally embarrassing, as Aix got weepy when overwhelmed with nerves; but, perhaps more importantly, modern people weren’t really the ones that meant much to him. Their work might mean something, but not their lives, not who they were, not their humanity. They were alive, and therefore their full humanity was private and still in progress. The dead and historical, however… their impact could be felt, their inner lives pieced together. The dead had no privacy, not if they had been dead long enough to leave more than a corpse and a grave marker behind.

You also didn’t have to socialise with them, or worry what they’d think of you.

Then again, Aix didn’t worry as much about that these days, having met so many people who told him so often how they liked him, liked the honest version of him, for the very reasons he had always been told were flaws to be corrected, or outright red flags. So, he was starting to actually believe he was not a terrible human being, even, particularly couched in Victoria’s refrain that Aix had found the place he actually belonged. He’d never known it would be so effortless, and he had a kind of faith that even this person, this person he knew as much of as one could know, was very likely to like him as well.

‘Come, Bagoas, sit with us,’ René said, indicating the spot next to him on the sofa he was sharing with Victoria. ‘There is plenty of room.’

The castrati, a flock as they were, had settled nearby, and it was shaping into quite the salon; but Bagoas was not overly fond of Dmitri and Roseblade. He bowed to Aix, and René, politely taking his leave.

Garnet was back—again, appearing seemingly out of nowhere—and sat down on René’s lap, breaking the monochrome of the black tie with his bright rainbow outfit, which was not a suit at all but something more suitable for a very fancy nightclub.

‘Sit, then,’ René said, his voice gaining a low undertone quite different from his conversational voice.

Garnet immediately stopped wiggling. ‘Oooh, yes sir!’ he said delightedly, beaming, and leaned close. ‘We should fuck.’

‘Patience, chéri,’ René said in a low, thrumming sort of voice. But he wasn’t looking at Garnet, he was looking at Aix, who squirmed delightedly under that smoulder.

‘Will you sing for us after dinner?’ Roseblade asked Aix, still trying to suss out how to best gain the witch’s especial attention. Bagoas’ shrinking back from the tidal wave of enthusiasm had been illustrative, to say the least; Roseblade hoped his own once-famous, dear, and deathlong companion had been paying attention.

‘Sure,’ Aix said, after a slight pause for thought. ‘I brought my music.’

‘Do you have a favourite composer?’ was the first the man at the piano had spoken. He had rather intense blue eyes, and his accent was some flavour of German.

‘Composer for what?’ Aix countered. ‘Ballets, symphonic orchestra, broadway musicals, pop songs, mathematical beauty, jazz, synaesthetic bliss, ripping your heart out and stomping on it on the floor? Those are all different answers.’

‘I know because if it isn’t him, then you’re wrong or lying,’ Victoria went on archly.

‘Tchaikovsky.’ At the dismissive noise this garnered, Aix doubled down. ‘I don’t care if its cliché, he’s everyone’s favourite because of a reason. I will say,’ he added, thoughtful, ‘the Australian Ballet puts on Alice in Wonderland every year, and I don’t know who does the music, but the—what’s his name, um… Dmitri, what’s his name, the mad hatter.’

‘Thank you. Steven McRae doing his rôle as the only tap dancer was deeply unsettling and I loved it.’

‘I’ve never heard a Sondheim,’ Phrixus said, and Aix noted all the castrati glanced at the man at the piano, as though this were something he should know. ‘Have you, Theo?’

‘He doesn’t write operas, not technically,’ said the masked stranger, with disdain.

‘He does so write operas I will fight you in the Tesco parking lot,’ Aix snapped, and Dmitri wasn’t the only one startled into laughter; Aix was pleased the joke was seen for what it was—his style naturally fell to ‘comedic anger’ and for most of his life, people hadn’t understood that. The stranger had been unsettling, especially the way he was standing behind the sofa, in shadow, sort of… looming. It might have just been his height, but Aix had felt judged, and that got his hackles up.

‘I’d say wit but you seem unarmed,’ Aix shot back, and from the reaction this garnered, he’d somehow missed something critical about Gaz—but how could he miss what hadn’t been there, he reasoned with himself. Which meant that, really, he was being clever, not stupid.

‘Well now you have to talk, don’t you, Gazzy?’ Roseblade said, very pleased as he leaned back in his chair, re-crossing his long legs.

Gaz was one of the people who had laughed at Aix’s initial comeback, and so Aix felt like this was less bullying and more… something else. He wasn’t great at being able to tell yet, with these sorts of ‘we’re lovingly roasting you/bickering’ interactions. ‘What’s Gaz short for, anyway?’ he asked.

Which told Aix nothing; George was so common a name, particularly for older men. Which this one was, Aix could tell from the silver hair and crow’s feet around those very blue eyes. With the rest masked, it was impossible to see anything else. His hands weren’t decorated with rings or nail polish, unlike Roseblade who had both; and his hair was in a very nice but unremarkable cut, and…

Maybe it was that Aix’s mind was primed from meeting Bagoas, maybe it was Bagoas saying he wasn’t even the most famous person in this room; but the blue eyes, the name, the well-dressed-but-dull-as-a-henbird fashion…. No, it couldn’t be. Once was coincidence, twice was impossible….

‘Do you have a surname?’ he asked, eyes slightly narrowed in thought. ‘Or… a nickname other than Gaz?’

‘I wasn’t called Gaz in life, no,’ he said, and now Aix detected a smile getting wider, behind that black mask.

‘Oh what the fuck,’ Aix said softly, realisation dawning, hand over his mouth—carefully, because of the lipstick. The giddiness rose, fell, subsided, and he said, voice trembling on the edge of a scream of laughter. ‘Well, now I definitely want to fight.’ And he was glad nobody had asked him about fashion and triggered the rant about men’s fashion and how it got ruined.

That startled Gaz—and it might, Aix thought, there was no real indication that Aix was a fop, right now. It was creative black tie, and Aix’s suit was the colour of black coffee, which was a great deal more tame than any of the other fops. His makeup was pretty simple, too—he’d recently learned how to do neutral eyeshadow and lipstick thanks to Pinky, and his hair was in a classic cut.

‘Now you can’t complain about being invisible,’ the man at the piano said to Gaz cheerfully, with a giggle that was shockingly high and very grating and oh my fucking god. Aix thought. No way.

Aix wanted to know why Gaz was masked. It couldn’t possibly just be age, and Aix knew… a lot about this man—if he was…! Much more than he knew about Bagoas; or indeed, more than he knew about the pianist, Theo. Theo… god, that was clever. Theo. Theo must be short for Theophilius, as in Amadeus.

But Aix hadn’t read a whole biography on Mozart, and there wasn’t one about Bagoas. He knew George Brummell, the way one knew a historical person one had obsessed over for years, researched endlessly—not only for his life, but also his context—the Regency had been Aix’s era of interest for some years, now.

With a sudden sort of violent anger, Aix envied Garnet being on René’s lap, and realised it was because he was overwhelmed by all this new information, and didn’t know how to escape the situation with grace and—more importantly—politeness.

Unseen, Pippin stopped playing and quickly made her way across the room, jumping on the back of the sofa and down onto the cushion, Mask serious and Flash low and amber with red. She pushed at Garnet, on René’s lap. ‘Fsfsfs,’ she fussed at him, insistent. ‘Gogogogogo.’

Garnet moved, though he didn’t have a lot of choice—she was strong. Pippin got up on René’s lap herself, and wrapped her tail around his waist, leaning far out to reach for Aix’s hand. She knew it was useless to try and get his attention, he wasn’t here. She got hold of his sleeve and pulled, and the confusion at her actions suddenly resolved.

René didn’t move, not wanting to dislodge Pippin and hurt her, and knowing how to act as anchor to an acrobat; but he did reach gently into Aix’s mind, finding it panicking, suffering from the deluge of information and not enough energy to process it, and put a blanket over the witch’s senses, giving the gentlest order. Come here. Come to me, little one.

Aix melted out of the chair and was on the rug, draped over René’s lap, in seconds. René directed his face away from the light with a gentle hand. Pippin settled down beside René, using the puff of her tail to cover Aix’s face too.

‘I believe he has read a biography of you, monsieur,’ René said, elegantly picking up the conversation.

‘En!’ Pippin said, putting her little hands on the arm of Victoria’s chair, her eyes big and pleading. ‘Apu? Peas? Apu foh Duckie?’

Victoria knew why Pippin was pleading with her; she was in a chair too, and Pippin had learned that she was sort of teaching Aix how to be disabled, and was his Auntie as much as she was Pippin’s. One of the things Aix struggled with was, unfortunately, something Victoria couldn’t help with at the moment—but it was good to know what was wrong. She looked over at Dmitri, and Dmitri’s attention on his wife was automatic, even bantering with his countrymen.

‘Dear,’ Victoria said, sweetly, ‘go and ask our esteemed host how much longer it will be until dinner is served.’

‘Yes, my lady wife,’ he said obediently, kissing her hand, and went. Victoria gently put two fingertips over Pippin’s hand—that was all that would fit.

‘I don’t have any, pits’leh,’ she said gently. ‘It’s too close to dinnertime.’

‘Oh, I have snacks!’ Garnet reached into his coat and pulled out a plastic bag of sour gummy worms. He gave them to Pippin first, because she wasn’t bound by the Rules, she was already owned. She took the plastic bag and gently tapped Aix’s shoulder.

‘Why does she call him Duckie?’ Roseblade asked Victoria sotto voce, behind his fan.

‘Aix is a genus of duck,’ she answered, as Aix sat up and took one of the gummy worms from Pippin.

Aix was worried about his makeup, but it seemed it hadn’t gotten on René, and he only hoped the lipstick hadn’t smeared. Pinky had gotten him a shade that perfectly matched his lips, so dinner wasn’t a worry, but René’s suit was, and so was him suddenly collapsing against his dom like this was some kind of kink party, not a high class party where he was supposed to be making a good first impression, and… and these gummy worms were really good, actually, like—like really good, no qualifiers. ‘Pippin, where did you get these?’

‘Okay,’ Aix said, relaxing. ‘You had me worried for a second,’ he said to Garnet, who shrugged, unoffended.

‘Oh yes, I find the human ones too sweet; what is the point of them being sour gummy worms if they aren’t sour, I ask you?’

‘Are you feeling better, tesoro?’ Eveline said gently, a little confused about exactly what had happened, but motherly of disposition.

‘No,’ Aix said, gesticulating. ‘I’m sort of… this is… A Lot,’ he said, and felt René’s hand in his hair, and was glad he had decided against gel or anything, feeling those nails on his scalp was soothing.

‘Ena apu,’ Pippin said in a raspy, grumpy tone. Aix felt her discontent at there not being food for Aix right away.

‘And I need food, yes,’ Aix said, eating another gummy worm. He closed his eyes. Cthulhu, I’m hungry, are you still in the kitchen?

Food is wonderful! Oh—you’re hungry. We are almost done. There was some panic because the kitchen staff had not understood that they needed to read the labels of their spices, as well as cooking without the fresh plants that make you ill.

Claudiu has taught me to make paprika hendl, we are using wild birds from the forest outside!

‘Ohhh, I think Jojo has a new hobby,’ Aix murmured, feeling all of Cthulhu’s enthusiasm. René chuckled.

‘Ah yes, he was very interested in the kitchen once Janice found out he was trying to learn about humanity without learning about food.’

‘He really needs better staff,’ Victoria muttered. ‘Last time there was lard in things. I don’t ask for very much kosher.’

‘Oh yes, I adore Miss Moon,’ Victoria said. ‘She’s learned quite a lot from Effie’s kitchen. The Baltimore were-rats are the best for kosher, you know,’ Victoria told Aix. ‘Mr Honeycutt is a lovely man, but obviously he can’t keep a kosher kitchen.’

‘I like him a lot,’ Aix said. ‘He was very nice to me. Have you had Warren’s cooking though? Oh my god.’

‘Nothing compares to a werewolf’s cooking, especially for meat. You ought to come up and stay a while, as the summer gets on; the barbecues the Hexts throw are quite something.’

Talking about food helped, counter-intuitively; it helped remind Aix he was hungry, not that Everything Was Awful Forever. He could deal with hungry. The gummy worms were helping.

Still, it was weird to be at a party where almost none of the guests were eating or drinking.

There was only one person Aix hadn’t met yet, in the room—the bear, who might have have stepped right out of some ancient Mesopotamian city, with his beard in tight shining ringlets, big dark eyes lined in kohl and thick eyelashes. His tuxedo was deep red, and the shirt was black—a colour combination that made Aix think of demons, not vampires. He looked over just as Aix looked at him, and Aix found he didn’t actually want to look away—a rarity, eye-contact was something he avoided instinctually even more, nowadays. But there was something warm and not at all frightening, about those eyes. Aix had never experienced that before, not even when he’d been deeply in love with someone, and used to their presence enough to gaze into their eyes.

‘That is Mr Asher,’ René said in his ear, and Aix looked up at him, pupils wide and sparkling; René wagered he wasn’t aware he was aroused, he had a disconnect with that.

‘We are all so scared to ask him what he is,’ Aloysius said in a hushed voice, hiding his face from Mr Asher with his fan.

‘Oh yes, you’re a pagan, you won’t be afraid of the answer,’ Roseblade said. Aix looked around at them, brow raised.

‘Victoria thinks they’re all being very silly; and that if they want to know something, they ought to ask themselves,’ Victoria said, with fond exasperation.

‘Oh no, no, he’s quite nice!’ Garnet said, patting Aix’s shoulder. ‘They’re just people of the book.’

‘It’s a good phrase!’ Garnet said, tossing his mane of curls, ‘But they’re not like us, you know. They don’t know the old ways.’

Aix slipped his shoes off, glad he’d decided to be a little strange and wear striped socks. He got to his feet, glanced down at Pippin and held out his hand to her. ‘Well, Pippin, you wanna have an adventure?’

‘Yee!’ Pippin said, grabbing his hand and letting him pull her up to sit in the crook of his other arm, her Mask turning bright and tabby-cattish—if tabby-cats were ever colours like blue, anyway.

He crossed the room, aware of all eyes on him, and went up to Mr Asher and Heather and Bagoas. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Aix. This is Pippin.’

‘They call me Mr Asher,’ said that low, low, syrupy voice, that also had a bedroom whisper echoing behind it. It was deliciously unsettling. ‘I am one of the not-vampires.’

His smile curled his beard. ‘We have been called many things. Demons, djann, those from Arali.’

Aix raised his brows, eyes widening not in fear but interest, and a little bit of the wry surprise the modern humans met the supernatural with. ‘Sexy,’ he commented, which surprised Asher into a rolling, booming laugh.

‘I have an ex-husband, nothing scares me anymore,’ Aix said, with a serene poison in his smile. ‘Anyway,’ he said, smile a little more mischievous. ‘Demons are my subject du jour, have been for the past three years. We should hang out,’ he said. ‘I can show you my favourite show.’

‘It is deeply gratifying to be around someone who isn’t tiptoeing around whether to ask me about Hell.’

Aix laughed, and it was the Villainous one. ‘So is Hell where you come from, or?’

‘It depends on what you define Hell as. There are certainly no dead humans there. It is where we live—though in truth, many of my children must live up here among humanity, just as vampires must.’

‘Sit down, pup,’ Heather said to Aix, and he sat exactly where he stood—Pippin squealed at the sudden drop down.

‘You’ll have to talk to René about that, Daddy,’ Aix said with a playful lilt and bounce of his eyebrows. Pippin nodded in agreement, before getting out of Aix’s arms and walking around Asher, looking him up and down and muttering to herself.

‘Cha doin, beeble?’ Aix asked her. She peeked out from behind his leg, walking back around to the front of him and scratching her head.

‘Beena tail?’ she asked him, very bewildered. He chuckled, pulling the empty armchair by the fireplace around to sit on as though it weighed nothing at all, despite it being one of those wingback types of chairs, solid wood and very heavy. He sat down.

‘Is make-believe land like the dreamscape?’ Aix asked, keenly interested. Pippin shook her head.

‘Oh like the astral plane, okay,’ Aix said, nodding. ‘It’s like… behind this one?’

Across the room, Roseblade toyed with his fan, watching Aix chat animatedly with Mr Asher and Pippin, who seemed to be contributing equally to the conversation.

The witch was not accustomed to wearing a suit, from how he moved; then again, most people these days were not. Despite knowing how to tug, unbutton, and otherwise adjust a suit, he moved too much like an acrobat—well, no, that wasn’t it, Roseblade amended…

He moved like a clown. He’d nearly ignored all of the humans in favour of the joeys in the room, and even now he seemed much more engaged with them. Miss Motley came over, and Roseblade could tell she was very interested in him, perhaps sexually, if her fluffed up and bright plumage was anything to go by. Her Mask was very crisp, now, in a way Roseblade hadn’t seen in decades. She settled beside the witch, Young Master Ban trailing after her like the faithful son he was. Clowns were always drawn to anyone sitting on the floor, because that’s where children usually sat, children and foolies, and joeys very much liked both.

‘And why should he be?’ Victoria said, keeping an eye on Aix’s chair; despite the progress she’d made with all of the people present, they were still prone to forgetting a chair was part of someone’s body, and not to be touched, regardless of it laying empty and being perhaps somewhat In The Way.

‘That’s rather contrary to the point of a witch,’ Garnet agreed. ‘I wonder what Rosenrot will make of him.’ He smiled wickedly. ‘Oooh, I hope he eviscerates Rosenrot. He’s quite something when he’s mad, all thunder and fire.’

‘I’m not unkind,’ Garnet said, pouting fetchingly. ‘I’m only saying, Rosenrot is unkind, and I know exactly what he will say that will make our witch angry. Arrogant little weed,’ he said. ‘Thinks he’s so special just because he doesn’t have a heart or any bones….’

‘If he even notices Rosenrot…’ Roseblade mused softly, watching Aix now having coaxed Bagoas and Heather down on the floor with him, laying down with his knees up and one leg crossed, hands gesticulating as he explained something.

Pippin cheered, which set off the joeys, and Aix sat up, not daring to cheer, but beaming and getting to his feet—carefully, Heather giving him a hand up.

34. Grad Students

Cthlh’: I have come to be in the company of many humans who are fine teachers, and have learned there are more than humans, on this planet. There are many, many other kinds of sapients. Our initial studies did not find them because they purposely remain hidden. I wish to study them more, and apparently many of them wish to study me. I am considered one of them, and there are humans with a name for us—they call us Starfolk, for we are the first from the stars, to them. They have many stories about us.

Az’th’t: Stories? This is not translating. Information that is not true, but not a lie?

Cthlh’: It is what makes humans, human. It is their defining cultural quality, according to my human. They create ideas from nothing. They create people, and places, and events, solely from their own mind. But it is not memories, nor seeing far events; it is created new from their own thoughts. I can show you, my human is one of those that has the role of doing this for his fellows.

Hst’rr: Cth does he have any clutchmates? Clones perhaps? Do humans bud?

Nyrl’ot: You managed to actually kzkh with a human! And I thought you were only interested in playing with your notes.

Cthlh’: There are very few humans like mine. I am pleased to note my finding him has caused his life to become more tolerable and pleasant for him.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’rth: As shocked as I’m sure we all are that Yog has the ability to be playful, I would like to return to this planet and ask your human questions about this ‘inflation fetish’ concept.

Az’th’t: Sh’b, you must look over Cthlh’s research before you go to the planet again, you know that. As must I, before allowing any of you to go. Thank you, Cthlh’. Go in peace.

For humans, eating was a lively social occasion (though what wasn’t a lively social occasion, with humans?), and had confusing levels of ‘formality’—George was teaching Cthulhu what would be required at this formal table, which had many more utensils and a series of ‘courses’. There was, of course, some adaptation needed for the fact that Cthulhu had ‘tendrils’ around his mouth, which were used normally to pass food up to his mouth; George was very graceful in finding a solution to this, but the matter of how to consume liquids puzzled him—until René had asked Aix for a solution.

ChirurgienBleu: Mon sorcier, we are at an impasse with adapting formal dining to Joe.

Metasepia: Show him other animals that drink through a straw, like elephants, or nectarivores.

Metasepia: Have Cammie take him to the zoo? I feel like it would be better if he had the real creature in front of him. I’m sad I can’t be the one to see his first reaction but.

Cthulhu had borrowed Aix’s veils, to be less noticeable than the plague doctor mask made him. Earth had so many different kinds of animals, such vibrance! With Cameron reading out the informational plaques, Cthulhu learned many things, rapt with wonder at everything from the most ‘ordinary’ sheep to the human-like monkeys; but most interesting of all were the enormous elephants.

All four of the elephants had taken note him immediately, making their way over to the part of their enclosure closest to where Cthulhu was standing, raising their facial tendril toward him, revealing it was where they kept their nostrils. The eldest bearer had replied.

I am not one of those. I am… Cthulhu paused, gathering context from the elephants before explaining on their terms, I am from the sea where the sun and moon live, the one above. Far away, much farther than any voice can reach. Because these people measured far distance not in days walking, but in how far their subsonic calls could reach.

Perhaps not Elephant, but Clown. Cthulhu replied, wondering if she had encountered clowns before. Cthulhu tried to also convey he himself wasn’t one, but was an ancestor.

He felt when she understood. Dreamplace Grandmother Clown. She conveyed that she had a concept of a Grandmother Elephant, one from the Coldtime, who was covered in shaggy fur. There had been Cousins then, many different kinds of Elephant.

Cthulhu realised there were many people dressed the same, around him, many agitated humans—but when he pulled back from his conversation to see them, afraid of more police, he found they were all agitated in a more peaceable way, were the humans that took care of the animals.

‘Hey, Joe, these are the zookeepers,’ Cameron said gently, knowing that uniforms of any kind were alarming, especially after what had happened with the cops.

‘Hi, I’m Max,’ said one with short hair and a large ring of keys on their hip. ‘The uh, the elephants seem to be very interested in you.’

Cameron raised his brows. Cthulhu registered that no, humans did not know elephants were sapient, they could only strongly suspect. The zookeepers were distressed because the elephants did not normally act so focussed on one visitor.

‘I… I don’t know how to explain this,’ Cameron said. ‘Um, do you—do you know…’ he cast around desperately for the name of one of the were-elders that might be involved in zoology of some kind, and came up blank. But Max was clearly a butch and had a rainbow flag pin on her lapel. ‘Do you know René Charbonneau?’

Cameron scented someone else coming from upwind, the scent of a werefox, and saw someone he barely recognised, but must be new in town—Cameron didn’t remember foxes being in Baltimore, before.

‘Hey, Max,’ said the werefox, who turned out to be a black man with a small natural style and a very kind face, with stylish glasses. He was wearing his wedding ring as a day-collar, though Cameron was sure only fellow kinksters would know that’s what that necklace meant.

‘What is up? Other than the obvious—hey,’ Kildaire said, waving at the elephants. Despite his energetic alertness, he didn’t seem concerned they were gathered at this end of the enclosure.

‘Hi, I’m Cameron Gold,’ Cameron said, feeling awkward; but the name did the trick, as did his locking eyes with Kildaire and flashing his own for a split second. It was long used as a way to signal other weres you were trying to communicate to them without humans really noticing. Usually it was safer to ignore people’s scents, and they were in the middle of a zoo anyway—it wasn’t odd to smell a leopard on the breeze, in a zoo, and Cameron was the one that was downwind of Kildaire anyway.

‘Oh, I bought a house from your father, I believe!’ Kildaire said with a brighter smile.

‘I work for Mr Charbonneau. I was wondering if we could um, if we could explain privately what is going on between Joe and the elephants?’ Cameron said, gesticulating and feeling like he was two steps away from breaking the Mummery and getting in huge trouble, which only made him more nervous.

‘Ah—yes, yes, I heard about that particular visitor. Come—it’s all right,’ Kildaire said, waving aside the other keepers. ‘Come on, Max, Joe’s a bit of a colleague of mine, ethologist.’

I am going somewhere else, nearby. Cthulhu assured the elephants, who did not wish him to leave.

As he followed the humans, Cthulhu wondered about Dr Kildaire. Is Dr Kildaire another werecat?

‘So,’ Kildaire said, as soon as they were through a door marked ‘employees only’, ‘Max is Informed, you can speak freely. What is this about?’

‘Joe was talking to them,’ Cameron said. ‘He feels it’s important you understand they’re sapient.’

‘The eldest one and I were just explaining ourselves to one another. Our… context, I believe Aix would call it.’

‘As in,’ Cameron said. ‘The new witch of Baltimore. Replaced Ana Heeren. He’s nicer.’

‘Ah,’ Max said, but Cameron could tell she was a little too distant for that to fully register as revolutionary.

‘Oh! Oh yes, I met him briefly the other day,’ Kildaire said. ‘Talking to the elephants, really?’ he said, returning to the point. ‘That is—of course, it would be impossible to prove or document, but that’s really earth-shattering.’

‘Can you teach us?’ Max asked, keen and pragmatic as was her usual. ‘It would certainly help us care for them better.’

‘I cannot teach you if both parties do not have psionic ability. However, it may be possible to find some mutual form of communication.’

‘Would it be possible to return to speak with them in some private place? They did not wish me to leave. I feel they have much to say to you, and I would enjoy translating.’

‘Absolutely,’ Max and Kildaire said, mostly at the same time, and led them through the featureless brick hallway and into an open-air back area, shielded from public view by screens and walls and berns of foliage. They passed other keepers, and ended up gathering a few of them up, the elephant team. Max introduced them. There was a tall one with dark brown skin, and her name was Chausiku. She was from the same landmass as the elephants, a nation known as Kenya, and was deeply interested when they explained, playing with her very long hair, which was twisted into many thin ropes, all but two of which were gathered at the nape of her neck with a band of elastic.

‘Of course they can speak,’ she said. ‘of course they can. Camille, come over here, we are talking to the elephants now.’

‘We’re doing what?’ Camille was a smaller human, with almond-shaped eyes. ‘Hi, Max, Doctor Kildaire.’

‘…Listen, basically everyone in the zookeeping community knows there’s weird stuff we can’t document,’ Max said, at the characteristic pause. ‘We talk to the marine biologists, for fuck’s sake.’

‘I am… New England Weird,’ Cthulhu said, finding it amusing that one specific region was known as the nexus of encounters with his people, even though it wasn’t the place with the highest actual concentration of them.

By now, they were at another gate, into a building of cinderblock, and Max let them in, the elephants quickly finding them again, coming into the shelter that had a floor of hay and separated them from the humans with a strong fence.

What happened to Grandmother? They took her away and we did not see her again. Is she dead?

‘Dolly? Yes,’ Max said, sadly. ‘She was an old girl, we had to put her to sleep in 2014. The health regulations mean we can’t let the other animals interact with dead ones, so they don’t get sick.’

Cthulhu conveyed this, and the elephants conferred with one another for some time, before sharing wordless emotions Cthulhu understood, for grief and closure were familiar even to his people. They are relieved to know you eased her pain, and to know for certain she has died. She had told them she was going away soon, but it is another thing to know for certain.

To Cthulhu’s surprise, the humans were all in tears at this, even Cameron. Cameron touched his shoulder. It’s okay. It’s sort of happy-sad crying. It’s overwhelming to want to talk to the animals you love so much and not be able to, and then to have someone suddenly allow you to speak to them, and hear them. It’s a great kindness you’re doing.

Cthulhu spoke for a long while with the elephant keepers; they had many questions for the elephants, and the elephants had many questions for them, and requests. By the end they had asked if Cthulhu would come back regularly to help in future, and many of the keepers expressed over and over how helpful it would be if he acted as translator to other sapient animals, of which humans suspected there were quite a few. With their limitations regarding communication, however, it was almost impossible to communicate clearly with other Earth species to confirm this.

‘I will keep that in mind,’ was all Cthulhu could say. But he began to view Earth’s animals very differently, and to reach out to them as he might any person.

There were very, very many that could communicate simple ideas. Dogs and cats, Cthulhu had already known about; the ‘great apes’, being what humans were as well, were very human-like in their thoughts, though with vastly different cultures and values; but there were other creatures Cthulhu had not met until the zoo, that surprised the humans as they took him around the back of each enclosure to see. Camille was particularly excited to hear from the Big Cats, who were her speciality, though there was nothing very much different about them in comparison to Gogo (in Cameron’s words, ‘cats is cats, no matter how big they are’). Camille stayed with the cats after, as the group moved on to other large mammals….

The bear had a very confident mind, one sure there was little to fear from either starvation or predators; he regarded Cthulhu with curiosity, huffing and scenting the air, and coming up to the fence.

‘Whoa! Okay,’ Max hustled everyone out into the hallway with a calm and businesslike manner, careful to lock and check each door and gate along the way. ‘What was that about, buddy?’

Cthulhu paused, thinking it over. ‘If I show you, you cannot tell anyone.’

It was only the second time a human had reacted so calmly and without fear to Cthulhu, and he cherished the knowledge he now had, of how to present himself and in what dimension, to make that so. He didn’t want to frighten people, after all, or harm them.

‘There are similarities,’ Cthulhu said, having discussed this at length with Aix. ‘But there is only one earth animal I am truly, scientifically similar to, and I have been told they have no Latin biname.’

‘Oh are we—are we doing this now?’ Cameron asked, pushing off the wall he was leaning on (he had been waiting in the hallway to most of the animals they visited, since he smelled of large cat and that tended to cause fear or aggression—though his long red hair had been apparently remarked upon by the lionesses as ‘quite a fine mane for a cub his age’, which had made Cameron more pleased than he wanted to admit).

‘Uh—just, well,’ Cameron said, ‘it’s… I guess it’s your call, Joe.’

‘Cameron refers to my human’s concern about what this information would do to harm the animals I speak of, but his concerns are for it becoming public knowledge too soon. But you are scientists,’ he said to the assembled, which at the moment included Kildaire, Chausiku, and a few of the grad students studying under Chausiku—Michelle, a blonde; and Jason and Mya, who were black like Chausiku, but from America, same as St Croix, Kildaire, and Hext, rather than Africa. ‘Clowns are of my people—my colleague’s offspring and their descendants.’

‘Holy shit,’ Michelle said, covering her mouth with her hand in shock. Mya burst out laughing, though Cthulhu felt it was not exactly amusement, but another response to shock. Chausiku did not seem to understand the gravity of this news.

‘We don’t have clowns where I grew up,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know they were an animal. I thought they were a profession.’

‘They are both. There are humans who perform with them, but those that are not human are… cousins, I think is the term you have all used to convey distant relation. My human has a very small wild one as a companion.’

‘Coulrologists and the rest of biology stay far away from one another because of how fuck-off weird clowns are,’ Jason explained. ‘And yeah, they don’t have an official scientific description.’

‘You’re not allowed to mention them in discussions of taxonomy or anything,’ Mya said.

‘I saw a knock-down drag-out fight between three PhDs about it once,’ Michelle added, rather dreamily.

‘But they exist? Surely that means they can be studied?’ Chausiku was increasingly in disbelief at this foolishness.

‘They don’t let anybody study them,’ Jason added. ‘It sounds impossible, but it’s true.’

‘Everyone who studies them goes a little bit insane—oh my god,’ Cameron said, breaking off his thought mid-sentence. ‘Oh my god, because they’re Lovecraftian. Sorry, is that not a good term?’

‘In the interest of clarity, it is acceptable. Aix has said the man himself was quite hateful, but that he would dislike his name being remembered in association with us, so using it thus is… ah, I don’t understand the emotion, it is too complex, but… irony?’

‘Can we ask you questions about yourself?’ Jason asked, after raising his hand.

‘I study communication. Aix calls me a linguist, though I have only learnt that humans have many different languages recently. My… what did you refer to Chausiku as?’

‘Humans are far more social than are we, and you have far more complex behaviours. You tell stories, for example. That is what makes humans themselves, Aix has told me. You tell stories. That is very important.’ Cthulhu was very pleased to be able to show off what he’d learned so far, and also to test it a little, against other scholars, and see what they thought.

‘I guess you could say that’s a pretty universal thing in every culture,’ Mya said thoughtfully. ‘What does Aix do?’

‘No I mean, like, what is his profession?’ she asked politely. Cthulhu tilted his head.

‘He is a witch?’ he said, lilting it up as she had, not understanding.

‘That is a profession among the Nightfolks, Mya,’ Kildaire said gently. ‘Not just a set of spiritual beliefs.’

‘He’s an Auntie sort of person,’ Cameron said. It was hard to describe what witches did, to modern people, if they weren’t familiar with extended family. But by comparing him to the somewhat-ubiquitous concept of an Auntie, Cameron saw Mya understand immediately, as well as Chausiku and Jason. Michelle seemed a little confused, but then again Cameron had observed she was a WASP if she was anything, and they didn’t really have aunties in that culture….

‘Let’s go see the ratites!’ Mya said. ‘I wanna know what the birds have to say…’

Cthlh’: Yet more than the ones I have mentioned. Elephants, and the other species of the group humans are a part of. Also many of what are known as birds.

Cthlh’: Yes. I have been to a learning place where humans keep many animals in artificial environments, so they can learn about them, and teach other humans about them. The humans cannot fully prove some of these animals are sapient, but many who care for them suspect it. When I told them, they asked me to help them by translating. I cannot do this myself, I would like to ask for help—one of you. Perhaps Sh’b-Zhig’r’rth, since she wants to return here to study.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’rth: But I specifically want to return to study that inflation fetish you mentioned.

Cthlh’: That can be done at the same time, particularly with my human. Also, studying the other animals of earth will happen if you study human sexual fetishes with my human, regardless. Humans take much inspiration from other animals in this way, they are very creative. Have you examined my notes so far?

Sh’b-Zhig’r’rth: Yes. I appreciate your meticulousness and organisation, now. There’s so much!

Az’th’t: Then you will be the one to go, unless anyone else objects?

Nyrl’ot: No, Hst’rr and I have found some little machines in the solar system, we’re studying those. We think they were made by the humans!

Hst’rr: I still want to know if your human has any siblings available.

Cthlh’: He would be pleased to know you desire him. You can just say that, Hst’rr.

Hst’rr: Humans get very aggressive if they’re pair-bonded and you express desire.

Cthlh’: Only monogamous humans. My human is not monogamous. Nor am I. I will tell him. Sh’b please wait to come until I tell you; there is much happening right now, and I need time to prepare.

Cthlh’: Your assistance to my human and your grandchild, while very necessary, caused a great change that sent ripples through the community, and culminated in a large meeting of leaders on what should be done about the consequences. My human and I also have yet to find a permanent home-nest. It is customary for humans to only invite guests when they have a home-nest to invite the guest into. We do not have one yet.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’rth: Ah, I see. I like that little grandchild, she is so strange! She did not get raised by humans or her siblings, you know. She got raised by those very small animals that Ny likes so much.

Nyrl’ot: Mau? Those are interesting little animals, I would not mind coming back to study them. Are they sapient?

Cthlh’: Somewhat. But you must come one at a time, and you must ask me first, as Master of Knowledge of this world. And I say not yet.

Az’th’t: Fear not, Cthlh’. You are doing very well, and your caution is an asset.

Cthlh’: Humans call it ‘kindness’, not caution. They think often of the comfort of others, they hold this as an important behaviour to have. It would be distressing at this time, as we are occupied with a complex task. After that task is over, there must be resting time, but there will not be, because there are other tasks that require doing immediately after. I do not know when it will end, it may be most of a revolution of this planet around the star. I will ask Morpheus if he might find a way to connect us in the Dreamspace.

Sh’b-Zhig’r’rth: Morpheus to connect us in the Dreamspace. You really should get started reading his notes, Ny. That made perfect sense to me.

35. The Library

The Dreamscape was a savannah when Aix got there, which surprised him, but was pleasing. ‘Did you have fun at the zoo?’ he asked, looking around. ‘Wow, this is lush.’

Aix looked back at him immediately, eyes wide. ‘You spoke with the elephants?’ His pleasure was not surprised, which answered Cthulhu’s question about whether Aix had known other animals were sapient, and simply not mentioned it.

Among other creatures. Cthulhu said. You knew, and did not say, because you wished me to have pure data.

‘True,’ Aix admitted. ‘Intelligence is difficult to prove or measure in other animals, when you aren’t psionic.’ He paused, thoughtfully. ‘And even then… it’s difficult to prove psionics. Science likes hard evidence. I mean, to be fair, intelligence is difficult to measure even in our own species. Intelligence, sanity… it’s all very cultural.’ He’d been gesticulating as he spoke, but now put a hand ono Cthulhu’s arm, looking into his eyes eagerly, ‘What were the elephants like?’

Cthulhu was pleased to be able to shape the Dreaming in the same way Aix did, as he spoke, the world around them changing to illustrate his words. They told me of their grandmother, whom the humans call Dolly. They told me of their ancestors, and the times before theirs.

‘Ohhh, that’s a mammoth,’ Aix said, seeing the animal Cthulhu created from what the elephants had shown him. ‘That’s a woolly mammoth, they have cultural memory of the Ice Age….’

Cthulhu recounted all he’d learnt from the animals, and Aix named things in human terms and offered context where Cthulhu had none. And then, Cthulhu told him of the other grad students.

‘Aww, you made friends!’ Aix said, after Cthulhu was finished. ‘That’s so good! I’m proud of you. Making friends is hard!’

They wanted me to continue being translator, to teach both parties a mutual language. I do not have the time, at this moment, and I asked my colleagues if they did. Nyarlotep and Shob-Zhiggurath have the inclination, but I told them it would be a while. We must settle in, as you have said.

‘That was considerate of you, love,’ Aix said, and Cthulhu felt his disappointment at the situation, but his happiness and relief at Cthulhu considering his well-being when he wasn’t present. ‘Like, I wish we could just start that project immediately, but…’ he bit his lip. ‘I talked to Erastos today, and he’s fighting as hard as he can, but…’

I know. Cthulhu said, pulling Aix into his arms, letting the landscape fall into the shadowy nightsky mists that Aix called The Almost. The Heeren told the police enough that they believe the ones that saw me, and are looking for me. René is glad Pippin is with you, and that you both got safely away and are dressing differently now than you did that night, and has been calling upon the Council for their experience in these matters.

Aix just leaned against Cthulhu for a while, and Cthulhu felt his terror, his horror, his paranoia, his guilt—not that the guilt had any true root, simply that whenever Aix was accused of anything he immediately agreed with it emotionally, regardless of the facts. It was one of his cruelty-wounds.

‘I’m mentally ill, and I’m poor, and I’m trans, if they put me on the witness stand—’

Nobody is going to allow that, Aix. René has even confided in me he is willing to take… steps to remove you from the daylight population, if need be.

Indeed. He has told no one but me of this. He said I was not to speak of it to anyone. But you were frightened, and… I am not speaking.

‘You’re figuring out how humans do what we call “cloak-and-dagger”,’ Aix commented with a smile in his voice. ‘Well done.’

He explained how petitioning works, and mentioned it is common at council meetings to bring up other business, as they happen so infrequently. At the time I did not understand he might be telling me so that I would tell you.

‘Clever boys,’ Aix said, in that low and husky voice he got when he was in a mood he had explained was called Villainous. From all the stories and conversations so far, Cthulhu still only vaguely understood it.

The vampire humans all loved stories, and even though Cthulhu was still struggling with reading written words, there were movies, and there was always Aix to tell him stories, or someone willing to read to him. Cameron’s family had taken him to the library, and when the librarians had found out he was still learning to read, a few who were studying to be Montessori teachers at the school just outside of Baltimore were eager to help. Cthulhu knew from Aix that word, ‘Montessori’, that human with that name, who invented this ‘Montessori’ way, would be the best way for Cthulhu, because it was how Aix taught him things.

Humans were really very kind, it was like Aix had said. Humans didn’t need to know you, they just saw you struggling and wanted to help you. That was their way. Their instinct. They built entire networks whose sole purpose was to store and preserve and share knowledge, and they called them ‘libraries’.

Cthulhu saw the little human, with a red mask on, come sit at the other small chair at the table. Cthulhu was looking at a picture book, by now having shifted two of his eyes to seem human enough, though darker skin colours were easier than the pale ones like Cameron’s and Aix’s. The little human had brown skin and curly black hair, and a blue shirt that had some colourful monsters on it, that Cthulhu knew by now were named Ernie and Bert.

‘Miss Shonda says you. Um. Says. You um, you learnin’ to read. Um. Even though you’re um. A grown-up.’

‘You should read to me. Cos um. Cos my Daddy reads to me. And. And I heard him um, I heard him tell Miss Shonda and Auntie that it. That it helps him read better.’

Another small human came up, who looked older but related to the first, but had his hair differently manipulated, and had a blue mask. ‘Whatcha doin’, Marcus?’

‘Marcus was telling me how important it was to practise reading to others. May I read to you as well?’

A big smile in those dark eyes. ‘Yeah! Wait, you gotta come over to the Reading Chair.’

Cthulhu let them lead him through the shelves and to the colourful circular area that had precisely one chair sized for an adult. It was orange, and cracked, with a bit of static electrical charge on the plastic. There were other small humans around, sitting on the rug or at other tables within sight; but they all, one by one, came over and sat down in front of the chair expectantly when they saw Cthulhu going toward it.

‘I have never read to such a large audience before,’ he said, feeling somewhat nervous.

‘What if you sit on the floor with us?’ said one of the larger humans, who wore glasses like Aix and Victoria did, and was pale—‘white’, he’d learnt that was called—and wearing a black mask with a red circle full of symbols on it. ‘Then you’re just the same.’

‘Um, what is your name? I’m Harper,’ said the second child to come over to Cthulhu.

‘Hi Joe!’ said an older black girl, with a mask that had a pointy-toothed smile on it. ‘I’m Schemia! Marcus is my cousin, and Harper’s our neighbour.’

‘I’m Misha like the angel!’ said the human with the glasses, wearing a long pale coat with her black mask with the symbols in red.

‘I’m Sophie like the grifter!’ said a littler one with a dress on, in a sequined mask.

‘This is Rain and I’m Leaf,’ said one of a pair of identical humans; he was in blue pants and a shirt with trees on it, and his identical human, Rain, was in pale blue and purple. ‘I’m a boy.’

‘Ah,’ Cthulhu said, sensing their fear, and knowing it well from Aix. ‘My partner is a transman also. He is called Aix.’

They were less afraid, after that, and Cthulhu was glad for it. Leaf came over and hugged him.

The children seemed to think this was a question that merited raised hands. Cthulhu wasn’t sure what raised hands meant, but sensed from their surface thoughts that this was procedure for orderly group discussion. Cthulhu saw Harper looking extremely excited, bouncing and waving the raised hand.

‘A bard is like in the game I play it’s called Dungeonsanddragons and a bard is a performer and that’s where my name comes from it’s a bard name like from the middle ages when everybody was first having last names people would call the bard John Harper if he had a harp but it’s my first name. Also I’m a he/him we should tell our pronouns.’

He said this all, seemingly, in one breath. ‘Well,’ Cthulhu said, reminded fondly of himself when he had been very small, ‘That is correct. A bard is a travelling performer of any variety of performing arts, and my Aix can do many things—tell stories, sing, dance, and he has a clown as well, a small one.’

This caused a great deal of excitement, so much that the librarian came over to them, which made them try very hard to quiet down.

Miss Shonda was black like Marcus, Schemia, and Harper, with her curly hair in a large black and gold halo around her head, and glasses she wore on a chain. She knew Joe, and was glad he was making friends. He was a quiet man, he came in with one of the Golds quite often, and was learning to read—seemingly for the first time. She’d been helping him, and saw the book in his gloved hands. ‘What’s so exciting?’ she asked.

‘A little clown,’ Harper said, bouncing. ‘A little clown isitPippin? Mommy told me about Pippin from Mr Simon. She’s a pierrot. Like a really real wild pierrot.’

‘It is Pippin,’ Cthulhu said, surprised, before looking up at the librarian to explain. ‘I was going to read to my new friends, but there were introductions to be made. And I thought perhaps sir Leaf would like to meet an adult like himself, my partner, Aix. Aix is a bard, and… I think he would enjoy telling stories to children.’

Cthulhu paused, trying to recall if Aix had mentioned it. ‘He was,’ he said. ‘That is where he learned. We have just moved here, and he is away on business at the moment. I will be joining him soon. But we shall return.’

Cthulhu knew he needed to be carefully vague, because the police were still about, and Erastos had given him lessons on how to avoid leaving information ‘laying around’ for them to easily find.

‘Moving is A Lot,’ Schemia said, with sagely nodding and tones that were copied from someone older. ‘My family just moved here from California, it’s A Lot.’

‘Why don’t we settle down and let Mr Joe read to us, and then talk more later?’ Shonda suggested gently. To her surprise, Joe got off the chair and sat on the floor with the children, the book open on his lap, one finger under the words as he read them. He was still slow, and careful, but the children helped him when he stumbled, and were very patient, all of them young enough to remember learning to read. Harper was even getting better at letting other people be slower than he was. Shonda kept an eye on them as she went back to work.

Cthulhu always picked out things Aix recommended—therefore, he was reading The Cat in the Hat, which Aix had told him about, and thought very well of. The children were curious when, after helping him with a word, he asked them why.

‘That’s “mother”,’ Marcus said, when Cthulhu paused and began sounding it out.

‘Why does it say Mother?’ Cthulhu asked, and Marcus paused, then took him through the sounds.

‘Muh. Aw. And then. En, this one says. That is a blend and it says th. Eh. Rrr. M-aw-th-eh-rr. Mother.’

Cthulhu quitely shaped T and H separately without voicing them, then TH, trying to understand why it would be written with those letters.

‘I am pondering why people decided to write that sound down in that way.’

‘There used to be two letters for “th” there used to be eth for Moth and thorn for The,’ Harper said. ‘We didn’t used to have to use T and H.’

‘I can draw them,’ Harper said, getting up and going to find the librarian. ‘Miss Shonda, can I please have a chalk for the board?’

‘Sure, baby,’ Shonda said, going over to the children’s library desk and getting one out of the drawer.

‘I’m going to show everyone the old letters!’ Harper said proudly, ‘wanna see?’

‘I do!’ Shonda said, curious as to what he meant, and followed him to the board, where he drew two letters.

‘Dark alphabet show me the forbidden letters,’ Schemia said, and giggled, which made all the other children start giggling.

They finished the book after that, and the children had many more questions for Cthulhu—about Aix, and Pippin.

‘Are you gonna have kids or be Uncles?’ Rain asked, adjusting her purple mask.

Aix narrowed his eyes slightly in confusion, looking at Cthulhu. ‘What brought that on?’

I met some human children at the library, and they asked if we were going to have children, or be… Uncles.

Aix relaxed, chuckling. ‘Oh, I see. Well…’ he looked down, sadly. ‘I can’t. Or… it’s very, very unlikely to ever happen, especially at my age. And nobody would let me around kids.’

Aix sighed, and Cthulhu sensed the subject was very painful. He decided to say something else.

I spoke to the librarian. She said she would be happy to have you tell stories to the children. There are few people with time for that, now, and who will wear a mask of the proper style.

Yes. I told her. Cthulhu lay next to Aix, looking up at the starry sky with him. Having been around human children now, I think you would be a good father. You are perhaps ideal.

Aix sniffled, and rolled over to hug him tightly, and didn’t say anything for a long time; but he was happy to hear it.

36. Overture

As only the heads of household were going to be at the meeting, Pippin was getting to spend the night with her old family, sans Phrixus, and there was a wonderful garden party in the making. Pippin wore her black and white striped unitard for it, and was humming to herself, a tune that had no lyrics, but was very recognisable. Of course, that was why the unitard was striped vertically down her torso and legs, and banded her arms horizontally.[43]

Aix was only showered and half-dressed when there was a knock on the door, and almost opened the door naked, remembering just in time he had a nice fluffy pink robe now, and throwing it on before cracking it.

‘Not?’ came the slightly confused reply, from one of the castrati, though Aix hadn’t known any of them long enough to be able to delineate between their voices (he had a hard time differentiating high voices anyway). Aix let go of the door so he could finish tying the robe closed.

‘Sorry, I just got out the shower,’ he said, as Pippin leapt off the bed and bounded across the room.

‘Fissieeeeeeeee!’ she said, pelting into Felice’s arms as he laughed and caught her, rocking back a step with the force of her excitement. His blue hair was in a simpler style, the top half pulled up and all of it curled, the spirals bouncing prettily with every little movement.

‘Sono così dispiaciuto,’ Felice said, ‘I did not mean to interrupt you when you were indecent.’

‘Tesoro,’ fell syrupy from Aix’s lips before he could think, his voice deep and purry and villainous, ‘I have never been decent a day in my life.’

Felice seemed startled into a high titter, and fled; it was only Pippin sharing her perception with him that made Aix realise he’d actually made Felice blush and get flustered. It was so novel to actually know that, not simply have a void there.

Aix went back to getting dressed for the meeting, singing to the warm-up playlist he’d put together over the past two weeks as he did, because there had been talk of singing after the meeting, and he needed to warm up. It had a spread of jazz standards and showtunes that were in his tessitura, and had big loud trills, and low purry notes, that resonated and let him show off. His new neighbour friends had helped him put it together, particularly the Pard men, who were all of the opinion Aix had a very feline voice, nicely deep and loud. Aix was still a little nervous at performing for professionals who were from traditional ‘higher is better’ vocal attitudes, but he could only be himself and go over all the compliments he had received, and remember he was far more comfortable with his speaking voice now, and felt far more himself because of his voice.

It was hard to imagine anybody he’d met so far saying anything mean to him about his voice just for it being low, but if life had taught Aix one thing it was that you couldn’t rely on people to be predictable, or the best version of themselves. People were petty, and often cruel and thoughtless. It was better, Aix had learned, not to hope for more—no matter who they were. It felt bitter and mean to think that of people who had been so nice and gentle to him so far, but Aix was autistic, he couldn’t afford to give the benefit of the doubt, because he didn’t know when it did and didn’t apply.

He could only look fabulous, and know that René liked his voice, and so did Michaela, and Heather, both of whom had heard him sing on the road trip to Maryland. He’d sung with them—country songs with Michaela, and some old shanties with Heather, who also taught him a lullaby in old Cornish, one she’d sung to her many children over the years, and had sung to Aix once when they had been stopped in the deep south and Aix had been having an anxiety attack.

The last song in the playlist wasn’t for singing, it was for hype, for having confidence and reminding him of his roots and his friends.

Hey folks! Beggin’ your pardon!
Scuse me—sorry to barge in!
Now let’s skip the tears and start on
The whole
Y’know
Being dead thing!

It was what was still playing in his head as he finished washing the body glitter off his hands, got the empty journal and his newly filled fountain pen, and left his room—on foot, because he was confident of the way there, this time. He met Heather outside; she was naked and halfway in her sealskin coat, silver and spotty and whiskery (well, more than usual—like Aix, Heather had natural facial hair. Unlike Aix, it wasn’t a sign of being intersex at all, but being a seal).

‘Wow, you look amazing,’ Aix said, because she did and he believed in complimenting someone when he had nothing to say. She laughed, showing the signature three-point lobodontinid seal teeth. ‘I keep meaning to ask, um, you don’t have to answer if its rude, but… those are leopard seal teeth.’

‘Leopard seals have my teeth,’ she said, chuckling. ‘As I’m older, and all. Grandmother, they call me. Well, everyone does, but they’ve a right.’

Aix paused, at that. ‘…Are you from before the ice age or something, Heather.’

‘About what! About the ice age, Heather! About… man, I gotta do some research so I know what questions to ask. The age of mammals is not my forte…’

‘I remember seeing the first two-leg people on my beach,’ Heather said, as she herded him into the elevator and closed both gates. ‘Anyone teach you to use this yet?’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘Well they should have. Come over here, watch me. You move this one first, to the floor you want—here, feel? That’s the counterweights. And this here is the safety catch—you close both gates and set the floor before you flip it off, hear?’

‘Good lad.’ She flipped the safety off, and… the elevator didn’t exactly lurch, but Aix could feel through the car that something had been let go. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘the trick is easing the go lever.’

‘Ohhh, you learned how to drive properly,’ Heather said, pleased, as she put his hand on the brass lever and put her enormous slightly-webbed hand over his, showing him how it felt.

Aix preferred this way of learning things, and appreciated the lesson, fascinated by the entirely mechanical elevator. It was round, like a birdcage, and big enough for even Heather to lay down in. As it eased up, Aix loved that he could kind of feel the counterweights, the clack-clack-clack of the chains pulling them up reminding him of roller coasters—and he loved roller coasters.

They stopped, and the car swayed a little. ‘Flip the safety,’ Heather said, and Aix did. The swaying stopped. ‘Can you figure out the gates?’

‘I think so,’ Aix said, ‘it’s so cool that this thing has no motor or anything.’

‘Humans never built them like this,’ Heather said, as Aix carefully opened the inner accordion gate, then the outer double gate, which just opened on hinges. There was only the tiniest of gaps between the elevator floor and the regular one, it was so incredibly precise that Aix had never even felt it with his wheels when he’d been in his chair. ‘Got too fond of motors too quickly, humans did.’

‘You’d have to ask the knockers that, pup, I’m just a humble dildo merchant. Now, you’ve got to be warned about one of my cousins’t doesn’t show up until meetings. He’s a right old son of a bitch, and he hates animals. Representative of the Summerfolk, what your generation call the Seelie.’

‘What, and him going about at night all the time? No pup, he’s Autumnfolk, the Unseelie as humans now say. You’ve got it backwards, you know. Summerfolk looks nice; but so does poison—‘fore it kills you.’

‘Summer kills people,’ Aix agreed, nodding. ‘I’m from the desert, I grok the danger of the sun. Are there winterfolk?’

‘Sharp as teeth, you are!’ she said, barking a laugh that sounded far less human. ‘Springfolk is sweetwater, Winterfolk is us from the salt.’

‘Listen, pup,’ Heather said. ‘You put your inhaler in your pocket like I told you? You put a mask in there too?’

‘I did, yes.’ Aix said, pulling the little plastic bag out that he’d put them in. Suits were marvellous things, full of pockets. He pulled out the mask, which was one of the very serious ones, and started to put it on.

‘No, no,’ Heather said, pointing at the inhaler, ‘take a breath of that first.’

Aix considered trying to explain that wasn’t how it worked, but reminded himself she was literally millions of years old, and a fae, and nothing good ever came of questioning a kindly fae’s orders. He shook the inhaler and exhaled, doing the primer puffs because it had been so long since he’d used it, and then inhaling two puffs, holding his breath and feeling his heart start to race, like usual. Two was the maximum per day, but it was also expired, and that meant it was weaker (or so Aix assumed). He put it back in the bag.

Aix’s mind started to grate at the orders, but he obeyed, putting it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket and finally letting the breath out. He put the mask on with trembling hands—not trembling out of fear or anger, but because two puffs from the inhaler always did that to him. His vision was weird too, and would be a little wobbly for a while, just like his pulse would be racing. But he could breathe better than usual.

It still fogged up his glasses, unless he breathed slowly. He fiddled with it, trying to get a seal.

‘Here, I’ve got tape,’ Heather said, pulling some out. Aix pulled the mask off and took the tape, putting it on the nose part—well, trying. His fingers were shaking too much to place it accurately.

‘Can you do this?’ he asked her, and she just nodded, making quick work of it and handing it back. It was suddenly much more comfortable. He let her check the mask for him, trusting she knew what the hell she was doing (he didn’t, he’d reacted to the plague by just quarantining, because he had been living totally alone and never leaving the house anyway—the shock of suddenly living in a huge city was kind of terrifying, and he hadn’t left the apartment building yet).

The door to the meeting room opened, and Michaela came out, also masked, shutting the door behind herself quietly. She was in the maille she wore as armour, but it wasn’t as covered up as she usually made it while in civilian areas; she looked like a proper medieval warrior, with a few modern swaps in terms of fabrics and sewing techniques. ‘You warn him about Rosenrot?’

‘She made me take two puffs of albuterol and put the mask on real good, if that’s what you mean,’ Aix said, because he could ask Mike, but at the same time, not being given an answer had let his brain start whirring away at the mystery. ‘Best I can guess is he’s a flower with hyperallergenic pollen and his modus operandi is anaphylactic shock.’

‘And bingo was his name-o,’ Michaela said, which Aix was used to by now—she said the extended phrase, which was a quirk Aix rather liked. ‘He’s plantfolk. The mask and your meds should keep you alive if he gets ornery.’

‘Unfortunately, the meds mean I can’t take notes.’ Aix held up his left hand, showing how his hands were still trembling uncontrollably. ‘I feel like Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles with this.’

Michaela chuckled at the joke. ‘Claudiu is taking minutes, he always does. You can use your book and pen to doodle if you need a little distraction. Anyway,’ she said, ‘You’ll be at D’s right hand, because you’re the guest of honour, and Mr Asher’s gonna be between you and Rosenrot.’

‘Believe me, I asked D the same thing, loudly. But it’s… it’s a rank thing. And he… he’s poking you, okay. I wanted to give you some advice, because it’s really backwards to what you probably think you should do: get angry if you’re angry. Don’t try and swallow it down to be polite. Get mad.’

‘Make life take the lemons back—do you know who I am?’ Aix said, more to call forth the right amount of entitlement-to-get-angry-visibly than anything.

Heather actually went in first, and Aix understood why—he was glad they were going to be in the room before him, and dramatics had to be put on hold for safety, always.

That ‘should’ sort of haunted him. He stopped Michaela before she went in. ‘Hey um, do you at least have an epi-pen, if you knew this would happen?’

‘Yes, baby, I have an epi-pen. We also have a roomful of monsters ready to turn you and Rosenrot does not want an angry baby monster on his hands, believe me. Also,’ she added, kissing Aix’s curls gently, one strong hand on his shoulder. ‘Mr Asher will set him on fire, and Heather has a machete.’

‘Where is she keeping it?’ Because Heather was naked, silvery and spotted fur notwithstanding. He didn’t really expect an answer, and Michaela didn’t give him one, patting his shoulder.

‘You can do this, you’re a powerful witch and you have the power to put him in his place.’

‘Mhm.’ She gently tapped Aix’s forehead with a fingertip. ‘Up in that shiny brain of yours. I ain’t no good at biology sciencin’, nobody in that room is—other’n you.’ And with that, she turned and left him in the hallway, to come in on his own time.

Science. Science was going to put Rosenrot in his place? Well, that was curious.

‘Okay,’ Aix said, straightening up and shaking himself, shooting his cuffs. He made his voice a low and filthy growl. ‘It’s showtime.’

37. Act I

Dominating the room was the long table, mahogany, very old and very well-maintained, and everyone around it was dressed formally but in regular clothes, so their personalities were more apparent. The only person Aix didn’t recognise was the one between Asher and Heather, their size not doing anything to dwarf him, despite his slender frame.

Rosenrot was an object-head, that was the first thing Aix registered after the scent of roses—the entire plant, wood and leaves and dirt and all, not just the blooms. Rosenrot’s face wasn’t a face at all, it was a rose that was bigger-than-life, the bright colour of arterial spray, with smaller buds—no, fruits, was that was a rose-hip looked like?—around it, and foliage that looked black in the low, warm light of the room. There wasn’t a face, no eyes, nothing, just a rose that was right at the edge of ‘fully open’ and ‘dying’. Below it was a vaguely humanoid body, the way fae always got humanoid slightly… off. He had shoulders and the right amount of arms and legs, but he didn’t have the right amount of joints or digits—though Aix found his hands very pretty, longer and thinner than a human’s could ever be; and his clothes were certainly sexy, because Aix wasn’t sure who had gotten inspiration from whom, but whichever direction inspiration had gone, it had been between the Faerie Court and Brian Froud—the strange asymmetry, the sparkle that had a very wild primeval forest quality to it, the layers of different translucent fabrics…

Aix glanced at Garnet, further down the table, on Heather’s other side, in his court clothes, and realised that Garnet being Autumnfolk was obvious even if Aix hadn’t just been told—Garnet was very autumnal, but Aix hadn’t noticed before because… because back then, he hadn’t really had a grasp on a four-season climate, since he’d never set foot in one. Rosenrot didn’t register as ‘summer’ to Aix; but that was because Aix was from the Summerland, as in the land of endless summer—the desert. Even though his backyard had been full of fruiting trees, they were arid trees, they fruited all the time. The flowers bloomed all year, where Aix had grown up. Summer, to him, was when it was so dry and hot that everything burned. Summer, to Aix, meant fire and wind like opening an oven, and the smells of chlorine and sunblock and smoke, not green and fruit and flowers.

And, also, Garnet tended to wear human clothes—raver and nightclub fashion—in neon and white; this was the first Aix had seen him looking like one of the sidhe, and he was breathtaking, the froth of his curls not simply red but shining with the multifaceted scarlets of maple leaves in September, his skin the same gold-edged white of birch bark at sunset, the depthless turquoise of his eyes a memory of summer. He had the fashionable points on his ears, but now they were long, turning to twigs right at the very end, just before branching out like the bare fingers of a tree, above his head. His lips were gold, yes, but gold like aspen leaves, not gilt as Aix had first seen in his dreams of Garnet. His clothes were no less wonderful, oranges tinged with red, a specimen of his namesake set into a large gold amulet, gold chains strung with smaller garnets draping over his hands and fingers, shimmering softly in the low light.

Heather was naked, a good counterpoint to the intimidating beauty of the two sidhe; like all marine mammals she was huge, and it wasn’t the deceptive and fragile bigness of when humans approached that size—there was nothing fragile about Heather being seven and a half feet tall and probably weighing several hundred pounds. She had a belly and a copious generous one, as well as solid pillars of leg and arm—it was the kind of fat that hid muscle and very solid bones. Her skin was a sort of ambiguous colour when she was out of her coat, but now it was eerie and silvery, with strange black markings Aix couldn’t remember seeing on any kind of seal. They weren’t the spots of a leopard seal, but they weren’t the strange rings on a ribbon or ringed or Caspian seal either. She had short, clear whiskers, and eyes a little bigger and darker than a human’s, and her wild black hair almost hid the fact that she had no ears at all—but then, of course she didn’t. She yawned, her face turning more muzzle-like as she opened her mouth, showing off a large maw full of larger teeth. It was a casual threat display, and Aix felt a little safer for it, knowing she was on his side.

On Rosenrot’s left, and next to Aix, was Mr Asher—who was in nothing but lace and silk and straps, looking so confident that Aix felt sexier by proxy, just seeing him—because he wasn’t thin and model-ly, he was a bear, a proper bear, fat and hairy and his very revealing outfit was all delicate fabrics that fit him perfectly and shimmered, showing off his body, not hiding it, not manipulating it with illusions, but showing it all off. He had soft tummy rolls and the soft tits only boys had, and large dark nipples that were pierced with gold rings strung with rubies that caught the light, beneath the black and gauzy silk robe he was wearing. There wasn’t anything overtly otherworldly about him, other than the fire burning in his eyes, and the sangoire colour where most humans had the pink of blood showing—around his eyes, lips, and—Aix saw when Mr Asher smiled at him—his gums and the inside of his mouth. His teeth weren’t pointed at all, which was surprising, though they got pointed as Aix looked at Asher longer, and suddenly Aix knew why—he wasn’t just a demon, Aix realised, he was Aix’s favourite kind of demon: an incubus.

Aix couldn’t see Hext—Hext was at the other end of the same side of the table, between Garnet and Michaela—but he had gotten a strong impression of Hext’s fashion on the flight, and could imagine well enough from the flash of orange-red shot taffeta he’d seen on his way in. He also knew René would be in whore-blue lace and black velvet gothiness, like always, and both Milady and Mistress were in black with gold—albeit in very different styles, Milady in the grand mathematical embroidery and drape of Muslim fashion, and Mistress in the Hollywood geometry of film noir; but Phrixus was the odd one, with his vibrant colours of fabric and lavish beaded embroidery. It was much more odd than even Claudiu’s stark white suit—there were goths that wore all white, but not colour.

Phrixus was definitely the only vampire that wasn’t gothic in his fashion. He very clearly had the opinion that the seventies had been a high point for fashion and he wasn’t going to tone it down in any way. He was wearing a bright purple nudie suit that was dripping with beaded embroidery in rainbow thread and sparkling rhinestones, all in the kind of motifs Aix only ever saw on court suits from the later decades of the 1700s. His makeup and hair were draggy, his long hands were covered in gold rings with enormous gems, and the whole effect was incredibly camp, and Aix adored him a little more for being that kind of person. He was the kind of person that little kids would come up to excitedly, because little kids loved colours and sparkles and having fun, and that was a very admirable sort of style to be, in Aix’s opinion.

It made Roseblade look rather tame, despite the fact that he was in a suit of velveteen in the true, original colour called ‘mauve’, with a painted cravat in teal blues and his own much less colourful but no less draggy makeup, with swooshes of violet and bronze eyeshadow around his olive-green eyes. He clearly knew what his best colours were, and he glowed in them, though like Phrixus, he seemed to also have a favourite recent decade—the 1980s, from the way his hair was styled to be a big curly mane with a part way over on one side. It was the sort of hair Aix had always wanted, but something or other had always nixed his plans to grow it that long.

And then there was Dracula, of course, in a fine black suit—all black, even the shirt, with the ermine-lined cloak of a European king around his shoulders, the cape itself in black and red brocade. He wore it casually, reminding Aix very much of the comfortable attitude one saw in all the portraits of Louis the Sun King—there was nothing awkward or embarrassed about it, nor was it the insecure faux-confidence of the overly-aggressive American nobility. It was from the Old World, in every sense of the term—in that moment, Aix understood why there were people who would hesitate to dispose of monarchy. You wanted to follow someone that comfortable in their skin, that at peace with power’s weight….

Aix realised, slowly, that all the vampires were focussed on him—probably because of his racing pulse, he realised quickly.

He pulled out the chair and sat down. These were both very deliberate, and very separate, actions, owing to the way his hands were shaking, his heart was racing, and his vision was, at least at close range, wobbly—all from the albuterol, which is why he usually avoided taking it (as much as he could avoid taking something meant to help him breathe).

‘Are you… well, Mr Aix?’ Claudiu asked softly, directly across the table, his right hand holding a pen and poised over a notebook.

‘Nervous we’ll eat you alive?’ came the silken voice from the general vicinity of Rosenrot’s form, dripping sadistic glee.

‘Don’t be a prick, Rosenrot,’ Aix said while getting out his notebook and pen, not looking up. ‘I’m full of potion to counteract you.’

There were a few chuckles, and a giggle from much farther down the table, that must have been Garnet.

Something viney brushed Aix’s ankle, and he just shifted in the roomy chair, slipping off his shoes and tucking his feet up. A moment later, it smelled like burning wood, just slightly, and Aix was grateful to Mr Asher, beside him, for that; he’d not known before that Mr Asher had fire powers, but then again why would he have needed to ask? Mr Asher had said his people were called demons and djann, and that meant fire.

‘We’re here to speak on a new people come to this world,’ the King began, his voice much easier to understand in person, and this close. ‘And what to do about them.’

‘It is terribly exciting to finally meet an extra-terrestrial person at last,’ Roseblade said keenly to Cthulhu, toying with his fan. ‘New frontiers and all that.’

‘I am told your people natively have more powerful psionics than have been seen on Earth,’ the King had not once broken gaze with Cthulhu, sitting at the other end of the table—Aix could see Cthulhu still had his mask on. He hadn’t taken it off yet, not even during dinner (he’d eaten in their shared room). ‘That must be answerable to a law of some kind.’

‘Ooh!’ Garnet said, finally hearing Cthulhu’s ethereally-low voice, and Roseblade agreed by unfurling a fan, fluttering it.

‘Not reliable ones,’ Heather said immediately, the only one bold enough to interrupt the King—and, being from New England, she felt she was the most qualified to speak on the topic of, ‘Lovecraft wrote fiction, and Miskatonic University’s library was destroyed in the Calamity.’

‘Yes, the Calamity, I’m curious about that, myself,’ Hext said, and looked curiously at Cthulhu. Unlike some here, he didn’t feel hostile as he asked, ‘What exactly happened? Are you gods, or pretending to be?’

‘We did not understand what gods were. We thought that was the word for “extra-terrestrial person”. We thought humans understood much more than they did, about us. Aix was the first to stop and treat us like people, and ask questions, and explain humanity.’

‘And I’m sure he told you some pretty lie,’ Rosenrot said. ‘About how humans are strong and brave, or something?’ He gave a disdainful rustle of his foliage in a laugh. ‘They’re weak, they rely on other species to live.’ A few more of his rosebuds bloomed wide and proud. ‘Not like us. All we need is the sun.’

‘Is… is nobody gonna—ohhhh okay. I get it. I get it, now,’ Aix said, Michaela’s warning suddenly making sense. ‘So, either you don’t know shit about yourself, or you’ve been coasting on everyone here not knowing shit about biology.’

‘Oh do please lecture the flower about biology. You stink of iron and desperation, changeling.’

Aix nearly climbed over Asher in his rage—he was on his feet without remembering getting up, chest tight and voice lower and louder than he’d spoken since coming here, ears ringing and staticky with anger.

‘You’re not shit without your fungal root network, or the animals that pollinate you!’ he said, loudly but not consciously shouting—though other people, medigans, would think it was shouting because he was a baritone and he was furious. ‘This entire planet is millions of species of everything working together, and we all rely on each other! Fuck off with your fucking exceptionalism! The entire western hemisphere used to be two fucking continents of forest gardens! Before colonisers got to the Americas it was millions of years of symbiosis between humans and the entire rest of the ecosystem—NO! YOU DON’T GET TO SPEAK!’

‘You need our shit on your roots, you need the fungi in the soil to process that and give you the nutrition from it, you make fruit and nectar to lure animals to transport your seeds and to fertilise them! The fuck you talking about, you “don’t rely on anyone to live”?! You rely on the entire fucking ecosystem you’re planted in! You rely on animals to spread your pollen and spread your seeds, you rely on the mycelium network to communicate with other plants, you rely on those other plants when you need help, and you rely on them to give you help! Everyone needs help from everyone else, that’s what being from Earth fucking means!’

It rang into a silence, and Aix’s chest was both tight and heaving, pulse racing as his brain helpfully reminded him last time he’d lost his temper he’d lost a bed to sleep in. Also the time before that. And the time before that. And…

Mike said to get mad! Aix snapped, feeling like a lawyer in a court room with a fistful of evidence.

His chest hurt, and he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t move, exactly; he jerked when he felt someone touch him, and it was one of those moments he was glad he’d never gotten any combat training, because his body had no muscle memory that might have hit someone before he could take in who it was.

It was Mr Asher, who had been sitting on his right side; and the touch was gentle, very gentle and warm, on his arm. Something… eased. Aix could breathe again, and his pulse slowed down, but not too much, not in the muddy, clumsy way pills did it. So, Mr Asher could affect emotions, or put forth an aura of safety. That was good to know, that was another bit of evidence that he was definitely an incubus. He hadn’t been forthcoming, but Aix only knew one kind of demony creature that affected emotions like that. The thought was a welcome distraction, right now, because he wanted to stop feeling overstimulated by sheer emotional volume, and the feeling of safety was only making tears come to surface.

‘Ooooooh,’ Garnet said in a low voice, which somehow was exactly what Aix needed to hear—the universal tone of all children witnessing someone Getting In Trouble was a visceral trigger for Aix feeling he’d somehow won something. He stifled a laugh, because it was half-hysterical and threatened to turn into crying pretty instantly.

‘I told you if you kept fuckin’ around you’d find out, Rosie,’ Hext said, his grinning tone lightening the mood through sheer force of will if nothing else.

‘I didn’t know plants could talk to each other,’ Roseblade said, transfixed by this boy, who flung facts like weapons, rather than profanity. And now that boy was shaking and crying, like so many of the young sailors he’d talked through the aftermath of their first boarding. The key was to distract them, remind them of something that made them feel confident—clearly, for this one, it was teaching.

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, shakily sitting back down, starting to cry and trying to ignore it. ‘Yeah, they can. The—the mycelium connect everyone’s roots and—and among other things, they pass extra nutrients to those without.’ His voice was colourless and hitching with tears, which he was wiping away impatiently with a green handkerchief. The mask was getting wet, which was deeply uncomfortable—but dying was far more uncomfortable.

He covered his face with the handkerchief and tried to breathe slowly, still feeling like all of him was shaking on the inside.

He felt Mr Asher’s big, soft, warm hand on his back again, right between his shoulder blades, as he put his head down on his arms on the table. He needed a little darkness right now.

He felt Pippin, dimly, and her determination to help. I tell little brother come see you, Duckie! He comin!

Hidden in his arms, he smiled and his breath hitched, new tears coming for a nicer reason. Thank you.

‘I think the Queen ought to know his representative was deceiving us to the point of putting his people in danger,’ Roseblade said, his gaze on Rosenrot gleeful, fan spread to hide his smile. ‘If we don’t have the ability to trust his information, well… he doesn’t function as a representative and diplomat, does he?’

‘I wasn’t lying,’ Rosenrot said, his thorns getting longer and sharper, but he was also rustling with fear, blossoms half-closing.

‘Weren’t you?’ the King said, very quietly, and somehow it reminded everyone of what, exactly, this entire country they were in lauded him for doing to the Turks.

‘Then what were you doin’, sugar?’ Michaela asked, with the honeyed steel of a southern woman.

‘I…’ Rosenrot’s voice went low and he rustled as his leaves trembled. ‘I-I didn’t know,’ he said, almost too quietly to hear. He sounded afraid. ‘Why does a human know more than I about myself?’ he whispered to himself, in horror.

Aix pushed up, immediately changing gears. He was done being angry, he’d said his piece and not been interrupted, so he was done and it was over. That was how his anger worked—an explosion, but not a fire.

‘I’ll teach you!’ Aix said. ‘It’s okay to not know stuff. Humans don’t know everything about how our bodies work, even now. That’s what science is about. Scientists get excited to be wrong, it means we know what isn’t, which teaches us a lot more than just guessing correctly.’

‘I was angry.’ Aix said, knowing he sounded a bit Big Sister-y, which some people took as condescending. ‘That’s not the same as hate. You were the one saying hateful things—why are you surprised there were consequences?’

‘You shouldn’t have to know,’ Aix said, trying to be patient. ‘You understand that, right? You shouldn’t have to know beforehand. You should understand that calling people worthless, or weak, or less than you, is likely to make them angry. And they’re allowed that anger. You attacked me on purpose, what did you think would happen?’

‘Admittedly, our method of dealing with him is to ignore it,’ Asher said. ‘We could not naysay him, we had not the information, as you did.’

‘Critically, he did not fling a slur at you,’ Heather said, in a hard voice.

‘It can be, depends on the tone,’ Heather said, glaring at Rosenrot in a way that said he better not claim he was using it otherwise, because nobody would believe him.

‘And the context, I imagine,’ Mistress said, and looked to the King. ‘Slurs are a serious matter, Voivodul.’

‘Very true,’ Hext agreed. ‘I believe the discriminatory language in matters of law was added to the constitution in 1972.’

‘ “No ad hominem attacks without provocation, and no words determined to fall under the category of ‘slur’, and used as such, shall be tolerated in session”, yes, I recall,’ the King said softly. It had been a learning experience, but, like any competent leader, he had listened. Mistress and Hext’s predecessor (also a Hext, they were reliable and the King was resistant to change, as many elders were) were the forefront of that effort, as had been Heather and Michaela’s father. The King was not unfamiliar with slurs—he had knowledge of extinct ones—he just had to have the ones he didn’t experience pointed out. ‘Your conduct is worthy of immediate dismissal, Rosenrot. Leave, and tell your Queen exactly why you were dismissed.’

‘Then the Queen may come himself and speak to me about it. If he wants the Summer court’s interests considered, he and his representatives will follow the rules of conduct he agreed his representative would be bound to.’

Rosenrot went to the door, opening it. Aix was terrified at the amount of trust being shown to him—if he was angry, wouldn’t he destroy something, hurt someone on his way out if he wasn’t watched?—but Aix tried to keep a lid on that, suspecting that was a part of copaganda he hadn’t dismantled in practise quite yet.

There was a jingle from the hallway as soon as the door was opened, and Gogo slunk in, completely ignoring Rosenrot and everyone else in the room; Aix pushed his chair out a little bit and patted his lap, and Gogo sped up to a cheerful trot, chirruping in reply and jumping up, already purring and putting his oversized paws up on Aix’s shoulder. Aix gently hitched him up to drape over his shoulder, not talking to him or even making kissy noises, because that felt informal and inappropriate for the setting; but cats didn’t need to be spoken to, they were creatures of gestures and actions. Gogo purred and Aix pet him, and that was all the conversation they really needed to have.

Cthulhu had felt Aix’s distress more acutely than anyone else, but by now he knew that this thing, this ‘confrontation’ that humans did, was something Aix didn’t want constant protection from—it was important, to him, that he learn to stand on his own again, unafraid of defending himself. Cthulhu didn’t understand the complex nature of it, but he could at least understand that in order to communicate respect for Aix, he would do nothing until and unless he was asked to help. It was deeply distressing to have to sit by and watch, and all his chromatophores were tensed up, colour draining from his skin; but the truth of it was, this was not his culture, and he couldn’t hold Aix or anyone else in here to a culture that they didn’t belong to. Humans—any sapient of Earth, it seemed—were hypersocial, and that meant complex behaviours….

‘So, I need to explain about bullying. Bullying is a really complicated and hateful behaviour that humans engage in sometimes, at their worst. It’s something that happens when people are afraid and insecure, and when they don’t have any constructive ways to express their pain, and nowhere safe to express it, and nobody to ask for help. So they turn on anybody weaker, especially if stronger people that are supposed to protect them have done that to them. We learn bad behaviours from our parents as well as good ones.’

Cthulhu wondered if he should keep his question private, or speak it aloud, and let the others hear how Aix spoke to him when instructing. Would that be a good display? Would that help them understand Aix’s power? He wasn’t sure… but he couldn’t simply observe forever; he had to try, and perhaps fail, to learn anything certain.

‘Yes,’ Aix said, immediately grateful for the distance teaching Cthulhu gave him from the confusing pain, ‘Did you hear him? Contrast his words with his tone. He was doing what I explained earlier, about using the culture that prioritises volume over content. He learned somewhere and somehow that if he spoke calmly and softly, he could say very hateful things and anybody getting upset would look Unreasonable. That’s a word those cultures use for anybody being angry at all. They say “unreasonable” and it’s a dismissing word, it means they stop listening if you go over a certain volume, no matter if you are right or not. And that is how oppression begins. It begins with bullying. That’s why I told you, volume-over-content is toxic. It’s a toxic part of any culture that has it.’

Cthulhu nodded, feeling that the question—and answering it—had calmed Aix down. I hope it was right, that I asked you aloud. I wanted them to witness you teaching me. So they would understand, and respect you.

‘Oh,’ Mistress said to Aix, quietly smiling, ‘I see. You are teaching him correctly.’

‘I try my best?’ Aix said, unsure if ‘thank you’ was an appropriate response to that kind of compliment; but he felt like melting into a puddle of submissive pleasure at her approval, at her smile, and with all the emotional rollercoastering, it was hard to puzzle out the nuances of social justice lessons.

‘Aix says it is the most important to learn to separate what does the least harm with what people believe is normal.’

‘Told you. Scientist,’ Michaela said, with the tone of someone who had their boots up on the table; except she didn’t, and that kept startling Aix somewhat.

‘I don’t see why that’s special—I’m not being modest,’ Aix said, ‘I’m just deeply confused. Why doesn’t it occur to other people that you have to be able to explain cultural mores?’

‘Because we don’t notice them, darling,’ Roseblade said. ‘If I may ask a delicate question—you have mentioned being half-English, and half-Italian? You grew up with an awareness of more than one culture. Many people don’t.’

‘Monoglots are ignorant,’ René reminded Aix, the first he’d spoken; Aix knew he was nervous, because René had told him that he was nervous, that he might well go completely mute for the duration of the meeting, that he could not be relied on to be Domine and that he was sorry for it. He sounded so different, so young, like he was only Aix’s age.

But I’m white, really. I’m just white, how could I have this insight you’re saying I have?! ran through Aix’s head, even though it flew in the face of his actual experiences. His family was in many ways very much older than the modern idea of what ‘white’ meant. His father hadn’t ever had that privilege, nor any of his father’s siblings, or parents, or anybody. Aix was the first generation of his Italian family to live in a world where Italian-American was a form of white—and Aix had never behaved White Enough for it to stick once he interacted for more than six minutes. And white wasn’t a real culture anyway, it was assimilating into the culture that had been designed, maintained, and violently enforced by the Anglo-Saxon Protestant colonists. But most people Aix’s age and younger had grown up farther forward in progress than Aix had, and it was hard to explain when Aix struggled with feeling he was even allowed to have had the experiences he had with prejudice, to even call it ‘racism’. It often felt like he wasn’t allowed, even though they’d happened, to acknowledge them: they hadn’t been on-sight, so they didn’t count, that was the message he had mostly gotten by listening quietly and trying to learn.

‘I am told you are familiar with French as well as English,’ the king said, addressing Aix directly, which wasn’t as terrifying as Aix assumed it would be.

‘I—yeah, sort of. Almost bilingual, getting there again with René’s help. Why?’

‘If you learned Latin,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could explain as you do for Cthulhu. To our elders. To me.’

‘You mean Liturgical Latin, not Vulgar Latin, right?’ Aix said. At the nod, he sat back, petting Gogo and thinking. The lingua franca being Latin and not French made sense, and it wasn’t like someone as familiar and enthusiastic about zoology was unfamiliar with Latin, but… ‘Aren’t you a psion, Your Grace? Do you ever Dreamwalk? I have a particular corner of the Dreaming that Morpheus has partitioned off for my use.’

‘Oh? As much trust as you broke when you tried to read my mind earlier?’ Aix said innocently, the first he’d let on that he’d noticed. He meant it to sting, to be sharp.

‘Do you expect a witch to cower from you?’ Aix shot back, his voice rising again. Gogo hissed at the King, from Aix’s arms. Aix met the king’s green eyes, and it was effort to not say more, so he tried to put it in his gaze. I know who you are. I know what you’ve done. I know what you’re capable of doing. I don’t care, you do not get to do as you like just because you have a crown on; I am a witch and nobody frightens me. I am the thing bumps back when something goes bump in the night. I am the most frightening thing in the woods. I walk by myself, and bow to no one.

‘…You did not kill her,’ he said at last. ‘You have never killed anything in your life.’ He sat back, regarding Aix with slightly narrowed eyes. ‘The truth, soothsayer. Who killed the Heeren? Whose glory do you steal?’

Aix… wasn’t sure why that didn’t offend him; possibly because ‘glory’ was so alien a concept that he couldn’t even countenance how not wanting it could be insulting. He certainly couldn’t understand why killing people yourself was supposed to be something that indicated one’s worth.

‘I’m protecting someone else. I’m taking the blame and the consequences, not the glory,’ he specified, just to be clear.

‘Or a conspiracy,’ the King said, glancing around at Van Helsing, René, and all the other Americans. ‘I notice all of you have reported the same to me.’

‘Leave them alone, it’s not like that,’ Aix said. ‘It’s a guardian taking responsibility for the actions of those under their care, okay? You understand that, don’t you?’

‘We cannot hide this forever,’ Phrixus said ruefully; then louder, more formally, he went on: ‘My clown. The littlest one. She summoned Sai—she summoned the god Jocosa to slay my master all those years ago.’

‘Aix, please,’ Phrixus said, softly—but he was an opera singer, he could make ‘soft’ carry.

‘…And the same when I asked for help when the Heeren kidnapped me,’ Aix said, relenting. He’d never been good at secrets, anyway, and he couldn’t see any other way for this to end. ‘I was trying to contact Cthulhu, but I wasn’t very adept at dream-travel yet, and went a little sideways. I told Pippin to get help.’ He looked at Phrixus. ‘You call her Jocosa. That may be so. Cthulhu calls her Shob-Zhiggurath. Joeys call her Grandmother Clown.’

‘Shob-Zhiggurath had thought herself quite successful in understanding this world. She—though I am unsure we really understand genders, we don’t have them ourselves—gave birth to the first of what you call clowns. I am unclear on the particulars.’

‘No!’ Aix interrupted. ‘No, see, this is why I was taking the blame! They don’t want to be people! If they were people you’d make them slaves or—or politicians, and they wouldn’t be allowed to be clowns anymore. You’d make them talk, and work, and argue; you’d hold them to all the shitty standards people are held to!’

‘Pippin said it,’ Phrixus said, seeing the danger, seeing how it sounded to other people. ‘When Aix pulled me aside to see her. They refuse to speak, but they will speak to a witch.’

Aix didn’t answer, frustrated. He knew what it looked like, and he knew the clowns weren’t going to be able to stop this, either. The cat was out of the bag.

Pippin, I tried, but… you have to speak for yourselves, now. You have to tell everyone in the council, they won’t believe me.

It held more than just those words. It was assurance and threat all at once; Columbina solved the troupe’s problems.

It only took a minute for the Flash of a clown to glow and blink slowly from the balcony outside, the one that looked over the walled garden, and spanned from one of the tall gothic-arched windows beside the fireplace to the other. Gogo chirruped, and Aix was glad he’d been able to explain about claws as the kitten climbed up to stand on his shoulders, paws on his head, meow-honking.

‘Hallo, Pipkin!’ Roseblade cooed at Pippin. Pippin didn’t answer, not even a beep, as she shut the door and then turned to all the people looking at her.

She took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh, changing her Mask to be very serious and Ancient—to be the clown that all the humans had forgotten all about.

‘No,’ she said, in a stout little voice she used especially for being serious. ‘Columbina bees. Columbina for all joeys.’

38. Harlequinade

Mr Asher got up, offering his chair to Pippin. She did a handspring onto it, though even standing on the seat meant only the little fat tendrils on her head poked over the edge of the table. However, she simply vaulted herself up onto the table instead, standing on it. This made Gogo get down onto Aix’s lap again, and—hesitantly, because he Wasn’t Allowed On Tables—put an experimental paw on the table. As usual, Aix gently pushed his paw off with a finger.

Pippin looked very much smaller than usual because of her unitard; usually, like most clowns, she wore very loose clothing. Now, in stark black and white with green beetles beaded onto her costume (the one at her shoulder was actually part of an antique brooch from the 19^th century), her smallness was very clear.

‘Joey bees for playtime,’ she said to the assembled, hands on her hips. ‘No bees peepoh. No make a joey work.’

Pippin pointed to the kitten. ‘Liddoh brothercat. Okopus. Ollie-phant. Joey.’

‘Animal welfare,’ Aix corrected, because he was in zoology and rescue, and had the experience to be suspicious of the phrase ‘animal rights’. ‘People have rights; animals have laws protecting their welfare.’

‘Ye! Joeys bees aminal. No human beans. Aminal beans,’ Pippin said stubbornly. ‘Joey bees see what humans-peepoh do to other humans-peepoh. Peppoh live in Big Easy town. Peppoh see what a white human beans do to a black human beans,’ Pippin said, looking at Mistress intensely, before looking around at all of them. ‘I see how magics-peepoh do to other magics-peepoh-the-babies. I see you,’ she said, ominously.

‘I see what Bad Man do to René-he-baby,’ Pippin went on. ‘I see what Bad Lady do to Fixis-she-baby. I see what humans-peepoh do. All joey see. We no wan’ human beans rights. No bees civazashun beans.’ She shook her head and made a sharp cutting motion with her hands, her Flash going red with disagreement. ‘No detu. Joey no civazashun beans, joeys aminal beans.’

‘I suppose to deny you would be disrespectful of your autonomy,’ Mistress said. ‘but it rests uneasy with me.’

Pippin came over and silently opened her arms in offer of a hug. Mistress allowed her, gently putting her hand on Pippin’s back as Pippin hugged around her neck.

‘Is okay magic lady doin’ a Concern. But Joeys not bees like you. But I see. Peppoh see.’

‘Harlequin,’ Aix translated, by now having learnt that Pippin, who avoided consonant blends, called harlequins ‘shenanigans’ instead—where and how she’d learnt the meaning of that word, he was curious to know.

‘Ye,’ Pippin said, with a little nod. ‘Peppoh bees live down down down inna jazztown! Peppoh Mari Gra Joey.’ Pippin said this with a tone of much awe and impress.

‘Pepper was Alix St Croix’s clown in the 1920s, in New Orleans. We—well, my cousin—recently reunited with him,’ Hext said. ‘You all remember my goy cousin, the Cultbreaker?’

‘Are you also “many lots years”, little one?’ Mr Asher said, now sitting where had once been Rosenrot’s chair, since he’d given Pippin his, despite her being on the table. Pippin gasped melodramatically, making her eyes wide and her Mask shocked, splaying a tiny, inky hand on her chest.

‘Misser sir! As’een a lady her age!’ she said censoriously, drawing herself up to look down her tiny button nose at him in scandal and with the biggest frown she could muster, her ruff fluffed out and Flash in her Mask making it sparkle like a drag queen’s glitter. Roseblade and the other fops giggled, and Aix stifled laughter. To his enormous credit, Mr Asher managed to keep from laughing, though his beard curled in a smile, dark eyes twinkling.

‘Ah, of course, my most humble apologies, madame,’ he said gravely, with a little bow. ‘I withdraw my question.’

‘Is Pepper older than you, bean?’ Aix asked, knowing he could speak to her casually, because she understood his respect for her even so. She respected him in turn, and really, Aix felt Pippin was the only person where he was on equal footing. It was an odd feeling, but a nice one. They took turns taking care of one another, and the rest of the time they were friends. She was the best roommate he’d ever had.

‘And what does Pepper remember?’ Aix knew this game, he knew the correct question was ‘what does x remember?’, because clowns did not count, they didn’t like to. It was like how fae didn’t believe in writing things down if those things were important. Clowns, also, seemed to have… not exactly a collective memory; but, because they were psionic, they could share any kind of information they wanted instantly, rather like a sort of joey-wide intranet. So, it was a crowd-sourced community database of information.[44]

‘Peppoh mem’r…’ Pippin paused in that particular way when she was assembling a word. ‘…waranateen bees innavenened. Onna islan waaaaay away. Inna sillytown.’

‘Well, she ain’t talkin’ about Mexico City, old son,’ Aix said, arching a brow. Scarpa cackled, at that—they had quickly become friends, but Scarpa still hadn’t known Aix for more than a day or so, and wasn’t familiar with just how unafraid of him Aix was.

‘Could you translate, for those of us who don’t speak English well,’ Claudiu asked, a little shyly. Aix looked at Pippin for permission, and she nodded.

‘She said, “Pepper remembers quarantine being invented. On an island way far away, in Sillytown. It’s silly because the humans built it on top of the water”. Pip, is that why joeys started to get pushy about masks and washing hands?’

Pippin nodded. ‘Peppoh—an Miss’r Ban. Rosie fren.’ She pointed at Roseblade. ‘Miss’r Ban amemer Bad Miss’r Death come, like Bad Miss Rona. Come when he fancy joey live inna Big House inna Rosielan’.’

Aix was silent for a while, parsing this—and also parsing the shock as he put it together, who Young Master Ban was.

Clowns never died; and, during the last days of the 20^th century, when the information superhighway had started but hadn’t been choked and exhibitionified with social media, there had been quite a few niche message boards and LiveJournal communities for clownkeeping enthusiasts. And, on said message boards and LiveJournal communities, there had been groups of people devoted to stringing together evidence, trying to track clowns through the years. Some were easy—everyone knew Robin Goodfellow, he was still called that and well-documented. But many clowns had just seemingly disappeared, especially because there had long been superstition about their being some form of fae, and it being that they were only pets, and not noteworthy. The group effort, the ability to communicate on a global scale, had helped the clownkeeping community find some of these elder joeys, and one in particular had been everyone’s literal white whale:

White Peter, the beloved clown of Charles II of England. White Peter, often cited as the first therapy clown. White Peter, who was—and this was important, because it should have made him easy to find—albino.

There was a theory, put forth by someone in a LiveJournal community Aix had once been a part of, that White Peter had been all over the British isles, and still lived there somewhere, passed down through a family somehow hidden from history; the legitimacy of all of the evidence was, unfortunately, tarnished by some of the less legitimate sources. The post had become legendary for the bullying that followed Jem_is_writing’s long essay, and was now a meme that most people didn’t remember the source of, forever obscuring and obstructing any attempt to find White Peter ever again. If you saw a white anything—an animal, a rock, anything—you took a photo and said you’d found White Peter. It had begun with just animals in the UK but had gotten more and more surreal and dadaist over the years, as internet humour had evolved to be less and less comprehensible. Even Aix’s favourite show had joked that one of the characters—the white and pink one, with the pink eyes and the powerful ‘master’—was White Peter.

‘Translation?’ Claudiu asked. Aix sighed, and finally realised he could take off his mask, which was soggy and awful. Carefully, he did so, peeling off the tape, which was very sticky and needed careful work to not simply peel off the mask and stay on his face, dried his tears, and said,

‘She said Pepper isn’t the only clown that remembers plagues. Young Master Ban remembers when the Black Plague came through London.’ Aix paused, kissing Gogo’s little forehead contemplatively. ‘Back when Young Master Ban was called White Peter, so… the Restoration period.’ Afraid he was going off on a tangent, Aix looked at Gogo for a moment and then went on, ‘…anyway, she says Pepper and Master Ban being familiar with plagues meant they could impart to the other joeys how important it was to wash hands and for humans to wear masks. And, I imagine, tell them that joeys needn’t worry about catching or passing it on.’

‘Well like… they’re psionic. All of clowndom. They talk to each other?’ It wasn’t a weird notion to Aix, but he realised to people who hadn’t grown up with something like the internet, it would not be a thought, even if they could. ‘I… sorry, I thought all psions would have thought of doing that, but… that’s because I grew up when a global instant-communications network was already established,’ he added, mostly to himself.

‘…The implications of that are chilling,’ Michaela said. Hext shoved at her shoulder lightly.

‘Nah, you’re just saying that because you only interact with actual monsters. Clowns ain’t monsters, they’re clowns.’

‘Is it a true collective mind, or is the sharing voluntary?’ Garnet asked, in a surprisingly shrewd and thoughtful voice. ‘The Quakingfolk are a collective mind, but the Sluagh simply have a sort of… group chat. They can keep secrets, if they want to.’ When everyone looked at him with the same shock, he shrugged. ‘What? It’s useful for knowing who you can fuck without Mumsy finding out.’

‘They’ve been here for hundreds of years, gathering all our secrets,’ the King murmured, though his low voice carried. ‘We thought they were safe, but they live with and without the Mummery. They’re a leak if they are able to communicate so clearly at will.’

‘No!’ Pippin said immediately, and Aix felt her fear—she knew what a genocide was. ‘Joey silly, nobody lis’en he! Joey nice, joeys no mean to nobody!’ Her Mask was distressed, and she looked at Aix. ‘Tell him, Duckie. Tell him Sophie says.’

Sophie. Ah, yes. Aix’s favourite tv show that wasn’t animated had some very good lessons on human nature, being that every episode was a heist; and Aix had been watching said show a lot for comfort in the past couple of weeks. Pippin was showing him her memory of one particular scene, where Sophie was coaching a young team member in their first grift.

People who are greedy and use people, they have a blind spot—they can’t imagine anyone who’s not like them.

It was gratifying and relieving to know Pippin only acted innocent. She knew the score, really. She always had. Aix suspected she was the same age as Pepper, and knew she couldn’t admit it or people wouldn’t think she was Baby anymore, and wouldn’t let her be.

Aix looked around at everyone, just to be sure he could say what he wanted to say without solecism, because it was a pretty serious thing to accuse people of.

‘With the exception of Cthulhu and possibly Mistress and Mr Asher, all of you are from cultures that know and use violence—including betrayal—to control others. I know for a fact you’re all predatory creatures. Clowns are none of these things, and that makes it hard to understand they’re not going to even consider betrayal, because the idea of controlling other people isn’t something they would ever want to do. It’s like… why would a fish dream of arson?’

Aix wasn’t sure if this landed, exactly, but Pippin assured him she did see the change, the way Aix’s words made everyone stop and reconsider their suspicion; and Pippin also came over and hugged Aix, too.

‘…Clowns saved lives,’ Milady said to the King, finally. ‘They were insistent and that saved lives. I saw them, wherever I travelled. Shaming people without masks. Pestering them. Mocking them.’

‘In DC too,’ Mistress said. ‘And making themselves a wall around the vulnerable. Teaching the children, and the homeless, and anyone else that they could.’

‘And the south,’ Mike agreed. ‘News was mightily cross with ‘em, so were the anti-maskers. But you cain’t stop Old Joe if he gets a notion, and that’s the truth.’

‘You ever been to Boston?’ Heather asked, with a wry smile. Aix was immediately intrigued, especially since Pippin gave a type of laugh he’d never heard before—a mischievous one. ‘Unwise to consider starting shit with joeys, young man,’ she said to Dracula, once again drawing the impression of her true size around herself. She didn’t change shape or size, but somehow you were reminded of just how big a seal she really was. ‘They don’t start fights, but they’ll finish one.’

Punch not short for notheen, in Boss Town. Pippin answered, covering her mouth to stifle her wicked giggle, her Mask turning impishly red and black and white, and her Ears raising and going stripey, like the horns of the animated imps on a cartoon Aix had shown her recently. She showed him the distinctively Bostonian clowns—called ‘boyos’ or ‘the big lads’—who were and had always been part of the Irish community. And big they were—not taffy-stretched and spindly like a Nightwatch, but what Aix could only describe as strapping, wiry with muscle and lean as fish.

And they did indeed punch; but always up—cops, skinheads, abusers, any and all landlords (well! They were Irish clowns, after all), and they Loomed as well as Nightwatchers did, which meant they were good as bouncers or as silent intimidation against scabs during strikes. Boston clowns were working clowns, had always been, and were the only clowns that truly fought—willingly, readily, and well.

Aix couldn’t help the way one side of his mouth tugged up in a smile. You know, we’re going to Boston in January. Maybe it wasn’t on-topic, and maybe Aix was missing the rest of the conversation going on around him, but right now he didn’t care—he needed a break.

Pippin gasped, her Flash turning from mischief-red to excited blue and yellow and pink. She did her usual excited handspring, and was on the floor and running outside, Gogo laying his ears back at her loud beeping and hunkering down, tail curling around himself. Even though Pippin was his friend, she was still very Concerningly Loud sometimes.

‘Tătic,’ Claudiu said softly, ‘I think the little one is right; perhaps it is time for a recess? There is much for all of us to think on.’

39. Intermission

Aix didn’t move, always one for letting everyone else get up and leave first; instead, he pet Gogo, the kitten purring up a storm and kneading with his fresh-clipped claws on Aix’s thigh, eventually letting Aix turn him over and cradle him like a baby, petting his face and neck, and a little of his chest. Gogo let him, because Aix was safe, and never touched Gogo to hurt him. Even going to the vet had been explained; and, afterward, Gogo felt strongly that humans were very magical, indeed.

Aix’s favourite thing was just to hold him and pet him, and while Gogo still liked to play and run, it was very nice to have a big warm friend with hands who just wanted to share them with you, and that was all.

Aix had wondered why Cthulhu was so quiet, but knowing why René had been so quiet had put him in mind that anyone quiet may just struggle as much with speaking up as anybody anxious or easily overwhelmed. Now, however, he saw Cthulhu had been trying very hard to let Aix have his independence and autonomy, and Aix loved him all over again. Cthulhu was wrapped around him in the space between breaths—and someone with tentacles gave very comprehensive hugs.

‘I love you,’ Aix said. ‘I missed you so much—no, no Gogo, it’s okay, it’s okay, Gogo,’ he said, as the kitten squirmed and panicked. But Aix let him go, not trapping him, and Gogo leapt off him, though he hid under the table, not going too far, trusting Aix’s tone, understanding his words—and, after a moment, the strange not-human that had appeared so suddenly and wrapped around Aix.

SNAKESNAKESNAKE!!!! Gogo answered, fluffing out and hissing at the snake coming toward him, raising a paw to strike repeatedly at it as hard as he could—all the harder because his claws were blunted so he didn’t hurt his witch’s soft skin.

Chtulhu saw that the cat was possessed of a very strong instinct to fear anything that resembled a snake, and pulled away.

‘Let him be, Jojo,’ Aix said softly. ‘You just startled him, that’s all. Cats are prey animals.’

‘Also that,’ Aix said, unsurprised. ‘We can get him acclimated, just give him a little time. Maybe Pippin can help explain you to him, she’s good at that.’

‘I have missed Pippin. I think I will join the garden party, and get to know my little cousins.’

Aix noticed how he was using more vernacular, however carefully he still set each word out. ‘That sounds like a great idea,’ he said.

‘I should,’ Aix said, uncomfortable at speaking aloud on a weakness like being tired. He didn’t want to need rest, there was so much to do and so many conversations he wanted to have, and kept getting interrupted by needing rest or food or….

Mistress was in front of him. ‘May I cut in?’ she asked in her quiet voice. Aix looked up immediately, the words Yes, Mistress! Trying to leap out of his mouth. He held them in; she wasn’t his Mistress.

‘I misjudged your intentions,’ she said, ‘against what my colleagues and friends had told me about you.’

‘I mean, that’s understandable?’ Aix said, bewildered. ‘You have every right not to trust a white person? Like ever again?’ It wasn’t the first time he’d said this, but it was the first time it hadn’t been to an angry teenaged classmate who was too worked up to hear the words he was saying.

She was surprised into a laugh, at that. ‘That is refreshing,’ she said. ‘But only applies to strangers, you know. You were not a stranger.’

‘Well,’ Aix said, not having a sentence after that. ‘Um,’ he went on, eloquently, and then decided to be straightforward. ‘I’m not good at this,’ he said, ‘I don’t—I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, or how I’m supposed to reply.’

She chuckled, but touched his shoulder gently. ‘Forgive me, I’m used to talking to politicians. What I mean is that I would like to apologise to both you and Pippin, for dragging clowns into a spotlight they have never wanted.’

Aix didn’t know what to say to that; because it wasn’t okay—Pippin and all the other clowns were going to be very upset and scared, and Aix didn’t trust anyone who had been around this table to really comply with not treating sapient animals like people; but it had also been an honest miscommunication informed by very reasonable concerns. ‘I appreciate your apology,’ he said, feeling like he didn’t deserve it at all, not really knowing what to do with that.

‘The good doctor tells me you have some interest in bimbofication,’ she said, changing the subject. It would be a shock, but she sensed that was needed here; she wanted to see him open up.

‘Oh, yes,’ Aix said, relaxing fractionally. ‘I guess it’s not surprising you know what it is, even if nobody that knows you seems to.’

She chuckled at the slight tone of disappointment in his voice, sitting down in the chair the King had recently vacated, and crossing her shapely, nylon-clad legs. ‘Have you met my dear little Cream girl?’

‘Mm, she’s frolicking around in the garden, I think,’ Mistress said, smiling. ‘You know science, everyone says. I have a question that has no ready answers, perhaps you might know.’ She got up. ‘Step out onto the balcony with me?’ She glanced up at Cthulhu. ‘I wish to speak privately to him, please.’

‘Is there somewhere to sit?’ Aix said, but was getting up, hugging Cthulhu one last time. She means you need to go, he explained, feeling Cthulhu not quite understanding.

When you are finished with her question, I want to show you something I found. It is very beautiful and René told me if I find a beautiful thing, it is a good gift to bring you alone to see it.

I’d love to, I missed you too. Aix went up on tiptoe to kiss Cthulhu’s cheek—or as near to it as he could get, anyway, with how tall Cthulhu was. Then, Aix went out onto the balcony with Mistress, the night air cool but still summery, the sound of crickets and nightbirds somewhat drowned out by the laughter, honking, and sounds of playing in the garden below, which had no lights but the glow from the clowns. He sat down on one of the willow chairs by the balcony railing, looking out at the garden and the dark vale beyond, and the stars. The moon had been full before they’d left New York—it was waning now, half in darkness but not quite the Cheshire smile that was Aix’s favourite.

White flowers climbed the railing and up the wall, trained away from the balcony floor; they were open, despite the darkness, and looked like morning glories; Aix wasn’t great at identifying flowers, but he did happen to know these were moonflowers—they smelled apple-y, which he’d never known, and the formidable hulk of them, the proliferation of star-shaped blooms as they climbed up the castle wall, said they’d been here a while. There were a lot of moths fluttering around them, and one bopped clumsily against Aix’s cheek, which made him giggle.

Mistress shut the balcony doors, her heels clicking on the stones in a way that made Aix shiver agreeably—high heels on stone, the slight gravel-rasp with the clicketing, was one of his favourite sounds in a very passively aroused sort of way. He never said anything, though, just enjoying it as part of the rest of the sensual pleasure from the surroundings. He’d been feeling jittery and almost panicked in the meeting, but coming outside and sinking into the smell of the garden flowers and the forest beyond, and the darkness, and the fresh air, with the sounds of happy playing below, had fixed his mood. And the heeled step of Mistress as she came back over to sit on the willow chair next to Aix was just icing on that cake.

‘My dear Cream is the only of my dolls that wished to be milked; and further, to have me drink of her.’ And she paused, watching Aix carefully; he lived in René’s city, in Mistress’ old one, and part of her still felt protective of Baltimore, and felt entitled to judge this new not-Hunter. Would he be as vanilla as every other Hunter before?

Instead of disgust, however, she scented arousal, and saw those pupils go a little wider, and not because of the dark. She went on before he could ask why she’d paused, ‘I found that contrary to her milk being ashes in my mouth, it nourished me, as much as blood—perhaps more. Obviously, this is not a question one can look up in any library or internet archive, but there is no record of it among our archives either—and I do not wish to make it known widely, not until I understand it.’

‘Milk is filtered blood,’ Aix said. ‘It’s all blood. Everything is filtered blood. That’s what blood is for.’

‘Hm,’ Mistress said, and was quiet for a bit. Was it that simple? Could it be that simple? She chuckled to herself at her own silliness, in thinking something so enormously changing would have to be complicated. ‘I have never received nutrition from any other bodily fluid.’

‘Well, milk is supposed to be nutritious. All the others are waste, other than the ones that are lubricant.’

If the thought she’d ever been in situations to consume other things disgusted him, she didn’t see evidence of it—and at her age, her level of perception, that meant there simply wasn’t any.

‘I understand what René meant about talking to you being relaxing. You have absolutely no judgement, no hang-ups about anything.’

‘Not for bodies or sex, no. Bodies are a wonderful organic machine, and sex is just one of the wonderful and powerful things that bodies can do.’ Aix paused, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t… have a lot of disgust, overall,’ he said, with a tone of a man having a realisation. ‘I have involuntary physical reactions that other people mistake for disgust, but it’s not, like, a thing I was taught.’ Which was, Aix thought, rather startling, considering he did have OCD. ‘Anyway, I understand not wanting to go public with this just yet.’ He looked away, and she knew he was hiding something. ‘Your submissive is really lucky,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’d love to have working teats.’

He wasn’t looking at her, but Mistress was sure her eyes lit with an eager flame, at those words. ‘Would you…’ she breathed. She’d been told by colleagues and spies of hers that this witch was trans in some fashion, but gender didn’t mean anything, when it came to kinks….

‘It’s… it’s weird. My whole life I wanted them gone, because they hurt, and so all I got to experience was the bad side of having tits—the overheating, the chafing, the pain, the harassment, the slut-shaming—and not the good parts. But fake ones don’t work, so…’ He fiddled with his French cuffs. ‘Sorry,’ he said, finally. ‘You didn’t um, you didn’t sign up to hear my thoughts on this.’

‘I don’t get to hear thoughts on this enough for my liking,’ Mistress said with a soft little smile. ‘Not from this perspective. I might be able to give you working tits, depending on your surgical history.’

‘I don’t know the details of like, whether I still have lymph nodes or anything, because I never got follow-up appointments and my ex husband threw me out before I could go to them.’ As always, it was difficult to go over those memories, Aix angry that he couldn’t enjoy the surgery because once again the people he lived with were so abusive and selfish.

Mistress seemed to know how to draw the pain out; not by Aix’s usual method, of covering up the pain with jokes and a mask that wore a smile, but not with the violent forced catharsis Aix had learnt in asylums and from therapists either. They just talked—they talked about the finer points of plastic surgery, and about Aix’s surgeon, who was a friend of Mistress’, that Mistress had taught a few techniques. She got him to actually open up about the complicated tangle of feelings that resided in teats, for him—shame and desire and resentment and longing and wishing badly they were not so gendered, telling her of fruit bats, where all adults lactated, with the tone of someone who envied them, and too, who held the knowledge of this as the most precious treasure he had ever found in his life—and the sorrow of loss, of never having had the chance to enjoy his own, for they hadn’t been right, not really, and he wasn’t supposed to have had them.

‘To be intersex—to be hermaphroditic,’ he said, softer, fiercer. ‘I hate calling myself intersex, it’s so cold. Hermaphroditos is my god, and I was made like to him, and there is no shame in that—to be a hermaphrodite, that is a terrible pain to live with. The software is male, and I’m not—I’m not well, on the hormones that make teats. Œstrogen makes me sick, and so much of my sickness goes away when I’m on T. But it’s—it’s hard, to not be able to shapeshift. I should be able to shapeshift,’ he said, almost to himself.

‘Tell me,’ Mistress asked, ‘and I know this is a difficult question to ask; if the software was female, if your body could be as healthy as you are now, and still have fertility, and milk, would you?’

‘Yes. If I knew my body felt better when I had an E-dominant system, yes, in a heartbeat. I wanted to be a lady, when I was little. But I got the wrong puberty. I got, like, huge tits, but they weren’t right. They were always empty, like post-menopausal tits, but I was eight!’ he said, with rising anger, old anger and pain.

‘And my period didn’t come until I was sixteen! It was all wrong, even though on the surface, nobody understood. They ignored everything that was wrong—I had tits, and they were huge, so I must be really feminine, and nevermind about the hair, everyone has hair. But… I’ve seen lots of naked people. Regular people. Tits aren’t supposed to be furry, not like mine. They aren’t supposed to be sunken, not in your teens when you just got them. There was something wrong, and nobody would believe me, and I didn’t even know how to explain it.’ He cupped his hands over his nose and mouth, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, sighing. ‘Sorry. I just—’ He sniffled, pulling out a handkerchief and taking off his glasses, laying them on the side-table and covering his face.

‘Yes,’ he said, finally. ‘All I have ever wanted is to have had the right puberty. But that’s not what my body wants or needs. It needs to be full of testosterone. My body needs testosterone—it’s too fragile without it, it needs the coarseness. My voice needs to sound like this, as much as I miss singing higher, I don’t—speaking in a soprano range feels… it hurts, it’s wrong. I need it for so many things, it makes everything feel better, work better. Physically. And—having big tits is just like… something I was promised, that became a kink because I wanted it so much, and… I can’t. Trying would just make me sick, and hurt. I have to listen to my body, I have to, because nobody else ever did. It doesn’t matter what my heart wants, this is the body I have, this is the body I was given. It’s not as simple as what I want, like everyone says.’

‘All the trans stuff, you know. “You can be whatever gender you want to be” and “You can take whatever hormones or do whatever mods you want”. Bullshit,’ he said, bitterly. ‘Some of us are made of wet tissue paper and pain.’

‘Those who have never gone through surgery often do not understand that even plastics carry risk, and long-term effects. And those who wish to destroy transgender people have also destroyed any chance of the conversation having nuance, or consideration for an individual’s health.’

‘Preach,’ Aix said, with a watery laugh. ‘Everything I just said is so taboo. Other trans people would take it in such bad faith.’

‘I don’t,’ she said, quietly. ‘You did not go from female to male; you started somewhere that is not at all female. Why would others on a different road have your experience, your needs, even if their destination is the same?’

Aix sat with that a while, looking out at the night sky, listening to the insects, the playful voices and laughter below them, the avian noises of clowns at play.

He didn’t want to accept that he’d never been a girl to begin with. Accepting that would mean… what, exactly? What did it mean for him? What did it mean outside of the cesspit of insults and lies and bullying?

Outside of bullying, or the potential thereof—there was an alien concept, he thought to himself. How long had he been living his life just… expecting every person he met to start a fight, putting on his armour of silence and arm’s-length on every day, learning from the trauma at the hands of cruel people…

To be beaten and betrayed and then be told that nothing changes
That it will always be like this?

She saw him think, at that, looking away, down, and saying softly, ‘I had an aunt like me, but the other way around. On the Italian side,’ he said. ‘I never… I never got to know her. I don’t.’ He took a shaky breath, tears on the edge of his voice again. ‘I don’t think I was allowed.’

He was quiet for a while, breaths shuddering, and swallowed hard. ‘It hurts. Losing that. I think about it all the time.’

‘You are not alone, anymore,’ Mistress said softly, getting to her feet, and offering her hand. ‘Come inside, Mr Asher can help you find a little peace before the rest of the meeting.’

‘And by “peace” do you mean “orgasm”?’ Aix joked, and felt exceedingly accomplished and wonderful when she actually laughed. She had a very rich laugh, the sort of laugh people had called ‘plummy’ once upon a time….

[1] Their current apartment, which was just as old, did not have a usable outlet in the bathroom; the only one was on the light fixture above the mirror, which had only two prongs and—critically—did not even work.

[2] “Bunny” was the term Warren and other people from Eglenor had decided to use for those who startled easily from various mental disorders—there was a stubborn disinclination to adopt clinical language among them, even that which had become part of the modern lexicon. Fairy tale beings, Virginia had observed, were almost allergic to speaking literally.

[3] The First Clown was not a well-known mythic figure to most, even among pagans; but Aix had always been fascinated by clowns, even if he’d never been able to get one. Jocosa wasn’t quite a deity per se, but there were clowns and there was Clown. Jocosa was also why clowns were called ‘joeys’, and was where the word ‘joke’ came from.

[4] One of the people Virginia had found and recruited to man the small office in the basement that acted as the immigration checkpoint between Eglenor and the Grimmwelt was very into the old traditional fantasy epics, particularly Tolkien. The Eglenfolk adored this, and Megan tended to use words in their more old-fashioned and ‘Tolkienish’ sense. This had caught on immediately, much to the chagrin of her co-workers.

[5] Despite whatever anyone else thought this meant, Aix thought of it as being ‘attempt to control disguised by a veneer of faux-concern’, which described the usual motivation of it perfectly.

[6] Bidetti had at least convinced her that digitising the collection would go far to help preserve the information should the originals be—God forbid—lost. Dottoressa had needed no convincing about making the collection freely available to the public, though—Dottoressa was from a time when literacy was a privilege, and believed that if you could read it, you deserved to know it.

[7] This was a job title, one that the Wizards were very pleased about. It had nothing to do with magic, other than the fact that information technology seemed like magic to most people, even those who worked in the field.

[8] And, he noted in a small private thought, it was more than even Shob-Zhiggurath had achieved. Perhaps that would show her she had peers.

[9] René was French, so Aix’s name didn’t mean ‘duck’ to him, it meant ‘water’, and Aix had talked with him about that the night before, when they’d met after the boylesque show.

[10] They purposely avoided therapy words for all of this at all costs. Calling it therapy words made the magic not work anymore.

[11] René was too old to believe whoring would stay illegal for the rest of time.

[12] Aix hadn’t met George, yet; but it was Pippin’s memory and Pippin knew it was George.

[13] Victoria had, as a toddler, marked difficulty with long words and dipthongs. Hence, ‘Abuelo’ became ‘Abi’ and, like all of these sorts of titles, it stuck.

[14] Aix called the subway its own borough and had since they’d lived in New York in their mid-twenties; it was their favourite borough.

[15] This was, owing to the sound resembling a wooden clapper, called Slapstick.

[16] Himeros.

[17] Aix had briefly conversed with Jasper on the subject of Makeup Is A Fun Toy, and both were glad to find someone with that opinion.

[18] Having a sensitive nose did not mean Aix had a trained nose; something which he’d always been frustrated about.

[19] René remembered being forced to wrestle with furniture not designed with maintenance in mind, and understood from George how one truly eased the work servants did

[20] René did not mind being a monster; he had been a pirate, he had squared with being called a monster while his heart was still beating.

[21] Being bisexual while working was a centuries-long practise of René’s. His personal feeling was that all whores were bisexual while working, and he made sure only to hire boys that felt the same. They advertised as much as they could that they were a molly-house, but women of a certain and very new sort of mindset felt entitled to colonise the tiny spaces mollies had carved out for themselves, and put themselves in such a place where they had the power they resented in their husbands and fathers, and nevermind how much danger it pulled down on their hosts. René, reasonably he thought, fleeced them with great pleasure. There was a reason prices were not written down anywhere.

[22] And immortal ones—Jasper had many, many people panting after his handsome softness. It had startled him at first; but after a hundred or so years, well, you got used to it.

[23] The word ‘flaccid’ seemed so insulting.

[24] most of the dancers were male werecats, since Baltimore’s Pharaoh was as lesbian as René was gay, and Mel and René had possessed an Arrangement about that for years.

[25] Aix had read Wodehouse as a newly-minted adult, and it had affected how he described everything servants did, particularly those in George’s position.

[26] Aix never remembered everything he told people, he also never expected them to remember, either. It made maintaining lies hard, which was why he didn’t lie well, even the little ones that greased society.

[27] Another faerie trait—if you didn’t have at least one subject you did this about, fae generally suspected you were conning them. René had learned that years ago, and had the luck to have grown up in an industry he could enthuse about; it was why he, among all vampires, was so trusted by those from Faerie.

[28] Michaela knew somebody almost everywhere, because of her life spent travelling the country hunting the monsters that refused to stay in the shadows; most of the ones she actually had to kill were the sort humanity didn’t have a name for anymore.

[29] And it was something of a relief to finally know he was a boy—George, like many immortals from bigendered cultures, had a very hard time understanding what ‘non-binary’ meant on a practical level, in terms of how the person wanted to be treated. And modern people did not understand the idea that there were no instructions for how to address and interact with someone that didn’t have a rôle, when ‘rôle’ was very much the important part of ‘gender rôle’, to people like George.

[30] Being the butler, George had borne more of the Heeren’s frustration than most, as he was the face to the ‘no’ she often got when trying to barge in at all hours, particularly when the Master was busy. Aix was nothing like her, but the idea of turning the tables was still rather gratifying.

[31] This was markedly odd, because the ‘twelve’ in ‘Packard 12’ indicated the number of cylinders in the engine. To have it pull up as silent as that meant they’d replaced the engine with an electric one—anathema, if you collected cars. Amber thought it was intriguing, though.

[32] Aix decided that was the least dignified version of events, and robbed her of competence, which was the most insulting thing he could think to do to her memory.

[33] Victoria had, when she’d first come to visit Aix, immediately sat him down and had him pick out a trunk from a restoration company she knew the owner of, and while Aix had been overwhelmed, Victoria’s irascible Jewish love had bustled him into letting her be kind to him, which Aix was grateful for.

[34] The kitten still had no name, but Aix was southern enough, and gay enough, for that not to matter much. He was Babbyponkin, and Precious, and Beeble, and Little Man, and all manner of other things.

[35] It was, of course, completely out of the question to claim they had come from somewhere like New Jersey.

[36] Not that clowns needed vaccinations; one of the curious things about them was that they never got sick, which is what led them to have a reputation both as demons and angelic beings, and gave them their association with doctors, particularly plague doctors.

[37] This always became more frequent during times of war or strife; since the coming of Ukrainian refugees, he had been visiting twice a week, and his donations had increased.

[38] What clowns called keepers. ‘Dottie’, in modern Foolish, was from ‘Dottore’, a little-known rôle among the traditional Italian zanni troupes, a Clownish interpretation of an archetypical human being.

[39] This had been one of Aix’s first questions to every new vampire; he liked to know where he stood.

[40] This was something Pippin had learnt from the Pards in Aix’s building, who themselves had learned it from the fantasy story it came from—and the lie-detecting cat from said story. The thing about the Eglantine was that they were very much people that already spoke in allusion—so, the modern way of communicating via meme came naturally to them. Pippin, having been raised by cats, had understood immediately (just as the Pards had) that a cat would of course know when someone was lying, and point it out in such a no-nonsense sort of way.

[41] Having had large tits from ages 8 to 30, and also having had a lifelong fascination with plastic surgery, Aix was rather a connoisseur of tits of all kinds.

[42] Aix had a gift for explaining things in clownish terms, and knowing which aspects of language would catch on best; the fact that the modern smart phone’s design was known as ‘chocolate bar’ was, as Aix predicted, adopted immediately by every clown he told it to.

[43] This was very saucy, from a clown perspective; and Pippin’s very favourite ghost with the most was seen very differently by joeys than he was by humans.

[44] He patently refused to call it a cloud.

The Sea is Also Terrifying

By Sebastian Drago Started: 4 July 2022Finished 1st Draft: 4 February 2023

Table of Contents

1. Dreams of Bondage and Bone