This was the circumstance I’d woken into. So it was come to be (in the way that the world is often unfair) that my own good fortune was balanced against another man’s ill fate. Under the shadow of that unhappiness, there were no questions turned to my supplications to the Lady. My kin spared no mind to the matter of the outcome of my communion, and so for the moment, I breathed free and easy. If I felt guilt, it was only in the fleeting, sour taste at the back of my throat – and I too easily swallowed it away.

I spent the next hour or more, alone or mostly so, in maintenance of the sewing commons. The room was large and open, like to’ve been designed for leisure or togetherness in the old way. But the needs of our commerce had turned the use of the space from the luxury of living towards the utility of making. I sorted the stacks of cut, treated leather. I oiled our spinning, pedal machine, and spooled new thread. Where there were errors in the counts, I corrected our product ledger. Mostly, I dusted every surface of the overfull space, and swept away leather shavings and lint until I was rescued.

The long curtain which closed off the hall pulled open, and a lank yellow head of hair poked through.

“Yo. Ditch the busywork,” Ashli rasped. I noted she had meticulously fixed her eye-black, I assume instead of sorting the herb cupboard. She motioned me impatiently. “Get onboard the conspiracy,”she insisted, ”chop fuck’n chop.”

The curtain swung back closed behind her as she withdrew – I packed away my supplies with a sigh and followed. As I passed into the hall, Ursula stepped to match my pace beside me. She greeted me with a clenched jaw and an overserious nod. I was met with a powerful urge to poke some fun at her expense, but overcame it for the good of the common welfare. Instead, our eldest marched us silently into the children’s room, where we found Su-Hope and Cooper settled already.

“Out!” Ashli cried, throwing her hands above her head and charging at her brother. “It’s big kids time. Go help mom boil something gross, or take a brain out of something.”

Coop and Su-Hope protested strenuously. But they had abandoned their chores early, and we used that fact (as well as some mean-spirited threats I was unhappy to be accessory to) such to extort them out of the room.

Slamming the door shut behind her, Ashli whirled to face us. She slowly peeled open a hungry grin, and fixed contracted pupils on my person. “Yes?” she declared.

Ursula regarded me with just the same scrutiny, excepting her severity, which set her mouth in a flat slash.

“…Yes,” I admitted.

Ashli struck out with her fists and Ursula startled, barely quick enough to mirror her in half-violent jubilee. They bounced off each other, seven matched blows in the precise and ordered choreography of one of their old clapping games. The younger girl only barely kept pace, and was left looking stricken for having done so.

“Fuck, yes,” Ashli whispered. “Who is she? He? They?”

“Minerva,” I blushed. It was an aspect of My Lady’s Grace I could hide behind, well and safe enough. “The Saint of Book and Battle.”

“Oh battle, battle, battle. You’re such a dude,” Ashli groaned. But she was too satisfied with her own aims to press further. She paced away, muttering to herself as she vaulted up the bunk. “Okay. We can work with this.” She launched herself up like some kind of capuchin, towards her second-floor hideaway.

I hefted our low table over to block the door, then Ursula and I waited, side by side. I cleared my throat and broached a concern I’d been sitting on the past hour as casually as I could. “It’s my thought that the business with Liam and the Mister would have been some piece of ugly.”

My cousin flinched.

“Sorry, I hope you didn’t see none of it -”

Her braid flailed as she shook her head. “No. I was inside. I think Coop did seen what was transpired, though.”

All too easily, I pictured the boy violet, and voyeur to the end of another man through the window. I grimaced as Ashli dropped clumsily to the floor with one of her treasures tins underarm.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I worry about that boy, sometimes,” I whispered on Hektor to the confidence of Jeminee.

“Like, ow. Okay here’s the plan, munchkins,” Ashli dictated. She hopped over to us on one foot, rolling her ankle to shake out the bad landing. “I’ve been working on my stitch for the big W, and I’ve figured out some shit.”

“That’s sure fine news, but it’s -”

“- not a plan,” Ursula broke in.

“Not a plan,” I echoed.

“Keep your mittens on, I’m getting there. Damn.” Ashli collapsed into a cross-legged seat and opened her tin. “Okay, so what I’m thinking is: that we can like, swap notes.”

I frowned. She motioned for us to sit with her, and I didn’t.

“Just hear me out. I’ve been at this a while, so you know, I can guide you through it.”

I scowled hard enough my brows were near pinched to my cheeks.

“No. I don’t like that look. Listen, the secret is, all the fuckin’ Twelve are interconnected.” She waved dismissively. “Or, whatever, at least there’s overlap.”

I looked thoughtfully over at Ursula. Then I grudgingly trudged over to my section of shelf to retrieve my Blessing, and sat down to make my third of the circle. The object of my providence was some surprise to the both of them.

The Argument bubbled up like spring waters through mountain gravel. It touched the edge of my thoughts, clean and chill; and a lifting satisfaction filled me, my heart floating towards my throat. Minerva’s Grace took a new shape, apart from any I’d known. She was neither loud, nor quiet – she did not push. Her influence filled the spaces between answers, not to change the meaning of things, no. It was her nature that my chosen saint simply... re-contextualized what was already true.

The Lady whispered to us in her familiar language: in the smell of iron, the proprioception of distance, the song of teeth, and her myriad other signs. But now iron strayed from the taste of blood, and emptiness became opportunities for construction. The sharp edges of my incisors cut only the precision of well-enunciated syllables, and the meaning of all signs were reinterpreted.

I believe Ashli was too deep and early into Craft to drink from a new source, but Ursula would not have been spared without providence of her own. She shivered as the foundations beneath her shifted ever so slightly.

“I thought you did the spear?” Ashli asked after a moment. She looked somewhat incredulous that it was a book in my lap instead. “What was the point of the spear then?”

“Truly,” Ursula’s voice cracked. She slumped down besides us. “It is not much my intent to complain, and I do appreciate being included – but that pole-stick was something heavy, Todd.”

“It was necessary, and I appreciate it,” I insisted. “You did right by me, and it worked, didn’t it?”

Ashli parted her hair out of her face. “Well, whatever. My point is, you asked me before what my knits did. And sure, I’m figuring them out more as I go.” She scooted closer to us and leaned forward. “But I also think I can teach my...”

“Your amulets,” I suggested.

“My amulets,” Ashli approved, “how to do new stuff.” She began unpacking her yarn and needles, as well as thick, tattered paper and a handful of bleached armadillo bones.

My cheeks puffed as I blew air through pursed lips.

I’d kept expecting my cousin to impress us. Even as we ran from it, we were still chasing after the example of inflammable powder, and the domination of lead. Surely there was more Ashli Hektor could show me than cross-knots and anemia.

“They don’t do a thing, do they,” I challenged her.

It wasn’t fair of me to say it such, and like so. I’d simply never thought I could hurt the girl. I’ve already said it, but I’d my whole life thought of her as invincible, even long after I ought to have learned better.

Her shoulders fell, and her features were gone a-tumult with anger. “Oh, well I’m sor-r-ry. I can’t just roll the fuck out of bed and conjure up a Roman fucking spear goddess on a laugh.”

I was not fool enough to misunderstand my mistake. My fingers curled into fists against my knees, and if I could have drawn in my skull like a tortoise, I’d have done just that.

“Solomon over here with his goddamn seal and key,” she practically spat.

“Nice reference,” I murmured.

“Thank you. See, I can read too. That one’s bullshit though, right?”

As an aside, and for the sake of your curiosity: I’ll reveal that Solomon’s seventy two devils are most neatly expressed inside the tables of Mendeleev. Thus they fall, at least in part, into the circle of Forge’s stewardship. But that is a secret which was then yet ahead of me.

“Probably?” I guessed. “Maybe. Or at least I can’t tell.” I took a deep breath and caught the wriggling tail of my egotism. “I don’t know,” I concluded.

Ashli regarded me with a reduced heat. Then in embarrassment, she let her hair fall into her face and roughly turned the largest of her amulets inside out.

The third dominion spread through the corners of the room, and once they were mixed together I recognized their name.

It was Homestead. Whatever fight we’d stirred up between us fell away.

“Well, anyway, for your information,” Ashli continued softly, “– my danglies can bleach the color out of juice, okay?”

At that, my cousin engaged the full measure of my attention. Color was the heart of ‘Vader sorcery, and the most insidious sign of their dominion. I’d rarely seen Ashli Hektor blush, but she did. Then she straightened her back and gathered up her confidence.

“She calls it her, um, [Sharp-Field Interaction Dispersal Tensor], okay? It’s a full and legitimate Rosary.”