Song of the Day | Dumb Things by Paul Kelly | Spotify | YouTube
Soda glanced down at herself, wondering if she looked ridiculous, regretting the lipstick, wanting to disappear. But the Stone hummed a stern rebuke. You’re right, you’re right. I’m the one with the magic bazooka. She stood a little straighter, but her heart still pounded painfully.
“Soda Jones Daughter Of Frances Jones Outsider Free Agent And Bearer Of The Stone Of Light And Darkness!” A voice bellowed into the hall as she entered.
She could practically hear all the capitalisations. The Stone of Light and Darkness? Is that your proper name? The Stone buzzed. Fancy. She walked as confidently as she could into the room.
There were eight people arrayed before her on a lit up dais, wearing heavy robes with pointy shoulders and intricate gold embroidery. They were radiating such concentrated power that Soda felt a little dizzy. She set her jaw. She was not going to let these people intimidate her. They were pretty intimidating though.
“The Most Venerable High Council of the Federated Enclave!”
Soda stood waiting awkwardly as the herald rattled off all the complex titles of each council member.
She saw Rene Mwangi standing in the middle next to a centaur, impossibly tall and slender with a beautiful white and brown dapple pattern that continued up his human bits. He gave her a little smile. She hurriedly looked away, heat growing behind her ears again. An ancient, wizened little old Indonesian lady; a soft mum-looking woman with a friendly face; a shadowy figure with a heavy glamour that obscured their features; the final three she recognised: Quiff, Tall, and Round from the attempted arrest at Lune’s place one million years and five days prior.
“The Enclave Officially Extends Their Thanks to Soda Jones for her Assistance Containing the Temporal Tear,” the herald continued, puffed and officious with her special role. Everybody turned to look at Soda. She froze, unsure of what to do.
"Um, no worries?"
There was a smattering of polite applause around the darkened room. The herald gave her an unimpressed look, and said in a more normal voice:
“We now invite everyone to join us for drinks and canapés.”
That produced a much louder round of applause, and a quartet started up. Rene Mwangi was glaring at her expectantly. She took a step towards him, only to be intercepted by Evangeline. She was buzzing with energy, her eyes glittering as she scanned the room before giving Soda a triumphant smile. She was so different from Rowan, but they were both magnetic somehow. Magic and charisma tangled up together in a cloud around them, drawing you in.
“This is perfect, we can talk to everybody important here tonight."
“What do you want to talk about?” Soda tried not to sound too suspicious.
Evangeline stopped grinning and was suddenly serious and focused. “Soda, I know my activities with the Brigade and the shame of Vincent’s behaviour give people an easy narrative about me. That I’m a tyrant, that I want to control everything. I've taken responsibility for my role in what happened with the Lokites. But things do need to change. Change is good! And the Enclave is thoroughly fossilised at this point!” She scanned the room, nakedly resentful. “I want a better future. We knew one hundred years ago that our path as a species was a ruinous one. And I’ve been proven exactly right. Everything is out of balance. Doesn’t everything seem out of balance?”
Soda shrugged noncommittally, but she found herself listening closely. “Sure, there’s a lot of bad shit going on, even without releasing a kraken.”
Evangeline leaned in conspiratorially. “I think the Covenant was already breaking down, and I’m just a convenient scapegoat. They’ll try to use us and the Artefacts to bind it up tighter than ever.”
“Isn’t it like, protecting us though? From the void, and magic nukes, and other things like that?”
“Ah!” She glanced over Soda’s shoulder and dropped to a hurried whisper, “but at what cost? How does the Covenant work? That’s a great deal of ongoing magic being used every single day. Wouldn't that be better used elsewhere?”
"Enough of your sedition." The Patron appeared beside Soda, minus the elaborate wizard robe but somehow looking even more resplendent in a royal blue silk smoking jacket.
Soda flinched. Evangeline's jaw clenched.
“Please try not to look so pleased, Ms Lorenze. You're still under house arrest. There will be a trial this time, no plea deals.”
“You’re a bully and you’re trying to frighten me Rene, but I don’t care. I know I’m right. People deserve to know the truth.”
“Please stop performing for the child and get out of my sight. You annoy me too much.”
Evangeline smirked and sauntered off.
“I see her exerting all of her will on you,” he warned Soda.
“I get it, she is very culty, I’ve been warned plenty.” Fuck this guy. Nearly thirty was not a child.
“You have been given a responsibility. Start acting like you're taking it seriously.”
Soda’s fingers stroked the Stone briefly. “Maybe I’m just doing the best I can with the tools I have. Nobody’s acting like they take me very seriously, but I’ve passed every test so far haven’t I? Except maybe I don’t talk and dress the way you like. Is that it?”
Mwangi's nostril's flared with irritation and Soda's soul quailed, but then he snorted and stared out at the room pensively.
“You're walking a very fine line and you are not nearly as prepared and capable as you think. I do not recommend being blasé about Evangeline Lorenze’s influence. She'll eat you alive and make you think you liked it.” He looked down at her. “But my daughter says you're funny and interesting, and you're tougher than you seem.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I am also… surprised. So I'll wait and see what tomorrow brings before I make a final decision about you.”
“What are my options at the moment?”
“Good night Miss Jones. Try to avoid trouble.”
And he was gone, already conferring in that silent intense way with Loup. With the Stone's power ever-increasing inside her, Soda could now see a faint shimmering between them. They were communicating telepathically. Cool and also suspicious, she thought to herself. This is just like the magazine. Cliques, factions, grudges, manoeuvres. Who’s the Mason Turner here? She scanned the room, marvelling at the sheer amount of luxury fabric on view, often on the same person. Clearly in House Orleans government, more was more. The youngest-looking Council member, Quiff, was surrounded by people and telling some story, to much laughter. There he is, she thought bitterly.
She wasn’t really sure what she was expecting from this event, but she had steeled herself for a lot of attention. In fact even though she could feel eyes on her from several directions, nobody was paying her much attention at all. She was a bit confused and disjointed until she felt the currents of magic lapping around her, and concentrated. Underneath the mild reception, there was a cacophony of spells: secret messages, probes prodding at her, defences, subtle attacks. It all washed around her like she was the prow of a ship. The Ambrosia seed was still working, she supposed. She studied the people around her with renewed interest, wondering who was actually relaxed and who was furiously paddling their little magical flippers under the water.
She wasn’t left standing alone for long. Two unfamiliar Sevenkin approached, looking exactly the same and also incredibly different. One was sharp and lean with a shaved head in an all-black suit that screamed "professional violence-doer" and the other was plump and shaggy in worn and outdated tweeds that screamed "professional book-reader". The black-suited one handed her a champagne and gave a small, pinched smile.
“Midnight.” He put out a hand and Soda shook it, feeling heavy callouses.
“Soda."
The other sibling's hands were ink-stained and soft. “Dusk.”
“Soda.”
They all stared at each other expectantly.
“Have you met all of us now?” Midnight asked lightly, sipping his champagne.
Soda did a quick mental calculation. Lune, Dawn, Nocturne, Umbra, Somnus. And now these two.
“I think so?”
“You sound unsure,” said Dusk.
Soda briefly thought of the nighttime desert dream that had plagued Nocturne’s and Somnus's minds. A face like theirs, sleeping deep underground…
“Sorry, I don’t know why! I definitely have now. Um, nice to meet you. What do you both do?”
They glanced at each other.
“I work as a research professor at the university,” said Dusk.
“I am… involved in security training for the Enclave,” added Midnight.
“How come only two of you are here tonight?”
Another pause, another glance.
“We’re not allowed to gather,” said Midnight.
“Listen,” said Dusk, leaning in a little. “Do you know what’s really going on here?”
“Absolutely not,” said Soda, taking a hearty swig of champagne.
“Who made the Enclave?” Dusk whispered urgently.
“Um, like, a consortium of covens and families and…”
“Yes yes, we’ve heard that story. But we don’t really know. There’s a hole in our history that shouldn’t be there. Evidence strangely missing. Records altered.”
“Really! How can you tell?”
“Whatever was done, it wasn’t complete. There are certain far-flung locations that got missed, things so buried and secret that nobody knew to erase them. And they tell a different story.”
“What do they say?”
“That there was no great magical war at all. It never happened.”
“Salacious! So what’s the Covenant for then?”
They both fixed her with glittering reptilian stares.
“Good question,” asked Midnight.
“Doesn’t this look cosy!” Evangeline appeared, bursting their little whispering bubble.
Soda felt strangely guilty, but why should she? She was allowed to talk to the Sevenkin, wasn’t she? The brothers smiled coolly at Evangeline in exactly the same way, belying the difference in their clothes.
“I was just inviting Soda to visit the university,” said Dusk at a normal volume.
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother. Nice campus but nobody there is interested in actually doing any magic.”
“Perhaps you should visit too, Evangeline. You may discover that’s not as true as you think.”
“Soda, there’s someone I’d like you to talk to?” The smile didn't reach Evangeline's eyes.
“Sure, I’ll be right along!” Soda sipped her champagne to hide her annoyance.
Midnight watched Evangeline go join the bull-headed Doctor Carter by the buffet, then glanced back to Soda, and down to the Stone.
“This isn’t a coincidence. You, the appearance of this relic now. This will lead to violence. I should know.”
“Why, because you’re a spy?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Spies try to avoid violence, Soda Jones. You seem to be sleepwalking right into it. Pay attention. An opportunity will inevitably arise where you can change things for the better. Please take it.”
And with that, they both left. She wandered over to Evangeline and the doctor.
“What was that about?” Evangeline watched them leave the party with a small frown.
Soda badly wanted to believe in Evangeline, but there was a distance between her casual tone and the bright-eyed look she gave her. And the bull guy? Who knew? She shrugged.
“The usual. Mysterious comments, veiled threats, you know how it is with that lot.”
“I do! I wouldn’t worry about the Sevenkin, they’re well past their use-by date. A bit batty. But please, I want you to talk to my good friend Doctor Carter here. He wants to ask you some questions about the Stone, so he can make preparations for the ritual.”
She then surprised Soda by leaving, bee-lining for a group of indistinct individuals lurking in murky shadows at the edge of the room.
“Who are they?” Soda squinted, trying to see into the gloom.
The Stone hummed in warning, giving her a little start.
“The keku,” rumbled Carter from beside her. He had a deep, pleasant voice. “People and creatures from the… darker places.”
She liked American accents, they made her think of her dad.
“Oh cool, like vampires and werewolves and whatnot?”
“That's right."
"Surprised she's allowed to talk to… people like that."
Carter snorted gently. "Do you see anyone here standing up to her if she really wanted something?"
"The Patron yells at her like, all the time."
"He's afraid of her. They all are."
"Why?"
"Because she's powerful, and she wants to change things. They're worried she might actually be able to."
"Mwangi says he's making changes." Soda didn't know why she was defending the Patron. She wasn't really, she just wanted to see what Carter would say. He hadn't pulled any punches so far.
"He would say that!" Carter gave her a wry grin, shrugging. "You don't get to the top of this kind of organisation without compromising everything you believe in."
"You think Mwangi sold out?"
"Course he did. He wasn't born into House Orleans, not with that skin colour!" He gestured to his own dark brown hand.
"Where's he from then? What's his deal?"
"Escaped from the household of a Kenyan warlord when he was a kid and made his way to France. Joined the House as an apprentice to a minor sorcerer. Worked his way up."
"I didn't think it seemed like the kinda place a poor…" Soda hesitated.
"Black?" Carter provided, arching his bull brows.
"Yeah, a poor black kid could climb to the top."
"They didn't think so either. He's an impressive man."
"And hey, what about Loup? Was he also from the same place?"
"Yeah, they came together."
"Does he ever speak?"
"Nope, not that I've seen."
"Are they together-together?"
"I don't think so. I think it's more than that. Brothers, or soulmates. They have a strange connection." Carter frowned, studying the crowd.
"Yeah, I felt it just before! I think they talk telepathically!"
"For real? I never knew that. Rare skill. Wait, how did you know that?"
Soda gestured to the Stone. He looked at it with unabashed fascination.
"Such a small thing, to contain so much," he murmured.
"It scares me half to death, truly." It was a relief to say. The bravado had been fun for a bit, but she was already exhausted by how much energy it took. Carter was very forthright, so it was easy to share.
"Good!" He chuckled. "I think that's healthy." He glanced at the Stone again. "What's it… what's it like?"
"Well, it's getting worse quickly. I can feel and see a lot of magic now. I can see a lot of hidden activity in this room. Colours, and smells. Secrets."
He pulled out a notebook and started furiously jotting in a spiky shorthand Soda couldn't read.
“Fascinating. Tell me about how you got it?”
“It was hidden at my dad’s house, I had no idea.” She wondered how much to say and how to say it.
“And what happened when you picked it up?”
“I…don’t know. It was strange. I felt a very odd sensation.”
“Did you see anything? Visions?”
Soda tried to say yes, a dark forest, but it jammed in her mouth and what came out was: “I don’t remember. But then Rowan Ash was shooting at me at the time.”
He watched her closely, but nodded and scribbled. He asked a few more simple questions about what kind of magic (liquid and golden, unlike anything else) and the feeling of power (a raging undercurrent trying to carry her away) and some specific questions about the ritual from earlier. Then he put his notebook away and gave a warm smile, which was strange on his bovine face.
“Thank you ma'am, this will be very helpful for our planning.”
“No problem. You can call me Soda.”
“Soda. Great name. You want a drink?”
“Thanks! My dad was a Californian. I'll skip the drink, this champers is going straight to my head as it is. Big few days I guess.”
“That’s an understatement! I wish they served beer at these things."
“Man I could murder an IPA," Soda agreed with feeling.
"Nice! When this is over, we should go to this great craft brewery I know in LA. Has a raspberry IPA that's outta control."
"I'll definitely take you up on that, if I don't die from magical curses, apocalypses, or maniacal sorceresses."
"Nah, we've got this. We've been working on it a while, I think I know what we're missing."
Soda studied him intently, not even caring that it was weird. He looked calmly confident, but with large, guileless cow eyes, it was harder to tell. "What were you trying to do anyway? Dawn thought Evangeline was splicing humans and animals together to make a rebel army."
"Imaginative, but messy and unnecessary. No, as you saw, this was just the unfortunate result of experiments gone wrong."
"What was the experiment?"
Carter glanced around, feigning nonchalance. "If I tell you, will you promise not to mention it to the Fed?"
"Sure, I'm full of secrets at the moment, chuck another one on the pile."
He looked at her oddly but nodded. "We've been trying to communicate with the Otherworlds. We had thought a small-" he made a little slicing gesture, "-nick in the seal, just a few protons wide, would let through messages."
"Right! Well it worked in some ways, clearly. What went wrong?"
"Honestly, I'm still not sure." He looked troubled. "We targeted the centaurs, Chiron's people, because they were the most scientifically advanced and most likely to hear and respond to any message. But instead we seemed to access only the Void." He gave a little involuntary shiver.
Soda's brows knitted. "Like, okay, sure. Say I believe that explanation. Rene Mwangi thinks Evangeline is trying to destroy the Covenant and start another rebellion. If it's not that, what are you trying to achieve?"
Carter smiled a little. Soda got a sense he admired the Patron, even as he opposed him. "The Patron is a cool one, usually, ice cold, but Evangeline makes him lose his temper. He can't see past how much he hates her. He always assumes the worst, as though we all get together and do chants cursing the Enclave. It's not like that."
"But… it's not not a rebellion hey?" Soda arched her eyebrows high.
He sighed, as if making a decision, eyes darting around again, then continued. "It's more like this: we're trying to safely dismantle the Covenant. We were hoping the centaurs might want the same. Of course, the Enclave would view that as treason, and trying to dismantle the Covenant is rebellion. Evangeline imagines a fairer system than the Enclave, where we can re-establish relations with the Otherworlds."
"What about the threat of war and destruction and nightmares?" She shivered as she thought of the filth spirit, and the blazing eyes of the boar.
"There are always ways forward," Carter said, growing intense. "Scriveners are dying out because we can't access the deeper wells of magic, to come up with new spells, new answers to the problems we're facing. But I think there's great strength in humanity, and we should trust ourselves more."
Oh so Carter is a famous secret scrivener, able to write new spells…
"What would you do, if things went your way?"
"We've identified a loophole, a way to both close the tear and help dismantle the Covenant. Both safe, no destruction. Our success today gives me hope. It'll be difficult and dangerous, but I think we can do it together."
Soda's heart leapt; she couldn't help it. Someone had said they knew what to do. And they were willing to explain it to her.
"What's that?" she tried to sound nonchalant.
"If we're in control of the ritual, I can write a new clause into the Covenant, setting an end-date for a time in the future. Evangeline wanted it to be a year, I talked her into five. So five years, and it collapses naturally. That'll make it happen safely, and force everybody to negotiate on what to do next."
"…and what would the Brigade want to happen next?"
"Elections," Carter said so promptly Soda was surprised. "We're confident we could campaign and win based on our policies, and our courage. People are ready for change."
“So if you're just keen on reform, how come Rene Mwangi is so dead against it?”
“People here in House Orleans are afraid. It’s been a long time since they’ve really had to face anything new. The Covenant protects us all, that seems true enough to me. But what if we’re cutting ourselves off from being able to grow? It seems counter to every other thing we learn about doing magic. I think we’re supposed to be custodians and carers, not gatekeepers.”
Soda was quiet for a long time. An opportunity will inevitably arise where you can change things for the better. Please take it. This was the first time she'd heard anything sane and reasonable from anybody. And it sounded pretty fucking good to her.
She took a deep breath. “I may have some information that might help. You should talk to a kid named Kevin Zhang, a human social media influencer. He might know something about the third Artefact.”
Soda hoped she was making the right decision.
Carter looked deadly serious, or about as deadly serious as a soft big-eyed cow-face could look. “Thank you, Soda Jones. You’ve helped more than you could know.” He shook her hand in both of his. “It was great to meet you.”
Then he hurried off towards a side door without another word.
Soda had no time to think after that. She became engulfed in a shifting crowd of well-wishers and gawkers who wanted to ask about the Stone, and in one case, take a selfie (washed out in the low lighting, as usual). Did it hurt? Was it fun? Did she know where the third Artefact was? Was she aware of the good work of the Department of Technomantic Engineering? Perhaps, since she seemed to have influence, she might mention the matter of the budget review?
It was all a lot, and she still had a rough head from whatever cosmic rearranging had gone on the day before. She made her excuses and tried to escape, but Flintock caught her at the door. He was red-eyed and wine-smelling.
“You’re to have a guard escort back to your room.”
“Oh, er, right. Probably get lost anyway.”
“I haven’t decided if you’re under arrest or not. So as long as you don’t try to leave, you’re not under arrest, alright?”
“Sure thing Captain. Good night.”
Mercifully her protection detail were a lot less rumpled and a lot more silent than their boss, and took her a much more direct route back to her room, making her realise Gigi had truly gone the long way. Well, that was a pleasant - if complicated - thought. She wondered if she’d be allowed to hand all this over to someone else now. Maybe.
Probably not though.
Chapter Seventeen: A Midsummer Night's Work Event
Magnetism, the last Sevenkin, guileless cow eyes, you're not under arrest as long as you don't try to leave