Katalepsis

Over my long and lonely teenage decade — of Eye-borne nocturnal mathematics lessons, of daylight nightmares of the spirit-world menagerie, and of uncontrolled Slips to the otherworldly environs of a thousand Outside dimensions — I had become quite the seasoned veteran in the arts of hiding and skulking, to avoid the attention of vast and unknowable intelligences.

I had scurried from rock to rock on my hands and knees as shivering titans prowled blasted landscapes; I had wormed into nooks and crannies in the ground as blistering sunlight scorched burnt jungles to smoke and ash; I had gone silent and still and curled up in the fetal position, pretending to be dead, as alien forms and gibbering hungers had stalked by my frozen body. I had hidden everywhere — in the dark, in holes, beneath rotten wood, behind piles of flesh and mounds of earth and crammed into the metal cavities of world-machine god-things. Long before ever I realised my true nature and built my tentacles, I had acted like the Outsider cephalopod hybrid I always was, slipping into cracks in the rock to conceal myself from larger predators, squeezing myself down tight to dodge the jaws of swifter sharks and hunting rays and monsters in the cold void beyond.

I had never attempted such a habitual feat beneath stark fluorescent lights, in a seemingly mundane office, surrounded by scratchy carpet and sensibly upright walls.

But there we were — myself, Raine, Evelyn, and the Saye Fox — hunched down tight against a flimsy blue cubicle divider, in a dream of a very mundane, very boring, very soporific open-plan office. And we weren’t even tucked out of the way inside one of the cubicles. That would have been cause for some hope, at least. Perhaps we could have stayed very quiet and very still, like children hiding under a bed. But no, we were blocking practically one third of the passageway along the back wall, smack bang in the way of anybody who was heading for Wilson’s Stout’s office. His door was barely twenty feet to our left, wide open. But we had no choice. Evelyn’s wheelchair could not be folded up or tucked out of the way. Here was where we made our stand — or our crouch, to torture the metaphor.

Only the Fadestone kept us hidden, clutched tightly in Evelyn’s fist, a promise as-yet untested.

Raine and I gripped Evelyn’s hand and arm, so the effect of the stone might cover us all. The Saye Fox peered over the arm of Evelyn’s wheelchair — and so did the Praem Plushie, though I had not seen her move. Evelyn’s muttered mantra of ‘not here’ faded away to nothing. She closed her lips. Her eyelids drooped, heavy with meditative concentration.

Thump thump thump went the footsteps on the office floor, drawing closer with every footfall. The cubicle wall vibrated against my back. Sweat beaded at my hairline. My heart was going a thousand miles an hour.

In a way, we were being cornered by two sets of tendrils or feelers, extended by an entity no less vast and alien than any Outsider leviathan I had hidden from as a teenager — the institution of Cygnet Asylum itself was reaching out to ensnare us.

Raine and I shared one last glance. I almost sobbed. Was this the end? Raine’s free hand tightened on the grip of her naked machete. I shook my head. Don’t break the spell!

And then our pursuers were upon us.

Four armoured figures rounded a corner to our right, roughly twenty feet away, emerging from within the maze of cubicles and cubby holes and computer desks. They wore black uniforms with full helmets and mirrored face plates. Each one carried a sub-machine gun slung across the chest. The uniforms bore insignia over the heart — a trio of tentacles, impaled on a spike.

Knights! I swallowed a gasp of recognition.

The quartet of Knights marched in perfect time, booted footfalls thumping on the carpet in a steady rhythm, approaching down the narrow corridor between the cubicle dividers and the bone-pale surface of the back wall. They were out of place among the grey and blue surroundings of the office, with greasy fluorescent light reflecting off their helmets, like confused sea-life dumped into a biome which had no place for them — or like an armed response team raiding a newspaper.

They did not pause in their advance, nor move their heads, nor raise their weapons. They did not seem to notice us at all.

My heart back flipped with relief. The Fadestone was working!

But then, as the Knights drew closer, I realised another figure was walking at the centre of the formation, like the middle dot of a five on the face of a die.

It was Seven Shades of Sunlight.

Sevens wore the mask of the Yellow Princess, but with several major alterations. Ice blue eyes glittered with razor-sharp intensity, set in her usual pale complexion, with her usual high cheekbones and fine little nose. Dark bags shone beneath her eye sockets, only partially concealed by make-up; I was never an expert in foundation and powder and blush, but even I could tell the make-up was a very slapdash job. I had never seen such an imperfection in the Yellow Princess before.

Her blonde hair was longer than usual, reaching past her shoulders in a mess of uneven curls, as if she hadn’t yet found an opportunity to apply a comb to her scalp that morning. Her crisp white blouse had sprouted fancy ruffles and lace at the collar and cuffs, like a 17th century dandy, but had also gained a landscape of tell-tale creases and wrinkles. Her long yellow skirt had grown a flared hem and paired rows of bunched lacing about her calves. But the skirt had also been torn — all the way up one side, in a massive slit which ended in the middle of Sevens’ left thigh; the tear was neat and tidy and very straight, as if it had been inflicted on purpose rather than by accident or in some unplanned tussle. Her confident stride made plain the reason: the tear allowed her to walk faster, fast enough to keep up with the Knights. Her sensible yet elegant shoes had been replaced by a pair of bright yellow trainers, with loose laces tucked beneath the tongues.

She carried a clipboard over one arm, festooned with papers and sticky notes. A pencil was stuck behind one elegant ear; another pencil was jammed between her teeth as she chewed on the end. A third pencil dangled on a string from the top of the clipboard. A series of pens were stuck into the breast pocket of her blouse; one of the pens had leaked green ink into the white fabric.

Seven-Shades-of-Stressed-Out-Scribe looked rumpled and haggard.

Like the Knights, Sevens did not see us sitting on the floor, even as my eyes went wide and my mouth hung open with a low gasp. Raine nudged my thigh with her elbow, reminding me not to break Evee’s concentration.

But Sevens was right there! I shared a glance with Raine, trying to speak with my eyes. She shook her head.

But—!

A second quartet of Knights rounded the distant corner on our left, much further away than Sevens and her Knightly bodyguards. These fresh four Knights marched down the passageway as well, heading toward us; if they had been planning a flanking manoeuvre to pin us here, it would have been quite successful if not for the timely present of the Fadestone. We were pinned between the two groups.

The second quartet marched up to Wilson Stout’s office, then stopped just short of the open door.

This second group also escorted a fifth figure in their middle, flanking her like bodyguards. She stopped when the Knights stopped.

I had no idea who she was.

She wore a long white laboratory coat over a pair of jeans and a ribbed sweater the colour of congealed coffee — an exact match for the stolen sweater I now wore beneath my yellow blanket. A great mass of dark blonde hair fell down her back, a mane of tangled tresses, swept away from her forehead by a careless hand. By the lines on her face and the natural sagging of her skin she looked to be in her late fifties or perhaps early sixties — yet she had no crow’s feet around her eyes, no laugh or frown lines, no crinkling at the corners of her mouth, no sun damage on her skin, no moles, no blemishes, nothing. She stood with a straight and unbowed back, hands in her lab coat pockets, head held high with the casual indifference of somebody who did not care for anything beneath her nose. Her complexion was impossible to place — she might have been southern European, or middle eastern, or central Asian, or a dozen other ethnicities all mixed together. She had a high nose, powerful cheekbones, and a wide mouth with colourless lips. She wore no make-up or jewellery, except for a dozen analogue wristwatches on her right forearm, exposed by the rolled-up sleeve of her lab coat; the watches were all different makes and models, all set to different times, ticking away at different speeds.

She had eyes the colour of coral and blossoms, of the sky at dawn in the hours before rain, of flesh and meat and fresh-drained blood mixed with cold seawater.

Those eyes were distracted and absent; her gaze slid over Sevens, approaching down the passageway, then onto the wall, then the open door to Stout’s office, then away over the tops of the cubicle dividers. She glanced downward just once, right at me and Raine and Evelyn and the Saye Fox.

When our eyes met, she saw me.

I knew with the certainty of a knife in my throat that she saw me, completely — right through the Fadestone. But she did not comprehend that I was present, or what I was, or what any of me meant.

Then she looked away again, eyes always in motion.

Blood left my face. My heart stilled. I did not recognise the woman in the lab coat, not at all.

But I knew what I was looking at.

Seven-Shades-of-Swiftly-Stepping walked right past us, inside the marching cage of her Knightly escort; she glanced down at us too, as if we were a passing notion or a wild fancy. Her eyes met mine; unlike her counterpart, Sevens frowned as if she really saw something there, saw my eyes, and understood on some subconscious level that some trick was concealing the truth from her mind. I wiggled my eyebrows, desperate to attract her attention, but she just shook her head as if dismissing a stray thought.

The momentum of the Knights carried her onward, past our huddled group. She turned her eyes away from us, and drew up on the opposite side of the door to Wilson Stout’s office.

Raine whispered: “The moment they enter that room, we get up and we run. Be ready.”

I stuck one hand inside my yellow blanket, reaching for the gift from the King in Yellow. I whispered, barely more than a breath. “I need to give her the hilt! The bladeless hilt from the King in Yellow!”

“Mmm,” Raine purred. “I don’t know about that, sweet thing.”

Evelyn kept her eyes fixed on the Fadestone, but she spoke in a murmur: “We can hide and move. It can be done. Just don’t break my concentration.”

“This might be my only chance!” I hissed. “And that other woman, she’s—”

“Good morning, Governor,” said Seven-Shades-of-Strident-Salutation, cutting across my words.

She sounded harried and breathless. Her voice didn’t carry the tone and timbre of the Yellow Princess. This was not just an alteration, it was a different mask, a different person altogether. Sevens had addressed the woman in the lab coat, but received no answer. She quickly checked her clipboard, flipping through loose pages, peering at sticky notes.

“We had a major incident yesterday,” said this new Sevens. “A full-blown revolt. Several major injuries, a lot of minor injuries to both staff and patients, and a secondary incident with some … some regrettable deaths. Sixteen patients still unaccounted for, at large, or escaped the grounds entirely. A right fine mess, a bloody great fuck up.” Sevens huffed and looked up. “Governor? Are you listening to me?”

The woman in the lab coat clearly wasn’t paying attention. She wasn’t even looking at Sevens; she was gazing off across the office. At Sevens’ prompting she dragged her eyes back around, but did not seem to focus.

“Mm,” grunted the woman in the lab coat — the Governor. “Good morning, Director.”

Her voice was floaty and flimsy, like cobwebs on the wind. Her accent was unremarkable English, I couldn’t place it.

I whispered to Raine: “The Director and the Governor. So they are two different people. And if that’s Sevens—”

“That’s Sevens?” Raine hissed. “Oof.”

“Mm! Which means the other woman is … no, no, it can’t be, there’s no way it could be so human.”

Evelyn swallowed. Perhaps this concept was disturbing her concentration. I could hardly blame her. It was making my bowels shake.

Sevens huffed a big sigh. “Yes, good morning. Hello. Please concentrate.” She clicked her fingers before the Governor’s face, three times. “Look, okay, we’ll talk about the incident later, we—”

But the Governor was already looking away, running her eyes up and down the chrome frame of the door to Stout’s office. “I must get back to the archives,” she said. She sounded like she was talking to herself. “There’s so much to go through. So many case files. I need to keep going, or I’ll never finish. Never finish. Have to read it all.”

“Yes, yes,” Sevens huffed again. “You can do that in a few minutes. First we need to check in on our consultant and see if he can derive a pattern from yesterday. Then we need an all-hands meeting. All the nurses, at least. Get everyone ready for finding our fugitives and get them back on track. Then … ”

Sevens trailed off, blinking in surprise. She had followed the direction of the Governor’s pinkish eyes. She leaned forward to peer through the open door of Stout’s office.

Professor Stout called out from inside. “Hullo there! Good morning!”

“Why is this door already open?!” Sevens shrieked. From zero to sixty in the blink of an eye; I had never seen the Princess lose her temper before, let alone screaming at the top of her lungs. “How?! Nobody knows the code, it’s not even consistent! Only the Governor can even read it!”

Stout replied from within. “I felt like I needed a breath of fresh air, that’s all. A morning stroll! You should try it sometime!”

Sevens whirled away from the door. One hand clutched and clawed at her own hair while the other brandished her clipboard, notes flapping as she waved it up and down. Her eyes bulged from their sockets. She went red in the face, spitting mad. “I can’t believe this!” she shouted. “I can’t— I can’t— I can’t do this anymore!”

She hurled the clipboard onto the floor. It landed with a dull, unsatisfying slap of plastic on carpet. She followed up with a stamp of one foot, but that was no better, so she suddenly lashed out and kicked the wall — thud, just as unyielding and disappointing. Sevens keened through her teeth at the white plaster of the wall, as if it was personally responsible for being too sturdy.

The Knights politely backed away, making space for Sevens to have a tantrum.

“I can’t keep control of every single spinning plate in this place, I can’t!” she screamed. “Nothing does what it’s supposed to! The pieces move on their own and the set itself shuffles about when I’m not looking!” She slapped the chrome door frame with an open hand. One of the Knights ducked in close and picked up her clipboard, then stepped back before Sevens-Shades-of-Scorching-Spleen could re-target her rage. “Fuck this! Fuck all of this! I’m fucking done! I can’t!”

“Mm,” grunted the Governor. “It’s just a door.”

“I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough of all this!” Sevens began to sob, lowering her face into her hands. “I can’t do this, I can’t keep control of all this, none of it fits together, none of it works, none of it wooooorks!” She turned the final word into a screech of frustration, lifting her face from her hands and baring her teeth, wide-eyed with panting anger and wet-streaked eyes.

“Oh, Sevens,” I whispered to myself.

“Didn’t realise she was so high-strung,” Raine hissed.

“This is nothing like her, usually,” I whispered back. “She’s as trapped as the rest of us, I think.”

Sevens just stood there panting for breath, on the verge of recovery or breakdown. The Governor did nothing to comfort or calm her. Eventually Sevens cleared her throat, wiped stray hairs out of her face, and straightened up. She took several long, slow, deep breaths. She held out a hand to the Knight who had picked up her clipboard, murmuring a thank you as her notes were returned.

“Thank you, yes.” She glanced at the Knights, her voice lowered and meek, all rage forgotten. “Um, you four, would you please fan out and check the offices, to see if there’s anything else out of place? Some patients may have gotten in here. Perhaps they got the door open, somehow, though I don’t see how that would be possible.”

“Ma’am,” said one of the Knights, voice trapped behind black fabric and padded armour. The Knight sounded just as androgynous as when we’d last met them. “We’re detailed to escort you. It’s not safe so soon after a riot.”

Sevens gestured at the Governor and her matching quartet of Knights. “It’s fine,” said Seven-Shades-of-Strictly-Regulated-Systems. “I’ll be with the Governor the whole time, with these other four guards. Just fan out and check for ten minutes while we have a meeting with Stout, then come back. I won’t go anywhere alone.”

Sevens’ four Knights all looked at each other, then nodded in unison. “Yes, ma’am,” they all echoed.

The four Knights turned and marched off the way they’d come, right past myself and my friends. They split up quickly, vanishing into the maze of cubicles, all heading in different directions. One of them lingered briefly, staring down at us through the mirrored visor. Raine readied herself to pounce, but I shook my head. The Knight leaned over the edge of the cubicle divider, checking behind us, then turned away and carried on.

Raine let out a slow breath, knuckles tight on her machete. I shivered with relief. We had to do everything we could to avoid open conflict with the Knights. They were not our target, they were little better than slaves of the institution, no different than us.

“Shall we?” said Sevens to the Governor, gesturing into Stout’s office.

The Governor went first, with two Knights in front of her and two Knights behind. As the first group passed through the doorway and into the office, Raine whispered in my ear: “We go as soon as Sevens is inside. Be ready.”

“No!” I hissed back. “Raine, I have to give her the hilt! I have to! This might be our only chance.”

Raine locked eyes with me. I frowned, trying to make my face blaze with determination.

Raine nodded. “Alright,” she whispered. “One condition. You let me do it.”

I nodded. “As long as she gets the hilt, I don’t care if we have to throw it at her or slap her with it or … right.”

A flicker of a grin passed across Raine’s lips. “I’ll do one better than that. Let’s make sure she gets the message loud and clear.”

“Okay, good girl,” I hissed. “Good girl.”

Raine’s eyes flickered back to the door. “Here she goes. On three, I let go of Evee, and you slap the hilt into my hand. Then grab Evee’s wheelchair, be ready to run.”

The last of the four Knights was stepping through the doorway and into Stout’s office. Seven-Shades-of-Sunlight was just turning to follow.

“One — two — three!”

Raine let go of Evee’s hand and shot to her feet. I let go as well, fumbling inside my yellow blanket for the weighty metal of the Yellow King’s empty hilt. Evee snatched her own arm back, the Fadestone with it. The Fox ducked back down into Evee’s lap. The Praem Plushie was already tucked in tight.

Our disguise collapsed.

We must have appeared out of nowhere in Sevens’ peripheral vision — three girls, one fox, and one wheelchair, crammed against the cubicle dividers where a moment ago there had been only empty air. She whirled on the spot, right before Stout’s door, jaw dropping, cold blue eyes flying wide.

I slapped the empty hilt into Raine’s waiting hand.

Sevens began to raise one arm, pointing toward Raine and the rest of us. Her mouth widened for a shout — guards, guards, they’re right here!

Raine sprinted the gap in the time it took Sevens to draw the necessary breath. She cut off Sevens’ shout with her own lips, sealing the mouth of the Yellow Princess with a sudden kiss. Sevens’ eyes flew wide, trying to scramble back, but Raine had looped one arm around Sevens’ slender waist.

I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the handles of Evee’s wheelchair, trying not to gape at Raine’s daring plan.

Raine ripped back from the kiss, leaving Sevens a spluttering mess. Before Sevens could recover, Raine pressed the golden hilt into Sevens’ free hand.

“Present from your dad! Sorry about the door! And nice lips,” Raine shouted — then turned and sprinted back toward me and Evee. “Run! Go! Back doors, now!”

“I’m sorry, Sevens!” I shouted past Raine. “It was the only way! I’ll free you later!”

Seven-Shades-of-Spent-and-Spluttering gaped at me in confusion, then yelled, “I’m not your kind of crazy! I am not!”

“That again,” I hissed, then turned and fled, racing toward the wall of rain-splattered windows, pushing Evelyn’s wheelchair like an out-of-control shopping cart.

Raine darted ahead of me and Evee, legs pumping, taking the lead in our escape. We had a straight shot to the door, straight down the narrow passage between the cubicles and the wall. Most of the four Knights had already pushed too deep into the tangle of cubicles and computers to turn around and catch us; two of them actually blundered into the dividers, going down in a tangle of collapsing chest-high walls and the weight of their own equipment. One of them looked lost in the maze of cubicles, turning left, then right, then left again in an effort to reach us.

But one Knight had not yet gone too deep. A black armoured form hurried to intercept us, approaching our route from the side.

“You!” Raine yelled, pointing her machete at the Knight. “Back! I won’t go easy!”

The Knight plunged out into the passageway, right into our path. Evelyn gasped. The Fox let out a series of yip-yowls from Evee’s lap. The Knight’s hands went for the big black shiny gun, the weapon, the final word in the monopoly of violence. But then the Knight hesitated, as if thinking better of threatening us.

Raine sprinted right at the Knight. A grin ripped across her face. She wound back her machete to stab through a gap in the Knight’s armour, ready to gut and fillet our foe.

“Raine, no!” I yelped.

At the last second, Raine thrust her weapon forward — and turned it to the side. She smacked the Knight across the faceplate with the flat of her blade, with a sharp, resounding crack.

The Knight staggered back more in surprise than pain, crashing down into a cubicle divider.

Two black-gloved hands rose in surrender.

“Heather says you get to live!” Raine pointed her machete at the mirrored face-plate. “Stay down!”

Raine raced past the fallen Knight, leaping toward our exit. I followed, pushing Evelyn’s wheelchair past the Knight’s boots. The empty visor stared upward at me, eyes invisible behind the mask of authority.

“Sorry, sorry!” I yelped — then swallowed a hiccup. “Hic! Sorry!”

We hit the wall of windows seconds later. Raine slammed the bar-handle down and popped the door, leaping out into the drizzling rain. A gust of chill air whipped at my yellow blanket, threatening to drag me back into the offices. Raine held the way open for me and Evelyn. I shoved Evelyn’s wheelchair over the lip, as if I might not be able to follow. But then Raine reached back inside and yanked me out by one wrist, pulling me to freedom on my shaky, adrenaline-flushed legs. Damp air coated my face. The Fox whined at the sudden cold, at the moisture in the air, snuggling deeper into Evee’s lap.

We were free — out in the gravel-and-concrete opening between two featureless wings of Cygnet Asylum, flanked on three sides by damp brick and dark windows.

Raine slammed the door behind us.

“Go! Go!” she pointed toward the open end of the space. The verdant grounds rolled off into the distance, the hills dusted with rain, the distant trees shivering in the breeze. “Don’t stop now!”

We all turned and fled, leaving behind the Director and the Governor and their eight unwitting bodyguards.

But as we did, I glanced back one last time, peering through the rain-fogged glass.

The ‘Governor’ — the pink-eyed, distracted woman in a laboratory coat — had emerged from Stout’s office, presumably drawn by all the shouting and commotion. She was just standing there, hands deep in her pockets, chin held high, eyes a glassy distance inside an aged and lonely face.

Her gaze met mine for a single fleeting heartbeat.

And I knew, as I stared into that pink-rimmed empty gaze, that the one in ultimate control of Cygnet Asylum did not comprehend anything that she saw.

* * *

“That woman was the Eye.”

Misty rain and damp-air haze could not blot out my words with static drums; the heavier drops falling from the leaves of the trees were too infrequent and too far away to interrupt my thoughts, landing on mulch and spongy earth, soaked into loam and clay. The chill air was a bare whisper, as if climate and weather had surrendered to the aesthetic demands of the asylum grounds, blunted to little more than a touch of cold upon one’s nose, serving merely to heighten the cosy warmth inside one’s clothes, not enough to make my teeth chatter and blur upon the truth. The hard pad of concrete ground, the uprights of dark-stained wood, the ring of benches, the fake plastic roof tiles — none of it could absorb my voice and hide what I spoke.

Cygnet Asylum itself made no effort to silence me.

Twenty minutes after our daring escape from the back offices of the hospital building, we were holed up deep in the little woodland which stretched across the rear of the asylum grounds, part of the same woods which Raine and I had crossed on the previous day. We had stumbled across the perfect shelter — a permanent pavilion or gazebo structure, a little way off the main paths of wood chips between the neat borders, like the abandoned memory of a bandstand which had not heard music in decades.

The pavilion was a heptagon, with seven sides — a detail I could not help but sigh at upon discovery. It was not much, just a concrete foundation with some wooden pillars, holding up a cheap plastic roof shaped to look like imitation tiles, as if this was some kind of fairy cottage in the forest with the walls ripped away and the contents removed. The concrete floor was host to four benches, gathered around a very empty, very dead, very clean fire-pit, probably never used. The pavilion was hardly a secure location; we would be spotted the moment anybody emerged from between the trees and looked in our direction. But it was dry and it kept the rain off our heads, so there was where we stopped, surrounded by dripping trees and rustling leaves.

Raine had made us keep moving until she was certain we weren’t being followed. We hadn’t passed a single patient out in the grounds, neither on the lawns nor between the trees. Either it was too early in the morning, or the foul weather was keeping everyone indoors. The weather was also horribly paradoxical — there were no clouds in the sky, only the black and wrinkled underside of the Eye. Where was the rain falling from? I tried not to think about that too hard.

When we’d finally taken shelter, Raine had pulled the towels from last night out of the carrier bag on Evee’s wheelchair, and forced me to dry myself first, wiping the rain off my face and out of my hair. She’d done the same for Evelyn, then offered the towel to the Fox. Evelyn had said nothing, sunken down in her wheelchair, recovering from the shock and adrenaline of our escape. The Fox had trotted away from Raine, casting disapproving glances at the big fluffy towel.

Raine had changed the dressing on my wound again. Evelyn had demanded something to eat, and scarfed down one of our remaining sandwiches, barely saying a word. I parked her wheelchair for her, at the end of one of the benches, before sitting down myself and trying to still my racing heart. Raine took guard duty, eyes high on the tree line, while the Fox circled and sniffed, staying out of the drizzle.

And then I had spoken the truth.

Evelyn looked up, framed by the trees and the misty rain. I wished I could bundle her up in bed, somewhere warm and safe and dry. She’d been watching the Saye Fox with tired eyes, so worn-out and exhausted, despite our night’s sleep. Raine didn’t waver from her guard duty, but she was well within earshot, she must have heard my words too.

“Heather,” Evelyn said, in the exact tone one might say, ‘Please, no.’

“I mean it, Evee,” I said. “That woman was the Eye. I’m certain of that.”

Raine spoke without looking away from the trees. “What, the blonde science gilf back there?”

Evelyn clenched her jaw and screwed up her eyes. “We have more than enough to process and think about without entertaining absurdist fantasies, thank you. The Eye has not been compressed down into a science gilf. And Raine, if you speak those words again I will find something to hit you with, so help me God.”

“Gilf?” I echoed, twisting around to look at Raine. She was standing a few feet away, damp with moisture from our flight across the grounds, her hair sticking up where she’d run a hand across her scalp. “I’m sorry, what does that mean?”

Raine finally glanced away from the trees and raised her eyebrows at me. “No shit?”

“No, Raine, I’m being serious. What does that mean?”

“Stop!” Evelyn snapped. “Just, both of you. Do not.”

Raine smirked, struggling to keep her mouth shut against the power of a laugh brewing behind her lips. I huffed and shrugged, a little miffed. “Evee, how can I be expected to keep up with this if you won’t—”

“They’re like milfs,” Evelyn said, with a tone of bone-deep exasperation, like she was talking to a very dim child. “Remember milfs? Like you find on the internet. Can we please move on from this point?”

The Praem Plushie in Evee’s lap seemed to be staring at me with her flat, empty eyes, willing me to let Evee have this one. I cleared my throat and nodded. “Okay, I understand.”

“I doubt that very much,” Evelyn muttered. “Look, Heather, there is no way that woman was the Eye.”

“She was looking at things without really seeing them,” I said. “That’s what gave me the idea. Plus, she was the ‘Governor’, correct? Sevens was the Director — a rather obvious and silly title, but it makes sense. So that other woman was the Governor. That was the Eye.”

Evelyn sighed heavily and rubbed at her forehead. She watched the Fox for a long moment, nosing her way around the legs of the benches, sniffing at the concrete, bushy tail swishing back and forth. The Fox paused and met Evee’s eyes in return.

“There’s more evidence, too,” I went on after a moment. “Did you see her jumper? The awful cold brown colour? It matches the one Raine found for me.” I pinched a corner of the ratty old jumper and held it out. “She’s the big watcher, I’m the little watcher. It’s all symbolic. And Sevens said she was the only one who can usually operate the lock to Stout’s room. Brain-math!”

“That woman sounded like you, Heather,” Raine said. “Is that a clue as well?”

“Ah? Sorry?” I frowned in mystified incomprehension. “She sounded like me?”

Raine nodded, quickly returning her eyes to the trees, watching for any hidden approaches. “She had your accent, sweet thing. Southerner. Reading, right?”

“Oh,” I said, putting a self-conscious hand to my mouth. “I … she just sounded normal to me. I didn’t pick up on that at all. Gosh.”

Evelyn sighed like a car tire about to blow. “Heather, you are the last person to whom I should have to explain this. The Eye is so vast, so beyond human form or human thought, that cramming it down into a human body is impossible.”

“Why?” I said. “Evee, everything else here has been ‘crammed down’ into human form. This whole place is a metaphor. An entire dimension turned into a parody of a hospital from my memories. I rewrote reality and made it into a play! Why can’t the Eye play a human being? Why not?”

Evelyn glared at me sidelong. “Because I don’t like it.”

I blinked in surprise. “Ah?”

“I’m making an effort to be honest with myself, and with you,” she said. “I don’t like what that implies. If you’ve somehow humanised the Eye, what are we supposed to do? Kill her? Have a sit down with her, with tea and cakes? Kidnap her? Entice her into a lesbian romance? Ha!” Evelyn barked with sudden laughter. She went to slap her own knee, but her prosthetic wasn’t there, and she just tapped the air in front of her stump. “That’s probably exactly what Sevens has in mind, isn’t it? Show the Eye the wonders of getting her pussy munched down on, then she’ll come around and we’ll all be freed. Yes, great plan!”

Raine muttered: “Sounds good to me.”

“Yes,” Evelyn spat, dripping venom. “It would do. And that’s why it’s not working.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s what Sevens intends, nor would any of those things be possible. And I do hope Sevens is going to be okay. I hope she knows what to do with that sword hilt.”

Raine clucked her tongue. “Looked like she needed a good fuck to get her mind off her work.”

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “That too. You’re … not wrong, I think. Though I wouldn’t be so crude about it.”

Evelyn snorted. “Let’s hope she uses the sword to cut off the Eye’s head.”

Raine drew a breath between her teeth. “Waste of a good gilf.”

I ignored that word. “So, Evee, you think I’m right?”

Evelyn sighed. “I suspect you might be, but I hope you aren’t. If you’re correct, I have no idea how we would even begin to approach her as a problem. Say we free Twil and Zheng, and take over the asylum with a second Lozzie-sparked revolt — what then? What do we do, tie her up and try to explain to her why all this is bad? This can’t be resolved with a philosophical debate, Heather. Few things can.”

“I could tie up a gilf and turn her right with some philosophy,” Raine muttered.

Evee ignored that. “This is a serious question, Heather. What do we do about the Eye?”

My turn to sigh. “I … I don’t know yet. Planning like this is difficult. I feel like I’m slower than I should be, missing six sevenths of what I’m used to, I—”

“And you’re the only one tapped into the dream,” Evelyn interrupted. “That trick with Praem back there, getting the door open. You’re wired into this place, this reality, probably because you helped create it. So, think hard. What do we do with the Eye?”

I stared out of the pavilion, at the dripping leaves of the trees all around. I lifted a corner of the damp towel from my shoulders and ran it over my hair again. The yellow blanket had somehow kept my shoulders warm and dry even as we had dashed through the misting raindrops. I felt cosy inside, shaken by the realisation of that strange woman’s identity, but determined that we were on the right path.

“This is her institution—”

Evelyn cut me off with a hiss. “Must we call it a ‘her’?”

I shrugged. “Right now the Eye is wearing a human form and a human face. I think it’s probably for the best.” I gestured at the Praem Plushie with one hand. “I treated Praem the same way, when you first put her in a body, and that turned out to be the right call in the long run, despite your initial misgivings. Right now, right here, in this dream, the Eye is a person. A ‘gilf’ in her sixties.”

Evelyn winced. Raine snorted.

“Whatever you do,” Evelyn drawled. “Do not use that word to … ‘her’ face. Not that I think we should get anywhere near her, certainly not speak to her.”

“All right?” I said. “All right, okay. I won’t.” I frowned in private confusion. Milves and gilves were too confusing for me. “As I was saying,” I carried on. “This is her institution. Cygnet Asylum belongs to her. Sevens is the Director, but that just means she’s responsible for keeping things running, I think that’s why she was so stressed back there. She’s running the narrative somehow, that’s the role she’s been forced into here. But the Eye—”

“Eileen,” Raine suggested.

Evelyn made a sound like an angry gerbil. “Absolutely not. Raine, shut up. Stop talking.”

Raine began to laugh, but I nodded in agreement with Evee. “Actually, yes. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to name her. If she has a name, she’ll tell us. She’s the Governor, or the Eye. I’m serious, Raine. Please.”

Raine put up her hands. “Sure thing, sweet thing. You’re the boss.”

“Good girl,” I said, almost on reflex. I was getting far too used to that. “Right, now, if we’re quite done with the interruptions?” I glanced at both Raine and Evee. Raine bowed her head. Evelyn cleared her throat. “Right. This is the Eye’s institution. I think that’s partly what this nightmare version of Cygnet is. This is a representation of how she sees the world, how she interacts with reality — as a carceral institution, for observing all the mentally ill girls within. Now, yes, I’ve obviously influenced the metaphor as well, but this place within the metaphor belongs to her. So, if we take it over and tear it down, that might … change her.”

Evelyn sighed. “Great. We’re applying dream logic to the mind of an Outsider god. What could possibly go wrong?”

“The play’s the thing,” I recited. “I think this might be the only way to communicate with her. Via reality itself.”

Evelyn shook her head, running her tongue over her teeth behind her lips, digging out fragments of the sandwich she’d just eaten. Raine looked away, staring out into the dripping woods. The Saye Fox padded up to us, to where Evelyn and I sat side by side. She plopped down on the concrete, sitting on her haunches, and looked up at us.

“Ah,” I said softly. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you earlier, did I? For grabbing the Fadestone off Stout. Thank you.” I bowed my head to the Fox. “Without you, I don’t think we would have made it out of there. Thank you … Laurissa.”

The Fox just tilted her head to one side, ears standing upright and alert. For a long moment, nobody said a word. I glanced sidelong at Evelyn.

She was staring back at the Fox with an expression I’d never seen before, a strange and heady cocktail of anxiety, loss, and hope.

“Evee?” I said her name very gently.

Evelyn snapped out of her revere with a sharp sigh. “Yes, yes. I’m fine. I’m just … ” She gestured at the Fox — at Laurissa Saye, her own grandmother. “This is a lot to take in. I’m sorry I can’t digest your theory right now, Heather. That is my grandmother. I can’t deal with that right now, I simply can’t.”

The Saye Fox responded to Evelyn’s anxiety by padding closer and rubbing her vulpine snout against the ankle of Evelyn’s withered leg. Evee swallowed, very hard and very dry, but she did not chase the Fox away. She let out a shuddering breath.

“It is a lot to deal with, Evee,” I said gently. “I’m here if you want to—”

“She achieved the miracle my mother never could.” Evee spoke without looking at me, totally focused on the Fox. “Immortality, or at least major extension of life. She must have seeped out of her own body, her corpse, maybe into the worms that ate her flesh after death. The beetles, the bugs, even the microbes. Then they got eaten by moles, shrews, the like, anything larger, anything higher up the systems of biology. Accumulating in the food chain like a toxin, concentrating upward over time. Eventually a fox ate enough of her, enough distributed particles, enough pieces of her soul to put them back together into something like her mind.” Evelyn sighed and reached down; the Fox sniffed at her fingers. Evelyn repeated the gesture with the Praem Plushie; the Fox sniffed Praem, then nudged the Plushie with her snout.

“Introducing her to her great-granddaughter?” I asked.

“They’ve already met.” Evelyn returned the Praem Plushie to her own lap. “Do you know I never met her in life? Did I ever tell you about that? She died when I was two. No memories of her. Absolutely nothing.”

“Evee … ”

“The point I’m making, Heather, is that we are not looking at my grandmother’s reincarnation. We are looking at an actual fox, possessed by the spirit of a dead mage.”

Awkward silence fell. I swallowed, unsure what to say.

Evelyn muttered: “Am I going to end up like that, after I die? Will I end up as worms and bugs, and then moles and birds, then … ”

Raine said, “Quicker ways to get a tail if you wanna turn into a fox, Evee. You’d look very fetching with cute little fox ears.”

“Tch,” Evelyn tutted and waved that away.

I said, “Are you going to … to say … I don’t know, say hello to her?”

Evelyn side-eyed me. “I think we’re a bit past that.”

“Well, at least thank her for the Fadestone.”

Evelyn nodded. She rummaged inside her grey dressing gown and pulled out the lump of white quartz. “Mm. Quite a trick, that. I wonder if she knew Stout would have the stone. Or if it was just quick thinking. Either way, well done.”

The Fox let out a soft ‘Yeerp.’

Raine said: “Clue me in here, magic lady.”

“If you pledge to never call me that again,” replied Evee.

“How come the magic hiding stone worked when your circles didn’t?” Raine clucked her tongue. “And this isn’t just idle curiosity, this is serious. If stuff around here works only part of the time, I might need to know.”

Evelyn held up the Fadestone. The white quartz glinted in the rainy light. I did my best not to frown at the thing — even now I didn’t like it very much, the way it hid things from my sight when I wasn’t paying attention.

“Because it’s a physical prop,” said Evee. “That’s my best guess.”

“Sorry?” I said. “What do you mean?”

Evelyn snorted. “We’re in a play, right? The stone is a nice large object, like on a stage. It’s a prop, so it works how it should.”

“Huh,” Raine grunted. She did not seem convinced. I wasn’t quite sure about that either.

“Raine,” I said, twisting around on the bench to look at her directly. “I wanted to thank you as well.”

Raine cracked a grin. “All you gotta do is call me a good girl.”

“Yes, good girl,” I said. “Thank you for not hurting that Knight. At least, not too badly. I suppose you did knock it onto its backside. Still, you could have run it through. Thank you for showing restraint.”

“Ahhhh, hmm,” Raine said, losing ninety percent of her grin. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh? Raine, what’s wrong?”

Raine grumbled down in her throat. “Didn’t like pulling the punch. Armed guards are fair game. Or should be.”

I grimaced. “It’s not their fault. They’re no different to the patients. I told you, they’re with us, they came into this dream along with us. And I know they’re on our side, deep down. Didn’t you see?”

Raine frowned with sudden curiosity. “See what?”

“None of them used their guns.”

Raine’s eyebrows shot upward. “Oh. Shit. Huh. I didn’t even realise. Weird. Like the guns weren’t even part of my thinking.”

I nodded. “They could have pointed those guns at us and shouted ‘freeze!’, like we were in a silly crime movie or something. But they didn’t. They blundered into the scenery and made a show of screwing up. I think that was on purpose! I don’t think they’re fair game, not at all. Well, okay, I know this principle probably can’t be applied to real armed guards and paramilitary, but it applies to them. They’re not like the nursing staff and the doctors. They’re not even ‘just following orders’. They barely followed their orders at all back there. They messed up so we could get away.”

Evelyn interrupted: “You’re saying they let us escape? That pratfall stuff was on purpose?”

“Exactly.”

Raine nodded along, then looked out into the mist and the trees. She sighed, almost wistful. “Wish they’d slip us a firearm. I could work magic with just one gun. One mag of bullets. Hell, I’ll bluff it, do it with no bullets at all.”

“You most certainly will not,” Evelyn grunted. “No shows of force without the teeth to back it up.”

Raine turned back with a nasty grin. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to bluff. Not when we’re so weak. Not unless we have no other choice.”

Silence descended for a long moment. Distant raindrops filled the air, falling from the leaves of the nearby trees, dripping from the rim of the plastic roof above our heads. Raine flexed her shoulders and weighed her machete in one hand. Evelyn sighed and ground her teeth. The Saye Fox wandered away, circling the edge of the concrete foundations again. The Praem Plushie stared at nothing.

Perhaps Evee was right. Perhaps I was the only one truly plugged into the dream, the only one with a pen to adjust the course of the play.

I straightened up and stretched out my aching left leg — the wound was even more stiff than before, soothed only briefly by the adrenaline of our escape.

“Right then,” I said. “We need to keep going, keep moving, keep trying. Lozzie is working on the riot, and we have to hope that the hilt wakes up Sevens, somehow. And we can’t just bounce from bolt hole to bolt hole. We need to stick to the plan, and find Twil. Evee, you can talk to her, try to break her out.”

Evelyn squinted at me. “What about Stout’s advice?”

“What advice?”

“The thing he was saying about locating the twins.”

I tutted softly. “I’m the twins, I’m pretty sure. Or one twin. Or one seventh of one twin.”

Evelyn shook her head gently. “I don’t think he was talking about you, Heather.”

“Mmmmm.” I sucked on my teeth, tugging my yellow blanket tighter around my shoulders. “I’m not sure I agree. I think he was deeply confused. He wasn’t really all there. He was tapping that nonsense rhythm on the pipes, too, had me thinking it meant something. He was trying to help, but I don’t think we can trust any of his judgement.”

“The tapping was mathematics,” Evelyn said.

I boggled at her. Raine even turned to look as well. I said, “Evee, you can tell that?”

Evelyn snorted. “Absolutely not. Educated guess. Think about it. Wilson Stout was a mathematician. He developed some of his own hyperdimensional mathematics, probably originating from some kind of brush with the Eye. If you had your whole self right now, I bet you could have understood the pattern in that tapping. Stout was trying to communicate with some other entity which could understand the pattern, he practically told us — the twins.”

Raine said, “What about those girls Twil was with?”

I sighed again. “They weren’t twins. And they were just more patients. I don’t think they were meaningful in that sense.”

“Are we sure?” Raine pressed. “Sure as sure?”

“They didn’t look the same,” Evelyn grunted.

Raine shrugged. “They were both named Lily, right? They’re the only thing here which could possibly count as twins. Maybe we should have another gander at them, after we’ve gotten Twil freed. Can’t hurt to try.”

Evelyn grumbled, less convinced than she’d been a moment ago. She gestured out at the rainy woods with one hand. “And how the hell are we going to catch her in all this? The patients and inmates will probably stay indoors today. We’re stuck.”

I stood up, as straight as I could manage with my throbbing leg. I swept my yellow blanket back from my shoulders, took a deep breath, and allowed myself a small and mischievous smile.

“I have an idea.”

“Heather?” Evelyn grunted.

“Ohooo,” Raine purred. “She’s got something between her teeth. Go on, Heather.”

“Let’s bait her out,” I said, feeling very naughty indeed. “Her and her friends, like we planned. Let’s draw them all the way out here, deep into the woods. It’s where Twil belongs, after all. Where better to help her remember what she really is?”