Bending down a little, Rose put out a foot, setting it on a slab.
She winced as she did it, but she pushed. The slab slid down the slope of the little ditch and collided with the lawyer. A section of road that, dropped from above, would have turned a person into a pancake. Definitely enough to cave in a ribcage. For anyone else, it might have been lethal. But the lawyer was beyond death.
“You need a punchline,” Evan said. “Rules.”
“I was thinking,” Rose said. She watched Ms. Lewis’ continued struggles. Debris half-covered the woman’s face, and the slab of pavement had driven halfway through her torso. She worked, all the same, to try and worm her way up and free, futile.
“You want this Demesne, Lewis?” Rose asked. “It’s all yours.”
The little light that remained was dying. It was the light of the night sky over a city, night lights reflecting onto the clouds above, but those same clouds were disintegrating too. There was only a clean slate.
Ms. Lewis had stopped fighting, but the decay of this world continued. Even staying still, she was swallowed up, only one eye, a temple, and a bit of hair remaining above the surface. Watching us.
We collectively turned our backs on her.
Off to one side, a building folded into itself. The cloud of dust was impenetrable, but it didn’t reach far. There was too much gravity here.
The rumbling had slowed, until it was barely perceptible. The predominant sound was a whisper sound, granules on granules, like sand flowing over sand, or sugar over sugar. The demesne was an expanse of fragments and sections of building floating in a still sea of gray-brown particles. With no wind to touch it, the clouds of dust were quick to settle. Only traces remained.
Traces, and the fragments of road that laid out a path between us and the exit. There were gaps between, but they didn’t break underfoot, and they didn’t sink.
Another sign that this place wasn’t an active site for the Abyss.
We were close enough to the exit that I could see the bridge that marked the division between the older Jacob’s Bell and what had once been Johannes’ demesne.
The sky over the city was so bright I couldn’t look directly at it.
“They’re gone,” Lola said. “The lawyers on the other side. The demons. I don’t sense the connections.”
“Damage is still done,” Paige observed. “There are gaps between things. It’s saturated with wrongness.”
“But they’re gone,” Lola said, almost whispering, as if, until this very moment, she hadn’t quite believed it was possible. “People are alive.”
“Not everyone,” Ainsley said. “We have to brace ourselves. It won’t be pretty.”
“But-”
“But they’re gone,” Ainsley said. She smiled. “And people are alive. Yeah. I get what you mean.”
“We won,” Paige was the one who said it.
Rose didn’t seem so surprised. “The cost of continuing the fight was too high, compared to the gains. It might take them a while to digest what happened, put the pieces together, report back to whoever or whatever they report to.”
“The other lawyers will come after you,” Mags commented. “By your own logic-”
“Their logic,” Rose corrected.
“By their logic, which you outlined just now, it’s too costly to leave you be. You represent something.”
“Yes,” Rose said. “I might have to stay in the Abyss until the worst of it blows over. I’m getting a sense of how it works, it’s my battlefield, and I have work to do.”
“Scourge work,” Lola said.
“That’s part of it,” Rose admitted. “Got to look after Jacob’s Bell. That’s our most pressing problem. Evacuate the citizens, clear it out, clean up the mess. Too much damage done for it to be salvageable. I think Alister will be willing to work with me to coordinate. Each of us on different sides of the divide, if we have to.”
“I’m glad you’re still thinking of my cousin,” Ainsley said.
Rose nodded, smiling lightly.
I gave her the ability to care for others. Will that be enough?
“But it’s not just the Scourge stuff,” Rose said. “I was thinking of writing a diabolic text. Taking after grandmother Thorburn, maybe.”
A few heads turned.
“Need to challenge ideas, change attitudes. If I can put the right words to paper, disseminate the books, I can hurt them worse than we could repeating this fight a hundred times over,” Rose said.
We’d drawn close to the bridge. The exit.
“I’m going,” Lola said. “There’s people I need to look for. My mom. I can see the connection, but I have to make sure.”
“Bye,” Rose said.
“I feel obligated to say something or do something,” Lola said. “But nothing’s coming to mind.”
“We just spent far too long fighting because we were supposed to,” Rose said. “Because your families are supposed to hate diabolists, and I was a diabolist because I was supposed to be. Fuck obligations. Go to your mom.”
Lola nodded. She turned to go.
“Thanks, by the way,” Rose said.
“Likewise,” Lola replied, raising a hand. She didn’t turn around, half-running on her way past the bridge.
Hurt as she was, she picked up her pace as she ran, a limping gait. Going home.
Mags fidgeted.
“The same goes for you.”
“I know you better than she did,” Mags said.
“And I know you,” Rose said. “Go find your dads. I know we’ll see you again. This isn’t a farewell in any sense.”
“Two rounds done,” Mags said. “As far as my count can be accurate. Fire, darkness, and blood.”
“You’re looking to do this again?” Evan asked. “Why? Huh?”
“Long story,” Mags said. “One I’d tell if I didn’t have my dads to look for. And a Faerie to look for. What happens to the Faerie who were exiled here when Jacob’s Bell ceases to be?”
“Depends on how things were worded,” Rose said. “I’d guess they get to slip the noose until the individuals who exiled them hunt them down.”
Mags bit her lip.
“Go,” Rose said.
Mags gingerly handed me over into Rose’s care. Rose held me in both hands, swaying a little precariously before catching herself.
Nobody else moved.
“Faster you all go, faster we can each get ourselves patched up,” Rose said. “Ainsley, why don’t you go find Alister? Bring him here? I’m going to stay, until I know it’s safe.”
“In an empty Abyss?” Ainsley asked.
“I’ll relocate soon, I think. But this looks like as good a place to rest as any. Peter? Go with Ainsley. Help her get to Alister, get her patched up.”
Peter glanced at Ainsley, then back to Rose. “Sure. You’re really okay?”
“Better than,” Rose said. She managed a smile.
“You’re not all that bad for a Thorburn,” he said.
“Surprisingly high compliment, coming from you,” Rose said.
“I know, right? But I can lie, so I figure I should get the most out of-” He winced as Ainsley elbowed him. “Geez! I’m wounded, don’t go doing that!”
“You had a good moment back there,” Rose said. “Freeing Faysal. That was… heroic. It made the difference.”