Page 86 of Tidal Creatures

“How old are you?”

That’s a question she doesn’t want to answer. Grimacing, she sidesteps. “Old enough to know that I didn’t want to start a fight with an established Diana in her own territory. That’s the danger of Dianas. For all that they’re syncretic with Artemis, they’re a lot more territorial than we tend to be. We follow the hunt where it leads us; they find a forest and claim it as their own. So even though we’re generally comparable in power, most of us won’t go into a Diana’s den and start poking them in the ribs. The ones who think that’s funny don’t make it long enough to understand why it’s not.”

“And Losna…?”

“Isn’t a threat to Diana’s authority the same way an Artemis is.”

“What are you planning to do if Diana shows up at the gate tonight?”

“Has she ever done that before? Just decided to drop by and see whether things are going the way they’re supposed to?”

“Well, no, but she could.”

“And if she does, we’ll deal with it.” Artemis’s expression hardens. Máni has to make an effort not to look away. That look doesn’t make it seem like “dealing with it” would be something temporary.

The back door swings open, and Chang’e is there, back at the forefront, Judy once more tucked neatly out of the way. “It’s time,” she calls to the other Lunars, glancing up at the sky, where the pale disc of the moon’s daylight face has appeared through the clouds. “We can open the gate now.”

“And we’re sure this is the best way?” asks Máni.

Artemis glances at him. “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?”

He shrugs. “I want to understand what’s going on before I wind up joining Aske in the everything.”

“A noble desire. Come on.” She starts for Chang’e, looking her up and down, taking in the disheveled state of her hair and the new wrinkles in her shirt. “Mmm.”

Chang’e flushes red. “Just because you’re a virgin goddess, that doesn’t mean the rest of us feel the same way.”

“Isn’t he the head of your department or something?”

“He’s not my advisor.” Chang’e shrugs. “He speaks languages I’ve never even heard of. It’s a nice change from all the monolingual assholes I have to deal with on a daily basis.”

“Right. Is Kelpie coming?”

“She is.” Chang’e sighs. “She doesn’t want to, and she’s pretty upset about what happened to Isabella’s apartment and husband, but if her being there ups your effectiveness, it’s worth it. It means she might be able to give us the edge against anyone who thinks they know what we’re capable of.”

“I wish she felt better about all this, but coming along grudgingly is better than not coming along at all,” says Artemis, climbing the stairs to the back door, Máni close behind her. The three Lunars proceed into the kitchen.

Dodger and Erin are already there, the one making a fresh pot of coffee, the other making sandwiches. Dodger looks over her shoulder as the door swings shut, giving a short nod of acknowledgment. “We’re leaving the civilian and her son here,” she says. “I know she was planning to come to campus, but that was before she got widowed. Tim and Kim are fine with it; they’re not planning to come downstairs anyway. And the wards on the house will keep the alchemists from finding her again. She’ll be safe here until we can get that house set up and establish some protections.”

“You say ‘wards,’ I say ‘negotiations with the universe on a scale that few people can perceive, much less match,” says Erin. “Anybody want a sandwich?”

“I want a vocabulary sheet,” grumbles Máni.

Erin laughs, and keeps slapping sandwiches together. It’s a good use of her time; manifest or not, being incarnate means being at least partially human, and humans need to eat. They’ll be on campus right around when they should be eating dinner, and not many of them have had lunch today. Personified concepts underpinning the universe do not survive on coffee and spite alone.

In short order, the five of them are on the front porch, waiting for Roger and Kelpie to join them. The orange woman emerges first, wearing a borrowed cardigan over her dress, the sleeves too long and the neckline too low, the knit fabric swamping her like a canvas draped over a piece of furniture. It makes her look smaller than she is, more fragile, and her tail is wrapped around her leg, tightly enough that if she had toes, Artemis would be worried about her cutting off her own circulation and losing a few of them.

People with hooves should probably still worry about blood flow, but this doesn’t seem like the time to point that out. They collect on the porch, a ragged group of seven, and the afternoon air is cool. The pale face of the moon above them is a small comfort.

“This is the plan,” says Chang’e. “Just so there’s no confusion. We proceed to the Campanile, verify the gate is anchoring there, and open the everything in a rotating order. Tonight is Artemis’s night to cross the City, so we’ll start with me, then open for Máni, and finally open Artemis. Once we open the first passage, we’ll take Dodger inside, and she’ll start doing the charts to establish which window belongs to Aske.”

“Can we back up to where you said ‘verify’?” asks Erin. “Is there a chance we get there and the gate isn’t there?”

“It moves,” says Máni. “Not every night, thankfully, or we’d spend all our time chasing the thing, and not nearly enough time doing our actual jobs. It felt stable enough last time I was there.”

“I’m expecting it to move tomorrow, probably to the back hall of the old UC Theatre. It’s been there about once a month for the last year. But right now, it should be on the Campanile. I don’t know whether the everything has preferences, but it definitely has patterns, and it didn’t like being unable to open on the Campanile while the repairs were going on. So it tends to show up there reliably.”

“Okay,” says Dodger. “What happens if I can’t go into this ‘everything’ of yours?”