Page 60 of Tidal Creatures

“Why?” asks Kim, her tears finally stopping in the face of her confusion.

“They—the alchemists, I mean—are trying to get to a place called the Impossible City. The way Reed embodied the Doctrine of Ethos means the cuckoos who carry it have the authority to claim the Tower if they want to, and the alchemists want to get there first.”

“But the Queen of Wands…” says Kim.

“The Queen of Wands is dead,” says Kelpie. “Asphodel Baker claimed the crown before she wrote the Up-and-Under books, and since her death, the Tower has been standing empty, and there’s no one in her parlor.”

“The way you people treat those books like a religion baffles me sometimes,” says Smita. “They’re just kiddie books.”

“They’re a primer on modern alchemical reality,” says Kim, somewhat stiffly.

“That’s why Baker wrote them,” says Kelpie. “She wanted to solidify her concepts about reality and spread them as wide as she could, because the person who got there first would win. Baum tried to unseat her with his Emerald City, but he made it too real. He spent too much time there. The Impossible City isn’t real. It can’t be. A thing that’s real has been defined until it doesn’t feel fully flexible the way something a little bit hazy does. The Impossible City is impossible in part because it has to encompass everything that everyone in the world can possibly ask it to be.”

“So the alchemists want the Impossible City,” says Smita. “We knew that. What does that have to do with Roger and Dodger being out on their own?”

“Baker proposed the idea of embodying the Doctrine because she believed it was the key to universal control, and hence to claiming the City itself,” says Kelpie. “The City is the universe. Whoever controls it, controls everything. Reed continued her work because he wanted to control reality.”

Kim wrinkles her nose. “Roger and Dodger can’t control the universe. They’re too weird.”

“Alchemical constructs generally are,” says Kelpie. She pauses and then, laughing nervously, adds, “Which includes me, I guess.”

“I guess.”

Kelpie looks to Smita. “Why did you want me to meet her? She’s nice, but I don’t understand.”

“She’s not terrifying, is she?” asks Smita. “She’s just a teenage girl who was almost the human incarnation of Math, and now she isn’t. But even if she never gets to be Math, she’ll always be Kim. She’ll always be a really real person, who also happens to be a cuckoo. How you’re made doesn’t matter. It’s what you do once you exist that matters.”

“Oh,” says Kelpie. “I guess that … that makes sense.” She looks back to Kim. “It was very nice to meet you. I’m sorry you didn’t get to be what they made you to be.”

“That makes two of us,” says Kim, and smiles, expression at odds with her words. “It was nice to meet you, too. I hope you figure out what you’re supposed to be, and that it’s something you don’t have to be if you don’t want to.”

“Ready to go downstairs?” asks Smita, almost gently.

Kelpie sighs, then nods.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she says.

Lacus Spei

TIMELINE: AUGUST 18, 2017. THREE DAYS TO THE ECLIPSE.

Chang’e is still staring at the doorway when two women appear, one strawberry blonde with a peaches-and-cream complexion that looks like it would be personally offended by the suggestion that it might either freckle or tan, the other black-haired and brown-skinned, expression implying that she would rather be walking into a dentist’s office in Hell than this simple residential kitchen. Behind them, Chang’e hears the door swing shut and then open again, more sedately this time. Footsteps ascend the stairs, the two women in the doorway blocking whoever they belong to from view.

The blonde folds her arms as she looks at the group, slowly taking their measure. The black-haired woman looks less self-assured. She’s trying not to seem concerned, but she’s clearly worried about being in the house, surrounded by people she has to know aren’t entirely human. All three Lunars are stepped up, and the air around them sparkles like it’s been filled with floating glitter. Roger and Dodger are less visibly inhuman, but their calm acceptance of the shimmer in the air has to mark them in some way as outside the norm.

Roger lifts his chin toward the new arrival. “Erin. ’S’up?”

“I feel like I should be the one asking you that, since you’re apparently hosting a kitchen party without having warned your housemates.” The blonde continues to eye the group, somewhat dubiously. “They’re sparkly. Elementals or Lunars?”

“Lunars,” says Roger. “Erin, meet Chang’e, Artemis, and I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

“Máni.”

“Right, Máni. Two of the big three, and one of the Scandinavians, if I’m not mistaken.” Roger phrases that like he could be mistaken, when everyone in the room knows he physically can’t be.

Or at least Chang’e assumes he can’t be mistaken. She doesn’t actually know what the Doctrine is capable of, especially not now that she knows it’s been divided between two bodies, Math distinct from Language and possessed of its own motivations and desires. This is all far more complicated than she was expecting, and she doesn’t like it. Judy was right to do her best to stay away from the incarnate Doctrine, and all Chang’e can do now is wish her mortal aspect had been a little better at playing keep-away.

“Moon gods, fascinating,” says Erin. She gestures to the woman next to her. “This is Isabella.”