Chapter Text
Even from her borrowed face, Tally’s answering smile was incandescent as she led Sarah-as-Izadora down the hill toward the motorcycles and her former Drill Sergeant. The closer they got, the more Tally noted that Anacostia’s form managed to positively vibrate with agitation even as she stood in perfect, trained stillness and regarded the descending trio with an austere expression. The woman’s mouth was drawn into a severe line that managed to make her glacial stare all the more cutting. Between that in front of her and Sarah’s raw, thankful elation zinging through their link from behind, Tally felt vaguely whiplashed, but pressed forward nonetheless.
“We had the best reason, Anacostia!” Tally chirped, grounding her left ankle to take more of Sarah’s weight on that side as the former general descended; the combination of the loose earth and the lingering unsteadiness in Sarah’s newly-reanimated limbs left the downhill trek trickier than Tally would have liked.
“There’s a Private trembling in my office at the moment, terrified she’s about to be court-marshalled for ‘abandoning’ the post you Pushed her from, who might disagree.” Tally’s shoulders fell. Anacostia’s raised, slitted brow revealed nothing of her feelings. The cool expression, combined in this as it was with her rigid stature, reminded Tally so jarringly of Anacostia’s adoptive mother that her stretching grin hovered just under the point of pain.
From farther up the ridge, Nicte’s disguised voice crowed, “That’s what you did at the gate? You sent the second guard off with a code? Nice work, Dimples! You’ve been wasted in the Army.”
Sarah’s answering bristle was the first emotion to break through her roiling delight at seeing her foster-daughter, but even that was short-lived and sank quickly back below the waves of her fierce love for the woman they approached.
Tally’s smile vanished into a wince, unsure of whether she was addressing Anacostia, Nicte, or Sarah. “I’m not proud of it, but desperate times.” Tally was gratified that drawing up beside Anacostia left her close enough to see the Sergeant nod nearly imperceptibly in acquiescence. Her bright eyes, always cat-like in their unhurried focus, scrutinized Tally’s pilfered face carefully.
“Tally,” she guessed, lips quirking in a smile that Tally was quick to return as a confirmation. Anacostia’s eyes next flitted to Izadora’s form and her head tilted slightly in confusion as she registered the expression on the woman’s borrowed face. Tally didn’t blame her; “Izadora” didn’t seem to be breathing, or bothering to blink away the tears that had risen freely to her eyes. Her lips were parted in an expression of such adoration that Tally’s heart constricted at the tenderness of it. Even without a steady, musical chime of Sarah’s love humming between her ribs as Tally had at the moment, Anacostia would have seen the naked affection in every line of the woman’s disguised form.
And then, with an intentional speed Tally had only seen from Sarah Alder in combat, “Izadora” surged forward in only a few long strides and threw her arms around Anacostia, gracelessly dragging Tally, still gripping her hand to maintain Sarah’s pyro-shapeshift, along in her haste.
Anacostia froze, her shoulders snapping upward as she brought her hands up to grip “Izadora’s” upper arms. Her head whipped to the side to meet Tally’s eyes over the curve of Sarah’s neck in an expression of such pure panic that it made Tally huff out a laugh and then take pity on her.
“Anacostia, could you lean to your right, please?” she requested. Bewildered, Anacostia did as she was bid, eyes locked frantically on Tally as if to demand that she pry “Izadora” off of her person like, yesterday. Instead, Tally released Sarah’s hand, allowing herself a split second to stroke an encouraging thumb along the back of Sarah’s knuckles as she drew away and stepped back several feet. The sensation of the Working breaking triggered a single instant of pressure between Tally’s teeth that receded as quickly as it had come.
Anacostia flinched when the fire bloomed so near her face, but then she held her ground, waiting for the flames to disperse and reveal the identity of the woman who had all but hurled herself into her arms. When Sarah—wearing her own face once more—pulled back a few inches, the better to see her foster-daughter more clearly, Anacostia’s eyes blew wide and she suddenly propelled herself backward with enough force to wrench Sarah’s arms from around her.
She stumbled back several graceless steps, more color seeming to drain from her cheeks with each foot she put between herself and Sarah. Her eyes were wide and utterly horrified, but her voice held a furious steel Tally had never heard before, even at the worst, most stressful heights of Basic.
“Craven, what the fuck is this?!”
Shocked, Tally took a careful step toward Anacostia, who skipped back from her and raised her hands defensively. Tally tried, and mostly succeeded, not to take it personally. She could feel Sarah attempting the same with far less success.
“Daughter,” Sarah began, voice breaking on fresh tears. “I—”
“NO!” Anacostia’s snarl was barbed enough to make Tally flinch, but there was a sob shuddering underneath it, too, quivering like the sound of a trapped animal in a way that sent anguish spiraling outward from Sarah to lash at Tally’s own heart. “My mother is dead. I don’t know who you are, but you are not Sarah Alder.” Once the first tears fell, they came hard and fast, choking the steel from Anacostia’s voice like a flame guttering. “She’s gone.”
“I was, Daughter, but I’ve come back. The Goddess—"
“Enough!” It was clear that Anacostia tried to divert her gaze back to Tally, but it only held for a heartbeat before, despite herself, her eyes returned to Sarah. Her gaze was both haunted and hungry despite herself. For the first time since she’d known Anacostia, Tally felt she could believe that her formidable former Drill Sergeant had once been a small, frightened fosterling latching onto the approval, and underneath that the love, of her General. Tears now misted Tally’s eyes, too, but she blinked them away.
“Tally, what is this?” Then, eyes sharpening suddenly, Anacostia snapped forward into a practiced crouch and cast her gaze skyward to flicker briskly along the treetops as if in search of something. “Is this Nicte’s mindfuckery?”
“Wow,” Nicte’s stolen voice drawled from just behind Tally’s left shoulder. “Okay, rude.” Enthralled by the agonized reunion before her, Tally hadn’t even heard her arrival at the bottom of the slope.
Tally rolled her eyes, but stepped cautiously forward, around Sarah, who seemed rooted to her spot. Outwardly concealed though it was, Sarah’s shock had cleaved into twin coils of misery and frustration that pummeled the link between them. The specific combination telegraphed her thoughts better than Tally suspected Sarah could have aloud with words: She didn’t know what to do to remedy this situation. Experimentally, Tally focused on gathering as much soothing warmth and reassurance as she could into herself and deliberately pushed it toward Sarah; she was rewarded by Sarah’s tense exhale and a slight relaxation of her shoulders as Tally took another step toward Anacostia.
When the Captain didn’t recoil from her again, Tally smiled encouragingly and drew her lighter from her pocket and along her chin, dissolving her own disguise. “No, Anacostia. It isn’t a trick. Do you know what a Cavalier is?”
Anacostia’s brows knitted into an expression of first confusion, then a feeble attempt at exasperation. The way her gaze kept darting between Tally and Sarah left her attention too fractured to really sustain anything more stable for too long. Her voice was colored by a half-strangled attempt at sarcasm: “Are you really asking me to be your date to someone’s debut right now, Craven?”
“That’s what I said!” Tally trilled, registering a more brittle version of her own amusement trickling from Sarah behind her. Tally groped in her recent memory for the Mycelium’s articulate explanation when she had voiced a similar question. “Yes and no. It’s kind of like a Biddy bond, but more…” Tally flapped her right hand slowly, searching for the words.
“Focused,” Sarah supplied from behind her. A crunch of dead leaves announced that Sarah had taken a half-step toward Tally and Anacostia, but she resisted the urge to come any closer. “Direct. Tally and I had a latent connection from the beginning that her choices—including sacrificing her life for mine in the Tarim—solidified.” A low whistle from Nicte’s vicinity punctuated this revelation. “Our life forces had melded together enough by the time I… fell… to bind me to life inside the Mycelium.” Anacostia’s expression shifted from suspicion to intrigue—flashing briefly to grief despite Sarah’s careful choice of “fell” over “died”—and settled on something akin to amazement while Sarah’s concluded: “When she swore herself to the connection, it was enough to allow me to return.”
Perfect silence held the clearing in suspense while Anacostia processed this explanation. Tally clocked Sarah’s rippling hope as Anacostia’s hesitation appeared to slowly, slowly dissipate from her features. The Captain’s throat bobbed in a weak swallow and her eyes turned beseechingly to Tally in a show of supremely uncharacteristic vulnerability. Tally registered the expression immediately as the same one Izadora had worn when she first saw Sarah’s reborn form: A hope so visceral that even witnessing it on someone else’s face settled between Tally’s own teeth like raw sugar. Too sweet to be fully processed; too exquisite to be ignored. Tally wondered fleetingly if this was the same expression Nicte had seen on Tally’s own face when they had worked out that Sarah was still alive those weeks ago in the Cession.
Tally smiled reassuringly at Anacostia. “It’s true. I couldn’t—” She coughed delicately. “We couldn’t lose her.”
The small bloom of affection Tally felt from over her right shoulder contrasted greatly with the theatrical gagging sound from over her left. Tally opted not to take her eyes off Anacostia’s face, but did discreetly cross her right hand behind her back to flash a crude gesture at Nicte. If the other woman’s gauche snort was anything to go by, Tally’s message had been received.
Undeterred, Tally held her breath as Anacostia’s eyes travelled slowly back to Sarah. The woman’s normally implacably-commanding voice trembled over a single word in a way that was so soft, so desperately covetous, that Tally’s heart clenched at the sound.
“Máà?”
Tally’s already-jangling nerves were unprepared for the sight that met her as she turned to Sarah. The tears gathered in Sarah’s eyes left them impossibly bluer, shining impossibly brighter as a tight nod sent them spilling down her cheeks. Her teeth flashed in a tentative attempt at a smile, the briefest tic of a muscle in her jaw and the helpless flexing of her hands at her sides the only visible signs of how desperately Sarah fought against the urge to drag her daughter into another embrace and risk startling her again. The ache in Tally’s chest made it harder to notice that she’d stopped breathing at the sight of Sarah’s agonized hope.
A choked sob rent the stillness of the clearing, and then Anacostia was leaping toward her mother and flinging her arms around the woman as if she were her lifeline. Watching the shuddering form of her former Drill Sergeant in Sarah’s arms, not-so-subtly muffling the sounds of her crying into Sarah’s borrowed jacket, Tally couldn’t help but believe, in this moment, that she was. She nodded once to Sarah over Anacostia’s shaking shoulder and then turned toward Nicte to give the two some privacy. She met the Spree leader’s eyes and jerked her head toward the motorcycles twenty feet or so away before leading her off toward them, the low sound of Sarah soothing Anacostia following them as they went.
“What was it you said about being able to support a more human Sarah Alder?” Tally murmured quietly to Nicte once they’d gone far enough that Sarah’s and Anacostia’s hushed voices were left muted.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nicte retorted, although it lacked some of her usual bravado. She went oddly quiet, and after a moment, the lengthening silence between them made Tally realize that she was working to articulate something. With the toe of her boot, Nicte thoughtfully tapped one of the stakes Tally knew had grounded either Raelle or Scylla during their ill-advised Salva experience once upon a time. “This will take some getting used to.” Her tapping grew firmer, the silence unspooling again. Tally waited, having learned long ago that Nicte would always be far more forthcoming if she wasn’t pressed to speak before she was ready. Nicte’s gaze didn’t rise from the ground as she finally planted both feet and finally addressed Tally.
“You’re sure you’re okay with this, Red?” Tally only cocked her head, so Nicte’s eyes finally darted up to her face, narrowing carefully. “With this Cavalier thing. Being linked to her again. The last time I checked, having your soul connected to Sarah Alder’s messed you up. A lot.”
Had it been said in any other tone of voice, Tally would have blanched. Said in this one, so uncharacteristically soft and earnest, she instead smiled gratefully. It was clear that the question was asked out of genuine concern for Tally’s wellbeing. “I’m sure. I think the… after-effects from last time were because neither of us had accepted the Cavalier bond, not really. This time feels different, and…” Of its own accord, Tally’s foot rose to lightly kick the same stake Nicte’s had abandoned; of their own accord, her eyes found Sarah still murmuring into Anacostia’s hair across the clearing. “And I love her.” The admission was no less fervent for how quietly it was delivered, and Nicte’s appraising smile was at least a genuine response to the passion in Tally’s tone.
“All right, then. But to be clear, I will kick her ass if she fumbles this.”
By way of response, Tally folded her hands behind her back and deliberately arched an eyebrow in the most Alder-esque way she could.
Nicte groaned. “That will also take some getting used to.” Her gaze swiveled back across the clearing and she shifted her weight once from one foot to the other, a nervous tic Tally wasn’t certain Nicte was aware of. “We need to get moving.”
Tally cast her Sight around them in a tightly-woven web, breathing a sigh of relief that there were still no soldiers canvassing their part of the woods. For the moment. She wondered what Anacostia had done to buy them this time. “Let’s give them one more minute.”
Nicte rolled her eyes in a dramatically put-upon way, but acquiesced. Her tone shifted into something more clipped and businesslike, and not for the first time, Tally thought she glimpsed the once-Army Sergeant beneath the Spree outlaw. “Fine. Use the minute to tell me what I’m working with where your Work is concerned.”
“Unclear,” Tally mumbled around a groan, but took a moment to replay the events of the nearly-failed distraction Working from earlier in her mind’s eye. “The link is consistent, but I think our Work is… settling? I can only speak for mine, but it seems as unstable as before, just with way more firepower now that hers is in the mix. I can’t tell if it’s extra energy from the new bond or if I’m holding some of hers or something—maybe while her body adjusts? It’s all so muddled together now.”
Nicte’s eyes narrowed briefly before she arranged her expression back into something more neutral, and Tally couldn’t blame her; they had a long, long journey back to their coven if two-thirds of their party had inconsistent access to their ability to do Work. Tally’s morose need to apologize is what kept her prattling past prudence.
“Penelope—the Mycelium—said as we were leaving that proximity helps seal the bond. I think once we’re out of Fort Salem, we can work on that and it might, I dunno, fix the issue?”
Seemingly despite herself, Nicte’s sober expression evanesced into something positively gleeful. “So it’s up to me to get you two somewhere that you can work out the kinks?”
“Nicte!” Tally hissed, utterly scandalized as she struggled to will away the burn of a blush spilling up her throat and into her cheeks. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“That’s impossible, Craven,” Sarah’s voice announced archly from just behind her, so disturbingly near that Tally would have sworn she levitated off the ground for a second in her surprise. “Nicte’s mind lives in the gutter.”
Tally spun on her heel, unsure of when Sarah and Anacostia had joined them by the motorcycles and more pressingly, of whether the intrigue zipping along the link between them was the result of Sarah not hearing Nicte’s remark and being curious, or of her hearing exactly what it was Nicte had said that had embarrassed Tally so. The way Sarah’s eyes smoldered hotly just so as she stared at Tally left the once-cadet queasily suspecting it was the latter. Her face felt like it was on fire.
Anacostia, blessedly, noted the look that passed between the pair, but saved anyone having to comment further when she shouldered past her foster-mother to step into Tally’s space and hug her fiercely. “Thank you,” she whispered into Tally’s hair, squeezing her so tightly that the Captain’s battle charm dug into Tally’s collarbone from beneath the fabric of her tactical hood. She withdrew a few inches to rest her forehead against Tally’s in a gesture that left Tally’s eyes prickling. “Thank you.”
Tally nodded, returning the embrace briefly before Anacostia stepped back and came to rest in perfect military posture. It was, no doubt, meant to signal that her moment of vulnerability had ended. Now she regarded Tally, Sarah, and Nicte expectantly.
“So. We need a tiny favor from you, Anacostia,” Tally hedged. Anacostia’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but Tally was undaunted. “We snuck in okay, but—”
“Craven, half this base is hunting you right now. That is, of course, in addition to most of the country.”
“Well, ‘okay’ might be a bit of an exaggeration,” Tally conceded. “But we need your help to get back out. Or, well, technically we need General Bellweather’s.”
Three heartbeats passed while Anacostia processed Tally’s words. Then she closed her eyes as her hand crept up to grip the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “Cadet, how is it that your unit manages to give me even more migraines now than you did when I was your C.O.?”
Tally beamed. “Practice?”
Anacostia fixed her with a glare before deflating with a sigh. “Petra is in a meeting with President Wade right now, with Vice President Silver set to join in soon. You all picked a fine day to do this.” Her eyes darted to Sarah’s revitalized face, currently eyeing her with keen interest since the mention of the president, and her weary gaze softened. “I’m not complaining,” Anacostia amended, reaching forward to squeeze Sarah’s elbow. “This will just be… complicated.”
“Nat-urally,” Nicte replied with a sardonic lilt to her voice and curve to one eyebrow.
Anacostia’s lip quirked at the comment, then she drew her right hand to her ear and issued the infravocal Seed to initiate a Farspeech connection. Tally was grateful to note that Anacostia didn’t bother to shield them from the Working; the Captain was hoping, no doubt, to shave off a few minutes of this process by not consigning herself to transcribe Petra’s end of the conversation.
“General Bellweather. Are you alone?”
Despite the initial catch in the connection as the Working rippled into life in the clearing, the frustrated growl in Petra’s response was just audible to the four women: “When am I ever alone anymore, Captain Quartermaine?”
Anacostia winced. Tally noted that a smirk had played at the edges of Sarah’s lips at Petra’s tone, no doubt at the fact that her once-rival had discovered the less appealing aspects of Sarah’s former position that Petra had so coveted.
Tally’s traitorous gaze zeroed in on how good that smirk looked when it caused Sarah’s face to tilt upward proudly, highlighting the fine, fine line of her jaw. Tally licked her lips before she could stop herself, privately deciding that no one that smug should look that sexy.
The way Sarah’s eyes slid to Tally’s right as her smirk deepened told Tally that her thoughts had been less private than she realized. She tried to ignore her blush as she forced her attention back on the deliberateexchange taking place in front of her.
“Could you get that way, ma’am? There’s a minor situation involving Major Verger’s star student.”
Petra’s response was sharp and immediate. “That student and her coven are not on active duty, Captain.” The frustration had evaporated from her voice, leaving in its stead only the barest clip to betray her instant concern over Anacostia’s message, and then only to someone who knew Petra’s mannerisms well—or in Tally’s case, to someone who knew the tells of private strain that Petra’s daughter had inherited.
“The coven may not be on duty, General, but it remains…” Anacostia settled glittering eyes on Tally and finished wryly, “surprisingly active.”
There was a pause. Then: “Understood, Quartermaine. I’ll need five minutes.” The connection broke abruptly.
“Well I for one think that went well,” Nicte announced blithely. Tally snorted.
Anacostia pinched the bridge of her nose again. “You three—four, I suppose, if you’re who I think you are,” she amended, nodding toward Nicte’s disguise. “You four are going to be the death of me.”
“Heavy lies the head, daughter,” Sarah deadpanned with a somber nod.
“No shit,” Anacostia retorted, then, as if just realizing her lack of professionalism, huffed a laugh and relaxed slightly. Her keen eyes landed on Tally once more. “While we wait, why don’t you tell me whose idea it was to blow up that wharf in Galveston last month?”
Tally winced. “Abi’s. The Camarilla were moving munitions through the port. It made sense at the time!”
Anacostia raised a brow. “The warehouse in Topeka?”
“Also Abi’s. They were making Witchplague there!”
“The train station in Jackson?”
“… Abi’s.”
“The—”
“Bellweather Lite likes to default to torching things, Captain,” Nicte huffed in exasperated explanation. “It’s sort of become our thing.”
Tally glanced sheepishly at Sarah from beneath her lashes, expecting disdain for their startlingly heavy-handed tactics, but was rewarded with a look of unguarded pride from the former General that made it difficult to keep her expression so sober. She suddenly felt it whirling intoxicatingly along the connection, too, Sarah’s admiration for all they’d done against the Camarilla in her absence singing headily in her blood.
“Believe me, we know,” Anacostia retorted, just barely managing to reclaim Tally’s attention. “Petra’s got me flying out and Seeding trees all over the damned country to cover your tracks.”
“In our defense,” Tally began, then closed her mouth with a puzzled frown. “Wait, what?”
“The trees. We’ve been masking your marks as Faction strikes this whole time. It’s a convenient fix, actually, which is helpful, but it’d be a lot more so if you’d Seed them yourselves when you’re done. Half my time is spent in the air these days.”
“What the hell is a Faction, and why does it mean we need to plant trees?” Nicte asked. She was visibly unappreciative of being ordered around by anyone, much less anyone in an Army uniform, and much less to seemingly commit to better gardening practices on the frontlines of a war.
It was Anacostia’s turn to frown. “The Alder Faction.” When Tally and Nicte glanced at each other, shrugged, then looked back to her in united puzzlement, Anacostia’s brows knitted in disbelief. Sarah’s eyes narrowed in intrigue at the mention of her surname, but of course she, too, had nothing to add. “You haven’t been working with the Faction in the Cession?”
“We’ve been working alone, Anacostia,” Tally supplied. “We use Dodger and Spree safehouses when we can, but can’t really work with anyone directly for their own safety.”
Anacostia’s shock was nearly tangible. “Well, that explains why you haven’t been leaving alders, then. Petra will be surprised, too.” She eyed Nicte. “I thought for sure that you’d know of them.”
The glower on Nicte’s borrowed face was deepening with each second that ticked by without answers, and Anacostia’s specific focus on her intel, or lack thereof, seemed to be the last straw for her. “Are you ever going to tell us what this Faction is?” Nicte finally demanded.
“It’s… Well, it’s a bit of everything, really.” Nicte huffed at Anacostia’s nonanswer, which earned her a responding glare from the Captain. Anacostia held the look for a moment, then her eyes slid to Tally, then Sarah, before softening. “The world saw the Rite of Proxy.”
Tally and Sarah stiffened as one at the mention of the Rite, the link between them instantly harmonized to bleed nuanced shades of guilt and grief into the space between them. Anacostia continued:
“Everyone saw General Alder step down. And then everyone heard that she stood despite everything to protect Fort Salem, to protect witchkind—placed herself between the threat and her own soldiers—and that she paid the ultimate price to do so. That she gave her life and saved so many. It… swayed a lot of opinions about Sarah, and it inspired a lot more. It rippled outward and resonated with people in ways we could never have anticipated.” Focused though she was on hearing about the apparent aftershocks of her death, Sarah reached out to squeeze Anacostia’s forearm encouragingly; the Captain blinked in surprise, quickly using her free hand to swipe at the tears that she evidently hadn’t realized had gathered in her eyes.
“The Alder Faction is… well, it’s a surprise guerilla movement, with its power stacked into its unpredictability and its core ideology. Wade needed a rocky transition from Sarah to Petra to put her in the position to keep throwing fuel on inter-Army conflict, but this time with her chosen General on a shorter leash. It would have been to Wade’s advantage if Sarah had lived to rile Petra and keep the Army chasing its own tail. But when Sarah died to protect her—us—instead, it was essentially with the whole world already watching Fort Salem. We knew the second Wade put a gag order on Petra about Sarah deferring to her when the Camarilla attacked, right before she died in that attack, that it was the smoothness that was the threat to her power. She wanted that kept quiet, so naturally, I told everyone connected to Intelligence.”
Anacostia shrugged ruefully under Sarah’s fond appraisal.
“Anyway, the Alder Faction erupted around a response to Sarah’s sacrifice, which became a rallying point for a lot of different people to meet with shared interests. Especially young people.” Unmistakable pride had leaked into Anacostia’s voice by the time she reached this point in the story. “My understanding is it started with the Dodger kids. Teens who’d grown up protecting and hiding their fellow witches from the Army suddenly had to look at Sarah’s choice in a more complex light, especially if the Camarilla seems to be linked as closely as it is to the administration to which the Accords bind all witches; Dodgers admire nothing if not duty to witchkind, and Sarah being taken down by a suspiciously well-positioned Camarilla got them talking about what choices Sarah has actually had in her position.”
From the corner of her eye, Tally saw Sarah swallow heavily and sensed a tiny kernel of wonder from the other woman. She stepped closer to the former General as discreetly as she could and sent comfort along the link between them.
“Eventually, the Dodger kids organized. Small but impressive stuff at first: They found the intended venues for three Camarilla events like the one Scylla and I infiltrated—events we didn’t even know about—and graffitied the names of members on the outer walls of the buildings. Sounds like kiddie crime on the nose of it, but we still don’t know how they got those names. And then, once they realized the Faction was serious, the Spree got involved.”
Tally sensed Nicte stiffen and lean forward, now every bit as enthralled as Sarah was.
“The Spree brought a certain thespian flair,” Anacostia announced, eyes rolling, albeit good-naturedly. “I have it on good authority that the Faction’s signature came from a Spree cell. And once that started and the idea of their calling card caught fire, it was only a matter of time before the Faction really cohered around its message. From there, it accelerated: They vandalized armories, raided the transports of witches to Camarilla facilities—conveniently enough for a certain rogue unit, blew things up…”
Tally, too, was utterly spellbound, but she did allow her shoulders to stiffen in some degree of chagrin at Anacostia’s phrasing. The veritable avalanche of naked pride tumbling toward her from Sarah, though, straightened Tally’s spine again as Anacostia recounted the next phase of the Faction’s life-cycle.
“We know the Spree was always intended to speak directly to the Army. It’s probably natural that it didn’t take long for teen witches on the cusp of Conscription to join the Dodgers and Spree and move the Faction into Fort Salem. Many in this year’s cohort worked on the ground with the Faction before saying the Words. They’re here, quietly, working to recruit the Army from the inside.” Anacostia’s gentle smile widened into something with near-frightening ferocity. “The bolder ones have even started wearing Sarah’s braid to signal their allegiance. But you can recognize them all by the same battle charm.”
At this, Anacostia reached up to draw her own from under her hood, unpinning it gently and presenting it to Tally, Sarah, and Nicte nestled in both palms, bracketing between her middle and index fingers it as if it were something sacred. Tally zeroed in on the small token, gasping and leaning closer over Anacostia’s hands when she discovered ribbons of Work threaded throughout its shape in a breathtaking pattern of three distinctiveshades. Tally felt all eyes on her as her hands shot forward, fingers fluttering over the charm for a moment while her wide eyes sought permission from Anacostia, who after a moment, smiled softly in satisfaction with Tally’s Sight and dropped it into the rogue cadet’s own cupped palms.
In Tally’s trembling hands rested a flat, wooden disc, no wider than an apricot. Engraved on the surface beneath the three, intermingled Works that only she could see was a minimalist, geological design: Three unadorned circles arranged into the points of a nondescript equilateral triangle. Unimpressive to the point of anti-climax.
Or so it seemed.
Tally’s Sight caught the tell-tale shimmer only an instant before Sarah and Nicte each leaned forward wearing intriguingly-identical frowns.
The amulet first glittered faintly with a deep, earthy brown Work that Tally immediately recognized from impromptu lessons with Quinn. The core strengths of Dodger Work, she’d learned, were Marking Seeds designed to covertly marshal community—Seeds that signaled Dodger support exclusively to other Dodgers. Immediately, Tally intuited that anyone who looked at the charm while looking for the charm, looking for the ally it Marked, would recognize one in its wearer; anyone who looked at it without knowing what to look for would see three, probably intentionally-unremarkable circles. It was the same Work Dodgers used to direct one another to safehouses under the noses of those who would hunt them. Off-Canon Work they never, ever shared with non-Dodgers lest whole branches of their distinctive Work be compromised. Used as Anacostia described, if every Faction member wore a similar charm, they would be able to recognize one another as they recruited, all under the noses of unconfirmed members. It was ingenious.
Fascinated, Tally tilted the charm gently away from her and felt her eyes widen in awe as the concealment singed away in a sudden flash of orange flame.
“Anacostia, this is Dodger Work! And Spree Work!”
Anacostia’s smile widened and she raised a single brow to invite further inspection, but said nothing. So Tally’s eyes fell back to the charm, its true form revealed once she saw it for what it was.
In place of the three unprovocative circles were three more defined, ovular shapes, each a different color and shot through with lines of the repeating textures that marked them for what they were: alder cones, the finish of each burnished lightly in gold. The cone at the left base of the arrangement glimmered with the same nutty brown as the Working that Marked the intent of the charm’s wearer; Tally sensed more than she Saw the rune for community set beneath the design. The cone on the right was cast in the rich, vibrant orange of Spree Work, its Concealment Working rippling faintly to Tally’s Sight like a candleflame just under the orange cone’s surface. The top cone shimmered the striking obsidian of Army Canon, derived as it was from Sarah’s family’s Songs; Tally sensed more than she Saw a sigil of protection inlaid in the black cone’s design. Connecting each cone to the next was a glittering braid of three golden threads. The result was a triangle of three distinctive alder cones linked by filigree chains of gold. And situated in the center…
Tally gasped and ran a reverent fingertip along the central gemstone that seemed to shimmer from within. Intensely familiar with this precise shade of blue—with the exact way it collected and softened prisms of light before refracting something adularescent and closer to a glow than should be possible—Tally named it immediately: “Moonstone,” she murmured, as quietly as she used to say prayers on the few occasions when her mother succeeded in strongarming her into the NorCal compound’s pagan church. She glanced up at Sarah, whose gaze was still on the pendant, blushed, then returned her own to Anacostia, pointedly refusing to look at Sarah again as she concluded, “For Sarah’s eyes.”
Once, in Basic, Tally had answered a question on her Applied Elements final exam too romantically for Anacostia’s taste. The former Drill Sergeant had made Tally drop and do push-ups at the front of the class until she could translate the flowery language she’d used to describe yarrow into something more concrete and usable as a Work-enhanced field dressing in an emergency situation. (Rae and Abi, and even Glory, had teased her mercilessly for weeks.) In this moment, following Tally’s awed pronouncement about moonstone, the tightening of a muscle in Anacostia’s jaw gave Tally the distinct impression that the Captain wished she could order her back to the ground for her flightiness now.
“For balance,” Anacostia corrected drily.
Tally nodded dutifully, but her gaze still flickered a few times between the gem in the center of the battle charm and Sarah’s eyes (sparkling now as they were at Tally’s assessment), clearly comparing the shades against one another and finding exactly what she expected. Say what Anacostia might, the connection was sound by Tally’s fervent estimation.
“Alder for balance,” Anacostia intoned. “Alder for both weapon and shield, alder cones to emphasize the power of a Mother in each.” She swallowed, momentarily overcome. Tally registered a similar sensation in the former General beside her, around whose name and memory all of this had crystallized. “Moonstone, also for balance: for Alder the leader and this shade for Alder the woman and witch. Dodger Marking, Spree Concealment, Army Protection—working as one in the Alder Faction.”
Tally exhaled as if Windstruck, awed in a way she hadn’t been since she’d first stepped foot in the Fort Salem auditorium so long ago and watched the General assume the podium to address her cohort for the first time, might and magnificence wrapped perceptibly, around a single raised hand that made the unspoken request for silence feel implicitly like an order to be readily—enthusiastically—obeyed. When she’d been in the presence of greatness and leadership and felt herself on the precipice of change.
Nicte gaped, eyes sparkling even as she tried to mask how affected she really was. “This is…”
“The future,” Tally finished, voice barely audible at first, but strengthening as her eyes brightened and found Sarah’s again. “Dodger, Spree, Army… This is how we beat the Camarilla!” Her lips curled into a wild grin. “Unit unity, rah-rah.”
“Unit unity, rah-rah,” Sarah repeated breathlessly, eyes blown wide in admiration for the piece in Tally’s hands and the potential it portended. It was easy to see why: From what Anacostia had revealed, the Alder Faction was her life’s work and her life’s Work—witches banding together to protect witches. The true freedom of that unity, which the government had precluded by domesticating Sarah’s power for their own use in her daughters, had been finally released upon her death. The fury at the center of this storm was unlike anything the Camarilla—or the world—had seen. It approached myth.
Creation myth.
Tally was unsure if the unmitigated wonder in which she was suffused at the moment was her own or Sarah’s. Perhaps both. However, she knew the giddiness at already sensing the answer to the question she asked next was all her own. “You mentioned they had a calling card, Anacostia?”
Anacostia’s austere expression danced nearer to a smile. “They Seed an alder tree at each strike zone. Balance—for debts owed and repaid in Camarilla blood.”
“That’s kind of beautiful,” Tally remarked. Then, more soberly: “And terrifying.”
Anacostia snorted, then bowed her head respectfully, affectionately. “That’s Gen-Z for you.”
Tally’s skin flushed. She felt too big for it suddenly, too limitless for her own body. She felt intoxicated. Her eyes found Sarah’s, noting the former General’s flushed cheeks that betrayed Tally’s own feelings mirrored back to her. That determined feeling the two had shared in the Mycelium flooded their connection again: It was time to find their ancient enemies and end this, finally. Tally felt the keen hunger for it echo in the spaces between her very bones, between her incisors. Without breaking eye contact, Tally’s right hand rose to grip Sarah’s left forearm, her teeth bared in an approximation of a delicate snarl. At Tally’s bold touch, Sarah’s eyes darkened. Tally would, personally, eradicate this or any threat to Sarah’s new life. As if promises held the power to pull, Sarah stepped more fully into Tally’s space, this action seemingly responsible for a coil of power Tally had never experienced before to bloom and rumble behind her vocal cords.
Interesting.
Tally had just enough time to register the way Anacostia’s and Nicte’s gazes each bounced between the place where Tally clutched Sarah’s arm and back to one another, the former in confusion and the latter in concern, when the knife-edge of Petra’s tense voice startled all four of them from the charged moment:
“Anacostia, I’m alone. Now what the hell is going on with the Bellweather unit?”