CHAPTER 3

  “I am of potion. My gilded grace brings ticking change. By caustic kiss, do I unname. A rabid male seen undone. A festering female’s treason tamed. Transgressions rake thy tortured name, though by my hand I see it laid. May you nob’ly meet my death. By hallowed potion am I made.”

  -from A Study in Guild Culture, subheading Guild Doctrine: Catechisms, circa 1609

  She had returned from Elyse’s trial site in time for meetings. Always more meetings. How did a Sepal get anything done in this stupid Chapter when it meant more meetings? Elyse’s trial weighed on her.

  How did they get into Flora’s stock?

  At least she survived, Lainia sighed, resigned. Her reports showed House losses even in remote Chapters. They were ballooning. Elyse was an outlier by her survival. Lucky, stupid girl, lacking confidence and the careful analysis of a more successful Venin. If her success was a fluke, they would soon find out during her first Venin task, whenever that was.

  She filed it away for later.

  Lainia wrapped herself in her scars and trepidations as she faced a greater threat to her humor: administrative meetings.

  Unname me now, she inwardly pounded at mental shudders and stalked a crowded space in yellow and hard furnishings. Her mind scrambled at anything to pick apart while the other women droned. She scrutinized her surroundings; her sisters, as this was one of those few instances she could get away with it. She must discover who these women were if they, and her, would survive this unnatural situation, a Chapter not yet old enough to claim it had stopped sucking at their collective teats.

  Faces glowed ghostly blue and pale gold from light from terminal screens before them, and a single lamp dripping vines and sniffers above their heads. When you entered through the room’s heavy mechanical double-doors, you stood before a golden bloom, its ghostly stigma, and its ladies of the Chapter enthroned amongst its petals.

  Every Chapter calyx served a purpose greater than its practical use. In their experimental Chapter, its purpose was equally social and psychological. A central location where House Sepals and choice Corollas must leave their comfortable wing surroundings in Guild communion on data and feelings.

  They were arranged around a domed organic glass display centered on the chamber’s floor where, at that moment, today’s counsel Speaker ran their meeting from her Chapter elsewhere. It was not only women from Salas listening in. This meeting projected around the world to women sitting in their own Calyx, in their respective Chapters. Thousands of women.

  Their Salas calyx had Houses arranged on simple cushioned chairs equidistant from each other along rounding tables carved from heavy lacquered oak. Stadium seating in two tiers, Sepals sitting below, two Corollas flanking them a tier above like gargoyle sentries. Extensions of Sepal administrations, better than any minor assistants or Venins thinking themselves bigger than their budding skills supported.

  Lainia’s Corolla Fox and Corolla Tilde were such two. Their Chapter’s best, in fact, and they likely knew more about what was happening in the meeting than Lainia or other Sepals themselves.

  They, like the other Corollas, sat a tier behind and above Lainia engrossed in reports, datasets, tapping out copious notes, analyzing Chapter trends with their House AI that would have otherwise required hours of Lainia’s own time. They anticipated Lainia’s distractions, arriving before others. It was great optics. While the women knew their Sepal well enough and Elyse’s trial not gone as planned.

  They would make excellent Sepals when it came time. Didn’t hurt this would also make Lainia look like a positively glowing leader.

  If neither died over the next months, that was.

  Reports had gotten progressively worse of late. She should have known better than reading them out of boredom during a Calyx meeting.

  Venin movements she thought she had made clear with her Corollas had instead left Venins stranded after a botched unnaming, another Venin whose potions had been destroyed in an accident, and another Venin who, despite her direct instructions to Master Childs only a day before, was given two short-tick potions both requiring their grace be ingested, each having minor toxicity.

  Was it traitors? Uprisings? If not for their strange, fleshy black boxes Guild members secreted, more women would be dead.

  She understood people, but she did not understand their grails. Few knew those guarded secrets; rumors fed Sepals who saw little themselves. She was told trained DNA in protein-shelled pockets on occasion. Another? Complex organs like honeycombed hearts, purpose-grown to individual hosts with their own cells, and holy implantion close to intimate regions.

  Grails were a wild, necessary part of life. They also represented a nagging mystery driving Lainia nuts! She hated not knowing something. Mysteries were discomforting.

  She continued reading her reports. A Flora Venin accidentally unnamed the wrong male.

  Fantastic.

  The task was now impossible! Given circumstances had changed their preparation, her Corollas had needed weeks arranging contacts, placements, resources…all for failure. Waste and more waste!

  “Fops and jarkmen, the lot of them!” Lainia stomped a foot, her voice ringing strong and very “Sepal Lainia”, and very Irish. At least the sound dampening was working.

  Her outburst swiveled seventeen mostly engrossed faces—her own Corollas she could feel staring at her from behind—in Lainia’s direction. Flavors of scowls, grins, uplifted brows, and general confusion in a motley patchwork of personal relationships waited explanation.

  Feeling her face run hot, Lainia gave an apologetic nod. When few were slow returning to their business, she gave them a more vigorous gesture suggesting they mind their own bloody business. Lainia herself making a show of returning to their briefing.

  She relaxed mostly impassive body language despite roiling, emoting boiling through her body. She knew her features flickered pendulous in their certainty there would be trouble, and she had to focus there first, relax the muscles, work out her body’s tensions.

  She used current droning about so-and-so’s plans for expansion—or was it a budgetary item?—She didn’t really care. Lainia woolgathered, watching those dimly lit faces, wondering who among them must be pulling strings.

  Sepal Marie of House Mal sat in her usual pensive silence. If any talking happened, none would know as Mal liked to cover their faces in a cowl or, disturbingly, masks like dead women. Luckily for all, Marie had chosen a simple cowl, features completely hidden, nothing standing out or unusual in her macabre black, red, and green house wrappings suggesting either a body or corpse occupied her seat.

  Mal was maybe the most feared regardless any cheerleading for sisterhood between Houses. Most distrusted. Most suspicious. Most religious. They were closest to a House having its own rites bordering fanatical. Even their potions were things of legend: biological, gruesome in their working, Mal potions were quick tick finishers.

  Sepal Marie carried a sordid reputation like most other Mals, her tasks the stuff of fireside stories and boogeymen among criminal empires. Small and unassuming, Lainia knew her for being cold, precise, and not one to bandy words. If anyone heard her speak a word, of course. They preferred conversing digitally. Marie never took the field on tasks, and she was not directly involved with their Venins.

  Bunch of daft zealots too strange and cultish. How they survived not burning at stakes in earlier days…Guild weirdos for those stranger jobs.

  Next to Marie, and no greater contrast in personality, was Sepal Jazmine Ines of House Mycelium, their legacy built upon fungi-derived potions lending itself to the butt of many jokes, snide comments, generally likening any description of Mycelium members to short, squat types covered in shite and kept in dark, and their newly raised Sepal Ines not yet Mycelium enough.

  She was plain in a pretty way; cute with soft features, black hair and eyes, nothing physically distinguishing about her other than being stereotypically short. She used kindness the way other women flashed their cleavage—maybe because Ines had been shorted in that asset.

  There was Lainia’s issue. She had difficulty remembering rare occasions when Ines was not smiling. Seriously, the woman looked drip-fed on hard drugs and face injectors. Lainia wanted a picture of her asleep to see if the woman even smiled through her worst nightmares.

  Wouldn’t be surprised if the damn woman didn’t suffer night terrors either, Lainia scoffed.

  Ines leaned on folded hands, engrossed in their briefing, her Corollas good little notaries thumping out soft drumrolls across their tablets. A pervasive air of detached innocence unsettled Lainia. Anyone who had taken lives, in Lainia’s opinion, had no business looking that conservative in their Sepal robes like nun habits in russet browns, eye-popping reds, and navy blues. It was a look reminding Lainia of trainee days, a cat speaking to her, and colors dripping down walls.

  Lainia was positive Mycelium sisters saw gods and pierced a veil or two. Her House sisters honestly adored her. How did that work? It had to be a House trick, or something in the water those mushroom-addled women sipped together.

  Lainia, for her part, preferred less attention.

  If House Mycelium was the stuff of fungi and things growing in the damp and dark, her Potions Master, a dwarf—was that the proper term, now?—completed the picture. Strange selection for such a position. Yet Ines kept him safe. Her kindness known throughout the Chapter, though what kindness was there really when your craft was death, and your art subterfuge?

  Death was on a few minds, proven in ways little gossiping sisters kept darting glances at noisy side-conversation.

  Mid-point about destabilization in South American Chapters, whose presidents were abducted by neighboring governments, an errant snort shot through the chamber. Sepal Pewter was making inappropriate self-pleasuring gestures at Ines, pretending she hadn’t noticed but who was fighting a rare frown.

  Sepal Pewter of House Fang, fidgeting, legs spread to make room for the giant bollocks she had between her legs—rather than in her mouth for once—lounged in her pillowed seat openly bored and creating increasing mischief with her Corollas. Woman could not sit still. Her shaven head and many large piercings in ears, nose, and in her subdermal bone edging shifted grotesquely as the woman pulled rude faces and had spent most their meeting with back to her Sepal sisters and Abimbola. She whispered gods-knew-what to equally less serious Corollas, sycophants all of them.

  A disgrace; Fang’s mystique served in its wildest, most dangerous concentration.

  Rude, inappropriate for her station, if rumors were true, Pewter had been dumped at Salas Chapter. A message from Fang’s Pistil Supremus that Salas was a joke and inevitable failure. Their House’s highest position had offloaded their worst rabble, then laughed at them. Preeminent bad apples spoiled the barrel, and Sepal Pewter was a perfect potion, nowhere near an age she could step down, and even were she able, Lainia bet her left nipple the sorry woman would choose dying as a Sepal rather than risk disappearing, as many slighted sods in Pewter’s wake kept close eyes on that one, waiting for their moment.

  Pewter made a particularly riotous belch, unfortunate in her assigned proximity as a legacy House to another much younger by centuries.

  Lainia was about to make a comment when she caught House Steel’s Sepal Galton rising from her chair in a storm of anger and frustration. She stalked towards Pewter and actually hissed indiscernible comments in Pewter’s ear.

  Mother had scolded the children in the room.

  Pewter snorted again, this time making a rude gesture with hand at mouth that, coming from Pewter, doubled as promise under different circumstances.

  Lainia didn’t judge.

  Sepal Galton stared daggers at Pewter, then leaned in using her arm and a fist for support until, almost brushing her ear with her lips, said something else Lainia’s lenses missed in the low light.

  Whatever it was, Pewter stopped laughing. Her eyes widened, and Pewter watched silently as Galton smiled down at her before returning to her seat, then took in her sisters offering head-shaking chagrin as if saying how silly Pewter is.

  Pewter was not laughing. She continued watching Galton, who had returned attention where it belonged. Galton lacked Lainia’s viewing angle, else Galton might have spotted the way Pewter had drawn her knife from a sheath strapped on her thigh, absently sawing into her chair’s leg with it, studying Galton who had visually abandoned any further wasted thought on her Sepal sister.

  Lainia felt equal parts admiration and irritation for this woman.

  Galton, who rose to Sepal in her 30s—a bit young to gossiping Guild traditionalists—had seen an issue and stepped in unflinching and emotionally detached. It was an engineer’s brain, seeing an issue and fixing it, other considerations be damned.

  Now in her 50s, Galton carried sophistication and annoyingly statuesque. She belonged on WWII nose art, burley arms, posters telling other women they must power through adversity. Tall, slim, sharp-featured, she dressed today choosing only half their traditional robes in the tans and yellows of Steel leadership, a canary yellow silk shall about her neck, a simple black static clip holding her shoulder-length silvered hair in place.

  Disgustingly sophisticated.

  Galton didn’t “do” flowy formal robes. They got in the way. She was a woman about their work, pushing production, progress, action, and sharp thinking. Lainia heard she liked to get her hands dirty even as a Sepal. She tinkered with projects rather than leave it to others. A traditionalist assigned their experimental Chapter by request from Sepal Galton herself, rather than punishment, because she saw Salas Chapter as an opportunity to mend a broken system, rather than as yet one more hopeless endeavor in bridges where no bridge could stand.

  If it needed doing, she made it happen, Salas a grand design she bent her skills to making it realized.

  Whatever stuff making up the woman, Lainia wished she could concoct a draft containing Galton’s patience for herself. Must have had something to do with her training and general conditioning. Or a character flaw in the brain. Made you perfect for a house full of amped-up gear sods crafting potions distilled with industrial flares.

  If only Steel’s Potions Master were more like Galton, suspicious of the rest. Lainia could count on a hand how many times she’d seen the giant, dirty Santa Claus in his prime wearing an engineer’s costume. He came out of his adelaide for certain reports when no one else was around, mostly tinkering in halls and common rooms when not in his own adelaide. And no one seeing what it was he worked on, or caring what he did, so long as he didn’t hang around.

  No fluff, no hurrions on her watch, Lainia thought. Unlike Fang, who thought spreading one’s thighs was part of the fun before taking their turn sticking a potion or knife in a task.

  Lainia leaned her head back and sighed at the ceiling. Another report, this time about some Venin’s failure having leveraged a state official’s ire at one of the Guild’s investments. Costs were in millions for drawn out litigation. A dent in Guild funding, sure. They were flush, as centuries of good investments had ensured.

  Sepal Pewter of Fang burst out in a grotesque cackle, then rapidly flicked her finger in an obscene personal gesture for her Corollas.

  Lainia noticed the disfigured Sepal Vindhya, who betrayed annoyance when she failed in pulling a not-so-secretive and soured look with half her face obscured.

  No one else seemed to notice, except for Lainia.

  Vindhya’s cowl concealed grotesque scars her House’s trade had inflicted bodily over years of service. House Atom was the unseen potion most avoided, feared for their knowledge that bordered on absurd superstitious sorcery because it took a specific mind—and substantial bollocks on the chest, if Lainia was frank about it—to operate in that House. Fear and respect in equal measure kept their numbers small, and the stories of their tasks hard to be believed, told with the same airs as tall tales and cryptid sightings.

  Lainia studied them. Five too-different Sepals of Salas. Five dissimilar, powerful, egotistical women shoved into a single explosive Chapter where each followed a mystique drawing likeminded souls into their ranks better than any fantasy’s magical stick, hat, scan, or rock. People always sought their tribe. Here were tribal leaders among those savages.

  And isn’t that what we have done in our own House? Flora is the first, the most traditional of potions, and we act as such in our pomp and ego when we should be making more efforts to knit our different callings together, rather than isolate and valuate.

  Sepal Abimbola continued gesturing at faces and maps projected from her West African Chapter while all eyes from across the globe watched and listened. Abimbola had reached her penultimate talking point she was obviously—to Lainia, at least—building towards for shock and awe in the Calyx.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Bobbleheads gave their resounding approval as expected.

  It reminded Lainia of a trinket shop she stumbled across on a nearby wharf. The point would inevitably, for Lainia’s Guild Chapter at least, fall flat.

  All guild events were far removed from them by design. They were the next experimental Chapter after other failures. This was a far-flung stronghold in the middle of nothing but farms, fishing, and fuckery while creeping abandonment of Guild principles and Guild spirit marched on. The Guild of Potions remained the old keeper of checks and balance when laws failed against loopholes and insider knowledge.

  Yet here Lainia was, seeing cancer taking root in sensitive folds of a Chapter she never wanted. How she hated this backwater town and its small minds. They acted canary for the rest, reporting vibrating tensions and distrust from sisters. Corollas watched their backs and coddled trainees and Venins alike.

  We have no grail for this potion. The slow tick of both ambition and greed swing the headman’s axe and they smile and parade their confidence that new technology—new alliances! She reminded herself—would prove shield enough. But that frail shield is the quintessence of pride and oh how we know, don’t we ladies.

  Lainia glanced around their small calyx chamber at her sister Sepals, their Corollas standing sentinel. She closed her eyes, letting her mind wander. We deal in death and know our work. Pride is gossamer thread against titans.

  When Lainia opened her eyes again, she caught a gentle pulse, a message, surprised Corolla Tilde had forwarded camera feed.

  Lainia gestured. A window grew less translucent and center in her vision. She flicked a finger and let a scene from inside their Chapter play. Her eyelid twitched minutely, freezing faces in what could either be furious engagement or coitus, each equally possible considering they were two males going at it in the corridor. They were a passionate lot, House Potions Masters. This was another symptom. House infighting. Absurd! And in Salas Chapter where it did more damage than others. Their Chapter was aflunters.

  Sepal Abimbola’s point landed like roadkill. Dumber women nodded sagely. Too few smirked, thoughtful types fluffing off this rhetorical detritus. They saw rot in their roots.

  Lainia wished she had gall enough she might shout in their faces; shake and wrench her sisters free from their ignorance. Her pleas might as well have been Latin to urchins.

  She let it lie, catching a detail in her feed she hadn’t noticed at first, realized who it was she watched making a fool of himself and simmered hot in frustration. She almost shot up, storming from their chamber in search of anything inappropriate for sodomizing a stupid, detestable, egotistical, poisonous-

  She rotated her finger, rewinding footage of her own House’s halls watching with fresh eyes Childs and Carter performing their cock fight, hormonal males tussling in view of observation cams, other sisters, the whole bloody world!

  Loud murmuring pulled Lainia reluctantly back to their briefing. How much trauma bonding did one group need today?

  “Yes, we are aware of the inherent dangers with creating such a vacuum within the black markets, Sepal Fallon,” an exasperated Abimbola said to an unseen Sepal. “Our Chapter has sent Venins into the region and we will monitor developments. This is a coordinated reconnaissance mission between Houses Steel and Mal respectively, as, again, our vetted models suggested. Agentic strategy clearly demonstrated their Venins best suited for those regional tasks.”

  This is her moment, Lainia mused, angrily messaging Tilde over emerging fallout from Childs and his violent mog. Someone brave would pose the question everyone was thinking. Sure enough, a mousy Sepal with a strong Hispanic accent cleared her throat.

  Sepal Ines, huh? Now that’s fascinating.

  “Why, Sepal Abimbola, does the West African Chapter carry out this task now?”

  Her slow-tick potion had landed, grace selected, kiss ready. Abimbola presented her most genuine smile for the calyx.

  “The rumored restructurings in Nigerian leadership are true, recently plucked males,” she said to approving nods, “and more favorable candidates put in place will spend greater resources on reeducation and negotiation between tribal policies in comparison to the number of child soldiers leveraged in future conflicts. Flesh markets other nations have secretly funneled money to will inevitably zero out.”

  Weeding continued, of course. It was a powerful play by the West African Chapter, not without risk. Politicians, a handful of flesh dealers, and the odd corporate pig, hundreds of saved children. A respectable catch.

  Lainia had nothing of import for this meeting. She purposefully kept their Chapter’s House off the agenda, her goal avoiding undue attention and getting her out for a very necessary, very angry meeting with Master Childs before Elyse had time to create trouble of her own after that awful trial.

  Unsurprisingly, no voices spoke up. Sepals, their Corolla assistants at hand, remained silent and watchful. This was improvement, maybe? None of the farded Corollas on her list had gone to the bumwhush after their last fiasco-of-a-briefing. Maybe she could carve out time to deal with Salas internal politics, starting with Flora and Fang’s overbearing Masters. Childs likely went to her office-

  “Sepal Lainia?” Abimbola called her uncertainly.

  Lainia started. She had absolutely not put her name in today.

  She cleared her throat. “Yes, Madame Speaker? I did not call a question.”

  Their Chapter secretary for this meeting, Corolla Mueller, physically sitting behind her Sepal in House Atom’s section across from Lainia scrolled through today’s agenda.

  “I have here you entered your name to speak on Experimental Chapter progress?” she glanced at Lainia, sheepishly as she was only a Corolla, and Lainia had her reputation.

  I will gut you and your family if you press this further, girl!

  She of course missed Lainia’s hurling visual ques to back off. “It says here Salas Chapter reports on Venin task completion, trial rates, and recent…loses?” she finished.

  She did not even have the decency meeting Lainia’s eyes, the coward!

  “You have the floor, Sepal Lainia,” said Abimbola, unaware there was anything amiss.

  Lainia positively floundered. “Madame Speaker, I made no such request today. It is a mistake, surely, and your time is precious. Out of respect for my sisters and your time I withdraw the request.” She could not let it be known outside Salas there was trouble, not among Sepals.

  Abimbola did not back down. “I… do not think I have authority in this, Sepal Lainia. Please proceed, and we will make note in our minutes we extended our time for what sounds crucial to Salas, at our current experimental Chapter. Please. Continue,” Abimbola gestured.

  The implications. She might sacrifice social currency among Sepals. A lot of currency. What little status she had remaining, in fact.

  That’s the goal, idiot woman. Where’s the snare buried? Or have I already set a foot in it?

  Lainia panicked internally. She all but forgot her emotional control, cold sweat slick in her every juncture, calyx perfumed air suddenly stifling. Were there digital footprints she might track? She knew with whom she could speak if she could maneuver out of this hazard.

  Someone awkwardly cleared their throat.

  If there was no way around it, she would go loudly and messily through the damn thing.

  “I had thought,” she began carefully, “it was another issue I was going to propose to this counsel today. Must be the acts of one of the transcribblers mucking our file,” Lainia said, making sure their Corolla Mueller monitoring notes knew Lainia was speaking about her directly, daring the woman to challenge a Sepal. “We were seeking suggested solutions regarding our Chapter’s recent tasks, specifically those tasks relying on green Venins and Masters who are onboarding and not yet up to Guild standard. I know two in our Chapter,” she added, purposefully leaving out their names, “in handling their position within our experimental Chapter.”

  The speaker blinked, “Trans…scribbler?” Abimbola asked quizzically.

  Let’s roll the dice on this shiny nugget and see what they make of it! She prepared. Aloud, she waved a hand, opening her “report”. “Would this counsel permit,” Lainia moved on, “I would discuss recent shifts here in the United States, specifically recent intelligence reports from field agents within and without Salas Chapter substantiating reports of a growing party I believe is connected to our Guild, and it is seeking foreign assets in a yet unknown purpose. They are not small sums or resources.”

  Let them consider that tidbit a moment…while I figure out the rest.

  Corolla Abimbola paused, interlaced her fingers together with her thumbs pointed out like horns as she considered Lainia’s words. Finally, she said, “As a Corolla, this is beyond my capacity as speaker today. This is not necessarily Calyx affairs, as it’s specific to Chapters in the United States, as you say. Is there a particular reason you’ve brought this to counsel although it is of local concern?”

  “Indeed, Madame Speaker,” Lainia’s words rang with a bit of her accent unchecked. She leaned forward, resting chin upon her laced fingers. “I formally submit clearance for a transfer of Chapter Venins between Houses, a request of assistance from domestic Guild Chapters, and additional funding for this project in the name of collaboration and solidarity.”

  Let them put a bullet in it and make me look an off-kilter Sepal holding our Chapter together.

  She glanced around the room. Who here was responsible? Marie? Galton? Their nasty cast-off, Pewter?

  Come on, damn you, show me!

  Sepal Pewter stirred. “We of House Fang in Salas Chapter would also submit requests and will whole-heartedly contribute Venins to Sepal Lainia’s cause in the name of solidarity with our sister Sepals,” said Pewter smugly. She then leaned back and smiled at Lainia, lips pursed and her eyelids heavy. She adjusted in her seat so she had one leg thrown over the armrest, and her breasts nearly spilling out. What obscene behavior for a Sepal!

  A younger voice touched with something Hispanic—perhaps more South from here?—spoke up. It was Sepal Ines, who even raised a finger stabbing at the air in declaration “We of House Mycelium formally second in a show of collaboration and solidarity!”

  Lainia, equally surprised as Sepal Pewter, turned to House Mycelium’s Sepal Ines, who smiled and nodding at her Corollas, then sister Sepals as though she had just won a prestigious award. It was difficult to see in the low blue light, but Ines seemed genuinely excited by the prospect.

  Lainia was just…confused. Oh sure, House Mycelium placed itself in the middle of everything, but usually they preferred background support. Recon tasks. Brokering relationships, as Mycelium preferred lower risk tasks.

  They certainly reflected the spirit of their house in form and function.

  She downright beamed at both Sepals, excited to just be.

  Wonder what it’s like, liking people so much that being included makes me happy enough to shite and shimmy in my own fertilizer.

  A moment’s pause, Abimbola sipped from a cup. Hopefully something harder than caffeine or water for this crowd. “Thank you…Sepals for this show of interest in collaborative exercises between Houses. Yours is a model for community and collaboration among the Chapters, and I hope this is a substantiated model for our sisters abroad. Submit your requests. In the meantime, members of the Calyx, Sepals, this closes our session. I ask your secretaries please submit their--”

  A woman not physically present spoke up in a Slovak accent, grave in its age, a quality like something heavy bringing with it images of blooded battleships, lumbering hulks, an age of hard-won wisdom through fierce combat.

  Lainia already knew it. They all did, every woman present on their call in in that room were familiar. Even Pewter stopped her side conversation and spun as if commanded by strings. Only Abimbola looked suddenly tired as she became aware, forcing on her Speaker’s mask once again.

  “Again, we dance about important issues, sisters! Will we not put a pin in our true business, Madame Speaker?”

  On Lainia’s terminal, an aged, hard face cracked in scars, hair patchy, every imperfection painful looking at, but damn did she wear those Medals well. Sepal Kosteniuk of Mal did not follow modern customs. She let everyone see what her potions had taken from her. She made every woman knew House Mal came with a price if you did not respect it.

  And now she’s decided we have other business. Where are you going with this, Mal?

  Whatever this was, Lainia was here for it. She never spoke up unless she planned on stirring pots or making a scene. None dared cut off the old, gnarled Sepal without suffering dangerous repercussions. She didn’t have nerve enough. Ruthless in her approach. Cut out pretense carving fat, a woman after Lainia’s own heart, that one.

  Lainia suddenly wished she had brought snacks.

  Abimbola breathed deeply. “The Speaker recognizes House Mal’s Sepal Kosteniuk.”

  Lainia knew the challenges that came with any speaker when dealing with a House Sepal. They never spoke lightly, knowing their voices amongst the Calyx went unchallenged out of fear, intimidation, often both.

  “Speaker Abimbola, I apologize if I seem rude for bringing up issues not listed on your tidy list of talking points,” she said, voice suggesting she absolutely was not. She flicked a finger at her as though flicking the list itself. At a pause, Kosteniuk sipped from a large mug, grimaced, looked aside beyond undulating shadows encasing her projection and called to someone out of sight from her terminal camera.

  “Susan! This piss water you’re making me drink’s gone fetid. Fetch me what the cook hasn’t stirred with his pecker, would you, dear? That’s a good girl.” She shook her head sadly. “Girl’s got potato mash in her head, bless her heart. Won’t pass trials. Sarin mishandling. Little fool was warned, but eh,” she circled her hand in a careless way, “brambor can still tumble herself into sheets about menial tasks, neh?”

  Lainia thought they heard sudden sobs distantly on Kosteniuk’s end, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, Kosteniuk hacked into a crumpled napkin.

  “Speaker. Sepals. Corollas. Here we are again. Avoiding critical issues. How long will we remain cowards shivering in cold ignorance of our own making? I put it to you!” she prodded at their faces, “and our great Pistilary whose drumming we dance to. Our Pistil Supremuses downplay obvious cancer! When will we address it? Hmm!? When! We discuss spates, fighting, not an all-out war amongst Guild sisters, I myself unnamed three Venins last week! Fools I discovered plotting deaths among sisters in House Flora!” she hammered a mulky fist on her table, speakers crackling.

  Rolling gasps and low murmurs erupted, likely spread beyond their small room. A Sepal admitting to killing her own Venins was absurd. Straight crazy even by Lainia’s standards.

  Why had no one spoken about this openly? A little fighting was normal. House murders like this, however? Unheard of, except…

  Kosteniuk said the word picking at Lainia’s thoughts. “Haustorium, sisters! There, feels good. Your accursed boogeyman. Slightly above males, slightly below our Guild modus operandi. It is that spirit, that specter, that haunting. Haustorium, we are seeing another House cobbling together beneath notice! Do we suddenly not have enough evils in the world? Hmm? Have we kissed the darkness to a point of scorch, and now only our tail remains to feed our needs? It must be that spirit our weak-willed leadership is too afraid confronting. I call for investigations into Haustorium! Speaker, make note of it.” It was not a request.

  Women stood, shouting. Others leaned into private conversations between Sepals and Corollas.

  Abimbola open-handedly pounded an invisible gavel cracking from speakers through the room settled, though few sat completely silent. It was an incredible thing to say. Had Lainia said it, mockery. Chastised, even; second to calling a potion by that vulgar term poison is speaking Haustorium.

  How long had it been since a new House ruptured the Guild?

  Signs were there, sure. Upheaval. Simmering turmoil. It’s never said lightly, as accusing nasty business on someone lead to nasty punishment.

  “Call to order!” Abimbola yelled angrily, still flicking her hand through air. “Sepal Kosteniuk, you will explain yourself for this charge! What proof? Three dead Venins plotting in Mal is a footnote among yours in Mal, not a call for…for Haustorium!”

  Sepal Kosteniuk shook her head sadly. “32 this month. Our Chapter lost 32 Venins and over double that in trainees. It was carefully spread among several Chapters, and I have similar reports from other House Sepals with whom I am friendly. A whole group of 32!” She slapped her hand upon her table with force enough her image rippled.

  Many heads were nodding, Lainia’s included.

  “We have suffered years of infighting,” Kosteniuk rattled on with heaving breaths. “Posturing. Chapter-on-Chapter violence. We are consuming our tail, Sepals. Soon we will reach our necks and choke on our own vanity.” She looked haggard on this last point. This was not just informing. This was a Potion she wrestled with; the dagger she held back from their throats while the rest looked on, contemplative.

  Someone coughed into the silence. A long, awkward silence. Finally the Speaker broke in after she furiously fired off a message in the tense moment, to whom was anyone’s guess, though in this instance, Abimbola had to be contacting a higher authority: a Pistil at least. She in turn might contact their Pistil Supremus, but Lainia doubted that very much. This was too public. Also, a Supremus overkill.

  Wouldn’t it? Or show how serious this is, someone’s eyes on it besides mine!

  “Sepal Kosteniuk, thank you for your words and your observations. This counsel acknowledges your concerns and they will be added to the minutes for our next meeting, as you were not added to the schedule and we must respect our time,” she read from a secondary screen.

  Sepal Kosteniuk’s face bunched and folded like old produce skin, then winked out leaving Lainia’s suddenly less important video of Childs, and local reports on her desktop.

  “Sisters, as always, thank you for your time today. We will schedule our next session in the coming days.” She paused, and a world of decisions or hesitations—Lainia couldn’t decide which—passed over her face, “Good luck to you on your new endeavor in your collaborative efforts, Salas Chapter. We look forward to seeing your results.”

  On a closing word and a tired smile, Abimbola disappeared, and all those other women quickly ended their call until six Sepals and their Corollas remained alone, staring at each other by soft blue embers in contemplation and uncomfortable company.

  Each, Lainia saw, was frozen in her own consideration, surreptitious glances here and there from Corollas anticipating their Sepal’s next need. Sepals looking, not quite suspicious, not quite open in friendliness towards one another. Six women at the center of their power, engaged in survival after one greater than themselves called out their disease.

  Fops and jarkmen…

  Sepal Pewter stood. Of course she wanted to be first to address the Calyx. Of course she took the offensive, as was the way in House Fang.

  Master Carter is not uniquely twisted, there. Venom and perversion run deep in that House.

  Sepal Pewter met each eye. “Mal’s moldy cat has a point. I don’t trust a single one of you bitches. But Fang will work with you, until you prove you’re in on this little…Haustorium, if that’s what it is. Doubtful. No offense, Sepal Marie,” she said waving carelessly at Marie, who said and showed nothing that she heard Pewter. Then she leveled her irritating smirk at Lainia.

  “Sepal Lainia, we must discuss this plan of yours for collaboration. I do ask how you intend to utilize our Venins. Will our great legacy House Flora please enlighten us in lowlier Houses what you have planned?”

  “Not here, Sepal Pewter,” Lainia said, rubbing at her eyes. “You heard Sepal Kosteniuk and I agree. The rot is deep. I…hesitate,” she said, choosing her words with care, “to share even here until we find the cause, gut it, and start again.”

  She stood, her robes rustling when she brushed hands over them to coax the folds back into place. She understood propriety and respect, even if she sometimes ignored them.

  Sepal Vindhya of House Atom steadied herself with both hands on the tabletop. “So…we come to this, Sepal Lainia. We now turn on each other starting with you and your cohorts!” Her thick Indian accent made understanding her difficult. Luckily Lainia’s lenses had subtitles. Sepal Vindhya’s words sounded more accusatory than they actually were. It might have been more a question than actual accusations?

  Cohorts? I have cohorts, now? Please, all the gods, don’t let me keep them from jumping in any time. Aloud, she shot back, “If you could point them out to me, I would be greatful, Sepal Vindhya.”

  “You know very well who they are. Spies in our Houses! We’ve seen the signs, the sweeps discovering remnants from Potions made in your House, Sepal. Don’t deny it! You are plotting against our Chapter for unknown ends, maybe even this- this-”

  Sepal Ines stood smiling her flashing white teeth and two sparkling pools of deep brown as she gestured at them both. In Spanish she spoke soothing words, an actual Salas local, according to Lainia’s sources. Maybe that was why she always seemed simple and sunny, Lainia mused.

  Ines pleaded loudly in both English and Spanish, only when she had everyone’s attention did she take a deep breath and nod thankful acknowledgment.

  “Sepals, Corollas, our work grows feverish in its need. Kindness is hard-won. But trust? Trust each other we must!” Pausing, taking in each Sepal and Corolla, Ines aimed her smile last at Lainia. “We will look forward to your invitation, though please do not keep us in suspense for long. I feel this a fantastic idea and opportunity for our Venins!”

  At the corner of Lainia’s vision, a low glow signaled a prox message.

  Ines clapped her hands together, beaming. Even cocked a leg back. It looked ridiculous.

  Lainia watched these women, any of them capable, one or more moving against their guild. But she needed time. Hands were placing pieces, analyzing their game, and here she was reacting to unseen plays on too little information.

  “Yes,” Lainia said, finally. “Our Venins surely appreciate time bonding.”

  While they wrapped up and began leaving, Lainia looked askance at her hands, swiped a finger. Her waiting message flowed into view in glowing, flowing font rather than lens standard:

  We must speak privately soon, Sepal. I have information.

  -Sepal Ines, House Mycelium

  When Lainia looked up again, Sepal Ines still wore that same engagement on her face, only now those dark pools of brown bore into Lainia’s own, an uncomfortable intensity to them as though her intentions and needs had shifted their weighty burden on to Lainia, who already bore the lion’s share.

  Fops and jarkmen, she swore.