Page 12 of Practical Boots

“Probably not, but I’m curious.” The words fell out of Cat’s mouth like toads, disconnected from the direction her thoughts took. She made herself keep talking so if her father could browse her mind, he’d be distracted by the importance of what she said, rather than the all-consuming realization that struck her. "I can make an Artifact of disguise now. It shouldn't need any other elements besides the Waste and my will."

"And why is that one so simple, when the other is so difficult?"

"Because almost nobody from the Torn with even a modicum of power evenneedsan Artifact for a glamour. That's a magic basic enough that we can wear it all the way into the World. But it also shines, doesn't it?" Cat finally turned back to her father. Her father, who needed an Artificernow, so he could take advantage of an unstable power structure.

Assuming her half-sibling would even be able to manipulate the Waste and build Artifacts, they wouldn’t grow into that power for decades yet. Lives were long in the Torn, but moments of political instability were fleeting. If he needed Artifacts now, then he had never intended to wait for her half-sibling to grow up.

He’d played her. The son of a bitch had played her, and she’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. She’d voluntarily offered her oath, and stuck herself with years of service to him. It took everything she had to keep her voice lightly pointed, only highlighting her reasons for believing he wanted a disguise instead of honing the words to furious daggers. "We can see glamours, if we think to look for them. Maybe we can't seethroughthem, but we can see them. You want something nobody else can see, or you wouldn't be asking an Artificer."

His eyes narrowed. "You may be more clever than I've given you credit for."

Sarcasm was almost as good as the angry snarls she wanted to throw at him. "How flattering. Are you coming with me to the Waste, or can I just pop over, make your Artifact, and come back?"

"I doubt I could trust you with that."

"First, I swore an oath that somebody else's life depends on, so you obviously can. Second, I don't think you'd be able to recognize it if I booby-trapped an Artifact until it was too late, so you're gonna have to trust me anyway. Third, I want this done and over with as soon as it can be, so it behooves me to not fuck around. And fourth, it's not like you can't call me back anyw—"

A scream like a fire alarm set her blood ablaze, and she was ripped from the Torn without further warning.

* * *

The Torn stretched and snapped around her, loosening its grip, the Waste clawed at her like a grasping corpse, and the World rushed by in screaming color, sky and earth and sound buffeting her as if a tornado had snatched her up and carried her to Oz. It lasted a horrifically long time, squeezing her limbs, twisting her body, rolling her up, all like it was trying to wring water from a dry rag. She landed hard somewhere dark, and for the first couple of breaths was only grateful that every cell in her body was no longer trying to vomit itself inside out.

The third breath she spent on a luxurious, "Ow…," and the fourth she choked on because a familiar voice said, "Cat?" out of the darkness, in a near panic.

"Rick?" Cat unclenched her eyes, which did less to alleviate the darkness than she'd hoped. "…Rick? What the…?"

"I didn't know what to do." Rick's voice remained small and frightened. "I used the watch."

"Ooh. Ooooh. Ooh." She felt like she was communicating, if only with herself.Ooh:oh, that's what that was.Ooooh: oh, that's what that feels like?!Ooh: oh, shit, he used the watch. "Okay. Okay." She sat up. Her throat felt like she'd barfed glass. "Are you okay?"

"Yes? No? I don't know? Are you?"

"Yeah." She swallowed, trying to soothe her throat. "Nobody's ever actually used one of the watches before. It felt a lot worse than I thought it was gonna. Maybe because I…" Maybe because she'd been in the Torn, but if anybody was listening, they didn't need to hear that. Cat felt at the small of her back, making certain her gun was still there. "How long did it take me to get here?"

"Since I used the watch? About ten seconds."

Cat, under her breath, said, "Pretty good response time," then, aloud, said, "How long have you been here, where is here, and how did you get here?"

"I don't know, Casablanca if we're still where I was last, and…I'm in trouble, Cat." Rick's voice got even smaller. "I don't know what went wrong."

"Casabl…well, hell, Rick, what's a nice guy like you doing in a gin joint like this." Cat stood cautiously, feeling for walls and the ceiling in the dimness. They were both close and low; she only had to stretch her arms to find the walls, and the ceiling was barely a hand's breadth above her head. "When did you last text Kallie? Recently or a while ago?"

"A while ago."

In Kallie's timeline it had been 'yesterday', but time moved differently in the Torn; Cat could have been gone for days without knowing it. 'A while' was certainly more than a day, though. "Are you hurt?" The walls were cool stone, and a modicum of light leaked in from somewhere, making the darkness a couple shades less than absolute. Cat didn't know if Casablanca had caves or catacombs or oubliettes to throw people in, although as she turned, that while one hand still brushed against wall, the other found iron bars.

She could work with that.

"I'm kind of beat up," Rick said. "But not hurt. Not bad."

Cat crouched, trying to make him out in the darkness. "Tell me what you know." Cold tendrils seeped down her nape and she reached out thoughtlessly, grasping the cell door. The cold vanished instantly. Her father and his invisibility cloak could wait until later.

"I've been on a long haul, right? Nothing illegal, I checked, Cat. I was careful. No drugs or anything. Just this rich dude who's like a five-time baby daddy and doesn't want anybody to find out 'cause he's supposed to get married or something. So he hired a dude who hired a fixer who hired a dude who hired a courier service to move around and drop cash, you know how it goes."

Cat did. The layers protected the clients, who had no idea who was solving their problems at the ground level, and the people on the ground had no idea who they were working for. The money went through equally circuitous routes, almost always in cash so it couldn't be traced. "What went wrong?"

"I don't know." Rick sounded genuinely bewildered. "Mostly I’m supposed to be making sure they’re set up okay, right? Like comfortable enough they can make it on their own and don’t go looking for their baby daddy, although I bet someday one of those genetics websites is gonna bite him on the ass. But anyway, I’ve been bouncing around checking up on them and, you know, like, making sure they bought the winning scratch card or whatever.”

---