[b]Ailee![/b]

Surma’s laugh comes with a ridiculous snort in the tail. One moment she’s a mouse, the next she sounds like a piglet. And there’s not a trace of self-consciousness in it. She just is herself, loudly.

“You’re crazy and going to lose,” she says. “That much is obvious. But I got here by betting on dark horses and I’m not about to stop now. Besides, when you lose, you’ll need someone to pull you back up.” She doesn’t say that you’ll just dive back down. She doesn’t need to. That’s as easy to understand as her teasing.

“That being said, [i]if[/i] you get phenomenal cosmic power down there, can I at least get the arm back out of the deal before you obliterate me with your laser eyes to hide the secret of your mortal origins? A girl deserves to go out whole and with no regrets, after all.” She glances at your chin(?) while she says that and arches an enigmatic eyebrow. Very confusing.

***

[b]Jackdaw![/b]

[i]A shapeless name, a nameless shape, an empty cowl, black backwards footprints from where she twists herself all around to look back on her trail: these are the Jackdaw. The shape between two shapes, the optical illusion, the present-in-absence, the loss of words as they become slush on the tongue: these are the Jackdaw.

There is a standing-stone that was once a foolish man who wanted to be immortal. Crowhame knows immortality. It is the forever now. It is being your self always throbbing out into the world. The book that is the encapsulation of Crowhame lies pinned between stone fingers, and Crowhame flows out through it larger and larger like an inflating bladder-balloon, no, like the air that fills it, and the pages the thin skin, and the book the pinch-point.

There is a piece of meat that used to be a funny man in an extravagantly understated shirt. Its nerves are red flash-fires in a dying sack of broken bones and contusioned flesh. It is thrown down into the snow to wind down its clock to zero midnight, to cool and melt into the story of always here. Above it, something that also used to be a man grips ribs in huge taloned paw-hands and begins the terrible final wrench that will tear his own self apart.

Above you the Long unwinds, coil upon coil, and then snarfs down a huge tent like it’s devouring an egg. Maybe if everyone in the world is lucky, it was the one where that terrible Grail sat in state, black blood frothing from its lip, holy of holies, the clown-birth and the beginning of a replacement forever. As if there is any forever that is better than the heart of Crowhame.[/i]

***

[b]Coleman![/b]

Wolf has to be defended. Jackdaw needs time bought for her to do whatever the fresh hell she’s doing. And the world is a mosh pit full of clowns and crows and flung pies and little snakes and a giant snake that is eating the Big Top.

Sasha’s boiler is running hot, and she is groaning with the stress of restraining herself, not releasing the energy that is building up inside her.

Tell us how the Battle of the Dark Carnival was won. Tell us about Sasha’s whistle-roar. Tell us how she makes you proud.