falling down from the empty sky

brazen hussy. bitch. survivor. whatever it takes. above or perhaps beneath fine distinctions.

this is war. it's not over.

p.s. yes, i know i don't look like my brother. he looks like papa. i look like a woman i don't call maman. if i can deal with it you can.

p.p.s. it was never that i didn't love you. i just have trouble trusting anyone else to love me as much as i do. you can't blame me. it's not like i have much experience. and no, i don't ask you to wait forever. it's okay if you're tired of my bullshit. c'est la vie, c'est la guerre, c'est l'amour.

p.p.p.s. i may be just a line in your song, but I've got a lot of notches on that bedpost and you're not the only one singing the blues, mon petit.

It's always seven o'clock here, and the clock is broken anyway. We're on the antiveridical highway to hell. Seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven; don't even think of going to heaven.

Vincent's old jumper still smells a little like him, which is good, because it means I can smell something here that isn't moth-eaten lily or rotten rose. I thought I saw Liane looking at me through one of the windows in the captain's cabin, but then she was gone. I'm glad. I wouldn't wish her here for anything. She and Michel were walking around, holding hands, and then she grew black wings and flew away. I hope he was able to fly with her.

I shouldn't think about Laurent here either, but there's part of him would like this place a lot. They'd crucify him on his rusty dreams. I wish I believed in God. I don't want to die here.

I could swear I can hear him breathing. Petya Rasputin. But maybe it's just that he gets into everything after a while, like the rust here, the iron-eaters. Iron can't exist here.

There's no water underneath us any more. But that's what they say, isn't it? All the blood that's spilt on earth flows through the springs of this country. Or...not. Because this is not the country it should have been. This is the country we made of it.

I can see the bones through my skin when the lightning flashes, but there is no rain and no thunder. Sound doesn't carry properly through the air, and you have to walk right up to someone to hear what they're saying. The mist gets into everything and sometimes leaves a faintly iridescent stain, and it smells like lightning. This is what it was like when Juliana came back. I didn't think she was going to come back. The man who brought her back to me smelled like this. I never asked his name. I didn't want her to sacrifice herself, but I knew they had the bridges, and that if she didn't stop them, they would march through the mists right into Britannia and all would be lost, because Lady Dracaena was not then a queen. I couldn't stop them, either. I can do the maths but I don't have the blood...or the power. Liane hadn't got to the point where she wanted to live for her own sake, so she didn't so much as hesitate. And Hans, Hanschen...was always our friend, so he helped us; they killed his sister, she didn't have magic, he never forgave them. I'm sure he died. The rest of them did. I stayed behind. Which was the hardest thing I've ever done.

The man who brought Liane back to me came to my door in the middle of pouring rain, and he smelled just like this. Her skin was damp with awful iridescence that smelled like lightning and incense. She was naked and so very, very small. I never knew how small she was with all the life worn out of her. He carried her crumpled in his arms, and that was when I realised how much I'd let them do to her so we could live. He was wearing a trench coat, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a month. He said we had to leave, that we weren't meant to be martyrs. I told him that I only served myself. I don't think he believed me. After he left I found a black feather, caught in the doorframe. I don't know where it came from, but I always carry it with me. I am convinced it's the only reason the boat has not fallen apart.

Petya is here. I can hear him breathing behind me. I can smell his smell. Gabriel doesn't believe it. I think this must be purgatory. Perhaps we are dead and we simply don't know it yet.

At the widest point the crossing between Calais and Dover is 112 kilometres. We should be in Britannia.

Instead we have somehow managed to get ourselves becalmed in what I am sure is 7/9-10 space, because if it were 8/9-10 space, like the rest of the arcane world, we would be able to navigate our way out of here by the stars, which are...just fucking wrong. But there is iron in the boat and therefore it should not be able to enter 7/9-10 space. The alternative is to believe that we are in 6/8-9 space and I just don't want to think about that, one should not be able to sail right into Yesod! Liane said once she thought it would be possible to run a gate through 6-9-10 space but I really don't understand her maths well enough to know how that would be different from physically being in Yesod...which shouldn't be possible. I think I miss the little bitch.

I am not sure how much longer the sun will stay down or in which direction it will rise, but Gabriel will not get in his box until the sky begins to streak because if we are sunk while he is in it he will wake up at the bottom of the Channel and drown. I'm not even sure we are sailing on water. There is so much fog in the air. Behind the mists, my behind, we are in them.

I am more convinced than ever that someone has been watching me. I catch shimmers in the air in peripheral vision, and Gabriel smells something. Benedetto is being a smug bastard and pretending that he has this situation under control. I on the other hand am having unpleasant thoughts about the Bermuda Triangle, which of course we are nowhere near. Well, at least not in Malkuth.

If this page is touched by someone other than the owner, the entire volume will instantly go up in flames.

( It takes forever for the sun to set here. )

That didn’t go well.

At least I have my bronze gun back. I can handle iron, but that doesn’t mean anyone else needs to know it, or that I want to have to replace it with something I can’t take home, if home were still accessible. Oddly, the whole time I was there, watching him, I had the distinct sensation that someone else was watching me. Which is part of what threw me off balance. And I still have that feeling.

There’s no logical reason for me to feel this way. I can’t hear anyone breathing who isn’t me. (Gabriel is in a box under the bed, but he doesn’t breathe.) I can’t hear footsteps, I don’t smell someone else’s soap or perfume (damn that soap, I need to get something else and there’s simply nothing here to be had at any price). But Vincent told me once to trust that feeling, always; and I always have, and I’ve never been wrong.

I hope he did get out. I believe he did. I believe maybe he even got Michel out. Juliana was afraid to believe and I understand that; it’s better for her to have a good surprise if they’re alive, assuming she’s alive—if I can dare that—than to hope and learn a bitter truth and die again inside. I suppose it’s true: I didn’t love Vincent enough to fight for him when he left, or to marry him, or to give up all hope. But then I didn’t love Nat enough either. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll never love anyone as much as I love me, and I wonder what I’m missing. And then sometimes that thought makes me happy, because I know what I’m missing: being broken like she was when Michel disappeared, so broken she let them break her more, because all she could live for was breaking them back. And I used what she gave me. What choice did I have?

I'm getting tired of this. How much longer are we going to be stuck here? Mme Popescu is chatting with an Italian about their runaway daughters and Rosethorn and I have been watching the skies. Proschenko is mad. I would like to see him and Michel in a room together sometime, just to see what they’d do. And Juliana, if she lives.

I have tried writing to Yvon but of course he is probably not receiving those letters. I dare not write to anyone in Londinium whom we have helped resettle. I haven't the first idea what I am going to find when I get there. Urielle is dead, and I don't know what happened to Liane after Charteris took her away. We should have left when Vincent and his family disappeared, but if we hadn’t, Thorwald would have come through the gates. Though I suppose, that if Michel survived, and she could have done her work in the open…

I thought I could continue what Vincent began, especially after I met with Lunete. I'm not a Jew and I don't carry the sovereignty. I was exactly as much of an idiot as I told Michel he was being and for far less reason. And none of this matters now.

Of course Mme Popescu's daughter Jenica was Martin's little friend. I haven't said much about Martin to Mme Popescu (it would only worry her) but I told her as much as I knew, and that I thought Nat had gone back and taken her with him. The Italian's daughter sounds like an equally slippery handful. I hope they are all safe in Britannia, and little Juliana too. Domitian can burn in hell and with Petya’s cock in his mouth. I used up my credit with Charteris to save Liane, and I am so tired of being tired that I have begun to get angry.

We are still stuck here in Calais. Ileana and Misha are tolerating Rosethorn very well, and I like them, but I will be glad to be away from here. I have never felt the slightest reluctance to leave the land upon which I was born, and my father was always disappointed that it was Yvon and Juliana who never wanted to leave. Until he did. I would gladly be far away from here. But it is difficult finding passage upon which we can transplant sufficient quantities of earth from Marseilles.

Meat is very dear. The rest of us can subsist upon vegetables easily, but there has to be something for Rosethorn to kill. It is very easy to say 'let him kill Germans,' but of course if they disappear it will attract attention, and he says it is very hard, if he lets himself drink human blood, to go back to anything less. So apparently Germans are human. There are days when I wonder. But then my mother is human as well, I've been told.

Yvon never did answer the letters I wrote him, after I found out what he called himself and where he was staying. Or maybe he did; how would I know? His replies, if they exist at all, were doubtless addressed to some place that has not seen my shadow in days, even weeks.

This situation is beyond fucked up. I can't find Nat. I have to get out of here. Rosethorn doesn't know how he's going to get across the Channel, but he cannot go back to Ker-Ys, and neither can I. So very well. There are these other people here and they are looking for Martin's girl, the little one who disappeared with Nat. The woman says she is her mother. Her companion is called Proschenko, and he used to write to Michel; he is probably quite mad but he is also insanely competent—in other words no different from the rest of us.

We shall see. I am not a fool like Urielle.