Parallax 20
In which case a Fern "Ferrets" Down
She waited until he was asleep, when the dark flop of his curls – peppered slightly with grey – pressed against his face. In the dark, he looked almost boyish. She snuggled in closer for just moment. He always smelled like home.
Fern knew what she looked like, before she became an architect. So much had changed. The night she defended Kaela and Mira and Elara, she had been her again – FERRET.
She caught her reflection in the plexi-glass of the train shelter behind her. Her eyes—those gray-green eyes—looked like something feral. Burning. Rabid. The eyes of a creature that had been cornered and had decided, finally, to stop running and start tearing.
But it wasn’t just the eyes.
The reflection showed more than her face. It showed her .
Olive parachute pants, loose and durable, the kind that let you move fast and never snag. A smoke-green bra, simple, functional—no ornament, no apology. Her lime jacket hung open, sleeves pushed up, revealing forearms corded with old muscle and new blood. Her hair had come loose from its careful chignon, wild and wheat-blonde, sticking to her sweat-slicked temples.
She was Ferret.
Not the flicker in the mirror.
Not the ghost in the borrowed room.
Her.
And the woman in the ruined ivory dress—the bride, the Upper, the Fern—was gone.
Only Ferret remained.
Breathing hard. Knuckles split. Green still flickering behind her eye…
She remembered when she had met him, just outside her academy for the first time. Oh! He was the only one who wasn’t afraid of her! She was feisty and independent. His friends had elbowed him in the ribs, daring him to ask the “youngest architect” out in the class, and that she’d “never give him a chance.”
And she HAD turned him down. Three times.
But over time, his profession and hers overlapped. Laws inter-swept with the structure of buildings. Zoning laws, civic laws – she butted up against him constantly. Sometimes she felt like he did it on purpose just to be an ass.
Then he softened, one day, when he saw her crying on her way to a ride share (she couldn’t afford an auro-boron herself). She was upset because she had had a proposal for a building that was ambitious but doable, but they had torn it to pieces and called it structurally unsound.
He thought it was brilliant, when he saw the pictures.
It looked like an optical illusion – the top piece of the building looked like it was floating, but was really strengthened with arachnid-nors steel.
Why couldn’t they see her vision? He’d thought she had real vision, that she was fearless! She didn’t know it, but he had gone and talked to the Symposium and fought on her behalf with professors and Advocates!
And he had made it past the “friend zone” on a rainy Tuesday. They had been hiking through Ghorva’s Pass, right up to the lava mouth, the great Split. She looked down, felt the heat, saw the lava sharks swimming (if one could call it swimming) in the atmosphere below. She’d been rambling about the average life cycle, how their fins were like our fingerprints (the pods identified each other with markings and texture) and he just…kissed her.
With everything within him.
She had reached up and touched her mouth in shock.
He thought she was going to slap him but she didn’t. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him back.
“Stupid silly Jurisolvant!” She had cried, and kissed him again. He smiled and snuggled deeper into the covers.
She looked at him one more time, and quietly slipped out of the covers. Dug up the lime green jacket, and disappeared out of her penthouse, catlike.
It was not an easy climb down. She felt like she couldn’t go down the front or the door man, or security, or Corbin would call her own – so she did what she did best. She ferreted.
She remembered the conversation earlier. Between herself and Vince.
The water was too hot. Fern knew it was too hot—her skin had gone pink, then red, then something close to raw—but she didn’t turn the cold tap. She wanted to feel something other than the echo of bone cracking under her fists. The heat was a distraction. The burn was a choice.
She had shed the lime green jacket in the bedroom. It lay on the floor where she’d dropped it, next to Vincent’s shoes. The wrap Zara had wound around her knuckles was soaking in the sink, the white cloth gone brown and rust and something that might have been cranberry sauce if she still believed in lies.
The tub was deep, claw-footed, the kind that belonged in a penthouse that cost more than most Grunt families saw in a decade. The water was clouded with something expensive—bath salts Mira had given her, lavender and chamomile, supposed to calm the nerves. Fern’s nerves were not calm. Her nerves were a falcon circling prey.
She heard his footsteps in the hallway.
Vincent wasn’t good at silence. His Djinn composure was legendary—he could sit through hours of negotiations without a crack—but this wasn’t negotiation. This was something else. His footsteps paused outside the bathroom door.
“Fern?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her voice was somewhere in the borrowed room, at thirteen, cutting off pigtails.
“Fern, I know you’re in there.”
A pause.
“The water’s been running for an hour.”
She closed her eyes. The water lapped at her chin.
“I’m fine,” she said. The words came out wrong—too flat, too practiced. The same voice she’d used to tell Elara “cranberry sauce” when they both knew it was blood.
Vincent didn’t respond immediately. She imagined him on the other side of the door—leaning against the frame, maybe, running a hand through his hair, trying to find the right words. He was a Jurisolvant. He always found the right words.
But not tonight.
“I don’t know what to think,” he said finally. His voice was raw. Not the calm Djinn voice, not the Jurisolvant voice. Something underneath both of them. Something that had been there all along, buried under cream and plum. “I don’t know what to think, Fern. And I don’t know how to ask you the questions I need to ask without—”
He stopped.
“Without what?”
“Without sounding like I’m afraid of you.”
Fern opened her eyes.
The ceiling was cream and plum. The same ceiling she’d stared at a hundred times, a thousand times, wondering if she’d made the right choice. It had never felt like a cage until now.
“You should be afraid of me,” she said.
“I don’t believe that.”
“You didn’t see what I did.”
“I saw what was left. That’s not the same thing.”
She pulled her knees to her chest. The water sloshed, lapping at the edges of the tub, threatening to spill over.
“I almost killed him, Vincent.”
A long pause.
“Did he deserve it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point.”
Fern stared at the faucet. The water was still running—she hadn’t turned it off, hadn’t even thought about it. The sound was a dull roar, drowning out the silence she couldn’t fill.
“I couldn’t stop,” she said. “Even when Kaela pulled at me. Even when they were screaming. I couldn’t—”
“But you did.”
“Kaela made me.”
“Kaela helped you. There’s a difference.”
Fern shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.” His voice cracked. “I’m on the other side of a door, Fern. I can’t see you. I don’t know if you’re bleeding or crying or... or gone. I just know the woman I love is in there, and she won’t let me in.”
Fern’s throat tightened.
“I’m not bleeding.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She was quiet for a long time. The water was cooling now, the heat leaching out into the cold porcelain. She should get out. She should dry off, put on the robe, open the door.
But she didn’t move.
“I grew up in the Grunt,” she said. “You knew that. But you didn’t know... you didn’t know what I did there. What I was .”
“I don’t care—”
“Let me finish.”
He fell silent.
“They called me Ferret. Not because I was fast—because I was vicious. I stole. I fought. I hurt people. Not because I wanted to—because I had to. Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
She looked at her hands. The knuckles were already healing—the VAD, knitting the skin back together, erasing the evidence. But the memory remained.
“I thought I’d buried her. The girl who did those things. I thought she was gone.”
“But she’s not.”
“No.” Fern’s voice was barely a whisper. “She’s not.”
Vincent was quiet for a long moment.
“Can I tell you something?” he asked.
“I can’t stop you.”
“I grew up in the shining city. The towers, the schools, the symphonies. My mother was a judge. My father was an advocate. I never wanted for anything—except choice.”
Fern frowned.
“They had my life planned out before I could walk. Which schools, which career, which wife. I was a Djinn, and Djinn have... obligations.”
“I know.”
“Then you know that when I met you—when I saw you at that symposium, arguing with the panel about structural integrity—I saw someone who had chosen everything. Her path. Her voice. Her self .”
He paused.
“You were the first person I’d ever met who wasn’t performing.”
Fern’s eyes burned.
“I’m performing all the time.”
“Not with me.”
“Especially with you.”
The words hung in the air.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know you were performing. I thought... I thought I was seeing the real you.”
“You were. Sometimes.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
She heard him slide down the door—his back against the wood, his weight settling onto the floor. He was staying. He wasn’t leaving, even though he had every right to.
“What do you need from me?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you need me to go?”
“No.”
“Do you need me to stay?”
“I don’t know that either.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Then I’ll stay until you figure it out.”
Fern closed her eyes.
The water was cold now. Her skin was wrinkled. The lavender and chamomile had faded to nothing, just the memory of something soothing.
She should get out.
She should open the door.
She should let him see her—the real her, not the bride, not the Upper, not the woman who smiled through everything.
“Vincent?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“Not of the wedding. Not of the Advocates. Not even of the alley.” She swallowed. “I’m scared that if you really see me—if you really know me—you won’t love me anymore.”
Vincent didn’t answer immediately.
Then she heard it. The soft creak of the door. Not opening—just him pressing his forehead against it, as close as he could get without crossing the threshold.
“Fern.”
His voice was low. Thick.
“I saw you come home tonight. In that jacket. With those hands. Looking like you’d been to war and back.”
He paused.
“And I’ve never loved you more.”
Fern’s tears spilled over. She didn’t wipe them away.
“You should go,” she whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Vincent—”
“I’m not going anywhere, Fern.” His voice was firm. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You’re stuck with me.”
She laughed—a wet, broken sound that was half sob.
“You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”
“Then show me.”
She looked at the door. The wood grain. The brass handle. The inches that separated them.
“Not tonight,” she said.
“Okay.”
“I need... I need to think. I need to remember who I am.”
“Take your time.”
“The wedding—”
“Can wait.”
Fern pressed her hand against the inside of the door. Not opening it. Just... touching.
On the other side, she felt him press back.
They stayed like that for a long time.
The water grew cold.
The lavender faded.
And somewhere in Virex, a falcon circled the toxic sky, green pinfeathers catching the light.
Vincent sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the closed bathroom door. The water had stopped running some time ago. He could hear her breathing—not crying, not speaking, just... breathing. Existing. Surviving.
He thought back to the phone call.
The rasp of the voice. The words he’d dismissed as lies, as manipulation, as someone trying to tear them apart.
“She cut off her pigtails in a borrowed room when she was thirteen. She’s been running ever since.”
“She’s Ferret.”
Sins and sands.
It was true.
All of it. The warlord. The arsonist. The crime queen. The girl who’d burned through Virex like wildfire, who’d stolen from the rich and terrorized the powerful, who’d vanished years ago and left nothing but rumors in her wake.
His Fernie.
His sweet, thoughtful, architecture-building Fernie.
He should feel betrayed. He should feel lied to. He should feel angry.
Instead, he felt something else entirely.
Well, he thought, now I have people to pay off. People to threaten. People to make disappear.
Because if HIS Fernie had to be that—if she had to be a warlord, an arsonist, a crime queen—then he would make damn sure she never felt like she had to be that person again.
She thought he’d take off his ring? She thought he’d stop loving her? She thought he’d look at her sideways, with fear or disgust or disappointment?
Sins and sands.
He loved her more.
He sat there, stunned by the force of it, the simplicity of it. She had survived. She had clawed her way out of the Grunt, through the Grid fires, through years of violence and grief and hell, and she had survived. Not because she was lucky—because she was fierce.
A thirteen-year-old girl, facing life alone. No parents. No crew. No one to protect her.
And she had survived.
He thought about his own childhood. The towers. The symphonies. The path laid out for him before he could walk. He had never once worried about where his next meal would come from. Never once flinched at a sound in the dark. Never once had to fight.
And Fern—Fernie—had been fighting her whole life.
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots, trying to process the avalanche of emotion crashing through his chest.
She’s not a monster.
She’s a survivor.
And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure she never has to fight alone again.
He stood. Walked to the bathroom door. Pressed his palm against the wood.
“Fern.”
Her voice came through, muffled and raw. “What?”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“No.” He pressed harder, as if he could reach through the wood and pull her to him. “I don’t think you do. I love you. All of you. The parts you’ve shown me and the parts you’ve hidden. The architect and the... the Ferret .”
Silence.
“I don’t care who you were. I care who you are .”
“You don’t know who I am.”
“Then show me.”
She didn’t answer.
But he heard her—a soft sound, something between a sob and a laugh.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Probably.”
“This is insane.”
“Definitely.”
“I almost killed a man, Vincent.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Kaela pulled me off.”
“But you stopped .”
She was quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t know how to be both,” she said. “Fern and Ferret. I don’t know how to be... whole .”
“Then we’ll figure it out together.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I keep meaning it.”
He heard the water shift—she was moving, maybe standing up, maybe wrapping herself in a towel. The door was still closed. The inches still between them.
“Vincent?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not going to be easy.”
“I didn’t fall in love with you because it was easy.”
She laughed—a real laugh, broken and watery, but real.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot.”
She was quiet for a beat.
Then:
“Open the door.”
His heart stopped.
“What?”
“Open the door, Vincent. I’m not going to bite.”
He hesitated. Then he turned the handle.
The door swung open.
Fern stood there—wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, cheeks flushed from the heat. The lime green jacket was nowhere to be seen. The wrap was gone from her hands, replaced by raw, healing pink skin.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
Neither of them spoke.
Then she stepped forward. Pressed her face into his chest. Let him wrap his arms around her.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Don’t let go.”
“Never.”
He held her.
The bathroom was cold now, the water drained, the lavender and chamomile faded. But Vincent didn’t notice. He was holding Fern—Fernie—and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was already making plans.
He had people to pay off. People to threaten. People to make disappear.
Because if his Fernie had to be a warlord to survive, then he would spend the rest of his life making sure she never had to be that person again.
Not because he was ashamed of her.
Because she deserved to rest.
And he would burn down the world to give her that.
The knock came at the worst possible moment.
Vincent was holding her. Fern was pressed against his chest, her hair still damp from the bath, her skin still pink from the heat. The door between them was open—finally open—and something fragile and new was trying to breathe in the space between their heartbeats.
Then the knock.
Three sharp raps. Urgent. Not tentative—desperate.
Vincent’s arms tightened around her. “Ignore it.”
“Vincent—”
“Whoever it is, they can wait.”
Another knock. Harder this time. Whoever was on the other side wasn’t going away.
Fern pulled back. Looked at the door. Something cold settled in her chest—not the green, not the VAD, something older. Instinct.
“Check the peephole,” she said.
Vincent frowned. His Djinn composure was already slipping—she could see it in the tightness of his jaw, the way his hand hovered near the table where he’d left his comm. He wasn’t used to being interrupted. He wasn’t used to urgency that didn’t come from a contract or a deadline.
He crossed to the door. Pressed his eye to the peephole.
“Who is it?” Fern asked.
He was quiet for a moment. Then:
“I don’t know. They look... familiar. But I can’t—”
“Let me see.”
She crossed to the door. Gently moved him aside. Pressed her eye to the glass.
Jude.
Standing in the hallway, shifting from foot to foot, their androgynous frame wrapped in a worn coat that had seen better days. Their hair was plastered to their forehead—rain? sweat? both? Their eyes were wide, frightened, scanning the corridor like they expected someone to jump out at any moment.
Fern’s heart dropped.
“Open the door.”
“Fern, who—”
“Open the door, Vincent.”
He hesitated. Then he turned the lock.
Jude stumbled inside before the door was fully open—catching themselves on the frame, breathing hard, their eyes locking onto Fern immediately.
“Fer—”
“What happened?”
“It’s Mrs. M.”
Fern went cold.
“The Varnaks. They—” Jude swallowed, their throat bobbing. “They’ve got Helduvian fire, Fer. They’re gonna burn her shop down if she doesn’t pay up by midnight.”
The words landed like stones in still water.
Helduvian fire. Fern knew what that meant. Not ordinary fire—not the kind you could put out with water or foam or prayers. Helduvian fire stuck. It burned through concrete, through stone, through the bones of a building until nothing was left but ash and memory.
“They’re not bluffing,” Jude continued. “We tried to reason with them. Nova tried to—”
“Nova’s there?”
“Nova’s everywhere, Fer. You know that.” Jude ran a hand through their wet hair. “But she can’t stop Helduvian fire. None of us can. We need—”
“She needs you,” Fern finished.
The silence was heavy.
Vincent stepped forward. His voice was calm—the Jurisolvant voice, the negotiator’s voice, the voice that had closed deals worth more than most people saw in a lifetime.
“I’ll call the Iron Circuit. They have jurisdiction over—”
“No.”
Fern’s voice was sharp. Final.
Vincent turned to her. “Fern, if there’s a threat—”
“The Iron Circuit will make it worse.” She met his eyes. “They come in with their badges and their weapons and their authority, and the Varnaks scatter—but they come back. Always. And they’re twice as angry.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
Fern looked at Jude. At their frightened eyes, their trembling hands, their worn coat.
Then she looked at the bedroom. At the lime green jacket, still lying on the floor where she’d dropped it.
“Come in, Jude,” she said. “Sit down. Tell me everything.”
She turned to Vincent.
“And please—don’t call anyone. Not yet.”
Vincent studied her for a long moment. His jaw was tight. His hands were clenched at his sides. But he nodded.
“I’ll make tea,” he said.
He disappeared into the kitchen.
Jude collapsed onto the settee, burying their face in their hands. Fern stood in the middle of the room, barefoot, still wrapped in nothing but a towel and the weight of a decision she hadn’t been ready to make.
The Varnaks.
Mrs. M.
Helduvian fire.
Midnight.
She looked at the window. The city was glowing below—the shining city, the Djinn city, the city she’d tried so hard to belong to.
But Virex was down there too. The Grunt. The borrowed room. The woman who still looked at the door, waiting for someone who used to come through it.
Midnight.
Fern didn’t have until midnight.
The room went still. Vincent had just re-entered with the tea—something herbal, something meant to calm—but he stopped in the doorway, cup in hand, as Jude’s words settled into the silence like ash.
Fern didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The towel was still wrapped around her, her hair still dripping onto the marble floor, but she was no longer in the penthouse. She was in the shop—the one that smelled of old bread and stubborn survival, the one with the back room where she’d slept when the cold was killing.
“She was paying them off. On time. You know?”
Jude rubbed their angular face, dark eyes flickering. They weren’t looking at Fern—not directly. They were looking at the space between them, the inches of polished floor that might as well have been miles.
“But they kept pressing. Adding pressure.” Their voice cracked. “Wanting the land her shop is on. The whole block, maybe. I don’t know. Something about redevelopment. Something about progress.”
Fern’s hands clenched at her sides.
“Then her son tried to get them to back off.” Jude’s voice dropped. “It turned ugly.”
The kitchen timer ticked. The city hummed below. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed—Virex, always Virex, always burning.
Fern found her voice. “How ugly?”
Jude looked up. Their dark eyes met hers.
“Ugly enough that he’s in the infirmary. Ugly enough that they’re not asking for money anymore. They’re asking for her.” They swallowed. “They want her to sign over the deed by midnight. Or they burn it all down. Her. The shop. Everything.”
Vincent set the tea down on the side table. The clink of ceramic on wood was too loud.
“Fern—”
“Don’t.”
The word came out sharp. Not angry—sharp. The way a blade is sharp before it cuts.
She turned to Jude. “Where’s her son now?”
“Zap’s with him. At the hideout. He’s stable, but... he’s not good, Fer. He’s not good.”
Fern nodded. Once. Twice. Her left eye flickered—green, quick, hidden behind her lashes.
Midnight.
She looked at the window. At the city below. At the glowing towers of Eidolon, the shining Djinn city, the place she’d tried so hard to belong to.
Then she looked at the bedroom. At the lime green jacket, still lying on the floor.
“I’ll go,” she said.
Vincent stepped forward. “Fern—”
“She’s not your responsibility.” Jude’s voice was quiet. “We didn’t come here to—”
“She’s everyone’s responsibility.” Fern turned to face them both. Her voice was steady now. Not sharp. Not soft. Just... certain. “She fed me when I was hungry. She let me sleep in her back room when I had nowhere else to go. She never asked for anything except that I try.”
She looked at Vincent.
“I’ve been trying for four years. To be someone else. To belong here. To forget.”
Her left eye flickered again. Green. Alive.
“But I can’t forget Mrs. M. I can’t forget the Grunt. I can’t forget her.” She swallowed. “She’s still looking at the door, Vince. Waiting for someone who used to come through it.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened. His hands were shaking—she could see it, the cracks in his Djinn composure, the fear and the love and the helplessness all bleeding together.
“Then I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“Fern—”
“If you come, it becomes political. A Jurisolvant in Virex, at midnight, confronting the Varnaks?” She shook her head. “They’ll call their advocates. Their lawyers. Their protection. It’ll be a war, Vincent. Not a rescue.”
He stared at her. His eyes were red—not crying, not yet, but close.
“I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
She stepped forward. Took his face in her hands—the healing hands, the raw pink knuckles, the hands that had almost killed a man.
“I know that Mrs. M is in danger. I know that Jude came here because they didn’t know where else to go. I know that if I stay in this penthouse, drinking your tea and wearing your ring and pretending I’m someone I’m not...” She paused. “I’ll lose myself. And then you’ll lose me anyway.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
When he opened them, something had shifted. He wasn’t calm—he was resigned. The way you are when you’ve already lost the argument but you’re not ready to say goodbye.
“What do you need?”
Fern kissed his forehead. Soft. Brief. A promise she wasn’t sure she could keep.
“The jacket,” she said. “And a ride to the border.”
He paced. He knew Jude’s family. They were middle class, Gloamsted. How had the kid gotten involved in this?
He looked to Fern.
“I just…I can’t stomach it. It’s not right. Your knuckles are still split!” He picked up her hand.
“I’m not asking.” This was the first time she stood up for herself.
“You don’t understand. You’re going to take my last name. You represent me. I can’t let you—”
Oh, they had gotten into a WICKED argument after that.
Who’re you to tell me who I am? I thought you said you loved me?
I do love you! Blazes I do, but I can’t see you ruining your future to go save a shack!
That SHACK is the only reason I am alive!
He looked like she had slapped him, realization on his face.
After my mother and my brothers died in the Grid fire, the explosions, where do you think I ate? Slept? Stayed? Oh a drain pipe did at first, to get out of the rain. But it’s filthy. I begged for food at first. I got myself into some unsavory situations, for a thirteen year old. That woman, she was shaking, became the only Mama I had!
Fern I didn’t mean—
What? That we deserve to burn, ‘cause we’re ants? Small and puny and …? She hissed.
No, no, never! His tone had softened. Sins and sands, I really screwed this up, didn’t I? He moved for her, she shivered like an alley cat and looked away. Fern listen, I… his throat gulped. I’ll send some guards down there, incognito. Not Iron Circuit—he put a hand up.
She closed her mouth.
They’ll get her to safety. Please. He said. They’ll look after her shop.
So it shut down the argument – but not the full story or consequence.
And that’s how she wound up in a lime green jacket on the side of her penthouse, shimmying down.
Her hand, unused to climbing and softened by luxury, started to slip—
Only for something tight and electric and strong to reach out and grab her.
Slipspine.
Her whip.
She looked up.
She had boxed it away, and it still had found her.
The smooth patterning from Neo-netrix glowed neon blue in the dark segmented.
“Hey there.” She crooned softly. “You gunna gimme a lift?”
It made a small noise of satisfaction, and stopped her from falling 60 feet off the ground.
“Missed you, Slip.” She mumbled. She felt it resynching to her core. It felt natural. Whole.
A part of her shuttered, as it aligned with her neurons.
It had been an intelligent whip, made by the government by Dr. Leah Yannovso. Made initially to help the oppressors as a second set of eyes – but it actually was too in tune with the soldiers, and wound up in a garbage heap. The Symposium scrapped the project, but Dr Leah couldn’t bare to kill the thing she made.
Six months later, a seventeen year old Ferret at the time, found it and they were inseparable.
They made their way through the dark. Reckoning was coming.