11   and i am the idiot with the painted face

Monmouth Manufacturing is dangerously quiet in Mercy's presence. Too quiet. The hum of electricity hangs in the air, faint from the bathroom's fridge and her phone rings with untapped dream energy. She's restless in the confines of the building. Needing to move, to do something, Mercy fiddles with the crumpled version of Henrietta on their floor. The cut-outs are soft underneath her fingertips as she moves them, straightening out and fixing places where the markers had cracked. It's tedious work, but it keeps her focused.

Mercy's phone buzzes. She already knows it's Gansey. Perhaps out of boredom or maybe a nagging need to remain in touch with Henrietta, Gansey has been messaging updates every few hours to Mercy's silent inbox. She hasn't responded to a single one yet. But she's read them. Pursing her lips and placing her hands on her hips, Mercy overlooks the crumpled town. It's an easy decision to point her phone's camera at Henrietta, snapping a photo and sending it to Gansey without any text attached. It's an offering. A piece of home. He sends her a heart: made of the less-than arrow and a three. Mercy's lip quirks in a slight smile. She shoves her phone into the back pocket of her jean shorts. There's a silent presence behind her. It cuts through her senses, faint like glitter shifting underneath sunlight. A hand presses into the wildness of her free curls, each one bending and twisting in a different way compared to the others. Noah. The Ley Line is quiet enough for him to be here, as physically as he possibly can be. But it flickers.

          "Do you want to help?" Mercy asks.

Noah shifts into her line of vision, shaking his head. He points to the pool table. Mercy nods. Together, they move as one. The redhead takes a stick from it's mantle and Noah settles for pushing the balls around with his hands. He can't hold anything up.

          "Can you feel it?" Noah breaks the silence. He starts the game.

Mercy's lips press into a firm line. She notches her stick, lining up and knocking in her first ball. "I can."

          "Why can you feel it?" Noah asks.

Mercy shrugs. "I just can."

Noah's stare bores through her.

          "My mother can too," Mercy says. She knocks in another ball. Her next shot misses. "The King family has been tied to the Line for more generations than we know. But you knew that." Noah nods slowly, she takes it as a sign to continue. "I think it has something to do with this," Mercy flashes her grey-stained hands. "But no one would ever tell me."

"You're broken." Noah states.

It's a fact, not one that Mercy can deny. She watches him knock in his first shot, leaning on her stick. "I am. It's all broken, off-kilter. Off-balance. Whatever you want to say. But so are you."

          "I am," Noah echoes.

They fall into a silence as Noah's next shot misses, his hand gliding through the table before he can push the ball enough to send it flying. It's tough playing pool as a ghost. He frowns. Mercy takes her shots with precision, ignoring the digging need to claw the grey spots from her own flesh and focuses her energy into her aim. Her hands don't falter. Sunset filters through Monmouth's wide windows. A feeling in her stomach flickers. She misses her next shot. The Ley Line pulls—a taut string between her and its energy. They're nearing the end when Mercy's phone rings.

          "I'm sorry to interrupt your day," only Gansey would apologise for using a phone for its intended use to call somebody, "but have you seen Ronan or the Camaro in the last hour?"

Mercy looks at Noah. He shrugs. She looks outside: the Camaro is gone. Her eyebrows crease. "No, haven't seen Ronan in the last hour, but the Camaro is gone."

          "Kavinsky messaged me from his phone." Gansey says.

Mercy sucks in a breath, and the string snaps. "I have to go."

She doesn't wait for Gansey's responses, hitting the end button with fumbling fingers before grabbing her Aglionby jumper and slamming the door of Monmouth closed behind her. Mercy leaves Noah alone. Wrenching open the blue door to her truck, she climbs in the driver's seat and jams the key in the ignition, taking off. 

Mercy doesn't remember pulling her truck over and falling asleep. She only remembers waking up, knees against the dirt and hands in the grass. She looks around. Kavinsky had been the one to introduce her to the possibility of creating her own world. Though, it's not just hers anymore. She can see two pairs of footprints in the dirt: Orphan Girl and Ronan. But it's still a part of her. Mercy created it on a whim, her soul on show as she was drugged, giggling on Mallory's warm body last summer. It's every piece of her: good and bad, clean and dirty. Everything and nothing at once.

Illusion clears their throat. Mercy scrambles to her feet, chin whipping around to face her. They hold out a silent hand. She takes it, fingers slipping into their cold, grey-pale fingers. They're linked. The Ley Line bites inside her stomach, energy snarling and battling against the confines of its cauldron. She lets Illusion guide her. The forest breaks, a wall of trees opening to a familiar beach. Illusion's rock still rests there, comfortable and free of dust. A spare handkerchief is laid on the sand by its side. Golden glints underneath the sunlight. Her locket.

Mercy frowns. She can't bring herself to speak, like something else is commanding it so. Illusion doesn't speak either. They just grin, leading her over the sand and down the beach until they come across an enclosed area. Together, the pair of Kings stand on the top of a cliff face, looking down upon a small bay. Bright turquoise waves crash against golden sand, juxtaposed by the presence of Cabeswaters' evergreen trees.

Mercy's eyes swipe over it all. She lingers on a figure in the middle of it all. Paling, Mercy realises it's her mother. Circe King is gripping her hair like a crazed woman, her howls echoing across the cliff face and back onto herself. Mercy is moving before she can think, but a solid hand grips her arm and wrenches herself back. She struggles against it, another hand clamping over her mouth. Mercy's locket presses into her back, Illusion's body a cold and unwelcome feeling against her own. She jerks in their grip, almost getting free. Vines shoot from the stone and dirt, wrapping securely around her ankles. They wrap so tight that she's sure to wake with bruises again. Mercy tries to bite their hand but her teeth tear through nothing but air.

Illusion leans in, whispering in her ear, "Watch."

Mercy can't say anything. Circe, none the wiser, down below is fumbling between bottles of pills. There's an array of colours: red, orange, green, purple, pink and blue all flashing against the yellow sand. She tries to cram them all into a white bottle, gripped in the palm of her hand, but every time she picks up a different colour, another colour springs out. She can only choose one lot of pills. Circe screams in frustration. Birds glide from the trees, identical to Chainsaw and with identical screeching attitudes, startling. She's trying to find a solution, the same one that Mercy refuses to create. Circe studies her myriad of pills. She picks up a green one, sniffing it with contempt before launching it into the ocean. The others follow with their own mind, Circe already studying the other colours. Mercy's body aches, a yell trapped within the confines of her throat. She tries to close her eyes as Circe breaks a red pill and feeds it to a seagull. The seagull's eyes roll into the back of it's head. Illusion wrenches her arm to keep Mercy's eyes open. The seagull drops, fading to dust. Circe throws the red pill.

Mercy can tell the frustration is beginning to get to her mother. It's getting harder to watch her fail, launching another colour, blue, into the ocean. Black begins to ooze from Circe's nose. Ichor drips from her ears, curling into her strands of red hair. Mercy's own is pushed from in front of her eyes. Another colour is hurled into the ocean: pink. There's another fading seagull. Circe studies her last three options before eventually settling on purple with no further testing. Mercy knows it's wrong, monsters trapped within the borders of the lilac capsule, but she can't scream to her. She blinks and Circe King is gone.

Illusion releases Mercy from their grip. Mercy stumbles, barely keeping balance and catches herself before she goes tumbling over the edge. The fall would kill her: in here and out there. Chest heaving, her eyes snap to Illusion.

          "Are you fucking crazy?" She chokes out. Her shoulders are hunched, Mercy's fists tightly clenched. She skirts the edge of the cliff face. "You know that's going to go wrong."

          "I'm you," Illusion says simply. They shrug. "I'm you and nothing more."

Bile rises in Mercy's throat. She knows it's a lie. They step towards her, gripping her shoulder. Mercy tries to shrug them off, but their grip is iron. Her nose is blocked when she tries to suck in another breath. She puts her thumb to her cupid's bow. Mercy didn't even notice that it's wet till now. Taking her hand away reveals black, the same ichor as Circe.

          "You," Illusion says, snapping their fingers, "my King, have to create your own medicine. You are the only one that's going to be able to do this. To use everything that has been created." They push a white medicine bottle into her hands like the ones Kavinsky used to keep. "Fix it. Create your medicine."

          "No." Mercy shakes her head wildly. She tries to give back the bottle but it's like it's glued to her palm. "I won't do it. I won't fucking do it."

Illusion leans in close. "Here's the secret, you don't have a choice."

They press their thumb into her forehead, and she wakes up with a start.

Mercy's truck is still running. Her head snaps around, she's the only person on the quiet road, pulled over against a fence on the edge of a paddock. Her chest heaves. Looking at her hands, the white medicine bottle remains. Without a second thought, Mercy tosses it into her passenger seat, ridding her hands of it.

Clasping her steering wheel, Mercy lets herself breath for a moment, choking on an aching sob. Black ichor still leaks from her nose, she doesn't make a move to stop it from dripping onto her jean shorts. A few beats pass, careful moments carved from time. Mercy's phone buzzes in her back pocket. Tiredly, she pulls it out and boots it up. It's Kavinsky, crude, pixelated letters crowding her screen: ur boys asked me to teach him. ur on the losing side. She throws her phone into the passenger seat with the medicine bottle, letting out a silent scream as she slams her fists into her steering wheel. Mercy presses her forehead into the leather. She relishes the cold against her skin.

Steeling herself, Mercy turns her key in the ignition and ignores the taunt to return home. She knows what it is, an invitation to him, a call to arms, an enticement back into the fold. Mercy ignores her phone; Illusion's laughter from her speakers and sets her course to Monmouth Manufacturing.