While Eryndra stood over him and watched the space beyond the railing, Roy crouched beside the portal, close enough to see the light inside Skelly Mom's sockets steady. Father Skeleton had settled against the wall on the other side with her resting in his arms, her fractured jaw supported in one hand. Roy waited for her to say something sufficiently irritating to make the injury bearable.
By the time Lynder landed against the opposite railing, the city had resumed firing at the scattered members of the party, and malformed soldiers were coming through the wreckage between the Ascent and the Presidroids still on the ground.
"Everyone returns to the platform," FDR ordered. "Bring the injured. We proceed together."
Grant came aboard between Eisenhower and Warrex, putting enough weight on the two of them to show how much of his body remained in recovery. Lutrian followed with both swords formed while Zehrina brought the Trio through the air inside a broad sweep of Navi'N. Takara stayed beneath her protection until she reached the deck. As soon as FDR had counted the last returning Presidroid, he turned the Fireside Ascent toward the capital.
Lowering their hands toward the deck from its four corners, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Monroe joined their magic underneath it, raising square columns covered with moving legal text. Twenty feet above the passengers, beams of gold joined the columns and spread into a roof. Benches formed along a central aisle, followed by narrow side galleries and walls whose windows held several layers of runic glass. Eisenhower eased Grant onto the bench nearest the rear as the enclosure finished around them.
"Union Magic: Circuit Court."
As the four voices traveled through the completed courthouse together, JFK moved along its interior, pressing a hand to the places where their separate workings joined and spreading contracts across the gaps. One agreement passed up a column and along the roof before descending through the wall beside Roy. He watched it reach the floor while Father Skeleton adjusted his grip beneath Skelly Mom's jaw.
Corrupted fire struck the forward wall of the court, followed by a mass of stone that broke across the windows and scattered into the streets below. Through the moving colors, Roy caught sight of defenders leaping from an outer tower toward the court. JFK's contracts flashed at the points where they hit, and their bodies fell away as FDR carried the structure past.
"She has more than enough energy," Roy said into the portal. "Why isn't she healing?"
"Her body has yet to begin." Father Skeleton moved his thumb beneath a loose section of bone before its weight could pull against the rest. "The injury appears to extend beyond it. I do not understand how, though I fear the damage may remain."
Roy had refused Skelly Mom twice because she admitted Tenebration could hurt her. He remembered how easily he had understood the risk while she stood on the other side of the portal, and how much harder it had become to insist when her hands were against his face. Then he had let the cameras come close and enjoyed every second of what she gave him.
"I knew better than to let this happen."
An enemy spell was spreading across the wall beside him when Orden walked through it, shrugging off the gold script that continued turning over his coat. The script settled back into the boundary as he stopped beside Roy and leaned toward the portal to study the break with considerable interest. "Wow. She is very damaged."
"Hey," Orin said from the nearest bench. "Why can he look through there when we can't?"
"When you can casually walk through a Union Magic court built by four Presidroids, you can file an appeal," Roy told him.
Given a better view as Roy shifted aside, Orden followed the damaged bone to its hinge, then looked back at him as if he had left an obvious part of the conversation unfinished.
"Can you fix her?"
Before answering, Orden addressed the roof. "What do you say, Father? This wouldn't be helping them fight. She is still powerful. She simply has difficulty keeping her mouth together."
Rocking on his heels, Orden waited through a volley that struck the courthouse and traveled across its windows in red bands. Eventually, he appeared satisfied with the amount of time Ciego had received to object.
"You didn't hear the guy, that means approval!"
With one hand raised on Roy's side of the opening, Orden lifted the broken jaw from Father Skeleton's palm and joined it to the skull. Its edges fitted so closely that Roy had to lean toward the portal to find the fracture. Orden released his hold, and the jaw dropped back into the waiting hand.
"Huh… Hold her still, please."
Beginning with the hinge, Orden seated it carefully before drawing the larger fragments around it, slowing only when several finer pieces stirred along the broken edge. What Roy had taken for dust lifted from Father Skeleton's palm and settled into gaps too small for him to follow, until the jaw looked whole enough that even Orden had to lean closer and examine it from both sides of the opening. Finding nothing out of place, he lowered his hand and watched the fracture reopen with it, the separation beginning near the hinge and spreading through work he had just made flawless. For a moment, his attention moved between the bone and his own fingers as though one of them had to explain what had gone wrong, then he reached for the jaw again.
Working more carefully this time, Orden started again from the hinge and rebuilt the jaw around it. Each piece moved separately now, adjusted by degrees so slight that Roy could barely tell anything was happening until another seam disappeared. Orden held the finished jaw for several seconds before letting go, and when it separated again, irritation pulled tight across his face. By the third attempt both hands were raised near the portal. By the fourth, his feet had left the floor without any sign that he had noticed, his coat hanging beneath him while a distortion spread outward from his shoulders and bent the space between him and the nearest bench until one end lifted from the floor.
"There is… no… disorder… that I cannot… correct!" Orden said through clenched teeth.
The bone separated the instant he opened his fingers, and the bench slammed back down hard enough to split its runic outline. Orden barely glanced toward it before catching the fragments and pulling them together again. This time he worked faster, forcing each piece into place as though speed or certainty might make the difference, then released the jaw the instant the last seam disappeared. When the fracture returned, confusion tightened across his face into something younger and much less contained.
"I did it right!" he shouted, reaching for the jaw again.
With another sharp pull of his hands, the fragments snapped together, only to begin separating as soon as Orden released them. He caught them before they could settle into Father Skeleton's palm and rebuilt the jaw again, faster now, his movements losing the careful precision of the earlier attempts as frustration took over.
"I did it right!" he shouted, louder than before.
Around him, the distortions spread far enough to drag loose objects across the nearest benches and straighten the runic lines beneath passengers retreating toward the walls. Another attempt failed, then another, and Orden seemed to notice none of it, his attention fixed entirely on the broken bone as whatever patience remained in his expression gave way.
By the time Orden tried again, the careful precision of his first attempts had disappeared entirely. Fragments snapped together before Father Skeleton's hand had finished steadying beneath them, separated, then slammed back into place under another impatient pull. Every failure pushed the distortion farther through the courthouse, dragging benches into exact alignment and straightening the runic patterns beneath the passengers retreating toward the walls while the fractured view through the portal divided into thinner strips.
"I did it right! I did it right! I DID IT RIGHT!" Orden screamed.
For several seconds he only stared through the portal, breathing hard while the damage spread through the court in increasingly rigid patterns, as though nothing around him mattered anymore.
"Orden…" Roy said, his voice soft with concern, though enough nervousness slipped through to betray him.
At the sound of his name, Orden turned from the waist, his head and shoulders held rigid until his face came around toward Roy. His eyes had lost everything innocent and childlike about them, becoming infinite and empty at once, and for one horrible second Roy had the sensation that he had looked directly into something his mind was never built to comprehend. It was beyond enormous power, closer to seeing the machinery beneath existence and realizing that the little boy in front of him was part of it. The fear came instinctively and vanished almost as quickly. This is Orden, Roy thought. Whatever he had just seen in those eyes, the boy would never hurt him, and Roy held his gaze rather than giving in to the urge to move away.
"That's enough," Roy said gently.
For a moment Orden remained suspended above him, fists still clenched while the distortion trembled through the court. His attention drifted back toward Skelly Mom's broken jaw and the anger tightened his face again, but Roy's voice had interrupted whatever path he had been following. Slowly, his hands opened. The benches stopped moving, the warped sections of the portal settled back into place, and Orden lowered until his shoes touched the floor beside Roy, staying close to him.
"Whatever you say!" Orden said, now back to his usual jubilant self. "You are the captain."
The hug lifted Roy several inches from the floor, and he waited for Orden to finish before the boy put him down gently and took his place beside the portal. On the other side, Skelly Mom's jaw rested in Father Skeleton's palm as it had before the attempts began.
Roy waited while Orden listened to someone beyond the court, until at last the boy spoke.
"Father says she reached into the power of... Him. Near the end, she used it to carry part of Tenebration. When it pushed back, the wound became fixed there." Orden held his hand in front of himself and tried closing it. "I can put her bones where they belong… but…" He twitched as his rage began to build again. "…the damage stays."
"Oh," Father Skeleton said with an oddly calm voice. "If it concerns that, I can handle it."
He shifted his wife against his chest, reached between his own teeth, and pulled a wisdom tooth from the rear of his jaw. Roy watched him hold it over Skelly Mom's broken bone, waiting to see whether they were about to require a second explanation of an injury.
Before Roy could ask, Father Skeleton began an invocation, some words losing their sound on the way to the portal and leaving gaps Roy could follow only through the movement of his hand. Others came through in a language whose syllables grew harder to distinguish the longer he listened. Near the end, a single fragment resolved.
"...in that distant space."
The wisdom tooth crumbled in his hand, its fine pale dust drifting onto the fractured bone as the jaw began knitting itself back together. The loose segment lifted until it locked firmly in place. He withdrew his palm, and the bone held fast, leaving only a faint hairline trace along one side, which Skelly Mom traced with her fingertips before reaching for his face.
Resting her forehead against his for several seconds, Skelly Mom leaned into the hand supporting the back of her skull before tilting her head to try to kiss him. Bone struck bone with a hard clack. He answered by pressing his face into hers, and she responded enthusiastically enough that Roy began to worry about the newly repaired jaw. Their next collision made him step back from the portal. Both skeletons were producing noises that suggested the arrangement worked better for them than it did for anyone listening.
"Is your tooth going to grow back?" Roy asked.
Father Skeleton paused, his skull pressed to his wife's, and turned toward the portal. He studied Roy in silence for a few moments, then broke into song.
"The silver fish swam in a pickling jar, beneath the moonlit brine..."
"...Okay," Roy groaned. "She's better. We're done here."
Skelly Mom joined the song as Roy moved away, her voice distorting occasionally but carrying through the court with enough loud enthusiasm for him to cover his ears. He listened until they began the next verse, then closed the portal and went forward as the capital wall filled the windows.