by Wen Spencer
Tinker flicked through the digital pages of the codex, tapping on the links to her notes relating to the various finger diagrams. She had applied every encryption method she could think of to the diagrams. The closest she had gotten was assigning five-digit numbers to each set of drawings. Zero for laedin position, where the finger curled tight. One for sekasha position, where the finger curled from the first knuckle. Two for domana position with the difficult only first knuckle crooked. Three for the full royal position with the finger fully extended, bowing to no one.
She had noticed the “numbers” corresponded to a periodic table–like hierarchy, since the numbers never repeated. She had theorized that the codex was missing spells since there were numbers skipped—like 32103—which set up resonance to the Spell Stones.
If she had ever grasped the meaning of the drawings, it would have been only a matter of time before she unlocked it all. She giggled at the thought of a six-year-old human wielding the power of the Spell Stones. Oh, the elves would have been horrified.
She sobered as she considered everything that could have happened. Sooner or later, the Stone Clan domana in Huntsville would have noticed that she was tapping their Spell Stones. The sekasha would have been alerted that there were unaccountable domana in Pittsburgh. The Wind Clan elves would have searched for the interlopers. If they had been found, she and Oilcan would have been exiled to Stone Clan holdings.
Tinker frowned down at her datapad. Had her grandfather withheld the one spell, rendering the rest inert? Had he kept it secret to protect her and Oilcan?
She blew out her breath. She should be focusing on the kids.
The children themselves might be ignorant of what they were—but it was possible that one of the Stone Clan adults would know. Unfortunately, Forest Moss was the only adult in Pittsburgh.
33: HIT BY AN ARROW
Tommy was so screwed. Strange he didn’t see it coming.
He should have known when they fell asleep locked together and he noticed that she fit perfectly to him. He should have realized it when she woke him up by sliding down onto him and he had to smile at her look of fierce determination. All day he had little warning signs as they scrambled up and down hills, across streams and marshes, dodging lone oni scouts here and killing them there. He missed the subtle evidence.
So he’d been completely clueless when she stopped on a ridge, cast a spell and then murmured, “We’re safe here, for now.” She made a slight noise of protest as he pulled her into his arms that ended with a laugh smothered by his lips.
“Insatiable,” she groaned as he kissed his way down her neck. Judging by the way she clung tight to him, it wasn’t a complaint.
Whoever invented dresses had ready access in mind.
After the quick hard fuck, she nuzzled into his neck and murmured, “You say you don’t belong to the viceroy. Were his terms so bad that you rejected his offer?”
He growled and pushed her away. “I’m done with having masters.”
She gave him a puzzled look and then understanding flooded her face, followed by exasperation. “Oh! I see. He has done it again.”
“Done what?”
“Wolf Who Rules has a way of expecting you to trust blindly. To leap at his command, with no reassurance there is a safe landing beyond. For those who love him dearly, I suppose that is enough. Those of us, though, who don’t love him enough . . .”
Apparently the viceroy had a thing for small, dusky females with a temper. “You didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.” She tugged and shimmied her breasts back into her bodice.
“Forming a household in a clan is not enslavement any more than starting a business. It is, in fact, one and the same.”
“Not the way Windwolf explains it.”
“He may be beautiful, intelligent, rich, blessed with two esva—”
Tommy kissed her to stop her from going on about the male elf.
“But he does not kiss nearly as well as you,” she murmured. “And he fails at speaking his heart plainly.”
“He had no tender words for you?”
She laughed. “It is the plain words I want, not the tender ones. The humans call him a prince, and they are not far from the truth. His mother was sister to the king, and his father is the head of the Wind Clan. I, on the other hand . . .” She pulled the hem of her skirt down over her hips and tried to smooth it with her hands. “My parents oversaw three small holdings that made glue and shoes from animals unfit for eating. I spent my childhood with blood-soaked slaughter yards, the omnipresent stench of the curing pits, death, rotting flesh, and the constant struggle to make enough money to eat. I loathed it. I didn’t want to live forever in that hell.”
“You didn’t trust him to keep you safe?”
“No.” Jewel laughed, held out her hands, and turned in a full circle. “And look how well I’ve done on my own.”
“They could have gone after Tinker just as easy as you.”
“Grab any bitch and breed her? No, this wasn’t a simpleminded act of war. This was betrayal at the deepest level. Earth Son’s First has been guarding over children that the Wind Clan believes were lured here by someone in the Stone Clan. I decided to go through his things and see if they’re right. Two days ago, I discovered he used a camouflage spell to hide a spell-locked chest within a closet. I spent hours trying to get the damned thing open and failed. I was going to ask the Wind Clan domi for help.”
Tommy remembered the massive destruction at the enclave and guessed the fate of the locked chest. “The oni warriors blew it up when they took you?”
“I’m just a distraction from the truth.”
She looked so distraught that he put out his hand, but she had already turned away.
He reached and caught her braid and gave it a playful tug. “Hey—”
She cried out and flinched away from him.
“You said not to grab your arms,” he snapped and then realized it wasn’t him that she was reacting to. She jerked the braid out of his hand and stared at it with loathing and horror.
“They caught me by my hair. If I’d stayed free of them a minute more, I could have summoned my magic. But they caught me by my hair. They pulled me back and pinned my arms and made me helpless. There was nothing I could do but watch as they killed my people!”
She pulled out her oni gutting knife and started to hack ruthlessly at her hair.
Seductive elves, Tommy had no experience in. Females battered to pieces by the oni, he knew too well. She needed to vent the anger. He mourned the loss of her beautiful hair, but it would grow back. He watched only for a more permanent cut. Her hair fell around her in long, silky locks. When her hair was cropped close to her skull, she tried to cut it shorter and he caught her hand, taking the knife from her. He’d learned that there was nothing he could say to make things right. Wordlessly, he took her in his arms and did the best he could to comfort her while keeping her safe from herself.
And it was then that he realized he was screwed.
He’d broken the cardinal rule. He forgot to disengage the heart when engaging the dick. He cared for her. Shit! What a stupid twelve-year-old mistake. The last thing he needed was to go all gooey over an elf.
“I should have never come to Pittsburgh.” She cried into his shoulder as he railed silently at himself. “I cast my lot nae hae ago, when Wolf brought me to the Westernlands and his household was living in tents and there was nothing but trees. I didn’t trust him then. I didn’t believe he could carve prosperous holdings out of the wilderness.”
And of course, because Tommy was thinking with the wrong head, he was happy that she hadn’t trusted the male, that it was his shoulder that she was crying on.
“All I could see was ruin,” she wailed. “So I put distance between us and left him to fail alone.”
That was what Tommy needed to do. He couldn’t afford to be softhearted over any female, especially an elf. Of course, there was the annoying problem that he needed to deliver her
alive and well to Prince True Flame.
“I should have lived with my failure.” Jewel Tear sobbed and clung tighter to him. “But everything was unraveling and word came that his child bride had been taken and might be dead. I thought if I was here when they found her body—”
He kissed her to silence her. He didn’t want to hear how she planned to win Windwolf back. He didn’t want to think of her in bed with the male—true stupidity to feel jealous—to feel anything. Still, he couldn’t help holding her and soothing her and feeling like an idiot for wanting to protect her.
She calmed down enough to realize that they really didn’t have time to screw around anymore. When she pulled out of his arms, it felt like something tore inside of him because he knew he would have to keep her at arm’s length from then on. It made him angry that it hurt—angry at himself and at her and at the elves and the stupid oni.
Spot tugged at Tommy’s shirt and pointed upward.
A gossamer swam on the horizon, the bulk of its giant body just a shimmer of light. Its passage was marked by the massive gondola gliding underneath it like a black needle threading through the blue.
Jewel Tear gasped. “It’s one of ours.”
Ours. Like he was an elf, too. But she didn’t sound any more happy about it than he did.
“And that’s bad?”
“I don’t know how many of my clan are working with the oni.”
34: AMARANTH AND FORGE
Since finding Merry outside the train station, Oilcan’s life had veered off onto a strange road. Despite the fact that the way was full of twists and turns, winding through a dark country, he had felt in control. He’d decided to be responsible for the kids. He’d chosen to move to Sacred Heart. He had been holding off on sponsorship, trying to see if they could open an enclave without the commitment to any one clan.
He had an uneasy feeling, though, that the brakes on his life were going. Any moment, he would go hurtling down a steep hill, stomp down to stop it all, and the pedal would sink to the floor and nothing would grab the wheels.
He went to his project board in an attempt to find things that would make him feel like he was staying in control. Of the countless projects yet to be done, the one that spoke to him was painting. The bullet holes had been filled and the plaster sanded and primed, but none of the walls had been given a final coat of paint. The whole building looked infected with the countless white spots bright against the grimy walls. Fresh paint would erase the last traces of the oni on the enclave and make it wholly theirs. Buying paint would also take him to one of his favorite places: the hardware store.
Wollerton’s had ruled over the South Side, like so many of the successful surviving businesses in Pittsburgh, for generations out of mind. Its narrow, dim aisles had everything conceivable for keeping a home livable on Elfhome, from paint and ladders to flamethrowers and wolf traps. Becky Wollerton leaned toward crockpot dishes while tending the store, which wreathed the place with the smell of stewing meat. Occasionally there was the thunder of little feet overhead as the next generation of storekeepers played soccer or tag in their sprawling apartment. It was a comforting safe place for Oilcan.
He guided his kids to the painting section while Thorne slipped through the aisles like a grim shadow. He couldn’t imagine the pain she was going through, losing all her brother warriors in one night. At night, in bed, she allowed herself the freedom to cry, but he’d learned that daylight meant she was working, and she preferred her space.
The kids stood silent and still in front of the massive array of colors, apparently stunned at the number of choices.
“They’re so pretty.” Merry fingered the paint chips. “We can only choose one?”
“You can choose two or three if you want.” He pulled out cream and paired it with a dark green in the same family. “The trick is to pick colors that look good together. See, we could paint three of the walls this cream and one wall this green.”
He put the chips back into the trays. “The rooms are big. We can paint them any way you want, but the easiest is just to pick one color you like a lot.”
“What does this say?” Cattail Reeds held out a warm gold to him.
“Each color has a name. That one is”—he paused a moment to translate into Elvish—“Happily Ever After.”
“Happily Ever After,” Baby Duck echoed and took the chip from Cattail.
“But what kind of name is that?” Cattail protested. “It doesn’t tell you anything.”
Oilcan waved a hand at the large section of yellows. “We ran out of names and started to make up new ones.”
“I like this.” Merry held out a chip of pale buttery yellow. “What’s it called?”
He translated the name. “Pure Joy.”
Merry did a little dance. “I love it.”
Cattail laughed dryly at Merry and drifted toward the reds.
Rustle of Leaves picked out a deep green called Paradise Valley and Barley chose a warm tan called Honey Oak. Oilcan found a rich brown called Weathered Oak for his bedroom and paired it with a cream.
“This one.” Cattail held out a strong purplish red called Raspberry Truffle. “And this one.” A warm dark gray called Stardust. “And this one.” An off-white called Mannequin Cream. “And this.” A lighter gray called Sandlot Gray.
Oilcan laughed. He had no idea how she was going to use all four, but he trusted that she would figure it out. The four chips harmonized in his hand. “Okay.”
Cattail and Barley started into a debate on colors for the foyer. Oilcan deposited the chips with the paint mixer, ordering three five-gallon buckets of every color that the kids picked out. After the “family” bedrooms, they would need to paint the guest bedrooms, too. It would cost over a thousand dollars in paint, but it would be another step closer to opening the enclave.
Paint ordered, he went in search of drop cloths, paint brushes, rollers, paint pans, and ladders. The tile section reached out and took hold of him as he passed through it, reminding him that he needed to start on the bathing room on the third floor. They were doing bathing out of the sinks. There was a marvelous iridescent glass tile of blues and purples that whispered to his soul. Of course it was hideously expensive, but it would be beautiful.
“He shapes stone with coarse hands,
rough as rock, unyielding.
Builds a palace to capture light, a stolen gem,
an artist’s restless eye.
She illuminates his silent walls and empty rooms,
fills the lonely
Corners with impossible color,
paints a secret language
Only he can read; every word fractures
the jewel of his heart.”
He realized he was singing and laughed at the tune. It was the song about the quirky romance between Forge and Amaranth. The male had loved the painter Amaranth at first sight but for some reason didn’t think his love was returned. He hired her to paint the palace he’d built, and then to be sure the task would take as long as needed to win her heart, he’d added rooms and wings and outbuildings to it. The chorus was an urge to build faster, as Amaranth had nearly finished painting.
Oilcan tore himself away from the tile and moved on to the painting equipment. The bathing room would have to come later.
“Sama.” Baby Duck was suddenly beside him with two kittens in her hands. All three stared at him intently.
“Where did you find those?”
“Upstairs.”
Oilcan sighed. He was going to have to have a long talk about privacy with her. “I’ll see if they’re for sale.”
Aaron Wollerton laughed as he explained the situation. “We’re about drowning in cats, so she can have them.”
* * *
They started with his room; his theory was that he liked to repaint often anyhow. It wasn’t so much he grew tired of the old color, but that he enjoyed trying new colors. If the children messed up painting his room, he would only have to live with it for a short time.
He taught them how to prep the room, taking covers off the light switches and electrical boxes. He showed them how to tape off the areas that were going to be painted later. He trained them on cutting in with brushes and rolling with rollers.
“Please, no painting each other,” he said as he stepped back to let them work.
“Why would we paint one another?” Merry asked as they all stared at him in confusion.
“I’m not sure.” He and Tinker had done it when they painted for the first time; he could no longer remember why. He was sure it made sense at the time. “Just don’t.”
* * *
They were neat and careful painters, if painfully slow. He’d never realized that living forever meant there was no rush to get work done quickly; apparently their whole lives they’d been taught to do things right, however long it took. They kept stepping back and frowning at the coverage. For having paintbrushes in their hands for the first time, they were doing a wonderful job. If they expected perfection, though, painting the entire building could take forever.
“Sometimes it takes two or three coats for complete coverage,” he cautioned them. “Just be as neat as you can and keep working. Trust that the end product will reflect the care you put into it.”
“Sama.” Barley was cutting along the chalkboard at the front of the room. “How are you paying for everything?”
“I’m using my own savings for now,” Oilcan said. “I don’t have enough to buy everything to open an enclave, but it’s more than enough to make this place livable.”
“What are we doing for sponsorship?” Barley asked.
The others paused in mid-work to look at Oilcan. He didn’t really want to talk about this now; it felt too soon. Still, they had a right to meet it head on. “Wind Clan is willing to give me sponsorship, but if I took it, all of you would have to become Wind Clan.”
