“Elliot!” said Myra. “You’re back! We didn’t know what was going on. It’s been crazy. I’m so happy you’re back.”
She eased back a little and he let her, and looked into her sparkling dark eyes. He’d never thought before of how nice dark eyes were, how warm and welcoming.
“Yeah?” he asked. “You’re really glad?”
Myra punched him in the shoulder and eased away, entirely too soon. “Of course.”
“Well,” said Elliot, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Good. Because you’re going to be seeing a lot of me this year. I’ve decided we need outside-the-library quality time. What do you want to do? I want to do anything you want.”
“Er, I’m going to be working on the school play,” said Myra, looking puzzled but pleased. “Painting the sets and setting up the props. You’d be welcome to help out if you want, but—are you sure you’re a behind-the-scenes kind of guy?”
“Absolutely! I’d love to be behind the scenes with you.”
Elliot grinned at her and winked. Myra shook her head and laughed. This play idea seemed ideal to Elliot. He wasn’t going to do anything right away, he’d broken up with somebody this morning, but here Myra was—smart, kind, happy to see him—and here was an opportunity to get to know each other better and view each other in a different light. He’d be a fool not to take it.
He wondered whether he should ask her to grab something to eat now, discuss this play, but then they were both distracted by the commotion on the Trigon pitch. Elliot turned and looked where Myra was already staring, her mouth open: the sound was that of a crowd protesting, people spilling off benches and off the pitch. There was the click of a camera under the rising storm of mutters and shouts.
Luke emerged from the crowd, shaking off people as a dog might shake off water droplets, and ran at Elliot. It was not nice, like with Myra. It was mildly alarming. Luke shoved something at Elliot, then grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. Luke was a mannerless barbarian.
“Where have you been?” demanded Luke. “Where did you go? I thought—I don’t know what I thought, you stupid, selfish, irresponsible—”
“Hey, loser, why are you bothering me?” asked Elliot, happy to see him also.
“I’m going to kill you,” said Luke. “I am literally going to kill you.”
That seemed excessive and mean to Elliot. He pulled away from Luke so he could study what Luke had shoved at him. It was the Trigon ball, its glass surface slick with grass.
“Thanks for this disgusting object I didn’t ask for and don’t want, by the way.”
“What?” said Luke.
Dale Wavechaser left the turbulent throng to join their little group. Summer was always good to people who looked like Dale, who burnished while Elliot went all red and peeled after twenty minutes in direct sunlight.
“Hey, Dale,” said Elliot, for Luke’s sake. “Great to see you. Had a good summer? Hope so.”
Dale looked upset as well as burnished. “Luke,” he said. “The game—”
“Get lost and don’t bother me,” Luke snapped.
“Whoa,” Elliot exclaimed. “You do not mean that! He doesn’t mean that, buddy. He’s overwrought by—winning or losing the—game, I suppose? You know sports. Adrenalin run mad, emotions running high. Sports.”
“We didn’t win or lose the game!” Dale snapped, proving Elliot’s point. All these people, driven mad by sporting events.
“You have to have done one or the other,” Elliot informed him, kindly and patiently.
“We didn’t, because the game is not over,” Dale shouted.
“Oh,” said Elliot, and looked at the ball he was holding. “Oh wow, you probably need this, right?”
“Yes,” said Dale. He eyed Luke unhappily, and then his unhappiness eased slightly into appreciation. “I brought you your shirt,” he offered.
“Why would you go and do a thing like that,” said Myra, the minx, and Elliot glanced at her and grinned.
“Also, you should know that guy with the picture machine took your picture,” Dale continued.
“Why would he do that?” Luke demanded. “I told him after the game, when I was cleaned up.”
Luke emerged from his shirt, aiming a venomous glare all around.
“Why is everyone behaving in a ridiculous way that makes no sense? Why are you banging on about Trigon when nobody cares? And you! Where were you, what were you doing, why didn’t you come on registration day, why are you wearing those terrible clothes? Get rid of them! Come with me, I need to talk to you.”
“They’re not terrible,” Myra said. Elliot beamed, gratified, and she patted Elliot on the back. “Luke’s right, you should definitely change into your uniform before the commander sees you, but even though your garb is outlandish I think it looks quite nice.”
“Yeah, actually,” Dale agreed. “What do you call those?”
“Jeans,” said Elliot.
“Would all of you shut up!” Luke snarled.
“What is wrong with you?’ Elliot asked. “Why are you being such a moody baby?”
Myra took a discreet step back. Dale aimed an appalled look at Elliot. Luke’s shoulders bunched under his shirt. For an instant Elliot really thought, against everything he knew about Luke, that he was going to be hit.
He did not take a step back.
Luke did not hit him. “Elliot, I need to talk to you,” he ground out instead. “Please.”
“Yeah,” Elliot said. “Okay. Of course. Myra, see you later. Dale, take this and go back to the game.” He pushed the ball at Dale, and Dale opened his mouth. “No, no don’t argue with me,” Elliot told him. “You don’t want to go and do a rash thing like that. Just run along.”
He grasped Luke by his upper arm and towed him toward Elliot’s cabin. Elliot really needed to put his bag down, and Myra and Luke were right: he should probably change before the commander spotted him. But he uneasily suspected that he had to hear this first.
Luke was silent as they walked. Dread drew a cold finger down Elliot’s spine. Luke had been with his family all summer: something could have happened to any of them.
“You have me kind of worried,” he said as they approached the cabin, shrugging off his bag and holding it in one hand, trying to keep his voice light. “What’s going on? Where’s Serene?”
He looked at Luke. Luke looked back at him, the anger gone from his face. He looked helpless. Elliot let his bag drop from his fingers into the dust.
“Luke,” Elliot said, and heard his voice shake. “Where’s Serene?”
Luke sat down, heavily, on the step in front of Elliot’s cabin. Elliot stood over him, his shadow touching Luke. He could see the silhouetted outline of his hands. They were shaking too.
“She didn’t come back to school,” said Luke. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know if she’s going to. She’s with her mother, fighting in the eastern woods. The brigand problem got worse and worse, and all the elven troops were rallied, but they don’t want humans coming. The brigands are human—some people say they’re Border guards turned traitor—and the elves don’t like humans much right now. I should be with her. We swore an oath so we would always ride into battle together and always have each other’s backs. But the elf commanders—Serene’s mother—they all say it doesn’t matter. The oath doesn’t count, because I’m human and a boy. They’ve expressly forbidden me to go. There are, um, orders to shoot me on sight. Serene felt she had to go without me, for her people. She didn’t have a choice. And then you weren’t here, and word came back that the fighting had turned—that it was really bad. I haven’t had any word from her. I don’t know what to do.”
Luke put his face in his hands, as if he was tired beyond words. Elliot stared at his bag in the dust, at his shadow. He went and sat beside Luke, leaning against his shoulder. He looked at his own hands, hanging empty between his knees. He did not know what to do either.
Serene, Serene, Serene. If he had never come back, he would always have
imagined her back at school with Luke, riding, fighting, laughing her rare sweet laugh. He would have believed she was safe.
He had lived all summer in a world where the idea of death was so far away it was laughable, and now he had come back here. He had wanted to.
The next few days were devoted entirely to an elven outreach program. Elliot wrote to every elf he’d ever met in Serene’s company, including Serene’s mother, and sent a particularly forlorn yet flirtatious letter to Swift.
Then he made Luke write down every elven contact that Luke or any of the Sunborns had.
Once he’d forced Luke to wrack his brains, Elliot was surprised by the array of results. The Sunborns got around.
In some cases literally. Gregory Sunborn had spent years in the elven woods being a celebrated courtesan. He had a list of contacts that stretched to the sea, and after receiving a nicely worded note from one of his favorite young cousins, he promised to leave no stone unturned until they had news of Serene.
Luke dropped Gregory’s letter on the pile. “I don’t want to talk about it!”
“Great, because we don’t have time,” said Elliot. “I’m going to dictate another letter to you. Listen up.”
They spent a great deal of time in Commander Woodsinger’s office, Elliot going through her correspondence while she shouted at them not to go through her correspondence.
Elliot used a retired councilor’s room beneath the commander’s to write his letters, so he could bother her with greater ease and efficiency. He sat and wrote there, freezing in the stupid stone room with rickety doors leading to a wind trap of a balcony and thus forced to borrow Luke’s jacket, and he counted the days by noticing when the sun lit the windows and when he lit the candles.
“Have you noticed that the teachers for the council courses don’t get replaced when they retire, while there are more captains who teach us every year?”
“There are a lot more people in the war-training course,” Luke said absently, sitting at the other end of the desk and methodically going through letters from various aunts, uncles, and cousins.
“And why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know, Elliot, maybe some people in this world actually want to be useful.”
“I know, education and diplomacy is so stupid compared to knowing how to stick the sharp end of an object in someone.” Elliot scrubbed a hand over his face. “Though I’m not sure I can talk. I don’t remember what happened in class today.”
“We didn’t go,” said Luke.
“Ah. That explains that. When we get word back about Serene, I’m going to take a break and be cultured and educated. I’m going to help Myra with her play.”
Luke gave Elliot an interrogative look. Elliot rolled his eyes.
“Myra of the Diamond clan,” he said. “She’s very nice. You have met her many, many times. And she’s working behind stage on a production of Radiant and Jewel, which is—I’ve heard, I haven’t read it yet—a genre-defining classic tale of elven love and tragedy, possibly the most influential fictional romance of all time. It will be very interesting to see what approach a human production takes to not only the dialogue but the costumes and setting: this is a real opportunity to present a balanced middle ground for both species through art.”
“Wait, I’m confused,” said Luke. Before Elliot could express how unsurprised he was, Luke went on, deadpan: “There’s something you haven’t read? How is that possible?”
“Ha ha, shut your loser face,” said Elliot, pleased that Luke seemed to be on a more even keel than he had been on the first day.
Luke looked out the window, where the sun was setting and light was brimming against dark hills, like a vast candle burned down almost to the wick. “When we get word back about Serene,” he said softly, “I’m going to—”
There were running footsteps outside the door. Elliot’s heart turned with the door handle. The door creaked open and Elliot’s ex-student Cyril Leigh came tiptoeing in.
“I, uh, brought you the letter as soon as it came,” he offered. “I was watching just like you said.”
“Thank you.” Elliot accepted the letter graciously.
Cyril lingered at the table, doing a small humble tap dance.
“You did say . . .,” he said at last.
“Oh, right. Luke, pay the man,” commanded Elliot.
“You’re unbelievable,” said Luke, reaching for his money pouch.
Elliot found this hurtful. He wasn’t paid for going to magic school, and his father obviously could not give him pocket money in the Borderlands’ legal tender. He found it hurtful that Luke would think he was so unimaginative that he’d promise the kid money.
Cyril held out the one-page newspaper called the Border Daily, with Luke’s picture emblazoned on the front. Luke recoiled like a vampire faced with a cross.
“Would you sign it?” asked Cyril.
“Sign it,” Elliot said.
Luke opened his mouth to either protest or vehemently refuse, but then he was caught in the depths of Cyril’s powerful puppy eyes. He sighed heavily, gave Elliot a filthy look, and signed the paper.
“Thank you so much, Luke,” said Cyril, blushing and leaving.
At any other time, Elliot would have teased Luke unmercifully and at length, but as soon as Cyril was outside the door he was ripping open the letter. Luke was up and standing behind his chair, reading over his shoulder.
It was Swift who had come through and written with news. Elliot’s careful letter had paid off: he had not let himself betray how serious the situation was, only expressed masculine flutterings. Swift, simple soldier that she was, had in her attempts to soothe his delicate feelings let slip several pieces of information about the elves that Elliot was sure the elves didn’t want them to know. She had also said several terrible things about Elliot’s stained virtue and presumed availability. She had also mentioned that Serene was in the eastern woods, alive and unhurt, and in fact much admired by the gentle elven nurses on the battlefield for her valor.
“She’s okay,” Elliot burst out, in case Luke hadn’t got to that part yet.
“Yeah,” said Luke. “And we know where she is. I’m going to find her.”
Elliot twisted around in his chair. “No you are not. Because doing so would be an act of war.”
Luke spluttered. “Oh, like you haven’t stowed away or sneaked along on every single mission—”
“When did I not stow away?” Elliot asked. “Oh right, when there was an actual war.”
“Of course not,” Luke snapped. “You’d have been killed. But I’m not like you—I can actually help.”
“Really?” Elliot asked. “So you go in, and you get killed, and the Border guard come in to avenge you. Then the elves are fighting a war on two fronts. Or Serene tries to help you, and gets executed for treason. Which of those scenarios is actually helpful for Serene, in your mind?”
“I can fight!”
“I know you can fight!” said Elliot. “The point is, they won’t let you. It’s not fair. There’s got to be a long-term solution. I’ve got twelve books on elven customs in my room that I need to consult on the matter, but right now you and Serene both signed on to be soldiers, and that means you signed on to obey the rules of warfare. If you’ve decided to quit being a soldier, then I’m more delighted than I can say. Have you?”
Luke looked away, toward the window, where there was almost no light left. His jaw worked for a moment, then he shook his head. “All right. But the second I can go after her, I will go after her.”
Elliot sighed. “For now, get used to being useless.”
Elliot felt useless, even now when he was limp with relief. It was a horrible anticlimax to have information and not be able to use it, no matter how glad you were to have it. Now that he knew Serene was all right, he had to learn how to live his life in the Border camp without Serene and thus without Luke. He had his plans: getting to know Myra better, doing this play. He was even looking forward to it, but i
t did feel very strange.
“Well . . .,” Elliot said. “See you later.”
“Uh, okay,” said Luke. “See you later.”
Elliot put the plan for his new life into action the moment he entered the lunchroom, and swooped down on the table where Peter, Myra, and various other council trainees were eating. “Hello, Myra. You look very pretty today. Is this seat taken?”
Myra beamed at him. “No, please sit. Where’s Luke?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Elliot. “Can you pinpoint the location of every random classmate we have?”
“Hey,” said Luke, and sat down beside Elliot. He got some serious side-eye from the girl sitting on his other side, Carla Summersong, but he didn’t seem to notice because he was giving Elliot some side-eye of his own.
Elliot despaired.
“There you are!” said Myra.
Elliot double despaired.
“Guys, I don’t mean to be rude, but we’re in the middle of talking about our play,” said Carla. She turned to Luke and adopted a kindly, patronizing air. “Do you even know what Radiant and Jewel is?”
Luke blinked. “A genre-defining classic tale of elven love and tragedy, possibly the most influential fictional romance of all time?”
There was a silence. Elliot was surprised, because he would have thought the sound of every atom in his body exploding with indignation might make some noise.
“Oh, wow.” Myra looked impressed. “I had no idea you were a theatre buff, Luke!”
“That’s so cool,” said Carla. “I wish my boyfriend was interested in the arts.”
Another girl, this one from the year below, leaned forward and made a grab for one of Luke’s hands. Carla and Myra were already holding onto a forearm each.
“Luke,” said the new girl. “Do you think the play is too challenging for us to produce? Be honest. I truly value your input.”
“Um, no,” said Luke. “I think it’ll be . . . interesting to see what approach a human production takes to not only the dialogue but the costumes and setting.”
In Other Lands Page 29
