Elfhome

Oilcan sighed as he remembered Merry’s conversation with Thorne Scratch. “She severed ties.”

Merry rested her forehead against the middle of Oilcan’s back and said, “My mother — she — she called me a liar.”

Lying was an unforgiveable sin to elves. To call someone a liar was to deal the ultimate insult. Oilcan wanted to tell her that everything would be fine, but they were empty words against the weight of the insult.

“But — I thought children were so precious,” Tinker murmured in English. “They really won’t take her back?”

“It’s complicated.” Stormsong said. “It’s the head of household’s decision to take her back, not her parents. If her sama is old enough to have lived through the worst of the Skin Clan’s reign — which they’re probably are — then they would see any shift in alliance as treasonous to the entire clan. The punishment used to be stoning.”

Tinker eyed Merry with pity and then gave Oilcan a wry grin. “Congratulations. You’re a dad.”

And that was why he loved his cousin so much. The fact that Merry was an elf and part of the Stone Clan didn’t enter into Tinker’s equations; she saw simply a child in need.

“There’s a double missing, too.” Oilcan told them about Rustle of Leaves. “I went to the train station and talked to the elves there. They confirmed that he arrived, but he was Stone Clan, so they ignored him. I have the NSA, the EIA, and the police looking for him but they keep harping about how the kid is close to a hundred years old.”

Stormsong growled in anger.

“Even Maynard?” Tinker asked.

Oilcan shook his head. “I didn’t talk to Maynard himself. I didn’t realize the kid was missing until after dinner. I talked to someone on the night shift. I wanted to go out looking for the kid myself, but I had Merry to think of.”

“I’ll call Maynard.” Tinker said. “And I’ll get the Wyverns looking…”

“Let us deal with the Wyverns,” Pony said.

“Fine,” Tinker tapped on Oilcan’s chest. “You don’t go out alone looking for him. There’s oni and shit everywhere. And Merry does not count as backup. You call me or your take someone that can kickass with you.”

“I won’t.” Oilcan promised, knowing that once he did, he would have to keep his promise.

#

As usual, the condo seemed huge after Tinker and her Hand left. Oilcan distracted himself from the sudden quiet by investigating the baskets of food that Tinker had brought from Poppymeadow’s. Apparently the enclave decided Oilcan was in danger of starving to death. Considering the state of his pantry, they weren’t that far from wrong. He better spend some time laying in food before things got really sparse.

It seemed wrong, though, to be going through the normal motions of living when there was a child missing. He’d promised Tinker not to look mostly because he couldn’t even start to imagine where to search. So much time had passed since Rustle of Leaves had left the train station. The male could have reached any point in the city within a day. How far had he gotten? The train station lay in the triangle formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. The male could have only gone less than a mile in three directions without having to cross a river. What kind of directions did Windchime give to Moser’s place? Did they include “if you come to a river, turn around quickly”? The river’s edge was a dangerous place. That section of the Allegheny was thick with jump fish.

He had a sudden and awful vision of a pile of travel sacks sitting next to the water. Maybe he should check the river’s edge.

“Beloved Tinker of Wind is nothing like I expected.” Merry broke the silence. “She’s so — so — so much like the sky.”

Oilcan laughed. “The sky?”

“She’s the only thing that Summer Court is talking about — the Wind Clan’s new domi this and the new domi that. We hounded Chiming of Metal to tell us about her. He said he didn’t know any words that would truly describe her, and anything short of the proper words would be a betrayal to his domi.”

Poor Windchime. He was probably the only person in the Easternlands that had ever met Tinker. When Windchime had left, Tinker was a human hover bike racer who occasionally acted as a roadie for Naekanain. During the summer, a chance encounter with Windwolf had catapulted her to status of domi of the Westernlands.

“Chiming of Metal played this song, and said it captured her essence.” Merry hummed a tune that Oilcan recognized. He had written the song for Tinker but had never told anyone that it was about her. He’d called it “Godzilla of Pittsburgh.” Apparently Windchime had recognized Tinker in the oversized melody.

“When he played me the song, all I could imagine was the sky. How it’s big and unlimited, and sometimes it takes your breath away when you watch it, but you can’t hold it and make it yours. You can only watch and be amazed.”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Oilcan said.

“Do you think she’ll find Rustle of Leaves?”

“If anyone can, she will.” Oilcan said.

“What will happen to the others?”

“Others?”