Elfhome

28: TEA AND CRUMPETS

How do you fight your shadow?

Tinker sat in the courtyard, staring down at her shadow. Around her, the sekasha prowled, restless but silent as caged tigers. The wind moved through the peach trees, stirring the branches. She watched the play of light move over her shadow, thinking of Providence.

The dragons had somehow evolved two different levels of existence. There was the body that lived and breathed. Their minds — no, not mind — awareness? Soul? Whatever made up moral conscious thought — that existed beyond their bodies. Jin had warned her that dragon bodies could operate on autopilot without their minds guiding their actions. “Lights are on, but no one’s home.” It was disturbing to know that their minds could continue too, without the body still alive. And yet wasn’t that the whole thing with the elf cremation? To free the spirit of the dead body so it could move on to heaven?

She had tried to get details from Providence about what the Skin Clan planned, but he merely told her that she’d be fighting her shadow.

She held out her hand and studied the dark fingers on the ground. What did the dragon mean by that?

Shadow knows what you’re doing because you block the light, telegraphing intention. Actions cause reaction.

Tinker squinted up at the morning sun. Light created the shadow. The absence of light meant there was no shadow. Could that actually be counted as fighting it? Considering the dragon’s dual existence, what if the shadow continued to exist in total darkness? What if you could only see it because of the light? Without light, you would no longer be aware of the shadow’s reaction. But then again, the shadow wouldn’t be connected to you anymore, and it wouldn’t be aware of your actions. In darkness, a fight would become a two-way blindman’s bluff.

Tinker sighed. She was wasting time with the metaphysical. She would be better off dealing with science. Good hard numbers. So far, Oilcan’s kids were the only clue to what the Skin Clan planned. By now Lain should have the preliminary findings on the children’s DNA.

Of course, there was the small problem of how to get the information. Her cell phone had been toasted in the Rolls-Royce explosion.

Fate was determined to reduce her down to the Stone Age.

Tinker stood up. “I want to go see Lain.”

“Are you sure?” Pony continued to pace restlessly. “Prince True Flame has taken many of the Wyverns with him, and all the other Hands have gone with Wolf.”

And you are hurt, he did not say.

“Since there is no phone here, the only way I’ll be able to talk to her—”

“Was if she came and saw you,” Lain said from behind Lemonseed.

Under the guise of having innocent conversation with her estranged (and strange) mother and aunt, a picnic tea was set up in the courtyard under the peach trees. Lemonseed apparently sensed the real importance of the occasion — she only provided teacups and assorted finger sandwiches for three.

Pony and Stormsong stood guard as Shields at the edge of the picnic blanket. Cloudwalker, Rainlily, and Little Egret roamed the courtyard as Blades, keeping the rest of the elves at bay.

“I focused on the children first,” Lain whispered as she spread out the DNA scans on the picnic blanket. “All the children — the living and the dead — were related. They’re all distant cousins.”

“Are you sure?” Tinker frowned at the smudges. That was all they had to work with? “The Skin Clan spell-worked everyone. Could this just be DNA they bred into the Stone Clan? Look at Oilcan and me. We both look like Stone Clan even though we’re only like one-sixteenth or less elf.”

Lain sighed. “You have the intelligence to know all this, if you just applied yourself.”

“I don’t like biology,” Tinker said. “Blood and guts and all that. Bleah.”

Esme snickered, earning a hard look from both Tinker and Lain. “That’s what I said when I was eighteen and Lain tried to talk me into a biology major. Almost those exact words.”

Lain decided to ignore both of them. “Yes, I’m sure. All the children share the same great-great-grandmother.” Lain pulled out sets of the computer-printed spell papers paper-clipped together. “To verify that the scans you found in the chest were those of the children, I used the spell on the DNA swipes.” She divided the paper-clipped papers into two stacks. “These three are the dead children. These are Barley, Cattail, Rustle, and Baby Duck.” She laid a lone sheet between the two stacks. “And this is the control, Merry. Notice these markers at the top. This spell is testing for a certain set of DNA markers and showing positive and negative. The three children that were killed tested negative. The four that survived tested positive. Merry also tested positive.”

Pony growled out an impressive string of foul words. “We thought ourselves free of the Skin Clan and yet they’re still breeding us.”

The Skin Clan was working within the Stone Clan, carrying on their breeding programs? It boggled Tinker’s mind, but she supposed in the confusion of war, a member of the Skin Clan could disappear in one corner of the world and surface in another, claiming to be part of a different caste and clan. In the time she had lived with Windwolf, she hadn’t seen any drawings or paintings of individual elves. Without DNA testing, there was no way to be sure if someone was who they really claimed to be.

“But why bring the kids all the way over here?” Tinker said. “No one has even suspected there’s anything wrong in Easternlands.”

Pony started to pace. “If Skin Clan is working from within the Stone Clan, they could influence mating: encourage a marriage, introduce partners, discourage couplings that they didn’t want. The Skin Clan couldn’t do any spell-working. Every domana within a mei would feel any massive spell use. Even if they had brought one or two domana into their fold, there would be others in range.”

“But if we felt something here, we’d assume it was the oni doing stuff,” Tinker said. “Did they spell-work the kids?”

Lain sighed. “I only have you as a basis of comparison, and what Windwolf did to you was massive. There’s no way to miss it. Merry’s sample seems to indicate that nothing has been done to the other children — their abnormality was there when they were born.”

“They seem so normal,” Tinker complained, thinking of Providence’s warning. The Skin Clan tipped their hand in luring the kids to Pittsburgh. What had been worth that risk?

Tinker glanced to Esme, who was plundering the sandwiches that Lemonseed had left behind with the tea. “What about your dreams? Did you see anything — useful?”

Esme looked unhappy. “You and your cousin, the musician, have been playing hide-and-seek with your shadow at that beat-up old hotel where you two used to live. You’re just little kids, with your hands covered with blue paint, laughing and singing. Your shadow is this horrible thing — when your back is turned, it’s a massive beast with sharp teeth — but when you look at your shadow, it’s just a little girl, all pigtails and laughter.”

“I never had pigtails,” Tinker growled.

Esme frowned, eyes unfocused, as she munched on a cucumber sandwich. “Come to think of it, you have always looked like a little boy in my dreams: short hair, ragged clothes, and covered with mud. Your shadow, though, has pigtails and is wearing a dress.”

“So it’s not really me,” Tinker said.

“It’s a monster and it wants you dead and it’s very good at the game.”