Elfhome

30: CODEX MOMENT

Tinker was still in healing mode, which meant she slept whether she wanted to or not, usually without warning. One minute she was talking with Esme in the courtyard, and the next she was asleep, dreaming about playing as a child on Neville Island as evil danced underfoot, pretending innocence.

She bolted out of her nightmare to find herself back in her own bed.

“You are safe.” Pony wrapped arms around her. “We are all safe.”

“This was almost as bad as the oni in the enclave.” Tinker clung to him tightly, using his warm, strong presence to force away the skittering fear. “We couldn’t see the danger. It was right there in front of us.”

“Stormsong will see through the shadows.” Pony’s voice was full of trust at her Second’s ability.

“I’ve got to stop this. I have to find a way to stop this.” Tinker disentangled herself from the sheets and stumbled out of bed. “I think what Providence really meant was that the Skin Clan are going to do something big to take over Elfhome again. Once they do, they could use it to attack Earth from two sides. Obviously the oni are another army of monsters they’re going to use. Oilcan’s kids work into this somehow—”

Pony winced at the mention of Oilcan.

“What? Is he okay?” Tinker cried, suddenly afraid.

“He is. . unhurt.”

“What then?”

“Prince True Flame has ruled that nagarou is to be considered Stone Clan since he can tap their Spell Stones.”

“He can?” It amazed her that they’d gone this long without knowing that. She realized that if Oilcan didn’t know the connection spell, the one that opened him up to the stored power of the Spell Stones, the rest of the spells would be inert.

That was all? But judging by Pony’s look, it was not as harmless as it sounded.

“This is bad how?”

“He is no longer automatically under Windwolf’s protection. It is unclear what will happen once the Stone Clan sends new domana to help fight the oni.”

“They wouldn’t try to hurt him, would they?”

Pony looked unhappy. “There are many ways to bring harm without drawing blood.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “How soon before they arrive?”

“The Wyverns do not like our situation here. We are spread dangerously thin. They have demanded that the sekasha of the Stone Clan act. There will be more domana here shortly, whether they want to come or not.”

“But any one of them could be the ones working with the Skin Clan.”

“We have no choice. We must accept them as trustworthy until they prove otherwise.”

Another raid on Stormsong’s wardrobe later and she headed down the street to find out what was so special about Oilcan’s kids. They seemed completely normal to her, but she was starting to think maybe she was clueless about constituted as “average.” It wasn’t as if she and Oilcan had ever lived a “normal” life before saving Windwolf’s life. Since then, both of their lives had gone off track into completely strange. All manner of inexplicable things had happened to them both. She had become an elf, accidentally stranded Pittsburgh on Elfhome, and fallen into space to save a spaceship that had been trapped in time for her entire life. Oilcan had befriended a dragon, derailed the Skin Clan’s collection of the children by adopting Merry, and now was considered head of Stone Clan in Westernlands.

All of that was made even odder because, by rights, neither of them should even be in Pittsburgh. Her father died childless long before the first Startup; her entire existence was an anomaly. Her grandfather once said that he’d brought Oilcan to Elfhome only because he couldn’t move Tinker to Earth. If Tinker hadn’t existed, then Oilcan wouldn’t have been in Pittsburgh. Given those two points, everything that followed was even more improbable. Someone of religious bent — say Riki — might even say everything was miraculous.

Tinker paused on wide stone front steps of Sacred Heart.

Why couldn’t her grandfather take her to Earth?

At the time, she had thought it was because she would have fought like a hellion to stay on Elfhome. She realized now that the temper tantrums of a six-year-old wouldn’t have swayed her grandfather from doing what was best for his grandchildren. They were his sun and his moon — he would have killed to protect them.

Had Leo warned her grandfather that Jin was tengu and there were oni on Earth? Then again, how did Leo know about the oni? The war had broken out after her ancestor left Elfhome.

“Hey.” Oilcan came down the steps to hug her, being overly careful and awkward because of her broken arm. “Been worried about you.”

“To quote Blue Sky, ‘I have the Great Wall of Kick Butt.’” Tinker was glad to see that Thorne Scratch had survived the oni attack on Ginger Wine’s. The female stood within shield range of Oilcan, her “on duty” light on. The story of Tinker’s life lately was how a few days of insanity altered how she saw someone without them changing. She had to remind herself that while she now saw Thorne Scratch as a solid ally, there was no way of knowing how the warrior felt about Tinker. She kept to English. “We’ve got lots and lots of trouble.”

Oilcan’s sudden grin warned her that he was going to say something stupid. “Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital ‘T’ that stands for Tinker.”

She smacked him with her good hand. “I’m serious. This is majorly bad.”

Oilcan listened to her explain the tengu visit, what Providence had told her, and Lain’s findings. “Coz, your life is strange.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking that. It makes me a bad judge on what is normal. What do you think — how normal are your kids?”

The laughter drained out of his face. “They’re good kids. I know it’s part of the way elves think — that your household is your family — but they really bonded to each other. I wouldn’t blame them for being hysterical messes after all they’ve been through, but it seems sometimes like they’ve pulled themselves together just so they can be strong for the others.”

She explained what Lain had discovered. “So, you haven’t noticed anything strange?”

“Rustle would lose his head if it wasn’t screwed on, but no, nothing else.”

“There’s some reason the Skin Clan wants these kids bad.”

Oilcan half turned to stare back at the school building. “Tink, how am I going to keep them safe?”

She understood the feeling completely. “Here.” She reached out and caught his hand. “I’ll show you how to set up a shield. Just hold it until help comes.”

She explained setting up the resonance and calling the shield into existence. He had no problem getting his fingers into position, but then he played several musical instruments, so he was used to twisting his fingers into pretzels. It reminded her of the song he’d written for her. “I really like the song. The one with the domi and her First. That was cool.”

“Thanks.”

“Where did you get those words and hand gestures for Briar’s part?” Tinker asked. “Did Briar teach them to you? I’ve been going nuts trying to learn more of the Wind Clan esva.”

“My mom taught them to me.” He danced out of reach of her angry swing, laughing. “I thought they were just a kid’s game. I’d forgotten most of them. That’s why I never taught you. I didn’t even know what they were until I helped Windwolf with Malice.”

“Looks like you remember a lot to me,” Tinker grumbled.

“I just copied what was in the codex.”

The Dufae codex was her personal bible while she was growing up; she had nearly every page memorized. “They’re not in the codex.”

“Yes, they are.” He let her smack him this time; he knew it only made her madder if he stayed out of reach indefinitely. “Some of the pages have little pictograms above a Elvish phoneme. Those are finger positions.”

She suddenly realized what “pictograms” he meant. Sprinkled through the codex was a set of diagrams that she had analyzed to death between the ages of eight and ten. They were two sets of five symbols. She felt stupid that she never realized they represented the right or left hands. “Damn! I asked both Grandpa and Tooloo about those and they lied. Grandpa said he didn’t know what they were—”

“He might not have,” Oilcan allowed.

“—And Tooloo said that they were footprints of fairies.”

Oilcan snickered. “And you believed that?”

“No. I asked her again, and she said—” Tinker stopped, mouth open, startled.

“What?”

“She said they were notations for a song.”

Oilcan laughed. “They are now.”

“Yes, they are.” Tinker frowned, shaking her head. “This was years ago. Could she have really known you were going to write that song?”

“Who can tell with Tooloo?” Oilcan said.

Esme had said that Tooloo had taught her how to control her dreams. The damn half-elf had woven all sorts of lies trying to discourage Tinker from interacting with Windwolf. Somehow Tooloo knew that one day Windwolf would use a Skin Clan spell to change Tinker.

And Tooloo had known Tinker dating Nathan would end with him dead.

All this time, Tooloo was an intanyai seyosa?

Tinker blew out her breath and tugged at her hair in frustration. “Sometimes, I just want to beat that female,” she said low and quiet so only he could hear. Tooloo might not be on the Wind Clan side of this war, but she wasn’t on the Skin Clan’s side, either, or the oni would have known exactly where to find Tinker.

Most annoying was the knowledge that trying to get any kind of answer out of Tooloo was probably hopeless. It might even prove deadly for the old half-elf — as the sekasha might not take well to her evasion.