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28: FORGING NEW TIES


The storm tapered off as the twins arrived in Oakland on the back of hoverbikes. The heavy rain became a light drizzle. The streetlights flickered on, announcing the restoration of power. The gunfire had died down, although the smell of gun smoke still hung heavy in the air. Team Tinker wove through haphazardly parked pickup trucks and barricades made of rubble. In every hidden nook and cranny, wounded sheltered in little dioramas of pain and loss.

The hoverbikes split into two groups without a word being spoken between the adults. Axe Man and Gaddy headed into the night with wounded Law Monroe in the sidecar. The three hoverbikes with the twins and Crow Boy turned down a dark and spooky back alley behind some demolished buildings. Louise squeaked in alarmed.

“They’re taking Law to Mercy Hospital,” Abbey said. “The human doctors won’t help your tengu friend but Moser’s people should be able to patch him up.”

Crow Boy was pale and quiet on the back of Tate’s hoverbike. His bandages were alarmingly bloody. But then again, any amount of blood would be alarming. It seemed as if his bleeding had stopped, so he was in no danger of dying from blood loss, but his wounds still needed to be cleaned to prevent infection.

“We can take care of him,” Jillian said with more confidence than Louise felt.

Abbey stopped at a big ironwood gate in the middle of the otherwise deserted back alley.

The twins had watched a video covering the invention of the hoverbikes—on another world, in what now seemed another life. Abbey had been in the background as part of Team Tinker, packing up after the races. Despite the fact Abbey had never been named in the documentary, the obvious friendship between the woman and Tinker made Louise feel safer being with Abbey.

“This is Oilcan’s place.” Abbey pushed the button on a wireless doorbell beside the gate. “I came to the back because there’s so much chaos in the front. I’m not sure I could get them to open the other gate to let you in.”

Louise hovered close as Tate got Crow Boy off their bike. Louise wanted to help but she knew from experience how difficult it was for the twins to move the taller, heavier boy when he was wounded.

Joy had been coiled around Louise’s neck the entire trip. As they dismounted the hoverbikes, the little dragon stirred, sniffed dismissively at Crow Boy and suddenly vanished.

“Where do you think she went?” Jillian whispered.

“Maybe to go check on the babies,” Louise guessed, and wondered if this guess was guided by her ability to see the future. How would she ever know when she was right and when she was just blindly guessing? It seemed dangerously easy to think all her guesses were right.

“Who’s there?” came a frightened-sounding call from the other side of the wooden back gate.

“It’s Abbey Rhode of Team Tinker!” Abbey called in English and then switched to Elvish. “Five flat cream puffs on a flat cream puff dish.”

“What?” Louise asked.

“It’s a password,” Abbey said, shrugging. “I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense.”

A spyhole opened, blue eyes looked out. “What’s up, Abbey?”

“Oilcan sent these three with me, Floss,” Abbey said in English. “The boy is hurt. They need to be washed, bandaged, given dry clothes, and something warm to eat.”

“Oh! We didn’t expect the children back so soon!” The spyhole shut again. A moment later the gate latch was drawn and the gate was opened only wide enough for a person to slip through. “Hurry, the indi are out of their pen. I was trying to catch them to put them back in.”

Louise and Jillian helped Crow Boy through the gate.

Floss was wearing a big straw cone hat and a straw cape that came down to her knees. Her black hair was braided into two long pigtails. The indi were lambs with coal-black faces and pure white coats of fluffiness. They were utterly adorable. They bounced around Floss, trying to take bites out of her cape.

“No, no, do not eat my cape!” Floss said in Elvish as she rattled a pail of dried corn that she was carrying. “If you go back into your pen, I will feed you.”

Louise realized that the female was an elf. A real-live elf with pointy ears and everything. After latching the back gate, Floss lured the lambs to a little wooden shelter. There she locked the indi in with a gloating “Hee-hee-hee.”

The twins followed with Crow Boy between them.

There were more elves in the big industrial kitchen. A pot of pork stew sat on the range and the females were taking fresh loaves of bread from the ovens so the place was warm, cozy, and smelling wonderful.

There was also a pair of calico kittens playing underfoot.

So much goodness in one space.

All three female elves were tall and willowy with long black hair. It meant that they were Wind Clan. Floss had a rustic feel about her but it just could be her pigtails and straw cape. The other two females seemed trendier, wearing stylish human clothes and with their hair woven into elaborate braids. The one wearing a Naekanian band T-shirt and blue jean short shorts seemed vaguely familiar. Being these were the first elves that the twins had ever met, it seemed impossible that they actually knew her.

“Who-who-who is this?” the vaguely familiar female asked while wiggling her finger back and forth between Louise and Jillian.

“They are Oilcan’s kids, are they not, Briar Rose?” Floss said as she took off her straw hat. “Abbey brought them. They are the Stone Clan—oh, wait…they are not elves.”

“They…they are Tinker!” Briar Rose whispered.

“We’re Tinker’s little sisters,” Jillian said as the twins guided Crow Boy to a chair. “I’m Jillian.”

“I’m Louise,” she introduced herself. “He’s with us. He’s been hurt. We need to clean his wounds, rebandage them, and then cast a healing spell on him.”

“I did not think Tinker domi had little sisters,” the third female said quietly.

“It is Tinker we are talking about,” Briar Rose said. “Anything is possible.”

The three females gave their anglicized names of Briar Rose, Floss Flower, and Cat Dancing. Briar Rose seemed to be the one in charge. The elves could speak some English, so the conversation flowed in and out of the two languages.

Jillian gave a sanitized explanation of their presence as the females helped strip Crow Boy of his rain-soaked and bloody clothes.

“We don’t have to take all his clothes off,” Louise squeaked, turning around as the elves relieved Crow Boy of his pants.

“Humans and their fear of nakedness.” Briar Rose shook her head. “There—a dry towel about his hips, and it is like he is wearing shorts.”

“It’s fine,” Crow Boy murmured as they added a blanket wrapped around his shoulders even though he burned red with embarrassment. “They took off all my clothes at the Children’s Hospital when my leg was broken.”

The twins weren’t in the same room at that time, but he had a point.

Crow Boy made faces as Louise and the elves cleaned his wounds. Louise couldn’t tell if it was because the cleaning hurt or because Jillian was skirting close to outright lying to the elves as she explained that they were born on Earth, captured by the oni, escaped with the help of Crow Boy, and found their way to Elfhome.

“Ah, that explains so much!” Briar Rose said. “I have known Tinker and Oilcan for nae hae and they never mentioned you two.”

Once the many thin slices to Crow Boy’s arms and legs had been rebandaged, Louise dug out their printed spells. The healing ones used a sticky film that adhered to the skin. She pressed it to his upper arm and activated it.

“We might be able to find saijin to make it hurt less,” Briar Rose said.

Crow Boy shook his head, “I do not wish to be drugged, especially not on a night like this. I will endure this.”

There was a little restroom off the kitchen. While Cat Dancing ran warm soapy water in the sink for the twins to clean up with, Briar Rose slipped away to fetch them dry clothing. She came back with extra-large men’s shirts that came down to the twin’s knees.

“Naekanain band shirts?” Louise said in surprise as she tented hers out to examine the logo.

“Oilcan is opening a night club in the gym,” Briar Rose said as she handed Crow Boy one of the shirts. “We are going to sell band merchandise on the side, so we moved all our stock up to here.”

“Wait, Briar Rose? Naekanain?” Louise said. The sense that Briar Rose was familiar suddenly clicked. The twins spent untold nights looking at the few photos available of their favorite Pittsburgh band while listening to their albums on repeat. “Are you the lead vocal for Naekanain?”

Briar Rose grinned hugely. “Yes, I am.”

“You live here with Oilcan?” Jillian asked with wide-eyed amazement.

The elves laughed.

“No, we do not,” Cat Dancing said, waving off in the distance. “We live in the Strip District with Moser and the others. Our place does not have any magical defenses and only a handful of our people have weapons and know how to fight.”

“We were too close to the front, so we came up here to hide,” Floss Flower said. “Moser, Snapdragon, and the others who know how to fight are out fighting.”

“After this, I’m having Moser teach me how to shoot.” Briar Rose pretended that her right hand was a pistol and shot it. She finished by blowing across the finger muzzle.

“The other enclaves are full up because of the Harbingers,” Cat Dancing said. “But also because we’re a household of outcasts. We all came to Pittsburgh looking for a life that we could not live in the Easternlands. We thought that if we could get to Pittsburgh the households here would overlook our oddities and allow us to be who we wanted to be—but they wanted us to fit into the same narrow slot that our parents expected us to fill. So we drifted out into the city and teamed up with humans to survive.”

“Oh, that is so sad, leaving your family like that only to get rejected,” Louise said.

“We have made a new family here,” Briar Rose said. “One that lets us be who we want to be. Our people might not accept us but the humans have.”

Floss Flower nodded in agreement.

“Life would be easier if we were proper Beholden to Windwolf,” Cat Dancing muttered darkly.

“We can see if we can make a pact with Tinker or Oilcan once things have quieted down,” Briar Rose said. “We might even be able to talk to Windwolf now that Sparrow isn’t running interference.”

They served up bowls of stew and fresh warm bread and hot tea sweetened with honey. The twins hadn’t had anything to eat since their bento brunch. The food tasted heavenly. One of the calico kittens climbed into Louise’s lap and begged for meat. She knew that she shouldn’t encourage such behavior but she fed it a piece of pork anyhow. Crow Boy ate slower and slower, wincing in pain every time he moved his right arm. After the last spoonful, he pushed away the bowl and laid his head on the table.

“We should get you settled down for the night,” Briar Rose said. “If Oilcan was here, he would probably have put you up on the third floor. We are avoiding going upstairs, though, so you can crash with us in the gym.”

“What’s wrong with upstairs?” Crow Boy asked groggily.

“There are five very-freaked-out Stone Clan sekasha up there,” Cat Dancing whispered in English. “They are all kinds of dangerous. We are trying to stay out of their way until they calm down.”

“Forge is back awake, so that should be soon,” Briar Rose said.

“Forge?” Louise echoed. “Our grandfather?”

The tengu at Haven had told them about Forge. Jillian’s eyes went wide at the idea of meeting him. They had never had a real grandfather before.

The elves exchanged worried looks.

“He should be told,” Cat Dancing whispered.

“Oilcan or Tinker should be the one who tells him,” Briar Rose whispered firmly. “Otherwise he might think that they were lying to him when they really just did not know.”

“The holy ones might think we are hiding them, though,” Floss Flower whispered.

“He is up there doing wood sprite stuff,” Briar Rose whispered. “When Tinker gets that way, it is like she has blinders on.”

“What kind of wood sprite stuff?” Jillian asked.

“Who knows?” Briar Rose said. “He came down asking for paper and grease pens and other magical supplies in bulk. His people do not know the area, so he asked for us to do the fetch-and-carry. Maya is out getting them now.”

Another name that Louise recognized. “Maya? Maya Hayes? Your keyboard player?”

“Yes, all the band members but Oilcan live at our place,” Briar Rose said. “In all honesty, Oilcan and Moser started the band together but Oilcan has never liked the attention of being ‘officially’ part of it. He writes many of our songs under the name Orphan instead of using his own. He does not always play with us and when he does, he considers himself backup guitar.”

That would explain why neither “Oilcan” nor “Orville Wright” had been on any of the albums’ liner notes. They had noticed the name Orphan but thought the songsmith was an elf.

There was a ringing of a bell and a light went on over a sign that had BACK GATE labeled.

“That is probably Maya now.” Briar Rose made a shooing motion to Floss Flower, who put on her straw hat again.

A minute later, the undeniable Maya Hayes joined them in the kitchen. The band photos hadn’t done her justice. She was a tall African-American woman with amazing espresso-brown skin and perfect teeth. Her black hair spilled down over her shoulders in ringlets. “Oh, geez, what a night! Everyone running around with guns, looking for something to shoot!”

“Did you find everything?” Cat Dancing asked.

“Yes!” Maya picked up a towel to dry her hair. “I had to track down my friend who’s a grad student at Pitt for Magical Studies and we went over to her department’s lab and ransacked the place. She really, really wanted to meet Forge and talk magic but I managed to convince her that today was not the day. I promised that if she couldn’t get to talk to Forge she could have time with Oilcan. I really hope Oilcan is okay with that.”

“He probably is,” Briar Rose said.

Maya pulled off her rain poncho to take off a large backpack. “Barring that, she’ll take time with a dragon—any dragon that won’t eat her. I was willing to promise her the moon at that point but I’m not sure how I would deliver on a dragon, so I hope Oilcan comes through. Holy hell! Who are these two?”

She had looked up and saw the twins for the first time.

“I’m Jillian and this is my twin, Louise. We’re Tinker’s little sisters,” Jillian introduced them as Louise eyed the things that Maya was taking out of her backpack. They were all supplies for casting magic.

“Those are for Forge?” Louise said. “Can we take them up to him?”

The adults—elves and human alike—all froze in surprise.

“I suppose it would be okay,” Briar Rose said after a minute of silence. “His gossamer left, so he cannot take them and run.”

“Poppymeadows said that he promised Tinker not to pull any more bullshit,” Cat Dancing said.

“They should not be repeating private conversations like that,” Floss Flower muttered.

Cat Dancing shrugged. “A lot of people were mad at Forge. Poppymeadows probably all thought that the information would help still the turbulent waters.”

Louise realized that they were talking about a collection of elves who lived at the enclave, not an individual person. She glanced to see what Crow Boy thought but he’d fallen asleep, head down on the table.

“Good!” Jillian said as if a decision had been reached. She picked up as much as she could carry. “Forge is up on the third floor?”

“Second floor,” Briar Rose said as Louise gathered up the rest of the supplies. “Go loud and noisy so his people know you’re coming.”

* * *

Once the twins left the kitchen, it became obvious that the building had once been a school. They went through a cafeteria filled with battered secondhand tables surrounded by mismatched chairs. In the front hall, there was a big staircase leading up to the second floor and third floor.

“Are you sure about this?” Jillian asked quietly.

“You said that there were only two shields that went up,” Louise whispered. “Tinker’s and Oilcan’s. It means Forge was hit by the oni spell—and so were Windwolf and Prince True Flame. Forge is probably trying to figure out a counter-spell without knowing anything about the original spell that hit him. We have the Codex—which has all of Unbounded Brilliance’s research on it—and the knowledge of quantum physics. The power is back on, which means we can connect with everything we left up and running at Haven. I think we’re ethically bound to talk to Forge.”

“I suppose if you put it that way, yes.”

They stomped as loud as they could, calling, “Hello? We’ve got supplies! Hello?”

Oilcan had had two brown-skinned sekasha with him but the surprise of seeing elves who looked like them had been lost in all the overwhelming horror of combat. Up to today, they had thought all elves were tall and pale. The sole exception had been the youngest of Windwolf’s sekasha, Pony. They only found a handful of pictures of him. His hair was black as all the others’ and his skin was tan, hardly what you would call brown.

A male sekasha appeared at the landing of the second floor. He was noticeably shorter than any other elf that they had seen pictures of and even the females in the kitchen. His skin was darker than the twins’ almond brown. His stern eyes were dark and his hair was a rich warm brown.

“You do not need to be that loud…” he started to say but then froze, mouth open. After a full minute, he backed up, staring. “Domou?”

That got another four sekasha to the landing, hands on swords, faces grim. They too looked surprised and dismayed for a moment and then set their faces to completely neutral. At least they dropped their hands.

“Who is it?” a male voice called as second wave of elves arrived, these being noncombatants without weapons or armor.

Forge didn’t look like a grandfather. He seemed too young, only slightly older than their dad had been. He looked like a middle-aged version of Oilcan. He was a shade stockier. A shade more brown. A shade more hair, as he had his dark brown hair up in a messy manbun. The lines on his face were more from laughing and grief than age. He wore a black apron over a white silk shirt and doeskin pants.

He stared at them, blinking in confusion. “I do not understand. They said there were not any more…”

“It’s complicated,” Jillian said, handing over the supplies that she was carrying to one of the noncombatants standing beside Forge.

“We were born on Earth.” Louise gave her armful to another underling. “Our mother and father—” She should have let Jillian repeat the story that she crafted in the kitchen. Louise didn’t mean to start down that painful road. The words spilled out of her mouth and now needed to be explained. Somehow it felt important to continue walking that path. He needed to know what they’d been through. “Our mother and father were killed after Heaven’s Blessing found out about us. He captured us and…he held us prisoner. But we escaped with the help of the tengu. We didn’t arrive on Elfhome until a little while ago. Tinker and Oilcan didn’t know about us until today.”

“Oh, little ones!” he murmured from the heart and sank down to his knees. “I am so sorry for your loss. How glad I am that you managed to escape and find your way here.”

Jillian sniffed back tears. “Honestly, I’m thinking we should maybe hide until everyone has been told about us. It’s getting a little stressful having to explain over and over again about…everything.”

Jillian’s voice broke and honest tears started to flow unchecked. It made tears well up in Louise’s eyes, burning like liquid fire.

“There, there, little ones, you are safe in this place.” He gathered them into a hug. “This enclave has strong defenses and we will let no one harm you.”

Forge smelled a lot like their dad’s Old Spice with musk and cedarwood and notes of spices. It was close enough that something broke within Louise. It felt like a solid wall that she’d built up against all her fear during the day cracked and then started to crumble. She started to cry.

“It hurts to let it out, but it hurts more to keep it in,” Forge murmured. “Cry all you need.”



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