4: THE EYES HAVE IT
“Our baby sisters can’t read minds,” Lucien had warned Tristan before their family descended on their forest encampment. “But I’ve found it’s best not to think of things you don’t want them to know about. Thoughts are the precursor of actions. When you create a plan, it’s as if you’ve set up vibrations in the likely outcome to your actions. The Eyes sense those vibrations, just like sharks can detect the thrashing of a swimmer.”
The fiutana had seemed “deep within virgin forest” but in truth it was only sixteen miles from downtown Pittsburgh. On a hoverbike, full throttle, piloted by his fearless sister Adele, it took less than ten minutes to weave their way through the trees, across the Rim into empty urban sprawl, and rocket down the highway. Tristan clung tight to Adele and tried to keep his mind focused on his official duty. Lucien had volunteered Tristan to investigate how things stood in Pittsburgh now that the battle was being waged in earnest. Since Tristan looked like a human child, he should be able to move freely through the city.
The mission, however, was just an excuse to get Tristan out from under their father’s thumb and into the city. Lucien wanted Tristan to find his runaway love: Carla “Boo” Kryskill.
Tristan had done similar jobs for their father. Humans rarely suspected children of being enemy spies, but there were always awkward questions: Who are your parents? Where do they work? Do you live in our neighborhood? Are you an official resident of our school district? Who is your family doctor? Why aren’t you in school? Won’t your parents be worried that you’re out so late? Alone?
They were questions that always filled Tristan with existential despair if he had to think about them too long. It had been one thing when he thought he was a human adult with a rare medical condition. It was quite another knowing that he was a half-elf and still truly a child. Should he be doing such work for his father? Shouldn’t he be home with his loving mother? Would he be better off grabbing as much money as possible and disappearing? How angry would his father really be?
Tristan would normally spend up to a month prior to any assignment setting up a false identity with all the possible loose ends nailed down. Birth certificate. Social Security card. School transcripts. Medical records. The works. He would have answers scripted for any awkward question.
Lucien had waited until their baby sisters were distracted. It meant that Tristan didn’t have his normal prep time. He couldn’t use his real name in case Lucien or one of his people had slipped up sometime in the last eight years and told Boo about Tristan. Since Marc Kryskill was a police officer, a fake name without supporting paperwork wouldn’t work. Nor could Tristan safely borrow the identity of a local boy. With the Kryskills’ sprawling family connections, any randomly picked name might be well known to one of them. Tristan had noticed that none of them had close interactions with off-worlders. It would mean that they would be unfamiliar with any family on Elfhome via a work visa. He had searched through Lucien’s copy of the EIA visa database. He found an American family who had arrived in Pittsburgh at the end of last year. The father held a high-level accounting position with an import company and the mother worked at the University of Pittsburgh. Their son Liam Davis was fifteen years old. It would be a struggle to pass as fifteen but it gave him a paper trail.
He decided that his excuse for latching onto the Kryskills would be a simple “made a mistake with the mass transit and got lost while trying to find an alternate way home.” It was nicely vague, working for any location that he might end up at. He could use it coming from or going to any place in the city. “I’d gotten on the wrong bus (or light rail train) and I guess that I walked for blocks in the wrong direction once I’d gotten off.” Since the Davis family had been on Elfhome for only a few months and Liam was only fifteen, it was believable that, on his first outing, Liam had gotten completely lost.
Tristan had a borrowed name, a readied excuse, and a backpack filled with random props that might be helpful but little else. No paperwork to back up his borrowed name. No answers to the questions he would most likely be asked. What could he say to get the Kryskills to take him in, or at least keep him long enough for him to dig through their private lives?
He couldn’t even use his travel time to create credible lies—not while riding behind Adele. He forced his mind onto another problem. No matter how his game of hide-and-seek played out, he would still need to furnish their father with some kind of report.
“What should I know about our plans—like the strike on Midas?” Tristan shouted over the roar of the hoverbike’s engine. He wasn’t sure who or what Midas was. Tristan didn’t know the finer details of their attack. He knew, for example, that moles scattered across the city were going to take out Pittsburgh’s power and communication hubs but he didn’t know in what way. How was he supposed to report that the humans were ineffectively or successfully countering their plans if he didn’t know what those plans were?
“Someone found out that Midas was trying to build a gate back to Earth,” Adele called back. “Either that or the mice belong to them. I’m not sure which. I took a peek at the shipyard before we left camp and it was nothing but mice.”
Ah! The shipyard! That explained much. When Tristan first arrived in Pittsburgh, he and Lucien had several conversations about a multinational corporation that recently modernized the shipyard on Neville Island. Lucien hadn’t told Tristan the company’s name; in the grand scheme of things, the name made little difference. The brothers’ focus had been on the massive 3D printer that could print out an entire tugboat in the matter of hours—engine and all. Lucien wanted control of the facility. A fleet of boats would greatly expand their ability to use the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Buying Midas would have been the simplest and most effective method of taking over the printer but their technophobic father refused to give Lucien the funds. Seizing the printing facility by brute force wouldn’t work as the machines were too complex for Lucien’s people to run. Ancient elves and most oni were hopeless when dealing with technology. The tengu could not be trusted. Tristan and Lucien brainstormed how they could seize control of the company without buying it or endangering key technical personnel.
The changeling, however, proceeded to wreak havoc with all of their plans. Important personnel like Lord Tomtom and his best warriors had been killed. Resources like the tengu, the Turtle Creek facility, and Malice were lost. All discussions about the shipyard were dropped as Lucien focused on damage control.
That explained what “Midas” was but it left a dozen more questions. How was Midas building a gate to Earth? With their 3D printer? How did they figure out the science that stumped the best minds of Earth for decades? Had someone leaked them the design of the gate that Lord Tomtom forced Tinker to build? There been countless true bloods working on the project as carpenters. They understood casting magic well enough to work with ironwood. Or was the leak to Midas from the tengu before they fell under the changeling’s protection? It might even be someone working with Tinker herself. Obviously the Eyes would have raced to take control of any gate building activities but it sounded like someone beat them to the punch. Who? And what were the “mice”?
Adele had been roaring down the Parkway East. She suddenly dropped all power into the lift engine and popped up onto the Liberty Bridge on-ramp. Tristan tightened his hold out of fear and she laughed.
“Where are we going?” Tristan asked as the bridge took them across the river, away from Downtown. He’d planned on going to the coffee shop that Boo’s mother owned. He figured that a woman with seven children would have a hyper mothering instinct.
“The joy of being first born is that Father had Yves tweak me the least,” Adele called back. “Standing at the center of the casting circle—knowing that you’re going to be forever changed? I’m happy about not being fiddled with any more than I have been. It always made me feel like a hollowed egg—empty on the inside, painfully fragile on the out. It means, though, that every time the others were improved, it got harder and harder to win against them in practice battles. Harder—but not impossible. I just needed to be really sneaky.”
Did this mean that Adele knew that he had a secret mission? Had he just made a mistake in asking?
“How does this relate to Midas?” Tristan asked cautiously.
“We thought that we only had Pure Radiance to dance around. We thought we were being so clever. We used all the little tricks that worked on each other. Using disposal tools. Manipulating things remotely. Never letting underlings know who we were or what we were trying to do. Keeping our distance from Pure Radiance’s instruments. It turns out that there is more than just Pure Radiance pulling strings.”
“Esme?” Tristan guessed.
“Her. The changeling. Pure Radiance’s mongrel of a daughter. The tengu’s dream crow. Lain is her mother’s daughter—she probably still catches glimpses of what is to be. We’re suddenly ankle deep in those who sow the future.”
It was a rough translation of the term “intanyai seyosa,” indicating that Pure Radiance and her ilk were farmers, carefully tending seeds that they had planted.
“That does make things more tricky,” Tristan said as he realized that it might be the true reason that Lucien had kept him in the dark. Not because of their little sisters but the other “Eyes” in the city. Tristan was not only related to Lain and Esme but also spent half his life living with them. His nuenae partially overlapped theirs—it would allow their older half sisters to dream of Tristan’s activities. It was likely they could “see” Lucien too. Was that why Lucien wore his demon-like mask? His oni name was “White Snake”: a creature so deadly that it didn’t need to camouflage itself. It was oddly comforting to think that Lucien might wear his mask more to protect Lain than instill fear in his followers.
“Esme and the dream crow were lost in space until August,” Adele said. “Sparrow had taken Pure Radiance’s mongrel to Earth in May. The changeling did not seem to awaken to her nature until after the wolf child remade her on Midsummer’s Eve. None of them should have been able to block our assassination attempt in early June.”
Tristan had heard enough about the failed effort to know that it had gone mysteriously wrong. All of the underlings assigned to the mission had vanished that night. From what Lucien was able to piece together, his operatives had stopped Windwolf’s car, killed his guard, started to give chase but never reached the changeling’s junkyard. The obvious answer was that someone intercepted the assassination squad and killed them. “You think there’s an enemy intanyai seyosa operating in Pittsburgh?”
“We’ve all felt watched—from time to time,” Adele said. “I always assumed that it was one of the other Eyes. Fefe is sure that it’s someone else—someone close by. She’s the most tweaked of us. If she is sure, then the threat is real. Danni has a plan to catch the enemy intanyai seyosa out.”
Danni had been with Lucien downstream on the Ohio River. Originally Yves was going to use their Turtle Creek camp to cast the transformation spell while Lucien led the troops into Oakland. Yves had been MIA and the changeling had parked Esme’s spaceship on top of their casting circle. Their father refused to change their plans as the loss of the orbital gate meant that they were running with a limited supply of food and ammo for their troops. Lucien needed to take over Yves’s duties and find an intact casting circle. Danni and one of Lucien’s underlings took over moving the troops upriver to Herrs Island, from which they would launch the attack on Oakland. It sounded like Danni was going to deviate from their original plan even more.
Being in the dark to the Eyes’ plot was going to make both of Tristian’s missions—official and unofficial—a hundred times harder.
“Danni and Fefe are confident.” Adele took the right turn off of Liberty Bridge to climb up Mount Washington. “But I am not so sure. I know what it’s like to be the less gifted one in a showdown.”
Like his baby sisters, the enemy would be able to feel the vibrations of thought preceding action. This might be the true reason Lucien had told him nothing about the family’s plans. Tristan wasn’t sure why Adele was telling him this. If their enemy could pick up the same vibrations, wouldn’t the less said the better? Perhaps she believed he knew so little that he couldn’t forewarn their opponent with his thoughts.
They shot down Grandview Avenue to the upper station of the Monongahela Incline. The building was dark and the incline tram wasn’t moving. The city’s power was off already.
“While Father was at Shikaakwa, you could stay out of the fray,” Adele said. “You’ve been on Earth without magic your whole life. You might have the same inborn ability to dance on the edge of danger. Lucien has a little of it, so you might too. You’ve had no time, though, to hone it like the rest of us. We all felt it would be better if you stayed back out of the line of fire. Father won’t allow that, so into the mix you must go.”
That surprised him. His baby sisters had been little girls when he last saw Adele or Fefe. Chloe had been like a rogue moon all summer, communicating only via cryptic notes carried by Lucien’s operatives. If Chloe had known that he was on Elfhome before she was killed, her reports gave no indication of it. Danni had been at the forest camp. She alternated between coldly snubbing him and ambushing him with knives drawn. He had thin cuts all over his body from the attacks. The few times that they actually spoke, their conversation had been laced with snide, hurtful comments. He had figured that Danni hated him, yet Adele seemed to be implying that the sisters agreed to protect Tristan for as long as they could.
“I understand,” Tristan said even though he didn’t. Yes, he knew that their father fully expected Tristan to be useful to the cause. Emperor Heaven’s Blessing always viewed his children as tools to regain his empire. What Tristan didn’t understand was Danni: if she liked him, why had she continually attacked him? Maybe Danni thought she was forcing Tristan to exercise what little precognitive power he had inherited from his mother.
“We’ve got fires to light all over the city,” Adele said. “I thought about having you deal with the trains, but that’s going to need someone who looks more intimidating than you. We still have some operatives that can pass as human; I’ll throw one of them at that.”
Their father had given all his slaves pointed ears to make it obvious which of his subjects were free born and which were property. Heaven’s Blessing and his supporters could pass as humans with their rounded ears. Since the first Startup, a growing number of them had been embedded into Pittsburgh’s infrastructure. The EIA had only been able to weed the magically disguised oni moles out of their ranks, leaving the ancient elves embedded.
“I’ve got to go pick up some troops and search out a nest of troublemakers on Mount Oliver.” Adele stopped in front of a small one-story clapboard building painted cream yellow with a sign stating MONONGAHELA INCLINE 1870.
On a normal day, the historic funicular railway would give him access to Station Square at the foot of Mount Washington. There was no way to walk down from the cliff top—at least as far as Tristan knew of. Someone more familiar with the area might know of one. With the power off, Adele was effectively stranding him on Mount Washington.
Was it because she knew of his mission for Lucien and disapproved?
When they were little, his baby sisters wouldn’t back down once they had decided a course of action. They were sure that they knew better than anyone. If Lucien felt the need to sneak behind the back of the Eyes, then age had not changed that mindset. Tristan had no hope of challenging Adele’s decision.
“This isn’t Mount Oliver.” Tristan let his confusion bleed into his voice. He pointed toward the neighborhood that bordered—somehow—Mount Washington. While he knew general locations, he didn’t know how to find his way eastward through a maze of hilltop streets and across the deep uninhabited valleys.
“Doh!” Adele said. “Hop off.”
Tristan reluctantly slid off the back of the hoverbike. “Why are you dropping me here?”
“It seems like the least dangerous hot spot.” Adele nodded toward the radio tower a block from the incline. “WESA is my favorite station; it’s what the cool kids listen to. It caters to bands that mix rock music with traditional elf instruments. None of our other siblings like it. WESA was broadcasting some weird stuff all day—maybe longer. I’ve been stuck in a cave, so I have no idea how long it’s been going on. There’s so many fingers pulling strings, I can’t get a handle on it. Maybe it’s nothing. It seems safe enough for you to poke around.”
WESA? Chloe’s reports hadn’t included it beyond an early mention that National Public Radio had pulled its funding. WESA stopped broadcasting within three years of the first Startup. No new license had been issued, so it wasn’t the case of a new owner. Someone must be using the old equipment to run a pirate station. Chloe must have considered that beneath her notice. Her arrogance killed her. It might kill them all. What else had she stupidly missed?
But it wouldn’t be wise to speak ill of the recently dead. Not when her twin sister was there, in front of him, looking unhappy. The Eyes might fight with each other like a howling pack of wild monkeys but they had a fierce “us against the world” bond. Tristan suspected it came from how aloof and impersonal their caretakers had been.
“I’ll look into it,” Tristan said instead.
Adele nodded, dismounting her hoverbike to rummage through its seat storage compartment. “Sitting around in the cave, waiting for visions of Yves to come to me, gave me time to think. About Yves. About you and Lucien. About…about this war.”
He wasn’t sure but he suspected that she almost said something painfully open and honest about their father. It was sad that she deemed it too dangerous to complain about him on this dark and desolate street corner.
“I’m tired of this war,” she said instead. “Always hiding. The months of living in the woods with the man-eating plants and animals. Sending people out to kill. Sending people out to be killed. I want it to be over. I want us to get to our happily ever after.”
“Happily ever after?” Tristan echoed in surprise.
“We’re the children of an emperor,” Adele said bitterly. “When we were young, we thought that made us princesses. We thought we would live in a palace and wear fairy silk gowns and eat those dainty little cakes that you used to bring for your silly tea parties. We all did.”
“Petit fours.” He gave the name of the treats. He’d nearly forgotten about the tea parties that he held for the girls as he tried to recreate the happiness of his own childhood. The desserts were all part of the mystical formula. His five baby sisters were not his mother and two older sisters; his tea parties were not the tranquil joy that he remembered. It was like trying to entertain wild monkeys that were armed with forks. He’d learned not to give them silverware.
“Yeah, those.” Adele took out a lightweight rain jacket stuffed into a carrying pouch. “You were always so sweet to us when we were little. I think you’re the only reason we understand the word ‘love.’ Anyhow, princesses are supposed to live happily ever after. That’s how all the stories end.”
He didn’t know what to say. She was no longer a child nor did she have long to live. The gray mixed in her buzz-cut pale blond hair was testament to that. Unless she allowed herself to be “tweaked” by Lucien, she would have only a few more decades left.
She was, though, still his little sister.
He wanted to say that the war would end soon, that she would have her happy ending—but that would be a lie.
If their assassination attempt had worked, then Sparrow would have taken up the reins of power. It would have been a simple matter to cut the Pittsburgh-based enclaves off from the East Coast holdings, take out the Wind Clan Spell Stones, and then aggressively import backup from Earth with humans being none the wiser that a coup had taken place. They could have built up power in the Westernlands without fear of reprisal from the Easternlands. All of it had failed in the worst way. The Viceroy survived. Their presence had been revealed. Pure Radiance had come to the Westernlands to set the changeling into motion. After that, the changeling had careened out of control, doing crazy, impossible things that unraveled decades of planning.
They had no choice now. They were isolated and outnumbered by millions of elves who were very aware of their existence. After they captured Pittsburgh, they would have to rush to take out the Spell Stones of both the Wind Clan and the Stone Clan before the crown could send more domana.
If they succeeded, they had the rest of the world to beat down and enslave. It could take hundreds of years; he might even live to see it to the end. His baby sisters would not.
Adele handed him the jacket. “It’s going to rain cats and dogs soon.”
She had on waterproof camo coveralls. She must have packed the rain jacket especially for him. It warmed his heart to think that she cared that much for him.
“Thanks,” Tristan put the jacket into his backpack.
“Don’t let Father ever see this.” She handed him a phone. “Lucien set up our own private network so we can stay in contact with each other even with the Pittsburgh system down. You know how much Father hates us using technology but it’s better than stumbling around in the dark, not knowing what everyone else is doing.”
He checked its address book. It showed only three numbers entered, labeled: Dad, Mom, Sissy. If he had to guess, Lucien was “Dad” and Adele was “Mom” and Danni was “Sissy.” Odd that there were no entries for Bethany, Chloe, and Fefe. Had Adele only set up the phone after Chloe was killed? Was Bethany not on Elfhome? Was Fefe too close to their father to risk the phone?
“Be careful.” Adele swung onto her hoverbike and revved its engine. The machine lifted up off the pavement. “I’ve lost one brother this summer—not that I particularly liked Yves. I really don’t want to lose you too.”
* * *
Tristan had changed out of his “oni warlord” clothes at the encampment, putting on a disguise of “normal human boy.” Lucien had provided the clothes; they felt oddly exotic. The blue jeans had baggier legs than he was used to. There were heavy boots that weren’t Doc Martens. The T-shirt advertised an elf fusion rock band named Naekanain. The graphic had a stylized outline of the castlelike headquarters of the EIA done in Pittsburgh gold and the elf runes for “I don’t know” in Wind Clan Blue.
Lucien had shoved things into the bag while Tristan changed clothes. Tristan dug through his backpack to find out what exactly his brother had given him. There was a Swiss Army knife with twelve different “blades,” a September bus pass, a half-filled loyalty punch card from a place called Ellen’s Tiny Deli, a house key with no indication where the matching lock might be located, and a wallet with a dozen worn dollar bills of different denominations. Cash! Tristan hadn’t had to deal with real currency for years. There was no real weapon beyond the pocketknife. That might prove annoying. He was trained in unarmed combat but that was only good for certain situations.
He wondered about the loyalty card. If the shop had been one of their cover businesses, Lucien wouldn’t have needed a card to get free food. Was the deli food so good that Lucien sought it out despite the risk? Pittsburgh wasn’t New York City with every type of food delivered to the door all hours of the day. Two months in the forest and Tristan was desperately wanting pizza and tacos. Or had Lucien known that Tristan might need all the little flourishes that went into a good cover?
As Tristan tucked away the card, he caught sight of his reflection in the station’s window. He’d forgotten—deep in the forest without any mirrors—how much he looked like Lucien. When they were younger, people had trouble telling them apart. They shared their mother’s pale blond hair and their father’s sharp cheekbones, elegant nose, and vaguely almond eyes.
Boo might take one look at him and know that he was Lucien’s brother.
How could he change his looks in a matter of minutes? He could punch himself in the face; it wouldn’t be the first time he used that tactic to get out of a tight space. A pair of eyeglasses would be less painful. Did he grab a pair from his disguise kit? Yes. He’d packed the chunky black “Clark Kent” frames. He frowned at his reflection. If he had the time, he would color his pale blond hair to something darker. Because their father forbid them from cutting their hair, Lucien’s was down to his waist. A quick messy haircut would make their father angry but would help disguise Tristan.
He found a hiding spot around the corner from the incline station so no one could see him hack at his shoulder-length hair with the Swiss Army knife. He found his kit’s mirror to check his reflection again. The haircut and glasses helped slightly. There was nothing more he could do about how he looked. He would have to rely on tone of voice and word choice. Lucien had a deeper voice as he was closer to puberty and still had his New Yorker accent despite years in Pittsburgh.
Tristan put away the mirror, considering what he should tackle next. He had planned to go to the coffee shop but he’d reach it long after its closing time. With the power off, Boo’s mother probably closed early. If she stuck to her normal pattern, she would head to the South Hills where she lived with her two teenage sons, Guy and Duff.
He would need to catch up with her later. For now, he would check on the radio station.