In Other Lands

  “I want you to be less horrible,” Luke said slowly, and Elliot stopped moving. “If you can manage that.”

  “I am trying,” Elliot exclaimed.

  “Yeah, well,” said Luke. “Thanks for trying. For once.” Elliot could have hated Luke for that, for not even noticing how hard Elliot had tried the whole time Serene had been gone, but then Luke took a deep breath and cut Elliot’s hatred out from under him with an act of grace. “Good luck with Myra,” he said.

  Kindness came much more naturally to Luke than it did to Elliot, but Elliot had promised himself he would keep trying.

  “Thanks,” Elliot said. “And—thanks for being in the play with me.”

  Luke nodded, a little awkwardly. He retreated down the corridor, and Elliot whirled around and hastily opened the balcony door. “I am so sorry I took such a long time,” he said. “I’m sure you must be cold. I swear there are no wolves out here. I am so sorry.”

  Myra was standing on the balcony where he had left her. “Don’t be,” she said warmly. “I know what you were doing.”

  “You do?”

  Myra advanced upon him, and slipped her arms around his waist. For a moment it was like being carried away by a warm rush of joy: that something could be so lovely, and so simple. At last, Elliot thought, someone liked him. At last, it could be easy.

  “I know you’ve realized how I feel about Luke,” she said.

  The warm rush turned to ice. Elliot remembered how Myra had always smiled at Luke, listened to him at the lunch table, how she had looked up at Luke when she fell and he caught her.

  “I know you’ve been making sure I didn’t make a fool of myself over a guy who doesn’t even like girls. I know you’ve made sure always to be with me whenever he’s around,” Myra went on. She sniffed, and burrowed her head further into Luke’s jacket, while Elliot stared down at her head in mute horror. “Thanks. You’re such a good friend.” The play was over, but in reality or fantasy, Elliot was never going to have a leading role.

  The only possible response to someone telling you that they wanted to be friends, or that you were a great friend, was gratitude. Elliot had been friendless long enough that he knew friendship was a prize in itself. Myra was lovely, and thought the best of him.

  She was lovely, and she didn’t love him. She had never even thought of loving him, and though she had never owed him love, though he was grateful for her friendship, Elliot could not help but be disappointed and furious at the whole world, furious at himself for being so stupid and thinking, every time, it would be his turn to be chosen.

  It was never going to be his turn. The world didn’t work by turns: the sun shone on some people and not on others. It was always going to be Luke’s turn, over and over again.

  Elliot was aware that what he was doing was wrong, even as he did it, but he still went down to the grounds where the fires for roasting meat were burning down in the mud trampled by all the guests of today. He took off Luke’s jacket and dragged it through the dirt and embers.

  He might have done it more than once, until he saw golden curls through the last dying flames, and realized Adara Cornripe was sitting on a log by herself.

  Elliot went over and sat down beside her.

  “Leave me alone,” snapped Adara. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Believe me,” Elliot said. “I’m not really in the mood to talk myself. But I wanted to say something. I was mad at you, but that doesn’t make it right to kiss you when you didn’t want me to. I liked playing Red Rose, but I wouldn’t want to live that way and I know I don’t: I know who does. I’m sorry.”

  Adara studied him, her own beautiful face unreadable. She did not speak, but she leaned forward, took his face between her hands and kissed his mouth. Sparks flew up skyward from the dying fire, as if hoping they could become stars. The sparks burned behind Elliot’s eyelids as he shut his eyes and kissed her back.

  Elliot might not have done it, if he had known Serene was coming back the next day.

  He didn’t know, and so he kissed Adara by the flickering firelight, and the hiss and crackle of the flame echoed the burning in his blood, the hot touch of Adara’s hands as they slid up his shirt.

  After a long time which seemed burningly short, Adara leaned back but stayed in his lap, stayed kiss-close, and murmured: “I take silphium every day with my breakfast.”

  “Um,” said Elliot. “Is that a contraceptive? Oh God, of course they don’t have condoms in magic land!”

  It had never been an issue with Serene, as elvish women had to undergo a ritual before they could bear children. Once Elliot had explained how this differed for human women, Serene had felt here at last was the reason human women did not exert their natural female superiority.

  Elliot couldn’t say she was entirely wrong.

  “What’s a condom?” asked Adara. Elliot began to tell her, and after a moment Adara lifted her hand. “Stop,” she said firmly. “You’re putting me off the whole idea. I assume that isn’t what you’re going for?”

  He could not see the fire, only the glow it gave her hair and the sparks that burned in her eyes. He could hear the fire, though: the mutter it made, as if it were impatient with him, too.

  He smiled and leaned in, pressed his smile softly against her mouth, felt her begin to smile too.

  “No,” he murmured. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. And I know brilliant. Let’s go.”

  “Come up here,” Adara urged him later, in the privacy of her cabin, the lights of candles glowing on wooden walls and rumpled white sheets.

  He obeyed her command, moving from the foot of the bed and sliding up along her body to kiss her, then lay back on the pillow and looked at her expectantly. Adara made a noise of exasperation and pulled him back to where he’d been. There was a moment where they were rolling, both with different ideas about what positions to roll into, and almost rolled off the bed.

  “Like this?” Elliot asked, looking down at her quizzically. “With a woman? Would that even work? Are you sure?”

  It was true he’d seen it in Peter’s scandalous literature, but honestly that literature had taken a lot of liberties with the truth, and he’d assumed this was one of them.

  “Yes, I’m s—with a woman?” Adara asked, her eyes going wide in her flushed, paint-streaked face. “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to a man,” said Elliot. “What did you think I meant, a mermaid?” He paused. “Though I definitely would give that a shot, if the mermaid was interested and we liked each others’ personalities.”

  “So you like both?” Adara asked, and the way she spoke was very careful indeed, as if each word was a foot placed on a tightrope.

  “Why, does that bother you?” Elliot asked, his voice careful in turn.

  “No, no,” Adara said hastily. “Any guy I know?”

  “No,” said Elliot. “On account of, you might have noticed we are surrounded by uncouth miscreants.”

  Adara smiled, her eyes sparkling. He’d kind of thought she would like that: one of the few girls among dozens of boys in warrior training, and smarter than all of them.

  “Well,” she said. “I am very sure it works this way. The elves have misled you, though they’ve obviously taught you well in various other matters.”

  Elliot looked down at Adara, for the sheer pleasure of looking. She was shining by candlelight, her smooth golden skin smudged and streaked with daubs of cerulean blue and forest green and twists of vermilion, her golden curls spread out on the white pillow. She smiled up at him, her face soft and pleased with him, and scratched her nails along his scalp, combing through his hair. He leaned down and kissed her, her beautiful challenging face, as the moment turned slow and shining.

  “We’ll try it your way. This time,” Elliot murmured, and Adara laughed.

  Elliot woke with the morning light filtering through the windows, paler than firelight or candlelight but still a bright hopeful gold. He was alone, but he could feel the pillow beside hi
m was warm and could hear the sound of Adara hanging up clothes on the steps outside the cabin: he stretched in the embrace of the bedsheets and thought about Adara. She was smart, she was beautiful, and she hated almost everybody.

  He might have stumbled into something wonderful here. Perhaps Myra had done him a favor. Perhaps this time, for the first time, he really was in luck.

  “Hey, Adara,” came Natalie Lowlands’ voice. “Saw you left a guy’s jacket on the door, so I slept over in the third cabin last night.”

  So they had a system for privacy, because they were friends. That was nice. Elliot’s own dormitory mates hated him for random silly reasons like “all the ceaseless screaming and drama” or whatever they kept whining about.

  Elliot had never liked Natalie Lowlands much: she was from his side of the Border, but she’d instantly adopted a Borderlands surname. She’d become best friends with a Cornripe, learned every weapon, never referred to the world she’d come from and constantly made cutting remarks about elves. Since she was Adara’s best friend, Elliot might have to try to like her. He’d never understood the urge to fit in, but perhaps that was because it had never been a possibility for him. Perhaps if he were more socially adept, if he could have remained anything like his real self and had friends, belonged—he would have. Maybe he could understand the temptation.

  “Don’t tell me you actually bagged Luke Sunborn,” Natalie continued.

  “I wish,” Adara sighed. The pillows and sheets abruptly felt a lot less warm. “No, I had a moment of weakness and settled for the nerdy best friend.”

  “Eeesh, Schafer. Well, his lucky night.”

  Elliot got out of bed and found his trousers. He gritted his teeth and committed to the superhuman effort of getting them on by himself.

  Adara sounded like she was smiling. “You think so?”

  “I know so,” said Natalie. “I also know you’re going to have trouble with that one. Look how he followed Chaos-of-Battle around for years like a pathetic puppy on an even more pathetic leash.”

  “You’re right, as usual,” Adara said, sounding resigned. “My own fault for slumming. I’ll have to make it clear to him.”

  “I’ll make it clear to him, if you like.”

  “Who’s making what clear to me?” asked Elliot, emerging from the cabin. He figured he was rumpled enough to do a fairly convincing impression of having just woken up.

  Adara and Natalie spun around. Adara was still in her pajamas, but she clutched at her own damp costume as if she were naked. She’d washed off the paint: Elliot wished he’d had the chance to do so.

  “How do I put this? Congratulations, you’ve been dumped by another one,” remarked Natalie. “The word that comes to mind is ‘loser.’”

  “Yes, you got me, how embarrassing, I’ve slept with two beautiful women,” said Elliot. “The words that come to my mind are . . . self high-five.” He raised an eyebrow at Natalie, then turned to Adara.

  She hadn’t said anything she’d meant him to hear, and she wasn’t responsible for any hopes he might have had this morning. He thought she might have liked him a little last night.

  “Thanks for a funky time,” he said, and smiled. “I mean that mostly sincerely.”

  He plucked Luke’s jacket, which was a charred, caked object he would examine more closely later, off the door handle and jumped off the steps of the cabin, taking the winding path through the trees towards his own. With luck, he would make his walk of shame without anyone seeing him.

  “Wait!” Adara called out.

  Obviously Lady Luck, like everyone else, was not all that fond of Elliot. Elliot turned around, shivering in the early morning air, wishing for a shirt and also dignity. Adara had run after him barefoot in her pajamas: Elliot looked at her dusty feet and her tousled hair, at her still being beautiful. He suspected his own hair required a different description: maybe tornadoed.

  “What you heard . . .,” said Adara. “It wasn’t just about Luke. I was—I like someone else, too. It isn’t you,” she added quickly. “I know I don’t have any hope with either of them, and I was trying to make myself feel better. Can you understand that?”

  I’m not a bandage for your wounds, Elliot wanted to snap, but he bit his tongue before he spoke. She had come after him. That was kind of her.

  He had kissed her fresh from being rejected by Myra, and before that by Jase, and before that by Serene. Natalie was right: he was a loser, but that was not Adara’s fault.

  “I can understand,” said Elliot.

  Adara dropped her gaze toward the forest floor, tangling her hands together as if with his understanding she had lost her confidence.

  “Thanks for telling me—what you told me, last night. I won’t tell anybody.”

  “I don’t care who you tell,” said Elliot, but Adara had spoken as if the promise meant something to her.

  That was kind of her, too. Elliot took a step forward and looked at her in the clear cold morning light.

  Then he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks again,” he murmured, soft as the breeze ruffling her hair, close enough to feel her warmth and feel her tremble, for the last time.

  “Elliot?” said Luke’s voice. “Adara? I don’t believe this.”

  “Awesome,” said Elliot, stepping back from Adara. “This is a great day. I cannot wait to see what else happens. I think I might go live in a hole. What do you want?”

  Apparently Luke wanted to stand among the trees and gape like an idiot.

  Adara glanced at Luke and blushed, looking completely mortified. She was the one with the crush on Luke: Elliot had a moment of pity for her crushing horror.

  “Well, it’s seven in the morning, so I gotta go practice the javelin!” she said, and ran.

  The moment passed. Adara was the one who got to leave, mortified at being seen with Elliot, and Elliot was the one who had to stay.

  “I guess I don’t need to ask where you’ve been,” said Luke.

  “Guess not,” said Elliot. “So let’s not talk, shall we? That seems best. We have a manly bond, which means not talking . . . very much . . . at all. Ever. And I think that’s beautiful!”

  “I knew you liked her.”

  “You’re letting me down, loser,” said Elliot. “You’re letting me down about our bond. That’s hurtful.”

  This was like some terrible emotional game of Clue, he decided. Who is going to most comprehensively ruin Elliot’s day? Will it be the school’s queen Adara outside the cabin, ashamed to have wasted her time with him? Or will it be everyone’s preferred suitor Luke leaning against a tree, being blond and judgmental? Could there possibly be another contender? Will it be secret option everybody?

  Elliot glared. Luke glared back.

  “I was looking everywhere for you.”

  “Well, not everywhere,” Elliot pointed out. “Obviously.”

  Elliot did realize his smart mouth was a serious character flaw which would prevent him ever having a mostly silent manly bond with anyone.

  “Last night I thought you might be upset about Myra getting with someone else,” said Luke, a tinge of spite in his voice. “Obviously not.”

  Elliot stopped glaring in order to stare incredulously. “Who did Myra get with? You?”

  Luke was the one Myra liked, after all. She’d said as much. And Luke had been upset last night.

  “Er, no,” said Luke, doing some incredulous staring of his own. “Did you hit your head and suffer some kind of memory loss? Do you understand what liking men romantically even means?”

  “No, not at all,” Elliot said blandly. “You’ll have to explain it to me someday. Who did Myra get with?”

  Luke looked thoughtful. “Something like Paul. Or maybe John.”

  “George,” Elliot suggested. “Ringo.”

  “I would obviously have remembered a peculiar name like Ringo,” said Luke. “No, I think it was a name starting with P.”

  “Peter?”

  Luke nodded. “Do you kn
ow him?”

  Elliot had referenced knowing Peter approximately one thousand times, also introduced them many times, and tried to fix them up that one time. It was clear to him that Luke’s accusation of other people having memory problems was rich.

  It was also clear to him that Peter, who Elliot had cheerfully pitied for having no chance with Myra, was much better at romance than Elliot himself. Myra had said she didn’t like Peter that way: how had Peter changed her mind? Could Elliot have got Serene to change her mind?

  Elliot looked away from Luke’s smug face, down to the tents and the towers. There was a lot of activity going on for this early in the morning. Elliot would have to investigate it, once he got a change of clothes.

  Or maybe he would just go live in that hole.

  “Good for Peter,” said Elliot, and took a deep breath and grimly resumed his walk to the cabin.

  He was not enormously surprised when Luke followed and continued to harangue him. “Why do you do things like this?”

  Elliot rolled his eyes. “Do things like sleep with gorgeous people? I don’t know, I would’ve thought it was fairly self-explanatory.”

  He stormed on. He heard the crackle and snap of twigs under Luke’s feet as Luke stormed after him. Thin sharp spears of sunlight came treacherously through the leaves above, and stabbed at Elliot’s eyes.

  He could see how this looked to Luke. Adara had been terrible to Luke and then Elliot had immediately slept with her—taken her side, acted as if he didn’t think what she’d done was wrong at all.

  Except that Elliot had been rejected and Luke chosen twice in the last eight hours. Elliot was in no mood to soothe Luke’s hurt feelings when Luke was always going to be the one who was loved best.

  There was a brief silence before they reached Elliot’s cabin, at which point another question occurred to Luke.

  “Is that my jacket?” Luke demanded.

  Elliot’s dormitory mates put their heads under their pillows and sighed in one synchronized movement.