He felt furious and guilty and miserable, and impatient with it all: it was no good to feel that way now the man was dead. He had tried to talk to him, and accomplished nothing.
The others came down afterwards. There was no longer a captive in the pit, or any reason to stay out.
“He was from my world,” said Elliot, still sitting in the dirt with the bandit’s head in his lap.
“That makes sense,” said General Lakelost. “They’re a treacherous people there, and strange: metalworkers without morals, not our kind and not to be trusted.”
Elliot looked around to see several people, including Luke, nodding. “Hey!”
Luke did not look up from cleaning his sword. “I just meant it’s obviously not safe there. You shouldn’t go back.”
“Do you know how many times I saw people murdered with swords before I came here?” Elliot raged. “Murdered in any way at all? Zero! Zero times! I was not supposed to live like this, and I don’t want to.”
“It is of no interest to me what you want,” said the elder elf. “You wanted peace, and there is no way to get that now, is there? Much good you humans capturing Masterson did us. We decline your help—”
“You are in no position to decline,” said General Lakelost. “We are coming into the bandits’ territory whether you like that or not.”
They were arguing far above his head, like adults with a small child. Elliot felt helpless as if he was one.
“Either way,” said Luke. “I’m going back with Serene. I read up on it.” Elliot suddenly and forcibly recalled Luke with his book on elvish customs while Elliot was practicing for the play. “Swordsisters are bound to accompany each other anywhere, their loyalty to each other pre-eminent.”
“You are not her swordsister!” Sure barked.
“Okay,” said Luke. “I also read that if a swordsister’s worth is doubted, said swordsister can volunteer to face any challengers, until her—er, or his—worth is proven or she—uh, or he—dies. So. I volunteer. Send challengers. She doesn’t ride out without me, unless I’m in the ground.”
“That lad reads constantly,” General Lakelost muttered.
“He does not!” Michael Sunborn snapped.
“Fine,” Sure snarled. Serene grabbed her arm, far too late. “Challenge accepted.”
Great, Elliot thought, and shut his eyes, the dead weight of what had been a man cooling in his arms. More killing.
Luke had to go to a disciplinary hearing because of killing a guy. Elliot suspected it was just going to be high fives about being a badass warrior all around, but since Serene had been firmly taken away by her mother, Elliot figured he should wait outside the commander’s tower.
He’d forgotten that Luke’s family was here, and that for other people, when you were in trouble, family came to help.
He was sitting on the step outside when the sun was blocked out by the massive majesty of Luke’s dad’s shoulders.
Elliot squinted up at him resentfully. “I hope Luke stops working out,” he said. “If he turns into a mountain range like you, I really don’t think I’ll be able to cope.”
“What?” said Michael Sunborn.
“Nothing. Sorry, Luke’s dad.”
Mr Sunborn sat down on the step beside Elliot. He was way too big for the step. Elliot was shunted off to one corner. Sunborns took up all the room at all times.
“Michael,” suggested Luke’s dad. “Or Mike.”
Elliot considered this. “Nope. Sorry, Luke’s dad. I don’t think I can do it.”
“Alllllll right,” said Mr Sunborn, drawing out the words as if he was nobly being patient with Elliot.
“You are just like Luke,” Elliot observed. “Must be genetics.”
“Well, might be, might not be,” said Mr Sunborn. “I don’t really know. Rachel’s business. But I did have the raising of him, and I think he is like me.”
Elliot frowned. “Wait. Explain what you said before.”
Mr Sunborn went on because Sunborns took up all the room, were contrary and never listened. “I taught him to play Trigon: first time he caught the ball in his little fat hands I was there to stop him dropping it on his feet.”
Elliot had read about fathers playing catch with their kids. “Great,” he said. “Congratulations. It’s a stupid game, by the way, and he could be spending his time in a far more useful and intelligent manner, but who cares about a tiny thing like that?”
“He likes Trigon,” said Luke’s dad. Elliot made a small helpless gesture: as if Elliot was not aware that Luke liked Trigon, after spending years in the stupid stands watching the idiot sport. “He likes Trigon, and he likes anything to do with blade or bow, he likes horses and hounds and the hunt. He always liked all the things I liked, and he always trained until he could do them best of all, and he liked that I was proud.”
At the foot of the tower, in the clearing circled by cabins, Dale and a few other boys from the warrior-training class were playing ball: not Trigon, not using a glass ball, but something more like catch. Maybe Luke would be playing with them, if Elliot had not failed with Masterson.
Luke’s dad did not have to rub it in. Elliot knew it was all his fault.
“He wanted a friend his own age, and I understood that, and I sent him off to the Border camp with my blessing. I understood he’d be set apart from the others a little, because being the best means being on your own sometimes. I understood the elf, because she was set apart in the Border camp too, and she’s a lovely girl: can shoot out an eye at five hundred paces. But then the letters started arriving, about books and elvish and plays, and I couldn’t put it all together.” Michael Sunborn rubbed the back of his neck. “The only thing I don’t understand about my son is you.”
This was not helping Elliot with the guilt. “I don’t really have much to do with anything.”
“So what about you?” Luke’s dad went on relentlessly. “Do you like him at all?”
“No,” said Elliot. “I constantly spend hours at the idiot games of, weeks at the home of, and literally years in the company of people I dislike. Because I am totally off my head.”
Luke’s dad shrugged. “You’re the one who said it, lad, not me.”
“Look, I know you think I’m a weirdo, but why the third degree?”
“The third degree of what? You do talk the most awful nonsense,” said Michael Sunborn, in that moment supremely Luke’s dad. “I’m just concerned about Luke.”
“Yes, but why are you concerned about Luke and . . . Wait, I’ve worked it out,” said Elliot. “You are concerned about me and Luke in a romantic context. Ahahaha. No. You are incorrect. I hardly have words to explain to you how incorrect you are. He looks out for me because I’m Serene’s friend and he loves Serene. He doesn’t even like me in a non-romantic context.”
Luke’s dad frowned. “Doesn’t he?”
“Oh wow, oh my God, no, no! Obviously not!” said Elliot. “He likes someone else romantically, by the way. He likes Dale Wavechaser! How could you think that? No. Oh my God.”
Elliot could have spent the next several hours alternately saying “No” and “Oh my God” but fortunately Luke’s dad cut him off.
“Who’s Dale Wavechaser?”
“I can’t tell you that! Forget I said anything!” Elliot hissed. “I wasn’t meant to tell you about him liking anyone!”
“So I guess you’d be in trouble if I told Luke,” Luke’s dad said mildly. “Best just to tell me who Dale Wavechaser is, son.” He paused. “This is blackmail. It means you should—”
“I know what blackmail is!” Elliot exclaimed. “I’m highly intelligent! I was just taking a small personal moment to feel betrayed by a trusted authority figure!”
“Dreadful,” Luke’s dad agreed. “So which one is he?”
Elliot looked across the dusty ground and pointed to where Dale was playing, running backlit against the sun, leaping and smiling. It was a flattering angle for Dale.
“Oh,” said Luke’s dad. “O
h I see. Oh well, I can understand that.”
He watched approvingly as Dale horsed around.
“If I preferred men, that’s definitely the kind of man I’d prefer,” he went on, horrifyingly. “I don’t prefer men, mind you.”
“I understand,” said Elliot.
There was a silence. “Nice-looking lad,” said Luke’s father.
“Yes,” said Elliot, despairing.
“Read much, does he?”
“Nope,” said Elliot, even more despairing.
“Plays Trigon, does he?”
“Yes,” said Elliot, too weary to despair.
Luke’s dad rubbed his hands together. “That’ll do very nicely.”
“I’m pleased that you’re pleased,” Elliot informed him. “I’m glad to have cleared up your horrible misapprehension. I hope you will all be very happy together. Now you’re here, I assume Luke does not need moral support, and I wish very much to change my trousers.”
He got up. The sun was dazzling in his eyes, the carefree sound of Dale and the others playing made his head hurt, and there was still blood on his hands.
“That’d probably be best, lad,” said Luke’s dad. “The elves were talking.”
Elliot walked in through the door of his dormitory, then jumped a foot in the air.
“I couldn’t go back to my room,” said Serene, lurking behind his bunk bed. “My mother would know to look for me there.”
“You might’ve been safer hiding in Luke’s room,” said Elliot. “I don’t think any of the elves would be remotely surprised to find out that I was scandalously entertaining ladies in my boudoir.”
“Ah,” said Serene. “But I wanted to talk to you.” She did not smile, not even her secret smile most people did not notice was a smile: she did not look anywhere close to smiling. She gazed up at Elliot and though the rest of her was in shadow, her uptilted face and her grey eyes seemed picked out by a spotlight, pearl-pale and imploring.
Elliot came and sat at her feet, taking one of her hands in his: it was strange, because the last time he had touched her like this they’d been going out. It was also the only possible comfort for him. There was nobody else in this or any world who he knew would welcome his touch, would touch him back in reassurance or affection.
Serene linked her fingers with his. “How are you? You look sad, but . . . I have received the distinct impression you have not exactly been pining away for me.”
“Who says?” Elliot asked. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing other things as well.”
“So have I,” said Serene. “As you heard.”
She looked stony with shame even referring to the incident with Golden. Her pain made Elliot want to be vulnerable.
“I, uh,” said Elliot, and bit his lip. “Over the summer, I had a relationship with a man.”
Serene’s eyes went so wide Elliot was worried they were going to meet over her nose and form one giant elven mono-eye that would stare at him for all time.
“Well,” she said at last. “That makes no difference to my enduring affection for you! I thank you for sharing this confidence with me, and I will support you in all your relationships and varied endeavors.” She paused triumphantly after reciting that, and added: “I see how that might work better for you.”
“Sorry, what?” asked Elliot.
“Well, because you talk so much about the societal prejudices and differing expectations involved in relationships between the sexes. This way both parties can be equal!”
Elliot thought of Jase’s face, as he’d talked about his uncle: he thought of the way Jase had gone for someone young and then been upset to find that being young did not mean being malleable. He thought of how Jase had been worried about people seeing them on the street, and about how stricken Elliot had felt when his father had seen them.
“I think that’s total rubbish and a bit insulting, actually,” he said. “There isn’t any kind of relationship that’s all problem-free delightful unicorns. You can’t have a relationship without issues and prejudices. The way to be equals is if both people agree to be equals, and treat themselves and each other as equals, despite all that.”
Serene frowned thoughtfully. “I’m sorry to have insulted you and I will think on what you say. But I don’t see how unicorns come into it.”
“They were a metaphor,” said Elliot. “Which was a mistake, as they are bloodthirsty censorious beasts.”
“Have you told Luke?” asked Serene, and when Elliot was silent: “Are you going to?”
Elliot remembered exactly how eager Luke had been to share with him.
“Certainly I am.” Elliot smirked without really meaning it. “He’ll know just as soon as I feel the need to announce it to our whole class.”
“I have not . . . only been making a fool of myself over Golden,” said Serene. “My cousin saw that I was somewhat downcast after my—misreading and mistreatment of you, and she took me to a place where she assured me that my suffering would be eased.”
Elliot stared. “Serene,” he began. “Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about? Did you go to an elf brothel?”
“It—it may well have been somewhere that there were, ah, men of a persuadable nature—no, that is to say, men of the evening—”
“ELF BROTHEL,” said Elliot.
“Elliot, do not laugh,” Serene urged, and Elliot was just about to laugh at her for being a prude when he realized there was a genuine note of pain in her voice. “It was not . . . I did not realize how different the same act could be. I knew that it would be different with true love, but I had never thought that—affection and laughter can transform an act, as well. It came to me once I had left that dark place, and once Golden had scorned me, that I had been a child to devalue your honest affection and constant care for me. That I had been a fool.”
He thought he understood now, how Peter might have got Myra: waiting around until someone was at a weak point, low and humbled and hurt, worn down enough by the world to be amenable. And maybe it would turn out to be a good idea.
But Elliot didn’t want love to be like that. He loved Serene, and he did not want to catch her in his arms if she stumbled. He wanted to help her to her feet.
And he did not want to be loved as a second choice, as a surrender. He had spent his whole life not being loved at all, and he had thought being loved enough would satisfy him. It would not. He did not want to be loved enough. He wanted to be loved overwhelmingly. He did not wish it had been him who caught Myra, instead of Peter. He did not want to be Serene’s fallback, even though it was Serene. He had never been chosen, so he had never had a chance to know this about himself before now: he wanted to be chosen first.
Serene was looking down at him, as if she was thinking about kissing him. Elliot looked back at her, longing and amazed there was something stronger than that longing.
“Serene,” he whispered, and she leaned in a little closer at the sound of her name. “It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
Serene looked surprised, but she only had a brief instant to be surprised: the door opened and Luke walked in. He stopped a step within the threshold, taking in their tableau, and Elliot decided that the entire universe had been set up purely to play cosmic jokes on him.
“Are you guys . . .” Luke hesitated and cleared his throat. “Are you getting back together?”
Serene and Elliot looked at each other, and the look meant more to Elliot, felt weightier, than the kiss good-bye he’d given Adara, or how he’d held Myra. This had so much more love in it, and was so much more final.
“No,” said Elliot. “No, we’re not.”
“Well, good,” said Luke. “I know how Elliot is, but from what you were saying earlier, you really like Golden, and I still think you have a chance.”
Of course Luke and Serene had caught up before Luke had thought to come find him. Elliot didn’t even know why he was surprised.
“You think so?” Serene asked shyly. She was smilin
g. “How goes your courtship?”
“Well,” said Luke. “We sat at Dale’s table one day while you were gone. I was planning to go over and sit near him, but then Elliot managed to hurt himself with a butter knife. But I think Dale was glad we were there. He was really welcoming. He’s so nice.”
“He is terribly handsome,” Serene said encouragingly.
Luke coughed. “I’m sure Golden is too.”
“Oh, he is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But Dale is very pretty and very agreeable as well,” Serene said consolingly. “Indeed, I am sure more agreeable, because there is no pleasing Golden-Hair-Scented-Like-Summer. Every word he speaks is like being slyly stabbed with a dagger, but everyone thinks he is so virtuous and that it is only right that he should speak harshly to such a rogue as I.”
Serene had been with the elves a longer time than usual, Elliot thought, her speech more formal than it had been when she’d left. She’d spent more time with elvish men, because women were less casual in the presence of gentlemen.
“That’s so unfair,” Luke said sympathetically. “You’re not a rogue.”
And Serene’s speech patterns were completely beside the point, because Elliot was outraged.
“Are you people seriously invading my cabin to drone endlessly at each other about the boys you fancy?” Elliot demanded. “Get out of here, both of you! I cannot believe your tedious faces.”
They left him so he could run both hands through his hair, take a deep breath, and think about the repercussions of what he had done and what he had decided. Maybe he would be alone forever.
It would be a long time before anyone chose him first. If anyone ever did.
They turned the Trigon pitch into a field of combat, smoothing the ground as best they could. Elliot joined Rachel on the bleachers rather than going to Serene and Sure: he loved Serene, but he’d had enough of being called a hussy.