“Perp? Is that Elvish?” Law asked.
Widget ducked her head and blushed deep red. “Sorry, that’s what they call bad guys on old cop shows.”
Bare Snow described the male. Law wasn’t sure she could describe her own father with such exacting details. The female had noted his height, weight, and width of his shoulders, shape of his chin, nose, and cheeks. Bare Snow could even state the exact shade of honey brown hair and green eyes that the male had. It became clear as she described the man that she’d instantly known that he was lying to her and probably meant to hurt her in some way.
“Why did you go with him?” Law asked.
Bare Snow winced and whispered, “Sometimes the only way to learn more about a trap is to trigger it.” Then she shrugged and focused on making herself another sandwich. “I know it was dangerous but it made me happy. For the first time, I felt fiercely alive. I thought I would finally matter. I waited and waited for something to happen, but nothing did, so I learned nothing. It made me so sad. Maybe I was wrong; maybe the male was just a human and this was where Water Clan belonged. I cried until I fell asleep. When you found me, I was not sure why you were there. You were clearly not an elf and you had a porcupine. Things became clearer when you took the door.”
“It did?” Law was still mystified about the door.
“That there are three forces at work in Pittsburgh. There are those that set the trap. Those that the trap was set for. And the ones that dismantled the trap before it could be triggered.”
“Wait. I got there before the trap was triggered? But…but…you weren’t in the trap already?”
Bare Snow shook her head vigorously. “When he left me there, I realized that the trap was not for me. I thought I was to be the bait—although I could not guess for whom. Bait should be wanted, and I am not. When you took the door, I realized that I wasn’t the bait. I was the screen. When you set a trap, you seek to erase your presence. You don’t want the trap to be detected until it has done its job. And, if it fails to be fatal, you don’t want the trap to lead survivors to you.”
“All hell is going to break loose regardless but let’s not give anyone a nice little goat, shall we?” Crazy Lady meant a scapegoat, not a real goat.
“So basically you behind the white door was so that the Water Clan would be blamed for whatever happened?” Law said.
“Yes.” Bare Snow took a big gulp of chocolate milk; it left a mustache on her upper lip. “Obviously I needed to change my strategy. I decided to stay mobile until I could determine the players in the game. I believe now that the trap is meant for the viceroy.”
“Windwolf?” Law cried.
“Windwolf?” Bare Snow echoed back the English name in confusion.
“That’s his name in English.” Like all Elvish names, Windwolf’s real name was impossibly long and meant Wolf Who Rules Wind. Elvish word order meant that humans ended up calling him “Rules” when they tried to shorten his name. The English nickname kept the local elves from being pissed off when the humans butchered the viceroy’s name.
“Windwolf. Windwolf.” Bare Snow practiced the nickname and then nodded. “All that I learned today says Windwolf is the target.”
“I’ve been with you all day. No one talked about killing him! He’s going to have fish for dinner. That’s it!”
Bare Snow tilted her head in confusion. “Oh, you don’t know our history. It would not be obvious to you.” She thought for a minute. “It is a very long story.” She thought for a minute longer. “A very, very long story.”
Law went back to building and packing boxes. “This is going to take a while.”
* * *
The female did not know how to condense. Granted, it was an epic tale. Sometime in the past, God knows when because Law didn’t, the Skin Clan had an empire that stretched from the Eastern Sea to the Western Sea. There were roads and aqueducts and shipping canals and great dikes built with slave labor at a horrific cost of life. Hundreds of elves died for every mile of a highway that stretched for thousands of miles. The Skin Clan had been all about flaunting its wealth while grinding its slaves into the dirt. Naturally a rebellion swept through the empire, crashing down all central government, leaving behind ruins and memories of a golden age. An hour later, Bare Snow had painted an elegant picture of an era gone by.
“But what about the viceroy?” Law cried finally since his name hadn’t surfaced once.
“Wolf Who Rules’ grandfather was Howling. He was the first real head of the Wind Clan. We had been the slaves of the King Boar Bristle, whose kingdom was in the highlands. His father—Wolf Who Rules’ great-grandfather—Quick Blade had been the bastard son of Boar Bristle and started the rebellion. Quick Blade was but one of many scattered warlords. It was Howling that made an alliance with the sekasha and gathered all the Wind Clan households to him. After the fall of the Skin Clan, the Wind Clan claimed all of the Mauhida as their ancestral right. It put them at odds with the Water Clan that long controlled the ports of the Dark Sea.”
In other words, her parents were from feuding clans. No wonder neither clan wanted Bare Snow. This explained her situation but not why she thought Windwolf was the target.
“What does this have to do with Windwolf being attacked in Pittsburgh?”
Bare Snow gestured for Law to wait. “It all relates. The war came to the end when Pure Radiance went to Burning Mountain Temple and told the Holy Ones that we were on the brink of complete destruction. Peace must be established and maintained at any cost. So Cinder called a gathering of sekasha. Deeming that enough blood had been shed, they chose to complete in games to decide which of the clans would lead the others. Cinder won for the Fire Clan and Ashfall was deemed king of all our people.”
Law sighed and glanced to Usagi who spread her hands. Still no mention of the viceroy. “What about Windwolf?”
Bare Snow plunged on with her story. “While Wraith Arrow was attending the summit, Howling was assassinated. The head of clan fell to Longwind, who was barely out of his majority, but had already taken Otter Dance as his First.”
“First what?” Widget asked.
“Hush!” Law cried. If they detoured Bare Snow with questions, they’d never get to the end. The damage, though, had been done.
“Otter Dance’s mother had been Perfection of the Wind Clan and her father Tempered Steel of the Stone Clan.” Bare Snow clasped her hands over her heart and sighed. “Their love is epic. To know in a glance and word that this person shares your spirit.” Another heartfelt sigh. “Their daughter, Otter Dance, spent equal time between them, first at High Meadow Temple and then Cold Mountain. She and Longwind were childhood sweethearts. He thought his lot was like many young elves, to be unimportant in the grand sweep of things. His elders never growing old; his time never coming. He let his heart lead him to take Otter Dance as First despite the fact that her father had been Stone Clan. It was his willingness to look beyond bloodlines which made the sekasha choose him as Clan Head. Pure Radiance had stated that the only way our future could be secured was by close alliance between the clans. Ashfall’s first act as king was to call together the heads of the clans and offer up his children as royal hostages, disguised as unions of alliance.”
“Eww!” Usagi cried out in disgust at the idea of using children as tools.
Law was losing track of who was who. “Longwind is the viceroy’s father?”
“Yes. He took King Ashfall’s daughter, Flame Heart, as his domi.” Again with the hand clasped over the chest and the deep, heartfelt sigh. “It was love on first sight. They had ten children! Can you believe it? Most people don’t even have one! The viceroy is the youngest and the only one that can use both esva. He was given a very blessed name of Wolf Who Rules, foreseeing that he would hold all of the Westernlands.”
Law thought the whole naming scheme was a load of crap if it cursed one baby and blessed another. “I still don’t see how this relates to someone trying to kill him.”
“The sekasha se
e truth like a coin; either something is true or it is a lie. Heads or tails. They do not realize that truth is like an onion—it has layers upon layers. Because of that, they can be blinded to a rotten core by an unblemished shell.”
Widget started to say something about an onion not having a shell and Law smacked her.
“Stay on target,” Law growled. “Who is trying to kill the viceroy?”
“When Howling was assassinated, the sekasha were furious that someone had gone against their decree of a truce while they were gathered at Burning Mountain. The question was: who?”
Law attempted to jump forward in time because she knew that Windwolf was several hundred years old. If Bare Snow was retelling how his parents met, she could be talking all night. She guessed at how the assassination of his grandfather related to events in Pittsburgh. “The same people that killed Howling are going to try to kill Windwolf?”
“Yes!” Bare Snow cried with delight.
“So—” Law tried to backtrack through the long story. If Bare Snow had named a suspect, Law lost hold of the detail in the flood of information. “Who killed Howling?”
“This is where the onion starts to peel. Rumors surfaced that a warlord by the name of Tornado might have used a Wind Clan household of trained assassins as a bid for clan head. The sekasha easily found evidence that he’d hired them. Tornado’s sekasha executed him and put a warrant out on the Wind Clan assassins who had fled into hiding. They were hunted down and killed, one by one.”
“But he was actually framed?” Law asked.
“Framed?” Bare Snow tilted her head in confusion.
Law winced. The word apparently only meant “surrounded with wood” in Elvish. “The evidence was false.”
“In a manner of speaking. Someone lied to a laedin-caste male. After the laedin had passed on the lie as truth, he was killed so it seemed as if he was murdered to silence him. This is the rotten core: the assassins were told that under no conditions would Howling ever bow to a king put in place by the sekasha. If another clan head was raised up above him, Howling supposedly planned to kill all the Holy Ones in one massive attack. As domana, Howling had the power to do so. The sekasha’s protective shields cannot protect them from the full brunt of a domana offensive spell. Howling would become what we fought a thousand years to wipe off the face of the planet. No sane person would allow him to go unchecked. That lie, however, was then wrapped in truths. We were in the middle of a war. The assassins could not kill Howling without someone prepared to step cleanly into the void. They chose Tornado to be his successor and then planted the seeds of ambition. He was a proud elf; it was required to make Tornado believe it was his idea. Thus, when the sekasha sought evidence of Tornado’s crime, they found it. It was true. At least, at the surface.”
Law packed the boxes she’d built and tried to understand Bare Snow’s logic. The Wind Clan assassins had killed Howling but they’d been tricked into doing it. While they fled into hiding as wanted criminals, the mastermind remained in place.
Bare Snow’s mother had been alone on a deserted island when her parents met.
And her mother had been killed when she returned to Winter Court.
This wasn’t some epic story of legendary figures; it was the story of Bare Snow’s family and how they were connected with the viceroy. Elves don’t lie; at least the honorable ones didn’t. If it had been an utterly random Water Clan female behind the white door in Fairywood, she could honestly proclaim her innocence, and most likely be believed. Bare Snow had been sent halfway around the world to be in Pittsburgh for this Shutdown. Her cursed Wind Clan name and her Water Clan appearance would lead to questions about her parents. Once her mother’s identity was known, Bare Snow’s very presence would be damning. It would seem as if she was taking vengeance for her mother’s household.
Her family had taken the fall once for the real killer. Obviously someone hoped that it would work again. Considering everything, yes, the trap’s intended victim most likely was Howling’s grandson.
Law glanced at the kitchen clock. If they left now, they could get to the Rim and warn the viceroy before the border was closed. They only had a few hours left; Pittsburgh was returning to Earth at midnight. All the elves—and only the elves—remained on Elfhome during Shutdown.
But what would she tell Windwolf? If the assassins had known who had set them up, they would have exacted revenge.
Think, Law, don’t just react. That’s how you get yourself shit deep into messes.
This was world-level politics, hundreds of years, if not thousands, in the making. She was just a forager, fishing and hunting for a living because it meant she didn’t have to deal with the petty politics of a normal business. And really, the only reason she was involved was Crazy Lady had randomly dialed her phone number and sent her on a fool’s errand that only Law would be stupid enough to do. Bare Snow was safe. The viceroy was surrounded by the best warriors of Elfhome.
There was the sudden thunder of small feet.
“Law! Law! Aunt Babs says the baby—the baby has shoulders or something—she needs your help now!”
* * *
It was “shoulder dystocia” and it meant Law needed to lift Clover from the birthing pool and get her onto her knees with the baby already crowned. Emergency calm kicked in, letting Law deal with the scared Clover while Babs focused on the baby.
Usagi might be an organized general in business crisis and she could calmly deal with hordes of cranky children, but blood and pain? They rattled her. She became a neurotic little yap dog, barking out useless orders. It was not what either Babs or Clover needed.
Bare Snow got an unintentional education on the whole childbirth process. Afterwards she gazed wide-eyed at the pointy-eared infant. “So that’s where they get them.”
“Yes, all of them,” Law said.
Down in the kitchen, there was a sharp squeal.
“What the hell?” Law hurried downstairs.
Widget was sitting with hands over her mouth, as if to hold in another scream. She lifted her hands long enough to whisper, “Sorry,” and then clapped them down over her mouth again. Her stare was locked onto her computer tablet.
“What’s wrong?” Law leaned over her shoulder to see what was on her screen. It was a very handsome white man. His hair matched the very exact honey blond that Bare Snow described. The database identified him as Andre Brousseau, a diplomat from France employed by the EIA as a customs inspector. Law picked up the tablet and showed it to Bare Snow. “This him?”
“Yes!” Bare Snow cried.
Law turned back to Widget. “You know him?”
“You remember I told you originally I was going to come across the border with another girl? Her screen name was Strawberrie. She never told me her real name. We’d met on this site called Jello Shots. It’s a forum for fans of the Adventures of Soulful Ember videos. We both wrote Prince Yardstick fan fiction—although she shipped him with Wraith Arrow and I thought that was a total eeewwww…”
“Focus, Widget.”
“We e-mailed back and forth for like a year, talking about how to get to Elfhome. We didn’t meet up in person until I got to Cranberry. I thought it would be safer to cross with someone else, but when I met her, I could tell within minutes that she had no common sense at all.”
This was from someone who’d swum the Ohio River at night in the middle of winter.
“What does this have to do with Andre Brousseau?”
“She’d told me that she knew someone that knew someone that could get us across the border for a thousand dollars. When I got to Cranberry, she took me to this creepy-looking house and there were these really hot-looking guys there.” Widget pointed at the screen. “He was the boss of the guy that Strawberrie contacted. They had these coffin-like boxes and they were going to crate us up and supposedly get us across the border. That was until Mr. Brous—Brous—Mr. Fancypants actually saw me. He got all prissy about the fact that I’m black. He actually used the N word! I
never heard anyone actually say it before, outside of history class.” She must have come from an extremely well-to-do neighborhood then. “And Strawberrie was all ‘I didn’t know she was black!’ instead of telling him to piss off. And what difference did it make? Unless of course he only wanted some white girl to do who knows what with. As you would say: it felt hinky. So I said I had to pee and then went out the bathroom window. I called 911 and then ditched my phone. I thought she’d be better off arrested than left alone with those guys.”
Law knew some of the people that smuggled illegal immigrants across the border. They were all native-born Pittsburghers who drove delivery routes during Shutdown. The ones she knew, you could trust, but then they were risking being deported. Trust went two ways. “Do you know what happened with your friend?”
Widget shook her head. “It didn’t make any of the news feeds. I don’t know if the police actually did anything. I never heard from her again. I was hoping that she changed her screen name and was ignoring my posts because she was pissed at me. I used the name Elderberry Wine. Elderberry. Strawberrie. Our names were why we started to chat in the first place.”
Law gazed at Andre Brousseau’s photo. He had that impossible beauty that all the elves had. But his ears were visible. They were definitely round. “Bare Snow, are you sure he’s an elf? His ears aren’t pointed.”
“The Skin Clan made our ears that way so they could tell at a glance who was a slave. It was the first change they made once they realized that we’d become immortal. It means he’s a very old elf,” Bare Snow said. “His speech pattern says he’s thousands of years old. After the rebellion started, the world went into chaos. We were divided into three groups. The Skin Clan and their loyal servants. Their slaves that took up arms against them. And all the others fled from both.”
An ancient elf pretending to be French man. A possible kidnapper. A would-be assassin.
“How many ‘men’ were working for him?” Law asked Widget.
“There were like eight at the creepy house.”