Widget gave Law a confused look.
Law knew what Bare Snow meant, felt an echo within herself. So many people just wanted part of the package that was Law. They didn’t want her to be independent and capable. They called her “male” as if no woman could do what she did and still be a woman. They didn’t want her to be gay, while ignoring the fact that they never “chose” to be straight. Or they didn’t want her to work as a forager, despite the fact that they hated their job and were envious of her freedom, or to live in a barn, despite the fact that they thought it was cool and had always dreamed about it. She was friends with the people that didn’t want to change her, mold her into their idea of “good,” but even they had little pieces of her that they didn’t want.
Law didn’t want to derail the conversation by laying bare her soul, so she looped the conversation back to the whole reason she was at the commune. “So the license plate lead is a dead end?”
Widget stared up at the ceiling, squinting, as if peering into Pittsburgh’s Internet clouds. “Well, we could go at it from another angle. I can hit the city’s driver’s license database. There’s a security field on it to denote EIA employees. It also tracks gender, hair color, eye color, height and weight. We could winnow through the males to see if any match up to her perp.”
“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.”