She woke slowly, yawning and rubbing at her eyes. Her actions were innocent, but the skin-tight dress made them sensual. It wasn’t until she blinked at John and said his name that he realized that her arm was braced and inked with healing spells. He hadn’t heard that she’d been hurt, but considering her last fight with the oni had nearly leveled the city, he shouldn’t have been surprised.
She really shouldn’t arch like that as she stretched awake. He glanced away, feeling like a pervert—she was young as Blue! “Sorry, the healing spells…” She yawned. “They make me really tired. What’s wrong, John?”
John had hoped for a private talk with Tinker. Apparently that was impossible. He worked on ignoring the sekasha. Blue leaned against him, glaring at the guards.
“The Fire Clan sekasha were just at the garage. They’ve ordered me to talk to Wolf Who Rules. I was hoping you could—be in our corner. We could use some help.”
“I don’t understand.” Tinker ran her hand through her short brown hair, grabbed a handful and tugged at it. The familiar gesture comforted John that something remained of the girl he knew. Under the clean skin and beautiful dress, he could see the core of the compassionate person he knew—now weighted down with responsibilities. She had gone from being accountable only for herself to having all of Pittsburgh on her shoulders and, judging by the weary sigh, fully aware of it. “Why did Wyverns send you here? To talk about what?”
Blue pressed tighter against John’s side and shook his head.
John sighed. Having promised the Fire Clan sekasha, he had no choice; he had to broach the subject. “Blue’s father was Lightning Strikes Wind.”
Tinker looked confused but the sekasha attending her went from polite disinterest to staring at Blue Sky with startled amazement.
“Stormsong?” Tinker turned to the blue-haired female who had her hand pressed to her mouth. “Who was Lightning Strikes?”
Stormsong blinked away tears and composed herself. “He was killed by a saurus at the Faire Grounds five years ago. He was barely out of his doubles.”
“Oh!” Tinker made a little sound of hurt. “I saw him die. I didn’t know he was that young. All elves seemed so old to me then—but I guess that would only make him seventeen or eighteen if he were a human.”
Elves became adults at a hundred, when they needed three numbers to write their age. John had always assumed it included a much extended “holding pattern” much like the gray zone for humans between the age of sixteen and eighteen, when they were old enough to drive and to drink but not legally adults. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been wrong all along. Elves didn’t mature quickly and yet remain legally a child. They matured slowly through the ages that corresponded with the human range of twelve to eighteen.
John stood there in shock. He had expected that Blue would continue growing up, slower than humans, but reaching maturity within the next ten years or so. But he was wrong—Blue would not be growing up for a long, long time. “Blue Sky’s half human,” he finally managed to say. “He might grow up faster.”
Tinker’s guards shook their heads.
“If his father had not been sekasha, that might have been so,” Stormsong said. “But we breed true; ours is always the dominant gene. He will be his father’s child much more than his mother’s. He won’t be able to deny his nature. I know from experience, it will be better if he accepts it instead of rebels against it.”
John struggled with all the implications flooding over him. He remembered how as a teenager, he’d grown like a weed. Blue was seventeen but still looked like a ten-year-old. “What do you mean?”
The sekasha exchanged looks, and then the male at Tinker’s side said, “Forgiveness, domi, but as Lightning Strike’s child, he belongs to Wolf Who Rules’ household until he’s an adult. It is the clan’s responsibility that he be raised correctly.”
At least I was right about something—this was exactly the reaction I was afraid of.
“Pony!” Tinker cried. “We can’t just take Blue Sky from his brother!”
“Sooner or later, domi, it must be done,” Pony said. “He will be a child long after his brother dies of old age.”
“I am seventeen!” Blue cried. “I’m almost full grown! I’m top hoverbike driver in Pittsburgh, and I put in forty hours a week helping John run the shop.”
“I have to say, I know how he feels,” Tinker said. “I’m not happy that the queen has said that I have to wait until I’m a hundred before being considered an adult.”
“His case is much different from yours, domi,” Stormsong said. “There are hormone changes that affect the development of the mind, and those come with aging. A child, no matter how mature, still views the world with a child’s mind, and reacts to it in the same way. You matured to an adult before being made an elf, domi, but have been given the protection of a child until you have learned all you need to know about our society. Your lack is of knowledge alone. Much as he wants to be viewed as adult—as much as he must hurt seeing others his age treated as almost adults—he will not be one for a long time.”
“John, say something!” Blue cried. “They can’t do this.”
It all matched so well with what John had been ignoring. Blue had dropped out of high school, complaining that everyone suddenly seemed like alien creatures. The problem was that Blue had continued to have elementary school interests, while the others raced to embrace all things adult.
“The problems will truly start when his sekasha nature joins the natural aggression of puberty,” Stormsong said.
“We like to fight,” Pony clarified. “And we’re very good at it.”
Blue loved the fierce competition of hoverbike racing. While in high school, Blue came home with bloody noses—and reports that his taller opponents were the worse for wear.
“And he needs better nutrition,” Pony said. “He’s too thin, his hair is brittle and his fingernails are ridged; all signs he’s not eating right. If his diet doesn’t change, his adult bones won’t be as strong as they should be and his eyesight might be impaired. A sekasha child needs twice the meat and milk as a normal elfin child.”
“I’m fine!” Blue shouted. “I’m not too small! I eat fine! I’m not violent, and I’m sick of everyone acting like I’m not here! You can talk all you want, but I’m not living here!”
And he bolted out of the orchard though a gate that John hadn’t noticed.
John shook himself out of his daze. “Blue! Blue!” Oh great, so much for showing his wonderful parenting skills! “Tinker, please, he’s only half elf. He’s still half human, and that part makes us brothers. Our blood has to count for something. I don’t want to give him up.”
“Domi,” Pony countered. “It is not possible to raise a sekasha child alone.”
Tinker, however, seemed to be listening intently to the whine of a hoverbike’s lift engine spinning up. “That’s coming from the motor court, isn’t it?”
“That little turd is taking my bike!” Stormsong cried in English, and took off running in the direction Blue had gone.
John’s heart dropped down through his stomach. Oh, no! He took off after Stormsong, keenly aware that she had a pistol as well as her sword. Beyond the courtyard was a motor court with a dozen garage bays open showing off a fleet of gray Rolls Royce Phantoms. Just outside the last bay, Blue sat astride a top-of-the-line custom delta hoverbike.
“Blue! No!” John shouted.