The boy maxed the lift and popped the bike over the high demesne wall in one easy leap. On the other side, he dropped all power into the spell chain and roared off.
Oh, God, how could Blue be so stupid? John spun to face Stormsong, holding up his hands to warn off her anger. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it back, and fix anything he breaks on it.” He edged around her, heading back to the orchard. “I promise you, I’ll make things right.”
He echoed the apology to Tinker as he passed her, heading for the front gate and his pickup.
Tinker trailed after him. “He’ll just go home, won’t he?”
“I don’t know,” John admitted. “But I’ll get the bike back. Please don’t call the police.”
“Fuck the bike,” Tinker snapped in English and then dropped back to low Elvish. “It isn’t safe for him to be alone in the city right now. There are still pockets of oni troops. The humans are upset at the elves. And if the Wyverns think the Wind Clan isn’t handling Blue right, they will take him.”
John stumbled to a halt. “But you said that Blue was part of Wolf Who Rules’ household.”
“The Wyverns are head of the sekasha caste,” Pony explained calmly. “They have ultimate responsibility for Blue Sky.”
John was at his pickup before he realized that Stormsong was following him.
“I’m coming with you.” She opened the passenger door.
John stared at the tall, leggy female. “Why?”
“Because I can get you around all the roadblocks that the royal troops have set up, and protect Blue Sky from anyone that might try to hurt him.”
She had a good point, but it still seemed wrong to get into the truck with one of them. John still wasn’t totally convinced Blue was in no danger from the sekasha beyond being taken from him.
“I’m not going to hurt your brother.” She read the disbelief on his face. “I swear to you, by the blood and the sword that makes me a sekasha, I will never harm Lightning Strike’s son.”
An elf would never lie. To them, there was nothing more important than their personal honor.
“He’s really a very good kid.” John slammed shut his door and started the engine. “He’s just upset and angry. He’s never done anything like this before.”
“I know that.”
“How can you know that?”
“It’s why we’re considered holy. Virtue is not a choice for us; it’s encoded in our genes, on the same level as the color of our eyes. Under stress, Blue Sky might falter, but he’ll never stray far from righteousness.”
“Morality is not a genetic trait.”
“What the fuck do you know?” Stormsong snapped back in English. “Elves didn’t start out immortal. We were made that way while we were slaves to the Skin Clan. For thousands of years, they perfected bioengineering, using what you know as elves as their guinea pigs. Each caste is a different gene pool they set up. They wanted the perfect guard, one that they could trust absolutely, so they made the sekasha virtuous without measure.”
“I’ve never heard of the Skin Clan.”
“Because we sekasha carved their fucking evil hearts out—each and every one of them.”
So much for trusting their guards absolutely. “And I’m supposed to hand my brother over to you to raise?”
“That’s what we want.” Stormsong shrugged. “But you’ve asked domi to intercede—so it is possible that is not what will happen.”
John studied the female, trying to tell how serious she was. “If she decides in my favor, you’ll obey her?”
“Yes.” Stormsong saw the surprise on his face, and added, “She’s our domi,” as if it explained everything.
“I don’t get it,” John said. “You’re these holy warriors of God, each of you hundreds of years old, and you roll over and listen to…”
“Do not go there.” There was a razor edge in her voice. “I will forgive much, but not a slur on my domi.”
John swallowed down anything that could be taken as negative toward Tinker. He couldn’t believe that they would so blindly obey her judgment. “After the Skin Clan, why would you listen to anyone? You’re the ones who are ‘virtuous without measure.’ ”
Stormsong smiled. “Because we like to fight.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“No. It isn’t. We prefer to solve all our problems with violence—but might does not make right.”
“So you let someone less vicious run the show?”
“More or less.”
“I still don’t see why you would listen to Tinker,” John said as they rolled up to the first checkpoint. “Compared to the rest of you, she’s just a kid.”
“I thought you knew her—I guess I was wrong.”
With Stormsong in the truck, John was waved through without the prolonged questioning, being tested with spells, and being searched for weapons. It also turned out that Tinker had called ahead. Blue hadn’t been shot at when he ran the roadblocks. The news chilled John.
Let him be home, safe and sound.
There was no sign of him at the gas station. John raced through the building, checking all the rooms. Everything was as they left it.
The bell on the pumps chimed, summoning John back to the garage.
“He’s not here.” Stormsong said it as a statement, not a question. She bounced on the air hose again. “He doesn’t want to bring trouble down on you, so he won’t come back.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” John tried to think of where Blue would run to as Stormsong walked through the garage, giving it the same careful study that the Wyvern had. “Go ahead and say it.”
“What?”
“‘This is no way one such as he should live,’ ” John quoted the Wyvern.
“Actually, this is cool.” She touched the fireman’s pole lightly. “But there’s nothing of us, the people who will still be here when you’re gone. The oldest living elf is close to twenty thousand years old—that’s a long time to be alone.”
“I’ve taught him what I could.” John headed for the door, trying to ignore the guilt taking root in the center of his chest.
“I told you—we see things in black and white. What we don’t embrace, we reject. We don’t do the middle ground. You’re teaching him to hate himself.”
“I am not!” John cried.
“Yes, you are.”
Was he? Everything they claimed to be sekasha had fit Blue Sky so well. Could this be true too? Guilt grew through John like a dark weed. He went out to his pickup and got in but still had no idea where to head.
Stormsong got in beside him. “He’s that way.” She pointed west.
“How do you know?”
“I’m mixed caste—much like Blue Sky. My mother is the queen’s Oracle. I spent my childhood trying to deny being a sekasha. I went through much of what Blue Sky is going through now. Even hating myself.”
John considered west. A large chunk of Pittsburgh still lay in that direction, from their gas station in McKees Rocks to out past the airport. Even Tinker’s scrap yard lay in that direction. “Can you be more specific?”
“He’s feeling helpless right now. He’s heading someplace where he can feel powerful.”
The racetrack.
John could hear the whine of a hoverbike being pushed through the curves and loops of the racecourse even as he parked in the big empty lot. As a team captain, he had a passkey into the track.
“It will be important to get him off the bike.” Stormsong followed close on John’s heels. “He might hurt himself.”
“He won’t wreck the bike by mistake,” John assured her. “He’s one of the best drivers in Pittsburgh. See.”