The tengu village was someplace deep in the virgin forest, in a location secret even to her. The adults kept travel from Pittsburgh to where their children were hidden to the minimum, going so far as staying at safe houses within the city instead of going home. Jin apparently returned to Haven to discover he’d been invaded by an army of little Dufaes.
“That is not all,” Jin added.
“This gets worse?” Tinker cried.
“In a manner of speaking — possibly. There is a third dragon in Pittsburgh.”
Okay, a dragon was not a phone call in the morning.
“Malice-size?” She spread her hands wide as possible to indicate the massive dragon that Jin helped her kill a few weeks earlier. The monster had been the size of a house. “Or Impatience?”
The second dragon was “small” only in scale to Malice. They were still talking large as a pickup truck.
Jin put his hands together so that they nearly touched. “Her name is Joy. She has claimed all your siblings as her Chosen. We cannot do anything with the children without her approval. She is very protective.”
Tinker snorted. “How protective can a pocket-size dragon get?”
“Very. She can and will summon help. We would be facing Impatience and most likely Providence against any attempts to go against her wishes.”
Dragon tag-team fighting. Okay, that was a very scary thought. Impatience nearly killed Tinker and her Hand when they first met. He had a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth and impenetrable magical shields all backed with a genius that intimidated even her. Providence was dead and not-dead in a way that made her brain hurt. He was the guardian spirit of the tengu and they worshipped him as a god. It meant that in addition to fighting something that couldn’t be “killed,” it could push the tengu’s loyalty to her to a breaking point. The elves considered the tengu a valuable ally because of Jin’s alliance with Tinker. Otherwise, the elves would have wiped out the tengu — adults and children alike.
What Joy wants, Joy gets. Check. That’s assuming what Little Miss Pocket Dragon wanted was within reason.
Gracie Wong had been married to Tinker’s father and loved him deeply. There was little wonder that she would want to adopt Leo’s babies…
“Wait,” Tinker said again as she stumbled over another weird turn of phrase. “About to be newborn?”
“Yes, in a few months.” Jin’s wings rustled loudly. “Forgiveness, domi.” He murmured the command to dispel his wings and they vanished from his back. The dining room suddenly seemed a lot less crowded.
“So there’s really two kids and a very pregnant woman about to pop? Or are we talking four women about to have babies? What the hell? Is someone on Earth giving out Dufae kids like lottery tickets?”
“It’s—” Jin paused for a minute, obviously trying to find a safe, sane explanation. Considering Tinker’s summer to date, there might not be one. Single-handedly, she’d managed to accidently change her species, rip a hole in the fabric of realty, kidnap a major USA city, fall off the planet, crash a spaceship into Turtle Creek, kill a dragon…
Tinker was sure there was more but she was losing track of the weirdness. Not a good sign.
“It’s…it’s complicated,” Jin finally understated. “Maybe I should back up.” He paused again for several moments, mouth open, eyes flicking back and forth as he tried to find a safe place to start. “There are two girls, Louise and Jillian Mayer. They are twins, and very much like you.”
What did that mean? Short? Dark skin? Genius? Snarky? All of the above?
“Their father worked at the clinic where Leo’s sperm was stored,” Jin said. “Esme used Leo’s sperm to fertilize a dozen or so of her eggs. Some number of the fertilized eggs were used to create you and the rest were put into storage. Nine years ago, Mr. Mayer took some of the frozen embryos and implanted them into his wife. They raised your sisters as their natural-born children and I gather they were very good parents.”
“Were?” Tinker latched onto the word. Adoption usually happened after parents died. “Are they dead?”
“Yes. I’m not clear how they were killed but it was recent. After that, your grandmother gained custody of them.”
“My grandmother? I don’t have a grandmother. I had a grandfather. Two, if you count Forge, but he’s more like a great-great-great-something.” She’d made peace with her elf ancestor that afternoon, though he was still on probation with her for what he’d done to Oilcan. Forge was going to be ecstatic at the news that he had six more grandkids. If they were orphans, he’d probably want custody of them. She wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly, it would make the sekasha happy if the babies were with a domana, but her siblings were still human. She would prefer that they stay that way. No more of this changing species without warning.
“Esme’s mother,” Jin stated. When she looked at him confused, he expanded the statement with, “Esme’s mother is your grandmother. Anna Desmarais.”
“Desmarais? Shouldn’t it be Shanske?” Tinker tried to remember if Lain ever even talked about her family. Lain talked about Esme in terms of “my sister, the astronaut” but never anything else. Wait, there been something recently about Empire of Evil and Flying Monkeys. That didn’t sound good.
“Your grandmother remarried after Esme’s father was killed. I didn’t actually talk to the twins; they were asleep and apparently very emotionally fragile after everything they’ve been through. I thought you should be told immediately. I didn’t want to blindside you with any of this.”
“This didn’t count as being blindsided?” Tinker asked.
“This is still just between us — and Joy — and the other dragons. I believe that the Stone Clan might want to claim the children. And there is Esme to be considered. I owe your mother a great deal; without her intervention none of this could be possible. You would not have been born. Everyone on my ship would have been lost. My people would still be enslaved. Biologically, your siblings are her offspring. She did, however, abandon her genetic material when she left Earth. The children were carried by other women. Nor is Esme in a situation where she could take on the responsibility of raising six children, four of which are newborn.”
“Yyyeeeaaah.” Tinker wasn’t even sure where Esme was living since Tinker planted her mother’s spaceship into Turtle Creek. She knew Esme had spent several days in the hospital. Tinker had last seen Esme when they’d dropped her at Lain’s. No, wait, the sisters had come together to Poppymeadows — later — sometime. Tinker had totally lost track of time. It had been a super-condensed-weird summer and not yet officially over.
Esme and six kids in Lain’s house? With all those deadly plants? Tinker had spent the first two years of her life on a literal leash to keep her from toddling into the reach of the various man-eating plants. And there was a good reason why she hadn’t moved in with Lain when her grandfather died. Lain was the type of person who loved kids as long as she could send them home. Tinker had lived with Lain the month it took Tinker’s grandfather to fetch Oilcan from Boston after his mother was killed. Her stay degraded into a battle of wills that only stopped before open warfare because her grandfather had returned.
Esme had been distraught when she thought her “son” had been killed. She’d been overjoyed when she found out that Tinker was her daughter.
“Esme is capable of committing to crazy, impossible plans,” Tinker said. “She might want to try.”
“Domi,” Pony murmured. “By our laws, a child belongs foremost to its mother, but then to its clan. Who exactly qualifies as the children’s mother might be debated, since what your mother has done has never been tried among our people. It means that Stone Clan has the strongest claim, lacking a birth mother. Sunder is currently head of Stone Clan in the Westernlands.”