Olivia squashed down hard on the negative thought as she herded the marines toward the back of the bus. Her dad always said that big victories were made of countless little wins. The bigger problems of life would seem impossible to overcome if you ignored all the little wins.
I was strong, Olivia reminded herself. I can do this. I’ve done the impossible to get this far.
It was still insanely early for a social call when Olivia hit Mount Washington with the royal marines in tow. She had dragged them through the light-rail subway stations under Downtown, gotten off at Station Square — which was still in chaos from the derailment — and then up the Monongahela Incline. Every leg of the trip was greeted with exclamations of surprise and excitement. It felt very much like taking a group of kindergarteners to Disneyland. All that was missing was Mickey Mouse.
Olivia wasn’t sure where Aiofe worked as an intern at the EIA. She entertained thoughts of marching up and demanding to see Director Maynard and asking him. That’s what Tinker domi probably would have done. Olivia doubted, though, that the man would know where one of his lowest-level employees was. The last time she’d seen Aiofe, she’d been working in the field with the troops setting up the keva-bean handout. Olivia was hoping that if she arrived early enough, she would catch Aiofe before she went off to work.
She used the travel time to explain to the marines who she was going to see. It was an interesting exchange of information. Explaining Aiofe required explaining the university to the marines, which led to high school, which led to the subject of education in general. The elves didn’t do schools like humans. Apparently there were too few children to even fill a one-room schoolhouse. They were taught their letters and numbers by traveling scholars. After they’d learned the fundamentals, it depended on their caste if they received any further education.
It sounded suspiciously like the type of education that girls received at the Ranch. If it weren’t for state mandates, Olivia’s schooling would have stopped the day her mother packed up their car and drove cross-country to the Ranch. As it was, Olivia never saw the inside of a school again. Her mother claimed it was because of the low quality of the schools in rural areas, but the truth was that the church elders didn’t want their young people exposed to the basic freedoms that others their age normally enjoyed. Brainwashing someone into accepting a narrow vision of the world only worked if you kept the blinders firmly in place.
As laedin-caste, all the marines had been carefully guided to go into combat training. Once they reached maturity, they had limited directions to go in terms of career. They could be a private guard for a household like Poppymeadows or join the general pool of royal marines. They claimed that they were happy, but then they didn’t know anything else but fighting and playing at their childlike games.
Olivia was furious for their sake but they didn’t understand her anger, which only made her angrier. When they finally reached her leveled house, she marched past it, up onto Aiofe’s front porch, and banged on her door, which was painted Wind Clan Blue.
“Who’s that pounding on me door?” Aiofe called fearfully.
“Aiofe!” Olivia called out to reassure the girl. “It’s me.”
There was the sound of bare feet running toward the door. It jerked open to reveal Aiofe in pink and green plaid flannel pajamas, her long dark hair up in a messy bun.
“Red!” Aoife cried and flung herself onto Olivia to hug her hard. “Oh, I was that worried! What in the world?”
Aiofe had noticed the royal marines lined up behind Olivia.
“They’re with me.” Olivia pushed up her bangs to show off the mark that Forest Moss had put on her forehead. “I’m Forest Moss’s domi now.”
She said it quick and fast to get it over with, bracing for the same sort of outrage that Tinker domi had leveled at her.
“Domi?” Aiofe’s eyes went wide. She pointed at the marines. “So — they’re yours?”
“Yes, for now,” she said.
“Smashing!” Aiofe pulled Olivia into the house. “Come on in. I’ll wet the tea. I’ve got biscuits that I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Some Digestives and some Fig Rolls. We can sit in the garden and have a proper talk.”
Olivia hadn’t gotten the door shut behind her as Aiofe pulled her through the house. The marines followed her in, excited at the chance to see the inside of a “normal” human house. Aiofe had squatted in a lovely big Victorian and over the years, sparsely decorated it with a style that TV shows called shabby chic.
“Shouldn’t you put some clothes on?” Olivia asked since Aiofe was still in her flannel pajamas.
Aiofe laughed. “This is perfectly decent!” Aiofe grabbed her teapot and started to fill it. “Just let me put the kettle on and grab me tablet.”
“Tablet?”
“I need to document all this! The anthropology department hasn’t been able to get a single straight answer on elf courtship customs. Tinker domi just suddenly popped up ‘married’ to Windwolf. The subject has been totally off-limits since some idiots from the tabloids asked some seriously intrusive questions. And no one really has had the time to sit and talk to the royal marines. This is absolutely fabulous!”
Normally Olivia thought of Aiofe’s kitchen as bright and cheerful and large. With the addition of the royal marines, it suddenly seemed quite small. Olivia sat down at the table in an attempt to make it seem less crowded. Aiofe had tidied up since she last visited — her laptop, textbooks, and research materials were all neatly stacked.
Aiofe put the teapot onto the stove and gave the dial a savage twist. The flame shot up. Dagger and Ox crowded in close, murmuring with surprise, and played with the dial to change the level of the flame.
“Don’t touch,” Olivia whispered at them, making shooing motions.
“They’re fine! They’re fine!” Aiofe opened and closed cabinets as she got the makings of tea ready. “Smashing, in fact! I tried to weasel my way onto the EIA support team that is backing up the Viceroy on the front line, but those plonkers weren’t having it. They told me to take the day off and then emptied the city of elves! I bawled me eyes out.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “But I really didn’t mean to stay. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I kind of left in the middle of the night. I was hoping you were okay — and that maybe you could help me — a little.”
“Me?” Aiofe said.
“I went out to talk to Tinker domi…”
“You talked to her?” Aiofe sat down across from Olivia and leaned in close. “What’s she like? They say she’s like a tiny lioness. So little. So fierce. Did she say anything about how she got married to Windwolf? Wait! Your dau mark is different! Oh, I need to take a picture of it! Can I?”
This was not going how Olivia imagined this conversation to go.
In the name of science, she let Aiofe photograph her dau mark and measure it. It put the girl intimately close. It made it harder to talk about what had happened over the last few days. She wanted to make it sound romantic but she didn’t want to lie. An ugly mess was an ugly mess no matter how many layers of white silk and red roses you layered over it.