In little embarrassing fits and starts, she skipped over the uglier points of her discovery that Forest Moss was looking for someone like Tinker domi.
“I got scared by everything that was going on. I could see that being a domi was more than just a bed warmer. I decided to track Forest Moss down and make him an offer.”
“Which was…?” Aiofe pressed a small plastic ruler to the dau mark.
“To be with him.”
“Forever?” Aiofe asked. “Is he going to make you an elf — like Tinker domi?”
It was the one question that Olivia didn’t want to answer the most. She knew that she couldn’t explain it so Aiofe could understand. She could never explain to her stepsisters why she didn’t just parrot the bastardized version of the Nicene Creed that the Ranch followed. It wasn’t what she believed. To change what she believed was to change herself. To say the words would make it easier to lose herself against the pressure to be the creature that the Ranch wanted her to be.
She’d fought to stay true to herself for a third of her life. She didn’t want to give herself up. All the whores on Liberty Avenue from Stateside would jump at the chance to be an elf; they would never understand her refusal to be transformed. Yet those women wouldn’t allow just anyone to cut their hair, or give them a random piercing or tattoo. How could they not understand that having every cell in their body transformed would be more life altering than having their head shaved?
Olivia’s faith was her bedrock. She knew through countless battles that her beliefs were built on a few thousand words. She’d protected those words because they protected her faith, which protected who she was at the very core. If she were transformed into an elf, what would happen to the person that she had fought so hard to protect? Would her soul bond to a body so foreign to the one that God gave her? Did elves have a soul? Did they go to heaven? Was there a separate heaven for elves? Elfhome existed in a different universe with a different sun and moon. She was terrified that changing something so fundamental about herself would wipe away everything that was her. Who would remain within her skin?
Even though it terrified her, she knew that most people would dismiss her fear. To them, she was like the little kid who was afraid they would slide down the drain when the bath water was let out. Yet, those who would belittle her fears couldn’t know the truth. No one had ever seen a soul. Touched a soul. Kept it from going down a drain.
Luckily, Aiofe had too many questions to wait Olivia out. She followed up with, “Why did Windwolf do it? How did he make her an elf? He did do it — didn’t he? I mean — she is genetically an elf — right? Or was it just an ear job?”
Olivia had been carefully questioning the marines about this for days. “The domana can use the Spell Stones because of something coded into their DNA. It’s the key to their military power. It’s against their laws to dilute domana bloodlines. They don’t want any little bastards running around who may or may not be able to use the stones that could make more bastards that may or may not. Windwolf had to make Tinker domana in order for them to be together.”
“And Forest Moss is going to…?”
“I want to stay myself.”
“Tinker domi stayed herself.”
Olivia bit down on “How would you know? You’ve never met her!” She said instead, “Did she? Really? Why was she just a hoverbike racer, then? Why wasn’t she someone influential before she was changed?”
“Life is always changing you,” Aiofe answered. “It’s like you’re in an egg — it’s nice and cozy and you know every millimeter of it and you think you know everything about the world. Then suddenly — boom! You hatch out into a different world. Then you’re a little chick, all covered with fuzz in a nice cozy nest with a mom feeding you bits and pieces of raw meat and you think you know everything. Then boom! You grow these feathers and you can fly and your mom kicks you out of the nest and you realize that all that raw meat that she was feeding you are little animals that you now have to catch yourself. You don’t know anything about the big massive world but you’re one kick-ass falcon.”
Olivia stared at her. That had to be the weirdest analogy she’d ever heard.
“When I grew up in Dublin, I thought I knew everything,” Aiofe said. “I had it all figured out. But then I went off to uni and found out that I knew squat. Tinker domi was kidnapped by the oni and held prisoner, and made to work under the threat of torture. It changed her worldview. She might have only cared about racing before she got grabbed, but everything she’s done since then proves that she was changed by what happened to her.”
“I would argue that isn’t necessarily a good thing,” Olivia said.
“Life is a mixed bag of jellybeans. Good and bad. Change is inevitable.”
The teakettle started to whistle.
Olivia didn’t want to talk about her faith and her fears.
“I’m worried about some of the people that I know,” she said instead. “Everyone in the city without family can easily fall through the cracks. People like you.”
“I’m fine,” Aiofe said. “I was worried about you. I got called in to translate and came home to find your house a pile of rubble. I knew that you were working night shifts but I still called the fire department and everything.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “The Wyverns showed up to collect Forest Moss. I was too scared to think about leaving a note.”
“Ppfft!” Aiofe waved off the apology. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t have been thinking straight either.”
“When I was talking to Tinker domi, one of her men reported that some kids from Stateside who work Downtown have disappeared.” Olivia had gotten so used to editing what she said that she barely needed to think about not using the words “prostitutes” or “illegal immigrants.” She wasn’t totally sure if Tommy Chang could be called a “man” since that denoted “human.” He seemed human enough to Olivia — certainly more humane than her ex-husband. “I know these missing kids. I want to check on them — make sure they’re safe. I’m hoping that they’re just staying home with all the fighting going on in the city. I know where they’re squatting. The problem is that I think something bad might have happened to them, and if that’s the case, I don’t even know where to start finding that kind of stuff out. I need someone with a lot of resources to help me.”
“And I work for the EIA!” Aiofe realized instantly why she was first on Olivia’s list despite the fact that she was the one least at risk.
Olivia explained that while Tinker had had elves and tengu and a dragon at her enclave, there hadn’t been any humans. “Tinker domi doesn’t seem to utilize the EIA or the police.”
“She doesn’t have the same clout with them.” Aiofe started to pick through a basket of clean laundry. “On Earth, the spouse of a ruler never has any real power. In Ireland, the president might be leader of the country but his wife can’t do anything more political than host tea parties for charity. She certainly can’t have people executed on the spot or thrown out of the country. Pittsburghers think of Tinker mostly as a muddy wee lassie on a hoverbike. Humans just don’t get that she basically became a coruler with Windwolf when she agreed to become his domi.”
Aiofe did a magic trick of pulling on a floral sundress and taking off her modest pajamas at the same time. A few days earlier Olivia would be totally shocked but the royal marines had worn away that response.
Olivia focused on the problem at hand instead of Aiofe changing her panties without flashing anyone. “These are humans that I’m looking for — not elves. The police or EIA will be the ones that know if they’ve been hurt and taken to Mercy Hospital, or arrested, or gathered up to be deported at some later date…”