Crow Boy had told the twins that he lived next door to the Shoji family, pretending to be a mild-mannered American suburbanite while secretly protecting the Chosen bloodline. He’d gotten Keiko and Mickey to safety after the house had been attacked, but Joey had been kidnapped by the oni. At some point, while Crow Boy was on Earth with the twins, Joey been found and rescued. It gave new meaning to “babysitting” duty and the face paint: If Haven was attacked, the older children would fight to death to protect the younger ones.
Keiko bowed. “Honored to meet you.”
Mickey waved nervously and said, “Heyo!”
Joey whispered, “They look just like her — only shorter.”
“Hush,” Keiko whispered even as Mickey nodded in agreement.
If they had met Tinker, then they might be able to answer the twins’ questions about her.
“This is Hoshi and Mai Sessai.” Crow Boy gave another polite bow and wave toward the other two kids. Hoshi was a teenage boy with feathers braided into his long hair; he was slightly taller than Crow Boy so he might have been older. Mai was a girl whose black hair been cropped into a pixie cut. They both nodded in greeting.
“They are yamabushi, like I am,” Crow Boy said. “They were raised here on Elfhome. There is little that they do not know of Pittsburgh or the surrounding wilderness or the oni forces that we face.”
“Okay,” Jillian drew the word out to emphasize the twins’ confusion. “We do need to know about our family—”
“Eventually,” Louise finished the thought. “What we really need to stay focused on is the shield.”
Crow Boy nodded. “As the Chosen, the Shoji family has been taught the language of the Ryu dragons. They might be able to talk to Joy.”
“Do we really want to talk to Joy?” Jillian said what Louise was thinking. “She’s just a baby.”
Which was the nice way of saying that Joy was hopelessly self-centered, often rude, and generally not helpful.
“She might be, or she not be,” Keiko said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Louise said.
“While we have been under Providence’s protection for thousands of years, there is much we do not know about the dragons of Ryu,” Keiko said. “At one point in time, we had all that Providence’s child could tell us about her father’s people written down, but it was decided to burn all our records when we were enslaved, lest they fall into the hands of our captors. What remains is an oral history, passed from parent to child.”
“It’s full of holes,” Mickey complained. “Like who was Providence’s mate? Why wasn’t she looking for their missing kid? Did they have any other kids? How many babies do dragons have at a time? Are they born live like boa constrictors or hatched from eggs like alligators?”
“Mickey, I’m trying to condense.” Keiko motioned that he should stay quiet. “But yes, there are holes in what we know. Since the appearance of Impatience, we’ve been looking closer at our legends and realizing how little we know. What we know for sure was that Providence’s child originally was a dragon by the name of Nirvana. Our legends imply that she was young, and thus not held accountable for breaking some of the rules of draconic society, namely the edict covering travel to Elfhome. We believe that she was trying to rescue other dragons that had gone missing. Providence asked Wong Jin to rescue his daughter from the elves. We know that Wong Jin was too late to save the dragon, but found shattered pieces of Nirvana, including a young female who was ‘made from what had been stolen from Nirvana,’ who took the name of Huan, which means ‘happiness.’”
“Nirvana. Happiness.” Mickey made a rolling motion. “Joy?”
“We named Joy—” Louise said.
“You named Joy.” Jillian corrected her. Unsaid was that Louise came up with the name while the magic generator was running. “I wanted to call her Greedy Gut or Bottomless Pitt. She turned down all the other names we came up with. We tried dozens of them.”
“I think Joy understands more English than what she actually uses to communicate,” Crow Boy said. “It’s possible that since the dragons can project their minds outside their bodies that they actually have some type of telepathy.”
Like the babies “talking” to Oilcan, Louise thought.
“Our legends imply that Wong Jin found all the pieces of Nirvana,” Keiko said. “But our legends could be wrong.”
“I see what you’re implying,” Louise said carefully. It did seem plausible that Joy was a missing fragment of Nirvana. Did the tengu think this gave them some claim to Joy? “But I’m not sure what point you’re trying to get to.”
“Dragons have a complex and powerful set of written spells that they can use to supplement their natural abilities. Impatience taught some to Tinker domi and he inscribed others on Esme’s ship to keep it stable against the forces of wind and gravity. If Joy has Nirvana’s memories, then she should know a great deal about magic.”
“Wow! Okay, that makes sense.” Louise looked around the cluttered bunker. The baby dragon was nowhere to be seen. “Joy used to be anchored to us via the magic generators. Since we got to Elfhome, she comes and goes as she pleases. I haven’t seen her for a while.”
“I brought cookies,” Crow Boy said loudly.
“Cookies!” Joy squealed, suddenly on Louise’s shoulder.
Yes, Joy could teleport. The question remained how far could she teleport? And could she teach it to the babies once they were born? Oh God, if the babies could teleport themselves out of cribs, the future was going to be nightmarish.
The tengu children had surprising reactions.
The two yamabushi stepped forward, spreading their wings to shield Keiko, Mickey, and Joey. Keiko sputtered from the sudden face full of feathers.
Mickey cried “Whoa! Cool!”
Joey ducked under the yamabushi’s wings to bow and call out a flowing greeting in a strange language.
“Be nice.” Louise sensed that Joy was about to be Joy. “Or no cookies.”
“Tengu belong to Providence,” Joy grumbled. “Double stupid poopy face.”
Louise remembered it was the same thing Joy had said when they first met Crow Boy. The little dragon had instantly recognized the winged boy as someone who belonged to Providence. If Joy was a leftover fragment of Nirvana, though, she couldn’t have known about Providence becoming the guardian spirit of the tengu. That had happened after Nirvana had been “shattered” by the elves. “How do you know?”
Joy blew a raspberry. “Says so.”
“Says so?” Louise echoed in confusion.
Joy reared up, holding onto Louise’s ear to stabilize herself. Her mane bristled out, each tendril writhing, seeming more like a nest of snakes than hair. Louise felt something warm wash over her, like someone had opened a door to a desert. The dry heat lifted the hairs on her arm but didn’t shift any of the lightweight clutter strewn about her feet. A glowing line appeared on the left hands of all the tengu, running up their arms to disappear under their shirts. The children gasped and peered closely at the line.
“It’s tiny little letters,” Joey said.
“Dragon runes,” Mickey gasped. “It’s cool! It’s like an ultrasecret magical tattoo.”
The older kids glanced at one another, obviously uneasy by the discovery.
“This part is Providence’s name.” Keiko traced out part of the gleaming line of runes. “I can’t read the rest. I’m not sure how I feel about this.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of like finding out you’re a Build-A-Bear.” Mai tented her shirt to see where the writing led even as it faded away.
Hoshi shook his head. “We’ve always known that Providence interceded. He did what he could to protect us.”