“Sunder,” Stormsong murmured.
“I am not giving up my siblings to be political hostages,” Tinker snapped.
Tinker’s Hand flinched. If the Stone Clan viewed the children as their responsibility, fighting could break out among the elves while they were still at war with the oni.
Oilcan stared at the pictures on the wall, trying to grasp all the implications. “I think — I think I need coffee.”
“There’s tea.” Tinker waved toward the pot. “Coffee tastes like shit now.”
He kept expecting things to taste the same and being surprised when they weren’t. The tea was an explosion of subtle flavors. It was a forceful reminder that he’d been changed from a human to an elf via powerful magic — against his will — by Forge.
Two cups of tea later, Oilcan said. “Start over. What do you mean, two of you?”
Tinker scrubbed at her hair, making it stand up like an annoyed hedgehog’s quills. “Jin was just here. The tengu rescued six of my siblings while I was busy blowing up Neville Island. Jin had been here in town, overseeing the search for the both of us and something about a train wreck at Oktoberfest.” She paused to pick up a pen and paper. “This is the first I’ve heard about the train. I need to find out if the trains can still run; we need that connection with the East Coast.”
Tinker wrote herself a note. “Jin was exhausted; I told him to go get some sleep.” She continued explaining where the mini-Tinkers had come from and how they came to be. When she got to the baby dragon and the four unborn siblings, Oilcan felt an odd dawning sense of horror and confusion.
“Four Dufae babies?” Oilcan repeated. “Three girls and a boy?”
“That’s weirdly specific,” Tinker said as Stormsong said, “Yes.”
Oilcan pinched the bridge of his nose. How did he know? How in God’s name did they manage to “talk” to him? They weren’t born yet! Had being turned into an elf somehow reinforced his wood sprite heritage, unlocking new abilities? Or had he just imagined it all? No, he couldn’t explain the shredded jawbreaker box. He had to accept the situation and then give the best advice he could. He pointed at the threads connecting the photographs on the wall. “What does the string represent?”
“Since you could tap the Stone Clan Spell Stones before you were even spell-worked into a true full elf, this is going to go political quickly,” Tinker said. “Even if the mini-mes can’t call the stones, the children are going to be considered domana caste. The different-colored string tracks who the Wyverns will allow to act as guardian, who has the needed security level to keep the children safe, and who the twins might accept as foster parents. The last one is the tricky one. You’ve been in their shoes. Who do you think the twins would want to be their foster parent?”
“Couldn’t we just ask the twins?” Oilcan asked.
“We can,” Tinker said “can” as if it was a horrible idea. “One of the bad things about being smarter than everyone else: I’ve always thought I knew everything. Like — like dating Nathan. I thought that was harmless. You told me it was a bad idea. Tooloo told me it would end badly. I thought I was right and everyone else was being stupid. I was wrong and Nathan ended up dead.”
Oilcan had to admit that she was right. Tinker plowed through people because she was always so sure she knew better. He shuddered at the thought of living through her tween years again — times two.
Tinker continued. “Grandpa rarely said no, but he always limited my choices. Like that time that I wanted to play with dynamite. He allowed me to design and build a delivery system for flinging it into the river, and then he never bought dynamite again.”
“I’m always amazed you survived your childhood,” Stormsong murmured in English.
Oilcan pointed to the string. “You want to figure out the best choices and then only present those as options to the mini-mes.”
“Yes.” Tinker pointed to the pictures of the Shanske sisters. “I don’t know Esme well but I know Lain will not be okay with trying to raise six mini-mes at once. Lain will want to split the kids up. She will probably take the two older kids and farm out the babies to separate foster parents. Lain most likely thinks that no one can handle more than two Dufae at a time — and she might be right. When I was nine, though, I would have arm-wrestled a saurus to keep my family together. I don’t know if Esme would want to deal with six kids at once. Lain is the older sister and it’s her house. Not to say that Esme couldn’t start up her own household, but she just did the impossible to make Lain happy. I think Esme would want Lain to share her…I don’t know what to call it. Happiness? Insanity?”
That explained the single strand of thread connecting to Esme’s and Lain’s pictures.
Tinker pointed at the hand drawing of Gracie. It had a single thread running to it. “Gracie has an unlimited number of babysitters at Haven but the Wyverns aren’t going to agree to that.”
“No, they will not,” Pony said firmly. By his tone, he might not allow it either.
Tinker indicated the newspaper clipping with the photo of Forge that had multiple strands connecting to it. “The Wyverns would allow Forge to foster the children. He has a large household, and has that whole grandpa thing going on, but we couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t pick up the kids and move back to Easternlands. I wouldn’t be happy there after living in Pittsburgh. Coming from someplace like New York City? The twins would hate it. If they’re like me, that could lead to very bad things.”
It left the heavily connected photos of Oilcan and Tinker.
They stood and eyed the pictures in long silence.
“Frankly, this scares the shit out of me,” Tinker finally admitted. In eight simple words, it explained the insanity of the pictures, the thread, and the heavy stomping in the middle of the night. “Being a big sister would rock, but being ‘Mom’ frightens me. Baby songbirds. Kittens. Peeps. Every little and helpless thing that I’ve tried to raise, ended up dead. I’m not good at it. I half-expected to kill Windwolf when he landed in my lap.”
“You will have all of us,” Pony said quietly. “My mother helped raise Wolf Who Rules. We can help raise all of your siblings.”
Pony’s words did little to lessen the scared look on Tinker’s face, probably because she knew that her little sisters could think rings around the sekasha warriors. Six of them at once? Oilcan thought of the little Dufae mice, already plotting when they weren’t yet born.