Did the Stone Clan think that if something happened to Tinker, he would turn to Jewel Tears? How far were they willing to go to put their theory to test? He knew Jewel well enough to know that she would let nothing stand in her way of her ambitions. That had been one of the things he loved about her.
Tinker wished the machine room didn't feel so much like a trap. Whoever designed the room had never considered that there would be anything as dangerous as the black willow between the back room and the front door. Being around the black willow made everyone nervous. There were no signs, however, of it reviving despite a full day of summer heat. Oilcan rotated the steel drums of metal filings, taking the ones saturated with magic to some place to drain and replaced them with fresh drums. Tinker could see no overflow of magic. Still, the sekasha all kept their shields activated just to use up local ambient magic.
She had the old spell jack hammered out of place. She was now carefully prepping the site to lay down the new spell and cement it into place.
Stormsong settled beside her, her sheathed ejae across her knees, her shields a blue aura around her. "Do you mind if we talk?"
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
Stormsong gave a slight laugh, and then continued with great seriousness. "It's not my place to advise you. It should be Pony, as your only beholden, or Wraith Arrow, who is Windwolf's First, but-" Stormsong sighed and shook her head. "Wraith Arrow won't cross that line and Pony - that boy has a serious case of hero worship for you."
"Pony?"
"You can do no wrong in his eyes. You know all, see all, understand all - which leaves you up the shit creek because you really don't and he won't tell you squat, because he thinks you already know."
"So you're going to tell me?"
"You rather walk around with your head up your ass and not know it?"
Tinker groaned. "What am I'm doing wrong now?"
"You need to choose four more sekasha, at minimum."
Tinker sighed. "Why? Things are working fine this way."
"No, it's not, and you're the only one that doesn't see that. For instance, Pony is just a baby to the rest of us."
"He's at least a hundred." She knew he was an adult, although just barely, like she had been as an eighteen-year-old human. Unfortunately, now she fell into a nebulous zone of being just barely adult for years and years.
"He just left the doubles this year." Meaning last year, he could use two numbers to indicate his age. "Only half of Windwolf's sekasha are in the triples - the rest are older."
"How old are you?" Tinker was fairly sure Stormsong was one of the younger sekasha. She was starting to be able to look at elves and see their age indicators. It was odd, to have her concept of Windwolf slowly change from "adult" to "her age" as her perception of all elves changed.
"I'm two hundred." Which made her Pony's age, because to the elves that hundred year difference barely counted.
"So we're all same approximately the same age."
"You wish." Stormsong took out a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and offered her a stick. "Yeah, physically Pony and I are like a human teenagers, but we've still had a hell of lot longer than you to figure out people."
Tinker took the gum and let the taste explode in her mouth. "What's your point? Is Pony old or young?"
"That is my point." Stormsong took a piece for herself and put away the pack. "He's the youngest of the sekasha, but he's your First."
"Are you trying to confuse me?"
"Anything regarding you, Pony is in charge, but he's the youngest of the sekasha."
This was starting to make her head hurt. "Are you talking…seniority?"
"Seniority. Seniority." Stormsong took out a small dictionary, flipped through it, and read off the entry for seniority. "Precedence of position, especially precedence over others of the same rank by reason of a longer span of service."
"Oh that's not fair," Tinker complained. "You get a dictionary. I want one for Elvish."
"We don't have such things." Stormsong put away the dictionary. "They would be too useful."
Tinker had to put "Elvish Dictionary" on her project list.
"Yes." Stormsong continued. "Pony needs seniority over those he commands, which he doesn't have because none of us are yours. What's more when the bullets start to fly, we need to know which way to jump. Pony doesn't need to think. But the rest of us-we have pledged our lives to Windwolf - it's him we should be thinking of - but we know that only Pony is watching over you."
"I told Windwolf I'd think about this."
"Humans have a wonderful saying: assume is making an ass out of 'u' and me. Windwolf assumes that Pony will guide you in your choice, and Pony assumes that you know all."
"So you're doing it."
"Hell, someone has to."
"If it's Pony's job, shouldn't I just tell him that I don't know shit?"
Stormsong gave her a look that Tinker recognized from years of being a child genius.