War for the Oaks (13 page)

Eddi made rude faces in the bathroom mirror. She towel-dried her hair. She pulled on the corners of her eyes to see how she'd look if she were Chinese. She stared at the contents of her closet. Finally she faced the truth: she couldn't stay in the bedroom all day. It would look cowardly. She put on a pair of dark green leggings and a pale violet shirt that reached halfway to her knees, and went out into the living room.

The phouka was lying on the rug in front of the stereo, wearing her headphones. When he saw her, he lifted them off, and she could hear Curtiss A.'s latest album playing through them.

The phouka contemplated her. He did not seem disposed to be rude, crude, or wounded. That might be good—or it might mean that he was going to be something worse. "Wholly adorable," he said at last. "You look like an iris in bloom."

Yes, definitely something worse. "I think I'll go change."

"What, and break my heart? Not to mention impugning my taste. No, no, you have to eat." He sprang up and led her to the table.

The table distracted her from replying as she ought. There were fresh cantaloupe and strawberries, a wedge of cheddar, milk, and a plate of something covered with a clean dish towel.

"Sit," the phouka ordered, and whisked the towel off the plate.

"They're scones," Eddi said.

"Precisely.
Do
sit down."

She did.

"I confess, I had to seek out expert help for those. Eat one, my primrose, and tell me if it was worth it."

Eddi took one off the plate; it steamed fragrantly when she broke it in half. She took a bite. "My grandmother used to make these," she said absently, and took another bite. "Hey, what do you mean, expert help? I thought you said they wouldn't do anything for you?"

"Who?"

"The . . . brownies," she said, stumbling a little, and scowling at him for making her do it.

The phouka smiled benignly and held up a battered book. "Oh," Eddi said, recognizing her mother's old copy of
The Joy of Cooking
.

"Those the brownies will not help, must learn to help themselves."

"And the fruit?"

"I have it on good authority that anything that can be got at all can be got at Byerly's."

Eddi quailed at the thought of the phouka turned loose in the most lavish supermarket in Minneapolis; then she found herself wishing, rather wistfully, that she'd been there to see it.

"But do eat up," he continued, snagging himself a scone. "Not only will the cold things get warm and the hot things cold—oh, which reminds me." He bounced out of his chair again and popped into the kitchen. When he came out, it was with two cups of coffee.

"But I thought . . ." said Eddi.

The phouka looked embarrassed. "I've been watching whenever you brewed a pot."

"Oh," she said. He set the cup down in front of her, and watched her hopefully.

She took a sip, not caring that it was too hot. "It tastes just right," she said, and thought sadly,
He doesn't need me to make coffee anymore
, while he beamed.

"So, as I was saying," the phouka went on, hacking a piece off the cheddar, "you have a busy day ahead of you, and should be well fortified. Breakfast is very important"—he leaned to look out the window at the sky—"even if you eat it at midday."

"What do you mean, busy day?"

"While you wandered the meadows of sleep, my seminocturnal flower, your private secretary has been taking your calls." Eddi coughed, and he ignored her. "Carla will be here in a quarter of an hour to discuss a gig—quaint, that; it used to mean a small carriage—for the band."

"We don't even have a name yet, and already she's found us a job?"

"You'll have to ask her." He looked at the ceiling, as if reading off it. "And Willy Silver telephoned."

Perhaps Eddi only imagined the pause after that, the fragment of silence as loud as a voice. She was certain that it wasn't as long as it seemed to be.

"What'd he say?" she asked.

"He wanted to know, since there's no rehearsal this evening, if you would like to go dancing."

And, of course, she would like to. The phouka was still staring at the ceiling, his expression perfectly neutral.

"Would it be dangerous?" Eddi asked him. She wasn't certain why she did; surely the wisest course was to treat the news casually and change the subject.

He gave her a long, sardonic look. "Dangerous to what?"

"Me."

"Oh, I know that, my sweet, but dangerous to what portion of you? Your physical self? Your sanity? Your immortal soul? Or, perhaps, your heart?"

Eddi couldn't help but flinch a little at that. "Don't be annoying. You know what I mean."

"Yes," he sighed, "I do. But are you certain you don't want the answers to the others as well?"

"No. Not from you, anyway."

"I didn't really think you would. No, my iris, you may go dancing fearlessly and with the utmost lightness of foot. You will be as safe as if you were at home with me."

"How safe is that?" Eddi asked.

The phouka's gaze was measuring. "My, you're full of many-faceted questions this morning."

Something in his expression made Eddi look away. She raised her coffee cup for a long swallow.

"And," the phouka said briskly, meeting her eyes over the rim of the cup, "after Carla's visit, we're going to go out and buy a motorcycle."

Eddi choked on her coffee.

He leaped up and gleefully thumped her on the back. "Just imagine: the wind in our hair, the thrilling sensation of speed and power, the independence of motion it will give us—"

Eddi set down her cup and leaned back in her chair. "I would
love
to have a bike," she said firmly. "But no."

"Nonsense, my sweet! What reason could there be for such self-denial?"

"I can't afford one."

He waved a hand dismissingly. "Can you operate one?"

"That has nothing to do with this."

"Is there anything in mortal law that would prevent you from owning one?"

Eddi wanted to lie to him, but he was being so rational that she hadn't the heart. It would be cheating. "No. I'm licensed."

"Well then—"

"Why don't you get
yourself
a motorcycle, and I can ride on the back?"

He settled his chin on his crossed hands again. "I would, my sweet, if only to save us this brangle. But things that take their power from explosions contained in iron, things operated by an intricacy of mechanical devices—I mislike them, I'm afraid, and I mishandle them more often than not. Some of humankind's creations trouble me not at all. The ones that deal in directing the flow of electricity, for example." He indicated the stereo with a turn of his hand. "But the internal combustion engine . . ."

"But why would it bother you to drive one, and not to ride it?"

"A reasonable question, though I'm not sure it has a reasonable
answer. I've—a mental block? A moral objection?—to being in control of such a machine. Being borne along on one I can put up with."

"But cars make you uncomfortable."

He raked his hands through the black curls at his temples and smiled crookedly. "I am a creature of earth and air," he said. "Enclosed in a car, I feel sickened and weak, and as panicky as an animal that chews through its own leg to escape a trap."

Eddi stared at him, surprised. She knew he'd been uncomfortable in the car, but she hadn't dreamed that he'd been as uncomfortable as that.

His gaze dropped to the plate in front of him, and he toyed for a moment with the bread knife. "I hate to raise a question you might prefer unasked . . ."

"Go on."

He looked up at her again. "How did you intend to reach the battlefields?"

It took Eddi a moment to make sense of that. Then time and trouble caught up to her. "I . . . hadn't thought that far," she confessed.

"The first engagement will be several miles to the south and east of here," he continued, "at the place called Minnehaha Falls. I could reach it on foot and still be fresh when I arrived, but I doubt you could do the same." He sounded almost apologetic.

"If they want me there so bad, why don't they arrange transportation?"

"Would you mind if you arrived bruised, wet, muddy, and airsick? The glaistig, for one, would laugh herself ill, but I know you wouldn't care about that." He popped a piece of cheese in his mouth and smiled at her.

"What? I don't—why—"

He chewed and swallowed quickly. "I've told you that I'm a tricksy wight, and I am, my sweet. But there are those in the Seelie Court who would make me seem a very perfect knight. It is these who would come for you, if you were unwilling to come on your own. One trip with them, and you would walk halfway 'round the earth to avoid another."

"And these are the good guys?" Eddi muttered. The phouka shot her an odd, intense look. "I suppose taking a bus is right out?"

"I would rather have my ears pierced with a railroad spike."

"Gotcha."

After a moment, he said, "You wouldn't, I hope, have begged a ride from Carla?"

"No," Eddi snapped, "I wouldn't have."
Because if I did Carla would know when the battle is and where. And nothing would keep her from getting mixed up in it
.

"I am comforted," he said, a little sharply. "Your judgment is unimpaired."

"Why should it be anything else?"

The phouka smiled, his head tilted a little to one side, and replied, "Love has a way of turning mortals stupid."

She had to prod herself into being properly annoyed. "What the hell do you know about love?"

He leaned forward. His eyes were dark as water under a moonless sky, dark as a windowless room just after the lights go out. "What," he said softly, "do you know about me?"

The intercom buzzer cut the air to ribbons. The phouka sighed and said toward the door, "You're early."

Eddi jumped up and thumbed the speaker button. "Carla?"

"Is Madame receiving?" said Carla's voice.

"There's a straight line in there somewhere," Eddi said, and pressed the button that unlocked the front door.

"Now, about this motorcycle," the phouka murmured.

"I can't afford one."

He contemplated the ceiling. "That, my flower, is no barrier to your heart's desire."

"What do you mean?" She moved toward him warily.

Carla stuck her head in the door. "You called?"

"He's up to something," Eddi said, pointing at the phouka. The phouka looked innocent.

Carla shrugged. "The Pope's Catholic, they tear up the highways in the summer, and he's up to something. So?"

"It's not as bad as that," the phouka assured her. "Do you know anyone with a motorcycle for sale?"

"A what?" said Carla, entirely off balance.

"A motorcycle. And it should, ideally, be someone you dislike."

Eddi and Carla stared at him.

"Ah, well," he sighed at last, "I suppose I can do it myself. May I ask of you, then, that you have your tête-à-tête in the bedroom?" At that, he crossed the living room and opened a window.

Eddi folded her arms. "Why?"

"I'm calling on my sources," the phouka smiled at her. "But they're inclined to be shy. So do me the kindness of shutting yourself in the bedroom, sweet, and biding there until I call. Please?"

Carla looked mutinous, but Eddi grabbed her arm and tugged. Finally Carla snorted and followed her to the bedroom.

Carla bounced angrily on the bed as Eddi closed the door. "Dammit, are you gonna—"

Eddi put a finger to her lips. She'd closed the door firmly and with an audible bump; now she eased it open, agonizingly slow, until she could put an eye to the crack and see the phouka sitting at the table. Carla slid off the bed and scrambled silently over. She sat on the floor and peered through the opening, too.

The phouka took a scone off the plate and cut it in half with the bread knife. Then he held the blade against the middle finger of his right hand and flicked downward. Blood welled bright tulip red against his brown skin. Three drops fell and soaked into the white surface of the bread. He picked up the half-scone and set it on the window sill, then sat back down and watched it, licking his wounded finger absently.

Eddi saw Carla look up toward her. She held up a warning hand, and kept watching.

Something appeared over the offering on the windowsill. At first Eddi thought it was an enormous moth, its wingspan greater than the length of her palm. But the quick-beating wings had none of the powdery whiteness of a moth's. They were full of the suggestion of other colors, with a gelatinlike sheen. Then it landed on the sill, folded its wings, and Eddi could see it clearly.

In rough outline, the tiny thing that stooped over the scone and appeared to sniff at it was human. It might even, at a glance, seem female. But it was a nacreous white all over and frailly built, with a triangular face occupied mostly with shining dark eyes, hair like cobwebs and steam, long spidery hands on which the fingers and thumbs were all the same length, and long feet with toes that gripped like bird's talons. It raised its head and stared at the phouka for a long moment, its mouth a little open. Then it dug its fingers into the scone, tore out the stained parts, and devoured them. Eddi saw the phouka's shoulders drop a little, and realized that it was tension going out of him.

The creature wiped its mouth with the back of one hand, a sharp and sudden gesture. Then it launched itself, landed on the table in
front of the phouka, and crouched there. It glared inquiringly up at him.

The phouka's lips moved, though Eddi could hear nothing, not even the occasional sibilance of a whisper. Still, the little creature winced. Or at least, Eddi corrected herself, it looked like a wince. She could no more interpret this thing's expressions than she could those of a bird. The phouka sat perfectly motionless as he spoke to it.

At last the creature curled its lips at him and flung itself into the air and out the window. The phouka blew an audible breath, and his body shuddered back to life.

Eddi closed the door as slowly as she'd opened it.

"Jesus," said Carla, looking at the bedroom door.

"What do you suppose it was?" Eddi wondered.