Copper Veins (6 page)

“What's wrong with vengeance?” I asked. “The Peacekeepers caused him to lose his family, his home, everything!”

“By his own account, he's been living quite well here in the Otherworld,” Micah said.

“Do you have a problem with my father?” I demanded—then I remembered that Sadie was still sitting next to me. I glared at her over the edge of her book—she slammed the cover shut and left. Once she was gone, I turned back to Micah. “Well?”

“I have no problems whatsoever,” he bit off. “However, I do not like that he has your part in this plan fully formed without consulting you or me. I do have a say in whether my wife goes off to war for a realm she has no ties to.”

“No ties? Micah, I'm from there! I lived there most of my life!” I was so mad my hands were shaking, so I sat on them. “I'm a Mundane human, just like the people Dad wants to save.”

“My Sara, nothing about you is Mundane, in any meaning of the word,” Micah murmured. “You are a metal Elemental, as am I. You belong here, with me.”

He reached around my back to rub the copper raven, my own Elemental mark, but I jerked away. I couldn't believe that Micah was so against Dad's plans, and that he had so little regard for the Mundane realm or my own opinions. It made me wonder what he really thought about me.

“I'm going for a walk,” I said, leaping to my feet.

“I'll come with you,” Micah said, rising beside me.

“No,” I said quickly. “I want to be alone.”

Micah grabbed my shoulders. “Sara, do not be
angry with me” he implored.

“I won't be, after I've had my walk.”

With a frown he released me, and I headed out the door.

I quickly learned that while this was one of only two times I had ever been angry with Micah, I did not enjoy the emotion any more the second time around. My head hurt, my eyes burned, and my stomach was threatening to expel all of that delicious ice cream.

What is wrong with him? Can't he see that Dad only wants what's best for his family? Can't he see that the Peacekeepers need to be stopped? Why can't he just get along with my father?

I was so busy fuming over Micah's total lack of regard for me or my fellow human Elementals I didn't even notice that my feet were taking me toward the Clear Pool until I stood on its shore. I stared at the glasslike surface and willed myself to calm down.

“Have you come for a swim in my waters?”

I looked to my left and saw the Bright Lady reclined on the bank. As always, she was naked save for her carefully arranged blue hair, so long it reached her knees. “I am expecting a bit of company, but you will have your solitude for a time,” she continued.

“Solitude.” I sat beside her in a heap, my elbows on my knees and my head resting in my hands. “All I've had lately is solitude.”

The Bright Lady arched a perfect blue brow. “Did you not marry our Lord Silverstrand just yesterday?” she asked, and I nodded. “How is it that a new bride has found time to be alone?”

I sighed. “Thing are...complicated.”

“Are they?” she asked, setting her hand atop my knee. “If you love him, and he loves you, what more is there to know?”

I began to tell her about how Micah and my father, and then Micah and I, had butted heads about the Mundane realm, and about how Micah and I still knew almost nothing about each other, when the Bright Lady looked past my shoulder and smiled. I turned, and saw Ash, the Satyr and the blacksmith that had crafted my sword, exiting the wood. Since he wasn't at his forge, he was actually clean for once, and I saw that he had deep mahogany hair, with the fur on his legs a few shades lighter. Usually he was coated in such a thick layer of dust and grime that his hair appeared gray. Also, because he wasn't at his forge, he wasn't wearing his leather apron, which
meant he was as naked as the Bright Lady. My gaze dipped lower, and I decided to get out of there as fast as possible.

“You two have fun,” I mumbled, although it was clear that nither one of them was paying attention to me. As I walked away from the Clear Pool, I concentrated on not hearing the noises emanating from the shore, so much so that I almost stumbled right over Mom. I opened my mouth to complain about my pigheaded husband when I saw Mom's red face, her wet cheeks. I guessed that I wasn't the only girl mad at her spouse.

“Hey,” I said, plopping down beside her. “What's up?”

“He's so cold to me,” Mom murmured. “He won't touch me. He hardly even looks at me.” I opened my mouth to ask who she meant, only to clamp it shut. Obviously she meant Dad.

“It's been a long time,” I said. “Maybe he's nervous.”

“My Beau is not a nervous man,” Mom said. “My Beau couldn't keep his hands off me. This Beau doesn't want to be in the same room with me.”

“Where is he now?”

“Off meeting with his all-important council. I tried to accompany him, but he said they wouldn't like an outsider just showing up.” She bowed her head, supporting it with her hands. “Me, an outsider! Once, we were partners in all things, but now…”

I patted her shoulder, if for no other reason than I
had no idea how else to comfort her. “Where's Max?”

“Off on some errand of your father's. Max he'll speak with, but not me.” She leaned back against a tree, staring up into its branches. “He has found another. He must have.”

“Mom! You don't know that!”

“What other explanation can there be?” she demanded, raising her head. Her blue eyes shone with tears of rage and abandonment. “I would understand if he'd felt the need for a companion, if only he'd come clean about it. You are right, Sara, it has been a long time.”

“You never found a companion,” I pointed out.

“True. But men…men have needs.” Mom sighed, and rubbed her nose. “Men do not do well when they're alone.”

I looked toward the manor, where I'd just left Micah alone, and ignored the guilt stabbing at my heart. Besides, if I ever found a woman with Micah, I'd kill her, and then drown him in her blood. “Maybe you just need to remind him of how happy you two were.”

Mom smiled at that. “Aye. We were nothing if not happy.”

“If you'd like, I can ask the silverkin to set something up,” I suggested. “Maybe you could recreate when you first met, like a date.”

“It wasn't what one would call a date,” Mom said. “He'd evaded my guards and breached my court. I
nearly had him thrown into a cell.”

“Okay, maybe not that. Unless you'd like him in chains?” I waggled my eyebrows, and Mom laughed. She'd laughed so rarely since Dad disappeared. With a bit of fine-tuning, their relationship would be as close as it had always been, I was sure of it.

“C'mon,” I said, pulling her to her feet. “Let's go talk to Shep. Those silverkin can whip up more than just food.”

Mom and I ended up spending the rest of the day in the far orchard, the one where the trees looked the least like anything found in the Mundane realm with their pinkish leaves and bright blue fruit hanging in clusters reminiscent of grapes. Unusual as the trees were, that orchard also just happened to hold a lovely green hill at its center, which the silverkin had decided to convert into a
brugh
in their own inimitable way. Due to the hill's soft earth, making it into an actual hollow hill wasn't a good idea, but they had managed to install a fairy door for aesthetics if nothing more. Once that was done, they busied themselves arranging the most epic of picnics on the lawn.

“It's amazing,” Mom murmured, looking over the roughly hewn table made to look like the very one she
had once feasted at as the Queen of the Seelie Court. “Beau will be amazed to see it here, so far removed from Eire.”

“I bet he will be,” I murmured. The Dad I remembered was a happy yet serious man, not one who was easily surprised. Still, I wondered how he would react to a version of the
brugh
here in the Otherworld. I hadn't known him when he was a scrappy young thing, as Mom had once so eloquently put it, so maybe he wouldn't enjoy the surprise. Even so, what man wouldn't want to recreate the night he'd met his wife?

And, if the deep voice hailing us was any indication, it seemed that the man in question was making his way toward us.

“Don't let him see me!” Mom shrieked, patting at her disheveled hair. “Or the
brugh
!” With that, she ran off like a schoolgirl to primp for her man. I didn't even try to fight my smile as I walked through the trees and met Dad.

“What's going on out here?” he asked, trying to peek over my shoulder.

“You'll find out soon enough,” I said, grabbing his shoulders and turning him around. He turned easily, not like the father of my youth who was an immoveable bearded mountain. My present father, though, preferred being clean-shaven. And I was a lot bigger than the seven-year-old he'd left behind. “What's up with you?”

“I have decided that you and Max should accompany me to the Mundane realm again,” he said. “The presidential election draws near, and I would like to disrupt the government's agenda as much as possible.”

In my opinion, anything that disrupted Mike Armstrong becoming president of Pacifica was a good idea. I opened my mouth to say that I'd go tell Micah about our plan, when I remembered what he'd said before: that I had no ties to the Mundane realm, a realm I'd lived in for almost my entire life. Would he even care about the nearing election or the Mundane government's agenda? It didn't seem like it. And my father needed my help.

“All right,” I said, silencing the small voice in the back of my head urging me to tell Micah. If I did, he wouldn't let me go. It was better if he didn't know at all. “When do we leave?”

Dad and I collected Max, who was always up for a bit of troublemaking. After Max and I put on knit hats and dark glasses similar to the ones we had worn to Mike Armstrong's political rally, the three of us portaled over to Capitol City. Since Sadie had only made two hats, Dad was going to have to make do with just glasses.

Interestingly, Capitol City was once called Portland, but not for any magical reasons—it was built alongside a lovely natural harbor, or port. After the magic wars had ended, any place names that
were even vaguely magical were changed to the most boring things imaginable; thus Portland became Capitol City.

But it didn't stop there. Portland had never been the capital of anything, not the country or its state or even its county. In fact, Portland was nestled in the far northeastern corner, home to sweltering summers and bone-chilling winters—really, no one in their right mind would have made it the capital of anything. Which is pretty much why Elementals had migrated to Portland in the first place.

However, the actual capital was deemed to have had too much magic worked in it for too long, and the new regime didn't want to take the chance of a mage sneaking up on them unawares, much like how the last pre-war president had hidden his Elemental abilities from his closest associates. Maybe he should have tried a hat and glasses—the disguise seemed to work pretty well for Max and me.

Dad, Max, and I wandered up and down the streets of Capitol City for a while, reading flyers, staring into shop windows, and trying to look inconspicuous. After about an hour of this, I asked my father what we were really supposed to be doing.

“This,” Dad replied. “I need to make my presence known. Those who are pro-resistance, and pro-Elemental, won't rally without a leader.”

“And you're that leader?” I asked. I'd always known that Dad was high up with the war mages, but I'd
never known he was their leader. Before he could answer, Max tapped me on the shoulder.

“Sis,” he said. “here comes your boyfriend.” Max jerked his chin to the side, and I saw a full complement of Peacekeepers marching toward us led by none other than Jerome Polonsky.

My stomach plummeted to the ground, leaving me so breathless I couldn't even remind Max that Jerome had never been my boyfriend. Not only did Jerome know exactly who I was, since he'd blatantly hit on me every time we'd met, but my family's images were still playing on vid chips throughout the city. There was no doubt in my mind that Jerome recognized us, and that he'd soon be aiming one of those plastic weapons specially made for use against Elementals at us. We were screwed.

I glanced over my shoulder—there was only a brick wall behind us, no door. We were going to have to portal right there, on the street and in front of everyone, to escape. We weren't just screwed—we were
totally
screwed.

Then, to my utter horror, Dad took off his dark glasses and stared Jerome right in the eye. Just as Max whipped out a portal of his own, Jerome acknowledged Dad with a deferential nod, and he barked an order for the company to take a quick left, away from where we stood, sitting ducks. When my heart started beating again, I asked Dad what all that was about.

“Corporal Polonsky is one of my men,” Dad replied.

“You mean you know Jerome?” I was stunned.
What other creeps has my father been hanging out with?

“Of course. He's one of my best operatives.” Dad set his glasses on the top of his head, and we began walking toward the financial district. “You and Jerome dated?”

“No,” I replied, ignoring Max's sneer. “He stopped my car once and asked for my ID, then he tried to scam a date. I've only seen him two other times, and he was creepy each time.”

We approached a coffee shop, and I entered without a second thought. If I was going to spend my afternoon in the Mundane World, closer to Jerome than Micah, the least Dad could do was buy me a coffee. Once we had ordered—cinnamon cappuccino for me, black coffee for Max—we waited at the end of the counter.

“Corporal Polonsky is a good man,” Dad said, out of the blue. “I would be very pleased if you and he were together.”