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Wolf could sympathize only with Little Horse. His blade brother, seeing Tinker spiraling downward, had been given the opportunity to take action—had been given a way to make at least one thing right—had been given a target. In the light of Tinker's imbalance, Czernowski's death had been inevitable.

"Stupid fucking idiot," Maynard growled, but it wasn't clear who he meant. Wolf chose to believe he meant Czernowski. "This was the last thing we needed, Wolf. My people are not going to trust yours after this."

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"Did they truly trust us before?"

Maynard glanced away and ignored the question, which meant the answer was "no." "Which one of your people killed Czernowski?"

"
Sekasha
are exempt from all laws except the ones of their own making."

"So you're not going to tell me?"

"There is no need for you to know."

"What am I supposed to tell the police? Czernowski's family?"

"What is done is done and cannot be undone," Wolf said. "I have other problems to attend."

Maynard acknowledged the dismissal with a hard look but took himself away.

Ginger Wine intercepted Wolf in her front gardens, bowing low.

"What is wrong?"

Ginger Wine's face tightened and she glanced down the garden path. There were only her own
laedin
caste guards in sight. "These," she hissed in English, "conceited, pompous, arrogant Stone Clan pigs—that is what is wrong. I should have asked for four times my normal fee, instead of twice. The way they eat, you'd think they were hollow."

"I cannot do anything about arrogance and gluttony. Have they done anything wrong?"

She let out her breath in a long sigh, and then stood nudging a rock in the garden path. "It is just everything is—off; nothing seems right. Everyone is tripping over one another, plates are being dropped, laundry is being mislaid, and they eat and eat and eat." She looked pleadingly up to Wolf. "Everyone is frightened of them. We've lived so long with just you and your
sekasha
, I actually forgot how the world really is, what it is to live in fear."

"Do you want them out?"

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She looked away, chewing on her bottom lip. Finally she shook her head. "No. Things are not that bad—perhaps it will settle down after another day or two—once we grow used to them." She laid her hand on Wolf's arm. "Please,
domou
, get rid of these oni so we can go back to our comfortable life."

He patted her hand. "We will work hard to resolve this quickly."

Ginger Wine gave Wolf a tight smile. "Thank you. Please, let me show you to the dining room."

As they entered the elegant dining room, there was a crash from the far kitchens, followed by loud sobbing. Ginger Wine sighed, begged his pardon, and hurried off toward the kitchen. A large round table with six chairs stood in the center of the room. All the extra tables had been cleared away, leaving the space bare and echoing. While only five
domana
were attending, there would be fifteen
sekasha
and a server from each clan.

Wolf considered the sixth chair. Tinker should attend the meeting, but she was in no mental state to do so. He ordered a chair to be removed. Unfortunately, Jewel Tear arrived as the chair was being carried out.

"Your
domi
is not attending?" Jewel Tear managed to put malice into the innocent words.

"No." Wolf warned her with a look that he did not wish to discuss it further.

True Flame arrived with a shifting of the
sekasha
and a new contest of rank between them. "So this is where we will be?"

"Yes, Your Highness." Jewel Tear appropriated the role of hostess. She bowed low, displaying her charms to the prince.

True Flame recognized her with a slight cold nod. Wolf's cousin never had approved of Jewel Tear. It had been a source of bitterness between him and Wolf, even afterward, as it had been hard to acknowledge that his cousin had been right all along. Wolf could only hope that his decisions with Jewel Tear wouldn't now taint True Flame's opinion of Tinker.

True Flame glanced at the table and then to Wolf. "Five chairs?"

"My
domi
will not be able to attend." Wolf wished Jewel Tear weren't standing there, reminding True Flame of his bad choices in the past. "She is—" He found himself at a loss for words. What was Tinker?

"—not herself."

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"An interesting choice of words," Jewel Tear murmured.

Wolf ignored her.

Earth Son arrived with Forest Moss in tow. They made their bows to True Flame.

All parties gathered, they settled at the table to start the
aumani
, a formal meeting of clans.

Windwolf was sure that if they captured any oni and needed to torture information out of them, an
aumani
would be perfect for it. He sat across from Earth Son, studiously ignoring the servants as they laid out the elaborate table settings. Between the Skin Clan's love of elaborate power icons, and the thousands of years during which the clans had needed to conduct meetings in secrecy, elves had had the use of symbology beaten almost out of them. There had to be some deep buried need left in them that seeped out at times like this. How else explain the pure white table runner, the scattering of bloodred roses, the black ceramic place settings, and the glasses of sapphire blue? The lit candle. The smoking incense. The polished pebble. All the colors and the elements of three Clans were subtly present on the table.

They sat in reflective silence until the servers withdrew from the table. True Flame sipped his tea, opening the meeting. They drank, waiting for him to speak.

"So that we can all be of one mind," True Flame broke the silence, "Wolf Who Rules Wind, tell us our past."

Wolf recounted the last few weeks since the meeting of the three clans at Aum Renau. Knowing that he would lose face with True Flame for holding back information, he tried to be as thorough as possible in Tinker's kidnapping, Lord Tomtom's killing, and the discovery of Sparrow's treachery.

"And what of the Ghostlands?" Earth Son asked when Wolf came to an end. "Is your
domi's
gate still functioning?"

"Perhaps," Wolf admitted. "Something is keeping Turtle Creek unstable."

"Stupidity upon stupidity," Jewel Tear scoffed. "She shouldn't have built them a gate."

"I defy you," Windwolf said, "unarmed and captive of a ruthless enemy, to do better."

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"Defy, there's an interesting concept, indicating lack of cooperation," Earth Son said.

"Yes," Jewel Tear said. "I wouldn't have cooperated."

"She cooperated because it's now in her nature to be cooperative," Forest Moss said. "Wolf Who Rules remade her and blessed her with our mothers' curse—to be yielding. Why else would we need the
sekasha
to guard over us? We cannot stand against anything, especially our own nature. How can you, sitting there with never a moment of stark helpless fear in your lifes understand? Our mothers were bred to lie on their backs, spread their legs, and not whimper too loudly—unless their masters liked it when they screamed. If it wasn't for the steel of our fathers' ambition, we would be cattle in the field."

"You may count yourself one of the cattle, but I do not," Earth Son said.

"Yes, yes, let us not listen to the one that has been under the heated blade. No, he did not have his eyes forced open to the truth just before one was seared out," Forest Moss spat. "You cannot hope to understand what it is like. To lie there unable to move as they ready the tools of your destruction. The first time, oh, you can be so very brave because you don't know what is coming; everything in your imagination is just a pale shadow of the pain. It's the second time and the third, when you've been so well taught, that the very smell of hot metal makes your heart race. You see the torch only once, right before they strap you down, but the hiss of the gas flame haunts your nightmares for years to come. You lay there, listening to the invisible dance of their preparations, the scrape of boots, the rattle of the cutting blades in a metal tray, the creak of tightening leather restraints, and there's nothing, nothing you can do."

"She wasn't tortured," Earth Son pointed out.

"Clever female knew the truth," Forest Moss said. "The truth you're refusing to see."

"If she didn't do something the gate in orbit would remain functional," Windwolf reminded the others.

"The gate we couldn't shut down. Yes, the result poses a threat, but it is now in
our
realm, where
we
can deal with it ourselves."

"We will solve this problem you caused," Earth Son said. "Damn these humans and their gate."

"We can't blame this on them," Wolf said. "We elves went to Onihida and led the oni to Earth. If we hadn't done that, none of this would have happened."

He did not bother to point out that it was the Stone Clan who had gone to Onihida.

Earth Son countered it as if he had made the statement aloud. "The humans built the gate in orbit."

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Wolf shook his head. "The oni stranded on Earth used the humans to build the gate—and manipulated them to keep it functioning."

"Why are you defending them?" Earth Son snapped. "It's unlikely that they're all innocent in this."

"Yes, some might be guilty," Wolf allowed. "But not all of them."

Earth Son waved the truth away. "Bah, they're just as bad as the oni—breeding like mice."

"Fie, fie," Forest Moss whispered. "We were all blind beings even before the oni burned out our eyes.

Why should such arrogant fools as we listen to the warnings of the human natives? Of course the cave was a mystical place with mysterious goings and monstrous comings. What importance to us that humans were forever losing their way to other worlds and rarely coming back? What did it matter that we recognized nothing of ourselves in their stories?"

"Oh, please, shut him up," Jewel Tear hissed.

"Oh! Oh!" Forest Moss leapt to his feet and wailed, waving his hands over his head. "It's all so ugly! No, no, who cares if perchance we might learn something important? We must close our ears to this wailing of a madman!"

"Forest Moss!" True Flame snapped. "Sit!"

The male sat so abruptly that Wolf wondered if the outburst had been yet another example of Forest Moss using his reputation of being mad.

"Does anything he has to say have any relevance to what we need to do here?" Jewel Tear asked. "It seems to me that our task is simple. Do findings to track down the oni nests and burn them out. Instead we are sitting here constantly being distracted by the mad one's ramblings. By his own account, he was shortsighted in his venture. So he was caught and tortured—but all that hinges on one gross error; on the first moment of discovery, his party have fought their way clear and returned to the pathway."

"I had dealt with discovery by humans many times," Forest Moss said. "A show of power, a few trinkets, and we would be safe enough to pass on. How was I to know that the oni were monsters under the skin?"

"I'm trying to determine what the Stone Clan brings to the table," True Flame said. "And what they will come away with."

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Earth Son made an opening bid. "Since the Wind Clan is demonstrating that it cannot hold the Westernlands, we will take them over."

Wolf shook his head and begain to tick off his strong points. "We are providing access to the fire
esva
.

Without our assistance, you would have to deal with the oni and a dragon with only defensive spells."

"You can't withhold the fire
esva
the crown," Earth Son stated.

Was he being naïve, or clumsy in his attempt to undermine the Wind Clan's position?

"I did not suggest that." Wolf used small words. "I'm only pointing out that we are providing attack spells on two fronts, plus my four Hands, and ten enclaves. The Wind Clan can hold its own here—the same cannot be said of the Stone Clan."

"Yet you called for help."

"Because we did not know then—nor do we know now—the strength of the oni," Wolf stated. "We would rather give up some part of our holdings than give the oni a stronghold here."

"Which the crown sees as a strength, not a weakness," True Flame said. "We are limiting the amount awarded to Stone Clan. The area in question will be Pittsburgh and the surrounding land. Excluded will be the enclaves owned by the Wind Clan households."

"We want both virgin land and that from Earth," Earth Son said.

"And I want the
sekasha
, Galloping Storm Horse on Wind," Forest Moss said.

Startled silence went through the room.

"Never," Wolf snarled.

"If you release him, he can serve me," Moss pressed on.

"He looks to my
domi
," Wolf said. "He is her First. She also holds Singing Storm on Wind."

"That cross-caste mistake?" Moss made a sound of disgust. "Your
domi
can release Galloping Storm
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Horse and keep the mutt."

"She will not release him." Wolf was sure of this. "She loves him dearly. The oni captured him because they knew he would be an effective whipping boy for her. All that she did was to protect him."

"It is a simple thing—" Forest Moss started.

The two Stone Clan Firsts, Thorne Scratch and Tiger Eye, and True Flame's First, Red Knife, stepped forward to loom over their
domana
's shoulders. Wolf felt Wraith Arrow behind him, joining the other Firsts at the table.