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"Forget the egotistical she-snake," Stormsong said. "You have pressing duties here. Her problems are not your concern."

"But why then, do things keep turning up? Like the pearl necklace, the black willow, and Reinholds? The dreams relate to me and my world, somehow. Don't they?"

Tinker saw a troubled look spread across Stormsong's face before the
sekasha
turned away, hiding her unease.

"Oh, don't do that!" Tinker picked up the morning's newspaper, still tightly folded in its bag, and aimed a smack at Stormsong's back.

Stormsong caught the newspaper before it connected and gave her a hard look.

"I need help here." Tinker jerked the newspaper free. "This is part of the whole working together. I need
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to know what you know about dreaming."

Stormsong sighed. "That is a wound I don't like to dig into. Everyone assumed that my mother had some great vision when she conceived me—and no one invested more in that myth than I did. But I did not have the talent or the patience for it. I was too much my father. I like solving problems with a sword. And I don't like feeling like I'm failing you."

Tinker fussed with getting the newspaper out of its bag so she didn't have to face Stormsong's pain.

"You're not failing me."

Speaking of failing someone, the newspaper's headline was "Policeman Slain."

Nathan's body was draped with a white cloth in the island of light on the black river of night highway.

Nathan Czernowski, age 28, found beheaded on Ohio River Boulevard.
She stood there clutching the newspaper as faintness swept through her. How could seeing it in print make it more real than seeing his body lying in front of her?

Stormsong continued, "As you're finding out the hard way, dreamers can join for a gestalt effect, but unless they share
nuenae
, the resulting dream is conflicted."

Tinker pulled her attention away from the newspaper. "What?"

"Dreams are maps for the future." Stormsong held out her right hand. "If the dreamers share
nuenae
—"

Stormsong pressed her hands, matching up the fingers. "Then the two maps overlaid remain easy to understand. But if the dreamers don't share
nuenae
—" Stormsong shifted her hands so her fingers crosshatched. "There is a conflict. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to tell which element belongs to which
nuenae
. The pearl necklace was from your
nuenae
.
The Wizard of Oz
, is from your mother's."

"
Nuenae
being . . .?"

Stormsong pursed her lips. "
Nuenae
reflects goals and desires. Among elves, it is one's clan and household. I'm not sure humans can share
nuenae
like elves can. Humans are more—self-centered."

The newspaper screamed at how self-centered Tinker had been.

"So, Esme, Black, and I are operating at cross-purposes." Tinker folded the accusing headline away and went to stuff it in the recycling bin. "And my dreams may or may not have anything to do with helping with the mess we're in."

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"Yes, there is no telling. At least, I can't, not with my abilities. Wolf has sent for help from my mother's people. They might be able to determine something since they share our foci in regards to the oni."

"Whereas my mother could care less."

"Exactly."

As Tinker dropped the paper into the recycling bin, the top newspaper caught her eye. The headline read: "Viceroy's Guard Kill Three Snipers, Gossamer Slain." She lifted out the paper.

When did this happen?

The paper was dated Tuesday. Tuesday? Wasn't she awake on Tuesday? Yes, she was—she had spent Tuesday at Reinholds—why hadn't anyone told her? The paper also reported that the EIA had declared martial law, that the treaty had been temporarily extended until Sunday, and the elves had plans to screen everyone living in Chinatown. How had she missed all this? She dug through the pile of papers, uncovering growing chaos that she had been oblivious to. Wednesday's paper had stories on the lockdown of the city by the royal elfin troops, a wave of arrests of suspected human sympathizers, the execution of more disguised oni, and the start of a rationing system as fears of the Pittsburgh dollar collapsing triggered massive stockpiling. Above the headline was an extra banner proclaiming, "Four Days to Treaty End."

Four days? Was that today?

The other unread paper was dated Friday. She had lost at least a day to drugged sleep. The top banner read, "Two Days to Treaty End." The Pittsburgh police had called a "blue flu" strike when the EIA closed Nathan's murder case.

Oh, gods, what a mess.

"What day is this?" she asked Stormsong. "Did I sleep through Saturday too?"

"It is Friday," Stormsong said.

"
Domi
," Pony said from the door. "It is the lone one."

Lone one?

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The
sekasha
escorted in Tooloo, who must have walked up the hill from her store. Tinker stared at her with new eyes. Not that the female had changed; Tooloo was as she had always been Tinker's entire life.

There were no new creases in the face full of wrinkles. Her silver hair still reached her ankles. Tinker even recognized her faded, purple silk gown and battered high-top tennis shoes—Tooloo had been wearing them when Tinker and Pony helped her milk her cows two months ago.

Only now Tinker realized how odd it was for an elf in a world of elves to live alone. What clan and caste had she been born into? Why wasn't she part of a household? Was it because she was a half-elf? If she was half human, born and raised on Earth, how could she be so fluent in High Elvish, and know all things arcane? If she was a full-blooded elf, trapped on Earth when the pathways were dismantled, why hadn't she gone back to her people? Three centuries was a short time for elves.

Tinker doubted if Tooloo would tell her if she asked. Tooloo had always refused to be known. She went by an obvious nickname, neither human nor elfin in origin. Not once, in the eighteen years that Tinker had known her, had she ever mentioned her parents. She would not commit to an age, the length of time she had lived on Earth, or even a favorite color.

Tooloo squirmed in Cloudwalker's hold. "Oh, you murderous little thing! You had to satisfy that little monkey brain of yours. I told you, starve the beast called curiosity—but nooo, you had to play with Czernowski and now you've killed him."

Tinker felt sad as she realized she'd lost yet another part of her life. "I didn't mean for Nathan to get killed."

"Oh, you didn't mean to! Do you think those threadbare words will heal his family, grieving over his headless body?"

"I'm sorry it happened." Tinker swallowed down on the pain that the words caused her. "I—I wasn't paying attention when I should have been—and I'm so sorry—but there's nothing I can do. I was wrong.

I should have listened to you from the very start—but I didn't see where all this was going to lead."

"
Pawgh
, this is all Windwolf's fault—killing my bright wee human and making a dirty Skin Clan scumbag in her image." Tooloo spat.

"This has nothing to do with Windwolf making me an elf."

"Does it? My wee one never had such superciliousness of power."

"Supercil-
whatis?
"

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Tooloo glanced at Pony standing behind Tinker. "Giving you
sekasha
is like giving an elephant rollerskates—stupid, ridiculous, and dangerous."

Tooloo could say what she wanted about her, but now she was going too far to include the
sekasha
too.

"Yes, I killed Nathan," Tinker said, "but I'm not the only one to blame. I'm a stupid clueless little girl, but you've lived with humans for over two hundred years—you knew exactly how Nathan would react if—"

And then it dawned on Tinker and she gasped with horror. "Oh sweet gods, you wanted him to think I was a whore! You deliberately misled him! You evil she-goat!"

Tooloo slapped her hard across the face, enough to make stars dance in her vision.

Tinker heard the
sekasha
draw their blades and threw out her hands to keep Nathan's death from repeating. "No! No! Don't you dare hurt her!" Once she was sure that she was obeyed, she turned back to the stranger who raised her. "Why? Why did you do that to Nathan? You had to see it coming!"

"Because nothing else would have slapped you out of wallowing in your own piss. The city is about to run with blood unless you do something. Czernowski was the sacrificial lamb to save this city."

"I was trying to! I don't know how!"

"Use that little monkey brain of yours! The elves are about to march all over this city with jackboots. I've lived with humans for hundreds of years. They are good, compassionate people. I lived through the America's Revolutionary War, its Civil War, the fight for women's suffrage, and the struggle for civil rights—and all those advancements for equality among humans are about to be flushed down the crapper. It's already started—they're searching through Chinatown, dragging people out of their homes, and testing them and killing them where they stand."

Tinker glanced to Stormsong since the rant had been in English. Stormsong nodded in confirmation.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"You've been too fragile."

She couldn't trust Tooloo's version of this; the "lone one" kept whatever truths she had to herself. Nor, as much as she loved them, could she count on the elves in her life to understand what it was to be human. Tinker gathered up the newspapers; she needed their human-biased facts. And Maynard—she needed to talk to Maynard.

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Red was becoming a predominant color in Pittsburgh, like an early autumn. They encountered four roadblocks on the way to the EIA offices, all manned by
laedin
caste Fire Clan soldiers.

"If True Flame has this many warriors, why do we need the Stone Clan?" Tinker had let Pony drive, but she hung over the front seat to talk to him and Stormsong. The backseat was crowded with the other three
sekasha
.

"Stone Clan magic can find individuals in a wilderness and things hidden in the ground," Pony told her.

"It's like calling in bloodhounds," Stormsong said in English.

Tinker remembered the sonarlike spell that Jewel Tear had used. Yes, that should make finding the oni hidden in the forest easier. She wondered how the Stone Clan would fare, though, in the steel-riddled city.

"And if you cannot solve the problem with the Ghostlands," Cloudwalker added. "They should be able to. They closed the natural pathways after the first invasion."

Stormsong made a rude noise. "There is a difference between collapsing caves and dealing with whatever is wrong with the Ghostlands."

"The Ghostlands should collapse on their own." Tinker was growing less sure of that—she would have expected the rate of decay to be faster. This morning marked the fourth day since she had reduced Turtle Creek to chaos. Now there was something not everyone could claim: I reduced a square mile of land into pure chaos. It made her sound like a small atomic warhead—"someone dropped a Tinker on us!"

The EIA offices directed her back across the Allegheny River to Chinatown. There she found Maynard overseeing the testing of the Chinese population. A mix of
laedin
caste soldiers and Wyverns were systematically emptying a house, putting the occupants into a line to be tested by the EIA. As she approached, it became clear that the process was hampered by the fact that most of the elves and many of the Chinese didn't speak English. East Ohio Street was a cacophony of shouted instructions, crying, and pleading. The coroner van—identified by bold letters—stood at the far end of the street. Blood scented the hot summer air. And for one dizzy moment, she was back on Ohio River Boulevard, splattered with Nathan's blood.

"
Domi
, are you all right?" Pony murmured into her ear as he supported her by the arm. He'd activated his shields at some point and they now spilled down over her.

She nodded and pulled out of his hold.

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"It is clear!" One of the Wyverns came out of a nearby building shouting in High Elvish.

There was a pulse of magic, and she
felt
the house, from the pipes underneath it to the tip of the chimneys. There wasn't anyone inside. Apparently that was the point. On some unheard command, the Wyverns moved down to the next building. Annoyingly, because of her height, Tinker couldn't see through the crowd to spot the Stone Clan
domana
directing the search.

"Is Jewel Tear here?" she asked Stormsong, who could see over the heads of most of the humans.

Stormsong shook her head. "It is the mad one, Forest Moss."

"Oh, joy," Tinker muttered. "Where is Maynard?"

"This way." Stormsong started forward.

Tinker thought they would have to push their way through the crowd, but as they approached the humans and elves, the crowd parted as if shoved by an invisible wedge. In the human faces there was a mix of fear and hope. They wanted her to be one of them but were afraid she was wholly an elf.

The crowd was avoiding a section of sidewalk. As Tinker drew even with it, she saw that it was covered with congealing blood, thick with black flies. As the
sekasha
brushed past, some of the flies rose in fat, heavy buzzing. The rest continued to feed.

"I want this to stop," Tinker whispered to Stormsong, dreading her answer.