Elves Invasion

51

“It’s okay,” Ava said, interrupting the anxious tirade. “Let him in.”

Gavin blinked his wide blue eyes. “Okay. But if he ends up disturbing you, you’ll tell Lord Fall that I was against it, won’t you?”

Ava suppressed a laugh. “I’ll tell him.” Gavin breathed in relief and rushed off.

“What did Windyard do to that poor kid?” Una asked, shaking her head.

“It’s not just Gavin. Everyone here is afraid of him,” Juliet said.

“It’s not fear,” Ava said, wishing she felt less for Windyard than she did. “It’s respect.”

Breakfast entered the room with a pale and grubby young man who had the lanky arms and legs of a recent growth spurt. Ava stared blankly at him until he smiled at her, and she recognized him as the boy from the Providence subway tunnels.

“Riley?” she said disbelievingly.

“Hello, Lady Witch,” he said, breaking into a brazen grin. “Sorry to see you’re laid up again.”

“Occupational hazard,” Ava mumbled and turned to Breakfast. “What the heck is going on?”

Breakfast and Riley sat down at the tea table and started digging into the cold cuts of meat and wedges of cheese that Ava had no intention of eating.

“I first got the idea when we were talking about how hard it was going to be to get Lillian and Alaric to work together,” Breakfast said as he spread mustard on a piece of black bread. “I thought then we were still going to need more fighters than that. It’s an all-hands-on-deck situation, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And, let’s face it, if anyone needs land and a new place to live besides the Outlanders, it’s Riley’s people.”

“We’d be willing to fight for it,” Riley said with fire in his eyes. “My dad—all the men on the ranches—they aren’t afraid to fight the Woven. They live out there with them anyways, and at least if we were to go west, we might actually have a shot at having our own homes for a change.”

Ava held up a hand and addressed Breakfast. “How much did you tell him?”

Riley and Breakfast shared a look. “Everyone knows that Bower City is out there already,” Breakfast said.

“You can’t move an army west without someone finding out why,” Riley said. “Especially not someone with my connections.”

Ava suppressed a smile at the young man’s bluster. “Yes, but how much did you tell him about me and Lillian?” Ava asked.

“Oh, he told me there are two of you,” Riley said around a mouthful of cheese and fig jam.

“And that doesn’t strike you as strange?” Juliet asked.

Riley shrugged, his mouth still full. “Witches are weird,” he said, like that explained everything.

But he was young. Ava didn’t think that explanation would suit the hardened men on the ranches or the women Ava had met in the tunnels. Thinking of them, she sat back and shook her head, engaging Breakfast in mindspeak.

You should have asked me before you did this, she said.

I knew you’d say no if I did, he replied. You have something against the tunnel people and the men on the ranches.

Surprised, Ava weighed his assessment and found it to be true. She hadn’t liked Mary, the leader of the tunnel people in Providence, and the memories Lillian had shared with her about the men on the ranches still haunted her. Ava switched out of mindspeak to keep the nightmarish memories of those vicious men from seeping out of her thoughts and into Breakfast’s.

“It doesn’t matter what I think of them,” Ava said dismissively. “I can’t use them because they aren’t my claimed. They wouldn’t stand a chance against the Hive.”

“We’d let you claim us,” Riley said.

“And you speak for everyone?” Ava snapped. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you, Riley. You aren’t in charge down there.”

“No, but I know how my people feel. I know they want to fight,” he said stubbornly. “And I can bring Mary if you’d rather talk to her.”

Ava opened her mouth to decline, and Juliet spoke up. “The least you can do is meet with her,” she said.

“It’s a waste of time,” Ava argued.

“We need all the help we can get,” Una said, studying Ava carefully. Una switched to mindspeak.

What’s wrong with you?

One of Lillian’s memories flew from her mind to Una’s.

. . . I struggle and kick, but they pin me down with the noose poles. Even from five feet away I can smell the corruption of their innards in the stink of their breath. They leer at me, trying to push the bodice of my torn dress aside to get a glimpse of my bare breasts . . .

Una recoiled, shaken by the terror and helplessness that Lillian had felt.

Those are the kind of men out there on the ranches, Una. Murderers and rapists, Ava said in mindspeak. I have no interest in claiming them.

They can’t all be like that, Una replied, more out of optimism than true belief.

“And what if they are?” Ava asked aloud.

Una gave her a calculating look. “What are you willing to do to get rid of the Hive?” she asked flatly. “You better decide now, because I’m pretty sure Grace isn’t squeamish about who she’d claim.”

Ava glared at Una, and saw tough love glaring back. Una never let her get away with anything.

“Damn it,” Ava breathed. She turned to Riley. “Arrange a meeting with Mary, but tell her not to come if she’s just going to waste my time. I’m not doing this unless she can bring me an army.”

“I’ll tell her,” he said with a brisk nod. His horse-trading done, Riley looked down on the remains of her bread. “Are you going to eat that?”

Ava ended up having to order Gavin to bring more food. Riley ate with the mechanical determination of someone who had spent more days of his young life going hungry than feeling full, and he wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity to gorge until he couldn’t see straight. When his gargantuan appetite was finally appeased, Ava sent him back to the tunnels with a basket of food for Pip and the other children who followed him around like the Pied Piper.