Blood & Flowers (16 page)

I remembered her chorus line, how happy she'd seemed. Max singing. Tonio relaxed and working. All of us adjusting. And I found that I didn't want to be on familiar ground if it meant giving up our happiness and independence and that good little flutter in your stomach that came when you skipped into the unknown. It made me mad, this Major appearance.

I said, “He doesn't have a right to ruin our lives. Or to run our lives. And there's still that chance that he'll just keel over and die.”

“Hear, hear!” El Jeffery waved his arm in the air, which made Floss giggle.

“But even if he doesn't—oh, hell,” I said. “We didn't let Reginald ruin everything when we first came here, and he's been in the background all along. We just did what we do.”

“Even before, when we were doing
The Bastard and the Beauty
, we didn't let Major stop us,” Nicholas added. “At least not until he proved he was dangerous, and then we adjusted.”

“True. Right. Past experiences color the present,
but the colors aren't perfect. They can shade or tint,” Max said.

“Or wash away, like chalk in a rainstorm.” Lucia, looking more like Lucia, grinned, seeming pleased with her analogy.

Floss stood up, chattering her chair legs. “Persia's right. There's no point spending all your time fighting when you don't even know if you need to fight. I've got work to do.”

Tonio followed her, striding out of the room and saying, “You can only prepare if you know what to prepare for. I've got a play to build.”

Max smiled and followed Tonio. Nicholas laughed. “Now look what you've started, Persia. Puppet revolution.”

“Not me,” I protested. “It's been here ever since we came up with a solid idea for the Mr. Fox story. After all, that's a definite poke and prod. Very revolutionary.”

That made Lucia perk up. “We are the Outlaws, after all.” Then, as if everything was settled, she let her thinking take a right turn and said, “And Fred,
you did say something about actually understanding the inner workings of a slide rule, didn't you? Max is fretting about box office accounting.”

“I understand them. I just don't have one. But I think we can find Elbe. He's sure to have at least six different types, in various colors.” Fred swirled his yo-yo in the streams of sun, and it flashed the color of wet stones on the beach. Then he held out his hand. Lucia took it with a familiarity I hadn't seen before, and they walked together out of Dau Hermanos.

Nicholas watched them leave. “Nice,” he said. Then he reached in his turn for my hand and said, “So. You want to help with the faerielights? I seem to have lost my work partner.”

I snuggled my hand in his. Warm, long fingers with a tiny callus on his left hand, probably from all those hours of writing law briefs. Nice, indeed.

“I'll help,” I said, “if you'll help with the paint finishes on the posters. Fred was working on that, too.”

Bron chuckled. “Fred. He's more of an outlaw than he'd ever have you believe. Sometimes I think he's more subversive than Floss. It's just a different
kind of subversion. Much more indirect.” He glanced after Floss with a fond expression and added, “Floss is so in-your-face. I like that.” He nodded. “I think she might need help with that blue dog.”

“Go, go.” Rohan shooed him away. “I'll call you when the rush starts.”

Nicholas and I followed Bron. Pairs, I thought, pleased. Bron and Floss. Fred and Lucia. Max and Tonio. Nicholas and me. Nice. And to hell with Major.

“It must be all that residual magic Floss talked about. She said it could energize. Everything seems fine right now,” I said.

Nicholas squeezed my hand and kissed the top of my left ear. I cuddled into him and dropped my hand in his back pants pocket. Muscles moved when he walked, like words linking together into pieces of poetry. He glanced down at me and grinned. “I like that,” he said. “You should put your hand on my butt more often.”

I laughed, but he just kept walking and talking. “I agree with you, though. Everything feels fine. I know Major's here, but what can he do? Even with
Reginald, he can't have the power he had at home. This is Faerie, after all. He's out of his element. Reginald's been an unpleasant thought, but not dangerous and not even around except for that one time. Major hasn't announced himself.” He shrugged. “We'll be fine, right?”

“Of course,” I said. “Why not?”

R
emember this, I was thinking to myself. If something happens, if everything else goes south, remember this.

It was a night cool enough to wear sweatshirts and warm enough to sit outside, which is exactly what Nicholas and I were doing. The breeze was light. The stars were out, and in Faerie that's a sight beyond compare. I saw more stars that night than I'd seen in all my years added together. And there were twilight fireflies blinking secret messages to one another that added even more atmosphere.

“Wish I knew what they were saying.”

“That's easy,” Nicholas said. “They're saying, ‘I'm
here. I'm one of a kind. I'm beautiful.' Like what you say, Persia.”

I sat up straight and stared at him through the darkness. “What are you talking about? I don't say anything like that at all.”

He swung an arm around my shoulders. When he talked I could feel his breath on my hair. “There's a uniqueness to you that just comes through. It's in the way you talk, the words you choose, the way your right foot makes a little curve when you walk. It's the clothes you wear and the jewelry you don't. It all adds up and makes a neat little Persia package that's just…” He paused and pulled back just a bit. “…just you.” He kissed me then, a lovely, long kiss. Practice makes perfect. When we stopped he added, “I like it.”

I was breathless and I felt as floaty as one of Floss's pink clouds. But he had everything upside down. “You've got it all wrong,” I whispered. “You're the firefly one. There's not one thing special about me.”

“You don't think so?”

I shook my head.

“That makes you even better.”

I blew out a puff of air and said, “I'm glad you like it, anyway. Like me.” I felt shy now, because it's always hard to talk about honest, serious things. But I did it anyway when I added, “Really glad. Which sounds inadequate and juvenile, and that's not at all how I feel.”

It was a good thing that it was dark. It's easier to talk in the dark. Nicholas apparently thought so too. “Maybe we should try something like that kiss again. You know, just to make absolutely sure we're compatible,” he said.

I pulled back after several long minutes where there seemed to be nothing in my head but happiness and tried to see his face in the firefly light. I couldn't see much. The fireflies were too busy with their own lives to shine much light on mine. But that was okay. I didn't really need to see. I could feel. And what I felt was warm and solid and true.

“At some point,” I said carefully, “would you be interested in taking this…further?”

He smiled. Even in the dim light I could tell that.
“I would be”—he kissed my nose—“very interested. Do you suppose we can find a quiet place and a free bit of time?”

I considered what I knew about Faerie and quiet, secret spaces while I tucked myself in under Nicholas's arm. I pulled that arm around me, wrapped myself in it like a cloak of warmth and power. And I said, “Fred and Bron probably know lots of cozy, empty spaces where—”

As if we'd summoned him. Fred interrupted me by saying, “Sorry to interrupt.” He came out of the night surrounded by fireflies glowing like hundreds of tiny lanterns. “Thank you,” he said to them, and the fireflies bobbed air curtsies and flew away. Fred stopped in front of Nicholas and me. He stopped, and suddenly the night felt airless and tinged with menace. He dropped onto the bench next to me and said, “I'll just sit, if you don't mind.” His voice was as flat and thin as the air, and the bench shook when he landed.

Nicholas shifted and peered around me. “What's up?”

Fred took a deep breath. “If I say treachery at the
crossroads, would you believe me?”

“I'd get the idea, I think,” Nicholas said, “but I'd have to ask you to be a little more specific.”

I could feel Fred lean his head against the wall of Dau Hermanos. It was a hard lean. “How do you suppose factions come together?”

“There are factions?” I asked while Nicholas said, “Is this rhetorical?”

Fred answered him, not me. “Not rhetorical at all. How does one decide who to align with, after all?”

“Same ideas, same plans, same desired end,” I suggested.

“I suppose.” Fred sighed. “I was at home, you know. Just at that place where Floss says she'll never go again and with some very good reasons. I was at home. El Jeffery and I were working on a drum piece he wants to use because he's convinced he's to be in the play.”

“He is,” I confirmed. “Lucia wants him to sing, as well.”

Fred's head shake was just visible. “Don't let him. He's never been able to sing.”

“He's in the band, right?”

“Drums, Persia, only drums. He's definitely not solo singing material.”

“I think she meant backup,” Nicholas said, “but never mind. You were working on a drum piece and…?”

“We were in the storage areas because he insisted he had to ride while playing. For verisimilitude. We were making quite a racket, so when we stopped, all the sounds we'd been covering up were magnified. And even though Reginald walks very softly for a troll, he still makes noise.”

“Reginald?” Nicholas sounded both unhappy and disapproving.

“He apparently has much better relations with my parents than my sister has. Perhaps good relations with my brother, as well. At least, he didn't look scared or cowed on his way to the manor.”

“Reginald is visiting your house?”

“Was he alone?” I added.

“Yes, he was visiting my house. Yes, he was alone. Yes to both is better than yes and no, but no to both would be better still.”

I was angry with this news from Fred. It showed when I said, “Why does it feel like everyone around here speaks in riddles?”

“Do we?” It was almost an abstract question. Fred shifted on the bench. “I suppose it's just our way.”

“It makes things that much harder, you know,” I said.

Nicholas ignored me and cut to the important part. “Do we need a war council?”

“We at least need to let the others know that something's going on,” said Fred.

I sighed a deep, heavy sigh. I stood up, and I held on to Nicholas's hand while I did it. “Life is just full of ups and downs, isn't it?” I pulled the memory of earlier in the evening a little closer, like a talisman.

Nicholas tightened his grip on my fingers. “Sure it is. We just need to keep the ups higher up, so to speak.”

“Yes. Let's try that,” Fred said, but he didn't sound very hopeful.

It was late enough that most of the Dau Hermanos customers were gone, and those that remained were
sitting at the bar, paying no attention to us. Nicholas went to gather the rest of the Outlaws while Fred told Bron and Rohan what he'd seen. I stood at a table large enough for all of us, shoving chairs in and pulling them out again while I tried to pretend that I was doing something useful. It was both too late and too soon when everyone else began to drift into the room.

Floss looked like daggers were sprouting from her shoulder. Lucia looked sad. Tonio and Max were enigmatic—I couldn't read them at all. Bron sat next to Fred and didn't say a thing until Rohan brought a jug of sangria to the table, accompanied by dried currents and tiny shortbreads. Even then, all Bron said was “Thank you,” and he sounded like he was pushing a remote to make the words.

El Jeffery shoved through the door and squished in next to Lucia. “Reginald just left. He's headed toward home. And yes,” he said as he looked at Fred, “he's still alone. And no, I didn't see anyone walking him to the gate. Like your brother or your mother, for example. Or your father.”

Fred shook his head. “Father would be the least
likely of anyone to walk to the gate with him. He does have
some
standards.”

“If he'd just exercise them every now and then…,” Floss muttered, and she left the sentence unfinished.

Silence. Then Tonio said, “I don't think I like the idea of Reginald having little chats with the ruling family.” I considered this to be a grand understatement.

Floss tapped her nails in staccato on the table. She said, “I am so thoroughly tired of other people interfering in my life.” She glanced around the table and corrected herself. “In our lives.”

“Maybe he was delivering a gift. A fruit basket, a bouquet,” said Max, and to my surprise Tonio laughed.

Even I smiled. “The image of that is so surreal. I kind of like it.”

“Glad to help,” Max said.

Fred took a gulp of sangria and said, “I didn't even know he knew our family.”

“He may not.” I tried the idea to see how it sounded in the open air. “This may be the first time he's ever been there. You know, subject visiting ruler…”

Floss glared at me. “No, Persia. Nice try, but no. If he's going somewhere this late, he has business at the destination.”

I tried again. “But—”

“I said no.” Floss's voice was mild. “Trolls always prefer daylight. They think that if people can really see them it makes them scarier.”

“They might be right,” I half whispered.

El Jeffery ignored us both. “He looked pleased with himself.”

“Has anyone heard more about Major?” Tonio asked. He wasn't, I was happy to see, the Tonio of the days before we'd walked out the back of the chocolate factory. He was the old Tonio, the one who knew just who he was and what he wanted. “Because if Reginald is his shill—and in a pairing of those two I can't imagine things going any other way—then he's really only the errand boy.”

“I can't believe that Reginald runs the thing, whatever the thing is,” Bron agreed.

Lucia said, “Maybe there is no thing.” She looked at Fred, hope in her eyes, but he just patted her hand.
“Brave but delusional, I think,” he said, and he gave her a glass of wine. Lucia breathed out a lengthy breath, sank back into her chair, and took a long drink.

“I can ask around,” Fred went on, “but I think if your Major's involved…”

“And in spite of the fruit basket comment, I'm sure he is,” Max said with a sigh.

Fred nodded. “Is it better to just go and ask him?”

“Catch the lion in his lair?” I asked.

“If Major's involved, he's not running things,” Floss said flatly. “We can ask him all we want, but he's not the one in charge. Not here. He might be running Reginald, but he's not running anything else. It's much more likely, if the family's involved, to be either our mother or our brother.”

Fred sighed and beat a tattoo on the table with his fingertips.

“You don't agree?” Floss asked him.

Fred looked surprised. “Of course I agree.”

Floss looked pointedly at his fingers, still tapping the table.

He half smiled. “Nerves, not disagreement,” he said.

Max sighed, and a piece of paper fluttered down in front of him as if he'd asked for it. Max looked at it, inches from his fingertips, and he didn't move at all. It was Tonio who picked the thing up and unwound its complicated, origami-like folds.

Tonio read, and the rest of us sat and watched until Max said, sotto voce, “I hate to say this, but he has more of a sense of style than I've given him credit for.”

“Who?” I whispered.

“Major. Or whoever he's playing with. It's got to have something to do with him. The timing is just too perfect. This is really quite good theater.”

Floss snorted. “So someone floated a letter. Anyone can float a letter.”

“Um, no Floss, they can't,” Nicholas said.

Floss snorted again, and Max said, “The float was the least of it, I think.”

Tonio looked up. “Major seems to be feeling better. His emissary”—tiny finger quotes—“has met with Floss and Fred's family. Major believes that the Outlaws have entered Faerie illegally….”

“There's a legal way to get here?” asked Nicholas.
“That's interesting.” He turned to Fred. “Is that true? Did we need passports or something?”

Fred's snort sounded exactly like his sister's. “If you're not fey, you get here any way you can. There's no legality involved. Either you make it or you don't.”

“So he's building a false case.”

Tonio coughed. “May I continue? There's more. Perhaps before we debate legal and illegal you'd like to hear the whole thing?”

“Of course we would,” Max said, and he rubbed Tonio's shoulder.

Tonio nodded. “…have entered Faerie illegally. Rather than forcibly ejecting us the royal family will allow us to perform for them. The worthiness of our show will be the determining factor on whether we're allowed to stay. Conversely, if we don't meet expectations, we'll be banished from Faerie forever.” Here he let his gaze brush Floss, Fred, and El Jeffery. “All of us, banished forever.”

The implications were transparent. Floss, at the very least, could lose any chance of ever returning again to the land of her birth. And if the rest of us
were tossed away, Major could follow us back home and start the whole mess all over again. Banishment here. Who-knew-what waiting for us there. Major very possibly able to bounce over to either side. Sort of the rock-and-the-hard-place scenario.

“Who writes his dialogue?” I sounded peevish because I was scared. “‘Banished forever.' If we did a play that sounded that stilted, we'd deserve to be booed off the stage.”

Floss cast her scowl in my direction. “True, Persia, but not even one tiny bit helpful.”

I shrugged. “I'm just saying.”

“I don't think the dialogue's the important part.” Tonio looked at Floss and said, “After everything you've told me about your home, I have a hard time believing your family will rave about puppets. I think they'll be even less excited about puppet karaoke that seems to be criticizing their rule.”