Wood Sprites

“It seems more like Frankenstein’s castle than Dracula’s.” Louise paced the room full of steampunk furniture that could easily pass as the set to the legendary horror movie. The one filmed in black and white with Boris Karloff as the monster. The images were combining weirdly in her dreams: Edmond in a white lab coat, making little Anna-Bride monsters. Instead of two eyes, the miniature Annas had only one in the center of their foreheads.

“This place is full of them!” Jillian meant the hidden elves. “Haven’t you noticed? All tall and pale and beautiful and sparkling.”

Louise had counted two dozen secret elves moving quietly through the mansion, all of them looking like Paris models. She found a spyglass on Esme’s crowded bookcases. She used it to furtively study the estate’s extensive grounds from the windows of Lain’s empty bedroom. Entire herds of elf gardeners took care of the pristine gardens while armed guards patrolled the shadows. She’d been making lists of names and habits. She hadn’t thought Jillian had noticed the elves; all of Louise’s careful spying missions had been alone. Nor had she thought it wise to actually tell her twin how outnumbered they were. It was comforting, though, to know that Jillian wasn’t being as completely oblivious to her surroundings as she seemed. “I don’t think Dracula sparkled.”

“Ming does.”

After thinking of the male as Ming the Merciless for so long, it was nearly impossible to refer to him as “Edmond,” especially knowing that wasn’t his real name either.

Jillian rolled to peer down over the edge of the loft bed. “What does Anna see in him?”

Louise had been wondering herself. At breakfast, there was never a hint of warmth between the two. “I’m not sure if she loves him, or if she only likes that he gives her everything she wants. She likes being rich. Think about it: she comes to the breakfast table all made up even when she’s not going out. Mom always said she was a perfectionist. It’s like she defines her worth on being flawless. His money lets her be as perfect as she wants.”

“But what does he get out of it? She’s old, and he’s got all these beautiful secret elves.”

“He married her to make her loyal. He let her have his children so they would have common bonds. But I think that’s also why he won’t let Tristan stay here — she stops thinking about ‘the family’ as some nebulous whole and starts to think of only Tristan as an individual.”

“Why would it matter?”

“Because what Tristan wants isn’t the same as his father. Not deep down inside.”

Jillian retreated, and silence came from overhead for a long time.

They needed to come up with a plan to get them out of this mess. At first Louise didn’t ask Jillian what she thought they should do, because Louise had promised Aunt Kitty that they would be good. It was becoming obvious that Aunt Kitty wasn’t going to win custody of the twins. A small mountain of belongings arrived from their house without a promised visit. Jillian crumbled into a crying heap within minutes, leaving Louise to deal with the painful treasures.

Someday Louise would want it all; every little fragment of her parents that she could cling to. Each box, though, was filled with almost too much pain for her to bear. Even their toys were unexpected landmines of hurt. She culled out the things they could not live without — all their various printers, the tools they’d adapted to spell-casting, and their video-production equipment. The rest she stacked into the back of the bedroom’s big walk-in closet. She would deal with it later. Somehow.

She had to stay focused on what was important: protecting Joy and the babies.

She’d been sure Jillian would have a plan; asking would only start them barreling toward breaking her vow. Now she was afraid that Jillian didn’t have a plan.

They had to do something. Joy had plowed through the food that Louise had stolen from the kitchen, and it was nearly gone. Every time that Louise had tried to bring food back from breakfast or lunch, Anna caught her. Sooner or later, hunger would drive Joy out into the open.

Humans might believe that Joy was some kind of exotic lizard. Even if humans understood what Joy truly was, they probably wouldn’t be able to hurt the baby dragon. At least, not while she had access to magic. But Edmond was an elf. He might be the very person that had trapped Joy in the nactka. Of all the treasures found on Earth, the only one that Yves truly wanted was the box with the eleven other baby dragons. What had the secret elves planned to do with them?