Wood Sprites

In Hamlet, the King of Denmark was killed by Claudius, who then married Queen Gertrude and became Hamlet’s stepfather. Esme had labeled Anna’s photo as Queen Gertrude. If the roles continued to pair up, then Ming was the king’s murderer. Esme must have believed that Ming had killed Neil Shenske so he could marry Anna.

Louise flipped through the clippings. They were all on the shooting. Three people had been killed and five more wounded when a lone shooter opened fired at a high school science fair. In an age before cell phones, the person had evaded the handful of surveillance cameras on the school grounds. Witnesses stated that the shooter was tall and slender, but that was the end of the agreement. Follow-up stories spoke of candlelight vigils and angst-filled funerals, but there was never more evidence that led to a killer.

“Joy!” Jillian cried from the other side of the narrow room. “Oh, oh, don’t get that on the paper!”

Louise glanced up and groaned. Empty glow sticks lay on the floor, snapped in two after being activated. There were little gleaming paw prints all over the shelves and walls. Joy perched on Jillian’s shoulder, holding on to her hair while trying to finger-paint on the paper that Jillian was studying.

“No, no, this may be important.” Jillian tried to hold the paper farther away from the baby dragon. “Here, let me find something else.”

“What is it?” Louise quickly tucked away the box of newspaper clippings. Jillian probably would see Neil’s murder as proof that Ming had killed their parents. The possibility still rocked Louise, but like Esme she’d found no evidence. At least not yet. Jillian couldn’t take another hit. Until Louise found something more than a niggling fear, she couldn’t let Jillian know.

“Esme has dozens of maps of caves.” Jillian held up a blank sheet of paper for Joy to finger-paint. “Here, play with this instead. If Esme was just into spelunking, I don’t think she’d have the maps in here. I think they’re important.”

Louise eyed the crowded shelves of the long, tall, secret room. It was going to take them days to dig through it. In a few hours, though, Shutdown would start. “We should go to bed early. We’re going to get up at midnight and try to reach Orville.”

* * *

At first, every attempt to dial through to their cousin resulted in “All circuits are busy, please try again later.” At six in the morning, the phone clicked and Orville’s voice mail picked up on the first ring. “Hi, I’m not on Earth with the rest of Pittsburgh. I got permission from the EIA to ride out Shutdown at one of the enclaves. I got this feeling Tinker might come back from Aum Renau, find everyone had gone to Earth without her and just freak. You know the drill; I’ll be back after Startup.”

Louise stared at her phone. “What is Alexander doing at Aum Renau?”

“Where is Aum Renau?” Nikola asked.

“It’s Windwolf’s palace on the Palisades.” Louise pointed east out of habit. She winced as she remembered the Desmarais mansion was very near to the cliffs. “Aum Renau is hundreds of miles from Pittsburgh. But the only humans that are allowed beyond the city limits are a handful of biologists and the railroad employees.”

The railroad didn’t lead the entire way to the Elfhome equivalent of the Hudson River but instead stopped at an elf settlement roughly in the same location as Philadelphia. There the cargo was off-loaded to ships that would travel downriver to the Delaware Bay and across the Western Ocean to the Easternlands. Humans only knew of the palace by name; no one had ever actually visited it. How did Alexander even get to Aum Renau?

Nikola tilted his head back and forth as he searched out data. “Oh, she’s married Windwolf.”

“What?” both the twins cried.

Nikola read the news story aloud. “Derek Maynard, director of the EIA, has issued a statement saying that Tinker has agreed to become the viceroy’s domi. She should now be considered his wife and vicereine of the Westernlands. She is now the joint head of the Wind Clan in Pittsburgh.”

“You’re kidding!” Jillian cried.

Nikola shrank back, ears dropping. “No. Windwolf had been summoned to Aum Renau to meet with Queen Soulful Ember. His gossamer returned with a Hand of Wyverns for Tinker; the queen wanted to meet the new vicereine.”

Windwolf was alive and safe at his palace? And married to Alexander?

“How did that happen?” Jillian voiced the exact confusion that Louise was feeling. “When did it happen? Obviously during the last thirty days — but — but — huh?”

“We’re looking!” Nikola cried.