Wood Sprites

Louise couldn’t get her newsreader to acknowledge any updates beyond “Viceroy Lives!” The news flooded out of Pittsburgh from three television stations and one newspaper. Affiliate networks would vet the hours and hours of video and choose what to release, if anything. The twins had found that much of what came out of Pittsburgh was quickly buried in film vaults. They’d assumed in the past it was because they were the only ones interested in Elfhome. But the popularity of their videos could only mean that humans were hungry for information on elves.

Anna had been at the NBC gala like a ruling queen. Did the secret elves have a stranglehold on the news media? Were they vetting all the information to keep the humans in the dark about what was going on in Pittsburgh? It was one thing to keep their activities hidden from sixty thousand humans with limited resources, and another to blind several billion. Even if only one percent of the Earth’s population was obsessed with Elfhome, it would equal millions of people analyzing all information flowing out of Pittsburgh.

A filter was slowly releasing stories onto the Associated Press site in chronological order. The day after last Startup, Windwolf had been reported wounded but recovering quickly at the elf hospice. EIA was detaining two people, at the time unnamed, for questioning. Growling with frustration, she circumvented the filter to see what was sitting in the buffer.

Within days of the attack, Pittsburgh was fully aware that there was a hostile force at work on Elfhome. They quickly learned even more than what the twins knew.

“A third mirror planet!” Jillian gasped as she hit the news at nearly the same time as Louise.

“Onihida. World of the oni,” Louise murmured to let her twin know that they were on the same page. Onihida lay in a parallel universe to the two known worlds, mirroring the landmasses of Earth and Elfhome. Its inhabitants were close enough to human that they could live undetected by anyone. As she read, hurt started to burn deep inside of her. The elves had known about the third world for centuries; they’d simply never told the humans. “The elves not only already knew about Onihida, they’d had a war with the oni. How could they not tell us?”

Jillian snorted in disgust. “Because they didn’t know if they could trust us — and they couldn’t. Ming and Yves and Ambassador Feng: they’re hiding here on Earth, pretending to be humans. They’ve been fooling everyone for hundreds of years.”

“I don’t understand.” Nikola cocked one eyebrow and ear to show his confusion. “Is Edmond Desmarais an elf or an oni?”

Louise and Jillian exchanged a glance.

“Elf,” Louise said after some thought. “Feng had said something about pathways between the worlds being closed. I thought at the time that he meant Elfhome and Earth, but there must have been a way to Onihida, too. When Desmarais — Ming — whatever his name really is — was emperor, the elves traveled between all three planets. What I saw at the museum was a meeting between the three factions of elves. They’d lost contact with each other when the pathways were closed. The people on Onihida don’t fully see Ming as their ruler anymore, but they want to go home to Elfhome and regain what they lost. For that, they need to work with the elves in exile on Earth and the elves like Sparrow, who are secretly loyal to Ming.”

“Then the oni are elves?” Nikola cocked his other eyebrow and ear in confusion.

“I think oni were the people living on Onihida before the elves arrived.” Louise shivered, remembering how Sparrow talked about creating an army of monsters. “The secret elves are using them as weapons.”

“Queen Soulful Ember is probably at Aum Renau because of the ‘oni’ attack on Windwolf.” Jillian used her fingers to denote the assumed identity of the attackers.

“Ming and his people have had thousands of years to breed armies of monsters. There may not be any real oni left on Onihida.” Jillian eyes went wide as her own statement dawned fully on her. “Oh my God, we could meet Queen Soulful Ember. That would be so cool. And Sword Strike!”

Hopefully no one had ever shown the queen the Lemon-Lime videos. Soulful Ember didn’t have a sense of humor — at least not the way they always wrote her.

* * *

Louise was torn between joy and dismay to discover that because it was Shutdown, Ming did not eat breakfast with them as usual. She was happy that he wasn’t there, quietly radiating scientific interest toward her and Jillian. Nattie the cook had been persuaded to scramble the eggs and toast plain white bread and provide a small dish of Welch’s grape jelly. It meant, however, that Ming could be planning horrible things for Windwolf and Alexander.

“We’re going out,” Anna stated as the dishes were being cleared, signaling the end of breakfast.

“Where to?” They shrank away from her, earning a sad, unhappy look.

“We need to buy new furniture for the bedrooms. I could just buy whatever I thought would suit you, but I thought you would like a say in the matter.”