Elliot stood in the centre of the captain’s tent, which Whiteleaf had set up to look like a miniature version of Commander Rayburn’s office, complete with desk and candle, and stared.
“We want peace between these two peoples,” he said. “A peace achieved like this won’t hold.”
“And how would you know?” the captain asked. “You’re a child.”
“I know because it’s . . . really obvious?” said Elliot, and Luke gave the cough which was a signal for “Too insubordinate! Back up!” “Look, one person chops down the wrong tree, and they’re at war again,” Elliot tried.
“Then they will break a peace negotiated by the Border guard,” said Captain Whiteleaf. “And the guard will march back to deal with them.”
“Right, okay,” said Elliot. “But then people will die.”
Captain Whiteleaf said: “So?”
Elliot stared some more. The captain was talking about how the guard kept the peace through their willingness to defend it with blades, and about how battle was a regrettable but necessary consequence of disobedience. Luke was coughing as if he actually had caught a chill. A beautiful peace was descending on Elliot: he knew precisely what he had to do.
He looked back at Serene, who was standing at the mouth of the tent. She met his eyes with her own tranquil gaze, drew her bow, and fitted an arrow to it.
“What are you doing?” Captain Whiteleaf snapped.
“If you call for someone to help stop him,” Serene explained apologetically, “I will shoot them. In the leg, of course. I do not wish to murder any of my comrades.”
“Stop what?” the captain demanded.
Elliot stepped forward and shoved the two treaties into the candle flame. The fire caught the parchment, curling it up with a rich thick crackle, and the flame leaped to show the sudden fury in the captain’s eyes.
“You little brat,” the captain breathed, raising his fist, and Elliot lifted his chin.
Luke drew his sword. The sharp edge glittered in the light of the burning papers, pointed across the desk at the captain. “Don’t touch him.”
Elliot took a deep shaky breath, relieved not to be hit and annoyed at how relieved he was.
“You pack of stupid, traitorous children—” Captain Whiteleaf began, and then he cut himself off and just glared at them, as if he was memorizing their faces and thinking of punishments to visit upon them.
Elliot knew what he saw. Serene at the tent with moonlight in her dark hair and her bow steady in her hands, Luke and his sword glinting in the candlelight, and Elliot. Elliot held firm. The treaties were ashes in his hands by now.
“Listen to me,” said Elliot. “You don’t bring councilors on your missions. So you don’t have anyone who can write up a new treaty. Either you go back and admit you’ve failed in your mission, or you let me and Serene write up new treaties. We can do it.”
“Elves remember everything that they read, down to the framework of the sentences to insure that treaties are binding,” Serene observed. “Elliot tells me that is a helpful skill.”
Captain Whiteleaf stared at the ashes, and then at Serene, and at Elliot.
Matters might have gone very differently, but this was the captain’s first mission. He let them write out the treaties. The villagers signed theirs, and seemed to think the restrictions about not cutting down certain trees perfectly fair.
The dryads were beautiful, green-gleaming wraiths who leaned out of their trees like gorgeous women leaning casually out of windows. Elliot could not stop staring at them, or the way their leader smiled when she read the words he had written. She had not been smiling before: it was like sunlight dissolving mist when she did.
“We expected something quite different,” she said. “I would be happy to sign this.”
Elliot did not miss the faint emphasis she laid on this. It seemed like Captain Whiteleaf did not miss it either.
“You’re still a pack of impossible brats,” said Captain Whiteleaf on the ride home. “But I suppose you meant it for the best. This once, I will not report your wild behaviour to the commander.”
He spurred his horse and rode to the front of the company.
“‘Oh, thank you for saving my first mission,’” said Elliot. “‘No, no, Captain Whiteleaf, it was my pleasure, please do not mention it, all this fulsome gratitude is so embarrassing!’”
“Shut up. That was really good of him,” said Luke. “And the mission would have been fine if you hadn’t destroyed the treaties like a maniac.”
“Oh, would it?”
“I’m not saying—” said Luke. “You did the best you know how. You did a good thing. But they’re just bits of paper, in the end. The Border guard enforcing peace is what will keep people safe. Either way, the mission would have been successful.”
Of course Luke didn’t agree with him: Luke wasn’t really his friend. It was all a bargain they had made.
Elliot looked to Serene for help, but her expression did not betray anything. Least of all whom she really agreed with, when it came right down to it.
“I’m glad we’re not expelled,” she said.
Neither of them seemed to realize how different it would have been if the spoiled son of an important man hadn’t wanted their mission to go smoothly, or if the treaty had affected the Border camp directly—if they’d had something to gain—rather than involving a village and a community of dryads. Neither of them seemed to realize that an idiot like Captain Whiteleaf should not have had the last word on the treaty.
They had both stood up for what was right, when it counted. Elliot just wished that one of them would share his dark misgivings once in a while. He sometimes felt like the kid in the magic book who was always whining along the lines of “Should we go to find that giant ruby of ultimate magic, though? Isn’t it dangerous?” Everyone knew that kid eventually turned evil.
Elliot did not have long to brood about how misunderstood and undervalued he was. As soon as they were back at the camp, everyone was panicking about exams, even Serene and Luke, who should really have known better. Elliot had to forcibly shepherd them to the library and make piles of what he’d decided was the assigned reading.
“Now, loser, let’s start with the basics,” Elliot added kindly once he was done telling them the list. “This is a book. You open it like this, see? Not along the spine. That’s very important.”
Luke made an impolite gesture behind his book.
They all did extremely well in their exams, and Elliot was happy until he heard Serene making plans to come stay at Luke’s over the summer holiday.
“You can come too, if you want,” said Luke. “My mum will probably be expecting you. I don’t know why.”
“I guess if Serene’s going to be there,” said Elliot. “And since the year’s not up yet, the truce isn’t quite over.”
“Fine,” Luke snapped.
“Great,” said Elliot.
First, though, he had to go home. Captain Woodsinger escorted Elliot and the very few other kids from the human world who had stayed back through the hole in the wall. She left them to walk down the steps on their own, down and down, until they reached the real world.
Elliot lifted his eyes to the horizon of the real world, a line of tall buildings standing against the sky, all metal and glass. He realized he had become rather used to the endless fields.
At home every day was the same, just as it had always been. His dad would come home late, when the day was already getting dark and cold, and put his briefcase down neatly on the table in the hall. They would sit at either ends of the polished rectangular table, and eat dinner. Conversations would stop and start, escaping from Elliot’s hands like a balloon in the wind. That was how conversations with his father made him feel: as if he were a little kid, surprised every time at the loss.
Elliot had become all kinds of dumb and unguarded at the Border camp, though, because one day when his father went and poured himself his first glass, Elliot did not go away to his room and r
ead a book.
It wasn’t that his father ever got angry, or ever hit him. It was just that it was like sitting in a room where all the air was escaping, to stay in a room with a man who was grimly, methodically drinking: to know that he had once been happy and never would be again.
“What was Mum like?” asked Elliot, who had truly grown stupid at the camp if he was asking that.
His father looked out the window, where gray shadows were snatching away the very last of the light.
“She was the first thing I saw when I walked into a room,” he said at last. “And once I saw her, I never wanted to look anywhere else. She would speak, and whatever she said was brilliant and startling. She was like that, a constant bright surprise. She was always talking, always laughing, always dancing, and she was never what I expected. I was even surprised when she left.” He looked over at Elliot, who was sitting with his hands clenched tight around his knees. “You’re not like her,” he added. “You’re like me. Nobody will ever love you enough to stay.”
His father was very thin. Even his hair was thin, gray strands so fine that it seemed as if it had been worn away, as the grooves in his face seemed to have been worn in. Elliot wasn’t sure, sometimes, if he was like his father: the patient, desperate ghost who had waited until all hope was worn out. He couldn’t imagine his father going to school and antagonizing everyone in sight, being too short, too smart, too awkward, too unguarded, too wildly unused to company, until it was easier eventually to antagonize people on purpose.
His mother had stayed with his dad for ages. She’d left pretty soon after Elliot had arrived. Elliot could do the maths.
He supposed it didn’t matter if someone left because you weren’t good enough or left because you actually drove them away. The result was the same.
He left the room quietly, went and sat on the stairs, pressed his hot face against the cool banister. He could see through the staircase at this angle, could see the front door, flanked by windows that shone with gray light. He sat and looked at the door as if someone were coming home.
Nothing changed, not permanently. Elliot had known that even when the miracle happened, and he was taken away to somewhere fantastical. Every bit of reality in the fantasy reminded him that miracles were not for him.
Even if you found yourself in a magical story, there were no guarantees that you were the hero, or that you would get the things you dreamed of. Elliot knew no way, being who he was, to deserve that.
No questions were raised about him going to the Sunborns’ house. Elliot’s father was too glad to have him go to ask questions. Elliot caught his father looking at him measuringly a few times in the days before he left. He suspected that his father might be puzzled at the idea of anyone wanting Elliot’s company: that was fair.
Luke had drawn Elliot a map for how to get to the Sunborns’ ancestral home once Elliot came over the wall. Luke had offered to come get him, but Elliot had haughtily declined and said that he could certainly find his own way.
This meant it was absolutely crucial to Elliot’s pride that he not get lost.
It was meant to be half a day’s walk—walking the way you do, Luke had said, which was insulting and unkind—so Elliot started the walk early in the morning. That meant leaving his father’s house before his father was awake, which was a bonus.
Before he left, he packed a bag. He put in pencils, pencil sharpeners, pens, and highlighters. He gave it some thought, then added Sharpies, Post-Its, and a glue gun. Just in case. He considered bringing flash cards, but he knew he was going on holiday and not to a place of education, and he didn’t want to go overboard.
He had to double back when he realized he’d forgotten to pack clean underwear.
Elliot took a car down to the wall. He paid the cab driver, who looked dubious about leaving a child alone in a field, but Elliot had spun him what he felt was a very convincing story about rare rock formations and being a keen geologist. The cab driver certainly seemed convinced he did not want to hear any more about rare rock formations. Elliot put his hands in his pockets and watched him drive away.
Then he climbed the wall on his own, took the trip into the clouds and back down to the otherlands. It felt strange walking past the track that led to the Border camp: Elliot’s feet seemed to want to go there, against all reason.
He walked on through the woods nevertheless. He looked around for dryads and harpies, but found nothing. He darkly suspected Luke of plotting a boring route to his house, just to spoil Elliot’s fun.
Being annoyed at Luke was a good distraction from being nervous about going to Luke’s house. Elliot did not know how to be around a proper family. He might have managed all right at the picnic, but he was meant to stay here for days. They would all realize that he had no idea what to do.
He followed the directions, which came with helpful drawings of trees, almost mechanically. He was worried enough that he almost did not realize when he arrived.
In the midst of moors and woodland was a tower, in the same brief, round style as the towers at the Border camp, looking like nothing so much as the rooks in the chess set his father had gathering dust in a cabinet. There was ivy climbing up it in cascading green profusion over places where the stone was jagged and worn. Elliot stuffed Luke’s map into his pocket and climbed the broad, flat steps.
From within the Sunborns’ tower came the loud sound of swearing. Elliot broke into a run.
The swearing was coming from a cavernous kitchen, where Rachel Sunborn was wrestling a stewpot. Half the stew was already on the wall.
“Um, let me help you with that,” said Elliot, and grabbed the other handle. The pot tipped dangerously down to Elliot’s level, but they got it on the ground.
“Thank you, Elliot,” said Rachel. “I bloody hate cooking, but Michael’s on campaign, and what are you going to do? Welcome, by the way.”
“If Mr Sunborn is gone, aren’t we going to be a lot of trouble?” Elliot asked apprehensively.
“Oh no,” said Rachel. “We all go on campaigns, and the one on leave gets the kids. We always have Louise’s friends over, and this summer we have my sister’s boys, Adam and Neal, staying too. You guys can distract each other. And frankly, it’s my turn for a houseful of kids: Michael had Luke at the Northmark fortress from when he was nine to when he got sent off to camp. I was on an expedition to traverse the entire otherlands. It was meant to be a two-year mission, but it ran long.”
“The DeWitt mission, led by the explorer from my world,” said Elliot enthusiastically. “The one that improved all the maps! How was finding an entire lagoon full of mermaids? I wish I could meet a mermaid.”
“Kid, they drown people.”
Elliot waved this off. “Is it true that the river mermaids have a common tongue but the mermaids who live in lakes have all entirely separate languages, though they can usually speak the language of the people who live near the lakes, and the saltwater mermaids seem to only speak the languages most common to sailors? Do you think the sea mermaids do have their own language but only use it in the deep? Because that’s what I think.”
Rachel threw back her head and laughed. “How would I know, funnyface? But I can harpoon a mermaid at a hundred paces from a moving boat. Not bad for an old lady, eh?”
“How old are Adam and Neal?” asked Elliot.
Rachel frowned in thought. The expression was not made for her face: it slid off the golden surface like water. “Close to your age,” she said. “A year and two years older, about.” Elliot must have made a face without meaning to—he’d been hoping for as old as Louise, which was old enough to not bother with Elliot much—because Rachel laughed at it. “Don’t worry, you’ll like them!” she said. “They’re just like Luke.”
“Oh,” said Elliot. “That’s fantastic.”
“Bit more outgoing than my shy boy, but that’s all to the good,” said Rachel. “I think it’s nice for Luke to have his own friends here. You’re all going to have fun! Don’t let anyone dare y
ou to jump off a tower, though.”
“Don’t worry,” said Elliot. “Luke’s not shy. Everyone likes Luke.” “Except me,” he would have added, but it seemed rude when he was a guest.
Rachel frowned again, this time more deeply, a woman even less used to explaining herself than frowning. “Maybe that was the wrong word,” she said. “But you know how he is. My point is, Neal and Adam are lovely lads. I’m sure you’ll all get on. And Serene, when she gets here. Luke’s crazy about Serene.”
“Serene’s not here?” Elliot asked. “Where’s Serene?!”
“Oh, her mother took her on a hunting party for a magical stag, or somesuch.”
This was a complete disaster. Elliot wondered if he could claim that he’d left the oven on at home and make his escape.
This fragile, beautiful hope was crushed when Luke barreled into the house, calling for his mother and attended by vicious animals.
“Mum!” said Luke. “When do you think he’ll get—oh. Hi.”
“Hi,” said Elliot. He should probably, as a guest, not insult Luke in front of Luke’s mother.
“Why are you wearing those clothes?” Luke asked. “They’re weird. The Border camp gave you proper clothes.”
“Because, A: these are my clothes,” Elliot said. “B: the Border camp gave me ridiculous clothes, and C: I cannot believe that you, a loser who I have literally never seen wear anything but leather, are setting yourself up to be some sort of fashion expert and critiquing jeans and a hoodie. Worst host ever!” He glanced over at Rachel. “Not you, you’re a very charming hostess,” he added hastily.
“Thank you, Elliot,” Rachel told him.
The two wild beasts Luke had brought in with him—into the house, in fact into the area of the house were food was prepared—wandered over to Elliot. Their long, plumy tails waved cautiously: their long, sharp teeth were bared.
“I haven’t had my rabies shot,” said Elliot, circling. The dogs circled after him in what he considered was a menacing fashion.